Category: Rants

One A Day, Day 18: Another Education Rant

Today I was told by someone I’d never met before that I was “inadequate”. Of course, this is nothing unusual to me, as my romantic history prior to meeting my wife will attest, but for someone to come in, watch you doing your job for twenty minutes and then make a summary judgement about your competence (or lack thereof) smacks of… well, bollocks, frankly.

This is one of the (many) things that is wrong with the education system. Ticklists of criteria that need to be followed. Nonsense feedback that doesn’t help in the slightest (I “didn’t teach enough” but I “talked too much”, apparently – gee, thanks, that really clears that up). The fact that you are deemed to be a terrible person if you forget to give the children a formulaic ticklist of their own to copy into their books on the board.

Today’s lesson was the first session of a new topic on poetry. The children hadn’t done much on poetry previously, and what little they had done was some time ago. So the plan which the Year 4 team (two other teachers and me) had come up with was to give them an opportunity to look at a poem and give their immediate responses, and demonstrate those responses through drawings, movement and drama. Bullshit, I know, but apparently reading a poem and talking about the language in it isn’t enough for children these days. Or maybe it is, given that not only I, but also my colleague who taught the same lesson at the same time was also judged to be “inadequate”.

Still, fuck those ratings. Doubly so because just a month or so back I was judged as “satisfactory with some good elements”. Don’t let that faint praise hit you in the ass on the way out, Ms Inspector.

I can’t have changed that much in that time. I’ll tell you what can change, though – the behaviour of children. I briefed the kids before the observer arrived today that I was expecting their best behaviour and they still decided to be little fucks and whinge and moan and complain even when trying to do the simplest possible thing.

As always, there was absolutely no helpful advice given whatsoever to deal with this sort of thing. The usual advice is “you need to develop some strategies”. Thanks. Those would be…? “Develop some strategies. Build an action plan.” Fuck off.

I may be ranting about this, but I’m actually less pissed off about this than I would have been before I’d put in my resignation. Now I know that these sort of ridiculous judgements don’t mean anything to me I can shrug them off. It doesn’t make the education system any better, however, because these same judgements are applied to all schools, whether they’re the posh school in the country village that is filled with nothing but children who have been able to read, write and add up since the age of 3, or a school with a largely transient population like where I am now. You can’t compare the two things. You can’t compare the amount of progress an upper-middle class child with a perfect home life and parental support makes with that of a Nepalese immigrant whose parent(s) don’t speak English, or that of the kid whose Dad beats the crap out of his Mum on a regular basis.

These backgrounds don’t excuse behaviour, as I’ve said previously, but they do affect how good their work is going to be. Kids develop with parental support. It’s not just the teachers’ job to instill knowledge and discipline in them – lots of that needs to come from the parents, too – and it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, guess who gets blamed? That’s right, the teachers.

So fuck teaching. If you’re considering going into it, just don’t, unless you particularly enjoy someone you’ve never met calling you “inadequate” to your face and expecting you not to punch them very hard in the neck.

One A Day, Day 16: Set a Better Example

I’ve ranted about kids’ behaviour before, and probably will do so again, especially as it’s coming up to the half-term holidays and behaviour takes an inevitable hit at those times as excitement builds. Of course, at this school, behaviour is on the decline anyway, so that’s small consolation.

But what about the rest of us? How are we behaving? Well, when you think about it, there are a lot of parallels between the poor behaviour of children and the way adults act around each other. And it’s not a good thing in many cases.

Look at something as simple as lining up – an activity which my class (and most of the others in the school) seem to have tremendous difficulty with. It should be a case of the teacher saying “line up” and then the kids… well, lining up. It’s not, as they say, rocket science. However, watch these kids attempting to do this simple activity and you’ll see pushing, shoving, kids changing places, pushing in, shoving people around and generally not doing the whole “respectful” thing.

Now think back to the last time you drove on a motorway. One of several things probably happened – firstly, you may well have been driving along in the fast lane, overtaking cars that were going slower than you and possibly (naughty naughty) breaking the speed limit of 70mph a little bit yourself. The longer you stay in the fast lane, the closer the probability of someone driving either a BMW, a Mercedes, an Audi or a 4×4 behemoth coming up behind you at twice the speed you’re doing, flashing their lights and getting pissy if you don’t move, possibly weaving unsafely around the other slower cars in the other lanes just to get past you. There are, in many cases, kids in the back of these cars.

