Quick Fix-ism – A Lack of Method and Rigour

The vast majority of us, even Little Jimmy Osmand, have at some point in our lives experienced what is commonly known as achievement. Achievement is that triumphant feeling arising after one has overcome all odds stacked against one to record a feat of magnificent attainment. It is commonly followed by an almighty piss up in which he who has attained will succeed in getting so damn blind drunk that even a woman of gigantic waistline, festooned with fluttering flabbiness at every turn, becomes attractive. But hey, every silver lining has a cloud, right?

Now, this sense of success can be brought about by many things. Speaking from a personal point of view, one such instance was the day I graduated from university. I did well, too, in a subject that your father would recognise from his time at school and from a good university. No degree in Golf Management, American Studies or Sociology for me. To this day that stands as my finest achievement, although the day I found out that a woman is warm inside inevitably ranks up there with it.

But not every person who feels like they have succeeded in a given field has had to endure such an arduous path. The world is littered with idle bastards who have an inflated feeling of self-achievement. They’re everywhere – like those annoying people in city centres who always seem to stop you at the most inconvenient of times to conduct a survey on your favourite colour for house doors. They’re so commonplace that you probably know one. They’re the people with those excruciatingly smug faces that would look so much better with a swiftly propagating fist between the eyes. Prince Charles, for example.

Ah, the Royal Family of the marvellous realm I call home. Never will you ever clap eyes on a family that values it’s collective worth so highly. The Duke of Edinburgh (or Nick the Greek as he’s known) is drowning in war medals and has “attained” the honorary ranks of Admiral of the Fleet of the Royal Navy, Field Marshall of the British Army and Marshall of the Royal Air Force. When he parades himself in full military regalia he bears the look of a veteran who has looked death in the face with steely eyes, who has cradled a dying comrade in his arms as shrapnel explodes violently from all directions. He’s a good actor. Old Nick hasn’t seen a day of active service in his pampered life and yet struts around Britain like he deserves those medals. Oh, he’s a right Richard the Third is our Nick.

Academia also falls over itself to reward our beloved royals with unearned success. Prince William, for example gained entry to St Andrews University – which last year ranked 7th out of 99 universities offering an Art History degree – with A level grades of A, B and C in Geography, History of Art and Biology respectively. The University of St Andrews website itself stipulates that an A and two B’s is mandatory to gain entry. There is a name for this: achievement without rigour. Or alternatively: mummy’s rich let me in!

But it isn’t just the royal and regal upper crust cronies of Britain who have a sense of success for no God damn reason. Plebeians also suffer from this terrible affliction. Take your average council estate rottweiler – we’ll call her Chantelle. Now, Chantelle is, unfortunately, a tad overweight. In fact she’s fucking enormous; so fucking enormous that I certainly wouldn’t let her into my humble abode unless my refrigerator was ensconced within a plethora of protective padlocks. One day, Chantelle decides that picking up her dole cheque each week is not really ranking that high in the grand scheme of achievement so she decides – not to get a job, that would just be folly! – but to lose some weight. If she could just lose one or two tonnes it would be a good start.

So she trots (when I say trot, I mean stumbles, panting for what could be her very last breath) into her local slimming club and is told the somewhat unsurprising news that she should technically be dead already. Urgent action is needed, and she cuts out one of her dozen rashes of bacon each morning and opts for just the three helpings of chicken vindaloo at dinner time. Feeling proud to the gills – and sweating it out through every pore as she rumbles her way to slimming club the next week – Chantelle steps on to the scales for a second time to reveal that she will live for a further week due to losing three pounds of flesh. “Congratulations Chantelle you’ve lost three pounds in weight!” the slimming expert shrieks. Well, Shylock only asked for a single pound of flesh so it must be an achievement. But what the howling banshee neglected to tell poor, enormous Chantelle is that she still remains in possession of an arse the size of a red giant going supernova. Fear not, Chantelle is happy and has achieved a minor miracle – it matters not that I can offload at least two pounds with my first dump of the day – Chantelle is a winner.

These are examples of people who have this sense of attainment thrust upon them by others and who are then subsequently happy to relish in their perceived achievement. I don’t know who is worse; those that thrust the triumph onto others like a horny dog his affection to his master’s leg, or those that gladly accept it despite fully knowing they have not earned such adulation. It seems to be one big back slapping exercise between people who are intrinsically inept at everything they do.
In terms of smugness, however, there can be none more so than those that can achieve by applying neither method nor rigour. The bastards. These are the sort of people who turn up for exams without doing one jot of revision and still not get a single question wrong. The bastards. But even these types of self-satisfied bastards are usurped to the throne of conceitedness by those who believe that they have achieved their aims through no application of method or rigour when in reality they are just another hapless Chantelle or Charles clogging up the aisle to attainment. How very bastard of them, I’m trying to get past here.