I am livid

Our planet is beset with problems from top to bottom, from the east to the west, from the grim north to as far South as Watford Gap.

Sometimes I like to think of ways I could improve the lives of the people I have to share my air with, and every now and again I strike upon an idea so brilliant in it’s simplicity, that I am stunned it has not been implemented before.

For example, did you know that there are now more clinically obese people on this planet than starving ones? I didn’t. To me this suggests a simple solution that I’ve called, “The Obesity Exchange”.

This will give our planet the perfect opportunity to balance out the fat and the starving, and show that we really are just one happy global family.

If you recall your childhood, some of you will remember having some sort of exchange programme with a student from abroad, probably France. If you’re like me, this will have done nothing for you except provide some amusing anecdotes about being force fed horse meat and meeting school-girls with hairy armpits.

Anyway, instead of swapping your overweight child with a family of garlic smelling surrender-monkeys, why not send them to a remote village in Ethiopia for the summer? They will get to eat a few less chocolate bars, walk several miles a day for water instead of sitting playing his XBox, and will probably make some good friends. Plus, with a bit of luck, they might contract a minor shitting disease and lose a few more of those troublesome pounds.

In return, you would get sent a skinny African child who you can fatten up over the summer so they don’t get some horrendous life-threatening disease like scurvy or man-flu. You can also introduce them to the true wonders of the First World like medicine, iPods, and YouTube.

In summary, your kid gets a nice tan and loses a couple of inches of flab, and you get to do something good for the underprivileged.

This is a stone cold winner, surely?

Spammers of the world, will you all please just get to fuck!

Genuine readers, you don’t know how lucky you are. This site gets between 20-30 spam comments a day at the moment, but luckily Akismet (note to teccie readers: this is a plug-in for Wordpress) (note to non-teccie readers: It eats spam) (note to retarded readers : I don’t mean ’spam’ as in the shite rubberised meat substitute) catches pretty much every single one. Unfortunately it’s now started deleting one or two legitimate comments as well. For which I apologise, legitimate commenters. It really doesn’t like Ranting Dullard for some reason.

But you spamming cunts with your “Best site I see” and “This site is very cognitive” can seriously fuck off. And who the fuck is Jane? There must be a dozen spam comments a day that start with “Hello Jane!”. Do I look like a fucking Jane? just how many Janes do you know that could benefit from cheap penis enlargement?

I am now officially looking for helpers. Does anyone know if there is any way of tracing these utter cunts, finding out who they are, where they live, going to their house and jamming a broken bottle up into their anuses?

The fuckers don’t even make an effort with me any more. It’s just link after link after link.  It’s almost like they’ve given up with the pathetic facade of trying to be a legitimate commenter, and there’s now a tacit agreement between us and them.

“Yeah, I know I’m a spammer, but I’ll just drop these fifteen identical comments on your site, and you know, someone might come and see super poker and sexy girls, you never know, I mean there’s fuck all you can do about it, and you don’t know where I live.”

For the record, I do not want Cheap Xanax, an Alternative to Phentermine, Naked Girls, Tramadol Ultram, Adipex, Great Poker, Big Tits, Cheap V1agra, or a Bigger Penis.

Well, OK, I’ll admit to being a little tempted by the naked girls and big tits, but seriously, has anyone here EVER clicked on a spam advert? Ever? If so, did your computer explode?

“It’s me next innit, I know it’s you now, but I was deffo next after yous weren’t I?”

I look straight ahead and pretend I didn’t hear her. At this point, eye contact with the voice next to me could only bring me trouble.

“Don’t go looking at Girls Aloud over there, I know I was next innit.”

My peripheral vision informs me that she is massive, and I worry she might sit on me if I disagree, so I nod in agreement. She tugs my sleeve and repeats her demands. Twice. It is now extremely clear that she does not want me to let the pretty girls on my other side get served before she does.

“Make sure you point him at me when he gives you your change cos I’m next innit. I was next before those Girls Aloud wanna-be birds.”

Again I ignore her and focus directly ahead. I am slightly concerned that she might glass me.

“Thank mate.”

The barman gives me my change and I point at the enormous girl to my right. He wisely ignores my cue and serves the pretty girls to my left who do, in fact, look like they could be in Girls Aloud. I admire his bravery and his taste.

I move away quickly in case she wishes to exact swift fat-person revenge upon me for not directing the fearless barman strongly enough.

She might still be waiting for her drink for all I know.

Sounds like a fun day doesn’t it?

If you had the hangover I have right now you would realise it was a mistake of absolutely astronomical proportions.

Normal service may resume tomorrow.

Maybe.

