What made Brian angry today?

Resigned to my fate of 8 hours on a plane for a trip to the USo’A I packed my bags and casually made my way to the aerodrome, with what I assumed was plenty of time, for I do so hate to be late. On arrival I was greeted with a scene more akin to, what I imagine, a Morrisons supermarket might look like on cheap gin Wednesday. People everywhere, most of them looking confused and irate whilst trying desperately to work out which queue to join.  One hapless drunk/traveller even had the temerity to screech at an overly made up employee who happened to be passing:

“Why is this queue moving so much slower than the others?”
“I’m not sure” came the blindingly obvious answer.

Anyway I managed to check in without causing a stir or being tased by customs and made my way to the lounge to await the arrival of my fellow traveller, who it should be noted was running late at this point. So late in fact that check in is almost missed. The boarding for the plane is called and still no sign, oh well I think I’ll just wander to the plane and hope for the best.

Finally just as I am about to board said plane he turns up, at which point it became apparent that Virgin Atlantic has a fantastic punishment for being late to check in, a bloody upgraded to premium economy class (not sure what this means, other than free champers on seating). AN UPGRATE! I’m outraged, why not give those who get there on time the benefits. Yes I realise they are trying to make more money by waiting as long as possible to try and dupe people into paying the £150 they were asking for this benefit, but that’s not the point…

Still at least I’m happy in the knowledge that i have a nice aisle seat and a good book to read, seat 40E, wait E? How can that be an aisle seat? Unless they have a unique seating arrangement something is horribly wrong. I make my way to my home for the next 8 hours to discover it’s not a nice aisle seat at all but one in the middle of a row. Curses!

Not only is did I not get an upgrade, not only did I not get the seat I booked but the seat I did get is next to an enormous galoot from Georgia on one side, and an Azerbaijani on the other (and to complete the communist  trio, a Bulgarian on the far end). Azerbaijani was fine, nice and small and quiet. Hurray! The Georgian on the other hand was not, through no fault of his own admittedly, he was cursed with limbs about 1.8 times longer than they needed to be, this resulted in 8 hours of knees and elbows being jabbed and poked  into my legs, arms and ribs.

The moment he went for the chicken over the stew was particularly bad, all that knife action to cut the stuff up could have easily resulted in a cracked rib had I not been agile enough to dodge the pointy blows.

He did not even seem to care, not a single apology was forthcoming for the bruise educing invasions of my personal space, not even a flicker of guilt at using half my foot well to store his left knee for the whole flight. Bloody communists!

So we have more outrage on the news at the levels of boozing that is going on, people are getting spannered and causing trouble in town centers the length and breadth of this fair land, children dropping dead in their thousands from cognac overdoses, old men are running riot, high on alcopop sugar rushes.

It’s all a terrible outrage I admit, clearly something must be done and the solution is to ban boozing, and if you can’t do that you should make to so hard to buy that only Lords, MP’s and Russian Oligarchs can afford to get their grimy mits on a vat of sauce once in a while.

Only no, that’s frankly a blisteringly stupid idea. It’s clearly not just the availability of cheap booze that turns people into vomiting morons. Why we just have to cast an eye at wonderful mainland Europe to see that (clearly, stop looking once you get past Germany into eastern Europe…They like fun juice even more than we do judging by the number of Polish sounding people I see sipping cans, of Okocim/Lech/Tyskie/Zywiec/other unpronounceable super strong beverage, with fine communist zeal at 8 in the morning by my local bus stop).

Sure we should do something to prevent the streets being awash with drunken morons at the end of the night whilst I wend my way home from a few civilised pints of gin at my local inn. However making all booze unaffordable will clearly effect me as well as yob X so that won’t do, it won’t do at all. No we need another plan. Somewhat strangely I think I’m just the man to craft said plan!

First we should ban anyone under 25 from boozing in public, sure let them get hammered on meths at home or in a local part away from prying eyes, I don’t really care if they batter their livers into submission before they make it to 18 as long as they are decent enough to do it away from view.

Secondly anyone caught fighting, unconscious, vomiting or singing annoyingly loud ditties in the street will get a stern warning from the army of lone vigilantes we will recruit, commit a second offense and you will immediately be killed, liquidised and used to fertilise cider orchards.

Thirdly ban anything from Belgium from being sold anywhere on earth. Why you ask, well a) Belgium is horrible and generally thinking about the place makes me angry so they should be made to suffer at any opportunity, b) I pretty much blame Stella Artois for most of the social ills we are under the yoke of at the moment.

Of course, I don’t really have an opinion about wither people booze too much at all and my policy is clearly preposterous and probably unworkable, I am however sick and bloody tired of stupid news articles moaning on and on about this problem without ever offering a sensible solution other than making is so expensive I’ll have to revert to drinking diamond white (which is just what everyone else will do and thus just exacerbate the situation, rather than solve it). All they have to do is call me and I’ll have it sorted out in a jiffy I assure you…

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.