Secondly, if you’ve been stuck in a traffic jam recently (and thanks to whateverthefuck Winchester’s town planners have done to the route to the motorway, I get stuck in one every bastard day) you’ll inevitably see at least five douchebags changing lanes every three second in an attempt to get to the “front” (and I use the term loosely, since I don’t believe there ever is a “front” to a traffic jam on a motorway) and irritate everyone else. Again, there are, in many cases, kids in the back of these cars.

Pushing. Shoving. Being aggressive. See the parallels?

Then there’s violence. Kids thump each other all the time. But why? It could be violent video games (which they shouldn’t be playing). It could be violent TV (which they shouldn’t be watching). Or it could be violent parents or older siblings setting that example.

The list goes on. Alcohol abuse. Drug abuse. Treating people as sex objects rather than, you know, people. I could go on. But I won’t. At least not right now.

My point, then, is this:

Grown-ups. Children are watching, so grow the fuck up.

The best teacher in the world isn’t going to change a child’s behaviour if there isn’t the backup from the parental side of things. And I know there are parents out there who do set good examples, take an interest in their children and make an effort not to turn them into douchebags. But there are just as many – and it’s a growing number – who don’t give a toss, or worse, think it’s somehow funny or endearing that their children act like thugs.

In unrelated news, Mass Effect 2 is frickin’ amazing.

One A Day, Day 12: It’s pronounced B-O-LL-O-CK-S.

Good evening! Since my wife’s viewing of televisual car crash Popstar to Opera Star precludes my playing of Mass Effect and its sequel on the TV, and Star Trek Online has decided to update itself with a patch that will take 5 hours to download on Steam (despite the fact I was playing it earlier with no problems), now’s as good a time as any to get today’s entry done.

Today I would like to rant about phonics, since I had a long, boring, pointless and patronising training day on this very subject today.

For the uninitiated, phonics is the theory which suggests that children should learn reading by sounding out individual phonemes in words, then learn how to “blend” them together where appropriate. It also suggests that it’s sensible to teach six-year olds the words “morpheme“, “phoneme“, “grapheme“, “digraph” and “trigraph” – words which I didn’t come across until I studied English Language at A-level (age 16-18) and again at university.

The flaw, in case you haven’t spotted it, is that English isn’t a phonetic language. We have so many different ways of pronouncing each letter in our alphabet that using phonics to teach reading quickly becomes useless – and in the meantime, it fucks up spelling ability.

As if to emphasise this point, the official materials for teaching phonics from the government include an appendix of the most “high-frequency” words in the English language. Out of the thirty most-used words in the English language, fourteen of them are designated “tricky” words, which means that the phonics rules don’t apply to them. Well, if the phonics rules don’t apply to almost half of the most common words in the language, exactly what use is it to anyone?

The funny thing is, I can’t remember how I learned to read. I imagine that’s not an uncommon thought – childhood memories fade over time, after all – but I’m pretty sure it didn’t involve phonics at any point. I can tell this because I can spell, and don’t think that because “rough” is pronounced “r-u-ff” that it should be spelled that way too, which is what I see kids doing on a daily basis.

It’s difficult to know what to suggest, though. Phonics is fashionable. Someone somewhere said it was “good” and it stuck. As with most fashions, this is nothing to do with how good it is. It is simply the “in” thing at the time.

It doesn’t help, of course, that the leader of today’s training day was a patronising, aggressive middle-aged harpy who clearly had a chip on her shoulder about something. Her holier-than-thou attitude towards phonics and teaching reading and her steadfast refusal to consider any alternatives (even doing an arrogant “shaking head” movement whenever anyone raised a point she didn’t agree with) made everyone resent the process even more than its inherent stupidity already did.

This video pretty much sums up the problem:

(Thanks to Jeff Parsons for bringing this to my attention.)

Here’s a poem, too. Don’t say I’m not good to you.

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead –
For goodness sake don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five!

Quoted by Vivian Cook and Melvin Bragg 2004,
by Richard Krogh, in D Bolinger & D A Sears, Aspects of Language, 1981,
and in Spelling Progress Bulletin March 1961, Brush up on your English.

One A Day, Day 10: On The Edge

Part the First

Horrible day today. The behaviour of the children is getting worse and worse and I feel powerless to do anything about it. Probably because I am powerless to do anything about it. My predecessor apparently used to “bellow” at them every so often to get them to be quiet, but last time I bellowed at them (which got the point across nicely, incidentally) I ended up being the one getting told off for it. Which is pretty ridiculous, really.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Children respond to shock tactics and humiliation. The stupid culture of reward that is instilled in modern education now does not achieve anything. When you reward children for everything, including sitting down on a chair (I’m not joking) all rewards completely lose their impact and all you’re left with are punishments… which don’t work because the kids don’t respect adults. It’s a complete no-win situation and short of a drastic shakeup of the education system, I don’t see a way forward. But it’s not politically correct to punish children. It’s not even politically correct to shout at them any more. Teachers are impotent in the face of poor behaviour.

