What made Brian angry today?

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.

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.

It’s your duty to start voting now! There are some very important issues at stake. You see, we NEED to know the answer to many, many, questions. Which is better, Canada or the USoA*, Sweden or Norway**, My feckless ex school co-atendees or the feckless ingrates that went to the other local plebeian educational establishment***.

The big question of course is how to decide the answer to such important things, how indeed?

We could get together a bunch of academics to do some in-depth analysis into the two groups and define some qualitative measures between the two to determine which would give the bet results in some given situations and thus see which would be better. I mean, it’s always going to be a judgement call, but you can make some broad sweeping statements maybe.

However, that’s all in the past now, for a, new, bold method has been created, yes the kind people of Facebook have inadvertently solved all future arguments, for ever. All you do, is crate two groups, invite people to join either of the groups and there you have it. PROOF that one thing is better than the other.

Either that, or you end up with a bunch of feckless wankers banding together for no good reason other than by virtue of where they grew up indulging in some kind of tedious text based egotistical masturbatory self aggrandisement group.

If I wanted to extol the virtues of my former school over another, I probably would not rely on how many moronic past attendees I could dupe into clicking a button on a stupid website.

*Canada
**Sweden
***The other one, results clearly show this, get over it.

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.

Dogs are universally recognised by all right thinking people as being terrible animals. That’s a given, but like all things, within each group there are still levels of disdain with which things should be treated, some should be shot on sight, others maybe poisoned slowly over some months resulting in a more painless death.

Whilst wandering about past the lawn outside work I spied one such creature off his leash squatting in the corner. Imagine my surprise when he deposited a massive turd on the grass, stood up and trotted his stupid stumpy body over to his twuntish owner, who rather than doing the decent thing and removing the filth his filthy creature had so disgustingly left, he wandered off down the road strutting like his vile stumpy canine companion.

Clearly in this situation there should be police marksmen on every roof top who should immediately kill the dog, to reduce the numbers of these despotic beasts roaming the streets of course, and shoot the owner in the leg to remind him in future should he get another dog to look after it properly.

The fact that is was the kind of dog you only own because it looks like it could, and would, maul a child to death for a laugh, so therefore you look ‘ard too like, made it an even more infuriating episode. The only people who should be able to own such creatures (if they must exist) are small frail female O.A.P’s who look a lot like Joan Hickson. Any posing Yute who wants a dog should only be allowed a Chihuahua or a King Charles Spaniel, with a preeminently attached diamante studded leatherette leash (preferably spelling out the word ‘wanker’ in faux sparkle).

“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.