Monthly Archives: Feb 2013

Mothertruckers

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I’m not a particularly aggressive driver and I don’t really succumb to road rage, but there are some occasions when I’d love nothing more than to drag someone out of their vehicle and then run them over with it.

Yesterday I was driving from Kent back into West Sussex after a heavy night with some close friends. I was feeling a little delicate to say the least and I just wanted to get home and die.

Anyway, this drive home involved four motorways, one of which was the M26. I quite like the M26 because it has the feel of a dual carriageway and actually has views of the surrounding countryside, as opposed to the trench-like M20 which I’m convinced has a thermal exhaust port at the end of it, no wider than 2 metres.

I hear that’s not much bigger than a womp rat.

Another characteristic of the M26 is the fact that it has 2 lanes rather than the standard 3. This results in one of the most annoying of sins in the history of driving, and makes me wish I’d paid a little extra at the dealership for bonnet mounted machine guns.

Being a vital link between the death star trench of the M20 and the car park known as the M25, the M26 tends to have a lot of lorries on it. This is fine if they’re being driven by conscientious, considerate and intelligent drivers; however, yesterday it seemed these people were having a day of rest and had instead entrusted their multi-wheeled leviathans to complete cretins.

There was a three lorry convoy crawling along in the left lane at a mind-blowing 50 miles per hour, when suddenly the penis driving the lorry at the back decided to speed up to 50.1 miles per hour and overtake. . As a result, this oversized male reproductive organ in a hat had blocked the overtaking lane and a queue had started to form behind him.

During the next torturous 12 minutes it became clear that the other two lorries were also being driven by massive manhoods because neither of them slowed to allow him to pass or get back into the left lane. This meant that more and more cars were building up behind them, weaving left and right at a staggering 50.1mph to get a teasing view of the empty motorway sprawled out ahead.

Eventually the idiot pulled in front of the other two lorries and the traffic could finally pass by. What I found interesting was the fact that every car, without exception, slowed down as they approached the new convoy leader; presumably to congratulate him for a successful overtake by shouting praise out of the window.

The woman in the car in front of me appeared to wave at him quite furiously, so that was nice.

Do you smell that?

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There’s nothing worse than walking into a toilet cubicle after someone else has been in there. And when I say been in there, I mean ‘been’ in there.

Where I work there are 4 cubicles, all of which have motion activated lights. This makes me happy because I know that the ones with the lights on have recently been used and can therefore opt for one plunged into darkness.

However, some days you don’t get the option and today was one of those days.

I walked in and I could see that three of the doors were locked. The fourth and vacant cubicle had the light on. I walked in and my worst fears were confirmed; the water in the toilet was still moving and the cistern was filling up…this toilet had been flushed very, very recently.

Warm seat alert.

But it wasn’t the light or the swirling vortex of yuckiness that I noticed first; it was the wall of smell that hit me full on in the face, filling my nose and open mouth with the warmth of a sauna and none of the benefits. In fact, the action of opening the door caused a backdraft not unlike that of a fart under a wafted duvet. I gagged slightly as it burned my throat and eyes.

This time however, it took on a slightly different aroma than that of a rotting carcass dipped in gibbon shit. This time it also smelt of ash. Yes ash. So if you’ve ever wondered if a smoker’s turds smell any different, then the answer is yes. Why was this though? I mean, my shit doesn’t smell like any of the things I eat; although having said that I do sometimes detect a hint of coffee if I drank a lot of it that day. There’s sometimes a distinct smell of the brown stuff in the brown stuff.

This got me thinking about white dog poo. Remember those? They used to be hard, crumbly and exploded under car tyres. They were everywhere. You just don’t see them anymore so I once asked someone why that was the case, only to be told it had something to do with small quantities of ash that used to be added to dog food.

I’ve since learned it was to do with the fact that dogs used to have a higher calcium diet because they ate a lot more bones. However, due to BSE and other dodgy cock-rotting diseases that the press scared the shit out of us with, they don’t chew as many bones anymore (dogs, not the press). Plus the fact that laws on picking up after your dog have become more and more stringent in recent years. There’s nothing like seeing a dog owner picking up a freshly baked warm bum biscuit through a small, thin bag…especially when it hasn’t been baked fully.

Offering them a spoon to help scoop it into the bag never gets met with much of a sense of humour.

choc

Buzz off!!

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This cold frosty morning I left the house, locked up as usual and walked the length of my garden towards the locked gate at the end.

Whilst unlocking I noticed a massive fly sitting on the side of the gate, a mere inches from my face.

I hate flies.

I don’t have a genuine fear of them like I do spiders, or sharks, or commitment; I just hate their lack of respect for other people’s property, or people on general.