Take one kid in my class. I won’t use his real name. Let’s call him Jack. No, actually, let’s call him Cock. Because he is.

Cock has a difficult home life – one of those indecipherable ones involving domestic violence and on-off relationships. As a result (apparently) he’s become the person he is – rude, argumentative, confrontational, violent, cheeky and lazy. The school he’s at now – where I teach him – was about his third in the space of a couple of months when he arrived.

I can’t do anything with him. And when he chooses to kick off, he drags the rest of the class along with him. Because, being kids, they find it hilarious when he lies on the floor, or runs around chasing people, or starts shouting “The Pakistanis are coming!”. In a school with a rather large ethnic minority population.

And there’s nothing you can do about it. He’s been spoken to by me and senior members of staff at the school. His parents have been spoken to. He’s had letters home. He has special sessions with teaching assistants. Yet still he’s an asshole. His home life is used as a constant excuse for his shitty behaviour. And while it may upset him, that’s still not an excuse. There’s too much hand-wringing over what are delightfully termed “challenging” children. They should suffer the consequences of poor behaviour just like everyone else. Except no-one else really suffers any consequences either.

Right. Starting to see the problem here.

Still, after handing in my written resignation I calculated today that I only have 51 days until my escape – only 35 of which are actually teaching days. Which is nice. Beginning to wish I had just given them a week’s notice and buggered off.

Part the Second

So Apple finally announced the iPad, the official name of the “Apple tablet” which everyone has inexplicably known about for months. And already there are painfully unfunny jokes going around about the “iTampon”. I may just be grumpy because of a shit day, but I don’t find that even a little bit funny – largely because we’ve had things called “[something] pad” for years and no-one has ever commented. My estimation of the intelligence of the Internet has just dropped a notch, and I’m reminded of something Mark Whiting of the Squadron of Shame said on our Deus Ex podcast – “Back in ’99 we all thought the Internet would turn into SkyNet. This was before we knew it would turn into 4Chan.”

As for the device itself… it’s a big iPhone which, at this time, I have no interest in owning. I like proper computers too much to even consider a tablet. Call me a traditionalist.

Part the Third

At the time of writing, in 12 hours’ time, there will be something exciting announced on Good Old Games. They have been cock-teasing everybody for the last few days on Facebook and Twitter… tomorrow we’ll get to finally find out what the big news is. I’m certainly intrigued. You should be too.

Now it’s late. Time for bed for me. This entry has been fragmented, but so has my brain. I really don’t want to have to go in and deal with those kids again tomorrow… but I have to just keep counting down to first freedom and then an undoubtedly awesome time at PAX East. I can’t wait. For either thing.

Good night.

One A Day, Day 9: All Wound Up

All wound up, on the edge, terrified. Sleep disturbed, restless mind, petrified. Bouts of fear permeate all I see. Heightening nervousness threatens me.

That’s the opening to Dream Theater’s Panic Attack, a song I adore both for its Castlevania-esque piano/orchestra/choir breaks every so often but also for its blunt, honest portrayal of what it feels like to have a mind that’s so stressed out it feels like you might explode.

Feeling that right now. The pounding inside my head isn’t helping the feeling, as I have a headache from the very depths of R’lyeh to contend with at the moment and I am holding the annoying children I have to endure for my day job personally responsible. Tuesday is supposed to be my “quiet day”, with the morning spent doing planning for the upcoming week, but the kids I teach more than made up for me not having the morning with them by not shutting up for the whole bloody afternoon. It didn’t help that our Maths lesson was interrupted by having to line up, go downstairs and watch twenty minutes of Indian dancing before going back to finish off a task which they didn’t understand not because it was too difficult for them but because they didn’t fucking listen the first time and the second time and the third time I explained what the little shits were supposed to be doing.

Arrrrgh! How annoying!

*breathes*

So how are you, reader? I hope my misfortune is either entertaining, eye-opening or both to you. The main reason today didn’t give me a complete nervous breakdown is the knowledge that it’s not forever. The only thing I wish I didn’t have to deal with is the fact that the school I work at is in “special measures”, which means that government inspectors (who have probably never spent even a single hour at the chalkface) came around to look at it (before I arrived, I might add) and judged it as “failing”. Like I said in the last post I mentioned this in, the fact that we can get any work at all out of some of these horrendous children is a minor miracle. Still, the government judges the school as “failing”, which means extra stress for everyone involved as the inspectors return every so often at very short notice to come and see how things are improving. This also means we have people from the local education authority coming at short notice to see how things are doing. This means we have lesson observations at incredibly inconvenient times, like next week. At least whatever outcome this observation has no longer matters for me, though I feel for my poor colleague in the classroom next door who not only has a lesson observation but also has to spend a protracted amount of time in the company of The Most Miserable Woman In The World talking about assessments we haven’t done yet.

