I am livid

People often ask me what sort of person I am, whether I am a ‘glass half full’, or ‘glass half empty’ sort of person. I inevitably respond by making it clear I am the sort of person who would never serve anyone half a glass of anything, and I expect to be treated the same.

Who gives out half a glass of drink anyway? The tight bastards. I can imagine the first person to ever to ask this utterly shit philosophical question was merely short of booze and looking for a way to justify short changing their guests.

“Hang on, this glass of beer seems to be missing a quantity of liquid.”

“Ah yes!” responds the completely inadequate host “But the question is, do you think the glass is half empty, or half full?”

“Are you taking the piss? You’ve run out of booze again haven’t you?”

“No, I am merely interested in determining your philosophical outlook on life.” 

“Get fucked! I knew we should’ve had gone to Dave’s for poker night. This is fucking shit.”

Don’t be a tight arse, fill up everyone’s glass.

I recently took advantage of a sale at HMV and purchased some DVDs for my collection. These included the box sets for BBC’s Planet Earth and Blue Planet series, as I like watching a bit of nature on my big television with Dolby surround sound. It makes me feel like I am one with the world, from the comfort of my own sofa.

I recently wrote about vegetarians, and their so-called love of animals, but I find this same ‘love’ from the makers of nature documentaries to be extremely hypocritical. How can someone who claims to love animals sit idly by whilst they watch a poor defenceless creature having it’s ass handed to it, or a polar bear swimming out to sea and to its certain death?

It is sickening. If I did such a thing in the local park I would be reported to the RSPCA again. Apparently they are OK though, as it is deemed bad form to interrupt or influence anything which is behaving as per its natural instincts.

I am pretty sure that the police would take a very different view if you stood by and filmed a violent sexual predator in action. My applications for such a permit have been refused so far, anyway.

But what’s the difference? After all, it’s just me filming an animal responding to his natural urges, right?

I have often considered it strange that discussing someone’s potentially violent death is often seen as a form encouragement.

“Oh go on, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow!”

This phrase has always struck me as slightly threatening, especially from my mate Dave, what with him being a bus driver.

But why does the phrase have to focus on such a painful demise anyway? Perhaps we should all try and soften it a bit, “Oh go on, you could die peacefully in your sleep tomorrow!”

See? That’s a bit more pleasant, isn’t it?

It’s not as if alluding to being hit by a bus is particularly accurate either, statistically speaking. You are much more likely to die of some sort of hereditary condition, heart disease or cancer than being hit by a bus.

If someone wanted to encourage me to do something I wasn’t planning on doing, then they would be much better off referring to one of the more believable terminal illnesses, as then I might at least consider the merits of what they are proposing. If they were to start off with the bus thing I could not help but point out the slim possibility of such an outcome (unless it is Dave in which case I just look to clarify his shift times).

I do not understand how vegetarianism is so popular. It makes no sense whatsoever. It is entirely against our evolutionary imperative as human beings (my apologies to all the non human beings reading this in the future).

It is not that I dislike vegetarians personally. Not at all. In fact, I have met some quite fit vegetarians over the years, I just imagine them to be less than enthusiastic lovers. I guess I am the kind of guy who thinks that any woman capable of sucking the meat off a T-Bone is a good egg.

Vegetarianism just does not make sense. To make my point I would ask you to take evolution back a few thousand years and picture a hungry carnivore in his cave, if he was starving he would simply go out and bang the nearest Buffalo on it’s head, and then “Pow!” He is fed.

But what if you were to picture his herbivore neighbour in the same hungry predicament. Did he wander outside and ask himself, “I wonder how that potato I planted this morning is getting on?”

I do not think it is any coincidence that we have yet to discover any cave paintings of broccoli  florets.

The only acceptable reason to be a vegetarian is not a love of animals, but that you really hate plants.

I had suggested to a few friends that we go along to one of the comedy nights hosted by Richard Herring at the Lyric in Hammersmith. A few people were interested, so I bought four tickets and made my way there in the evening with my ex-flatmate, where we would meet with my friends Amy (who has written a couple of posts on here) and Red Face Paul (about whom I have written occasionally).

I had forgotten however that both Amy and Red Face Paul had been in the pub since lunchtime. This fact became abundantly obvious when we arrived at the Lyric bar and they waved and screamed their welcomes at us across about fifty theatre goers.

Despite my silent prayers, the hole in the ground failed to appear, yet again, and so after getting some drinks we made our way to the stalls and our seats.

