One of my favourite coffee shops and a regular rendezvous with Joy and Thom is Little Red Roaster, a place so tiny you have to leave your bag and coat outside and grease yourself up to squeeze in there, yet famed for the total awesomeness of their coffee - these guys are serious.
They're also known for their polite if oddball signage (witness this one I found in there last summer), and somewhat bizarrely this morning, one of their polite signs got them onto the national news.
The sign simply states: "Sorry, we are unable to serve you if you are on the phone. Thanks."
Suddenly a ray of hope and sanity in an obscene world. There's been quite a stink about this, kicked up by morons who insist on holding up the queue and annoying the fuck out of staff and customers alike by rudely bellowing inanities into a small box while waving away the barista trying to serve them.
Listen up, dipshits:
Either hang up the phone and get served, or leave the queue, go stand outside - somewhere away from the door where your imbecile shouting will annoy customers a whole lot less - and come back in again when you've finished your call.
It's basic politeness. Consideration for others. Do it or I will kill you.
Most of you (if anyone still reads this dross) already know my views on mobile phones and their users.
If you want the less sweary version, let's just say that anyone who happens to be talking to me face to face and then answers their phone, waves a hand up at me and continues chatting to their caller will know that I'll simply walk away and not bother speaking to them again for their unutterable fucking rudeness.
More on this another day, but I'm starting a campaign right now for mobile phone users to be provided with small covered areas outside coffee bars and restaurants where they will be required to go (like smokers) and indulge in their antisocial and FUCKING ANNOYING habit away from people who want to enjoy their coffee with friends, talking face to face at normal conversational levels without some inconsiderate fuckwit shouting drivel at the entire establishment.
Hoorah for Little Red Roaster!
Message ends.
Showing posts with label Mobile Fucking Phones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mobile Fucking Phones. Show all posts
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A Gentle Word On Etiquette
Hokay. Enough of that crap.
The last comment box threatened to turn this blog into a fucking sewing circle.
Sweet cheeses of Nazareth; the next thing you know photos of kittens will start appearing here.
Because I'm stupidly busy today and have no time to trawl my Profanisaurus for inspiration I shall resort to rehashing old crap from the early years of the blog.
THIS is how we post kittie photos over here …
And this is what happens when the sewing circle takes over my comments box while I'm asleep.
Don't do it again!
Right …
Time for Dive - the seven hour a day commuter - to update my old rant about how to behave on trains.
Jean-Paul Sartre was right: "L'enfer, c'est les autres".
In the mornings, les autres (my fellow long-distance commuters) generally behave themselves pretty well, slumped in their seats, mouths agape, peacefully drooling; the only disturbance being the occasional grunt or snort.
The unfortunate exception to this is the smegging school holidays, when we are joined by family groups on their way to the airport, bickering couples and their snotty, screaming kids, running up and down the aisles and clambering over the seats, kids and adults alike shouting, shrieking and arguing while they let their babies cry at pain-inducing decibels for the entire journey.
Add to that groups of twenty-somethings laden with rucksacks and drinking beer at six in the morning while they shout and laugh at the tops of their voices.
People who have to get up at 4:40AM every morning and who need to catch up on their lost sleep on the train can get exceedingly grumpy during the school holidays.
Be warned.
But most of the time the mornings are not too bad.
In the evenings, however, the carriages resemble the hellish offspring of a drunken hen night and a football riot.
So if you noisy bastards don't want one of us mild-mannered but burly six-footers going postal and spoiling your day in a terminal way, let's lay down a few ground rules:
Now … heads up, mobile phone users. If you don't want to be wearing that thing up your arse, here's a little piece of advice (this is best read slowly and clearly, as if to a small child):
• First up: the concept of the "telephone":
If you speak into your "telephone", the person you're connected to can hear your voice coming out of their "telephone". Just because they may be miles away doesn't mean you have to SHOUT to make them hear you.
Related to this point: If you cannot hear them clearly over the noise of the train, SHOUTING at them is unlikely to resolve the problem.
