#oneaday Day 448: Biting one’s tongue

I’m angry. And sad. And I wish I was neither of those things, but I seem to be unable to escape the general shittiness of the world we live in. And to make matters worse, the things that I am angry and sad about, other people don’t seem to think are a problem.

I’m not going to get into the specifics of those things, and that’s part of the problem. I don’t feel like I can, because it’s not just that other people don’t seem to think that these things are an issue. It’s that they are actively hostile to anyone who does see them for what they are. And I really don’t want to get into arguments with people on this stuff, because I already feel incredibly alienated, isolated and lonely for a number of different reasons, but at the same time it feels like holding in all these frustrations is completely counter-productive. But I don’t want to post those frustrations anywhere that might get back to the people I am upset and annoyed with, however indirectly.

You can hopefully see why I’m feeling a bit mixed-up and muddled over the whole situation. It absolutely blows to be living in a world where, day after day, you feel more and more like you’re not welcome, like you’re worthless, like there’s nothing you can do to make the situation better. It blows even more to not really be able to express those feelings to anyone, for the reasons outlined above.

I was always afraid my life would end up like this. For as long as I can remember, I have been someone who is comfortable in his own company, even welcoming of some solitude in which to reflect and perhaps be creative. But, at the same time, I’ve always welcomed the opportunity to share the things I love with others, or simply to enjoy simple moments of connection, amusement and joy with other people that I have learned to trust.

I am fortunate to have my wife, who has always been incredibly understanding and tolerant of my many shortcomings as a human being — and, likewise, I have always been there to support her, even during difficult times. I am also fortunate to have my cats, who love me unconditionally, and always know when I really need them to be near me.

But there are times when that doesn’t feel like enough. There are times when I feel more alone than I’ve ever been in my life, and times when I’m terrified that these feelings will only get worse as time marches onwards. And no-one seems to care. And then I feel bad for wanting people to care, because I worry that will make people think I’m self-absorbed, selfish and not considerate of others’ feelings. Like I don’t deserve anyone’s attention or regard. And then I start feeling, well, why should anyone care about someone so clearly filled with utter self-loathing?

I’ll be all right. I usually am. It’s just one of those bad days; one of those days that medical professionals euphemistically refer to as “low mood”, which I feel somewhat undersells the feelings of utter hopelessness and desperation that tend to accompany such episodes.

But for now, I’ll just continue to be angry and sad. And hope that tomorrow is a better day.

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1569: Life Gets In the Way

I was chatting with my friend Lynette earlier about various things, and the subject turned, as it often does, to anime. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a lengthy spiel on how emotional the ending of Angel Beats! was — though I did watch the last episode today, so expect some thoughts on that shortly. No, instead, it’s going to be about the frustrating feeling of discovering things that you really like when it feels like it’s almost “too late”.

I don’t mean that I’m too old for anime or related media, of course — I really hope the day never comes when I feel like I’ve “grown out” of the things I love today — but rather I feel like the opportunity to enjoy and share these things with friends has been, to a large degree, mostly lost.

I mention this because of my aforementioned conversation with Lynette. Aside from this blog — where, as we all know, I’m pissing in the wind — Lynette is one of the few people I have the opportunity to enthuse about anime with on a fairly regular basis. And it’s somewhat frustrating to both of us that we’re several thousand miles apart and consequently unable to get together regularly for cocktails, popcorn and a few episodes of some favourite anime series, perhaps educating one another on recent discoveries that we want to share. It’s something we’d both really like to be able to do — indeed, we have done it before, on the occasions when I’ve had the opportunity to visit her and her husband Mark (also a close personal friend, and also someone with whom I can enthuse about anime) in Toronto.

