You f’coffee?

Posted on Apr 4, 2013 by headinablender

Following my recent entry about the correct way to make tea…

https://headinablender.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/fancy-a-cuppa/

…I’ve since been drawn into the great instant coffee debate.

In my Oscar winning portrayal of a person who gives a shit, I pretended to listen to the same tedious issue of whether you put the milk in first, or the water.

Frankly, I opt for the coffee, but hey….I don’t want to appear picky.

Preparing a mug of instant coffee is even easier than tea. The word ‘instant’ is a bit of a clue.

Repeat after me….

Spoon the coffee into a mug
Add the hot water and stir
Add milk and sugar/sweeteners to taste.

It makes my brain hurt to think that some people still can’t get this right. It surprises me that they’re able to dress themselves in the morning or brush their teeth properly. Most of them have toothpaste in their hair.

These Costa cockheads believe the perfect instant coffee is achieved by putting the cold milk in first before adding the hot water. If you attempt to educate these caffeinated cretins they resort to the dumbest argument in the history of the history of arguments.

“Boiling water burns the coffee which is why I put the milk in first”

Excuse me, what??

“I said boiling water burns the cof…”

Yes I heard you. I’ve just never had to process that amount of stupid in such a short space of time.

Instant coffee is designed to have boiling water poured on it. It’s not possible to burn something designed to have boiling water poured on it. Apparently their argument extends to the suggestion you wait until the water has cooled a bit, reducing the validity of the term ‘instant’.

It’s possible to burn REAL coffee made from ground up coffee beans, but not instant coffee.

This is usually met with a derisive sneer from those ‘in the know’.

Well, you unpercolated pricks, this is how instant coffee is created.

The coffee beans are roasted to temperatures in excess of 165 °C, which is a lot fucking hotter than your kettle, but I’ll continue….

The beans are then ground finely so they become soluble and are percolated in water at temperatures of 155 to 180°C. Again, really fucking hot.

“Oh no….what if they burn the coffee??”

Idiots.

Then it’s spray dried or freeze dried, ready to be rehydrated by the boiling hot water from your kettle….or clogged up with cold milk so it can’t dissolve properly.

But don’t take my word for it, look it up. In fact, here…I’ll save you the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_coffee

And I’m sorry, but saying the flavour is better when the milk goes in first is bollocks. No-one likes those little islands of clumped up coffee swirling in their drink.

Oh, and your t-shirt is on inside out.

Danger, mouse!

Posted on Apr 2, 2013 by headinablender

I am currently enjoying the pleasure of having a rodent of some kind scratching away in the loft every night, just above my bed. I’ve attempted laying humane traps to catch the little critter alive, but he’s just not interested in leaving.

Now the word ‘critter’ has changed to ‘fucker’ in my mind so I’ve resorted to poisoning the little shit.

Last night I braved the darkness of the loft to lay some trays of death out for dinner. Interestingly the packet described the little blue pellets as being made from whole wheat, which suggests to me that although it’ll kill the little bastard, at least we know it’ll be nutritional. It actually says the same thing on a box of cereal.

Worrying.

I rarely venture into the attic as it’s cold, dark, full of thick cobwebs like those experienced by Indiana Jones and has no floor. Well I say it has no floor; it has plenty of splinter-rich planks strewn across a maze of ceiling beams and insulation that resembles yellow candy floss. It also houses a dusty water tank that has to be negotiated, complete with various pipes, before you can actually get into the attic proper. My escapades went a little like this…

