Emil

Emil is using his holiday to catch up.

It is one of Emil's frustrations that, at work, his time is not his own - he is at the beck and call of other people in his office and, consequently, he cannot organise his tasks properly and is always running behind and trying to catch up. "Firefighting" he calls it - perhaps in an attempt to make it sound more exciting than it really is. Emil works in HR - "Personnel" they used to call it. And "Staff" before that. Actually, to be strictly accurate, Emil does not work in HR. Or Personnel or even Staff. He just tells people that he works in HR because his real job, whilst not at all interesting or exciting (despite the "firefighting") is quite unusual and rather hard to explain. So, if ever the question comes up, Emil answers "HR" and whoever asked the question is usually happy enough to leave it at that.

But, on holiday, Emil's time is, indeed, his own and he is resolved to use it to catch up. There are two novels which he bought quite a while ago because everyone told him that everyone should read them. And he is determined to read the papers properly so that he will know what to say if anyone asks him about the EU or the forthcoming election. He likes to imagine people being mildly surprised at how well-informed he is. And, maybe, revising their opinions about him. No-one has ever said anything, but Emil has the strong suspicion that people think that he is boring. Maybe they even discuss him when he isn't around and laugh at him for being a bore. Sometimes, after he has said something, Emil can see that it was something very dull and uniimaginative and he wants to say to them that he didn't mean to say something so boring and that he isn't that sort of person. That he isn't really a boring person.

So, Emil is catching up. But it is Thursday today and he is still reading Tuesday's paper.