They will, in all likelihood, be holding their phone at arms length because you're so fucking LOUD!
It also causes other mobile users around you to stick a finger in their ear and raise their own voices, and is therefore counterproductive.
It may also result in a painful visit to the colo-rectal department of your local hospital to facilitate the removal of your phone from its rightful position.
The urge to TALK LOUDLY if you cannot hear somebody else speaking is caused by "Basic Stupidity".
We now move on to "Advanced Stupidity".
• "Hi. It's me. I'm on the train".
Whoever is waiting for you at the end of your journey (and one day it might be me, with a nasty headache and a baseball bat), you need only call them if you MISS the train, or if it breaks down.
Are you and your partner really so insecure and pathetic that you need to be constantly reassured that either one of you isn't fucking their way through the telephone book whenever you are more than ten feet apart?
I mean you've not shut your fucking mouth for the past three hours shouting asinine drivel and driving your fellow commuters into a murderous rage; what the smeg is there left to talk about when you get home?
Oh, of course … You don't talk when you're together, you simply sit on your fat arses in front of the fucking television while your brains dribble out through your ears and you stuff your balloon faces with deep fried lardy gristle from a bucket.
Get a life, you fucking morons!
So that's "Basic" and "Advanced" stupidity dealt with; "Postgraduate Stupidity" includes the following:
• The constant, repetitive and loud barking of the word "Yeah" merely informs those around you that you are a low grade moron who would lose a battle of wits with a lump of polystyrene packaging.
Stop it, you ignorant fucking bastards!
• Using your inane laugh - like an asthmatic donkey being repeatedly kicked in the lungs - as punctuation when you speak merely highlights the fact that the tedious drivel spewing from your mouth does SO not justify your whinnying cackle at the end of every boring sentence.
If you were that funny, we would all be laughing.
Look around you.
We are not …
• "Tarquin? Hi! … Yah … Yah … uhuhuhuh … Yah … Um, look. I need to go through my emails with Sally … yah … uhuhuh … yah … yah …" etc ad nauseam.
Look, you worthless piece of shit: if you are not good enough at your job to do it in office hours then get off my fucking train and go stack shelves at Tesco for a living.
• The same thing goes for Blackberries.
Look at the stupid thing. It's only a few inches wide.
So why in God's name do you need to stick your fucking elbows halfway across your neighbour's seats when you use it?
Tuck those bony bastards down at your sides, you inconsiderate twat!
Here's a hint: Jamming your elbow into somebody's ribcage and then flicking your fucking thumbs like an onanist plugged in to an electric socket is not going to earn you the respect of the person sitting next to you.
It might, however, earn you a well-deserved smack in the mouth.
Cease. Desist. Or I may make your dentist very happy.
• In the thousands of train journeys I have suffered since the dawn of mobile technology, I could count on the fingers of one hand the words I have heard bellowed into phones that actually needed to be said. THINK before letting a carriage full of annoyed people know how utterly worthless your life is and how fucking BORING you are.
• Another brief piece of advice: If you're not on the train but are actually with me and we are talking face to face and your phone rings … don't you dare answer that fucker.
If you are so mind-buggeringly crass and rude as to pick it up and start yapping into it please do not wonder why I wander off to find somebody who is actually worth talking to.
• Your ringtone is neither cool nor amusing.
In conclusion:
Mobile users: Shut the fuck up!
The last comment box threatened to turn this blog into a fucking sewing circle.
Sweet cheeses of Nazareth; the next thing you know photos of kittens will start appearing here.
Because I'm stupidly busy today and have no time to trawl my Profanisaurus for inspiration I shall resort to rehashing old crap from the early years of the blog.
THIS is how we post kittie photos over here …
And this is what happens when the sewing circle takes over my comments box while I'm asleep.Don't do it again!
Right …
Time for Dive - the seven hour a day commuter - to update my old rant about how to behave on trains.
Jean-Paul Sartre was right: "L'enfer, c'est les autres".
