Sent: 10th January 2006 • To: The Dull

Dear The Dull,

Yesterday I endured a two hour bus ride so chillingly awful that I actually bought a car when I arrived at my destination solely in order to avoid the return journey home. A number of factors contributed to the awfulness of the journey, including a thumping headache, a suspension apparently made of bricks, and a fellow passenger sitting nearby with breath like he'd just eaten a turd sandwich. What really made it unbearable though - what really made me want to punch a hole in my chest, rip out my own lungs and stuff them in my ears - was you.

Specifically I refer to Chris and Keith, two of your group, who sat directly across the aisle from me and who spent the entire journey - and I mean the entire journey - locked in some Satanic competition to prove to the world which of them was the most tediously, excruciatingly and agonisingly boring. Well hey, good news guys - you both won!

The first indication that all was not well with my choice of seat came literally one second after I had settled into a position which momentarily passed for comfortable, when Keith turned to Chris and sparked up a lively discussion about the inner workings of the bus ventilation system. I say "lively" but I am, of course, being ironic. Not to be outdone, Chris responded with an astonishingly detailed explanation of how different types of aircraft toilets work. It was something of a jump from the air conditioning on a Citylink coach to the plumbing of a 747, but I got the feeling that Chris was not a stranger to the tenuous link. This suspicion was to be confirmed later.

Incredibly, Chris and Keith managed to carry on their two distinct and disparate conversations at the same time, neither one apparently aware that the other was anything but riveted and captivated by what each was saying. The resulting conversation sounded much like two radios tuned to different, yet equally tedious stations, playing at the same time at precisely the most boring volume imaginable.

Which brings me to my first suggestion to you, The Dull: If within the first 30-40 seconds of you starting to talk on a subject the person listening hasn't contributed something other than a blank stare, mechanical nod or mumbled "uh-huh", then it's time to bring that conversation to a halt and try another topic. Likewise should you talk on a subject and the other person responds by talking about an entirely different subject utterly unrelated to anything you have said, then they are in all probability not in the least bit interested in the monotonous drone marching steadfastly from your mouth and it is time, once again, to change tack.

If you find yourself unable to follow this advice, then I implore you to at least make an attempt to sound interested yourself in what you are saying. Twenty minutes on the waste disposal system of an Airbus is never going to be exciting, regardless of the enthusiasm of the speaker, but some kind of occasional vocal inflection might at least take the edge off it for those listening. The human voice is a marvelous instrument, capable of a wide range of tones and pitches, so why you elect to carry out every conversation with the exact and unaltering timbre of a refrigerator motor I honestly can't say. Is the odd change in pace or word emphasis really too much to ask?

On those rare occasions when you manage to engage a fellow human being in actual and genuine conversation I'd very much like you to keep this one thing in mind: You are not at a state of war. A conversation is two people exchanging experiences, stories, information, opinions and ideas. Quite often in life we meet people who know more about a given subject than we do, and this should be taken as an opportunity to learn and develop. We should not, under any circumstances, feel compelled to make facts up in order to appear more knowledgeable than those around us, and to endlessly go one better in an attempt to secure conversational supremacy.

With this in mind - Keith, there is no such thing as a thought controlled iPod, and I'd be very surprised indeed if there were plans for one in even the distant future. I only leaned across and chipped in this conversational nugget after listening to you droning on for over eight minutes on the technical specifications of the equally fictitious "iPod Maxi" with built in video camera. I came up with the thought controlled iPod in the hope that it would show I had seen through your overheard ruse and maybe - just maybe - you'd shut up for the remainder of the journey through shame and embarrassment. What did you say though, Keith? What did you say when I announced Apple had advanced science by hundreds if not thousands of years and used this earth shattering technology to make controlling an MP3 player a little bit easier? Can you remember, Keith, because I can.

You said: "I know".

I knew then I was beaten. I knew this onslaught of tedium wasn't going to end until we'd reached our destination or blood had been shed. Sure enough the chat staggered from fictional iPods to how deep a submarine can go (I've yet to look it up, but I'm confident "a million feet" isn't wholly accurate), passing through model trains, motorbike engines and "things about Australia" along the way.

I thought I was in Hell, but the fact of the matter was that I'd barely scratched the surface. With an entire three quarters of an hour of the journey remaining Chris made the startling and unexpected segue from popular breakfast cereal ingredients to a subject clearly dear to his shriveled and unbeating heart. And so began the longest forty five minutes of my life. So began my descent into the jaws of madness. So began The Mobile Phone Conversation.

I know trivia. I have a lifetime of useless information filed haphazardly in my head. You want to know where Mr T was born? No problem. You want to know in which Superman comic Red Kryptonite first appeared? Sure, I could tell you. The difference between me and you, The Dull, is that I don't inflict this information on anyone. I don't phone up my friends and say "hey, did you know a can of Diet Coke will float in water while a can of normal Coke will sink?".

Likewise if for reasons of my own I elected to spend day after day, night after night studying mobile phone websites and magazines like my life and the lives of my entire family depended on it, I would not feel the need to share my encyclopedic and overwhelming knowledge with those unfortunate enough just to be around me.

I would not go into eye-bursting detail on each and every feature on each and every phone currently available in the United Kingdom. Similarly I would not loudly demonstrate every single one of the features on my own phone, taking great pains to make sure each one of the fifty polyphonic ringtones stored on the phone had been played from start to finish in its entirety. Nor would I then make a point of going back through said ringtones to recap and highlight my personal favourites. I just wouldn't do it. That shit ain't right.

While many of you may argue that this letter could have been addressed solely to Chris and Keith, these two "characters" (I use the term in its loosest possible sense) are but drones in the collective hive mind that is The Dull, and I use them for example only. There are lessons to be learned - not just by my two fellow travellers on the 10:30am from Fort William to Inverness - but by all of you, and I hope the suggestions above help in some way to ease the torturous burden of your own monotony.

Regards,

Baz@rr