We are different from the animals of our planet in many many ways. We have opposable thumbs, indulge in sex for pleasure, and we can drive a car. All of these are ways in which evolution has been kind to us.

Also, when I see stray dogs rummaging around in bins for something to eat I consider myself lucky that, as a discernible human being, I won’t, eat anything and everything I can see. Unlike the dogs that would literally eat the shit off your shoes.

Then I look at some of the weird shit we do eat, and I realise I am completely and utterly wrong. We are the rulers of the animal kingdom, yet, when it comes to eating weird shit, we are way ahead of the animals.

Animals eat whatever is convenient and requires the least effort. That way they can spend the rest of the time sleeping and cleaning their testicles with their tongues. If we simply ate what was convenient, we would all live on McDonalds or Aunt Bessy’s Yorkshire pudding meals. But we don’t do that. Well, not since leaving University. Oh no. We are different. We actively seek out eating ‘experiences’, and this has led us to eat really weird shit like scorpions, frogs and sweetcorn.

There is literally nothing on this planet that a human has not eaten at least once. Nothing. Try and think of something, anything, and I bet some fucking retard at least licked it. If it was poisonous it probably killed them, so they won’t be able to prove my theory, but trust me, they will still have tried it.

Even things we take for granted, like milk, come from really strange places if you try and imagine the first person ever to have tried it.

“I’m going to squeeze that fucking massive black and white dog, and drink whatever comes out of it. I’m that fucking mental!”

Who dug up the first carrot and decided to try it?

“You’re not going to eat that are you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because you just dug it up from the fucking GROUND, and it looks like a snowman’s nose. Eurgh…”

So, from this point forward my experimental days are over. If you can’t buy it in Sainsbury’s I ain’t eating it.

It is good to praise people for a job well done. Accomplishments should be applauded, and people that show total commitment to the task at hand deserve any recognition they receive.

“Please join me in wishing Debbie every success in the future as she transfers into our Consulting division at the end of this week” read the email.

“She has been instrumental to our success in the last 2 years and has never given less than 200% effort throughout her time as part of our team.”

In isolation this looks like a nice thing to say about someone who is leaving your team after working with you for a couple of years. However, when put it in the context of last weeks email about the success of Project X, then you realise it was a deliberate slight on the character of the remaining team members.

“I would like to congratulate the project team for the outstanding success of Project X. Each and every one of you has contributed 110% effort to bring about such a succesful outcome for the client. I congratulate you all.”

Clearly the Boss was actually calling the Project team a bunch of fucking work-shy slackers that are at least 90% short of Debbies level. I’m sure he is ruefully wondering what a team full of Debbies could have achieved.

All that said, and Debbies ego suitably stroked, Christ knows how she is going to react when I send out this afternoons memo thanking the temp we’ve had in for her 300% effort in looking after the post this week.

Want to smack your co-habitant around a bit?

Fine.

Do you want to watch the torture of a small animal?

Go for it.

Would you like to see two animals fight each other?

No problem!

You want to watch someone smoke a cigarette?

Are you some sort of fucking deviant?!

It appears that Tom & Jerry, the staple of many a childhood evening in front of the television in the days before Xbox, is to be edited to remove any scenes that show people (or cats and mice) smoking a cigarette. Now, I hate smoking, but removing any smoking scenes from a fucking cartoon?! Are they mentally unstable?

In fact, if you’re going to ban just the smoking bits, then the message you are actually sending out to the kids is that everything else in the cartoon is model behaviour. This means it is perfectly acceptable to hit someone in the face with a frying pan, you can become an amateur rodent executioner with nothing more than a broom, and pitting two animals against each other in a fight to the death, purely for entertainment purposes, is to be positively commended.

In essence, we’re telling tomorrows adults (who will one day rule the world) that cats and mice are merely instruments for torture.

Is this what we want for our children? Well, perhaps it is. I mean, cats are fucking shits. Whenever I’ve been told I have the morals of an alley-cat I don’t think it’s ever been meant as a compliment. Even though Top Cat was a pretty nice guy.

Does this ban mean we now assume Osama Bin Ladens fascination with explosives is the result of a childhood spent watching the exploits of Wyle E Coyote? Or that shoplifters around the world are basing their defences on the influence of Yogi Bear and his picnic basket stealing tendencies?

On the plus side, if torturing animals is now OK, I guess that any new drugs will get tested a lot quicker in years to come?

** UPDATE **

The Devil himself predicted this. THREE whole months ago!  Everyone, go over to his kitchen and ask him for the next set of Euro lottery results.  He is clearly some kind of scary clairvoyant.

“Do have your own money?”

“Do you own your own home?”

“How old are you?”

