Several things of late are hurriedly convincing me that the concept of karma may be slightly more than something to blame when I step in the miscellaneous substances that litter the pavement after having just half-heartedly edged a happy person off into the middle of the road and possibly a near miss with a bus. Yes, despite the fact that my knowledge of such things is heavily influenced by poorly translated subtitles, and that on more than one occasion people involved in such educational programs have then been forced to fight a giant evil faux-Buddha, I’m hurriedly beginning to think they may have had a point. After much searching I have found a pencil and a piece of paper and, despite a thin haze of scotch still tainting my perceptions, I have decided to make a graph.
 
 Actually, I just tried it, and as far as I can tell graph’s require accuracy and coordination… oh, and a ruler as opposed to the side of a box containing a lamb shank. Not only has being frozen seemingly had an unfortunate effect on the box, it seems that what I can only pray is mint gravy has partially chewed its way out. Thus my attempt to draw a nice tidy vertical axis has ended in a strange, wavering, line consisting of three parts pencil to one part herb sauce. Also the line appears to have a spiral in the middle of it and that seems to indicate that the box has decided to move beyond the confines of perceptible dimensions. I think it may be best to give up on such things when you start to fear a meal for one more than nuclear war.   Instead (and conveniently saving me having to make even a superfluous attempt to recreate the aforementioned graph on the computer) I shall merely give you the points to mark on your own graph… and, should you own a set-square, it will become a weapon of mighty power in the war against ignorance… perhaps you would like to draw it on some parchment by candlelight, perhaps using an ox’s jaw bone as a paperweight, and quite probably writing it using a finger dipped in either your, or someone dear to you’s, blood… If doing the latter it’s best to either have consent, or at least a cape and a Machiavellian chuckle… Oh, and if you can get a mournful dog to howl in the background it’d be just swell… If you can’t afford a mournful dog, please follow previous instructions for compressing a hamster, but this time instead of inserting a cigarette, insert an oboe or similar blunt instrument.

 Once the document is complete you may wish to roll it up and seal it with a blob of wax from the candle. While red is the preferred wax colour, I suppose you can get away with anything that makes it look imposing… Under no circumstances should you use glittery candles, stripy birthday cake candles, aromatherapy gel candles, ear candles, or those fancy ones with twigs and junk inside, as all of these will detract from the magnitude of document and reduce the awesome power of the document to being on par with a rolled up pizza menu sealed with a sneeze. Before your wax sets completely you must impress an object onto it. It does not matter if the only thing you can find is your Postman Pat Play Stamp set as you’re mainly doing it to achieve a pleasant and arcane dimply effect. I personally happen to use a puppy, but that is merely because they are plentiful and it gives me a brief feeling of superiority.   If you require help with rolling technique, please do not continue to crumple and mutilate the document, merely hand it to any available student and they will willingly proceed to make a feeble attempt that will be barely perceptibly different from if you had just screwed it up into a ball. Be certain to retrieve the document before they attempt to seal it with the application of saliva from a tongue stained with brightly covered novelty drinks and Golden Virginia. Anything they may have inserted into the middle should be tipped out into a small bag and saved for later use as nine times out of ten it is quite reasonable oregano.   But anyway… You should draw the axis with due care, making sure that you neither make it wonky nor find you’ve started a bit to high on the page and have no choice but to continue the line on the table. Be certain to avoid this as you will find it impedes the rolling process and, if you are successful in achieving a good roll despite this impediment, those around you will both fear you and question your motivation.