In the mornings, les autres (my fellow long-distance commuters) generally behave themselves pretty well, slumped in their seats, mouths agape, peacefully drooling; the only disturbance being the occasional grunt or snort.
The unfortunate exception to this is the smegging school holidays, when we are joined by family groups on their way to the airport, bickering couples and their snotty, screaming kids, running up and down the aisles and clambering over the seats, kids and adults alike shouting, shrieking and arguing while they let their babies cry at pain-inducing decibels for the entire journey.
Add to that groups of twenty-somethings laden with rucksacks and drinking beer at six in the morning while they shout and laugh at the tops of their voices.
People who have to get up at 4:40AM every morning and who need to catch up on their lost sleep on the train can get exceedingly grumpy during the school holidays.
Be warned.
But most of the time the mornings are not too bad.
In the evenings, however, the carriages resemble the hellish offspring of a drunken hen night and a football riot.
So if you noisy bastards don't want one of us mild-mannered but burly six-footers going postal and spoiling your day in a terminal way, let's lay down a few ground rules:
Now … heads up, mobile phone users. If you don't want to be wearing that thing up your arse, here's a little piece of advice (this is best read slowly and clearly, as if to a small child):
• First up: the concept of the "telephone":
If you speak into your "telephone", the person you're connected to can hear your voice coming out of their "telephone". Just because they may be miles away doesn't mean you have to SHOUT to make them hear you.
Related to this point: If you cannot hear them clearly over the noise of the train, SHOUTING at them is unlikely to resolve the problem.
They will, in all likelihood, be holding their phone at arms length because you're so fucking LOUD!
It also causes other mobile users around you to stick a finger in their ear and raise their own voices, and is therefore counterproductive.
It may also result in a painful visit to the colo-rectal department of your local hospital to facilitate the removal of your phone from its rightful position.
The urge to TALK LOUDLY if you cannot hear somebody else speaking is caused by "Basic Stupidity".
We now move on to "Advanced Stupidity".
• "Hi. It's me. I'm on the train".
Whoever is waiting for you at the end of your journey (and one day it might be me, with a nasty headache and a baseball bat), you need only call them if you MISS the train, or if it breaks down.
Are you and your partner really so insecure and pathetic that you need to be constantly reassured that either one of you isn't fucking their way through the telephone book whenever you are more than ten feet apart?
I mean you've not shut your fucking mouth for the past three hours shouting asinine drivel and driving your fellow commuters into a murderous rage; what the smeg is there left to talk about when you get home?
Oh, of course … You don't talk when you're together, you simply sit on your fat arses in front of the fucking television while your brains dribble out through your ears and you stuff your balloon faces with deep fried lardy gristle from a bucket.
Get a life, you fucking morons!
So that's "Basic" and "Advanced" stupidity dealt with; "Postgraduate Stupidity" includes the following:
• The constant, repetitive and loud barking of the word "Yeah" merely informs those around you that you are a low grade moron who would lose a battle of wits with a lump of polystyrene packaging.
Stop it, you ignorant fucking bastards!
• Using your inane laugh - like an asthmatic donkey being repeatedly kicked in the lungs - as punctuation when you speak merely highlights the fact that the tedious drivel spewing from your mouth does SO not justify your whinnying cackle at the end of every boring sentence.
If you were that funny, we would all be laughing.
Look around you.
We are not …
• "Tarquin? Hi! … Yah … Yah … uhuhuhuh … Yah … Um, look. I need to go through my emails with Sally … yah … uhuhuh … yah … yah …" etc ad nauseam.
Look, you worthless piece of shit: if you are not good enough at your job to do it in office hours then get off my fucking train and go stack shelves at Tesco for a living.
• The same thing goes for Blackberries.
Look at the stupid thing. It's only a few inches wide.
So why in God's name do you need to stick your fucking elbows halfway across your neighbour's seats when you use it?
Tuck those bony bastards down at your sides, you inconsiderate twat!
Here's a hint: Jamming your elbow into somebody's ribcage and then flicking your fucking thumbs like an onanist plugged in to an electric socket is not going to earn you the respect of the person sitting next to you.
