What made Brian angry today?

Once more I have been affronted, once more I have interacted with society, once more I have shown mercy in the face of stupidity, once more I have just about managed not to bludgeon someone to death with a tire iron, once more I encounter my nemesis!

As I was cycling home through idyllic Acton one bright and sunny day, without a care in the world I came across an oddity, a freak, a ruffian and a rogue! Not for the first time, alas, I run into who I will from now on refer to as Saint John Smedley-Smith-Smyth-Smithe, for such is the snivelling nature of this disgusting creature I imagine that’s the only name his parents could have given him, if indeed he ever had parents and wasn’t created in a lab somewhere.

Once more his opening gambit is as witty as ever: “Still wearing that fucking shirt I see”.

Sadly for him he decides to make this crass remark whilst trying to make a turn, thus leaving him stationary and open to attack. I’m in my usually light hearted mood so I decide to stop for a quick chat.

“Look, just what is your fucking problem?” is my initial retort.

Saint John S-S-S-S comes out with his usual guff about it being “Chelsea innit”, lacking the required whit to use real words it seems.

Angry cyclist: “I don’t care what it is; I take objection to you hurling abuse at me in the street”

Saint John S-S-S-S : “You’re typical Chelsea aren’t you, can’t take a joke”

Enraged Cyclist: “Screaming obscenities as a stranger across the street is not a joke it plain rude. Have you ever thought that you might shout at the wrong person one day and end up with a smack in the mouth?”, I emptily threaten.

Saint John S-S-S-S : “Don’t you have any friends that support someone other than Chelsea?”

Furious Cyclist: “Sure I’ve plenty, but, unlike you, they’re not obnoxious cunts. Have you ever thought that maybe I wear this because it’s bright yellow and I’m on a bike and want to be seen?”

Saint John S-S-S-S: “It’s nothing to do with the color… Do you even go to away games”

Apoplectic Cyclist: “What’s that got to do with it? You don’t get it do you, it’s nothing to do with Chelsea! Why, for example, is a cunt like you wearing a stupid cunty yellow jacket like that? Could it be for safety, could it be so other people can see you?” I say trying to speak down to his level so he might better grasp my message.

Unfortunately at this point I can see his putrid visage is not taking the basic idea in so I decide to leave after politely informing him once more not to shout vulgarities across the street at me in the future.

Just as I wheel round to continue my way home, a motor bike comes past, I stop to let him by, as a sensible road user should. Alas Saint John can’t help himself.

Saint John S-S-S-S: “That’s right cause an accident, typical Chelsea”

Incandescently raging cyclist: “Oh just shut up will you”

I cycle off.

Now that the new shopping Mecca has opened up at Westfield the powers that be deemed it sensible to improve the transport links and so rustled up a nice spanking new rail station. A station that handily server the wild and dangerous South of London.

I say handily, as I was wending my way to Balham to wolf down several barrels of sauce. So I wander along to the station, sidle up to the barrier and swipe my handy oyster card on the read-y thing and wait on the platform for my train to turn up.

I wait and I wait, being trains they are, of course, delayed but I don’t really care as it’s a short ride so booze will be in hand in no time surely.

The train turns up, I hop on, along with seemingly 5000 other people, the train pulls away with my face pressed against the window. Some stops come and go but in no time at all we are at Balham. I leap from the train, to once again enjoy the sensation of breathing, then make my way to the exit.

I get to the little gate and once again swipe my card, beep, what’s this, I’m being told to seek advice, odd.

Tube user: Hello, my card does not seem to work.
Small Tube worker: Let me check, ah it’s pay as you go, you can’t use that here.
Confused Tube user: Umm pardon

At this point my card is passed to a great gormless galoot of a man:

Galoot: Yeah as the sign say there you can’t use pay as you go.
Me: Err… Ok…. So can I buy a ticket?
Galoot: Well yes but I have to issue you with a penalty notice.
Me: What for?
Galoot: Fare evasion.
Me: But I’m not evading a fare, I’m trying to pay one.
Galoot: You’ve come to a station you don’t have a ticket for.
Me: Fare evasion is not coming up to you and asking to buy a ticket, it’s vaulting the barrier and running off. Fine I’ll go back to Clapham and get one.
Galoot: No you’ll have to pay a penalty for fare evasion.
Me: I’ve not evaded a fare if I’ve not left the station. Anyway why let me onto a system with a card that does not work that seems a little unfair.
Galoot: The maps clearly show you can’t use it.
Me: No they don’t

At this point I get bored of looking into his tedious features so I snatch my oyster card back from his primitive grasp to make my way back to Clapham.