I’ve never really liked them as a child either. I remember family trips to Sicily as a child and swatting away fly after fly after fly because I was eating something like a peach, only to realise it was the same fucking fly every time. Honestly they’re more tenacious than those clipboarded twats in the high street with the dreadlocks and a smile that suggests they had a little more than sugar sprinkled on their cornflakes.

I recall one fly who was adamant he was going to land on my leg. I could feel him taking a stroll through my leg hair under the table so I jiggled my leg and the hair tickling stopped, only to start again a second later. I jiggled again; same result. I looked down and saw him rubbing his hands together like an evil scientist concocting a diabolical plan.  I now waved him away with my hand and watched him fly off about 8 inches and then fly straight back and land back in the same spot. This went on at least another 3 or 4 times.

“Bruv, look at this”

My brother came over and I showed him what was happening. At first he shrugged and seemed unimpressed, but soon enough he started to see the funny side of this boomeranging bastard who just wouldn’t leave me alone.

I, on the other hand, had stopped seeing the funny side.

“Shoo` (waves fly away)
Lands back on my leg.
‘Get off” (waves fly away)
Lands back on my leg.
“Seriously, bugger off!” (waves fly away)
Lands back on my leg.
“What the? Sod off you little shit!” (waves fly away more violently)
Lands back on my leg.
“FUCK OFF!! ” (starts attempting to slap the fly, and misses)
Lands back on my leg.
‘GET THE FUCK OFF MY LEG YOU LITTLE BASTARD!” (I start slapping the shit out of my leg despite the fact that the fly had departed the moment I’d raised my hand)

…

…

…

Lands back on my leg.

“Aaaaaaargh!!!”

It was at this point I got up and ran out of the room with a sore leg and a brother rolling around on the floor with laughter.

I realise I’m not alone in this as I often see animals in documentaries getting swarmed by the little gits, and don’t get me started on those images of children in third world countries with flies in their eyes. Their eyes!

But my disdain of these winged wankers was sealed the day I found one sleeping in my bowl of spaghetti. My dad said it was dead, but whatever. Of all the places to shuffle off the mortal coil, why choose my lunch? There was no way I was eating it now, despite my dad insisting it wouldn’t kill me.  I know that flies like to eat poo and I’m not eating anything that has been in contact with something that’s been in contact with poo.

They’re unpredictable, unhygienic, shit eating bastards and I hate them.

So, whilst I was unlocking my gate this morning, I watched this fly intently.  I was expecting him to suddenly fly at my face or land on my leg.

‘Click’

The gate was unlocked and the fly was still sitting there. Interesting. This one was brave.

I opened the gate which I knew would make him fly off (a rare predictability), but no. He didn’t fly off. He fell off.

Yes, that’s right. He fell off.

He was frozen solid.

I grinned all the way to the car.

Tough birds

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The pigeons in London are a law unto themselves; a real force to be reckoned with

I’ve lost count the amount of times I’ve seen them divebombing hapless pedestrians.  I can’t decide if they just don’t see us, don’t like us, or if they’re out to humiliate us by forcing us to duck violently whilst dousing ourselves and the surrounding area in Starbucks coffee.

I suspect it’s the latter.

In fact I was the victim of an attempted flying faceplant yesterday mid conversation, but I saw the little shit coming and simply moved my head slightly to the right to avoid a faceful of beak and feathers.  This caused my friend to smirk loudly at my expense, but I simply looked at her, raised an eyebrow, smiled and coolly said “I saw him coming”. 

What I really wanted to say was “Fucking hell did you see how close that was?? I nearly swallowed the little git!!”

This got me thinking.  Pigeons are relatively resourceful birds with a modicum of intelligence and bags of attitude. They strut around the city ON THE GROUND to taunt us with the fact that they COULD fly but instead choose not to; bobbing their heads like a cockney who’s ‘lookin’ to start sumfink’.

There’s always food lying around in London and there are plenty of spattered statues that will agree these bastards eat very well, so maybe, just maybe they try to relieve the tedium by daring and double daring each other.

They probably sit there with a mate on a windowsill, people-watching.  Their conversation may go a little something like this…

Brian – “See that bloke down there?”
Cyril – “Where?”
Brian – “Down there”
Cyril – “What, the twat on the bike?”
Brian – “No, that one down there taking a photo of his wife and son”
Cyril – “Oh yeah.”
Brian – “I dare you to take his head off him just as he takes the photo”
Cyril – “Nah, I’m knackered. I’ve just spent twenty minutes flicking that piece of crust up in the air over and over again”
Brian – “Go on”
Cyril – “No”
Brian – “I double dare you”
Cyril – “Well in that case I’ll take his bloody head off”
Brian – “Go on then”
Cyril – “Ready?”
Brian – “Ready”

He swoops at the man’s head, full on, without stopping.