It might, however, earn you a well-deserved smack in the mouth.
Cease. Desist. Or I may make your dentist very happy.
• In the thousands of train journeys I have suffered since the dawn of mobile technology, I could count on the fingers of one hand the words I have heard bellowed into phones that actually needed to be said. THINK before letting a carriage full of annoyed people know how utterly worthless your life is and how fucking BORING you are.
• Another brief piece of advice: If you're not on the train but are actually with me and we are talking face to face and your phone rings … don't you dare answer that fucker.
If you are so mind-buggeringly crass and rude as to pick it up and start yapping into it please do not wonder why I wander off to find somebody who is actually worth talking to.
• Your ringtone is neither cool nor amusing.
In conclusion:
Mobile users: Shut the fuck up!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Don't Call Me.
Telephones.
I hate the fuckers.
You all know my views on mobile telephones, but I think my advice to the fuckwits who use mobiles on my commuter train bears repeating:
"Now … heads up, mobile phone users. If you don't want to be wearing that thing up your arse, here's a little piece of advice (this is best read slowly and clearly, as if to a small child):
• First up: the concept of the "telephone":
If you speak into your "telephone", the person you're connected to can hear your voice coming out of their "telephone". Just because they may be miles away doesn't mean you have to SHOUT to make them hear you.
Related to this point: If you cannot hear them clearly over the noise of the train, shouting at them is unlikely to resolve the problem. They will, in all likelihood, be holding their phone at arms length because you're so fucking LOUD! It also causes other mobile users around you to stick a finger in their ear and raise their own voices, and is therefore counterproductive.
The urge to talk loudly if you cannot hear somebody else speaking is caused by "Basic Stupidity".
We now move on to "Advanced Stupidity".
• "Hi. It's me. I'm on the train".
Whoever is waiting for you at the end of your journey (and one day it might be me, with a nasty headache and a baseball bat), you need only call them if you MISS the train, or if it breaks down. Should your partner be so insecure and pathetic that they need to be constantly informed of your whereabouts, ditch them NOW and get a life. Grow up, for Chrissakes!
"Postgraduate Stupidity" includes the following:
• The constant, repetitive and loud barking of the word "Yeah" merely informs those around you that you are a moron who would lose a drooling contest with George Bush.
• Using your inane laugh as punctuation when you speak merely highlights the fact that the tedious drivel spewing from your mouth does SO not justify your whinnying cackle at the end of every boring sentence. If you were that funny, we would all be laughing. Look around you. We are not …
• Secretaries: If your boss fucks off early, leaving you slaving late in the office, then phones you from the train to ask about some email or tell you something he should have told you before he left: get a new job. He is a worthless piece of shit who clearly does not deserve you.
• In the thousands of train journeys I have suffered since the dawn of mobile technology, I could count on the fingers of one hand the words I have heard bellowed into phones that actually needed to be said. THINK before letting a carriage full of annoyed people know how utterly worthless your life is and how fucking BORING you are.
• Your ringtone is neither cool nor amusing."
As well as hating those fucking things and wanting to kill - in amusing and protracted ways - anyone who uses one near me, I hate ALL telephones with a vengeance.
The thought of having one actually follow me around gives me the creeping horrors.
I seem to have developed a kind of phone-phobia over the decades.
Every piece of bad news, be it deaths, disasters, heartbreak and general "change my life in a really unpleasant way" crap has come at me down the phone and I shudder with apprehension whenever one of the bastards rings.
Six people know my phone number and I really wish they didn't.
And they know to only phone me between 8 and 9 PM as the mute goes on after that and ring all you like, I'm not going to hear it.
If what you have to say is not worth popping round to say to me face to face, then it's probably not worth saying at all, so shut the fuck up.
Emails are bad enough, in that - if one doesn't wish to appear rude - they demand an instant reply.
I wish to appear rude.
I wish we could all just go back to writing letters.
That's one of the things I like about blogging (and why I don't leave my email address where people can see it); that I can communicate with my blogpals when I feel like it.
