The word on the Street

Careful with that chainsaw….

…oops!

Dawdlers must die

It’s about time I did a bit of complaining. The object of my ire is people who waddle around in groups in narrow thoroughfares, moving like funeral mourners on tranquilisers, and thoroughly blocking passage to anyone else. There is a great temptation to shout as loudly as possible behind them, just to remind them (as they seem to have forgotten) that there are other people in the world. All the better, when they turn around, if you are brandishing an axe dripping with blood.

And these people don’t just seem to forget that people may be behind them with a need to progress forward. Even if they are waddling, snail-like, towards you, they imbue you with the magical gift of invisibility. If you just stand stock still, they will walk right into you, only becoming aware of your existence when it’s too late. Even in the centre of the busiest cities these people can enter their own universe where only they exist.

In Brighton, one of the major perpetrators of this offensive behaviour are great herds of po-faced ditherers known as Foreign English-language students. Brighton is full of English schools and every day great clouds of these creatures are released onto the streets. They seem to cling to each other like the dags on a sheep’s arse. They are seemingly unaware that although there are 30 of them in a clump and the lane they are in is only 3 people wide, that no-one will mind that they are faced by a 10 deep wall of vacant, unmoving, self-obsessed idiots with the collective awareness of a stone. And have any of them bothered to learn what the simple English phrase ‘Excuse me please’ means? Of course not.

For now, I am sticking to dribbling tomato ketchup down my chin and yelling ‘F*ck off out of the way you sh*tbags – I’m comin’ through!’ Funnily enough, they seem to understand that

Fruitarian Urine

Needs no words…

A tasty offer in a Brighton shop

The Church of the Short Sell

Just a quickie. Amusing to hear that the Church of England, who lambasted the City’s short sellers only last week, have been caught with their fingers in the till. They have been trading a large part of their billions on the hedge market by short selling on the value of the pound!!

Holy hypocrisy!!

Evolving English

Whilst I can moan endlessly about Americanisms wheedling their way into our language, I have no such qualms when it comes to new words appearing. These new words and phrases often add a certain poetic air to our everyday speech, the new word maybe communicating a concept that would previously have required a whole sentence, in a colourful and poetic fashion.

The example that has brought this to mind, is a word that appeared on the internet to describe David Blaine’s latest incredible stunt – hanging upside down over an ice rink (albeit with a 10 minute break every hour so he can have a drink and visit the little boy’s room). What a guy! I could spend at least two sentences describing to you how I feel about this pathetic, attention seeking idiot, but someone has coined a word that does it all in one…

Twatdangler!

…says it all really. That’s the poetry of our language showing off its full potential and being used in a good cause. Now let’s not mention that daft twunt again

Mum Fu

The out-laws are coming to stay with us for a few days over next weekend. I will be studying the ancient art of Mum Fu until they arrive. This is not some exciting, highly visual and athletic martial art, like the well known Kung Fu. Oh no, this is a much more subtle affair, but requires a lot of skill, precision timing and nerves of steel. The practitioner of Mum Fu has to be alert at all times as even a slight slip can mean the end.

A master of Mum Fu can suppress, through the sheer power of will, all farting, belching and burping which would normally erupt unfettered and free. They must appear thoughtful, caring and attentive at all times, keeping a wary eye out for any little task they can perform which will earn some Mum Fu points. A quick placing of a cushion, turning on a reading light, the withdrawal of an object of possible trippage – all these things can serve to notch up points.

All of the coarser inflections and phrases of the English language which would normally spew forth in torrents, must be severely, nay totally, suppressed. The sheer strain of this effort can take it out of even the strongest man, and the recovery period afterwards can be tough. Depending on the length of the period of extended Mum Fu undergone, the master will suffer to a greater or lesser degree. One of the worst symptoms, once release is obtained, is an uncontrollable Tourette’s-like tirade of bad language and filth.

So maybe you shouldn’t read this blog next Tuesday

Sell! Sell! Sell!

I would like to refer to something, that in my experience, annoys almost everybody. TV adverts. Not the adverts themselves but their soundtracks. And here, I am not even referring to the audio content of these soundtracks, but their sheer volume.

You have set the audio level of your TV at a reasonable level and you are watching your program. Suddenly it’s an ad break – your ears are immediately assaulted by the increase in volume. Why do they do that? Do they think that by deafening people with a ‘Cillit BANG!!’ that we will all rush out and buy the stuff? Surely they cannot be that stupid?

The effect it has on me is to hit the mute button, meaning that far from having the advertisers message burned into my brain by sheer volume, I simply don’t hear any of it. If someone brought out a TV which automatically lowered the volume during ad breaks I would be in the queue. Better still, stop raising the volume – it does not work – in fact it has the opposite effect.

Shhhhh!

