Just say no...

So Danny Wallace has been annoying me more than usual of late. He wrote a book some time ago called the 'The Yes Man' and continues to masquerade as a prominent media johnny. The dust jacket has this to say about the book......

'I, Danny Wallace, being of sound mind and body, do hereby write this manifesto for my life. I swear I will be more open to opportunity. I swear I will live my life taking every available chance. I will say Yes to every favour, request, suggestion and invitation. I Will Swear To Say Yes Where Once I Would Say No.' Danny Wallace had been staying in. Far too much. Having been dumped by his girlfriend, he really wasn't doing the young, free and single thing very well. Instead he was avoiding people. Texting them Instead of calling them. Calling them Instead of meeting them. That is until that one fateful date when a mystery man on a late-night bus told him to 'Say Yes more'. These three simple words changed Danny's life forever. Yes Man is the story of what happened when Danny decided to say Yes to everything, in order to make his life more interesting. And boy, did it get more interesting.'

I don't want to mock him or his clever 'social experiment' but I'm going to have to, unfortunately. Immediately upon hearing of his idea, the thing that upset me the most was that I didn't get involved when it was actually going on:

"Danny, give me all your money"

"Danny, shag your own mum"

or more simply

"Danny, lie down prostrate and naked in the road whilst I flag down this bus".

Now what would have been funny, and is still something I might try and sell to any TV producer who'll stop firing up the charlie long enough to listen to me, would be to try something along the lines of 'The No Man.' I know we Brits are already famed for our stubborn rudeness, but we still go about it in a conscious deliberate way. The decision to break someone's limbs rather than let them beat us to a seat on the tube is always mulled over before being made (albeit very briefly), and I'd say at least one time out of every ten we let the other person win too (if as a man he's bigger than us, or as a woman she's got tits). So whilst we seem to the rest of the world to be some form of zenophobic collective hellbent on world domination (past history excused, of course), I think there is still some room for improvement here.

If, instead of deliberating before refusing requests for directions from vacant tourists, we AUTOMATICALLY said 'No' then people would see exactly how rude and obnoxious the humble human is actually capable of being.

I think we should get badges made and they'll only have 2 letters on them.