Sermons in Stones

Vacations have a tendency, I find, to making me lazy and prone to procrastination, cunningly cloaked as diplomacy. Years ago, I received a degree in crystallography, which has proven marginally useful over the years, so today's post has this as preamble to a little bit of light relief. Being the wide-eyed, credulous individual that I assuredly am, I believe that my free spam filter is efficient and any information getting past it must of necessity be true. My heart leapt when I read a flyer from a crystal supplier informing me that there was actually a cure for laziness, the mineral Thulite, the national gemstone of Norway, a manganese-rich variety of calcium aluminium silicate and related to the gemstone Tanzanite, which I admire. When ordering my crystals (moderately priced, incl P&P), I gather I can 'love them and look at them, play with them, stroke them, put them in my pocket or wear them around my neck, take them to bed, place them under my pillow, or use them however I will', which seems to have rather dark Freudian overtones, even for me. This one, it seems, allows me to 'recognise myself', presumably in case the mirror image I look at every morning responds with a blank stare. It dispels vanity and selfishness as well as laziness - both essential - and a bigger bang for my buck here, then - and treats disorders associated with calcium deficiency, which might be a more palatable way of absorbing calcium than sucking a piece of chalk.

Since I did twenty lengths in the pool this morning before 6am, I might just save my money.