Hideous Soul-Crushing Despair: the New Black?

Some favourite lobby regulars are putting the 'In' into 'Insanity'!

The inevitable escape into madness brought about by throwing away half your life waiting for a lift is all the rage this season, so we caught up with some foyer denizens to find out what's new!

First of all we spoke to Paul, always a trend-setter, and asked what he's into. 'Paul?' he yelped piteously. 'I know of no Paul! Paul is gone and never was! I am Mazbaxlet the hoop-shaped, Attila the Hun's favourite pet flapjack! I am six plates of jolly sliced weather-balloon chants!' He hollered, rending his already fashionably shredded clothes. 'I am hyperangelic celestial fungus from the great and legendary planet Zob, and do you know WHY I'm hyperangelic celestial fungus from the great and legendary planet Zob?' He roared maniacally, foam trendily glinting at the corners of his mouth, his limbs churning. 'It's because hyperangelic celestial fungus has transcended the mortal plane of gross and base substance and as such NEVER... HAS... TO... WAIT... FOR... ANY... FRIGGING... LIIIIFTS! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA...'. Leaving Paul to scream forever, we moved on to Laura, another of the movers and shakers - or so we thought!!!

We caught Laura at her favourite pastime - staring intently at the floor display above lift number four. After asking her a few questions we realised that - ahead of the crowd as always - she had actually turned into glass! Motionless, we watched her gaze fall upon the display as, for exactly the one millionth time since she had started to wait, the lift went from 18, down to 17, and then back up to 18 again without first descending to the ground floor. At that instant, with a tiny sound, Laura shattered into thousands of glittering pieces, which showered to the floor and sadly skittered to a halt. Impressed as ever by her verve, we left her be, the sound of thousands of tiny sobs fading as we went.

A surprise development - when we went to quiz Mark, our favourite Vox Popper, he was nowhere to be found!!?! We asked one the of the emaciated wretches descended from the original waitees where on earth he might have gone. This grey skeletal pain-wracked form paused from clawing at the corner of the lift door for a brief moment to whisper, panic-stricken, that apparently Mark had given up all hope in life and gone away to seek desolation, soon passing into myth. Rumour tells that he spent his few remaining days desperately seeking release in a vast, overcast, wind-swept field, kneeling in the mud, staring wild-eyed at at the loam, shivering and wailing, his body free but his heart and soul forever trapped in the drab hopeless hall of a corporate building. Wow, way to go Mark!

Home