Mild men

I don’t know why I didn’t know about this long before now, but there is an organization called The Dull Men’s Club. Yes there is, and it's real because they have a website.

And later this month they are publishing a 2015 calendar, “The Dull Men of Great Britain”.

This features blokes who collect lawnmowers, traffic cones, milk bottles, bricks and buses; spend five days per week moving rocks; and document drain covers, roundabouts, post boxes and hedges.

And, close to Ms. Language-Person’s heart, there’s the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society, engaged in the never-ending struggle against the tsunami of misuse of that punctuation mark.

And no, I am not making up a single one of those pastimes.

There’s also a man who’s given his wife the same Valentine’s Day card for 35 years, but I’d categorize that more as sad than dull. She must encourage him, though. Or at least be inured to it.

You’re not going to see any naked torsos in this calendar; that might, after all, be outside the remit of dullness. Or public decency. Besides—the point is more the activity than the actor.

The DMC was founded in the 1980s, in New York City. They claim membership of 5000 around the world, but from their website, it looks as though the power base (if that be the correct term) has shifted to the UK.

Although—interestingly (again, if you can apply that modifier to an organization devoted to dullness)—they purport to have an “International Committee of Dull Men”, which meets in London and…wait for it…Washington, D.C. I would purely love to know the story about that.

And, uh, interesting (?!) again: their last nomination for “Dull Man of the Year” appears to have been in 2011. Is it possible that they’re actually living such fascinating lives that they don’t have time to keep this very important honor updated?

But the notion of making Keith Richards an honorary DM is totally, um, you know, inter…