Over the last few days (Ok, weeks and months too), I've constantly found it amusing (in a kind of despairing "Oh my God, I'm going to kill that fuckwit - where's the stapler so I can hurt them?" manner) how British people seem to be able to screw up every single deadline ever handed to them.

   In a lot of ways it takes one hell of a lot of professionalism to bollocks things up so consistently. In fact, I think it might even be a matter of National Pride. I know there's the theory about "if it's worth doing, it's worth putting off", but the corollary to it appears to be "if it's worth doing, and there's a deadline, simply don't worry about it - things will magically collude in order for everything to be ready at the pre-defined time". Obviously this is patently not going to happen.

   So instead (and bear in mind, this is some kind of fractal fuckup - we can be late for a global deadline in just the same way we can be later for a national deadline, and in just the same way for a local deadline, or even a personal one) we see that well known mode of British Humanity - the Last Minute Panic (hereafter called the LMP).

   The meetings I've been in for most of this week (and don't even get me started on those fuckers - the page would take forever to download, and probably burn through the phone cables) have invariably consisted of one person (normally the person who has convened the meeting, so you'd think he knew when the bastard thing was going to happen, and thus might FUCKING JUST be prepared for it) turning up late, looking flustered, carrying a wadload of disorganised paper. This denuded rainforests worth is, it turns out, all the "important documents" for the meeting, still blazingly hot from the photocopier where they late person has been experiencing epic LMP because either a) it jammed, b) it ran out of paper, c) someone else was using it, d) nothing was in order or e) all of the above. Of course, the LMP has been caused by an earlier dose of minor LMP when the person realised that there might just be a meetign happening today, and that the necessary stuff hadn't magically materialised on their desk.

   So they've dashed to the photocopier - on average, this seems to happen approximately five minutes before the meeting is due to happen- and on a good day, you will even see the people trooping into the meeting room virtually being bowled over by the meeting convener sprinting to the copy room, looking for all the world like Doc thingy in Back to the Future, except with a tie and a more haunted look. Then one, more or all of the above listed problems have happened, so the LMP is now looking more and more like a last minute blood pressure event.

   By the time they eventually get into the meeting, the convener is in epic stress levels of LMP - the stapler has jammed, the hole punch has made confetti of the convener's tie, and the rest of the meeting people are making comments about the convener's parentage, sexual preferences, and (normally) using hand-gestures to signify the convener's massive amount of monosexual experience.

   And as it turns out, the stuff the convener has just spent fifteen panicked minutes photocopying/ assembling/ collating/ stapling is totally irrelevant because in the throes of LMP, the fuckwit has got confused between meetings, so all of these copies are a complete waste of paper (unless the convener is smart, and saves the copies, in order to avoid LMP for the meeting where the papers will be relevant - how much money would YOU bet on this happening?) and a total waste of time. Which is what LMP's all about really.

   But it's not just in the office. People don't pack to go on holiday until the last minute - which is why stuff gets forgotten. OK, this normally helps the economy of the destination country, and/or the airport (depending on what's been forgotten) - but again, LMP takes no prisoners.

   Even when it comes to national events like the Commonwealth Games. Here in Manchester, Railtrack spent 2 years and some fucking ridiculous amount of money to upgrade the main train station in time for the Games, make sure it looked pretty, and worked better than the old station did, would be more able to cope with the crowds and so on. When did they hand over the completed station to Manchester? Less than 24 hours before the opening ceremony of the games. I won't necessarily put that one down to LMP - but I bet there was a load of it about in the last week or so, as the people doing the work though "Oh shit!", and it's various permutations in the English language.

   Maybe it's just me - I know I can be a bit anal (I'm sure there are some people here now pissing theselves laughing, yelling "A BIT?!?" at the screen) about making sure I'm prepared before the last minute. I wouldn't class it as an obsession, but at the same time, do obsessives think they're obsessive? I don't know - it's one of those fun questions where it's pretty much unanswerable - and that's the way I like it.

   As it is, I've just never seen the point in LMP - all it does is fuck things up, and make you look like a wanker. I'm just too lazy to be disorganised when it comes to work stuff - it's easier and quicker to be sorted out, and know what's going on. Now that's my kind of laziness...

  Right, time to stop writing this, I've got a deadline to miss. In fact, I can smell the smoke from the photocopier already...