When the phone rings I'll often just ignore it as shouting "FUCK OFF!" can sometimes set a conversation off on the wrong foot.
I'm an antisocial and grumpy old fucker and I'm only good to talk to when I'm in the mood to talk.
This has been a public information announcement for those who don't like to be told to fuck off.
I hate the fuckers.
You all know my views on mobile telephones, but I think my advice to the fuckwits who use mobiles on my commuter train bears repeating:
"Now … heads up, mobile phone users. If you don't want to be wearing that thing up your arse, here's a little piece of advice (this is best read slowly and clearly, as if to a small child):
• First up: the concept of the "telephone":
If you speak into your "telephone", the person you're connected to can hear your voice coming out of their "telephone". Just because they may be miles away doesn't mean you have to SHOUT to make them hear you.
Related to this point: If you cannot hear them clearly over the noise of the train, shouting at them is unlikely to resolve the problem. They will, in all likelihood, be holding their phone at arms length because you're so fucking LOUD! It also causes other mobile users around you to stick a finger in their ear and raise their own voices, and is therefore counterproductive.
The urge to talk loudly if you cannot hear somebody else speaking is caused by "Basic Stupidity".
We now move on to "Advanced Stupidity".
• "Hi. It's me. I'm on the train".
Whoever is waiting for you at the end of your journey (and one day it might be me, with a nasty headache and a baseball bat), you need only call them if you MISS the train, or if it breaks down. Should your partner be so insecure and pathetic that they need to be constantly informed of your whereabouts, ditch them NOW and get a life. Grow up, for Chrissakes!
"Postgraduate Stupidity" includes the following:
• The constant, repetitive and loud barking of the word "Yeah" merely informs those around you that you are a moron who would lose a drooling contest with George Bush.
• Using your inane laugh as punctuation when you speak merely highlights the fact that the tedious drivel spewing from your mouth does SO not justify your whinnying cackle at the end of every boring sentence. If you were that funny, we would all be laughing. Look around you. We are not …
• Secretaries: If your boss fucks off early, leaving you slaving late in the office, then phones you from the train to ask about some email or tell you something he should have told you before he left: get a new job. He is a worthless piece of shit who clearly does not deserve you.
• In the thousands of train journeys I have suffered since the dawn of mobile technology, I could count on the fingers of one hand the words I have heard bellowed into phones that actually needed to be said. THINK before letting a carriage full of annoyed people know how utterly worthless your life is and how fucking BORING you are.
• Your ringtone is neither cool nor amusing."
As well as hating those fucking things and wanting to kill - in amusing and protracted ways - anyone who uses one near me, I hate ALL telephones with a vengeance.
The thought of having one actually follow me around gives me the creeping horrors.
I seem to have developed a kind of phone-phobia over the decades.
Every piece of bad news, be it deaths, disasters, heartbreak and general "change my life in a really unpleasant way" crap has come at me down the phone and I shudder with apprehension whenever one of the bastards rings.
Six people know my phone number and I really wish they didn't.
And they know to only phone me between 8 and 9 PM as the mute goes on after that and ring all you like, I'm not going to hear it.
If what you have to say is not worth popping round to say to me face to face, then it's probably not worth saying at all, so shut the fuck up.
Emails are bad enough, in that - if one doesn't wish to appear rude - they demand an instant reply.
I wish to appear rude.
I wish we could all just go back to writing letters.
That's one of the things I like about blogging (and why I don't leave my email address where people can see it); that I can communicate with my blogpals when I feel like it.
When the phone rings I'll often just ignore it as shouting "FUCK OFF!" can sometimes set a conversation off on the wrong foot.
I'm an antisocial and grumpy old fucker and I'm only good to talk to when I'm in the mood to talk.
This has been a public information announcement for those who don't like to be told to fuck off.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Fkng Txt Spk
Well, the wind's dropped and my house is still here (more than I can say for the garden).
