'I'm doing my futile best' vs 'Nah it's all bollocks': where do you stand on the climate debate?

DO you feel guilty and powerless in the face of the climate crisis, or do you deny it outright? Environmentalist Tom Logan and mentalist Roy Hobbs debate:

Logan: I recycle my plastics, I compost food waste and I’m vegetarian. Then I remember Chinese power plants are pumping out billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and the tin of Baxters soup I’ve just washed out isn’t really doing f**k all. But what else can I do?

Hobbs: Not f**king bother, mate. It’s all just a scam by climate ‘scientists’ cashing in massive research grants. Even if it’s real, who needs polar bears anyway? All they do is wander around eating fish. Fish us humans could eat. F**king moochers.

Logan: My heart goes out to people caught up in the wildfires in Greece. I took my Bag for Life to Sainsbury’s today but I can’t help feeling I’m not doing enough.

Hobbs: Oh come on, some Greek guy probably just dropped a fag on a pile of dry leaves. They all smoke. Similar thing happened to me in the New Forest one summer. Luckily I managed to get away before the fire service arrived.

Logan: Have we done such irreparable damage to the environment that fires and floods are normal now? Every winter I make the family wear jumpers instead of turning the central heating up, but I fear it may be too little too late.

Hobbs: Get a sodding grip, you tree-hugging hippy. Did you notice how nippy it was the other day? In bloody August? Global cooling, more likely. The planet needs heating up a bit – how else am I going to have a barbecue on Saturday?

Logan: I’m reducing my carbon footprint by using public transport more and not flying anywhere. I think I’ll go on Guardian comments now for some tediously earnest moral support.

Hobbs: You do what you want, mate. I’ve just bought a diesel 4×4. It gets through fuel faster than a bloody tank but after all your moaning about the environment a nice country drive will cheer me up.

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How to fill your working day with pointless messy drama

IS your working environment calm, serene and productive? Bollocks to that. Add panic and stress to everyone’s working day with these tips:

Always enforce process

In a position that’s really stupendously unimportant? Make yourself universally loathed by setting up a formal process for everything from dentist visits to replacing a laptop cable. No, you can’t grant that request because it isn’t in writing from your line manager. It’s not you, it’s the process.

Get in a flap about minor things

You asked everyone not to modify cells A-H of the Excel budget spreadsheet, but someone’s edited it. Phone your busiest boss, then call a meeting about it, then schedule individual refresher training sessions on editing the spreadsheet reinforcing that no-one should do it ever, unless they are a) you or b) God.

Freak out about anything senior management asks

Someone Important wants an update? By when? In what format? You solemnly vow not to sleep or let any inch of the calendar go unused until spiral-bound colour print-outs are delivered to everyone involved. Even if it’s just that head-of-finance knob asking about purchase orders.

Transmit panic effectively

With a little bit of effort you can convey panic via emphatic use of all three alarm-inducing tactics: exclamation marks, capital letters and bold font. Mark everything urgent for good measure. If you can find some bizarre Outlook setting that also turns the message preview red, you can retire happy.

Let no event go un-meetinged

Never have a chat when a meeting will do. In particular, insist that 20 people need to attend something pointless about budgets from 4pm to 5pm on a Friday. After that it’s time to sit back, take a breath and enjoy the heady risk of burnout.

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