grumpyf1

Goldfish shoals nibbling at their toes not pictured It’s a remarkable three decades since science fiction comedy Red Dwarf lifted off on BBC Two. Since then, it’s four main characters have intermittently careered across the universe, and our screens, in twelve series of the show named after it’s inhabitants’ space ship. Dave Lister - the last surviving, slobby, member of the human race. Arnold Rimmer - the cowardly, irritating, hologram. Kryten – a deranged service mechanoid who really wants to be human. Cat – a vain, self-obsessed creature descended from a kitty smuggled onboard. Brilliant performances from the actors involved, and top notch comedic writing by creators Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, landed the show an International Emmy Award in 1994, along with the accolade of being crowned “Best BBC Comedy Series”. A ten year gap between 1999 and 2009 was followed by a switch to digital TV channel Dave, giving them some of the highest ratings achieved by a non-Public Service...

There is, however, a ‘Y’ in ‘Teambuilding Day’. Or, to be strictly accurate, a ‘Why?’ As in ‘Why am I maiming an innocent tomato and making glove puppets?’ A week ago this very day, I was partaking in that most peculiar of events - a Teambuilding Day. Whilst there are definitely people who find this kind of thing an uplifting, exciting, opportunity to bond with people in the organisation they barely know, chat happily to strangers, or come together to achieve a mutually satisfying goal, thus subtly demonstrating the power of a team, there are also people who find them truly baffling, awkward, depressing, and the sort of thing that leaves you thinking ‘I could probably have cleared the 170 emails in my InBox by now’. Or played 92 games of Solitaire. Or scanned my bottom on the photocopier and emailed it to people of a nervous disposition, just to see what would happen. After spending an hour trying to make a tomato zoom down a zip wire, detach itself, and land within a target o...