The General Public

In theory, that should be everyone, because we’re all somehow acting in a public fashion most of the time.

In practice, the general public is those who write letters to newspapers, those who form committees and action groups and those who happily sign any petition going. It is also those who enjoy nothing better than lodging complaints and ‘reporting’ anything that moves to whichever Government body tickles the general publican’s fancy on any given day, irrespective of whether the Government body in question has anything to do with the complaint.

Try working in the Enquiries department of a Government body with a very specific remit. Phones ringing all day long. Now, who would ring a Government body with a random gripe between the hours of 9 to 5? That is likely to be the retired, the unemployed and the desperate stuck-at-home-with-ten-kids housewives. Now throw in a couple pf pissheads, some folk with anger management issues and a handful of people who won’t take no for an answer out of principle. And don’t forget the ‘honest, hardworking, taxpaying citizens’. The latter tend to be wifebeating chavs who got into a pickle involving some off milk in the supermarket and beat up the checkout assistant through no fault of their own (‘I AM NOT A VIOLENT PERSON BUT THIS CUNT WOULDN’T EXCHANGE THE MILK WITHING FIVE SECONDS! LIKE I SAID, I NEVER PICK ANY FIGHTS EVER!!!!!! NOW SORT IT OUT OR I WILL KILL YOU!!!’). Of course, and I am the Virgin Mary and none of you ran up those credit card debts on purpose, and you’ve all had your signature forged by your ex-wife and have no idea why the newsagent won’t give you credit any more or why Thresher’s barred you. Sure thing. You’re all lovely, smart people.

That’s when you’re not pushing me on the bus, shout at the poor girl behind the cigarette counter and threaten GBH to your local’s landlord. Or when you’re not busy yelling at me down the phone, calling me a stupid cow for something that isn’t my fault, remind me you pay my wages (I got news for you, I pay tax, too, MORON) and go out out of your way to make my life hell. Brilliant plan, because giving me verbal abuse will really make me want to help you with your poxy little complaint about how many pineapple chunks should be in that tub of yoghurt you just acquired. WEIRDO!

And when you feel phonecalls don’t cut it any more, you put pen to paper. Did you know that only mad people write in green ink? My personal favourites are handwritten letters with little address stickers full of puppies and kittens on them, with a gold rim. Those are the ones that tend to be full of mis-spelled swearwords like Pastart! Sheet! And Vankar! Innit? And could you please ensure your paper and envelope are reasonably clean? Mystery stains are not a good way to fast-track your response. Like the time when this guy sent in a complaint about ‘erotic prints’ he bought on Ebay, and the letter was full off strange yellowing blotches. Vile! Vile! We ended up wrapping it in clingfilm because it was so foul. Or the time when someone sent in half a pork-pie because it ‘tasted funny’. Do you really think we want to take a bite out of your moldy porkpie? Exactly.

And could you please visit your local library or the internet and find out which Government body you SHOULD be complaining to before approaching the one I work for. I am tiring of re-directing everyone and his dog to the appropriate body, because they were too lazy to find out who does what. It ain’t rocket science. And when you realized you made a mistake, you take it out on me. Thanks for that.

I don’t know where the notion that Civil Servants are not human came from? Neither do I understand why people assume it’s ok to insult/belittle/rubbish Civil Servants. I am not stupid, I do not enjoy verbal abuse, I do know what’s going on and I am likely to have information you could benfit from. And if you shut your cakehole for just two seconds, I might even be able to pass this information on to you. I can be very helpful when I want to be. But I sure as hell won’t be if you continue yelling at me. And refuse to listen to anything I have to say, because you decided I was an idiot before you even picked up the phone.

So next time you need to complain to a Government agency about something, please bear in mind that Civil Servants are people, too, and try to keep it civil.

Things that are good things

Since I have been informed that I am a) clinically insane and b) against most things out of sheer bloodimindedness, maybe it is time to write a bit about things that are nice. Yike-di-Yikes. Niiiiiice things. Glass half FULL things. How very dull.