“Have you ever been married?”

“Do you have any children?”

“Don’t tell me, you have a criminal record? You don’t do you?”

“You’re not a pervert then are you?”

I would imagine that every married man reading this has been subjected to questions of this nature by their prospective father-in-law at some point in their relationship, probably before the actual marriage took place. Unless you are retarded, you’re not going to admit to being a pervert at this point, so it all seems fairly straight forward on the surface. Of course, admitting to being a pervert after you’ve married his daughter would make Christmas visits with the in-laws much more interesting. In fact, you probably wouldn’t even have to admit it, you could simply wear a gimp mask whilst carving the turkey, and let him join up the dots by himself.

The point being, that fathers want the best for their little-girls, and they obviously want to ensure they’re not giving her away to some freakish sexual deviant, destitute philanderer, or James Blunt fan. I do not mind this, as it shows they care about who their daughter will end up with, and a loving family background is important when looking for a long-term girlfriend. On my list it is right up there with being smoking hot and having big boobs.

However, I do mind when these questions are asked by a concerned father after you’ve danced with his daughter for all of five minutes.  Even if she was a bridesmaid.  And it was her brothers wedding we were attending.

I have never run so fast in my entire life.

After three automated menus, approximately thirty thousand various numerical options, and about fifteen minutes, I finally got through to someone, a real live person, at the Vodafone helpdesk. After confirming my identity, I had the opportunity, at last, to explain my dilemma.

“Hi, I’m sure you’ve heard about the problems at Heathrow airport this past weekend, well my phone is locked in my hand luggage in a warehouse along with several thousand other bags, and I need to change my voicemail and check for any possible messages from any of my clients.”

“Certainly Sir, what you need to do is dial your number and press 9, you will then be prompted for your PIN number which will give you full access to your voicemail services from any phone”

“I tried that, I don’t have a PIN number set up.”

“That’s not a problem Sir, if you follow the prompts it will set one up for you, it literally takes a few seconds”

“I tried that as well, but do you know what happens then?”

“Excuse me Sir?”

“When I request a PIN number for remote access to my mobile phone, do you know what happens?”

“You get sent the PIN number?”

“Correct. It gets sent as a text message to your phone. Do you see why this is not an adequate solution for me?”

“Because you don’t have your phone?”

“Correct, it is currently sat with several thousand other bags at Heathrow. I need you to assign me a PIN number, so I can get into my messages, change my voicemail greeting and respond to any potentially important messages.”

“Right, could you bear with me for just a moment Sir?”

He then disappeared for a few minutes in search of a solution for me.

“Hello Sir? Hi. I’m afraid that what you are asking of me is impossible, I cannot do that from this system.”

“So those messages will stay out there in the ether until I get my phone back?”

“Correct Sir”

“What if I had lost my phone? Would those potentially critical messages then be lost forever?”

“Oh no Sir, in that case we would recommend getting a new SIM card, activated with your number, which would then allow you pick up any messages, either voice or text, that have been sent to that number since your other phone was switched off.”

Thinking ‘outside of the box’, wanky term that it is, can sometimes be helpful. It appears by paying Vodafone £5, they will issue you with a new SIM card, which gets you back into the world of mobile communication. Why the fuck he couldn’t just recommend that solution in the first place I do not know.

Though far from an ideal situation (I don’t have anyones number at the moment), I was able pick up a new SIM card, borrow a spare phone from a friend, and at last I could pick up my important messages. The really important ones. Which were from my Mum telling me to be careful, someone wanting to use my garage, and an invitation to go out for a beer three evenings ago. It is tough being a proper Captain of industry.

As I mentioned yesterday, Saturdays hangover was right up there with the greatest I’ve ever suffered. The waves of nausea were relentless, and I had to force down a light lunch during the short breaks when I felt I wouldn’t vomit. Being sick on my brand new clothes would’ve been an unwelcome addition to the weekends, already catastrophic, events.

This cycle of nausea, and relief, nausea, and relief, must be what it is like for a woman to go through contractions during a particularly uncomfortable labour. Truly, ladies of the world, I now know your pain.

The evening was much better, and we saw an excellent show from Richard Herring, plus some good ones from Comic Abuse (comedy sketches from three ‘kids’ with a combined age of about 55) and Laurence & Gus. To add to the slightly disappointing DJ Danny from the night before (perhaps I was just in a bad mood).

After listening to the BA auto message another few dozen times on Sunday morning we signed off with a bit of culture by seeing ‘What I heard About Iraq’ which was thought provoking, if a little confusing, with everyone changing accents all the time.

We were then met by our friend to give us a lift to the airport, “I have some good news!”