It took me an hour and a half to do the twenty minute drive to Japanese class last night, and today I'm working from home because a twig blew on to the rail track yesterday and they're still running around like headless chickens, waving their arms and wailing rather than providing a train service.
I can actually see a patch of blue sky out across the fields and everything looks calm and normal. But it was a particularly nasty storm; eleven people woke up as ghosts this morning. Not good.
Moving on to today's reason to be grumpy; it has come to my attention that a lot of you tend to punctuate your comments with acronyms, such as "lol" or "lmfao". Indeed Lynn (a highly literate woman) yesterday used "rofl".
Pray be more considerate to a pedantic middle-aged man. Whenever one of you uses an acronym, this poor old soul has to look it up on Google.
So would one of you please be so kind as to post a dictionary of these strange acronyms so I know what the hell you are talking about?
I rather suspect that this acronym-frenzy stems from Text Speak, that appalling grunt-language of the illiterate chav.
As you know, I do not and will not have anything to do with mobile phones. I hate telephones with a vengeance and the thought of paying good money to own a telephone that FOLLOWS ME AROUND gives me the vapours (HERE is my definitive statement on the subject).
Consequently, I know nothing of Fkng Txt Spk, other than that the type of "person" who uses it dresses in a hoody, sweatpants and baseball cap, and is a heavily pregnant, binge drinking drug abuser at the age of eleven.
And as for "emoticons" … Please don't get me started …
So a plea to those of my dear (and apparently literate) blogpals who insert acronyms and emoticons into comments: either cease and desist or at the least provide me with a dictionary/glossary of these Neanderthal abominations.
Ooh! Quick change of subject: Pop over to Ame's blog if you want to see something cool and fun! Hee hee …
It took me an hour and a half to do the twenty minute drive to Japanese class last night, and today I'm working from home because a twig blew on to the rail track yesterday and they're still running around like headless chickens, waving their arms and wailing rather than providing a train service.
I can actually see a patch of blue sky out across the fields and everything looks calm and normal. But it was a particularly nasty storm; eleven people woke up as ghosts this morning. Not good.
Moving on to today's reason to be grumpy; it has come to my attention that a lot of you tend to punctuate your comments with acronyms, such as "lol" or "lmfao". Indeed Lynn (a highly literate woman) yesterday used "rofl".
Pray be more considerate to a pedantic middle-aged man. Whenever one of you uses an acronym, this poor old soul has to look it up on Google.
So would one of you please be so kind as to post a dictionary of these strange acronyms so I know what the hell you are talking about?
I rather suspect that this acronym-frenzy stems from Text Speak, that appalling grunt-language of the illiterate chav.
As you know, I do not and will not have anything to do with mobile phones. I hate telephones with a vengeance and the thought of paying good money to own a telephone that FOLLOWS ME AROUND gives me the vapours (HERE is my definitive statement on the subject).
Consequently, I know nothing of Fkng Txt Spk, other than that the type of "person" who uses it dresses in a hoody, sweatpants and baseball cap, and is a heavily pregnant, binge drinking drug abuser at the age of eleven.
And as for "emoticons" … Please don't get me started …
So a plea to those of my dear (and apparently literate) blogpals who insert acronyms and emoticons into comments: either cease and desist or at the least provide me with a dictionary/glossary of these Neanderthal abominations.
Ooh! Quick change of subject: Pop over to Ame's blog if you want to see something cool and fun! Hee hee …
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Jean-Paul Sartre
Watch out. Mister Ranty is back.
Today's rant is prompted by yet another baroque headline from London's esteemed fount of misinformation (seen this evening outside St. James's Park tube station); together with a particularly shouty man and a bunch of screeching girls on the journey home (please see posts passim for details of my daily, seven hour commute from Hell).
Please don't let them punish this man. Please, please, give him a job on the London to Norwich inter-city train line. A Dirty Harry style ticket inspector may just be the only thing to save me from taking up America's current favourite hobby and boarding the train with a bag of handguns and a twitch.
Jean-Paul Sartre was right: "L'enfer, c'est les autres".