• The humble feline

A cat is a good thing. Always. For the cat does not do as it is told. The cat does not look to others for inspiration. The cat does its own thing. The cat is also a rather clean animal. If you pat a dog, your hand will smell of wet dog for hours afterwards, if you stroke a cat, it just smells rather pleasant. A cat’s face tells you much more than a dog’s face. The cat incorporates the ‘on a scale from one to ten’ into an array of emotions. Thus a cat can be ‘mildly pissed off’ or ‘rather a lot pissed off’ and you will be able to see the difference. Cats also look a lot nicer than dogs. And with a cat, you can always be sure it is indeed a cat. With dogs, one can’t be certain. Who would’ve thought that Chihuahua with the T-shirt saying ‘The DogFather’ is indeed a dog, and not some freaky supersized rat? Thus, the cat will win and it shall rule victoriously for all eternity.

• Aldi

When I found out Aldi was moving five minutes down the road from me, I counted down the days until opening. A month in advance. I was practically raised on Aldi stuff. I even have a cookbook dedicated to recipes made almost entirely (it does say to seek a ‘good butcher you trust’ for meat) from Aldi foods. That cookbook is entitled ‘Aldi-Dente’ and it’s bloody fantastic (only that it was published ten years ago and they don’t sell most of the stuff in it any more, but that’s by the by)! Aldi will sell you delicious filled pasta (gorgonzola and walnut? Salmon? Which would you like?) for next to nothing! And bizarre Pesto (I can highly recommend the Fennel and Pistachio variety!)! Then there is the special offers aisle! I actually sleep on Aldi mattresses that my mother lugged over on a plane. I shit you not. In the special offers aisle you might find anything from entire computers and thermal underwear to discolights and skiing goggles. Isn’t it amazing?

• Seven inch singles

I like these a lot. Especially the multicoloured variety. Bands these days really should put more effort into their vinyl pressing. I’d quite happily buy a shit single if it’s pink. My favourite ones are ‘that’ Disco Pistol single, the poobrown Purple Munkie single … and I like heavyweight vinyl, too. You can’t go wrong with a lovingly created cover either. Remember that hand spray-painted Designer single, anyone? The Bis singles with the stickers on them? FLEXIDISCS!!!! And it’s even better when you get fanzineflyers raining out of the sleeve! Sadly, HMV and Virgin (or whatever they are called now) don’t seem to cater for the vinyl-junkie any more. It’s mostly odd dance 12” contraptions and the odd haircut indie issue. The Rough Trade superstore seems to be the only place that actually bothers with a halfdecent vinyl selection. Although, they only seem to have stuff that’s under two years old. What happened to everything else? The Music Exchange is out, because they started treating their 7” singles rather poorly, so all you can find is a copy of some Spearmint single that some philistine rummager snapped in half! Shocking!

• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

The pinnacle of my early childhood! Aren’t they just fantastic? I am very fond of the cartoons as well, especially the bit at the end where they always stand in a group, someone comes out with the moral upshot of the story (‘if you always eat your broccoli you’ll be just as strong as Man-At-Arms!’), just before Orko cracks a really lame joke and they laugh some more. You just don’t get that with Pokemon and Power Rangers. And Marshall Bravestar (whom I hold responsible for both the skinny new He-Man figures and the demise of Eternia that followed shortly after). I still have a collection of He-Man toys on my shelf. The rest of the stuff is at my sister’s house. Combined we have every single figure, all the castles and vehicles. Even Fakor! Yes, this may sound a bit nerdy but … Masters of the Universe are so cool!

• 80s kids films

You can NEVER go wrong with Ferris Bueller. If you haven’t seen it (damn you!), I highly recommend you obtain a copy right now. If you haven’t seen Ferris Bueller at least five times, you haven’t lived! I also urge you to see The Lost Boys (featuring Corey Feldman as a fearless vampire hunter and worth its weight in gold seven times over!), anything John Hughes did before Home Alone (stay away from Home Alone. It’s shit and 90s!), E.T. (everyone’s seen E.T., right?), Stand By Me (with a very young River Phoenix!), Momo (this is a bit more obscure. It’s based on a book written by the guy who wrote The Neverending Story) and, obviously, The Goonies. Up yours, Pirates of the fucking Carribean!