Galoot: Sir you can’t do that, OK I’m calling the police
Me: What for?
Galoot: Fair evasion.
Me: Right, I’m not evading a fair, oh what ever.
Galoot: Your on camera sir.
Me: Really, wow that’s a surprise, cause London is renowned for it’s very limited use of privacy invading cameras.

I didn’t add. Anyway I go to Clapham, get a ticket, don’t get arrested, go back to Balham (£2.10 for a single stop, day light robbery), pop through the barrier, clearly in view of Galoot, don’t get arrested.

I will now just have to sit wait for my front doors to be shattered by a swat team who will then drag me off for a number of tips down some flights of metal stairs before disappearing from the system entirely. It’s been fun.

Continuing my efforts to keep the even more ailing economy afloat I sallied forth once more to the heart of London’s capitalist experience that is Westfield in order to wine, dine and spend spend spend. On the agenda today is meeting my Mother for dinner, seeing if Sports Direct has any of last seasons Chelsea away kits and buying a TV.

First up was the dinner portion of the outrage of an evening. GBK, Gourmet Burger Kitchen or as I will now refer to it Gormlessly Banal Kafe. The only reason I was lured into the place was the prospect of two for one vouchers that had been nestling in my wallet for some time that were about to expire. The place was predictable empty, not everyone is as committed to reviving the fortunes of the capitalist elite as myself you see. Apparently we can sit where we want, that’s nice.

“Have you been to a Gormlessly Banal Kafe?”
“Yes”
“Well just order over there at the counter, table number 15”

Err what, I just told you I have been here, why are you thus wasting my time re-telling me the frankly easy instructions. I don’t even know why they have this stupid policy, it would be quicker to just take my order than explain every time the stupid system to me regardless whether I want you to or not.

Anyway I ordered some burger action, some accompanying portions of their somewhat overpriced “fries” - they are not fries of course, they are chips but being pretentious New Zealand types they saw fit to lie to me – and a bottle of finest Budvar. A bottle that cost me five bloody quid. It’s not even a pint, it’s not even a swanky restaurant, it’s a fucking burger bar for homesick kiwi’s desperate for a fix of vile beetroot burgers. Why oh why was I duped into this purchase I will never know. Anyway done now. I sit down to drink my slightly too warm overpriced beer and await the arrival of the food.

Eventually a brace of plates turn up, each with a burger nestled in the centre, they are hurled onto the table and we’re informed the “fries” are just coming. I suspect the waitress was foreign, there were several clues, the thick accent, pretending to look like she cared rather than being outright rude, the utter lack of knowledge to the meaning of what “just coming” means. 10 chipless minutes later after several complaints two little bowls arrive with our “fries”. 10 minutes in which I’d consumed a good portion of my burger, somewhat rendering this fresh injection of food pointless as I ordered them together for a good reason, I wanted to eat them together.

Then and only then, once my mouth was full of blazing hot chip did another waiter type see fit to come over and ask

“is everything ok?”
“No it’s fricking not, your beer’s grossly overpriced and warm and the chips were not only late but almost lethally overheated”

Is what I would have said has I not been writhing in agony with a mouthful of hot starch burning it’s way through my mouth.

Shortly after we left in disgust.

I bid adieu to my mum and made my way to Sports Direct – a store, if you don’t know it, that as far as I can tell have a permanent sale of slightly crappy sports wear crammed into a space about 56% too small for the shelves. The result is it’s almost impossible to make your way through the place as a) You constantly ram into the jutting out rails, and b) when your not doing that your trying to get the plebe who’s blocking the aisle to get out of the way for 2 second whilst you pass.