Reach up, remove the loft cover and bring the ladder down.
Climb the ladder.
Descend back down the ladder and get the torch.
Climb the ladder again.
Swear.
Descend the ladder one more time to get the poison.
Climb the ladder.
Clamber over the water pipes and under the roof beams like a cat burglar in a room full of lasers.
Have the belt loop on the back of my jeans catch on the roof beam by literally a millimetre, but enough to halt my progress.
Attempt to push through regardless.
Hear the material threaten to rip, so arch my back to dip under the beam and subsequently rub my t-shirt and face all over the dusty water tank in order to make it to the other side.
Get a splinter in my hand.
Swear again.
Clamber back over the water pipes to get the poison I left by the ladder. Belt loop catches again.
Another splinter.
Much swearing.
Cat burglar back across the pipes, not catching my belt loop this time, but severely dusting my front again.
Kneel down on the hard planks and pour the poison pellets into three little trays.
Freak out when a cobweb strokes my head and thrash out furiously at my face and hair like a madman.
Realise I don’t have enough light, so decide to go back down the ladder to get a lamp.
Belt loop catches again.
Run a long extension lead up to the loft, along with a bedside lamp, both of which snag on everything possible to impede my progress.
Remove the lampshade for better light, burning my splintered hand on the hot bulb.
Swear again.
The lamp falls over. I stand it back up.
Create a makeshift floor with splintered planks for the part of the loft I need to get to.
Crawl across the newly laid planks.
Crawl back to stand up the fallen lamp.
Crawl back out across the planks.
Realise I need more light.
Lean back to reach the torch which happens to be just out of reach behind a roof beam by literally an atom’s width.
Swear again, loudly.
Crawl back to get the torch and then back out to where I’m placing the trays.
Swear again.
Crawl back, pick up the trays.
Spill one of the trays all over the floor.
Another splinter.
Breathe gently.
Pick up the fallen lamp.
Crawl back out to where I need to be.
Place the trays amongst the cobwebs and dust, accompanied with the words “And fucking stay there you bastards!”
Make my way back to the ladder with the extension lead, hot lamp, lampshade, torch and box of poison.
Belt loop gets stuck on the roof beam.
Throw down all items in a mild rage.
Hot lamp bulb sticks to the plastic tarpaulin covering the water tank, causing the plastic to melt all over the bulb and creating an acrid burning plastic smell.
Everything (except the lamp) thrown down the loft hole and onto the landing below.
The extension cord tangles on the ladder.
Swear.
Climb down the ladder.
Climb back up the ladder to put the unopened sachet of poison back in the loft for the next time.
Climb back down the ladder.
Untangle the cord and burn hand on the hot lamp bulb.
Get the Dyson out to clean up the shattered lampshade.

Bon appétit you little shit.

Fancy a cuppa?

Posted on Mar 28, 2013 by headinablender

Being British, we tend to default a lot of our inane smalltalk to three tedious topics; the weather (and how shit it is), our health (which some people go into FAR too much detail about, including aches, pains and various forms of discharge) and how work is. The latter is usually answered with one of the following gems:

“Ah, y’know, work is work”
“It pays the bills”
“Knackering”
“Same old, same old”

It’s never answered with:

“I fucking love it and everything about it! My boss is awesome! Here, have some money!”

It should be answered with:

“Work? Work!!? That soul sucking pit of mindless oppression is slowly driving me to drink. The mindnumbingly malignant fuckwits I call colleagues only serve to remind me that I’d rather be somewhere else, covered in jam, armpit deep in a fire ant colony, licking piss off a thistle. But thanks for asking”.

I wonder how that would be received?

The other less common, but certainly contentious and inevitable subject, is tea making. I’ve lost count the amount of times I’ve been drawn into debates about the correct way to make tea. It’s surprising how strongly people feel about the process which begs the question; ‘why don’t you just get a life?’

I’ve been told on many occasions that I make it wrong. Wrong? I’ve been berated for the order in which I add the various components. I’ve also not given a shit each time, but still they push on.

I personally make it like this:
Teabag in.
Hot water in.
Stir and squash the bag to let it brew.
Add milk.
Squeeze the teabag and remove it.
Add sugar or sweeteners to taste.

Simple.

And yet I’ve been told you should put the milk in before the water. Before? Are you fucking serious? Firstly, tea only brews in hot liquid (which milk isn’t). Secondly, the milk clogs up the perforations in the teabags resulting in a shit brew. Thirdly, don’t be a twat.

But what gets me the most is I also get told that I make a superb cup of tea! Doesn’t that mean that I’m doing it right and the rest of you can suck it?

Hmm let me think, er yes it does.

Especially when the person complimenting me on my tea asks me how I do it, only to tell me I’m doing it wrong.

There’s another solution, you make the sodding tea. I frankly don’t care who makes it as long as it’s not me.

One sweetener please.

10 second rule…

Posted on Mar 25, 2013 by headinablender

“10 second rule”

How many times have we heard this from those who have dropped something delicious they didn’t want to not eat?

In fact i’ve heard all sorts of variations ranging from 2 to 15 seconds, which makes me wonder if different germs travel at different speeds. Is the common cold slower that, say, diphtheria? And does the rule vary depending on location? I suppose the 5 second rule may apply to the pavement, whereas the 40 minute rule may apply to, say, my plate.

I remember these sort of situations growing up. My parents would scold my brother and I for attempting to pick up something we’d dropped in an attempt to put it in back our mouths, accompanied by the phrase, “Don’t put that in your mouth, you don’t know where it’s been!”

Actually I do; the floor.

I never understood the difference between eating something I’d dropped and eating something that’s had a fly on it. Flies land on all sorts of shit, including shit. So how’s that different? I remember being told, “Oh it won’t kill you”.

