Life Lessons

Road hog

If I’ve almost killed one student, I’ve almost killed a thousand of the ignorant fuckers. Living near a university campus means a day barely passes when I don’t find myself bearing down on some undergrad or other before pulling over onto the side of the road to sick up into my own lap with terror. This, though, has sod all to do with the state of my driving. It’s all about the inability of said Pot Noodle enthusiasts to tear themselves away from their mobile phones before leaping from the kerb.

Tell you what, for what should be the most intelligent group of people in the country it isn’t half heavily populated with idiots. Or the suicidal. I haven’t yet decided which. Either way, they step, lemming like, into the road with such frequency that I’m wondering whether the local byways should  be populated with emergency telephones like the Golden Gate Bridge.

What the fuck is wrong with these individuals? Exactly how hard can it be to check the road before stepping onto it? And what in the fuck is happening on their phones that’s so much more important than protecting themselves from the bus that’s hurtling towards them? They must be in receipt of some stunning information, if it’s enough to blind them to a steaming river of vans and lorries.

I dunno, perhaps they’re furiously texting state secrets or receiving incoming messages about the development of their terminal cancer. Surely, these emergency missives wouldn’t contain anything as unimportant as pictures of kittens wearing moustaches or offers at Bargain Booze.

Seriously, driving a car around here is like a test of endurance. And being aware of the idiocy of the local undergrads I’ve developed a road awareness of Olympic proportions. Yet, astoundingly, it’s still not enough. Exactly how many times have I reversed in a car park, after several checks of my mirrors and blindspots, only to suddenly find my rearview window filled with the whites of a student’s eyes? Too fucking many. That’s because it doesn’t matter how careful you are. A lecture-bunker could leap out at any given moment, like demented flashers, from the bushes.

It’s hard to believe that these festering gimps will one day run the country, lead our government or develop our cities. If their foresight is anything to go by we’re fucked. Armies of fascists could be scrambling their way over Dover cliffs and they wouldn’t notice.

Of course, all this is based on the premise that these people are still alive 20 years from now. At this rate, that’s laughingly unlikely. So rather than braking, perhaps I should be revving. Something tells me I’d be doing the nation one fuck of a favour.

Phone Goblins

Just. Shut. Up.

Another prime example of how mobile phones have destroyed humanity. Yesterday I was sitting in a small group of people, all of us discussing some shit or other, when one of the group got out her phone. You know what she did? Dialled a number and started a conversation with whoever the fuck she called, barking so loudly that the rest of us were unable to carry on our conversation.
What, in the barren land of bollocks, was that all about? It was so rude on so many levels that I've actually lost count of them. In fact, I was embarrassed for her, seeing as she was acting like a wanker who'd snorted a record weight of wank. 
Couldn't she have left the conversation for later (I don't recall it starting with "Run! Run for your life!")? Couldn't she have left the group to make it in private? Or couldn't she have conducted it at a level of decibels that wouldn't have resembled a Metallica gig?
Worse, said group member wasn't some acne-riddled, hoody-wearing oik with the manners of a truffle-snuffling boar. It was, in fact, a 50-something woman who sure as shit should have known better.
I know, I know, I sound like a Daily Mail reader. If it's any consolation, I hate myself for it. But spare me the glaring rudeness will you? And said rudeness must be rude if this F-bombing kraken is arsed over it. 
Bloody phone goblin.

Yoof

Then stamp on it

Christ on a bike if my heavily medicated spirit has just taken another small, yet everlasting, kicking. Why? Read the conversation I've just had with Kraken Junior. And weep:
Me: "Look! Your Tinkerbell comic has a fairy mobile that we can make!"
KJ: "A mobile? Can we play with it?"
Me: "Course. Want me to put it together for you?"
KJ: "Yeah. Can we call someone after that?"
Me: "Eh?"
KJ: "Call someone. On the mobile phone you're making."
As sure as shit slides off a shovel, this has to be the most disheartening fucking conversation I've had in something like 30 years. KJ is three years of age and she thought I was talking about a mobile phone. How the fuck did that happen? We read her books about bears and pirates! We spend hour after fucking hour spilling glitter across the floor! She thinks thunder and lightening is caused by Santa taking a dump! 
When the fuck did technology overtake all that's good and innocent about dangling fairies off her ceiling by making KJ think I was fashioning a mobile communication device from the pages of a bloody magazine? 
Start praying for the safety of the next gimp who tries to flog me a mobile phone, will you? Or it'll be them that KJ finds dandling from the frigging ceiling.

Twitter Litter

Pot. Kettle.

Whoa! Just how much do some people use Twitter? I'm abso-frigging-lutely astounded. I opened my Twitter account sumfink like two years ago and barely used it until a few days ago when I started feeding through my blog (or whatever the fuck you bright young things call it). Christ knows what I expected but it sure as shit wasn't almost constant dialogue from other Tweeters. 
Yeah, loads of people tweet (or twat as the glorious Stuart Lee calls it) but I had no idea that the activity actually replaced more traditional human pursuits such as eating, shitting and having a wank. I've never seen such garrulousnessnessness. When the fuck do some people put down their Blackberries or iPhones or whatever they're using to inform the world that they're picking their teeth/ eating peas/ scratching their arses? Their devices will have to prised out of their cold, dead, yet forever twitching, hands.
I've never felt so fucking out of touch. I thought I was being all out there by blogging. I wasn't prepared for the creeping cyber-demand for me to announce the heaviness of my periods or the strength of my last fart.
Look, this blog ain't going to make me any friends but please, I beg you, retreat to the po and treat yourselves to a long, slow whizz with a good book. And leave your device of choice on the other side of the locked door. There's nowt wrong with the odd tweet but, man! You may want to announce the marmalade shade of your morning wee, but, I sure as shit won't be waiting for it. Do tell me when your battery is about to run out though, eh? That really would be a tweet worth reading.

Ding-a-Frigging-Ling

Wakey wakey!

Remember that episode of Curb, where Larry David banged on about the evening cut off time for phone calls? Well, bugger me if I had my own moment of phone-based fury this week. 
I'd gone to bed ridiculously early at 9.30pm (that's a daily dose of anti-psychotics for you) only to be woken at 10.30 by a fucking phone call. And my ire wasn't just about being woken up but about being woken up by what I thought was a call announcing the death of my entire family/ the discovery of some tumour or other/ the lack of biscuits in the house. 
I mean, who calls at that time of night unless they have devastating news to impart? At what point did 10.30pm become prime time for a chat about the frigging weather? OK, so I retreat to my pit early these days but for fuck's sake. This isn't bleedin' Childline.
Anyway, as it was, said caller didn't have shit news. They just had shit manners. Oh and the social etiquette of a snagged polyp. Bastard.