I am clearly making the right decision to escape from this as early as possible. There will be no regrets. At least when I look back on the three years and one term that I’ve spent as a teacher, I have enough experience to say 1) “I’m never doing that again!” and 2) “Thinking about teaching? DON’T BE AN IDIOT.”

Now there’s something they don’t say in their patronising, unrealistic adverts.

One A Day, Day 5: It’s the Weekend!

Yes, it’s the weekend, assuming you’ve finished work.

As much as a love the end of a working week, I find something profoundly irritating about people who talk about the weekend as if it’s some sort of magical entity capable of curing all evils and making the world a better place. It’s not magical. It’s two days off, after which you’ll have to go back to your stultifyingly boring and depressing job, coming just to the borderline of seriously contemplating slitting your wrists by Friday, before you get to go home, get some actual sleep, spend two days wanking and crying then start the whole hideous process over again.

The worst culprit for weekend-hype is Annie Mac‘s show on BBC Radio 1. Radio 1 is irritating at the best of times, but Mac’s show takes the biscuit. Her jingles seem to consist entirely of either airhorn noises (the use of which seems to be growing in popularity, annoyingly) or special needs people yelling “It’s FRIDAY!” then giggling like they’ve got a wasp in their Jap’s-eye and don’t know whether it tickles or really fucking hurts. Take a listen if you can stomach it. The thing is, some of the music she plays is actually quite good for a Friday night drive home. But as soon as she starts talking or pressing the magic noise-making buttons on her console, I want to throw smelly things through my radio into her stupid face.

Still. The weekend is good in that you can sleep in and then get things done that you’ve been intending to do all week. Or, indeed, spend two continuous days wanking and crying, as intimated earlier. Both are perfectly acceptable uses of your time. The choice is yours.

I know what I’m planning to do.

One A Day, Day 3: Why Teaching Sucks

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or know me in general will be aware that my loathing for the teaching profession is well-documented. That, of course, didn’t stop me making an ill-advised move back into it after successfully escaping for two years. But I wonder how many of you know why?

Let me tell you.

Teaching sucks. There are many reasons for this – the chief among which is that in many, many schools the possibility of actually undertaking the activity for which the profession is named – you know, “teaching” – is rendered impossible. This happens in lots of ways.

First of all, there is the declining standard of behaviour in the classroom. I have a Year 4 class – 8 and 9 year olds. These kids are already well-versed in backchat to teachers, violence towards each other, swearing, refusing to do work and taking advantage of supposed “special needs” to their own advantage. (This isn’t, of course, to put down those kids that do have genuine difficulties learning things, but rather to put down those kids who use their supposed “condition” as an excuse to behave like a twat.)

When asking for support with children like this from senior staff, the inevitable response to the poor teacher is “you need to develop some strategies”. Well, fine. Give me some. Some that work. Oh, wait, none actually do work? Right. Let’s do some nonsense with traffic lights that they’ll ignore then.

“Keep at it. Be consistent,” they’ll say. And fine, fair enough, you should be consistent in your rewards and punishments. But I am distinctly old-fashioned in the opinion that I feel children should know their place. It is not their place to question their teacher. It is not their place to refuse to do work. It is not their place to get up out of their seat and wander around the classroom. I remember the “naughty children” in my class at primary school well (largely because they were also the ones who would bully the meeker kids such as myself), and while they were silly and could be outright nasty at playtime, in the classroom there was never any wandering around or backchat. Now, it’s not an exaggeration to say it’s a daily occurrence.

Second among the reasons that teaching is impossible is everyone’s favourite friend, bureaucracy. By the end of a single day, my desk will be covered with useless pieces of paper – notes, memos, charts, tables, percentages, requests for information. All of it is meaningless, and I don’t know where it all comes from. Why do we need to know so much information? Why is the school I’m teaching at considered a “failing” school because of some of these figures? Yes, many pupils are making slow progress but that’s because, frankly, many of them came in pretty low, don’t get much support at home and don’t have the slightest clue how to behave in the classroom, even when this is pointed out by their teacher. The fact that these children are learning anything at all should be considered a success.

