I
Icon
(1) A religious painting.
(2) a small illustration on a computer screen.
(3) A person who has gained status.
As religious art the icon has long had respectability, and that is about all you need to know on that subject. As something out of computing it is the means by which software manufacturers increase their profits, and confuse the issue into the bargain. As a person, it is someone you can worship when it would otherwise run counter to your sexual preferences.
Ignorance
A lack of knowledge.
I have a suspicion that ignorance is sometimes prized more highly than intelligence as an intelligent response to confusion. Having said that, it is a condition which is only suffered by others, never by myself.
Inanimate object
That which does not move, or have sentient life.
Try a human being, sat in front of a television, watching Australian soap operas or American situation comedies all day long.
Incentive
A bonus offered in return for achievement.
There are two possibilities here; the large bribes offered by politicians to the constituency they wish to influence, the smaller bribes offered by employers when they want their employees to work for less money or on Christmas Day.
Infidelity
Dishonesty in a marital relationship.
It has been mentioned before, that only married people can get divorced, so it follows that married people are more like to commit infidelity, one of the grounds for divorce. Given that it is normally taken seriously it could be a suggestion that a relationship once had something worth while, and was therefor worth working at. See also divorce.
Inheritance
A sum of money left by a person who has died to a person who is still living.
Where it does occur it must be similar to winning the National Lottery but with genetic overtones. Where it doesn’t occur there could be a covert suggestion that one’s parents were not working as hard as they might have done if there was so little left to support you in your dilettante existence.
Innocence
A lack of guilt.
A condition not defined by God since everything was that way, in the beginning, in Her eyes. On the other hand it could be not having a sense of humour and not knowing it, or a time when sued shoes were daring.
Innovation
Invention on a quieter scale.
For me it is the obvious way of doing things when politicians and academics are not around. It is also anything not yet shown on television, like a coffee machine which tunes itself to BBC Radio Four at six thirty in the morning.
Insecurity
Not being sure in one’s beliefs or one’s role in society.
A lot of kings and dictators have been insecure. They have worried about the size of their penis, and about whether their mistress still loved them, and about whether they would ever find a tailor who could make a decent uniform. A lot of ordinary people have also been insecure. Mostly they have worried about what the kings and the dictators were up to. And so it goes.
Instability
An inability to stand up straight, either physically, emotionally or morally.
Mostly people who are said to be of an unstable nature are also in the minority, so for them it could be a proof of existence. A lot of the time it is simply having a desire to change your mind when all around you are afraid to.
Instant
Happening immediately.
There are two groups of adjectives that can be applied to food. There are words like ‘pure’ and ‘fresh’ which means that it is worth taking some time and trouble in the preparation, and in the eating. There are words like ‘fast’ and ‘instant’ which means that the only person to benefit will be the manufacturer. It is another ploy of the marketing men to suggest that our lives are so busy that we only have time to eat junk food. The truth is that we would have more time in our lives, and more of a life come to that, if we turned off the television from time to time, stopped watching the celebrity chefs and became chefs in our own right.
Insult
A damaging or hurtful statement made to, or about, another person.
There is a striking similarity between the way people respond to insults and the way they respond to other people’s sense of humour, indeed the two could almost be related. Frighteningly the insult is often that which is most often true, a brilliant idea which always occurs five minutes after the argument has ended.
Insurance
An investment against the possibility of an accident.
Gambling on a horse is morally reprehensible, gambling on the chances of having a car accident is not, how odd. And insurance is gambling on that which God can not, is hoping to make a profit out of that which should not have happened in the first place.
Internet
A worldwide network of computers which, it is hoped, will revolutionise all future communications.
If that is the case then the future of communications is having worthless adverts popping up on the screen every time you try to contact the President of the United States with a proposal that will save the world. The Internet is the computer’s revenge on the nerd but when it provides stock market reports or farming prices, then it’s a medium which is marginally more interesting than cable television chat shows.
Investment
Lending money to companies in the hope of getting more back at a later date.
This is the truth of the free market economy, supposedly the best system ever invented to control production and distribution. It depends on little old ladies investing their life savings in the hope of getting it all back at a 10% interest. Investment is gambling, but this time on the moral high ground. It is tax deductible suicide, or a hope for a future which you probably do not have. The investor then is someone who never listens to the news, and therefor never feels guilt. An investor is a gambler with Government protection yet, strangely, in her/his own eyes s/he is the sacrificial lamb at the alter of capitalism. See also share, stock market.
Ireland
A small island off the coast of Britain which, in turn, is a small island off the coast of mainland Europe.
A country which gives it’s best to the rest of the world and still survives. A country which tells better jokes about itself than most Englishman can. Theoretically a country of which parts are still a part of the United Kingdom but don’t mention that on the Derry Bogside.