• Fanzines

He who throws a fanzine on the floor and steps on it shall be doomed. Fanzines are an excellent way to find new music. Sadly, the internet killed a lot of them. Which I don’t quite understand, because how is looking at a computer a substitute for holding a piece of A5 glory in your hands that someone lovingly photocopied and stapled? It doesn’t matter if the majority of reviews are about six months out of date, because that’s not the point. The point is that there is a great record out there and you urge people to listen to it. Doesn’t matter when it was released. Doesn’t matter if there are typos, doesn’t matter if half the bands you interviewed have since split up, or are yet to form a coherent group. Doesn’t matter that you photocopied half your layout from the NME and a 50s cookery book (or was that just me?). My fanzines led me to so many amazing things it’s almost painful. I got to interview quite a few bands (some more famous than others. Heck, I got to interview Gary Numan and accidentally met Robbie Williams. The latter was a bit of a disaster because I didn’t realise he was standing behind me when I was merrily slagging him off to his support band), I got an awful lot of promos and I met some truly lovely people when I was doing my zines. Most of them are still my friends.

A few random things I really don’t understand the point in …

• Doing things a certain way because you are meant to do them in that way

This drives me to distraction. Why would you have to do something because someone else tells you it’s a good idea? And since when is there a particular, mutually agreed way of, say, using a knife and fork? Where does all this ‘etiquette’ come from? Who told men to hold open doors and help ladies into cars? I can see the point if there’s health and safety reasons that make sense behind those mindboggling theories, but if there isn’t? Why bother with all these unwritten rules? And only because you always hold the knife and fork ‘the wrong way round’ when you’re cutting food, why would this make you any worse or better than the next person on the table? And what if you speak with your mouth full? It’s like people never left school. Not that I took much notice of instructions at school either. I have very vivid memories of PE lessons where they tried to make me jump off a rather high rope. I mean, why jump when you can just climb down? What is the point in plunging down onto a gym mat when you can just ease yourself off that goddamn rope? ‘But you must jump!’. ‘Make me!’. ‘Alright, we’ll ask for your parents to come in!’. ‘You do that. But how will this make me jump?’. ‘Right, detention!’. ‘Yes, but I’m still not jumping. What are you going to do, drag me? I don’t think so!’ … and clambered my way down the rope again. Similar things happened with any kind of team sport. What good does it do to be on the ‘winning team’? What losers invent these things? ‘Yeah, the group of people in the blue tabards … if they get this ball into the basket more often than the group in the yellow tabards, the blue tabards shall be the winners’. Why? All this does is make the yellow tabard people feel bad, because they’ve been indoctrinated with the idea that those with less balls in the basket shall be known as losers from then on.

• Having a dog you don’t have time for

Now I’m not big on dogs and I certainly would never get one of these little critters, simply because the beautiful cat is vastly superior to your average, dumb canine companion. Dogs are addicted to company. They’re addicted to commands. They’re addicted to people telling them what to do. They love nothing better than a human strapping a leash on them and taking them for a walk. So why would you want to get a dog if you work full-time and can only really feed his addictions at the weekend? You might drag it round the block before work, maybe you even have a dogwalker visit the thing at lunchtime. You get back after work, if you feel like it, you drag doggie round the block again. In the long hours between you going to work, the dog walker arriving and you getting back from work, doggie is on cold turkey. And may compensate by howling, tearing your house apart, crapping into flowerpots and developing some rather interesting behavioural defects. If you can’t provide the entertainment (either someone is in all day or the dog has a job, is outside and/or has another dog for company), for heaven’s sake, don’t get a dog.

