This Is Guernsey

THE other day I cleaned out the wood stove.

It’s something I don’t mind doing. It’s productive and it beats the living heck out of watching re-runs of Heartbeat (whatever did happen to Nick Berry?).

As chores go, at least you can do it sitting down. Actually, come to think of it, it would be quite pointless and extremely uncomfortable doing it standing up, unless, of course, you wanted to spend the following days wincing and shuffling about like Quasimodo looking for his lost contact lens. (Now there’s a name that never really caught on.)

After Operation Stovenut, I went to the bathroom to wash my sooty hands.

I turned on the taps and found that the liquid soap – the type that comes in a small plastic bottle with a press-down nozzle and is always called something soothing like Twilight Rose or Morning Lilac (but never Mid-Afternoon-Escape-From-The-Kids Carnation or Hungover-Sunday Lunchtime Lobelia) – was empty.

As the basin filled, sooty hands held aloft, I searched in vain for a full bottle.

Now, this may seem reasonable. But it wasn’t. Next to the uselessly empty bottle, lying all oval and amber in a dish, there was a perfectly good cake of Pear’s Coal Tar soap.

So why didn’t I use that?

In the end I had to, obviously, because there was nothing else. But why didn’t I go for the cake of soap first?

Then the truth dawned on me: I reached for the liquid soap because my brain has been conditioned to go for the easier option.

As I lifted the cake from the dish, put it in the water, wetted it, chased it around for a bit because it was too slippy to grip, rolled it roughly inside my hands, worked up a lather, put it back into the dish and rubbed my hands together, then repeated the process, I realised that all this unnecessary graft had been replaced by a quick squirt and a terse wring.

I’m not normally a lazy git, but that little soap opera proved that, given a choice, I’ll always, consciously or unconsciously, take the easier route. And I don’t think I’m alone.

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Socks. Who in the name of Brentford Nylons bothers to wear matching socks in this day and age?There are people out there hunting for Bin Laden. Many are actively doing all they can to fight climate change. Others are struggling bravely against the tyranny of corrupt governments. And there’s a small collection of poor souls toiling away in the BBC make-up department charged with the thankless task every Saturday night of making Andrew Lloyd-Webber look human for I’d Do Anything.

So what difference do odd socks make?

If anyone reminds me that I’m wearing them, I just echo the American comedian, Steve Wright: ‘They’re not odd. I go by thickness.’

I never, however, stoop to the old ‘I have another pair just like ’em back home, ho-ho’ because a cursory rummage through any male sock drawer will reveal that the complete collection – all seven pairs – are odd ones.

Occasionally, though, taking the easier option can actually make life more difficult.

Have you ever lost the remote control for your telly? We all have and it’s always under the settee – not down the back or under the cushions, all of which you have removed to search for it, but there right behind the middle castor lying sideways.

Meanwhile, during this air, land and sea rescue search to find the instrument which supposedly makes life easier, the programme you want to switch from – say, a rerun of Heartbeat – happily, obliviously plays away.

We’ll do anything to avoid that long trek up to the set to turn it over the good old-fashioned way, with knobs and buttons attached.

The North American practice of eating meals with a fork obviously saves on the washing-up, but how do you divide up your steak? Unless the inside prong of the fork is a little knife (if not, I’ll take this chance to register my patent).

Then again, perhaps that’s why you never see anyone finish a meal in an American film – because no one can.

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Most of the time, though, the easy life does just that: makes life easier.I’ve always abided by the old adage, ‘Why stand up when you can sit down and why sit down when you can lie down?’

I’m now going to confess something in print that I’ve divulged only to a few close friends. Sometimes, just sometimes, I take the old number ones sitting down.

I know, I know, this is not the way of the true man and I admit it’s an exceptionally big girl’s blouse-like thing to do, but I read somewhere that it was better for the kidneys.

But tell me this: how can you read standing up, one-handed, and remain true to your aim?

Definitely a pamphlet. A novel, perhaps, or a slim volume of poetry, but just try getting to grips with a newspaper. Especially a broadsheet.

So that’s my excuse. It freaks The Gaffer out and, when I told an old mate of mine, Jay, he thought I was a jessie boy’s ankle bracelet and couldn’t look me in the eye for three days.

But I believe everyday acts of bone idleness are widespread.

When you’re on a plane, who watches the cabin staff go through the lifejacket routine? No one. You just reach for the inflight mag and see what Jim Delbridge has been up to.

If you’re about to cross a road and it’s clear both ways, do you bother pushing the button for the green man?

Do you heckers like. If it’s that little bit too far out of arm’s reach, you just cross.

Perished windscreen-wiper rubbers? Summer’s here, why bother? Pistachio nuts the shells of which haven’t split? Leave ‘em in the bag. Defrosting the freezer? Lug out all the food, store it, turn the freezer off, put down towels? No way, Pedro. Go and get a hammer.

There’s a town in Thackley, West Yorkshire, called Idle. Being northern, it has a working men’s club and its membership is probably wider than the population of the town.

Thousands of people worldwide are members of the Idle Working Men’s Club.

Judging by the widespread lethargy that occurs daily, if only we could be bothered, the membership would be in the millions.