Mr. Herring began his routine about potatoes being the apples of the sky for French people, when Amy turned to face me and said, in the shouted whisper that only incredibly drunken people are capable of, “I’VE HEARD THIS BEFORE!”

“Yes.” I whispered, properly, “It was in his Edinburgh show that we saw a couple of years ago.”

“RIGHT. IT’S STILL GOOD THOUGH.”

The show moved on, and she finished the bottle of wine she had successfully snuck into the auditorium from the bar. Pappy’s Fun Club did their set, which closed with a bit of an audience participation sing song, and which most people ignored to begin with. Except Amy.

Now, Amy can not sing. At all. She is so tone deaf that her singing can jump across entire octaves mid sentence. And jump it did. Several times. Once again the hole in the ground failed to appear, though I did manage to lower myself in my seat by a several inches.

After the interval we retook our seats and within five minutes her head was bent backwards as if she was looking at the ceiling. Only her eyes were closed and she was on the verge of snoring. The positive angle here was that I could use any of the jokes I heard in her presence and she would think I was very funny. This was weighed up against the possibility of something falling from the Circle above into her open mouth and choking her.

I let her sleep.

Right until the point she awoke with a start and began talking rather loudly.

“LET ME HAVE A GO!” she began, “I’LL HAVE A GO. GET ME A MICROPHONE.”

For some reason she seemed to think that Sean Hughes wanted her on the stage with him. It took almost a minute to convince her that this was not the case, and included a threat of actual bodily violence. From her to me, for clarification.

The show came to its rousing conclusion, and Amy fell asleep the moment she got in the car to go home. I have not spoken to her yet to see how much, or indeed little, she remembers of the show.

It is late and I am pissing about on Facebook, in my real account, not my I am Livid one. I have accepted a friend request from someone and almost immediately a message appears in my Inbox.

“Hi angry saw u were online so thought id say hi. do u remember me at all.”

I begin to feel like I have made a terrible, terrible mistake.

It is all well and good accepting Facebook friend requests from people with whom you share mutual school friends. They must have been at school with you, right? I am notoriously bad with names, but very good with faces, so if I see a picture of someone I recognise, I accept the request.

But she had not put up a photo when the request came through. Instead it was the generic blue question mark. We had five joint friends, some of whom were quite fit at school, so I decided to accept her.

But now the dilemma. No, I did not remember her. Which means she was definitely not on the A List of school hotties. I remember those particular girls very very well indeed.

I was at a complete loss.

So, did I say that I did not remember her and admit, somewhat embarrassingly, that I accepted her request because of some shared fit female friends we have?

Or pretend that, “Yeah, of course I remember you. How could I forget! Oh the laughs we had. You know, with our other joint friends and that. And the teachers, phew, they were a nightmare weren’t they? Yeah, I remember everything about school. Definitely. So tell me about what you’ve been up to. Do you still have the same height, hair, weight or distinguishing marks that you might want to mention?”

I imagine if there is a process on Facebook for having a friend removed she is in the middle of it right now.

Apparently an incredibly bad haircut and a ridiculous name are not considered ‘cruel’ by the RSPCA.  Technically they consider any report of such crimes to be ‘time-wasting’.  I bet it would be different if it were my Labrador shaved like Lion and called Fifi.

If your girlfriend mentions an itch she ‘just can’t scratch’ she is not politely suggesting you buy her an industrial sized pot of Canestan. She is dumping you.

And it is very difficult to return large pots of Canestan.

Yesterday was Saint George’s Day.

I didn’t actually realise it was Saint George’s Day until the afternoon, as it tends not to be celebrated with any form of street carnival or fireworks. Which is a shame for Saint George. If indeed that is his real name.

You see, Saint George was from what is now called Turkey. I have been to Turkey. Twice. And I never met anyone over there called George. This is why I believe that some tinkering with the history books has occurred.

“Thank you for saving us from that terrible dragon! What is your name oh dark stranger with a funny accent?”

“I am Ibrahim of Anatolia, slayer of of the quite-big-for-round-here lizard!”

“Thank you, George.”

“No, you must have misheard me, it is Ibrahim of Anatolia.”

“Yes, but George is such a nice….English name.”

“But…it’s not my name.”

“I know that, it’s just we’re going to have such trouble getting people to celebrate this day in the future as it is. If people thought your real name was Ibrahim, and that you were from Turkey of all places, then even the skinheads would start ignoring your day.”

