"At last, a video for people like me"
The video above describes exactly what I'm doing now. The second coat can't follow until 8 in the evening at least.
Incidentally, this video isn't a joke - it actually exists (if there are any copies left), and consists almost entirely of paint drying on a wall. "John Major" complains on the back cover that something not completely tedious is happening - a man actually paints the wall at the beginning of the video, and the paint is blue rather than a sensible shade of grey. And I know this because I actually bought it.
Amazon says the video was released at the end of 1996, and it sold to almost nobody - so, it must have been circa March 1997 I saw it, and the similar "Waiting For Christmas" and "Watching Grass Grow" in W.H. Smith's in Bishop's Stortford for two quid each. How they must have been relieved when I handed over my six quid and got shot of some of the stock. Fact is, it was my brother's birthday just round the corner and I intended to present each one, individually, as a joke with his actual present following last.
Then, would you believe it, an issue of Metal Hammer not so long later saw Malcolm Dome reviewing an extremely boring album. I forget what it was - though seeing as I have an approximate timescale I could probably dig through all the issues I still have stashed in the roof and find it. Either way, such was the tedious nature of this album that the review ended with "Now, where did I put that video about watching paint dry?"
So old Malc shouldn't have been entirely surprised when, a few days after that issue of Metal Hammer was released, a parcel landed on his desk at Dennis Publishing... containing the video you see above. And guess who it was that sent it...