"Beoble say I have trouble bronouncing my Bs. Can you helb me find my Bs?" Arab Shake

"Help! I've forgotten my girlfriend's name." Al Bore

Dear Mr. Bore, How could you be so insensitive? How can you forget your girlfriend's name? What kind of man are you? It's high time you got in touch with the woman inside you. Hark! Don't go there. Don't go looking for another woman inside you. There is no woman inside you. It's just the woman inside you, you need to get in touch with. Hark! Don't go getting yourself all confused. We shall, as always, elaborate. Elaborately. So Mr....erm, what did you say your name was? Ah yes, Mr. Bore. How boring. Please don't blame us for forgetting. We don't blame you for forgetting either. We're pretty sure your girlfriend has a really boring name, too. That's, probably, what makes the two of you perfect for each other. We're quite expecting her to come to us next telling us she's forgotten your name, too. Wait and watch. We have a way with the future. It will happen. It must. It's the future. Sorry, for boring you. We can't help it. It's all about you. Right, let's get down to some name calling. While you were getting bored, we dug out the Big Thook of Names in our nossession. Appropriately enough, Page 69 of this Thook book talks about the issues that inverse couples often have to deal with. We'd like to take you through a rather long quote one of our mentors noted down here for our future reference. Going by the rather long and, understandably, forgettable name of She Shy Show Some English Titties, she noted, "When it comes to names, a pose by any other name is just as sweet. If you forget the real name your partner poses by, replace with names of sweet dishes, spicy tamales, mixed tutti-fruity, little hearts, body parts, lemon tarts, apple pie and don't be shy. It's an eclectic recipe concocted by the unnecessarily patented Mixed Magic Namatron that's sure to do the trick." Did you get that? We're sure you didn't. Don't lie. You don't have to. We're not your lover. We won't mind. You can forget everything we say to you, we'll remind you. We'll wait for you. We'll let you go back and re-read our worthless thoughts. After all that we will say this: This is a professional disservice we offer to the agony rich. We don't let ourselves get bogged down by sensitive issues. All issues are subject to market risks. Please read the offer document carefully and re-read the investment advice slowly. We hope you didn't waste your time reading the disclaimer we just trotted out and, instead, were re-reading the wise words of advice thooked out by She Shy Show Some English Titties. Learn to use the Mixed Magic Namatron profusely. And don't ever show it to your girlfriend. That way, we can sell her one, too, and ask her not to show it to you too. Ha, ha, ha, ha. What a slimy way to make more money. Oops. We didn't mean to say that. Damn! We better go re-read She Shy Show Some English Titties' words of not speaking your mind always. Ah, that's our next question in the queue. Seems like it's from Ally Bore. Yay! More easy money! Twoops. We weren't supposed to blurt that out either. Then again, we're sure you were too bored to be paying any attention. Disinterestedly enough, Funcle.

"I want a baby. Any ideas?" Mama Seeta

Dear Seeta, Ever tried contacting Geeta? In case you don't know who the said lady is, you ought to get in touch with Manmohan Desai (MKD). In case you don't know who MKD is, get in touch with his son. Chances are, you won't know his son - nobody knows him. Chances also are, you won't be able to get in touch with MKD - when it comes to producing unexpected things, nobody could really touch him. Besides MKD is dead. So God knows that the only person who can get you in touch with MKD is MKD. After, and before, all, he's the master of the unexpected twist. Was. On the other hand, you might, just might, know Geeta. She's your long lost twin. We met her when we were partying with MKD. We think she'd be overjoyed to meet you. She might even have your baby. When we met her, she had your man, by mistake of course. Unfortunately, all this can be cooked up only by MKD. And MKD is dead. Long live MKD. Moving on to other possibilities. If you want a baby, you can go down the boringly done-to-death road celebrities take. Travel light. A cheque book is all you'll need. (The camera crew will be waiting for you.) You can just go buy one from one of the poor countries of the world. After that, you can use the 'Madonna thank you' speech of the thankless kind to thank people for selling you their babies. You'll find the 'thank you speech' if you shell out some money and buy the oft-trademarked but never-to-be published book 'Agony Funcle Inks'. If all that seems very spiritually downlifting to you, God help you. We've been told, time and again, that God gives many babies. He does seem to have an unending stock of millions and gazillions of babies. He doesn't seem to care much for them either. He keeps giving them away to the Indian sub-standard continent. How do we know this? We used to hang out with the Purple Baba Ganouj from Malana. While seeing the world through his rose-tinted, hashfixiated glasses he used to tell us, chantingly, "God knows how we're going to solve India's population problems. God help us with India's problems. God's will is everything, so he willy-nilly will." We didn't quite understand how God might have all the answers to India's copulation problem, but we surmised that since everyone in India seemed to think God knew everything, he'd knew how to solve everything. If you do decide to make the trip to India, do say hello to the Purple Baba Ganouj. God knows where you'll find him. If you do find him, you'll certainly find yourself with a baby. A few days with him and he'll do the needful to ensure that God does the rest. And while you're at it, get in touch with the Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP). They'll introduce you to Ram and help you get really close to him. Once the fellow knows who you are, your hunger for a baby will be his baby. As always, God knows how that works. For any other issues, contact us. No kidding, Agony.