Sometimes its good to treat oneself to a nice contractor lunch and idly wonder what it’s like to be rich enough to afford special yellow shop food every day. Whilst idly wondering such thing, with hot food in hand, in the queue waiting to hand over half the GDP of Djibouti for the can of fancy Italian beverage and a couple of slices of pizza what I don’t want to see is some stupid bint at the till trying to pay for a dozen different meals in complicated set of combined transactions.

“Right, I’ll pay for this, a pizza and this drink with this tenner.”
“Ok now how about we go for these two pastas and this biscuit with this tenner.”
“Ok almost done, right well have 3 pastas and a punch in the face from an irate shopper with this tenner.”
“trust me love, the punch is free. If you’re lucky there might be a secial 2 for 1 offer on too”

GET OUT OF THE WAY!

Just pay for it in one go then sort out your bloody change afterwards you purchase retardant. The rest of us don’t want to sit there waiting hours for you to buy a few things cause you are too dense to do a little post purchase maths.

Although that’s not as annoying as the person clogging up the other till mind.

“Hello can I pay for these”
“yes, that’s £4.95”
“here, take this plastic card thing and charge it directly to my bank account”
“Oh I’m terribly sorry there is a minimum purchase of £5 on plastic card things”
“WHAT, IT’S JUST 5P!!!!, OH JUST CHARGE ME FIVE POUNDS THEN, GOD”

I don’t care if it’s 1p, the sign clearly states the limit, just cause you can’t read is no reason to get all huffy with the poor swamped till person. If you don’t like it, fuck off to Tesco’s with the rest of the plebs and leave me to dream of richer times in the peace and tranquillity yellow shop’s prices warrant.

“HAVE ANY VIDEO’S” blared the clearly deranged man almost running into the charity shop I was perusing books in.

Bulgarian Shop assistant: “Yes over there”
SS Officer: “WHERE”
Bulgarian Shop assistant: “Over there”.

He finally spies them, withdraws a pair of specs that remind me of the kind worn by Major Arnold Ernst Toht, the SS officer from Raiders of the Lost Ark with the nasty hand burn. Wandering acorss, he yells back to the girl on the counter:

SS Officer: “ANY OTHER CHARITY SHOPS DOWN THIS WAY?”
Bulgarian Shop assistant: “Yes there are a few a bit further down the road, although I am not sure if they are open”
SS Officer: “WHICH SIDE?”
Bulgarian Shop assistant: “There are a few on each side”
SS Officer: “FAR?”
Bulgarian Shop assistant: “No not very”.

At this point I am wondering what the hell he’s after in such a fashion, maybe he’s heard tell of a first edition copy of Star Wars worth a fortune? Perhaps a rare montage of Queen’s speech outtakes where she’s gotten too pissed on port to continue?

Well it’s soon apparent that it’s not these things that he covets. As he barges some poor man, thumbing through the records, out of the way we learn the truth as he yells to no one in particular - “LOOKING FOR DEATHWISH 5”…

DEATHWISH…. 5…. what the Fucking Mc. Fuck? This is a film that rates a massive 3.6 in imdb, I’ve not seen it, but I’ve seen 1, maybe 2, who knows maybe even 3 when so hungover I was unable to jab at the remote forcefully enough to change the channel but FIVE? You’re kidding me. This must be one of the worst films ever transferred to video, why on earth would you a) be so desperate to get hold of it, but, b) refuse to use a real shop.

I’m actually enraged by his desperation, he could be at home watching something better, for free, and not out annoying me whilst I quietly shopped. Why, at the very time he was trying to source this rot, he could have been at home watching Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach…

He does not find Deathwish 5, he leaves disappointed.

What an interesting news day, a rage inducing news day. You might imagine that the downfall of the global markets might be a cause of spot anger. Not here, no today’s rage was induced by 73 people who apparently have just about enough brain power to use a phone.

42 people phoned Ofcom to whine about G. Ramsey killing, then eating the fresh heart of, a puffin. Whilst it might have been unpleasant to taste, quite why it was offensive I don’t know. That was quite anger inducing that 42 people are so bored and worried about puffin rights that they bother to waste their time and money in calling Ofcom (oh how I would love to man those phones for just one day and be allowed to respond as I felt fit to the people who bother to call in).

However not really, what’s worse it the other 31 people who make up this 73.

You see, 31 people moaned that the BBC News report showing footage of a Palestinian man ramming buses and cars with a bulldozer, killing three people and then the man being shot dead in the cab of the vehicle by an off-duty Israeli soldier. Now I might agree with these whiners that this is not really news and maybe best not shown on screen… but FOURTY BLOODY TWO people moaning about a puffin heart compared to only 31 about 4 people being violently killed on screen. What the heavens is wrong with people’s sense of perspective. It’s a bloody puffin for fucks sake, yes they are kind of cute but they are everywhere in Iceland and one or two are not going to be missed, for the love of Thor get a grip. Next you’ll be claiming that dog stew is cruel or something.

Wankers.