Occam, Please Put Down the Razor by Barry Denson

A Cautionary Tale of Logic Gone Berserk

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must look in the mirror and ask himself, quite sternly, "Why the devil am I holding a metaphor?"

Oliver Camden—known to his peers, his postman, and even his sourdough starter as Occam—had always been rather too fond of razors, especially the kind that come free with philosophical axioms and a smug sense of superiority.

He had adopted Occam’s Razor not as a guiding principle, but as a full-blown lifestyle. Simplicity, he declared, was not merely preferable—it was mandatory. He had pared his wardrobe down to one grey turtleneck, removed the labels from his spice rack (“a redundant system of aromatic chaos”), and once broke off a promising relationship because the woman in question owned two kinds of shampoo.

“You’re multiplying hair-care entities beyond necessity,” he’d explained, holding the door open as she left, shampoo in one hand and a look of thunder in the other.

At work, he was employed as a Senior Rationalisation Officer at the Department of Public Clarity—he was revered and feared in equal measure. He had once rewritten the national tax code using only three verbs and a preposition, and was rumoured to have simplified the NHS org chart to a single triangle marked “WAIT”.

And then came the incident with the toaster.

Oliver had long believed breakfast to be unnecessarily fussy. Bread + heat = toast. Why involve levers, crumbs trays, and those little dials that range from “pale and limp” to “the Blitz”? So he fashioned a system using a magnifying glass, the morning sun, and a pair of tweezers.

When this caught fire—and then caught Mrs Patel’s curtains—he found himself in court, where he attempted to argue that “combustion is merely enthusiastic simplicity.”

The judge sentenced him to community service and a toastie maker.

That night, as he returned to his surgically sterile flat, he noticed something odd: a book on the doormat. A gift from his ex, Anna. The cover read:

“Messy: How to Thrive in a Disordered World”

Inside, a note:

“Life isn’t a crossword, Ollie. Stop trying to fill in all the blanks with one word.”

He stared at it for a moment. Then turned to the mantle, where the brass razor sat like a smug little relic. He picked it up.

Yes, it had helped him trim away nonsense. But also joy. And ambiguity. And women with nice hair who liked conditioner.

So he placed the razor down gently. Then picked up his phone and did something truly radical.

He ordered two kinds of cheese.

It was, he admitted, a slippery slope.

By Thursday, there were throw cushions. By Friday, a second pair of trousers. By Sunday, he’d downloaded a jazz playlist entitled “Unstructured Vibes.”

And on Monday morning, he showed up to work wearing mismatched socks, humming Coltrane, and—most shockingly—without a PowerPoint.

“Occam,” said his boss, aghast, “you’ve let things get… messy.”

Occam just smiled, bit into his artisan toastie, and said:

“Sometimes the simplest answer is... bollocks.”