Our bags had finally arrived in Edinburgh!!!

We stopped at the depot on the way back to the airport to fly home. However, only two of our bags were there. Of course, as you may have guessed, mine wasn’t one of them.

“Where are the other two?” I pleaded.

“I don’t know, there were 17,000 bags left behind at Heathrow, they’re probably still there.” she replied apologetically.

“Great, I guess you can stop them being sent now then? So we can pick them up when we get back there in a few hours?”

“No, I’m afraid not. They’ll be sent up here, then we’ll send them back to you, at home probably.”

This presented me with the unusual situation of my luggage, including my phone, making the short, 15-mile journey from Heathrow to my flat, via Edinburgh, by road. I think we flew over it somewhere near Birmingham at about 10pm on Sunday night.

After creating a pillow-based border in the middle of the shared bed that even the Israelis would be proud of, we made it to the Pleasance Courtyard by about 9pm, where we began to soak up the atmosphere. We then soaked up a lot of alcohol, and saw a show, and then we soaked up a further ridiculous amount of alcohol. If I was going to be forced to spend the night in a bed with another man, I was not going to remain sober enough to have terrifying nightmares about it for the rest of my life. I believe the evening drew to a close at about 4:30am, probably.

The morning brought the mother of all hangovers, along with a mouth surrounded by half-eaten donner kebab and the dawning realisation we had no clothes or toiletries. Having slept in my clothes, my current outfit had been on my person for 24 hours now. I am lucky that my natural musk is such an attractive scent.

I went to reception to borrow their phone so I could get an update from British Airways on our imminently arriving luggage. The receptionist handed the phone over whilst holding her breath, clearly recognising the danger of losing control of herself should she get a lungful of my powerful man-pheromones.

“All our operators are busy, please call back later.” said the automated voice before hanging up on me.

I then borrowed the hotels hands-free phone so I could keep calling whilst sitting in reception.

“All our operators are busy, please call back later.”

I decided to read the papers. Four of them. Back to back. I now know all there is to know about Scottish football, which is quite a lot.

“All our operators are busy, please call back later.”

I learned something about myself that morning. I can read four newspaper in their entirety whilst simultaneously pressing a phones redial button, all in just one hour and twenty minutes.

“All our operators are busy, please call back later.”

It must be said that todays baggage tracking services are a miracle of modern technology. They can pinpoint your bags location anywhere on the planet at any moment in time, and tell you exactly where it has been, and for how long. When you speak to an airline, they can get all of this information at the click of mouse button.

But only if you can actually reach them to ask the fucking question. Read the rest of this entry »

“You do recognise that I am a perfectly normal heterosexual man?”

I’ll grant you, this is an unusual way to begin a conversation with someone you’ve never really met, but this was how I began with the receptionist at the Travel Lodge. Just moments before, I had entered the hotel bedroom to be confronted with a terrifying sight, and had returned immediately to the Reception desk.

“There seems to have been a mistake with the rooms” I continued, informing the somewhat stunned receptionist.

“Really? What’s the problem”, she enquired, switching from stunned to bored in an instant.

“Well, you see, I’m a heterosexual man. As is my room-mate, yet you’ve seen fit to give us a double bed of Lilliputian proportions to share for the weekend.”

“That’s a double room sir.” she smirked reminding my of Alan Partridges receptionist during his Norfolk hotel stay.

“We asked for a twin.”

“No you didn’t”

I then theatrically (and perfectly heterosexually) presented the paperwork, which confirmed the booking transaction undertaken by our Edinburgh-based friend. It showed, quite clearly, without any shadow of doubt, that he had, in fact, booked a double bedroom for me and my flatmate. Thoughts and images of violent revenge took a temporary backseat as I tried to make the best of the situation that now presented itself.

“Can you put us in a twin instead?” I pleaded in my best I-like-girls-not-boys voice.

“We’re fully booked I’m afraid.”

“But I’m a twenty-eleven year-old man. I can’t share a bed with another man. The people on the Internet might get to hear about it. Please?”

“I have nothing to offer you, I’m sorry.”

“Right. And I assume you can’t get us into another hotel?”

“On the second busiest weekend of the year? I doubt it Sir. Perhaps you could try ‘camping’” she sniggered.

“Hilarious. That’s really very good. Well done. Now I’ll have to punch you in the throat. Can I have as many pillows as you can find, and an extra duvet then?”

“Did you just say you’re going to punch me in the throat?!”

“No, I said I’ll probably have to hunch up in my coat, y’know, to keep warm? So, the duvet and pillows?”

“I’ll see what I can do Sir, if you would wait here just a few minutes.”

