Claivoyance: my new side-racket

Posted: July 17, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I am not clairvoyant in regard to any supernatural ability or actual belief in communing with the dead.

But I am prepared to say similar things for money.

Some people need a side-hustle in today’s (and yesterday’s) economy, and other’s – like me – need a side-racket.

Blogging will only take you so far and frankly the criminality just isn’t worth it anymore.

So why not lean into the supernatural, and why not be openly honest about it being both completely nonsensical and something out of which I’m looking to make the most?

For example, right from the get-go:

“Oh it’s your deceased grandmother and she’d like to say hello.”

Possibly (I don’t know – I’m not clairvoyant)…

“Not the living one, the other one. The deceased grandmother that without question died and that we can’t prove isn’t telling me to tell you that everything’s going to be alright and that you should leave a considerable tip.”

And it is at this moment that, with no morbid disrespect meant, I truly do hope you happen to have a dead grandmother.

“By the way, this might not resonate, but your great-great-great-great-great grandfather is exceptionally proud of you. You might not know his name or what he looked like, but he’s pleased as punch as to how you’ve turned out and he’d also recommends a significant tip.”

I can even be vague if you’d like.

“Also, that thing that happened at that particularly non-specifiable time that you might recall…we’ll I’m aware of that.”

I could get a little wooden caravan, or…just a car (perhaps a wooden one)…and could host clairvoyance get-togethers amongst those that are looking for hope from someone distinctly unqualified to provide some, albeit at remarkable value for money.

Bargain hope – you need crystal balls to dish that kind of humanity out.

“Now, let me deal my tarot cards.

“Will it be Death, will it be Love?

“Ah, the Pick Up 5 Uno card. That’s worse than Death and Love, but at least Napoleon, Caeser and Alexander the Great can relate – they’ve had similar bad draws, and they’re all playing it in the corner. They can’t find the Risk box.“

Napoleon would make a tremendous ghost, being of average height in the corner and French – very spooky. Very French. Very average-height for the time.

People might flock to me to hear my relayings from the afterlife, inspired by 100% fiction (maybe 97% fiction, since I believe Napoleon, Caeser and Alexander the Great have all died at some point).

Actually, maybe just one flock, filled with those quite prepared for me to miss-guess their dead cat’s name from 1992 after multiple attempts, or to miss-diagnose your financial worries as gout.

Being honest and open about my lack of belief or particular supernatural powers, might ease their frustrations about the fact people die, including – eventually – them.

They’re just looking for a little bit of hope after all.

And I’m willing to give them that, at any price.

Discount wonder, half-price divinity and “I’ll knock a bit off since it got wet” belief.

Maybe even Bring and Bless in Bulk.

Sam

P.S – I also bend forks. You just grab them and bend them, and then you have that bent fork you really, really needed. Possibly some hope too.

Making your brother King of Spain, just to show him who is boss

Posted: September 17, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

I was reading about Napoleon and Waterloo and Wellington, and their brothers and household expenses, and the monarchy, and becoming emperor, and Josephine, etc, and more etc, last night.

Or, I was reading about the ‘Napoleonic period’, if you’d prefer to read a better-written sentence?

There was a particular take-away for me, which was that at some point the Emperor Napoleon decided to make his older brother the King of Naples (which is nice), and then the King of Spain (which is also nice).

I cannot conceive of the bragging rights that allocates you, when you’ve made your older brother the King of two different things.

I’d love to make my big brother the King of Spain, just to show him.

Just to show him that whilst he once made himself King of the Castle, pushing me in the face back down the climbing frame, I’ve now gone slightly mental enough to make him King of Spain and there’s nothing he can do about it.

You’re King of Spain. No backsies.

And he’d have to sit on his throne and send me reports when I ask for them, and host banquets for important guests that I can’t be bothered to meet because I’m Emperor, bitch.

It’s also Spain, so I can regularly intimate that whilst I’m made him King, this is also a very easy kingdom to have bestowed on you by your younger brother.

However, for me to do this today would require a lot of paperwork, and quite frankly an invasion of Spain that I am just not up to right now.

I have a baseball bat and one of those flashlights you can strap to your head.

Spain might not be seen as a military power anymore, but I expect they can outdo me on the advanced military technology front.

If their army is two people, then they’ve outdone me on the manpower front too.

Two-to-one.

My brother tried to inflict a nobility on me once, by purchasing a square foot of land in Scotland that somehow entitles me to be known as a ‘Lord’.

It was a wedding gift, and I’ll have my vengeance, for that and for the climbing frame incident of 1996.

Now if you’ll kindly excuse me, I need to raise an army to overthrow the monarchy, become tyrant of Europe, lose it all, gain it all back again, have a really, seriously bad time in Russia, go down in history and one of the greatest generals and leaders of all time, and, most importantly, get one over on my big brother.

Sam