The Meeting (aka Time Theft or ennui nipponica)

We sleep, we snooze, we slumber; we kip, we catnap and we take forty winks - sometimes even more. We certainly don't listen. There would be no point in that. The meeting is an extraordinary event. The Chair reads in a bland, soporific monotone - sometimes for several hours or more. In our shut-eyed torpor, some of us sigh gently, some scratch languidly behind an earlobe or up a nose cavity; some find contentment with a bout of throaty mucus juggling, others resort to the common and garden snore. On one memorable occasion, the most senior party present snored so spectacularly loudly that he succeeded in completely drowning out the Chair's monotone. Nobody had the heart, or the balls, to wake the venerable fellow, and the meeting continued ad nauseam to the accompaniment of those unusual backing vocals.