She returned to Reception a few minutes later with another duvet and two further pillows. This is how I managed to spend £110 a night to sleep on the floor of a Travel Lodge bedroom.

(continued tomorrow)

After finally arriving in Edinburgh, about 2 hours later than expected, I left the ginger mentalist behind and we made our way to the luggage carousel to claim our luggage and begin our little weekend mini-adventure.

It was soon after this that I learned that any sense of excitement you may have fades after waiting more than 30 minutes for your bags to appear.  I learned this because our luggage did not appear. In fact, very little appeared. I watched the same orange strapped suitcase go passed 23 times before going to the BA assistance desk.

“Our luggage doesn’t appear to be here” I said politely.

“It should be.” replied the lady in a surprised tone.

“I know that, but it isn’t”

“Hmmm, let me check, can I have your luggage tags?”

I handed over our little green luggage receipts and she tapped the details into her computer before disappearing into the back room for a couple of minutes. She returned with less than good news.

“It appears the was a problem with a beltway and your bags are still at Heathrow, I’m very sorry.”

“Right. OK. Hmmm. When is the next flight up here to bring us those bags?”

“Well, because of the cancellations due to the security alert, that’ll probably* be tomorrow, we can send them to you, do you have your hotel details?”

“Yes”

“Err, can I have them then?”

“They’re in my hand luggage. Which is still at Heathrow apparently”

“Can I have your mobile number?”

“Certainly, but have a guess where that is too.”

“Right, of course, sorry. Perhaps you could call and tell us where your hotel is when you get there?”

“A cunning plan, thank you”

One of my friends had seen into the future and had written the hotel address on a piece of paper before we left London, so we gave that to her and headed off to the city centres Travel Lodge with nothing but the shirts on our backs, and a slight sinking feeling in our stomachs.

(Continued tomorrow)

* We shall refer to this incident as missed warning sign number 2.

You would have to be from Mars or some remote outpost of human civilisation such as Basingstoke to remain unaware of the problems with UK flights this weekend.

I’m not one to complain without cause (as you all know), and I don’t mind a small delay when it’s for a valid reason, as of course, this was. Check-in was slow, predictably, and putting my phone into a bag just as it was checked-in was disconcerting as my main link to the the world at large was being taken away from me.

We eventually got to board our plane bound for Edinburgh, sans hand-luggage, about 45 minutes late, which whilst slightly annoying, was perfectly acceptable given the circumstances.

We then got to spend an hour on a stationary plane, at the gate, which was slightly less acceptable. The pilot eventually told us that there’d been a problem with something I think he called a ‘beltway’, which had delayed some luggage*, but it was all resolved and we’d be away shortly.

We eventually reached cruising altitude, and I was busy reading my Total Film interview with Will Ferrell, when I overheard the rather strange conversation that was underway next to me.

“Yes it is, no it isn’t, yes it is.” said a slightly animated, if hushed voice.

“It is isn’t it?” came the reply.

“Yes it is”

“What’ll we do?”

“I don’t know, what’ll we do? It is isn’t it?”

This conversation appeared to make no sense, so I continued to focus on my magazine as I dismissed them as weirdo’s heading for the festival, but I realised quite quickly that there was noone sat next to me, which meant there was only one other person in my row. I felt a burning stare in my direction from my travel companions, and as I looked to my left across the isle at them, they looked straight past me at the window seat in my row.

I turned to my right to my right to see a young ginger mentalist in the window seat arguing, animatedly, yet quietly, with himself.

I always thought that the only possible advantage to having an argument with yourself would be that you are guaranteed to win it. I sat corrected as he appeared to be losing, quite spectacularly, an argument with himself.

I was fairly sure that Al-Quaeda would not recruit a ginger youth with mental problems for a campaign of terror, and so decided against reporting him to the cabin crew. Instead, I steadfastly ignored him with my head focused on the publication before me.

For the most part, I was successful in drowning out his garbled muttering, but as we began our descent into Edinburgh he began his into complete madness by graduating from losing an argument with himself, to making to animal noises. Perhaps this was to mock his own poor debating style. On a busy Friday evening commuter flight, animal noises are pretty hard to ignore, no matter how determined you are.

“Quack quack quack” he began with no mention of Old McDonald, or his farm.

“Coooo coooo,” he continued with a warbling impression of the Dove from Above.

The noise of a landing aircraft finally overpowered his Dr Doolittle impression, but as we deplaned (as our American friends call it) he tried to make polite conversation with me. I was quick to counter this by making my best “I am deaf” face and staring straight ahead.

I left him in my wake as I sped towards the luggage carousel with my friends to begin our weekend adventure.

(continued tomorrow)

* We shall call this warning sign number 1.