What made Brian angry today?

That’s it people, the internet is no longer useful, we might as just stop the whole thing now and shut it down. We can use the soon to be empty internet tubes to pipe maple syrup into everyone’s home to facilitate tastier pancakes for all.

The reasoning behind this decision is simple, the internet has been written by blistering imbeciles, and yes I know I write bits of it, but like all useless systems there are a few nuggets of marvel to be had. Sadly not enough to make up for the crap.

In an ongoing tale of woe with my new Barclaycard I tried to sign up to their online website thingie so I could do all the things I did on the old website, quite why I needed to sign up again I’m not sure, surely they could just transfer my data from old site to new? Oh no wait it would seem that their log-in detail requirements are so stupid that it would not be possible at all unless the previous site had also been designed by an undereducated technophobic screech owl.

Firstly they don’t let you choose your username but assign you a random collections of numbers meaning I’ll probably have to write that down to stand any chance of remembering it. Secondly they limit my password to 6 characters, that must be numbers. Why? If I want a 23 character mixed case, mixed character password, surely, you should let me, I will be the one to decide how secure to make things. By all means have some kind of minimum requirements to prevent the simpering idiots out there having a password of ‘password’ or ‘gandalf’. But 6 numbers, that does not strike me as very secure at all.

Next we get to the memorable word, oh that should be easy there are lots of nice words I can remember, pericombobulation, sesquipedalian and angioplasty are some. Alas these are no good, no, for they are not secure. Apparently only words 6-8 characters long are secure enough to prevent Derick and Akin, the only surviving children of late Mr. Mrs Rasheed, a highly reputable business magnet (a cocoa merchant) who
operate during his days in Nigeria, from getting into my account.

Sadly there are really quite lot of 6-8 character words, how will I remember which one I picked?!?!? JOY, RAPTURE, ECSTASY there is a memorable word reminder field which should be a “phrase or question that will remind only you of your memorable word in case you forget it”!

Great, this’ll be easy, I’ll just craft a sentence that will help me out when the mind finally succumbs to the onslaught of port and loses it’s way… Wait what’s this, I can only use 21 characters, what kind of fucking reminder can I fit into that… I’m just thankful I don’t speak welsh at this point.

I finally do manage to register, but the combination of random username, password and meaningless memorable words means that I will have to write this down somewhere, I’m not getting any younger and senility might hit at any moment.

The more cynical part of my mind (all of it) might wonder if they are doing this on purpose so they can deny any compensation claim for stolen funds, if you write down your details and they are “stolen” I’m pretty sure they would claim you lose the right to getting your money back.

Once upon a time, a one, Vincent Gambini had cause to defend a couple of youts who had been wrongly accused of murdering the sack of suds store clerk. Luckily, no one can pull the wool over the eyes of a Gambini and these youts were cleared of murder once we learn about a thing or two about positraction and 1960’s metallic mint green convertibles. However, to two urchins I was forced to encounter this weekend were clearly guilty, of many many crimes…

The first meeting occurred whilst cycling home on Friday evening after a gruelling week of hard graft at the coalface/sitting at a desk staring dreamily into the sun, wondering why my eyes were hurting. It was a meeting that swiftly led me to the realisation that children, anyone under 25, should be banned from using or going anywhere near any form of level, zebra, pelican or general street crossings furniture. They should be forced to just take a chance that they won’t be dashed against the speeding bumper of a passing lorry if they ever wish to cross the road. We can implement some form of simple biometric test at the crossings and any youte flouting the law can just be lasered to death instantly. It’s the only way they will learn not to abuse the things that are put there to help people.

What, you might wonder, lead to such a revelation, well like many historically important people I had an epiphany, for the first of the weekend’s troublesome youtes made themselves known to me.

Whilst wearing some frankly preposterous combination of a stupid baggy hoodie, trousers so low I can barely imagine how they are able to walk and an oversized baseball cap, probably with the price tag still attached so we all know how new and “cool” it is, they decided they needed to cross the road, so like any decent law abiding person wouldn’t do, they just walked out into the road without looking either way.

Sadly the future young offender in question was not immediately struck down and smeared across the road; no they in fact made it safely to the other side, in the process, causing me to have to slow down somewhat speedily to avoid crashing into them. This was pretty irritating frankly as I would have loved to have mown them down there and then, but I did not really have time over the weekend to wash the blood from my bike so decided against this action.