Death of the English Pub

It’s amazing how much pubs have changed in my lifetime. They used to be very utilitarian and basic places where men went to talk about life, the universe and whippets. Comfort and atmosphere were not an issue and women were rarely seen except for behind the bar. Then the women started to arrive and the pub improved in many ways, furnishings got better, the decor improved (in that there WAS decor) and a wider range of drinks were offered. Pubs became very popular places and were often focal points of a community. However, this popularity meant that pubs were now profitable and big money moved in – meaning bigger breweries and the search for profit led to keg beers and the start of the end.

A fine pint

The real ale backlash set up by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and the upsurge in small, independent breweries was very effective and a middle ground appeared. There were some fine pubs that served decent, traditional beers and others that served nothing but the easier to keep and look after chemical keg brews. In these establishments, blandness reigned supreme, but their popularity was a unique example of the power of advertising. The success of CAMRA can be seen in the number of formerly keg-only pubs that now have some real beers on offer.

But it’s not all about beer. Pubs used to be social places where people could go for a quiet drink, to relax and chat with friends, and strangers – social interaction. Nowadays, most pubs seem to be designed to prevent social interaction – loud music plays, games machines belch out dissonant beeps and daft noises, and TV’s serve up mind numbing junk. Also, there are many pubs that totally rely on food sales to keep going. It’s hard to tell when you enter whether it’s a restaurant or a pub.

At the moment, many pubs are closing every week. People just don’t seem to be going to the pub like they used to. Why is this? Is it because they have gone out of fashion , because people can’t afford it, or is it because of all the reasons above? Who can say? Can it have anything to do with the fact that most pubs in this country are owned by two huge conglomerates who own, but do not run them? They charge landlords exorbitant rents and often force them into buying their drinks from their preferred suppliers – often at the most expensive prices. Who would be a pub landlord these days? It would be good to see these companies disappear and have more pubs independently owned and run, as they once were.

Cheers!

Rant-less Monday

Well, it’s Monday morning, I’m back in the office and for once, have nothing to moan about or be perplexed by. I had a lovely weekend with no rain and a considerable amount of sunshine. On Saturday we visited the Fiery Food Festival in Brighton’s Victoria Gardens, where I sampled so many chilli sauces and dips etc. that it almost became dangerous. I bought several bottles of instant pain and left only to dash to the Basketmakers for some medicine to dull the burning sensation in my mouth.

Car-free day in Brighton

Kids draw with chalk on the road

Sunday was car-free day across several streets in the centre of Brighton and it was quite good fun. In Jubilee Street, children covered the entire road’s tarmac in coloured chalk drawings. In the Lanes, two toddlers cycled over a large piece of paper after having their tricycle tyres covered in paint – watch out Damian, these kids have got you sussed! By the town hall a beach had appeared and little children were discovering the joys of the sandcastle. All in all, it was good fun and only got better with a lovely lunch in a new restaurant called The Chilli Pickle (yes – more chilli) which was very good indeed, and then a nice long afternoon in the Grey’s with friends, drinking beer, reading the papers and laughing a lot.

 

Oh well, back to work…

Money madness

Are we in a recession? Is there a recession on the way? I don’t know, but I do know that the current financial crisis has brought attention to some amazing silliness that goes on in the banks and other financial institutions. For one thing, it means that the government can suddenly turn a blind eye to worrying about things like monopolies – of course Lloyds can buy HBOS! 

But that’s a minor gripe compared to the things that are being brought to public attention in the UK news at the moment. Basically, banks and financiers borrow money from other banks and financiers, then lend it to you. So the bank goes into debt so that you can go into debt. Now I’m puzzled!

But then we find out that an incredible amount of money can be made or lost, not by buying or selling tangible products or services, but by pure speculation on what will happen to a stock/share in the future. This type of speculation is known to the man in the street as GAMBLING, and is generally not seen as such a good thing. And we are not talking about a little flutter here, we are talking huge amounts of cash. And all this money is being made by people who are neither buying nor selling anything of any use to anyone whatsoever.

OK, I will admit that I am totally puzzled about how all this actually works, but a bit like my previous post where a ‘Woman is killed by rat’, I really don’t want to know – I just know that it would all be terribly puzzling, and ultimately depressing.

Like the existence of something called ’short selling’, which I’d never heard of before. This seems to involve stock market ‘gamblers’ betting that a certain share price will go down in a certain time – and somehow they make a mint of money from this?? What it actually means at a time like this, is that if a financial institution, or in fact any business, is in a little trouble, the short sellers go to work and in no time have turned that ‘little trouble’ into BIG trouble. They can basically bring these institutions crashing down whilst making a pile of cash.  These people are as close to criminals as it is possible to be and can the law touch them? No, it is all legal!

Puzzled and broke.