• Pushing people onto the bus

We’ve all been there. See bus. Arm out. Bus stops. Door opens. Bus is empty and about 3 people should like to get on it. In theory, there should be no reason for commotion, for it is obvious that all three of you will comfortably fit onto the vehicle. There is no problem. Now try explaining that to the woman behind you who is merrily jabbing you in the back with her pointy Louis Vuitton armpit-baguette of a handbag. On second thoughts, don’t try to explain that to her, for she’ll just call you a bitch, before turning round to other passengers, in desperate need of an audience for her clumsy bunfight. Instead, stop dead. This will make her jab you harder with her bag, to the point where everyone else notices that she is indeed attacking you in an unprovoked fashion, which will make her look bad and, if you time it right, in the meantime you’ll look like a patient saint.

• Limping teenagers

There does not appear to be any medical reason behind their swagger and they’re everywhere. Bus stop. Highstreet. Any mobile phone shop. Schools. The tube. Trousers miraculously fixed onto their little kneecaps. Failing that, there is the ‘stiff arm hand clamp’, whereby the youngster clutches his leg with a strangely immobile wrist at all times. Even when they’re running. Maybe I’m missing something, but I just don’t get it. Why would you incapacitate yourself in such a fashion, look ridiculous and severely infringe on your walking skills? Now I know that 50 Cent got shot in the leg or something, and the idea of some sort of tribute to this incident may be appealing, but … honestly, you don’t all need to do it. You will never meet Fiddy. He will never appear randomly on your high street going ‘Yo! You with the limp! Cool! Dude!’. It’s just not going to happen. So will you please limp the hell out of my way?

• Ironing

This is the 21s century. Most people wear T-shirts and jeans. Most shirts seem to be self-ironing. Why bother? It’s a blatant waste of time and energy. Just think of all the exciting things you could be doing instead of standing there trying to clamp down on this unruly tennis sock. ‘Ah but I must look dapper in the workplace!’, I hear you cry. Well, I got news for you sunshine. Nobody is ever going to notice whether you have that all important karate crease going down your trouserleg or not. Nobody will ever notice that you may have slept in that very shirt you’re now wearing in the Monday morning meeting. Clothes sort themselves out, so stop interfering with mother polyester and father cotton. You are wasting your time.

• Folk hanging on to their respected other halves in public places

It’s a sad state of affairs when you think your other half is going to run off at any moment, so you have the irresistible urge to hang on to their knee/arm/neck down the pub. Trust me, if they even like you just a little bit, they’re unlikely to do so. You do not need to hamper their every move. Worst I’ve seen was some poor girl trying to take a sip from her glass, and this bloke was still hanging onto her elbow. Then there is the even more saddening aspect of one half (usually the male) ensuring everyone else in the place knows that this specimen of lady is his. Next time you’re down the pub, watch a random couple. The moment a group of males walks through the door, the boyfriend will immediately grab the nearest limb of his respective girlfriend, because, heck, those blokes just need to know he pulled. It’s almost like fire hasn’t been invented just yet and people revert to these cavemanesque rituals to preserve the species. Remember, these are modern times, nobody is anyone’s ‘property’. Mind you, holding hands in a situation that does not involve sitting down at a table is acceptable, because there is the argument one person might actually lose the other in the event of a sudden stampede of pedestrians. And it keeps your hands warm I suppose (at least one of them).

• Maintaining the myth that girls all go to the loo together so they can bitch about people

Maybe I am actually a descendent from another galaxy, but this does not happen. Not in my world, anyway. Toilets are not usually nice places to be in, so what would be the point in a whole bunch of you crowding in front of the sinks to express your views on society or the pub or club you happen to be in at the time? So let me clear this up once and for all. This is what really happens:

Group of people is in a pub or club or at a gig, a bar even. One of you needs the loo. This may remind another person that they also happen to be in need of a visit to the ladies. So you get up and make your way to the facilities. One of you might hold the door open for the one behind. You make your way into separate cubicles and go about your business. There might be a cry of ‘oh! Dammit! Er, anyone got any looroll they could pass over the door?’. Then you go wash your hands. You might say something along the lines of ‘ah this hand dryer is very loud isn’t it?’ or ‘yes, I believe this cubicle to be vacant!’ or ‘was yours flushing okay?’. And that is about it. We’re not at a high school prom. Neither are we attending some kind of key swapping party. Nor do we actually have the urge to re-paint our faces in a toilet. Nobody would know the difference, anyway. And if they did, chances are you’re pissed and took a leaf out of the Clown School Of Makeup by accident. I should also like to take this opportunity to speak for all those people who happen to have a fast metabolism and drink runs through them like they’re one of those babydolls. There is nothing wrong with us. And yes, when we say we need to go to the loo, chances are we really do need to go to the loo. And if we’ve been 10 minutes earlier, so be it. Some people are just like that.

