Another request

A kind, red-headed girl has asked me to compile a list of stuff to be suspicious of. She has asked for twenty but she's getting ten.

1) Anyone that lives in a shit house but has a nice car. Priorities clearly out of goose.
2) Men with a jumper draped over the shoulders. Clear sexual confusion going on there.
3) Beware of the man that only shows you the best bits. He's a twat.
4) Anyone that uses the word 'muppet'. Probably watches UFC too.
5) SHORTS IN WINTER. This is a biggie. Men and women.
6) Funny slogan in the back of the Dad-wagon. A surefire sign you have given up on life.
7) People with CD collections that mostly comprise of Greatest Hits. Probably a sex offender.
8) A passion for Thai food. Stay away.
9) Anyone who gets married in an unusal location. A cave in Malta for example. These people are probably goths and must be hurt.
10) Superdry. Anyone that wears Superdry must never be let in your house.

My fucking irritations

Some piece of ass has asked me to produce a Socratic discourse on my top five irritations. Mal, you may regret this.

Here we go.

1) Wonky tables.

Is there anything more annoying? Call me awkward but I don't enjoy having my precious £3 mug of Musetti propelled over me when I merely *breathe* on the table. I was in a pub today with a table so unstable that microbes could upset the balance. I angrily folded up the lunch menu and jammed it under the leg. I mean, come on. It's not like a table suddenly becomes unstable. These pricks must know that people are suffering but they do fuck all to help. I'm going to start bring woodworking equipment to Costa from now on.

2) Packeted fruit.

So pointless. You see this in Boots and on airlines usually. Please tell me Sir, what is the advantage of slicing the apple and then serving it to me in a small plastic packet? Not only are you having to pay for the packets to be made but you are then having to go to the trouble of slicing up the apples as well. WHAT IS WRONG WITH A NORMAL, TRADITIONAL APPLE? You have spent so long trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist that you have fucked everyone over. If you had got off your fat arse and actually checked you would realise that people do not mind having apples that are a bit bashed about. It's nice to eat a real piece of fruit the way nature intended, not in some hermetically sealed bag.

3) World music.

Nothing irritates me as much as this. There is a smugness that goes with world music. A certain Guardian-style belief that you are listening to something genuinely different, something that represents the music of a certain country. Dare I say it, authenticity. I've got news for you. What you are listening to no more represents Somali/Nigerian/Afrikaan music than Coldplay represent British music. Just because it is 'world' does not mean it is authentic or good.

4) Highways Agency.

Surely the most useless, over-beaurocratic organisation in the history of the whole world. I honestly think NASA are quicker getting a fucking space shuttle designed, built & flying than these bastards are at reopening a motorway. I ask, is it necessary to close the M56 just because a traffic cone has fallen out of the back of a builder's lorry? If a truck has a blowout and has left rubber on a slip road simply get one of those patrol cars there, pick up the tyre and lash it in the bushes. Why is it necessary to close the entire damn motorway network?

5) 'epic'.

Just don't. It's not big, not clever.

Observations

1) Despite hating the BMW-driving man you are slightly jealous.
2) Pizza tastes better slightly burned.
3) You never see a brand-new double decker bus.
4) You have never owned a computer printer that you have been entirely happy with.
5) Barbeques just are not worth the bother.
6) Vomiting is euphoric.
7) You miss the early nineties just a little bit.
8) Whenever you buy a new fridge you are concerned that it's not quite cold enough.
9) Nobody knows where the mugs in your house came from.
10) You harbour secret ambitions to be a writer.
11) Wasps can completely ruin your day.
12) It's horrible walking down the street at the same pace as a complete stranger.
13) You can't understand why some cars have the lights wired up wrong.
14) Your mother slams the car door too hard.
15) You feel at home in B&Q.
16) There is no location worse than a station car park.
17) All community centres are depressing.

Short fucking story

People often ask me how it started.

It’s hard to put into words. Maybe it’s best described as some kind of Lynchian nightmare, a fucked up plot for an even more fucked up horror film dreamt up by a lonely cretin with a deep penchant for the truly bizarre. A situationist prank by an angry interventionist God. A veritable lollapalooza of misfortune. It could be all these things, a combination of some, or none.

Most of these stories start with people breathlessly reminiscing about how happy and fun-filled their childhood was, their great woe manifesting itself in later life. They’re usually accompanied by black and white photos of happy family holidays spent on a beach. Father, Mother and kids all merrily slurping sandy iced-creams while the grandparents look on with white skin and brown teeth. It was a similar pattern for me although my particular tale is different to most. Some say I have been touched by the Gods and should be worshipped like some kind of deity, others are completely freaked out by me and think I should be allowed to die in the corner of a pub car park.

