What made Brian angry today?

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?

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.

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

Right so buses are quite useful, however you do have to pay to use them, getting on one, swiping your oyster card and reviving a FAIL notice would suggest that you have not paid and thus don’t deserve travel. Standing there arguing with the beleaguered driver won’t change this fact, claiming that you have £10 on your card holds little water in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The fact that your retarded friends have paid and gone up the stairs whilst shouting after you to hurry up won’t change the fact that you have failed to gain admission to this wonderful transport mechanism.

Realising that this bus is not even going to your destination is not further reason to argue with the driver, he’s not going to change it’s route for you. It’s reason to get off and leave the rest of us in peace. However, once realising the futility of your debate, whilst getting off, it’s not acceptable for one of your moronic friend to demand his “two bucks” back because he was too stupid to check the destination before paying.

What was especially enraging was I was desperately hoping that said friend would argue, to claim back his puny sum of money, further, so I could remove the 5 aussie clams that I happen to have in my wallet, throw it in his face and say “here, champ, have five bucks, now fuck off and let the rest of us go home”.

There was one saving grace that prevented a full bout of apoplexy setting in however. For I was sat safe and warm in the knowledge that not only did your compadres waste £2 on a bus that you were not going to use, but no bus from this stop goes to where you are going. Comforted by the thought that you might drunkenly wait there all night for a bus that won’t turn up, a full rage is prevented.

Not only are there no busses (apart from the 83, more on that in a bit) this morning due to some strike or other, I have to witness the curious act of the council fixing brackets and hanging baskets of flowers from my local street lights… Now call me seasonally naïve but isn’t spring or summer not better the time to do this. Surely this catastrophic waste of money will result in pots of dead flowers in a few weeks and a sense that the whole place is a festering craphole (silence Andy) so bad that that they can’t be bothered to take away the springs now long dead flower baskets. That and they were not even very nice ones, too much green not enough flower.

If this was not enough, I also had to deal with Crazy Woman, “There are no busses today” “you might get the 83, they are running that for the kids” “There are no busses at all, apart from the 83”, “I don’t know your waiting here, there are no busses, look read the sign, other than the 83 maybe” and on and on. I KNOW THERE ARE NO BUSSES YOU HIDIOUS FACED DRUNKEN HAG, I CAN READ, THE ONLY REASON I HAVE BEEN HERE SO LONG IS YOU HAVE BEEN TALKING AT ME FOR 5 MINUTES ABOUT THE BLOODY 83 BUS. Is not what I said, I kindly thanked her for the reassuring words about the 83 and walked off slightly annoyed that I had decided not to cycle today after all (as an aside she was also factually incorrect, the E11 was also running, for the kids apparently, stupid witch).