“Right. In that case, I am George! Slayer of the giant lizard!”

“And can we call it a dragon? It scans much better.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

I am livid - Giving you the stuff they don’t put in our history books.

I was shocked to see that John Prescott announced over the weekend that he was a sufferer of Bulimia.

Not shocked that he had it, more that the qualification criteria to be defined as a bulimic is so much lower than I had thought. I was always under the impression that bulimia sufferers would sneak off after every meal and make themselves sick. I did not realise that you were also bulimic if you threw up after every six hundredth meal. I would prefer to concentrate on the many MANY meals he consumed that were allowed to fix themselves to his ample waistline. I suppose we finally have an explanation for his second Jaguar, it was nothing more than a mobile larder.

I always thought that one of the nice side effects of being bulimic was always remaining skinny. How are we supposed to spot them now? We could always look out for traces and smell of vomit, but I do not wish to tarnish this country’s binge drinkers with the bulimia label.

There is of course the possibility that he came up with the story to help sell his book.  I am not saying that he definitely did, but it is a possibility.  It would be pretty difficult coming up with a believable and sympathy-earning failing after being part of that government.  David Blunkett bagsied the blind thing, and Jack Straw got the familial drugs shame, so I guess he had little left to work with.  He tried the adultery angle, but that didn’t seem to work, so I suppose an eating disorder was a logical choice.

I just want to know how big he would be if he had never thrown up a meal in his life?

Living in an area popular with tourists, I tend to see a lot of them as the weather improves. It is a pain in the arse, frankly, but tourists can provide their moments of humour. I very much enjoy misinforming them and it brings a little joy to an otherwise dull day.

“Yes, the queen tends to get her lunchtime cornish pasty from over there, normally between 12 and 12:30. She wears a disguise, so be vigilant. She came dressed as a black teenager yesterday, she is very good.”

There is however one group of tourists that I do not understand, and that is the Japanese. They take more photographs than any other nation on the planet, yet I have never seen any of them smile in a single one of them.

They will readily stand in front of the castle or some famous monument and joke amongst themselves, but the second the picture is to be taken, it is an instant return to stoney-faced silence and a look that suggests an imminent return to Death Row.

Is smiling in photographs a social faux pas in Japan? I do not think HSBC mentioned that in their adverts, so I can not be sure. I will ask them next time I am in the branch.

Or maybe I am wrong and have been a bit of a racist, and it is fact the Chinese that fail to smile? That would be more easily understood if you imagine their return to China and interrogation at passport control.

“Did you have a good time?”

“No. It was rubbish. Look. We were miserable the whole time. We are pleased to be back in the homeland comrade. But, we can go back next year, right?”

I am in the pub and can not help but hear the following conversation.

“Is it a boy or girl?”

“We don’t know, and don’t want to know. It’ll be a surprise. Apparently you get male and female sperm, so I guess it depends on which were the stronger swimmers.”

“Breast feeding?”

“Yeah probably.”

“Excellent. I think it’s best all round to go that way.”

The conversation then began to turn to baby clothes and decorating but I had heard enough.

“Seriously boys, it’s midweek pub night, can we please talk about the football. Please?”

It is hard being a manly man in situations where your many of your peer group are either new fathers, or are about to join those ranks. My interest tends to end with the act required to have a baby (not book a flight Malawi like Madonna, I mean having sexual relations of the penetrative kind).

Do not get me wrong. I will tolerate conversations that veer in the direction of babies and stuff, but not on midweek pub night. That is unacceptable.

I do not interrupt the pillow fights on Girls Night with a critical appraisal of technology for goal line decisions, because that would be very very wrong. I would stay in the shadows and watch from a distance like all normal men.

If baby photos ever get brought in then the whole place is going up in flames, mark my words.

Drunk people are funny. There is no escaping this fact. I realise that much of the humour they bring to the world is unintentional, but that does not make it any less valuable.

As the weather has been improving a little bit of late, and with the lighter evenings, it seems that midweek drinking is again on the rise. And with it incidences of alcohol-induced hilarity.

Just last week I saw three ‘youths’ being ejected from a pub on the High Street in town. Nothing unusual in that you might think, except it was about 8:30pm and they were all utterly arseholed.

The really amusing part was when the ring leader then turned to face the quite-enormous-actually bouncer and took what could best be described as the Karate Kid stance.