The man shrieks, ducks and drops his camera.  A passer-by laughs, then shuffles off unapologetically.  His wife and son go over to check he’s ok.

“That’s my boy!!” shouts Brian from his perch, “he folded like a cheap suit!”

“I think he shit himself!”, Cyril shouts back, laughing.

Brian breaks into a football style chant, “Who’s the wanker, who’s the wanker, who’s the wanker on the floor?  Who’s the wanker on the floor?”

They both laugh.  Cyril flies back up and joins his buddy on the perch.

“Now, about that twat on the bike”

Hopping mad

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Today I left the office about 7 minutes early in the attempt to get the earlier train home.

I walked past my usual underground station and instead walked to the next one, thus avoiding a change of line and therefore saving time.  

Im so bloody clever.  

I entered Warren Street station and flashed the guard my paper ticket which meant he let me through the empty barrier and I didn’t have to queue with the Oyster zombies who get stopped by the barriers every 10 seconds, and who then touch and retouch their cards against the reader as if the words ‘Please seek assistance’ lit up in bright red somehow don’t apply to them; meanwhile the queue of shuffling undead behind them are getting increasingly hungry for more ‘braaaains!’, presumably for the twat at the front with the defective card.

So as I said, I sidestepped the masses and whizzed through.

I’m so bloody clever.

I nipped in front of a family of suitcases being pulled by imbeciles who clearly couldn’t drive them and did the quickstep down the left hand side of the escalator and onto the southbound northern line platform, where there was a train waiting to leave.

Now usually I would let it go, walk to the front of the empty platform and join the follow up train so I’m at the exit when I reach the busy Victoria platform at the end of my journey…because, well, I’m so bloody clever. However, as I’m in a hurry, I jump straight on as the train doors are closing with a master plan formulating in my ‘braaaains!’. At every stop I’m going to get off the train, walk down the platform and rejoin the train. This means I’ll still be at the exit when we reach Victoria.

I’m so bloody clever…and a bit smug.

At Oxford Circus I do exactly that and managed to move forward 3 carriages.

I’m seriously so bloody goddam clever.

(Why doesn’t everyone do this?)

We pulled into Green Park and I did the same again, only this time I made it to the front!

I’m so bloody cle….oh shit. I couldn’t get on. Too many people.

Shit shit shit.

Ok, the next one was in 2 minutes and there was only one person in front of me on the platform, so I’ll still get there quite quickly.

Ah, I was denied access on that one too.

Cock.

I ended up missing the earlier train I was so desperate to catch and ended up on my usual service anyway.

I’m so.

Bloody.

Clever.

Fire at the end of the tunnel

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This morning’s train journey into work has been a cavalcade of events.

The first annoyance was some tracksuited rudeboy who looked a lot like Akon boarded the train and sat there with headphones on talking into his phone like it was a walkie talkie.

I hate when people do that (see https://headinablender.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/hello-is-anyone-actually-there/)

His voice was a combination of Jamaica and African with a hint of stoner and a large splash of penis. He spoke incredibly loudly and nobody seemed to want to sit near him for some reason.

As the train decided to crawl at fuck all miles per hour, constantly being stopped at red signals and awaiting platforms at various stations, the monotony of the journey was broken by two guards who were checking tickets in tandem.  At first I thought they were doing half a carriage each to save time, but no…we had to provide evidence we’d paid for this embarrassment of public transport a second time.

What I did revel in slightly was the fact that Akon didn’t have a valid ticket. I think he was hoping that the guard, being a black guy, would somehow cut him some slack as a fellow ‘brother’. I’m not being racist; he leaned towards the guard and said “come on brother”.  That was my first clue.

It wasn’t working.

This was evident the second time the guard pointed out that his train pass was in fact a staff pass for London transport and not vaild on trains outside London. Akon feigned ignorance saying he didn’t know and that no one at his company told him.  He was fooling no one and got charged his penalty fare.

It was at this point I decided to have a snooze. After all, the speed this train was going I had at least 6 hours until we reached London.

The train started to get busier and busier. Every time I opened my eyes I was was surrounded by more and more people, all of whom were coveting my seat like a hyena to a feasting pride of lions.

At one point I was woken by a guy loudly offering his seat to a pregnant woman.  The tone of his voice suggested he was pissed off no one else had done it.  The reason I sensed this was because he said “it’s ok fellahs, I’ll make sure she gets a seat”.  I’m sure the woman didn’t feel guilty at all after that.

Soon enough we stopped about 3 stations outside London. The guard’s voice blared over the tannoy in his best broken English to announce that although we had stopped in a station they were not opening the doors as it wasn’t a scheduled stop.  This was despite the fact that the train was crammed solid and there were people collecting outside the doors like children around an ice cream van.