In the mornings, les autres display generally acceptable behaviour. In fact, most of les autres are fellow daily commuters who have to get up in the middle of the night, then try to catch up on their sleep on the 05:40 to London (my friend Will joined me one day and was astonished by the almost total silence - broken by the occasional grunt and snort - and the sight of hundreds of people slumped in their seats, mouths agape, peacefully drooling).
In the evenings, however, the carriages resemble the hellish offspring of a drunken hen night and a football riot.
So if you noisy bastards don't want one of us mild-mannered but burly six-footers going postal and spoiling your day in a terminal way, let's lay down a few ground rules:
Mobiles on commuter trains: fair enough; trains break down and you might need to let someone know you'll be late.
Kids on commuter trains … hmm … Okay, as long as they're bound and gagged and I'm allowed to carry a cattle prod (by "kids", I mean anyone over-excited and under the age of thirty-seven).
Now … heads up, mobile phone users. If you don't want to be wearing that thing up your arse, here's a little piece of advice (this is best read slowly and clearly, as if to a small child):
• First up: the concept of the "telephone":
If you speak into your "telephone", the person you're connected to can hear your voice coming out of their "telephone". Just because they may be miles away doesn't mean you have to SHOUT to make them hear you.
Related to this point: If you cannot hear them clearly over the noise of the train, shouting at them is unlikely to resolve the problem. They will, in all likelihood, be holding their phone at arms length because you're so fucking LOUD! It also causes other mobile users around you to stick a finger in their ear and raise their own voices, and is therefore counterproductive.
The urge to talk loudly if you cannot hear somebody else speaking is caused by "Basic Stupidity".
We now move on to "Advanced Stupidity".
• "Hi. It's me. I'm on the train".
Whoever is waiting for you at the end of your journey (and one day it might be me, with a nasty headache and a baseball bat), you need only call them if you MISS the train, or if it breaks down. Should your partner be so insecure and pathetic that they need to be constantly informed of your whereabouts, ditch them NOW and get a life. Grow up, for Chrissakes!
"Postgraduate Stupidity" includes the following:
• The constant, repetitive and loud barking of the word "Yeah" merely informs those around you that you are a moron who would lose a drooling contest with George Bush.
• Using your inane laugh as punctuation when you speak merely highlights the fact that the tedious drivel spewing from your mouth does SO not justify your whinnying cackle at the end of every boring sentence. If you were that funny, we would all be laughing. Look around you. We are not …
• Secretaries: If your boss fucks off early, leaving you slaving late in the office, then phones you from the train to ask about some email or tell you something he should have told you before he left: get a new job. He is a worthless piece of shit who clearly does not deserve you.
• In the thousands of train journeys I have suffered since the dawn of mobile technology, I could count on the fingers of one hand the words I have heard bellowed into phones that actually needed to be said. THINK before letting a carriage full of annoyed people know how utterly worthless your life is and how fucking BORING you are.
• Your ringtone is neither cool nor amusing.
As for children on peak time trains? Don't get me started on children … Really … Don't …
One minor fashion item to wrap up the rant (and this counts in ANY public area, not just trains):
Girls: those short tops that leave an inch or two of your midriff exposed?
Listen up:
MUFFIN TOPS ONLY LOOK GOOD ON MUFFINS! Not peeping out over your waistband.
Pull down that top and COVER IT UP! It's putting me off my lunch …
(The only possible justification for exposing/emphasising your bingo wings is as a deterrent from over-amorous males. Believe me; this fashion atrocity is guaranteed to give any man an erection as hard as a damp sock).
No matter how good you look otherwise, dressing like this makes you look ugly and stupid. Don't go there. It's just not right …
End of rant.
Today's homework: Shut the fuck up!
Today's rant is prompted by yet another baroque headline from London's esteemed fount of misinformation (seen this evening outside St. James's Park tube station); together with a particularly shouty man and a bunch of screeching girls on the journey home (please see posts passim for details of my daily, seven hour commute from Hell).