I’ll try and get this story out with the minimal of emotion and stick to the facts.

Throughout my formative years I was indeed that normal child. I wasn’t precocious, particularly gifted at sport or proudly artistic. I came from a really close family that spent lots of time talking. I once filled my sister’s rucksack with soil on a trip to the swimming baths, ruining her Walkman and rendering her swimming costume filthy. Apart from this we never really fell out. My favourite memories are visiting the boating lake near my Nan’s house in Swaffam. I often think back on this time and when I’m feeling low. One of those blissful memories that truly encapsulates the joy of youth. I was a popular kid at school owing to the fact that I possessed a very powerful magnet – scavenged from a local scrap yard – and my father had a key that could open any door, anywhere. At least that’s what I told my friends. These sorts of details are important when you are in primary school.

I was also pretty good at basketball but once soiled myself during a game and had to play with an arse full of shite. Mr Daly the PE Teacher (Springwood High School, King’s Lynn, circa 1993) didn’t believe me and wouldn’t let me change my shorts. I was too terrified to try basketball again after that experience.

An ideal childhood? Yes. Apart from the arse full of shite.

People usually say at this point something like “we were never rich but we never went without”. Bollocks to that. My parents were fucking loaded but me and sister got fuck all. We really *did* do without, and I harbour resentment about this all these years later.

There was nothing indicating that I was going to be plagued by strangeness. Nothing at all.

The first thing I noticed was that my limbs were stiffer than those of most kids. Whilst my peers were playing football, climbing on the school roof and daring each other to cross the railway tracks I was spending countless hours with Dr Thrift, our local NHS physiotherapist. For years many medical professionals thought it was simple Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis – a recognised medical condition that affects thousands of children. I was put on all manner of drugs and exercise regimes to try and loosen up my stiffening limbs. Nothing worked. Someone suggested that Saturday afternoons spent on the indoor climbing wall in Norwich would add strength and flexibility. Alas, no. After a particularly nasty fall one weekend in 1991 my parents decided enough was enough. They took me to Laser Quest instead from then on. This was one of those prototypical early nineties cyber-holes filled with fake smoke, rave music and fluorescent paint.

At age fourteen, when my friends were entering puberty, I was going through a very different body change. It would baffle the scientific world for decades to come. There was no escaping it; my skin was turning brown. It initially affected only arms but slowly spread throughout my torso, legs, and finally my face & neck. Of course as a child of fourteen this affected my self-esteem. While the other kids were called bullied for having the occasionally pimple on their oversized noses I had the fucking colour of Creosote appearing on my bollocks. It’s hard enough to fit in even when things go right, let alone when you’re getting called ‘Mr Browncock’ on a daily basis. And that was just the teachers.

Time went on. My youth was ticking by. Things slowly got worse.

When my whole body had turned brown a strange pattern started to appear. It first it was barely noticeable. Then it became unavoidable. My delicate, once-perfect childhood skin was taking on a wood veneer finish. There was no mistaking it. It had a grain and knots. Not just my bollocks. Total skin coverage. The grain got more and more profound and eventually took on a high-gloss finish, kind of like that corner table your Nan has probably got.

By this time I had been referred to the top dermatologists in the country. I felt like some kind of fucked up oak tree that had sprouted limbs. It was as if the Ronseal man had burst forth from TV, donned a school uniform and was slurping a Calypso from the school canteen. I appeared on several mid-morning chat shows and held court.

Of course by this time I still wasn’t famous. I was getting well known to the local community but mainstream success eluded me. I was young and scared and stupid but instinctively knew the implications of my dilemma; I could make money. Massive, unspeakable amounts of money. I could travel the world as the Eighth Wonder, be pawed at by tourists far and wide and be touched by kids in obscure African villages. A film? Who knows. It was probably not out of the question that I could land a high-powered job in the music industry.

Then things got worse. My body shape actually started changing. People initially thought I was merely piling on the weight but my whole torso was getting more and more square. My legs were actually becoming webbed together and my feet had become blocky and fucking massive.

Now this was bad. I didn’t mind being a bit stiff and grainy, it added a sort of élan that most do not have. A talking point if you will. The girls fucking loved me. This was getting serious though. I was now as rigid as a board and had to be carried like a ladder. If only one person was available they had to load me on to one of these trolleys like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs and wheel me down the street.