We sat there. We sat there some more. We sat there a bit longer and other passengers I noticed were starting to get restless. The huffing had begun.

The guard’s voice came over the speaker system again to point out that there had been someone taken ill on another train at the next station and we couldn’t move until the ambulance had sorted them out. My fellow commuters had that ‘i’ll give them a reason for an ambulance’ look on their faces and the huffing had evolved into sly comments and moans; desperate for someone to acknowledge them so they could enter into a mutual bitch about the rail service and how late they were going to be for work. The guy opposite me tried, but I was having none of it.

I texted my partner in crime and fellow manager at work, Sarah, to tell her I was running late. She then promptly rang me.

It’s at this stage that I feel it important to point out that the carriage was deathly silent, despite being wall to wall with people.  All that could be heard aside from the huffing and puffing was the click of phones and keyboards, no doubt moaning digitally to the world about the inconvenience they were having to endure on the nice, warm, comfy train.

Sarah told me she had made it into London, but Victoria underground station was closed due to a fire. When I replied “Victoria is closed?” you can only imagine the reaction of my sardined brethren. I took this opportunity to smile and reply with, “I think you’ve just made me the most unpopular person on this train!” .  This earned me a couple of grins but mostly a mass ‘for fuck’s sake’ groan rose from everyone.  They were all staring at me like I’d just laid my manhood across the table and asked anyone if they wanted to plug in my dongle.

Sarah told me she’d decided to attempt getting a bus to work and we ended our call so I could begin fielding questions from my new ‘friends’. They were so happy to hear that the stress was going to continue when they reached London.

The guard came over the tannoy a couple more times to tell us we weren’t moving, which we’d figured out considering the scenery had stopped going past the window.

The guy opposite me stopped huffing and puffing long enough to jokingly ask the pregnant woman if she was planning to go into labour.  Personally I thought she should start looking at good schools because we may be here a very, very long time.

Eventually we started to move and there was an inaudible, but definite, sigh of relief.

Three minutes into our breakneck journey of 1mph the guard then announced there was a fire at Victoria and the underground was closed.

Cue a massive groan.

Everyone looked at me and half smiled. I held my hands up, smiled back and gave my best ‘see I told you…don’t shoot the messenger’ face. Suddenly I felt cool and current with my finger on the pulse of shit going down. Mostly I was just thankful that I was no longer the misguided focus of their blame.

So after 3.5hrs commuting into work and subsequently turning up late, there was nothing I loved more than “so glad you could join us” and “good afternoon” quips from my lovely colleagues.

I need a coffee.  Now.

A game of squash anyone?

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The London Victoria tube station was a nightmare this morning. 

It was packed solid with bodies all desperate to mash themselves against the stranger in front of them, just to get to a place that deprived them of a lovely lay in this morning; work.

As I watched each train come and go, taking with them various sized chucks of the masses, I was edging closer and closer to the front of the herd, and subsequently the edge of the platform.

“Stay behind the yellow line ladies and gentlemen!” came a man’s voice, barking over the tannoy.

I looked down, and sure enough there was a yellow line a few inches away from the concrete precipice of death that I was unnervingly close to.  I tried to shuffle backwards but considering there was a wall of iPads, handbags, newspapers and groins behind me, I didn’t shuffle very far.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please continue to move down the platform!”, came the earsplitting tannoy again.

He was starting to sound annoyed.  I suspect he wanted to bookmark his sentences with “For fuck’s sake” and “What is wrong with you people?”, but had decided against it for his love of a salary.  I had read between the lines.

“Please continue to move down the platform!  There is heavy congestion at the back of the platform and there’s more room at the front of the platform; please continue to move down the platform!”
 
There was a small pause before he continued; this time with an air of lighthearted sarcasm.

“You never know, you might actually be able to get on the train”.

I smirked.  Good for him.

There was another short pause before his exasperated voice came back.

“Or alternatively you could just ignore what I’m saying and stay exactly where you are, getting nowhere!”

A few of us chuckled.  None of us moved.

Pay attention…

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The guard on the train just made the usual announcement as we approached a station.

She then stood there for a second, turned to the nearest passenger and asked him; “Did I just say Horsham or Haywards Heath?”  

The guy looked at her with a mortified blank expression and replied with an astute and calculated, “wha, what?”.

“Did I just say Horsham or Haywards Heath?”, she repeated.

He was clearly shitting himself now as other passengers had started to look up from their reading material and were watching; fully aware he didn’t have a clue.

And then, in a heartbeat, she grinned at him and said “You werent even listening were you?”  

Ha ha, awkward.  

She then shrugged, uttered something like “meh” and strolled up the carriage, leaving him to sob gently inside.

Brilliant.