Having negotiated my way to the “replica” sports wear section (as an aside the reason I want last seasons Chelsea away kit is, not as a gift to annoy Brad ‘The Whicket’ Downing (Man of the year 2007), but because it’s about the brightest item of clothing I’ve ever seen and ideal for preventing bus death crush action whilst cycling home, they are also grotesque and thus no one bought them causing the price to plummet when the much less vile new seasons version came out) I find the item in question and discover that alas there is no price tag. Now I bought some of these tops 6 months ago, in another branch of this horrifying chain for £12:50 so I am guessing they will be the same right?

I saunter across to one of the pimply oiks that pass for “sales assistants” as she checks out her hair in a nearby mirror and ask:  “Excuse me, can you tell me how much this is?”

She snatches the garment from me, and proceeds to look inside for a price label. I can only assume she thinks I’ve never bought clothes before and thus might be unaware that some shops put the price inside…. Shockingly she fails to find it on a little label.

In fact she fails to find the price at all and tells me it’ll probably be £25 cause that’s the price of other things near it in the section. That’s a strange pricing policy I think, I regale her with the fact that they were £12.50 6 months ago before the new version came out but this seems to fall on deaf ears. To check properly, it seems, would interfere with her preening time so she was less than keen to do so. I decline to part with that much cash and can’t be bothered to waste more time so try to leave in disgust, this is hampered by a plebe blocking the aisle. I am outraged.

I make way to TV shop, buy a TV, they ask me for my address, for the warranty you see. I know this is a lie, they just want to send me crap but I am outraged out, I can’t muster an argument, I hand over my address in defeat. For shame…

I hear on the news today that the worlds seems to be in a bit of a financial pickle at the moment Apparently there are a number of people who don’t have enough money, a few nations are short of a herring or two and some banks have stopped giving out free pens to cut costs.

This is all very tragic of course, no one wants to see the world crumbling into anarchy under the yoke of financial ruin, but what I was disturbed to see on the idiot box this morning was a special report about some estate full of people not really copping that well somewhere in the grim north. It seems that everyone on the estate is both poor and an idiot, a pretty bad combo.

Everyone is broke you see, so they are taking loans out to buy heating, then taking loans out to pay their loans, then loans to pay for the loans that are paying for the loans that are paying for the heating and so on and so on.

Now I know what you are thinking, surely you can’t be angry that people are poor and are being prayed upon by frankly awful door step loan sharks? Well no for some reason this did not irritate me despite the blindingly obvious flaw in their loan strategy.

What did make me incandescent with rage was one of the hags they interviewed.

Hag: “The bills in the house are too expensive to make you think about buying Christmas presents, I don’t know how people cope.”

Umm what, leaving aside the poor grammar this strikes me as an odd thing to admit? Your too poor to turn the heating on, but you’re still pondering whether to waste money on presents for a festival that’s so far removed from it’s real meaning we might we well just cancel it once and for all? Frankly if this is true, I’m half inclined to demand that all benefits be removed from anyone seen in Toys’R'Us at once, including child benefit, if indeed this still exists, I half suspect it’s been removed and the funds diverted to repaper the walls of the Queen’s lavatories.

If you can’t afford heating, stop bloody wasting money on utter crap for your urchins. Sure they might be a bit upset for a few weeks, but I imagine it will be more upsetting when they freeze to death one night in dark, cold, January clenching their brand new High School Musical 3 box set in their now frozen fingers.

I don’t mean to sound mean spirited, well OK I do, it’s well documented that I loathe Christmas and wish to see it canceled for ever, but you are choosing to waste money on it, it’s not a basic essential, you could just carry on with life as normal and not throw away all your hard borrowed swag on complete bollocks.