Another stupid thing: the excessively celebratory nature of most schools these days. It reaches a level where it is utterly meaningless. Celebration of achievement is an important part of motivation, but when children are getting certificates in assembly for “sitting quietly all day” or “always being cheerful”, I think we may be taking things a little far. (That travesty of an “awards” ceremony happens on a weekly basis, by the way.)

The theory runs that children respond better to praise and encouragement than punishments. Well, I am yet to see any evidence of that in the three schools I have taught in, amongst children aged anywhere between 8 and 16. Children respond to things that are “unpleasant” for them. They don’t want to miss out on fun things, and they definitely don’t want to look stupid in front of their friends. So why don’t we have a weekly “anti-celebration assembly” where the naughtiest children of the week are brought up to the front of the school and admonished by the headmaster? Parents could be invited. It’d be fun.

The answer to that is, of course, that it’s not politically correct to be negative. There’s even a “golden ratio”. There should be three times as much praise as there should be punishment. I don’t know who came up with that statistic, but they probably had a clipboard.

Then there’s the Tories’ bright idea to bring in “superteachers”. This is never going to work, because the profession has such a high turnover anyway – mostly for the reasons outlined above along with the stress and the health problems that causes – that limiting access to it smacks of stupidity. In fact, this article from the Daily Mash sums it up beautifully.

Those who find success and fulfilment in the teaching profession are either very brave, very resilient or very stupid. Whatever it is, they have my eternal respect, because I’m not one of them. At the first opportunity to arise, I will be out of that door, never to return.

And this time I mean it!

Chasing Stardust

Caution: Self-indulgence and self-pitying ahead. You have been forewarned.

Ever had the feeling that you’re just chasing something that doesn’t quite exist? Something intangible, that you know you want, but struggle to even describe, let alone put your hands on? And you just know that if you got your hands on it, you’d be that much happier?

I got a new job recently. I’m a primary school teacher – a return to classroom teaching after two years’ break, and a shift from my original profession as secondary school teacher. Now, I like teaching. I’m even good at it. I’ve been told so by many people. But the frustrating thing about teaching – and so many other things – is the other shit you have to put up with at the same time. Behaviour, for example. I lost count of the number of times I had to stop and “give warnings” today simply for kids being stupid, or talking when I’d asked them to listen, or getting up and wandering around the room, or… You get the idea. Kids will be kids, you may say. Well, yes, they will – but it’s frustrating. I remember being a kid and being terrified to step out of line. I was (and still am) a bit of a goody-two-shoes, of course, but you know what? I’d rather be that than a dick.

Then there’s the other stuff. I’m new to primary teaching, so I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed with new things to learn. The year group team that I’ve joined are very supportive, though, which is good – it means I can bug them with questions when I don’t know what something means, or don’t understand a procedure, or, more to the point, haven’t had a procedure explained to me.

Ah, procedures. Close friend of paperwork. Both of them largely pointless in nine situations out of ten. All they have succeeded in doing so far is 1) messing up my desk within five minutes of me taking possession of it 2) overwhelming me with unnecessary paperwork and 3) making me feel inadequate. And I can do without feeling inadequate right now.

Everyone gets the jitters when they start a new job. I’m hoping this feeling of being overwhelmed and unsure of myself passes. I’m still in two minds as to whether I’m doing the right thing. Lots of people have told me that they thought I’d make a good primary school teacher. I agree – at least that I would be good at teaching primary-age children. It’s the other bits that I worry about not being able to hack. I am neither the most assertive person in the world nor the most organised person in the world, so the twin evils of “behaviour management” and paperwork together form a giant super-nemesis for me. It also doesn’t help that previously, having found a job that I genuinely did enjoy, like, even love for a while, it was taken away by an inconsiderate management team who succeeded in destroying my self-confidence by caring more about the bottom line than the welfare of their staff. So a big “fuck you” to them, if you please.

Of course, I have only been working there for three days so far, so it is highly likely that I am being premature in my judgement of myself as borderline-incompetent. That’s that pesky tattered and torn self-confidence talking.

This is the rub though. I find myself struggling to think what else I can do. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I find myself struggling to think what else I can do that will pay the bills in a reliable manner. There are loads of things that I love doing – things that I’d much rather do than be cooped up in a classroom with thirty kids – but they’re either unpaid or erratic work. Writing, for example. I love writing. I love blogging. I love writing fiction. I love writing about games, and about music. I love writing semi-incoherent rants that people somehow find entertaining while the big vein in my head pops. I love tweeting and commenting on things. I’d love to be able to sit and write all day and be paid for it, but realistically that’s highly unlikely to happen. Of course, a glass-half-empty approach doesn’t get anywhere, but it’s – yes – frustrating. It doesn’t have to stop me enjoying doing it when I have the chance, though – hence this blog, and hence my entry in this year’s NaNoWriMo.