"I need a 'Thank you' speech. Thank you." No Thanks

Dear No Thanks, Considering the kind of thank you speeches we're about to assault you with, you might like to consider the simple 'thank you' as the best enough thank you speech of all. That said, let's take you for a tour of our duty around some of the choices you have on hand. For starters, you can do the 'safe' thank you speech. This is a speech where you burst into tears and mutter something utterly incoherent because you're supposedly overwhelmed by the magnitude of whatever it is that you have been bestowed with and can't muster up the words to express the emotion you are feeling. This way, you don't have to thank anyone and still make it look like like you're unbelievably thankful to all the people you just can't think of, all the while making sure nobody can tell that you can't think of anyone you want to thank for helping you. The just mentioned thank you gambit is best recommended when you don't want to thank anyone at all. If that seems a tad selfish to you, try the thank you speech where you make it a point to thank every single person in the auditorium, every single person not in the auditorium and every single person you have the time to name until they drive you off the stage and out of the auditorium because people aren't in the least bit interested in being or anyone who is being thanked by you. The benefits of this thank you speech are nobody will remember who you thanked, nobody will care who you thanked and everybody will think you thanked everyone. Once again, this is a good way to thank no one in particular because you've forgotten all the people who helped you get to where you are and, thus, are making sure you thank every single person you can think of, including all the people who had absolutely nothing to do with you. This is one of the best known ways to reduce a thank you speech to a thankless farce. Some of the other thank yous that we'd now like to quickly take you through are the 'Madonna thank you' where you can thank any impoverished country from Africa for making you look good. It doesn't matter if that country had nothing to do with you, it's always very fashionable to thank Africa. Besides, when you bring Africa into the picture, it will always make you look good. So do mention Africa, even if you don't plan to thank it. You can also try the 'Rahul Dravid thank you'. The simple way to execute this thank you move is to go on the backfoot, secure yourself absolutely and safely mention the word 'process' a few times in your sentence. It doesn't matter what you say. As long as you say process, the thank you process is being perfectly executed. The problem with the 'Rahul Dravid thank you' process is, everyone will know that the only person you are thanking for everything is Greg Chappell, MBE. In our experience, it's best not to thank Greg Chapell, MBE for anything. It tends to go to the respected gent's head and, in the process, you might end up looking like little more than a figure-head. If cricket is not your game, you can always try God. Thanking God is a favourite thank you game. God knows why, but when in doubt, people always go for God. If you choose to go the same way, all we can say is God help you. Before we go, there's one more thank you style you might like to practice. It's the hardest one in the already trademarked and all rights reserved 'Funcle Jam Book', but do give it a shot. Stand tall, look within, seek your heart, reach out to the bottom of it and find the two words that say it all. Thank you. Nothing more need be said. Yours sincerely, Funcle.

"We have a problem, we're looking for a word that describes what you do." Neo Illogism