However, what infuriated me the most was than on crossing the road, I spied, whilst swearing at him for being a blistering idiot, that the little fucker then thought it would be a hilariously amusing idea to press the “I want to cross the road” button and then fuck off on his way, leaving a potentially pointless red light just minutes away from happening. He even looked like he had just cured cancer as he did it, such was the brilliance of the gag that he probably spent weeks crafting in his, no doubt, future Nobel prize winning mind.

It things like this that almost make me think that I should run red lights on my bike in future and be damned any old people who are not sprightly enough to get out the way.

The second youte that was encountered infuriated me so much that I think it best to just give you a visual representation of him, which you can see below. I’m fairly sure you can spot one or two things about his overall appearance that would cause any right thinking fashionista to explode with anger.

A Youte in the wild - Yes that is real hair that looks like a tiger print and an atrocious Scarface jacket.

I’m still, some 6 hours later, confused as to what is more irritating, the head or the jacket. Just imagine the time and thought process (if indeed there is a brain in that somewhat curious head) that went into crafting that “look”, and for what, just so people can stare at you with incredulous confusion as to what you are trying to achieve?

I went out for dinner yesterday, it was a nice evening, food was wolfed, booze was swilled, conversation was had.

All in all it was excellent, what was not excellent however, was the serving wench who facilitated us with menus. Like all good restaurants they had a selection of daily specials, there was some soup, that was bean flavoured, I think, the accent was hard to get through to secure the true meaning, it might have been pea, or green. Quite what green flavoured soup would be I don’t know but clearly there was too much ambiguity about the whole thing so I shied away from that item.

They also had another special on offer, lets for the sake or arguments call it “lo sgombro non e’ piu’ disponibile”, that’s not the name but it was something Italian that I could not pronounce let alone remember, apparently it was delicious. I had my doubts as it was made from mackerel, one of the worst fish available if you ask my taste buds, but the description that was forthcoming from the waitress almost made me think twice with the poetic prose that she wove together extolling it’s epicurean wonderfulness.

Only had I wanted to order it, I would not have been able to, for it was so delicious that it had sold out long ago. Quite why she wasted a minute of my life telling me how delightful a dish, that I couldn’t order, was, I never know. Maybe she just likes deliberately wasting the time of the customers in honour of the late Mr. Henry Wensleydale… Also she laughed at me for asking for no mushrooms, I still don’t know why, it made me very suspicious. Hag.

In an effort to not have more tube based barrier angst I thought it might be a good idea to call up my credit card people and do something about this stupid card thing.

So I call up the number on the back of the card and listen to some pleasant ringing for a few seconds before being funnelled into a web of pre-recorded messages, jab 5 for a new face, hammer 2 for some bailiffs to show up at 3am, that kind of thing.

After much jabbing and stabbing of the phones keypad and a period of awful hold music being blasted into my ear I get through to some Indian sounding chap, who, for security, accused me of being 60 something and then gauged the level of my outrage to see if I was really me or not, luckily I am me and the call progressed.

Indian Chap: How can I help you today sir?
Card user: Oh hi, well I recently got a new credit card in the post that comes with a snazzy new thing called Pay Pass. Unfortunately this is causing me some trouble with other cards I have, is it possible to request one without this function in it?
Indian Chap: Ok sir I’ll just have to put you through to the right department to deal with that.

We then enter into the second period of hold music, although it’s got worse, joy. There really should be some international moratorium of this sort of thing, they already have bloody keypad menus why not put them to good use?

Welcome to On Hold Radio, Press 1 for filthy minimal tech house, press 2 for Bavarian Ompa bands, Press 3 for Mongolian throat singers, press 4 to have you ear drums ruptured by soulless teen pop wailing… And so on. Alas this was not there so suffer I had to.

Scottish wench: Hello sir how can I help you?
Card User: Oh hello, I got a new card from you recently and it’s got pay pass in it, however I don’t really want pay pass as it’s causing trouble with other cards, is it possible to send me one without it?
Scottish Wench: I’ll just put you through to the right department
Irate Card user: I just got put through to you as the right department….

Hold music…

Confused but very polite sounding Lady: Hello!
Slight sinking feeling card user: Hi, I have a pay pass Barclaycard…
Confused but very polite sounding Lady: Ok, I’m not sure what that is…
Clearly listing card user: You’re not customer services are you.
Confused but very polite sounding Lady: No, I can put you thorough though if you like!
Sunk card user: It’s ok, I’ll try later, thanks anyway.

So I wait till lunch and call again.

