1. While out running an errand you find your vehicle’s route blocked by roadworks, do you:
a) Realise there is nothing that can be done about this short delay, sit back and accept your situation with equanimity.
b) Rationalise the hold up by saying the work has to be done at some point in order to keep the infrastructure intact. Eventually your annoyance will fade.c) Wind down the window and start shouting and screaming at the workmen while blowing your horn pointlessly and resolving never again to vote for whichever Councillor / MP / political party has allowed this to happen.2. Your teenage daughter comes home from school after a class discussion of the immigrant issue. She wants to get the opinion of a much-loved parent, will you tell her:
a) “Outsiders should be welcomed, they bring much-needed skills to the UK and boost the vibrancy of this multicultural nation with their unique take on life, adventurous spirit and propensity for hard work.”
b) “While an influx of ‘economic migrants’ can have its downside, this remains a necessary evil to keep
our economy growing and ensure there are plenty of polite individuals willing to do menial jobs, jobs that
would otherwise be done incompetently by sullen Brits (or not done at all).”
c) “My child, know that every Pole, Pakistani, Australian and Fuzzy-Wuzzy applying for asylum wants to
get into this land to drain our NHS, defile our women and dilute our pure, imperialist heritage of binge drinking and grease eating. Close the borders! Close the borders!”
3. In a bar after work you get talking to a member of the opposite sex who works in another department. You seem to be hitting it off, and they leave you with a kiss on the cheek and their mobile number. This is the first promising situation you’ve been in since the divorce came through. What happens next?
a) You play it cool until Monday, then initiate an email conversation to find out more about them, maybe arranging to meet up socially in the week if all goes well.b) Phone them over the weekend, and when they don’t pick up leave a nervous message on their voicemail. When they still don’t come back after that, feel what little confidence you’ve built up evaporate and never contact the person again, taking care to deliberately avoid them at all future work functions.c) You call when you get in, really drunk. Then again the next day. And the day after that. You begin to fixate on this person, convincing yourself they like you back, until the whole pathetic charade comes crashing down when they start ‘stepping out’ with someone else from work, at which point you send both these bastards a series of anonymous death threats.
4. Coming home from an evening out you happen to pass zeitgeisty graffito artist Banksy stencilling the latest of his facilely provocative works on a wall near your house. Will you:
a) Stand back and admire this modern day genius, a creative urban revolutionary no less, before inviting your friends round the following day to observe his drawing of a hoodie giving a cake to a nun through the lounge window while
you serve canapés.
b) While Banksy is otherwise occupied, sneak up the side and get a good shot of his face with a digital
camera. The next day sell it to all the major news outlets, destroying his anonymity at a stroke. That’ll
learn him.
c) Wrestle Banksy to the ground and make a citizen’s arrest for desecration of property. Hold him hostage in
your cellar until the police come, tied and gagged as he's forced to listen as you rant for hours about how it’s
not big or clever to deface your neighbourhood and anyway, isn’t it time he got a proper job?
5. Your car receives a ‘Penalty Charge Notice’ for parking without a permit in a restricted area. This means you have to pay a fine. Do you:
a) Accept you’ve made a mistake. After all, you were in a hurry and failed to read the signs. It’s only appropriate you pay up with good grace.
b) Think about penning a letter of complaint to the parking authorities, but realise it would be a waste of your valuable time and
accept defeat.c) Curse the anti-freedom ways of this CCTV-obsessed nanny state and ring in to talk radio, sharing your anger with the nation as you foam at the mouth and accuse this country of going to the dogs. Afterwards your anger lingers and you conduct a vicious hate campaign against traffic wardens for the rest of your natural life.6. You lead a government that has had its day, your personal popularity fading in a difficult economic period while a fresh-faced leader of the opposition poses a growing threat in the background. In order to survive politically you must take quick, decisive action. Do you:
a) Announce a series of innovative measures to help those beneath the poverty line, funding this initiative
through the closure of loopholes that have, up until now, allowed the richest British corporations to pay virtually
no tax.
b) Study the manifestos of every other political party, steal their best pledges and attempt to pass them off as
your own.
c) Abolish the lowest rate of tax, leaving the poor worse off and ensuring the white working classes (the only remaining social group who vote for you), get so disillusioned they flock to the other parties in their droves?
How you answered:
Mostly As - Home Defence can set your mind at ease, you are not even slightly mental, although youmight want to start a course of anti-smugness pills. Check the faces of guests at your next dinnerparty and, if they look sickened by your forthright open-mindedness, tone the Political Correctness downa tad.Mostly Bs - While not directly at risk of psychosis any time soon, such a ‘normal’ mind-state leaves you susceptible to anxiety and panic in the current climate, terrified your quality of life may deteriorate as you struggle to pay the mortgage and willing to stop at nothing to get that second holiday home in the Dordogne. It might be worth looking into counselling before the inevitable happens and you start dabbling in corporate crime to fund this increasingly untenable lifestyle.
Mostly Cs - Stay exactly where you are. We have put in a call and the experts will be with you shortly.
These orderlies are your new friends. They can help you and should not be seen as the enemy, particularly
in your present state of mind. The straitjacket is only temporary and cases such as yours are not beyond
hope. One day you’ll see your family again, I promise.