If diphtheria is as fast as I think, it could.

And it doesn’t apply to everything you drop either. Drop a muffin and you’ll consider brushing off the grit, hair and other suspicious detritus and eating it, whereas a malteser can sod right off. No matter how much you blow on it…somehow it’s dirtier and more yuck than the cakey goodness of lemon poppyseed.

Now this brings me to the inspiration behind today’s incredibly overdue entry…

We won’t pick up a malteser, or a boiled sweet and we probably won’t pick up a sandwich either… and yet the other day I watched a guy drop a cigarette in the street, bend down, pick it up off the grimy, wet, footprint riddled pavement, brush it off, blow on it (clearly makes a difference) and then pop it in his mouth.

10 second rule.

Yet somehow this is deemed socially acceptable. Pick up food and you’re gross; pick up a cancer inducing stick of death and you’re just doing the sensible thing. Maybe it’s because they cost so much. That said, I wouldn’t pick up and eat caviar I’d dropped on the floor… mostly because it resembles the crap on the floor you’ve dropped it in.

I once saw a woman drop a cigarette in a suspicious puddle on the dancefloor of a nightclub, pick it up, straighten it and then attempt to smoke it. If that had been her drink would she have got on all fours and licked it up?

Actually, she probably would’ve… it was that sort of club.

But my point is, how come a cigarette is ok but some food isn’t? If both have been dropped on the floor I know which one I’d put back in my mouth… the one that doesn’t slowly kill me.

Mind the gakk!!

Posted on Mar 11, 2013 by headinablender

London underground at rush hour is, in short, a fucking nightmare.

Never before have you seen so many people squished into such a confined space in such a short space of time.

It even gets to the point where it simply isn’t possible to get any more bodies onto the train because there isn’t a molecule of space remaining.

That is… until someone throws up, like they did this evening.

Then suddenly a whole shitload of space miraculously becomes available.

I call it the Moses Effect.

Down wid da kidz

Posted on Mar 6, 2013 by headinablender

Picture the scene…

The train out of London Victoria was going to be departing late this evening. It was sat in the platform, but wasn’t going to be moving for at least another 15 minutes. My friend Barney and I were sat at a table talking bollocks and watching the train fill up with an overabundance of commuters who took advantage of the delay to get an earlier train than they usually catch.

Stood next to us was a couple, although I suspect they weren’t romantically linked; merely colleagues. He was dressed in a full length business coat over his business suit, carrying a business briefcase and sporting business hair. I think he may have been a businessman, but I may have been wrong; maybe a plumber? She was dressed similarly business-like with pearl earrings, starched skirt, Margaret Thatcher hair and perfume that could strip paint.

They were poshly discussing that the train should’ve left four minutes ago. He said it was unlikely we’d have to wait a further 11 minutes until we departed. She agreed that it would be ridiculous for the train to wait until the delayed time displayed on the boards if a space in the ‘traffic’ opened up.

This went on for a good 2 minutes, which may not sound like a long time…but it really is.

The train’s doors then closed and it began to pull out of the station.

It was at this point that Mr and Mrs Business stopped talking, smiled at each other and…without saying a word or indicating any premeditation…they high fived each other.

Full on.

Up high.

It was so out of place that it stopped Barney and I mid-bollocks.

I can imagine it would be like hearing your mum say “Booyah!” or having your dad get down to Dubstep.

There’s nothing wrong with it, except everything.

Signalling a failure

Posted on Mar 5, 2013 by headinablender

This morning my train terminated after two stops due to some signalling failure further down the line.

I wasn’t annoyed at all, considering I was running late this morning and had run around like a headless chicken trying to get to the station on time.

Still, there was nothing I could do. My train was terminating and soon I was going to have to get off my warm, virtually empty train with the comfy seat, and stand out on a frosty platform to await a packed sardine tin of a train that everyone else was going to be getting on.

But, as expected, the two people over the aisle, who clearly didn’t know each other, decided to bond by mutually moaning and whining.

I could go into detail around the guy complaining about the price of tickets and the fact that he only needed to go one more stop blah blah blah…but it was what she said that made me smirk.

“What I don’t understand is why they don’t just go back to manual signals. All these computerised electronic signals; all they do is break down”.

A fair point, I thought to myself.

It’s not like there are literally thousands upon thousands of varying types of signals up and down the country is it? That would suggest that, somehow, railway capacities, schedules and speeds have increased over the years…which is nonsense.

His reply was brilliant, if not a little understated, “They just don’t have the staff”.

Really? They don’t have, like, a billion staff members to man these signals day and night? That’s ridiculous… I’m writing to my MP.

