People love to play their little games don’t they? Oh dear me they do. They do for sure. “Play the game, play the game, play the game…” they say. Only they don’t say it. That’s the point – they don’t say it. They pretend that there’s no game.

Doing the thing that they’re doing, playing the part to perfection. Pretending that they’re not. It’s all so perfect, isn’t it? You couldn’t get more perfect – it’s utterly breathtaking. It’s stupendous, I don’t know what to say about it. You couldn’t get over it, you really couldn’t. No one ever puts a foot wrong, no one ever lets on that they’re pretending – not even to themselves they don’t let on. How amazing is that? It’s watertight. It’s flawless. It’s a tour de force. It’s a magnum opus. Day after day, week after week, year after year, never a break and perfect every time. No one ever slips up, no one ever gives the game away…

Don’t ask me what the point of it all is though! That I don’t know. That’s a bit of a puzzler for sure. Bit of a conundrum, that. You could ask someone, I suppose. Ask one of the performers! No harm in that, indeed. The thing is of course that no one’s ever going to admit to putting the act on in the first place, let alone tell you what it’s all in aid of! That’s the whole point – that no one is ever going to admit to it. That’s the point I keep on coming back to – the perfection of it all. It’s unassailable. It’s immaculate. It’s awesome. Even if you lived for a thousand years waiting to catch someone out you couldn’t. You’ll never meet someone who’ll admit that it’s all a game. That it’s all a hoax, a put-on, a joke. No one to give you a wink. No one to break silence, break the ranks. If there’s no one there admitting that it’s a joke, is it still a joke? And if it isn’t a joke, then just what the hell is it? What’s it all about?

You could do research on that. Research is a great thing isn’t it. When it doubt, throw some research at it. Would I get funding, I wonder? What would my research question be? “Is it all a joke, a put-up job or charade?” or perhaps, “Does everyone know that it’s all just a charade or put-up job or a joke, but are – forever reason – refusing to say?” That’s more like it. What would the null hypothesis be? That it’s all for real? That all is as it seems to be. That the hoax isn’t a hoax after all, that it’s all perfectly in order, perfectly bone fide. Suppose that’s what the research shows – that this world of ours is all for real (just like the newspapers say it is) and there’s no need at all for anyone to be suspicious. Scientists have proven that it’s not a game after all. That it’s the real deal, that we have to take it seriously or be put in hospital so that we can receive the appropriate state-of-the-art best-practice treatment. How freaky would that be? How fucked-up would that be?