Ring ring
Jab jab jab.
Indian person: Hello, *pointless security question*, how can I help?
Ever angrier card user: I want a card with out pay pass please.
Indian person: I’ll just put you trough!
Scottish person: hello can I help?
Ever more furious card user: New card me, this one is teh bobbins.
Irn Bru swilling Scottish “help” operative: Sorry we can’t help with that, you’ll need to call Barclaycard;
Ever more apoplectic card user: I did, they put me through to you.
Fried pizza consuming Scottish lout: Well nothing I can do here, dial 0844 911…
Incandescent card user: That’s the number I used to get to you… Oh forget it.

I try again, the exact same thing happened, I even threatened Indian Guy with a thoroughly non enforceable “it better be the right department!” but to no joy. In fact I think it made it worse as he sent me through to a total “all cards have that these days sir” hag.

Sadly, when I asked to close me account at once as a result of this outrage, the hag tried to insist that I pay the outstanding balance before doing so, this was the most despicable thing about the whole episode, how dare they demand MY money when it’s THEM that has slightly inconvenienced me a few times in the last week, I mean REALLY! I’ve a good mind to invoke anti-TERROR legislation against them and seize all their assets.

The other day as I was making my way to work I had a slight spot of oyster bother. It seemed that there was some trouble reading my card. Beep beep beep but no joy, eventually however the barriers deigned to do a red sea and part for me thus giving me access to the wonderful tube network.

I sat there trying to read my book, whilst listening to some hag twitter away on her mobile chatter box about some crap or other, waiting to pull into white city, which in time is just what the train did. Joy, work beckons.

I drift up the stairs and get to the barrier and once again it beeps in an error style noise, well this is annoying, maybe I should take card from my wallet and try aga….

*SNATCH*

What the fuck, some tube worker has stolen my wallet. With it firmly grasped in their greasy thieving mits they are jabbing it repeatedly on the sensor. I later learn, whilst drunk and tired and fantastically annoyed by the inconvenience of not being allowed to get home without a verbal sparing session with a tube based ticket man, that she was using up all my credit by touching my card out repeatedly, which was nice. She waves me through, finally giving back my now much flatter wallet. I’m mildly annoyed but work is moments away which is always a happy event so I head off a full bout of rage.

Over the next few days I keep having problems, I get various tube urchins to check the card, nothing wrong, it works fine out of the wallet but not in. Maybe I have some lead money I got from somewhere shielding the sensor, who knows but it’s getting very annoying.

Then today I was gliding down an escalator on my way back from Bournemouth and see an advert, for a Barclaycard, with a built in oyster card… That’s fine, it’s a blisteringly stupid idea but hey not my problem, I don’t have a Barclaycard. Only I vaugly remember that my credit card company were recently taken over (apparently there is some financial crisis at the moment) and I got a new card, a Barclaycard as it turns out, but not an oyster one surely, I would never ask for that… Only on closer inspection it is. The bastards have sent me an oyster credit card without telling me that it’s one and have caused a fucking week of me being that wanker at the barriers holding everyone up due to dual card interference.

The rage inducing realisation of this topped off a nice day of rage.

For earlier I tried to watch a film whilst on the aforementioned train back from Bournemouth, a UMD (Unbelievably Massive Disappointment is probably what it should stand for) on my PSP. A film that I bought some 2 years ago because it was very cheap, in a soon to be closed down shop. I was really looking forward to it, it was Donnie Darko, it’s a great film, I’d seen it before but not this particular copy. It’s a film that does, as far as I know, not star Al Pachino… Or Jonny Depp. It’s not about mobsters either… So why are all these things turning up on my tiny portable screen? I’ll tell you why, because some twunt somewhere had got confused between Donnie Darco and Donnie Brasco and put the disk of one in the innards and case of the other. I did not want to watch Brasco at this moment but that’s all I had… Forget about it…

Hello dear cleaners, I’ve a few pointers on how to do your job. Now, I’m not telling you how to do your job of course, no that would be rude but there are some, well one really, basic tips that I think you might like to follow to avoid future savage beatings by desperately hung over staff fervently seeking rehydration. 1) STOP STEALING THINGS FROM MY DESK!

I might be using the word stealing somewhat harshly, but I am incensed so to hell with reason. You see I like to be kind to the planet, I help little old toads across the road, I ensure that all my plutonium deposits are kept nice and tidy, I try to keep the use of plastic cups to a minimum. Unfortunately the cleaning staff at BBC towers seem hell bent on making me kill the planet, I can only assume that, like me, deep down they hate humanity and wish to hasten it’s demise by driving up consumption of petrochemicals to unsustainable levels.