Surely there’s an opportunity here to tackle our unemployment issue in Britain. I’m sure there are loads of people out there who’d love nothing more than to stand out in the cold, right next to a live rail, risking being hit by high speed trains, for hours on end, for minimum wage.

And will it be a set salary for this job? Surely it should be graded somehow based on geography? The signals at Clapham Junction are far busier than, say, Coombe in Cornwall.

And what if someone falls asleep on the job, or is close to a high score on Angry Birds? Surely then it could be said that we have a signal failure…only this time with no advance warning sent ‘electronically’.

Manual signals indeed. What next?

Should I wash my clothes on a mangle to avoid the inconvenience of a washing machine breakdown, or go to a library if my ISP let’s me down and I need to look up one of britains quietest stations to contrast Clapham Junction?

Sorry love, you’re talking bollocks.

Are you going to eat that?

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 by headinablender

Here’s something that really pisses me off.

You’re in a restaurant with friends and you all order your meals. But when the food arrives and your much anticipated delicacy is placed in front of you, one of your friends exclaims loudly “Euw! That looks disgusting! What is that? Are you really going to eat that?”

Did it ever occur to these culinary challenged arseholes that the reason these meals are on the menu in the first place is because there are those of us out there with a palette craving more sophistication than a Big Mac and fries?

Of course I’m going to fucking eat it. Why else do you think I ordered it you prick?

Also, thanks for pointing out that it looks disgusting. No, really….I mean it, thanks. Now I really, REALLY can’t wait to eat it; knowing full well that others at the table may now perceive it as disgusting. Did I say the same about your wife when I met her? No.

At least I get to poop mine out in a day or two.

It seems to get worse with anything salad related. Usually I get told by people that they “don’t eat that green shit”. That might explain why, when we were seated at the table, you decided against sliding onto the bench behind the table by the wall and opted for the chair instead. I know you said it was for better back support and leg room, but you’re fooling no-one.

I have one friend who, whenever the word Parmesan is mentioned, scrunches up his face and squeals “Oh god, come on! What’s wrong with you?”. This is to highlight that I’m somehow an idiot for loving an entire nation’s most revered grated cheese. He then continues to loudly exclaim that it smells like baby sick, over and over again.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never actually smelled baby sick. However, I do concur that it does have an aroma not unlike full grown adult sick. Mind you, Stilton smells like feet and I still absolutely adore it (Stilton, not feet). One could argue that a curry smells* the same going out as it did going in, but does that make it any less appealing?

Does it fuck. Pass me a fork.

He makes matters even more infuriating by announcing that he hasn’t actually tried Parmesan. The smell is enough, apparently. He also doesn’t like Stilton…or any strong cheeses for that matter. He also hasn’t tried any of them either.

When I was 5 years old I probably said that girls smell funny and are disgusting too. How wrong I was.

He then continues to ‘correct’ us all by saying that chicken has no place on a pizza and neither does barbecue sauce. Domino’s and thousands of their customers worldwide may disagree with you, but what do they know? Apparently pizzas should only have pepperoni on them. I suppose he’s just being a traditionalist, although I haven’t the heart to tell him that pepperoni pizza is actually American.

But it’s not just him. Loads of people have sat there and done the whole “Euw! What is that? Are you going to eat that?” shit at various times in my life. Yes, I like a variety of foods:

Liver, steak and kidney, Marmite, artichokes, Parmesan, Stilton, lettuce, parsnips, brussel sprouts (yes, I fucking LOVE brussel sprouts….what’s wrong with the rest of you??), garlic, plain yoghurt, skimmed milk, ice-cream in a bap (the Italians do it all the time, and yet we’re accepting of it in a cone shaped wafer somehow…and arctic roll gets away with it in sponge!), calamari, baked beans, etc…..the list goes on and on.

And these were just the ones I could think of recently.

I do, however, draw the line at things like tarantulas, placentas, sheep’s eyeballs etc…because I don’t want to do something that would make the room smell of parmesan. Otherwise I’m a lover of flavours, textures and variety.

I also once got openly berated for saying that I’d eaten cornflakes for my lunch.

“Cornflakes for lunch? They’re for breakfast; you can’t have them for lunch!”

Oh the scandal!

I did point out that the cereal box didn’t specify that it HAD to be the morning, but it made no difference. What if I worked nights and my morning was actually at 5pm? Would the world implode? Apparently, it’s just the way it is…cereal is for the mornings.