“Come on then!” shouted inebriate number one.

I had to stop and watch. My friends could wait. The prospect of seeing a chav-on-the-town torn limb from limb was far too much to pass up.

“Go home, before someone gives you a beating.” replied the bouncer, perfectly calmly.

The lead chav then did what I suspect in his head resembled the finest moves of a particularly intimidating Fourth Dan Karate Black belt. In reality, to those of us fortunate enough to witness the act, it was more like watching a desperate man fighting with a wasp caught inside his jumper.

Now out of breath, and unbalanced, he finally relented, and with a parting shot of, “You’re lucky you’re a chicken mate!” at the bouncer, he was gone.

I live by the rule that if you are going to start a fight when you are drunk, you must ensure it is with someone at least as drunk, if not more so, than you. It is a very simple rule, and has prevented me from having my arse handed to me on a plate on several occasions.

I would love to know if a drunk ever won such a fight? One where he is both drunker, and weaker than his opponent? I picture a scene where he is all flailing arms and wild kicks as he luckily takes down the nineteen stone judo instructor. I can imagine his reaction, “I fucking KNEW it, I AM invincible!” shortly before being mown down by a passing bus.

Drunk people are hilarious.

When I was at school, we had plenty of thick kids around. I know this because I was considered to be of ‘well above average’ intelligence. When I was ten a teacher told my parents that I should start bringing in a newspaper as there was little more they could teach me.  For that to be the case there must have been some really fucking stupid children around me.

However, it is extremely rare that we hear parents describing their children in such terms. Yes, I am sure you all have high hopes for little James and Felicity, but let us be honest here, the world needs the trolley collectors and shop assistants. Otherwise I would have to carry two baskets around with me and would spend ages looking to find where the bread has been moved to this week. It is a fact that simpletons make our lives easier.

So why not admit the truth. Your child is a bit of a half-wit. We are not necessarily talking about them being eat-their-own-elbow stupid, but we both know they are are never going to medical school.  There are far too many excuses for vacuous behaviour in my opinion, such that a simple explanation of blatant stupidity is regularly ignored in favour of Attention Deficit Disorder, Learning Difficulties, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia etc. There are a million conditions that the modern parent can cling to as the reason their child is not excelling at school.

But why can’t it be that they are simply ‘a bit stupid’? It happens. There are many, many stupid people out there. The fact that Big Brother is in its ninth year is testament to this fact.

Each year when the exam results are published, and the relative performances of local schools are compared, why can’t we have an honest Head Teacher come out and say, “You know what, we have an excellent staff, we work hard, and we did everything we could, it’s just that we had a particularly stupid bunch this year. Lightening doesn’t strike twice, so come back next year when I am confident we will score more highly.”

So come on, who is honest enough to admit they have a relative who is just plain stupid?

They have introduced some new recycling bins where I live. This is a good thing, as I like to do my bit to save the world.

It reminded me of my first few days in the flat which I now call home. I was under the impression I had already told this tale, but a quick search of the site, and it became clear I had not.

Anyway.

Like any incredibly popular individual who has moved to a new home, I had a small house-warming gathering. It went without incident and without complaint from my new neighbours, which was nice. The following morning I gathered together the many empty beer bottles, to recycle them and once again do my bit to save the world. A bit like a quite limited or uninterested superhero.

I ended up taking out approximately four carrier bags full of empty bottles and put them carefully in the clearly signed communal recycling bin. As I was returning from the bins I was greeted by one of my new neighbours.

“Hello, are you the new person at [number removed for secrecy reasons]?” asked the elderly lady in front of me.

“Yes. Yes I am. Hello.”

“Hi, my name is Margo. I just wanted to let you know that the recycling bin doesn’t take glass. It’s paper and plastic only.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I’m afraid so.”

There was a bit of a tense silence as if she was waiting for me to say something else. Something like, “That’s a bit silly isn’t it?” or “I bet it wasn’t like that in the war?”

“They won’t take that glass you know.” she continued after our brief silent stand-off.

“Um, would like me to take it out of the bin?” I asked, hoping that this was not what she was implying should happen next.

“What a good idea. There’s a glass recycling facility a mile down the road.”

So this was how after just a few days in my new home I found myself climbing into a bin to retrieve about seventy beer bottles, all so I did not offend a new elderly lady neighbour. I was weak in those days.

On the plus side, about two weeks latter one of my friends was sick outside her front door.