What else could explain their continued desire to swipe nice reusable drinking vessels form my desk and tossing them in the bin. Fine, take the water bottles I steal from meeting if you must, there might be a deposit on them for all I know, but ones I buy are mine, stop taking them. A simple rule I find with “rubbish”, if it’s on my desk, I probably want it. If they were qualified to work out if I wanted it or not in my absence, they would not be cleaning for a living but picking up a Nobel prize for finally mastering demonstrably effective telepathy (after spending a couple of decades cleaning up at games of high stakes poker if they were sensible).

Christ, even sticking a sticker on the aforementioned bottles saying “DO NOT THROW ME AWAY” failed to register in their mind as a hint that I did not want it removed.

This is all very annoying as I’m sure any reader can sympathise with, but the most annoying thing about this whole sorry episode, they leave the actual rubbish on my desk all the time, they never seem to Hoover (they don’t use Hoovers of course, I just like to annoy patent pedants) and are generally pretty shit at keeping the place clean.

I’ve half a mind to write to the Daily Mail and have them all lynched.

I made the mistake of visiting Tescos today whilst shopping in Ealingtown. Well, you might say two mistakes, firstly entered the vile place, secondly I selected some non-alcoholic booze from the shelf, but I have a good reason for the second error… honest…

Anyhoo, I take said bottles to the till section and join the shortest queue, I wait until it’s my turn to pay whilst idly gazing about at other shoppers items, wondering what they might be creating with their soon to be purchased treats.

Nice looking till girl: Hello.
Happy shopper: Hi.
*beep*, *beep*, *tap tap tap*
Nice looking till girl: That will be £2.38 please.
Confused shopper: Err, no it won’t, that will be £1.90, they are 95p each.
Slightly brusque till girl: No, they are £1.19.
Quite annoyed shopper: Well it says 95p on the shelf.
Accusatorial till girl: No it doesn’t.
Astounded shopper: Umm, yes it does.
Flat out rude till girl: Are you lying?
Speechless shopper: …
Deathwish till girl: I’ll have to check, DAVE, man says these are 95p, can you check.

And let me know that he’s a thieving liar, she might as well have added. Some what flabbergasted I stood there waiting for Dave to do his thing, slightly annoyed at holding up the poor people behind but I did not have the loose change to pay the shocking new price and did not want to use a card for such a paltry sum of money. Even if I did, I hate to be ripped off by lying price stickers. Dave wanders back and, shock flaming horror, confirmed that I was indeed not a filthy lying thieving swine but indeed telling the truth. Who would have thought it.

Totally unapologetic till girl: Oh, how do I change it then.
Dave: *tap tap tap* right, rescan…
*beep*, *beep*
Soon to be killed till girl: That’s £1.90 then.
Apoplectic shopper: I told you they were 95p… might be nice if you apologised for calling me a liar… No, fine, here have your money you vile faced hag,

Now I realise that they are not just going to take my word for it that there are different prices on the shelves than the computer claims, but to ask if I’m lying… really… no… Even if I was lying what kind of imbecile criminal would I be if I just caved at the point of being asked “are you lying?”, “oh yes shucks you got me, I was trying to pull the wool over your eyes to save myself a massive 48p, I’ll take myself down the cop shop, no need to get up”.

To not even apologise at being so rude when it turns out your computer is not right, shocking, this is why I should stick to Waitrose, even when you clearly in the wrong and have misread the offer they profusely grovel to you for your own stupidity. Easily worth the extra 80% you pay…

Whilst idly drifting towards Waitrose this after noon enjoying the winter sun I was narrowly pipped to the trolley rank by some bumbling old buffoon who grabbed the first trolley. They then proceeded to just stand there faffing about with some tat left by the previous shopper rather than getting the hell out of my way so I could get a trolley and proceed to stocking up on tasty fare. Luckily for them I managed to contain the anger just long enough and did not just barge them out the way and kick them to the ground as a salutary lesson in moving on expediently.

I moved forward to the perusing the isles and getting this and that, pushed some morons out the way, grabbed some bargains, wandered to the paper section to maybe stock up on some financial doom and gloom based literature. What caught my eye? For some reason it’s the Daily Mail, a “paper” that I normally manage to block out to prevent regular bouts of apoplexy. Alas today something went wrong and I tragically read the headline - “The worst week ever”.

I’m not sure what the article was about as I was unable to read further without risking ended my life with heart failure, but for the purpose of ranting I’ll assume it was dealing with the impending financial collapse of the free market economy.