Dear Neo, Nothing neo about your problem. You think you have a problem with what we do? Well, guess what, we have the biggest problem with what we do. And still, we keep doing no matter what? What? We have no idea. We keep trying to come up with words for what we do, but all we end up doing is coming up with words for what we think other people do and nothing to help us get any closer to understanding what we do. The long and the longer of it is, we spend a great deal of time grappling with what we do while trying to get closer and closer to what we really want to do. What's worse, we're not quite sure we know what we want to do. Every time we think we know what we want to do, we only end up getting even farther away from what we should be doing. Should, should. should! That word again. That's another problem we have with what we do. We always think it's not what we should be doing. Naturally, we have no idea what we do; we're always trying to do what we should be doing. Which brings us back to the question of what do we do to solve your problem? We think. We agonise. We worry. We deny. We wait. We wait. We wait. We wait. We grate. We do not mate. Yes, that's one thing we just do not do. We do all the things that make it impossible to mate. And that solves an important side of what we do. You now know what we do not do. Back to what we do. We write. We write. We write. We try not to write. We wish we didn't write. And then, we write. We write. We write. Some people say we do not write. We sometimes wonder, is that what we do? We write to find out if writing is not what we do. We question. Yep, that's something we most certainly do. We answer. Yep, that fucking too. We do not provide the right answers, but we definitely answer to humans' nature. It's what makes us write. Write. And write. We spend most of our miserable life answering. We answer all the questions that life demands of us. At least, we try to. We wish we didn't have to. Oh yeah, we wish. Hmm. Yes, we definitely wish. We wish all the time. We, even, wish we didn't wish. And because we wish and do not wish to wish, we write. Write. And write. So many word years later, we're still not sure what we do. Are you beginning to understand what we do? If so, do tell us. It would be a very neo spin, we're sure, on what we do. Of course, we could have saved you all this talk from us trying to tell you what we do by simply telling you what our not-so-friendly but very wise inner voice Conscience Confucius once said when, in a weak moment, we asked him what we do. He said, "The only thing you do is what you don't want to do. You're too afraid to do what you want to. The day you start doing what you want to do, you won't need another word on what you do." After that, we were too afraid and confused to ask him anything. Still, if you're still looking for a word for what we do, try muse. Waste. Cut. Paste. Copy. Edit. Undo. Do. Redo. Rail. Fail. Gaze. Debase. Wank. Tank. Hide. Cry. Try. Try? Try...hmm, interesting word that. Probably, the perfect word to describe what we will never do, while trying to. Conscience was right, we're too fucking petrified to. Your garbose Agony.

"I have worries. I don't know what to do with them." Worry Wart Hog

Dear Worry W. Hog, You have worries? No worries. Just give 'em to us. We collect worries. Other people collect stamps, coins, ideas, books, money, bodies, scalps, designations, degrees, music and the like. We prefer worries. We're pretty sure you don't care much for your worries. We know you'd rather be rid of them. We know that's why you've come to us. We know how little people care for worries. We know people are too little to care much for worries. Unfortunately, worries demand that people care for them more than people care to. That's the thing about worries. They're high maintenance. Very. Worries take your mind off more important things. So take all your worries of your mind and give 'em to us. We don't mind. It's why we got into this business of dealing with agonies. We used to be in many other businesses before this. We got into all these businesses, typically, to deal with the many worries we were faced with in life. Unhappily enough, these other businesses we were in just couldn't deal with the worries we thought they'd help us banish. Every time we worried about something, we turned to our business for help. Everytime we turned to our business to help us with our worries, we ended up neglecting the business of the business. All our businesses felt let-down, were a let-down and let us down with a thud on a bed of more worries. As a result, we always ended up distraught and helpless with the state of affairs we found ourself in. Our businesses ended up getting ruined. Everything went down the tube. All we were left with were worries. Nobody bothered to help us. Nothing came our way. Everything was broken. We were broken. Then, we picked ourselves up and looked around. And when we look around we realised, the most valuable things we were left with were pure, priceless, gold-standard, unadulterated, big, small, medium sized, chunky, nuggetlike, spotless worries. Everywhere we turned, we were faced with more lonely, orphaned, unwanted worries needily staring us back in the face. Our heart melted. We were hooked. We couldn't say no to the poor critters. Besides, why look a gift horse in the mouth? And so, we decided to turn to worries for the solution to all our worries. Happily enough, they didn't let us down. Very soon, we turned all our worries into a big, successful, blue and chipper business of worries. What's more, we channelled this world full of worries into our business of worries. Now, when we worry, it's just more raw material for the profit centre of Worry Gory Inc. When anyone has worries, it's just more raw material for the company of prospering worries. Free. Every worry only adds to the bottomline. Freely. Willingly. Gladly. Happily. Efficiently. Our bottomline is everybody's worries. Pithily speaking, our selling line is our bottomline. Trust us, you have no business being in worry. Stick to your core competencies. Worrying is ours. Just remember, don't worry. It's none of your business. Your business like Agony.