There are so many things I love doing – teaching, music, writing, gaming, podcasting, production, film – so why is it so damn hard to find something to settle on and just enjoy? Why does everything have barriers to entry – and yet more barriers to negotiate once you get inside?

I guess I should be more positive. But I can’t help but think that I’m getting that “I’m nearly 30” feeling and wondering where on Earth I’m going. One day I might find an answer. Until then, I’m just chasing stardust.

The Hate List (September 2009)

Hello!

Here’s the official September 2009 edition of Things That Piss Me The Hell Off That I Can’t Do Anything About So Might As Well Ignore Them But Can’t.

Irrational rant and much sarcasm ahead.

In no particular order:

  • People who cough, then gob on the floor.
    If I can cough and then either swallow my own phlegm or spit it into a tissue just to maintain some amount of public decorum, you can too. You’re not a pirate. Or a cowboy. You’re an idiot.
  • Casual lawbreaking.
    “Ah, it doesn’t matter if I speed/park here/drop this litter/break this thing that doesn’t belong to me/steal this thing/let my dog shit there/threaten someone. Everyone else does it.” That’s right. And that’s why driving means you take your life into your own hands, you can never find a parking space (and when you do, it’s blocked by someone who has parked where they shouldn’t), our streets and parks often look more like rubbish dumps, kids whinge that there’s ‘nothing to do’ because it’s all broken or stolen or covered in dogshit, and people are afraid to step up and stop people from doing these things. Everyone hates the idea of a nanny state (myself included) but by doing all these stupid things you just encourage those in charge to put tighter and tighter controls in place in an attempt to stop you behaving like a self-obsessed bellend.
  • Cyclists who don’t understand the Highway Code.
    If you are cycling, you are a road-based vehicle. Granted, a very small one that is mostly person-propelled, but you’re still a vehicle. Don’t swear at me if you come screaming down the pavement and nearly ram into me when there’s a perfectly good road with no people walking down it. Also, red lights mean stop. You massive twat.
  • Car drivers who don’t understand the Highway Code.
    Quick recap: Blue sign with white arrow means “one way”. Red sign with white stripe across middle means “don’t go this way”. Stop muddling the two up.
  • Lorry drivers who overtake on the motorway.
    You have an acceleration of 0-60 in 3 years. The thing you’re trying to overtake also has the same acceleration and there is a difference of 0.01mph between the two of you. Overtaking it will likely take you a very long time and get you into a position where you’re stuck behind another lorry that is going the same speed as the one you just overtook. Why not – here’s a thought – not bother?
  • People who absolutely have to get where they’re going faster than you.
    Subject of the second ever entry on this blog, fact fans. Travelling around London is a sure-fire way to see this. You know the whole point of an escalator is that it’s a moving staircase that you don’t have to walk down, right? So pushing past to get to the bottom two seconds faster than everyone else achieves nothing except annoying the people who are patiently waiting. Also, standing behind someone who has a large suitcase that takes up a large step and tutting isn’t going to make the suitcase magically get small enough for you to get past.
  • Mercedes/BMW/Audi drivers. (Except my Dad, who drives a BMW in the most non-BMW-driver way I’ve ever seen.)
    Those flashing orange lights on the side of your car are not “parking lights”. They do not mean you can park anywhere. Similarly, if you are in a traffic jam, weaving between lanes actually slows everything down rather than allowing you to get anywhere faster. Also, if you come up behind me and flash your headlights when I’m driving at the speed limit in the fast lane, overtaking things in the slow lane, I will slow down just to annoy you.
  • Fat exhaust pipes on shit cars.
    Your car is loud! It sounds like the exhaust is broken! You’d better get that looked at. In the meantime, why not drive like you think you’re in a Mercedes?
  • Using the word “fucking” as punctuation.
    When considering whether it is appropriate to use taboo language in conversation, consider 1) your audience, 2) the context and 3) whether it will help your message to be heard. “Ah went dahn the fahkin’ shops and bought some fahkin’ bread” is an example of the word “fucking” not being used to enhance the sentence in the slightest. “People who do this are fucking idiots” is a good example of using the word “fucking” in one of its primary uses as an intensifier. A “fucking idiot” is more of an idiot than an “idiot”. However, the “fucking shops” are no more or less a shop than the shops. Also, bread.
  • T-shirts with slogans about being drunk.
    Oh! You like to drink! You’re so wacky! “Take me drunk, I’m home!” That’s clever! That’s so clever!
  • T-shirts with slogans about having a large penis.
    If you need to shout about it, it’s probably not worth shouting about.
  • T-shirts with swear words on them.
    I’m not averse to using bad language in a situation where it is appropriate and/or acceptable, but to walk around town where there are often young children and also people who don’t particularly want to see your T-shirt imploring them to “FUCK OFF” present marks you out as being 1) inconsiderate and 2) a massive tool.
  • Men who wear too much aftershave.
    If I can still smell you a minute after you’ve walked past me, that’s too much.
  • Smokers who smoke underneath “No Smoking” signs.
    Ooh, you big rebel. Get you. Now take your stinking cancer-sticks and shove them up your arse where I can’t smell them but you can feel them. Preferably lit.