Time passed. Experts came and went. Nobody knew what to do. My body was growing more and more square until one day I happened to be at an antique auction in Acle. I was having a good time at this auction just generally wandering around and taking in the ambiance when a strange thing happened:

AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN CARRYING AN ATTACHE CASE TRIED TO BID ON ME, MISTAKING ME FOR A BORNHOLM GRANDFATHER CLOCK. HE THOUGHT I WAS PART OF THE AUCTION. IT WAS CLEAR THAT I WAS SLOWLY TURNING INTO A GRANDFATHER CLOCK.

For those not au fait with Bornholms here is a brief description:

This kind of grandfather clock takes the form of a tall wooden box. These are Danish long case clocks driven by a pendulum made in Bornholm, a Danish island found in the Baltic Sea. Bornholm clocks are pendulum driven clocks that were made from 1745 until 1990. However the demand for Bornholm grandfather clocks began receding in recent years.

My woody condition worsened until I was ticking and had an actual working clock face on MY face. I was now completely immobile and had to be fitted with wheels. I tried to carry on a normal life but it’s hard to enjoy one’s self when you’re a fucking massive chronometer.

I suppose the saving grace in all this is that I am still able to speak. Nobody fully understands how my voice has been unaffected by these unfortunate changes but I’m not complaining. I can sing, orate and bust a rhyme with the best of them. Who knows, maybe I can even find work as a rapping timepiece?

I was able to write this by dictating it to my best friend Tom. He has stood by me through thick and thin. He also polishes me up when I’m a bit dusty.

I’m not angry at life. I actually count myself lucky that I stand out from the crowd and genuinely consider myself an individual. It’s a drag not being able to do normal things like drive a car and consume Tic-Tacs but I’m a simple man/clock and have simple pleasures. I don’t ask much from life. Just stand me in the corner of Nag’s Head and pour the occasional pint of Wheatsheaf into my moon dial and I’m happy.

I dream of going back to the yacht pond in Swaffam one day, just like I used to with Dad.

Stupidity

It concerns me how fucking stupid a lot of people are in the world, it really does.

Is it just me, or has this economic turmoil dredged some really stunningly inane people out of the woodwork? I mean real, REAL pieces of shit with nothing more than a dead wasp rattling around in their skull.

Only the other day I was driving down Southgate Road and some cigaretting youth ran over an old lady on the crossing. Of course this is very traumatic for the old lady and clearly no laughing matter. One thing I want to make clear though is that where road crossings are concerned PEOPLE HAVE NO FUCKING INTELLIGENCE AT ALL. NOT ROUND HERE, OH NO!

It's like their IQs are temporarily drained my mystical forces and all of a sudden they're proud to be stupid. The junctions near us are terribly bad. People - usually fat mothers pushing a pram - are too busy screaming into an Iphone to notice that 2 tonnes of metal is heading their way FAST. I want to know what goes on in their heads.

Could it be:

"I'll just knowingly push my child into a road where there's accidents all the time without looking. We are invincible because I am screaming into and Iphone."

Or:

"Despite the fact I have lived here my entire life I haven't noticed that cars hurtle round here at high speed and people are always being run over."

Well, which is it?

Anyway, this particular old lady was run over but then the guy that ran her over left his car blocking the road when he consoled her. Can I repeat that:

HE LEFT HIS CLIO BLOCKING THE ENTIRE ROAD, STOPPING ALL TRAFFIC FROM GETTING PAST.

I know that he was eager to ensure that she wasn't too mashed up but could he not have spent 10 seconds moving his £1500 rollerskate out the way so that everyone else wasn't punished for HIS stupidity? He could SEE the queue of traffic building up and still chose not to move his Halford's special.

You see this everywhere. A total overreaction. It's the same with these pudgy pricks that hear a siren from half a mile away and actually drive on to the fucking curb to get out the way of a vehicle that might not even be coming their way. Ditto the fucking motorways. A lorry has had a blowout and left a tyre on the carriage way. Whoopee shit. I ask this: why is it necessary to close the entire sliproad for an entire afternoon? Why can't the first copper there simply drag the damn thing out of the way and put an end to it? Will we ever see the day when civil servants don't have to fill in thirteen different forms just to unlock a door?

Like Balzac said: "Beaurocracy is a giant machine controlled by pygmies." Come to think of it, he was a twat too.

The misery of age

Recent events have convinced me that my body ain't what it used to be.

