Doing odd jobs

It's a hard life finding a job, keeping a job, enjoying a job. Just like most things, it was probably better in medieval England when a Knight was born a Knight and a starving, plague ridden peasant was born just that. At least you didn't have to worry about someone telling you you were getting the sack from being a starving, plague ridden peasant. If this strikes a chord with you, then you may be interested in some of the jobs currently on offer in 'The Medieval Job Centre'.

The Medieval Job Centre is another one of David Cameron's ways of trying to rekindle the great things that made Britain so great. Queues of jobseekers line up to be given the chance of applying for a range of medieval jobs the government has created. This, the government argues, is really job creation as they are bringing back core jobs to British industry. Jobs that have been lost for hundreds of years, signalling the nation's decline.

You can be a siffleur or professional whistler. In Merrie England professional whistlers would be employed by the wealthy to perform much the same role as an iPod dock does today. They would lie by the side of their employers bed and whistle some of the biggest hits of the day, whilst the rich man fucked, fell asleep, farted or woke up.

If siffleurring doesn't take your fancy then how about being a whiffler? A whiffler was someone who cleared the path infront of a wealthy important person so they didn't have to stand in too much muck. Or a plumist? Someone who makes plumes. This job title is as vague now as it was then. How do you make a plume?

After much consideration, I applied to be a deipnosophist; a master of the art of dinner table smalltalk. My application was refused however on the grounds that this job only really came into existence with the Empire. So instead I've landed the post of Assistant Vraicker, or seaweed gatherer. It's a word from Jersey. Apparently, vraickers only recently stopped working in Jersey. The Conservatives have drawn great heart from this, in Jersey is only a step away from reverting to a medieval feudal existence, surely the rest of the country can learn to do so too.

Heading down the information superhighway

Back when the net was young it went by the name of the 'information superhighway'. It was a road in cyberspace you got to by unplugging your phone and waiting for two minutes every time you went to a new web page. It's somewhere you went to surf and hang out in chatrooms. Not work. It wasn't so functional and damn slick as it is now. You'd still see <text>inline tags that hadn't been closed properly.<text>
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But the name 'information superhighway' is pretty much obsolete now, just as the internet it described is all but gone. It's suffered the same fate as Route 66 did at the hands of the great Interstates. An ever increasing volume of traffic is shooting across the lanes of web 2.0. Yet everyone is in such a hurry to get their information they've all but forgotten about the poor old 'information superhighway' that lies, abandoned, right alongside their slick html5 pages.Sand blows through its old watering holes. You can hang out in the chatrooms for days and not meet a soul.

What words that are now so on trend will be next pass from the language? A lot of people have bet a lot of money that we'll keep saying 'facebook me' for the next hundred years. If they'd had a proper thing about how internet terminology comes and goes, and the period in the internet's history it stands for along with it, they probably shouldn't have.

How to become the next Queen

After this weekend's jubilee celebrations a lot of people have decided that being Queen (or King) is something they would be interested in. With the Queen now approaching the age when she will be retired by Death, Buckingham Palace has announced that they will begin the process of choosing a successor. Obviously, being closely related to the current Queen will look good on your cv. But remember that as British citizens we are all somewhere in line for the throne and that Princes Charles, William and Harry have proved themselves to be unemployable muppets, leaving the field wide open.

Having prior experience at being head of state or extremely rich will be an advantage. Both President Obama and Roman Abromavich are known to be interested and will make strong candidates for the role. What will be key to their, and potentially your, success is how they interview. The Palace will be looking for someone who can talk the talk: i.e. super posh. So to help you out with your bid to rule Brittania, here are some language tips.

1. Use 'one' and the royal 'we' sparingly. A common mistake common people make is to think that the Queen uses these all the time. Not so. They are best saved for special occasions or for moments when you really need to put some little oik in their place.
2. 'Jolly' should be used instead of 'good', 'spiffing' instead of excellent, and 'really top hole' for anything stronger.
3. When you walk into the interview go up to everyone in turn, let them shake your hand and then say 'How good of you to come, what do you do?'
4. 'Bounder', 'rotter', and 'absolute shower' should be used to describe people you dislike. 'Poppycock', 'balderdash', 'absolute rot' should be used to describe anything you dislike.
5. 'What?' should be appended to every opinion you offer.
6. At the end of the interview say 'Pip, pip, old bean.' or 'toodle-pip old man'.

Make sure you stick to these tips and you'll be in with a shout at the job.

All applications should be sent by post to Buckingham Palace, with a covering letter explaining why you think you are the rightful heir to the throne.

Good luck!