  • Beauty fascism.
    Eyes age in two ways! (So you must fix them!) Wrinkles appear on your body! (So you must Polyfilla them!) Your teeth are dirty! (So bleach them!) Your skin is pale! (So paint it orange!) Your hair is not quite blonde enough! (So dip it in Domestos until it’s just right!) Your clothes suck! You’re a failure! A FAILURE! WHY DON’T YOU JUST DIE, YOU PATHETIC BAGGY-EYED, PALE-SKINNED FAILY FAILURE FAILINGTON?
  • Confused.com’s advertising. (YouTube)
    Are you really expecting us to believe that people voluntarily sat down in front of a webcam and talked about their experiences buying home and/or car insurance so you could put their gurning Everyman mugs all over our TV screens every five seconds? Because I’ve bought both home insurance and car insurance. Both experiences made me want to kill myself. Maybe I should go on cam and say that. Apparently the emo-looking kid in the purple top (“Phil”) is quite well-known on YouTube. Sell-out.
  • GoCompare’s advertising. (YouTube)
    No-one sits in a coffee shop saying things like “Car insurance, eh? What can you do?” – even floppy-haired douchebags like the ones in the advert. Also, if a singing twat burst in encouraging me to “Go Compare” I’d tell him to “Go Fuck Yourself” and punch him in the neck.
  • Compare the Meerkat. (YouTube)
    Almost funny once. Not funny the five hundredth time. In fact…
  • Insurance advertising.
    Just sod off and stop trying to make one of the most boring things in the world look exciting.
  • McDonalds’ advertising.
    You have a recognisable jingle. Well done. Would it kill you to put it in the same key as the rest of the music in the advert?
  • People who use the word “unfortunately” when they don’t mean it.
    You don’t care that I can’t do that thing I’m trying to do. It’s no skin off your nose. So don’t patronise me by bemoaning my poor fortune.
  • Unnecessary layers of management.
    The most extreme example of this I’ve seen came while I was temping for a loss adjustment company. An insurance company hired a firm of solicitors who hired the loss adjusters who hired some surveyors who hired some building contractors who hired some builders who charged the building contractors who charged the surveyors who charged the loss adjusters who charged the solicitors who hired some cost recovery specialists to recover the costs from the insurance company who hired their own cost recovery specialists to recover the fees from the person whose fault it might have been (but they weren’t sure). Unsurprisingly, the whole case (which was incredibly boring, something to do with a little crack in someone’s living room wall which may or may not have had something to do with a tree outside the window) took several years to resolve, by which time the crack had probably gone all the way up the wall and broken the house.
  • Spar.
    Why is it I can go into Tesco Express, buy lunch, dinner, toilet roll and a few household essentials and spend approximately £10, while I do the same in your rotten little shop and have to spend £20 for inferior products? Also, one of your cashiers needs to buy some deodorant.
  • The X-Factor.
    Simon Cowell was quoted this week (in the Star, admittedly, but I’ll let that pass for the sake of this rant) as saying “The Beatles wouldn’t have won the X-Factor”. Good. That means they actually have a future and won’t ever do a duet with Flo Rida. Speaking of whom…
  • Flo Rida.
    You can rap in triplets. Well done. Now try writing your own songs instead of pinching other peoples’. Which reminds me…
  • Cover versions that aren’t cover versions.
    Sugababes recently covered Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy”. Badly. Pussycat Dolls recently put out a song which wasn’t “I Will Survive” but inexplicably breaks into it completely incongruously halfway through. Flo Rida… ugh, just make him go away. If you’re going to cover a song, show it some respect and/or creativity.
  • Radio 1.
    There are more than ten songs in the world. Some of them aren’t even done by floppy-haired idiots or women with shiny legs. Please play them.
  • There/Their/They’re.
    You learned this in primary school. I can still remember it, so why can’t you?
  • Your/You’re.
    You also learned this in primary school. I still remember it also.
  • Basic punctuation.
    Capital letter at the start of a sentence. Full stop at the end. No need for kisses. “[Anonymous] is pleased today over it really should be better paid for all the hassle going to enjoy a bottle of wine and a good catch up x” is a sentence that makes fairies cry.
  • Apostrophes.
    Apostrophes denote possession, a missing letter or being pretentious. (People know what a “bus” is now. We don’t really need to call it a “‘bus” any more. Same for the phone. Or the ‘phone.) “Flower’s for wedding’s” (seen on a road outside Fareham) is not correct. “Please do not use mobile phones or personal stereo’s in this area” (seen on South West Trains) is not only incorrect, it is inconsistent. “All reasonable offer’s will be considered” is similarly not correct. “Pete’s last entry sure was full of vitriol” is correct. “Fish ‘n’ Chips” is correct.
  • Facebook games.
    No, I don’t want to join your Mafia or adopt your stupid spastic black sheep that “turned up” on your farm. If it turned up on your farm, you take care of the little bastard.
  • Facebook.
    Facebook is full of noise. It’s like trying to be heard while standing in the middle of a ball pit filled with drunken giggling teenagers at the local Happy Eater while a man shouts “MAFIA WARS! FARMVILLE! AAAAAH!” at the top of his voice. (This has now been allayed somewhat with the launch of Facebook Lite, aka We Wish We Were Twitter.) (Additional note: I still like and use Facebook. But it is getting noisy.)