Like a slowly rusting car, I am neither as fit or robust as I once was. Isn't it funny how, as young people, we feel indestructible? I remember when I could fearlessly pelt down a dirt track on my bike without my bones crumbling then mercilessly beat the hell out of a foreigner without breaking a sweat. Alas, those days are gone.

Now it would appear that I cannot put the duvet cover on without having a stroke.

The incident that sparked this essay was a simple sore shoulder. A recent bout of exercise has left me unable to do much at all with my left arm. It's only a mild twinge but you underestimate how much one relies on their arms. I suppose you could compare them to shoes; essential for most activities but also taken for granted.

Another thing I have noticed is that my natural weight seems to be a good stone heavier than it was 5 years ago. Well, I say a 'good' stone but obviously in this context a stone isn't 'good' at all.

This developmental corner I have turned has spurred me on to keep fit. I don't want to be one of those 30-something twanners with a space hopper for a stomach. It is for this reason that I will be running 3 times a week as long as the weather holds out, possibly including a few 10k road races in the summer. Lissomely and purified I shall emerge.

When I am encased in plaster from head-to-foot in late July please come and visit.

Tesco self service tills

Okay. I'll be the first to admit it. Here goes:

I AM IMPATIENT. I AM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO HUFFS, PUFFS AND STOMPS THEIR FEET UNLESS THINGS HAPPEN INSTANTANEOUSLY. I HAVE SPENT MY LIFE MOCKING THOSE WITH THIS CHARACTERISTIC BUT I KNOW FULL WELL I AM GUILTY.

There, I came right out and said it. I feel better already.

Like most people I get annoyed waiting in shops. It's not the actual having to *wait* that annoys me, it's more the fact that most of the time there's no good reason why the queue is moving so fucking slow. What irks me is when staff are dicking around or the people in front of you are so busy talking on their phones that everything takes fucking ages. It's more the reason *for* the wait that grinds my gears. I've noticed supermarkets are always bad for this. The fourteen year old cashier will be trying to have a conversation with an equally young girl four tills away, sometimes shouting to be heard over the background noise. So will not acknowledge you and then proceed to scan your things so fast that only Superman could pack them all away.

Costa coffee on the other hand are slow but this is for the simple fact that they do not have enough staff. I am fine with this. Yes, I am usually pressed for time when queueing but I know the staff are working at a reasonable place so am usually quite forgiving. It's not their fault that they are struggling.

What enrages me more than anything else is self-service tills.

I think Tesco pioneered these (correct me if I'm wrong) but I've noticed every single supermarket seems to use them now. Mr Leahy, I blame it all on you.

Don't get me wrong, in principle they are a good idea. Instead of having to wait for a cashier you can be a bit brave and purchase your horrible food at high speed. This is laudable. If ATMs had never been invented we would still have to go into the bank and withdraw loads of money. We would then be mugged. The problem we have here is complex and best broken down in to numbered points:

1) These machines rely on the intelligence of the average person. Now, I know I am generally quite sardonic by nature (some would say cynical) but anything that relies on the general public having intellectual powers is bound to fail. Again, this is well known and the people that designed these machines must know. This is why any machine designed for use by the public needs to be idiot proof. I'm talking simplicity to rival the buttons on pedestrian crossings, post boxes, doorknockers etc.

Anything more complex just doesn't fucking work. My Dad cannot work a cash machine.

Which leads me on to my next point:

2) The machines are fucking rubbish. Every single item requires a red-faced woman to come over and swipe a keyring it make the stupid thing unfreeze. The type of bread roll I am buying neither has a barcode or features in the dropdown menu. What can I do? I can't use my own shopping bags because the machine thinks the previous user has left their stuff in the bagging area. I can't change my mind about things once they have been scanned in. I can't buy booze without a the same red-faced woman checking I am over 18. The queue is taking ages because a granny has just scanned in a plasma TV as a button mushroom. The item will not scan. There's not enough room in the bagging area. Nobody understands if they are queueing for a specific till or merely the first one to become available. Despite the screen asking me to put my card in the chip & pin machine is now saying 'REMOVE CARD'. It says 'ASSISTANCE IS ON THE WAY' but the red-faced woman is now having a conversation with her colleague.

The upshot of all this is:

IF EVEN A SIMPLE PURCHASE TAKES LONGER THAN A NORMAL TILL THEN THERE IS NO POINT EVEN HAVING THESE STUPID MACHINES.

Tesco, I've got some words of advice for you:

Either start running courses in how to use these damn things, sort them out so that they are idiot proof or rip them out totally.

What do we think?