Issue 3 Rob's World: Ten Things To Do Instead Of Diving from the Archives of the London Diver Magazine

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19 April 2024

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ISSUE 3 ARCHIVE - ROB'S WORLD: TEN THINGS TO DO INSTEAD OF DIVING
You dive too much. By you, I mean people like you; your sort. By your sort, I mean you. You spend too much money on diving and diving related things and spend too much time thinking about diving. You watch too many films about diving and sit through too many underwater documentaries. What are you reading about at this very moment? That's right: you're obsessed, but that's not all… Diving has made the news recently, thanks to politicians and journalists alike sifting through the dictionary and diligently combining all known words with "terrorism" before taking inappropriate precautions to deal with them. Personally, I'm upset I missed Diva Terrorism and the accompanying plastique surgery scare, but I'm looking forward to Divot Terrorism as when I was at school a divot was the correct nomenclature for what we now refer to as a retard. Tradition dictates that there must always be room for buffoonery when explosives are being handled. Nevertheless, for the time being the shadow of suspicion has been cast on the recreational diver, with purchases of technical diving equipment being regarded as suspect in the US (a littleheard- of cultural backwater just south of Canada, run by crazed religious zealots) and even Europe (a mythical continent now entirely underwater and which scholars maintain probably never existed). Special precautions must be taken. You could be a terrorist; therefore you must be treated as one. You are a security risk and you must be stopped. "But wait!", I hear you cry, "Surely being burnt at the stake is the only cure for deviance." Don't worry; these 10 Things to Do Instead of Diving should be all you need to quit those suspicious, subaquatic activities: 1 Spend more time chatting to the other half. Lads, think of all that time you've wasted underwater when you could've been talking about shoe-shopping or learning the latest exploits of various celebrities. For the ladies, one can never tire of hearing unlikely histories of juvenile football hooliganism, or the financial minutiae of the day's brokerings. 2 Grow a moustache. Diving is inherently opposed to the cause of the moustache, forcing the facially hirsute to inhale water at an alarming rate. From Jeremy (Ron) to Hitler (Adolf), everybody loves a ‘tache, and if ever proof were required that diving is evil, the mask's no-can-do attitude to the mo' is it.
3 Get involved in community action. Whilst denouncing your neighbours as criminals can be as simple as regularly checking the tax discs on their cars or installing surveillance equipment in their home, it can require more effort. Quitting diving will allow you to spend up to 24 hours a day stalking members of your community to ensure they're not up to anything sinister, like spying on people. 4 Buy caravan magazines. I've never read one myself, but it's impossible to imagine specialist caravan publications could be anything other than a paradise of nutritional information, packed full of hilarity, factual goodness and mouthwatering matters of consequence. That's what caravans are for. 5 Watch Reality TV*. It's a well-known fact that thinking causes subversion and subversion is terrorism. Not only will watching Reality TV take your mind off diving, it'll take your mind off everything (except, possibly, shelf brackets and the survival skills of fat people). Try to keep concentrating on breathing though. 6 Teach your parents how to use computers. This may be easier if they're still living. Maybe. A special challenge lies in getting them connected to the internet for more than three days without them accidentally downloading porn or replying with their account details to a poorly written email purporting to be from a bank (regardless of whether they actually have an account with the bank in question). 7 Spend more time in the office. Spending more time at work is one of the most rewarding things you can do. Think of the warm glow that will fill your soul as you lie on your deathbed and look back at a life devoted to pension administration
8 Put a stop to entropy. Much of the universe is in an increasingly disordered state, obeying no law except thermodynamics. This is both illegal and unpatriotic. Instead of looking at fish and shipwrecks, why not devote your time to alphabetising your local high street or colour-coding the blades of grass on your lawn. 9 Strap dynamite to your chest and run at a government building. This is the only way to finally settle one way or another the issue of whether you are in fact a terrorist. 10 Assume a new identity and go diving. You can't be held responsible for failing to give it up if you're not you. This defence might also be valid for accusations of sexual deviancy and nicking crisps from the supermarket. I'll let you know. As you can see, diving is not only a tool for terrorism, it's also completely unnecessary, with a whole range of exactly ten things you can do instead. Nothing could be more fun (apart from diving) and if they don't take your fancy, you needn't worry as under new terrorism laws you'll be shot in the head before you know it. *Allegations of having said "Global terrorism is probably explicable by Reality TV as it's exactly the sort of thing that makes me want to drink ten pints of nitroglycerine and run at a film crew" are hotly denied by the author on the grounds that he was pissed at the time. It probably is though.
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