  The Y axis should be labelled “Experiencing…” and range from “a mild sense of doom” to “a knuckle biting hung-over realisation of absolute screwedness.” The X axis should be labelled “Oh…” and range from “darn” to the longest and most complex obscenity you can fit on the page without feeling so grubby you must purge your entire body with bleach and wire wool while chanting the Lord’s Prayer.  Mark the following points with an “x” or, if you’re a non-conformist, small drawings of the indefinable urge to weep and eat fudge. …a mild sense of doom/…darn:
 The sensation of just having stared intently forwards while quickening one’s pace past a Big Issue seller and then promptly tripping on a paving slab, yet not quite falling over. ….a slight sick feeling in bottom of gut/…crap:

 The momentary realisation that the complete lack of available 50% discounted single malt scotch might be related to having rammed your shopping trolley full of potatoes into a ten year old because they were skipping and singing along to Phil Collins on the supermarket P.A. system.  …stomach cramping nausea causing one to double over/…bastard world:
 The fact that a complete stranger’s dog has just sunk its teeth into your skin suddenly becomes inextricably linked with quietly hoping that nobody noticed you stealing the pound coin from the tip plate on a table outside a restaurant because you were a pound short for the cheapest bottle of wine that didn’t have a picture of a dingo being sick on it. This can be classed as slightly worse if the waiter or waitress technically needed that pound to avoid having their legs broken by a bitter loan-shark. …a hazy recollection but just vague enough so you don’t start crying/…shitty monkey’s balls wrapped around a lamppost in hell:
 The suspicion that being shot in the knee by a masked stranger might be karmic payback for spending half an hour getting a friend’s mother drunk in the vague hope of getting her to jump on a table and start waggling her backside provocatively in front of your face before attempting a striptease that lands her in casualty when her left carpet-slipper becomes entangled with the toaster.
(This can be downgraded slightly if you weren’t actually after full nudity but merely wanted something to bring up over the aperitifs when you met your friend’s fiancée the next week and wanted to avoid pointing out you couldn’t even afford a starter. It can also be viewed as a hint that your friend may have taken a contract out on you, but it’s usually worth checking before the whole thing descends into a nasty gang-war and you’re forced to drive-by the mofo’s pagoda when him and his peeps are barbecuing. Remember, that busting a cap in his ass should be the last resort, not the first…)  …a sharp stabbing pain in your chest/…goddamn m************ expelled **** on a s*************************g ****festing *************flapping ****biscuits:
 The US declaring war on you merely because you made a few idle comments about having a small nuclear arse’n’hole in the What Dog? chatroom because you thought it was funny when drunk, failing to realise that claiming to own weapons of mass-destruction and appearing to not have English as a first language was not overly wise in the current climate. After an hour in Cuba having your genitals electrocuted you realise that this whole thing must be related to the fact that you set fire to that tramp to stay warm but when arrested blamed spontaneous combustion and wasted a great deal of the X-File’s and Channel 5’s time. However you now have Naom Chomsky and Harold Pinter protesting for you to be put to death, which you can’t help but feel is an achievement.  …a knuckle biting hung-over realisation of absolute screwedness/…**** **** ****-********* with a **** up your ******** ***** ********** extended *********** ****-*****-*****-****-*****’* ********* ******* in a mug.
 The realisation that ultimate doom is lingering and yet to strike while you carefully tot up all the evils that you committed in various conditions and trying to do the math on quite what the hell could possibly be judged suitable payback. You will realise that they don’t do that kind of slide-rule and the calculator has too many buttons for you to ever find the right one even if you could stop writing 2318008, turning it upside down, and giggling to yourself.  Someone recently explained to me how everything could be reduced to an equation and, after careful thought, I realised I didn’t understand what the hell they were on about. I knew I should have stopped eating paint. Although I bet it involves getting hit in the face by something soggy and only ever being able to successfully date women who eventually try to kill me while demanding I watch films with “sassy” people conquering adversity and winning some square-chinned, slack jawed, mouth-breather called something like Bulk Ripplechest’s heart…  Oh dear god… erm… any German cannibals out there reading this?... What kind of seasoning would you prefer? I’ll even marinade myself overnight if I can get the shelves out the fridge… Jesus…  

But, as special treat for those without time and effort… and because I am more bored and itchy than you could possibly imagine… I shall draw the graph after all… and in doing so reveal what I shall modestly call the Equation of the Meaning of Existence Itself. I am only doing this for the friendless anaemic folk out there because nothing makes death more depressing than leaving a graph unfinished. Anyone know which is the uppy line and which is the acrossy line? I forgot.