I have come to the gruesome realization that I may be a complete bitch!

Oh no! That was the last thing I had in mind! But sometimes, not-so-pleasant character traits creep up on you sooner than you can say ‘What a lovely jumper this is!’.

Yesterday I laughed at the expense of a fellow human being. I did so loudly and uncontrollably. Worst of all, this happened at work. I really should be more careful. Harbouring spite is best done in the comfort of one’s home, or in the company of a select few you know you can trust. Trust not to put you down in the ‘horrible backstabber slagger-offer’ category of friend that is. Those who know you’re really a pleasant and genuine individual who means no actual harm to anyone.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problems telling someone to their face exactly what I think of them. But, as I found out a while ago, you cannot do that in the workplace. And if you feel the urge to do just that, you storm out for a fag and find some dustbins to kick over. And for heaven’s sake, do not express any of these thoughts in a work email! I learned that the hard way when I said something along the lines of ‘God such and such is such a bore!’ in an email and ten minutes later realized that such and such was currently sharing the email account of … the person I sent that too. Cue many icy silences. Mind you, I was proven wrong when that very guy emerged with a massive black eye one Monday morning and it turned out he got into a one-man-fight with a barman. Who would have thought it?

Moving on, yesterday I was supposed to somehow host a temp’s leaving presentation. In theory, this is easy. You just give them a big leaving card (hoping that the people signing it made the best use of the space available and that the card does not look empty) and say some things like ‘Thank you, it was a pleasure working with you!’. Once you get over the embarrassment of such scenarios, it really shouldn’t be that hard to do. In most cases, you never see these people again, anyway.

Yesterday, I got as far as ‘… working with you’. The person leaving had only worked there for about a week and during this period excelled in overusing the words ‘crikey!’ and ‘goodonyamate!’. Helpfully, his voice had a habit of, er, carrying. So imagine sitting opposite a cross between Rolf Harris and Steve Irwin. In a lime green polo shirt. With a limp handshake. And some very interesting opinions. That very morning he compared himself to a tub of PlayDoh (‘You can massage me into any shape you like!’). He also had a habit of calling me ‘Julie’. Now that is not my name. I do not like being referred to as ‘Julie’.

So I hand over that card (a humorous specimen from the local branch of Hallmark), this is where the leaver takes over and says a few words about just how much they enjoyed working here (presumably they are lying. Why else would they be leaving?). Instead, this guy launches into a lengthy pompous speech. There was a lot of pathos. Then. There it was. The space rocket analogy. ‘… and I feel like space rocket who goes skywards too quickly and then fizzles out. Like a bang!’.

At this point I was unable to contain myself any longer. I tried to stop the vicious attack my brain had instore for me. I failed. Instead I developed a rather nasty and unappetizing case of the giggles. The kind that leaves you shrieking, gargling, crouching close to the floor, face a shade of blue, tears and snot streaming down your face. Luckily, I happened to be clutching half a muffin, so I am positive that at least a few people though I was ‘just’ choking on that muffin.

It was bad. It should not happen to a team leader at a team member’s leaving presentation. I toyed with the idea of dragging my sorry self into the kitchen to er ‘laugh it off’, but that would have looked even worse.

And I just know that this guy must have known I was not laughing with him but at him, in a rather obvious fashion. And I am sure my apologies of ‘sorry, but that ‘joke’ about the space rocket was just so funny, thank you for making my afternoon!’ were rather pointless and just made me look even worse.

Laughing at other people is wrong. Everyone knows that. But sometimes, a little gem like this turns up on the horizon and all those good intentions go up the creek. I hang my head in shame (it WAS funny though).