Ask Agatha #3 – An Unqualified Success

Dear Aunt Agatha,

Although my name synonymous with beauty, I actually look like Voldemort.  My career has been called “an unqualified success,” largely because I have not been qualified for any of the positions I have occupied.  I have held posts in Downing Street, Education, and Transport, even serving in the Cabinet.  Normally this would place me among the elect, but I’ve never actually been elected to anything.  Even my elevation to the Cricket Club Catering Committee was subsequently brought under scrutiny despite my winning 52% of the vote, and was annulled over allegations of ballot-rigging amongst the cucumber sandwiches.  My problem is that no-one takes me seriously.  Even my treatise on the post-Brexit significance of the Ravenna Mosaics is dismissed as “the insane ramblings of an inconsequential loser.”  To cap it all, I cannot seem to find my marbles since that disastrous first vote – not that I am qualified to use them.

(Signed) “A”

Dear “A,”

Your problem is that you take yourself too seriously – no-one else does.  Secondly, you have been over-exposed, like an old photograph bleached out and indistinct because it has seen too much daylight.  You don’t need more chance to explain yourself on everything; you need less.  You currently risk starvation because your love of your own voice means that you don’t give yourself enough time to eat.  There is a way in which you could leap to a new-found popularity.  It is by becoming a Trappist monk.  If you took the vow of silence, which for some of the order is traditionally 7 years, you would surge ahead in popular estimation.  Indeed, given your oft-expressed desire not to do things by halves, you could win even more acclaim by taking the vow for 14 years, twice the usual time.  This would be viewed as a major act of public service, and hugely raise your personal standing.

Agatha x