Have some bloody priorities…

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 following things made me furious today:

• “Ryan” from Glasgow who claims “Parents don’t influence responsible/irresponsible drinking in their children. Society does.” - yes that’s you imbecile, all children behave exactly the same regardless of parental involvement, that’s why every bloody child drinks exactly the same amount of booze every day. Fuckwhit.
• Ending an email “toot toot” does not make up for the fact your work is really a bit crappy especially considering the amount you are being paid.
• Just give us bloody kettles will you.
• You do not understand the economic crisis, if you did you would not be wasting time writing asinine comments on the internet portraying yourself as a economic genius.
• Tracey ‘Mild Tallent at best’ Emin.
• My god damn self extinguishing oven.

Ah what a wonderful day, the sun is out the sky is blue, what could hamper such a wonderful day. Nothing at all that’s what. Well nothing other than the rage inducing people of Ealing town that is. Not all of the people obviously, there are some who stay at home, some that just pass by and some who might just be normal enough not to cause a bout of apoplexy. However there is a breed apart from these people and alas they all do the same thing, they work in shops, as sales assistance, and they like to annoy the bejesus out of people who have the audacity to put so much as a toe inside their store.

Haberdasher: “Hello can I help you”
Now irate shopper: “No its OK I was just going to peruse your store using my own eyes to scan the shelves for potential purchases and seek your assistance only if I had a problem finding something I wished to buy, however now I’ll just leave straight away to learn you that I can’t be brow beaten into buying things from your haberdashery store.
Haderdasher: “OK Bye! Please come again.”

Or words to that effect.

In this day and age of course this is quite common so fails to raise more than a light ire. However Ealing is no normal town, oh no, for Ealing has a nice cooks shop, Whisk. It’s full of nice cooking things, nice cooking things that you don’t really want to buy but are nice to look at, Moroccan tagines, avocado peelers etc. It also has two other characteristics, one, it sells microplane graters that I quite fancy buying and two, it employs in it’s service the most annoying, middle aged, ugly, hag-faced witch ever to gain employment in the service industry.

So once again I sally forth into the establishment trying to run the gauntlet in avoiding her and making a purchase, I wait outside till she’s talking to someone else, I make a dash for it, I enter, wander with some speed towards the destination of the planes, but I’m distracted by some fancy nutmeg mill and begin to peruse the wares. WHAT WAS I THINKING? I should have grabbed what I wanted and run (via the lovely looking other assistant at the till of course). I did not however, I dallied, I paused, I waited. Fatal!

Hag-faced witch: “Hello, do you need help with anything.”
Incandescent Brian: “No, just looking.”
Hag-faced witch: “We have some other mills over here too”
Incandescent Brian: “I’m just looking”

Alas it’s too late, the rage has been induced, I’m forced to leave the store once again before I launch into an abusive stream of rage directed straight at this devil spawn of shop assistance where I would no doubt point out that when I said “No” I meant no, not “yes but I’ll say no just so you can ignore my wishes and try to help me anyway”.

I’ve been trying to buy one for months but she interjects every time. You might think just suck it up and buy it whilst dealing with her. I did that once buy something in there (a removable head spatula, very good for cake making) and ended up listening to her drone on for 10 minute about all sorts of crap. I think the only solution would be to buy the nice serrated chefs knife I’ve been coveting and brutally butcher her there and then, for the good of everyone you’ll understand.

Stupid plastic key

This is the main source of my rage today, why doesit even exist, why? It might be sleeplesness rather than planet hating hotel chains I suppose but the result is the same, rage.

Oh how fun, waking up at 5 am in need of the toilet, pondering if this is a sign of the old age that looms close round the corner. Get up, use toilet, go back to bed flip light switch back off ALARM ALARM ALARM. Wow that’s odd why have a fire alarm switch next to the bed. Oh no wait that is just a fire alarm DAMNIT I have to get up. Stumble out wait wait wait, oh this is a not a drill. 3.5 hours later, one HCL acid spill later I am very tired, and cross.

Not that it’s anyone’s fault (I’m pretty sure, having checked my face, that Fraser and I did not get horribly drunk and have a post pub acid fight) but oh my how annoying.

Also the hotel keys made me furious, wasteful plastic disposable keys, one use only. Do you hate the earth Thistle hotels, DO YOU.

I fear the rage level today will be horrible exasabated by exhaustion… For shame.