Please don't let them punish this man. Please, please, give him a job on the London to Norwich inter-city train line. A Dirty Harry style ticket inspector may just be the only thing to save me from taking up America's current favourite hobby and boarding the train with a bag of handguns and a twitch.
Jean-Paul Sartre was right: "L'enfer, c'est les autres".
In the mornings, les autres display generally acceptable behaviour. In fact, most of les autres are fellow daily commuters who have to get up in the middle of the night, then try to catch up on their sleep on the 05:40 to London (my friend Will joined me one day and was astonished by the almost total silence - broken by the occasional grunt and snort - and the sight of hundreds of people slumped in their seats, mouths agape, peacefully drooling).
In the evenings, however, the carriages resemble the hellish offspring of a drunken hen night and a football riot.
So if you noisy bastards don't want one of us mild-mannered but burly six-footers going postal and spoiling your day in a terminal way, let's lay down a few ground rules:
Mobiles on commuter trains: fair enough; trains break down and you might need to let someone know you'll be late.
Kids on commuter trains … hmm … Okay, as long as they're bound and gagged and I'm allowed to carry a cattle prod (by "kids", I mean anyone over-excited and under the age of thirty-seven).
Now … heads up, mobile phone users. If you don't want to be wearing that thing up your arse, here's a little piece of advice (this is best read slowly and clearly, as if to a small child):
• First up: the concept of the "telephone":
If you speak into your "telephone", the person you're connected to can hear your voice coming out of their "telephone". Just because they may be miles away doesn't mean you have to SHOUT to make them hear you.
Related to this point: If you cannot hear them clearly over the noise of the train, shouting at them is unlikely to resolve the problem. They will, in all likelihood, be holding their phone at arms length because you're so fucking LOUD! It also causes other mobile users around you to stick a finger in their ear and raise their own voices, and is therefore counterproductive.
The urge to talk loudly if you cannot hear somebody else speaking is caused by "Basic Stupidity".
We now move on to "Advanced Stupidity".
• "Hi. It's me. I'm on the train".
Whoever is waiting for you at the end of your journey (and one day it might be me, with a nasty headache and a baseball bat), you need only call them if you MISS the train, or if it breaks down. Should your partner be so insecure and pathetic that they need to be constantly informed of your whereabouts, ditch them NOW and get a life. Grow up, for Chrissakes!
"Postgraduate Stupidity" includes the following:
• The constant, repetitive and loud barking of the word "Yeah" merely informs those around you that you are a moron who would lose a drooling contest with George Bush.
• Using your inane laugh as punctuation when you speak merely highlights the fact that the tedious drivel spewing from your mouth does SO not justify your whinnying cackle at the end of every boring sentence. If you were that funny, we would all be laughing. Look around you. We are not …
• Secretaries: If your boss fucks off early, leaving you slaving late in the office, then phones you from the train to ask about some email or tell you something he should have told you before he left: get a new job. He is a worthless piece of shit who clearly does not deserve you.
• In the thousands of train journeys I have suffered since the dawn of mobile technology, I could count on the fingers of one hand the words I have heard bellowed into phones that actually needed to be said. THINK before letting a carriage full of annoyed people know how utterly worthless your life is and how fucking BORING you are.
• Your ringtone is neither cool nor amusing.
As for children on peak time trains? Don't get me started on children … Really … Don't …
One minor fashion item to wrap up the rant (and this counts in ANY public area, not just trains):
Girls: those short tops that leave an inch or two of your midriff exposed?
Listen up:
MUFFIN TOPS ONLY LOOK GOOD ON MUFFINS! Not peeping out over your waistband.
Pull down that top and COVER IT UP! It's putting me off my lunch …
(The only possible justification for exposing/emphasising your bingo wings is as a deterrent from over-amorous males. Believe me; this fashion atrocity is guaranteed to give any man an erection as hard as a damp sock).
No matter how good you look otherwise, dressing like this makes you look ugly and stupid. Don't go there. It's just not right …
End of rant.
Today's homework: Shut the fuck up!
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