That’s nearly 2,000 words there. I think that’s probably enough for now! If you have any pet peeves of your own you’d like to share, please do make them known in the comments.

If all that depressed you, let Maru cheer you up:

‘Tis the season to be miserable

So what’s the deal with winter anyway?

Trite opening I know but it bears some discussion. Exactly what is it about those winter months that makes an already-curmudgeonly old git like myself into a regular Sad Sack? I refuse to believe there’s not an answer beyond “it’s cold” because I’m not the only one it happens to.

Case study number one: my very good friend, who we’ll just call “E” in case she minds being used as a case study, cited the example to me that every bad breakup she’s ever had took place in the month of December, almost without fail. Is this a symptom of the winter blues or just a coincidence? Whatever it is, it’s made her just as distrustful of the month of Our Lord’s birth than I am.

Who knows. All I know is that it’s dark in the morning when I go to work, often dark in the evening when I return. The general public are in that irritatingly frenzied state of “panic buying” – because some people still aren’t aware that most shops are shut on Christmas Day after all – and all those little annoyances about the general public that you already notice more than the average man in the street when you work in retail suddenly become ten to fifteen times worse. (I have no scientific basis for quoting that figure, I just thought I’d channel the arseholes who come up with make-up “fake science” adverts for a moment – they’re gone now, don’t worry.)

Last year I had the most miserable Christmas of my life. My wife-to-be had departed for Bolton to spend Christmas with her family (duty calls and all that) and I was scheduled to work.

But I had ‘flu (and don’t even get me started on that “man flu” bollocks that is such an unfunny running joke in this country), so I was confined to bed, unable even to go to work and spend time with the few buddies who were still here. Nope, instead I lay in bed on Christmas Day until about 3pm, only rising to make a Beechams Hot Lemon drink when the banging headaches and joint pains were getting a bit much.

I know there’s people out there who have far more miserable Christmases than that, but this is my rant and god-dammit if I’m not going to be a bit selfish! (I also hate how political correctness dictates the necessity of a paragraph like this one, but that’s another post all of its own)

Anyway. This Christmas is fortunately shaping up to be a lot better, as my now-wife Jane and I are spending our first Christmas on our own as a married couple.

It’s not that I don’t like spending time with people, you understand.

Actually, that’s a lie. It’s EXACTLY that I don’t like spending time with people. Especially stressed-out people which, it often seems to me, is becoming more and more a part of the holiday season. The clue’s in the name, people! A holiday should be a break, not an excuse to panic over a fat-ass turkey and whether or not you’ve got enough bloody vol-au-vents to feed Uncle Boggart.

Breathe.

So, there you have it.

I hope you, if you’re reading this, have a better experience in the wintertime than either I or several of my friends have had or, in some cases, are having.

And if you do have friends who are having a tough winter, give them a hug. Sometimes it’s all you need to let someone know you care, and it immediately makes things feel that much better.

I know, I’m a big girl, but I don’t care.

Merry Christmas.

HUMBUG!!!