"I'm a block head. Please give me a list of websites to block." Block Head

Dear Block Head, As the great shoet Leonard Knohen would growl, "Everybody knows how to get to the sites they want to. Everybody knows one more proxy than you can block. Everybody knows the minefields you lay are all crock. Everybody knows the Internet is free. Everybody knows you're way too free. Everybody knows you have nothing better to do. Everybody knows you don't have a fucking clue. Everybody knows you're rubbish. Everybody knows you're squeamish. Everybody knows you're paranoid. Everybody knows you brain is null and void. Everybody knows, everybody knows, everybody knows all the things you never will. So go ahead and block one more site if you bloody will." Still, if your problem is the need for one more site to block. One more chance to to show no one in particular you're an idiotic block jock, help you we will. What to do? We're the Funcle and our job is to put people out of their agony. Even if all they're attempting to do is dish out pure pointless agony. Open your mind and prepare to have it filled. On second thoughts, don't. Close your mind, completely. To block anything, you must get to the one site that attracts all the things you're out to block. And that site is the human mind. Some people call it Google, but we don't think we're there yet. That's a vision of a newman mind we'll reserve for a more dystopian future. Umm, please wake up. No zoning out in this room. We're very sorry. We shan't go to the places you can't, even, comprehend right now. Let's get back to the simpler present. And to the mother of all sites we were talking about. The site which attracts all sites: Your mind. Blocking it is the perfect block to block every site you don't approve of. Without a mind to infest, there will be no site for a site to take up residence in. Unfortunately, once the mind is open, it can only be likened to a bottomless see. A see that is open to seeing everything and everything. A see that we ride, bravely, on a daily basis with our dear, dear surfer friend Bay Botch, the ultimate surfer dude. Bay Botch always tells us, while we're all at see, "Dude, the Internet, much like life, is a bloody beach. No matter what you do, the waves will keep coming. Under such morecumstances, the only thing you can do is keep surfing. If you can't surf with the tide, if you can't ride the waves, don't try to swim in them. You will drown." Wise stuff, eh? To think, it comes from a surfer dude. That's the power of the Internet. Block it. Don't mind it one bit. Or you might end up shocked out of your nonsenses by an open mind. And that's not something a block of head will find easy to deal with or control. Your seefaring Funcle.

"Everyone talks of this dreamy little place called Snoreland. How do I get there?" Sona Somnambulist

Dear Sona, Right off the bat we'd like to bring into the picture the great Quoterie Ajit Sings to set the mood for what is to follow. Ajit used to sing, in his sleep (much to the pleasure of his sleeping companions who used to be put to deeper sleep in their sleep by his singing in his sleep), "No matter what, women can be bought. Just flash some sona. And sleeping with any Mona becomes as easy as jumping into a cot without any rona or dhona." How do we know of this seminal piece of singing? We chanced upon it during our travels in the continent of Dreamland with our dear dear frienemy from Sleepadu, Cot Arun. Now you may, with a heavy-lidded gaze, gaze into the blue yonder and wonder who this fellow Cot Arun is? Wonder not anymore, here's more. Cot Arun is the Pen Master from the mountainous bland of Textosterone, the Napital of Sleepadu. A wise sole, and heel, such as him we have never again come across. His favourite braying was, "Go to sleep. Your dreams depend on it." Are you seeing what we are seeing? You may not see it, but we are getting closer and closer to the dreamy 'sonore' you are seeking. Schtick with us and we'll introduce you to two more doozers who know their way around the parts you seek. Let's quickly move on with a hop, skip and dump away from Dreamland to the rocky island of Fretosia. In Fretosia is one, and only one, very dark cave. Unlike all the very, very dark caves in Fretosia, this is the only one that is very dark. Did you get that? Very dark vis-a-vis very, very dark. Why is it only very dark? Because it is the only cave in Fretosia with very light sleepers. So in this only very dark of all very, very dark caves of Fretosia, you will find the world's only unreasonable Siamese Twins, Tossing & Turning. Under no circumstances, must you try to reason with them. Under no circumstances, must you engage them. Under no circumstances, must you indulge them. And under no circumstances, must you go anywhere near them. Once they grab you, you'll find it very hard to get away from their nervous energy. We urge you to find this very dark cave, and stay very far away from it. Why bother finding something you should stay very far away from? Simple, you must know what you mustn't know. And so we repeat, for your own good, get to know of Tossing & Turning and stay very far away from them. Note: You must only stay very far away from their very dark cave. Under no circumstances, must you go very, very far away from it. For only very far away, but not very, very far away from Fretosia lies the dreamy little place you seek, Snoreland. Got it? We certainly hope so. We also hope we haven't confused you. The thing is, we totally and very, very, very, very, but not very, much lack direction. It's why we end up getting lost, no matter where we decide to go. Oddly enough, getting lost is not such bad way to find what you're looking for. So get lost. Or as our sole and heel freinemy from Sleepadu, Cot Arun might have said, "Get lost. Your future depends on it." Your Lulla Bhai Agony.