SERVICE PROVIDER

I'll steal your world from you and you'll rent it back. You'll appreciate it more because it has a price. You'll earn the money to pay for your keep by working for me. I'll pay you almost as much as you pay me. You can borrow the rest you need from me so you don't fall behind on the payments but you'll have to pay me interest. It's my world after all. You owe me, in perpetuity.

I'll do the same with your peace of mind. I'll rob your self-esteem and flog you placebos. I'll tell you that you are ill and sell you pills if you become fatigued. You are unwell. The world is well, that's why you pay for it. If you can't pay for it you are not fit for it. You are too weak to be part of the world. You are aberrant, a malcontent, a criminal, a skiver or sick. Take your pick.

I'll make you feel ashamed of being poor or poorly or too fat or too thin. I'll make you hate yourself, outside and in. I'll be the sole gatekeeper of your self-approval. I'll be your self-improver. I'll sell you books that tell you how to get by but they won't tell you how to get by so you'll have to buy more. Then I'll get you to pay me for an army and I'll send it to war against another army that you also paid for.

When the fighting is done, I'll charge you for reparations and get you to pay me to pay you to clean up the devastation. You'll pay me for the monuments that you'll build in my honour. If you died in my name, I'll say you were a martyr. I'll sell you a coffin and pass your debts to you kids. I'll be the one who decides where you spend the life after this. Heaven or Hell, I'll own you even in death and you'll thank me because it was too much responsibility to own yourself.

FUGGER SYNDROMES

(Advertising Feature)

We define ourselves in many different ways – our gender, our race, our nationality, our religious beliefs, our sexual preferences, our political ideology, our hopes, our disabilities, and our ailments. The latter is a great one to latch on to if the others don't really appeal. Ailments garner a lot of sympathy, but it's a kind of sympathy that lacks the patronising attitude the disabled have to put up with. You seem really interesting when you suffer from a rare and exotic ailment with all kinds of novel symptoms people can ask you about as they give you sad eyes, gently pat your arm, and tell you how brave you are.

Sadly most of us aren't ill and just have to get on with being 'well' and going unnoticed, but things need not stay that way. Thanks to our retroactively diagnostic crypto-medicinal approach, you can now choose an illness from an exciting new variety of diseases and infections. Browse our catalogue and check out what's on offer. Pick your ailment and then get on with suffering from it. Tell friends and family that you're a victim of Sticky Bits Fever, Cardio Spasmodic Defenestration, Gastric Scheduling, Lumpy Jumps, The Klank, Glandular Linoleum, Heteronormativechromia, Fancy Cramp, Gumpy Pie, Dobson's Prompter, Phibsborough, Hemorrhoidal Telekinesis, Farage, Complexia Shiteyitis, Cacktheria, The Macarena, Spoofer's Elbow, Stegosaurus Pimples, Drunken Caddies, Recurring Brunch, Fidgety Gadget, Wibbly Wobbly Wonders, Fuzzy Felt, Yahtzee, Buckaroo, Mouse Trap, Scalextric, Monchhichi Cough, Xtra-vision or the dreaded Stargate SG-1 to name just a selection.

Once you've decided what you've got, a member of our staff will promptly infect you with it and then diagnose it. Bear in mind, you will now be sick but you'll also have something to define yourself by and isn't that what we all seek in life, no matter how it is attained, no matter what form it comes in, no matter what the cost? And, yeah, our services do cost a bit, but we'll get to that later.

Friends and family alike will regret the day they ever took you for granted when you produce the Chronic Certificate you were awarded by your nearest Fugger Syndromes outlet. Wave your certificate in people's faces and roar: 'see, I'm sick, I'm fucking sick, now go get me a blanket and a nice bowl of soup'. Watch as everyone hops to your every command. The greatest wealth will be your ill-heath! You'll never feel better than when you started feeling sick!

Fugger Syndromes – we're almost nationwide and spreading all the time.