I recall this conversation vividly. We were walking in town on a lunch break and when we’d arrived back at the office my friend approached some colleagues standing outside having a cigarette and said, “Dan had cornflakes for lunch, what the fuck’s up with that?”, to which one of the guys replied, “Yeah? So? I do it all the time”.

Awesome.

In your face traditionalist.

Two days later my berating friend admitted to trying cereal in the evening when he’d got home from work and had loved it.

I’m changing the world, one narrow-minded wanker at a time.

*and feels

Mothertruckers

Posted on Feb 25, 2013 by headinablender

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?

Posted on Feb 18, 2013 by headinablender

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.

Buzz off!!

Posted on Feb 15, 2013 by headinablender

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

Posted on Feb 13, 2013 by headinablender

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

Posted on Feb 12, 2013 by headinablender

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

Posted on Feb 7, 2013 by headinablender

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?

Posted on Feb 6, 2013 by headinablender

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…

Posted on Feb 4, 2013 by headinablender

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.

One slided conversation

Posted on Jan 30, 2013 by headinablender

There’s a guy on the train having a full blown argument….with the door.

He’s getting very animated and at one point I thought he was going to drop his rapidly depleting six pack of beers.

He’s really going for it… talking with a proper ghetto swagger and saying “you get me?” a lot.

Other than sliding open and shut, these doors are pretty inanimate… and yet he’s still losing the argument.

Welcome to my commute ladies and gentlemen.

A door able?

Posted on Jan 29, 2013 by headinablender

In our modern society, technology has made our lives that little bit easier. We can now contact our friends whenever and wherever we want, we have an unlimited source of information to hand 24/7 via the internet and toilets in Japan wash your undercarriage for you when you’re done.

On occasion technology can be a proper pain in the ass when something fails to work.

Case in point…

I noticed at the train station this morning that the sliding entrance doors to the building were ‘out of service’. I know this because someone had taped a very untechnological piece of A4 paper to the door; I can only assume to prevent those of us reliant on technology walking into them face first.

It can happen. I’ve seen it. Fucking funny.

It got me thinking about how a door can be ‘out of service’. If someone says the word ‘door’ we tend to conjure up an image of a rectangular wooden affair with a handle, on hinges, in a frame. The door may be locked, the door may ‘stick a little’, it may even have busted hinges and needs a bit of a push to open…but never ever is it ‘out of service’.

What next?

“I’m sorry, this pot pourri is out of service”.
“I’m afraid the lawn is malfunctioning”.
“I do apologise but the cutlery is out of order”.

(Well actually, to someone with OCD that last one is already a stark reality).

Back in the 80’s I used to dream of the day we would have cool sliding doors like the corridors of the Starship Enterprise. Now they’re an every day reality which we all take for granted, as well as the fact that they regularly break down. We simply read the poorly spelt A4 warning and go to the ‘adjecant door’.

This never happened to Kirk; ever.

And as I remember the embarrassment a few months ago of standing in a revolving door waiting for it to move, only to be told I had to push it; I ask myself this….

Are we becoming too reliant on the convenience of technology?

I’ll Google it.

Dan hates a really arrogant man….

Posted on Jan 28, 2013 by headinablender

I haven’t done a proper blog entry in a while, and I suppose a lot of that is down to procrastination and a lack of interesting things to comment on.

To be honest though, today is not much different.

Having said that, I’m in a particularly shitty mood right now. Shall I share? Oh alright then.

There will always be those individuals who we can’t stand working with, from the depressing mood hoovers to the arrogant sociopaths who sit at the next desk scowling at the world. It’s my job to train, coach and develop these people to be better sales/customer service people.

Actually it’s a challenge to get most of them to be nice to their own mothers to be honest.

As part of my job it’s vital that I remain upbeat, positive and friendly; but on occasion I want to walk over to their desk and punch them square in the chops, the arrogant sour faced bastards.

Today I got quite frustrated because my need to choke the shit out of some arrogant turd had to be suppressed to the point of bursting a blood vessel. In fact I had to go out for a walk in the cool January air just to prevent any actual violence taking place. Luckily for me it started to rain which you thought would’ve made matters worse, but it was still preferable to being within throttling distance from the arsebiscuit who had made my knuckles itch because of the way he’d spoken to a customer.

I had this overwhelming desire to poke his eyes out and replace them with his own testicles so he resembled some sort of bollock-eyed goblin, but my professionalism and desire to evade prison prevented me from doing so.

I’m not an angry man by nature, but when I’m starting to form weapons in my mind from office supplies, alarm bells start ringing.

(slowly puts his stapler in his drawer)

So what do I do now?

I’ve still got half the day to go and I’m ready to destroy someone with a finely sharpened sellotape dispenser.