Now, it’s been a pretty bad week for financial people I admit, hell my favorite country seems to have gone bankrupt (I kind of wished it was the shopping chain that was bust, just to get Kerry bloody Katona off my TV screen), but the worst week EVER? That’s a bold claim, I can think of at least 16 weeks that were worse than that just of the top of my head, 7th July 1991 to 1st November 1991.

Then there were some war things that happened a while ago, I’m pretty sure they were not all that much fun, it’s annoying enough just hearing old folks moan on about it on buses let alone actually being shot in the face by an angry enemy conscript in some god forsaken part of Europe (Belgium).

The plague, did not sound much like a picnic for Europe either if I’m honest.

But no, all this death, destruction, suffering and Bryan Adam’s crooning PALES into comparison compared to some lost money!!!

Bunch of fascist wankers.

I’m also bitter that my local pub cruelly duped me yesterday, sat outside there was some slightly oddly interchanging happy hardcore/country and westen tunage, nothing too offensive even if it was a little strange. Anyway, glasses were emptied and tragically it was my shout so off I popped inside to get a round of sauce in, open the door, OH DEAR GOD, “Never Gonna Give You Up, Never gonna let you down” - fuck me I’ve just been Rick Rolled by a boozer. Curses!

Casting my mide back to the days of yore (just before the Jacobean era I believe, it was all green fields and rolling hills at the very least) I remember fondly going shopping as a youth to some ghastly supermarché or other (before Carrefore seemed to disappear from British shores). During such shopping sprees items would be purchased, amongst which would be washing powder, that would come in bloody huge weighty boxes. Boxes which I quickly learnt from scanning the active compounds contained about 10% cationic and non-ionic surfactants, that’s soap to you and me, the rest consisted of this and that, whiteners, water balancers and so on but a whopping 50% ish was pure filler. Nothing a all to do with washing, just their to make the box look big and the value better. What a scam, I was lugging bazillions of kilo’s of nothing about, and paying (well a parent was paying, but that’s my inheritance they were squandering) for the displeasure of back ache. I felt bitter, cheated and enraged.

Fly forward some time (I believe the spinning jenny and the stove pipe hat came and went in this intervening period) and I’m lying in bed being roused from my slumber by the radio blaring into my ear, upon which there are adverts (down with the BBC and their ad-brakeless information!). What do I hear, WHAT? I hear that Persil small and mighty now comes in a SUPER concentrated form, which is good as you can do more washes for the same amount of goo AND AND AND there is less packaging so it’s kinder to the environment!!!! YAY, WE ALL WIN.

Only we don’t as we’ve all been duped, like fools. For, no doubt, if I were to once again scan the list of active components in this “new” wonder product I would find something indicating that all that’s changed is a reduction in the nothing that’s adding to the bloody product. If they cared so much about the fucking environment why have they spent the last 400 years making massive packets for no reason at all. I’ll tell you why, it’s cause they hate the environment and they hate us, the customers, why else would they treat us like simpering imbeciles, one day dazzling us with BIGGER BETTER MORE the next with SMALLER SUPERER MORE for the same damn product.

God I hate the myself and the nation for pandering to these bloody ad campaigns, I’m so annoyed I’m off for a double skinny mocha chocha latte at Starbucks on my Vespa, now where did I put those Gucci shoes I wanted to wear, I need to look cool… GAAAA

Firstly when going to work I like to be able to leave my house, I say like, I mean have to in order to get paid. Trouble is some obnoxious Toyota hilux (huge wanky pickup truck thing) owning oik keeps parking in my little side road making it almost impossible to get past. This problem is only exacerbated by a) me having a bike b) it being bin day meaning sacks of crap are heaped up on what path is left. What do I get when I struggle past, lip from said oik from the top of his building project to mind out. MIND OUT, if you have not parked your fucking car here I would not need to mind out. Heaven forbid if I had a pram with me.

It’s not even like this is a one off, living, as I do by a taxi office the roads and pavements are always clogged up with people sleeping, washing cars, annoying the fuck out of me by trying to engage in a conversation whilst waiting for the next fair to stagger into the office. Each and every time you try and get past they glare at you for daring to touch their precious heap of crap they call a taxi. Tell you what champ, I’ll stop touching your car when you stop using it to block the fucking pavement. Till then you can fuck right off, I’ll key the thing if I so desire (not really, I’m not risking damaging my key on that tat).

Also what I don’t want it some cyclist stopping dead in the road right in front of me almost causing me to crash, for seemingly no reason at all. Although that was tinged with happiness as she then proceeded to plummet sideways to the ground in a heap.