This is one unfortunate side-effect of the whole “global village” (hah, bet you haven’t heard that term since a ’90s issue of PC Format) thing the Internet has brought about. It’s never been easier to find like-minded friends who share the same interests and passions as you, but the thing people don’t mention about that seemingly great development in socialisation is how frustrating it is to not be able to get together with those friends on at least a semi-regular basis. (Unless you’re loaded enough to be able to simply hop on a trans-Atlantic flight at a moment’s notice whenever you fancy it, in which case I think I hate you a little bit.) I have friends literally all over the world — America, Canada, the Middle East, Japan, Australia — who I would love to hang out with and do all sorts of mutually enjoyable things with (no, not that sort of thing, pervert) but am unable to do so. I’m fortunate enough to have these friends in the first place, of course, but by gosh, I sometimes wish they were just around the corner so I could drop them a text, invite them over for an anime evening and subsequently have an enjoyable time.

Why not ask your local friends, you might wonder. Because my local friends all have their own passions and interests — and, with us being the age we are (we’re not in university any more!) a lot of them are doing distinctly “grown-up” things like grouting their bathrooms (whatever that means) or having children. I certainly don’t begrudge them any of those things, but it can be sad and frustrating when it’s difficult to get people together for anything more than the most cursory of social occasions. Life gets in the way, in other words.

So, uh, anyone local want to hang out and watch some anime? We have popcorn.

1515: Bring On the Weekend

I’m having a fairly shitty week. Not only have I not been feeling particularly 100% for a lot of it (though since I took that day off to rest and recuperate a bit, the rest of the week seems to have flown by) but a lot of things have been going frustratingly wrong, too. Nothing major or anything; just a mountain of tiny annoyances that, when added all together, just make me want to throw things.

For one thing, our coffee machine broke. It’s been working perfectly for ages — about 13 months, if our receipt is to be believed — but the other day it just decided that no, it was no longer going to pour coffee out of its spout; instead, it thought it would be a much better idea to pour the coffee inside itself instead. (I don’t even know how or why that is happening; there’s nothing blocking the spout or anything, so I can only assume one of the bits that goes voonkarankachank when you turn it on has stopped moving to where it goes clunk.) Hopefully we should be able to return it to where we got it and get it replaced, though. If not, it’s taking a trip back to Nespresso.

Then my laptop’s battery buggered up again. I only had this fixed back in January, and now it’s stopped charging again. Well, no, that’s not quite true — Windows says it’s charging and it works absolutely fine when plugged into the mains, but the battery percentage never gets off 0%. The Internet says I should try freezing it, but I’m not doing that. Fortunately, given that the machine was repaired not all that long ago, Novatech, bless ’em, are going to take a look and repair it for free. Their customer service has been consistently excellent any time I’ve needed it — which is mercifully infrequently with both my desktop and laptop systems I got from them — and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to others.

Then some documentation I sent off in order to cash in some investment I don’t really understand that my parents had been holding for me didn’t arrive at its destination, which has delayed me coming into possession of a pleasingly large amount of money which I could do with to do things like pay off my credit card and, you know, pay for things with the new house.

None of this issues are “game-breaking” as they can all be resolved pretty easily; it’s just frustrating when all this shit happens at the same time — the same day, in the case of the latter two. Hopefully it shouldn’t take too long to get them all sorted out and I can get back to being pissy at people who won’t talk about anything but Titanfall.

For now, I’m off to bed with Hatsune Miku. On the Vita. Yes.

#oneaday Day 843: This World Ain’t Big Enough…

Ever get the feeling that the world just isn’t quite built for you?

It’s a feeling I’ve been getting quite a bit as I’ve got older. I suspect such a feeling is largely age-related, as it centres around the fact that certain things quite simply don’t appeal, because they’re not aimed at me.

It just seems a little odd that “popular culture” is often taken to mean “people under the age of 25 who aren’t that bright”.

Let’s take Britain’s Got Talent, for example, which Andie’s been watching recently — primarily to get annoyed at, lest you judge her harshly for it. Any time I’ve watched Britain’s Got Talent, I’ve got annoyed too, but I don’t find the experience of getting annoyed at it particularly fulfilling or fun. If anything, I just get inordinately frustrated about… well, everything about it. Simon Cowell is a douche, the judges’ comments are vapid nonsense that don’t mean anything, the acts are cringeworthy and the audience is made up of the very worst kind of braying moron who thinks that constructive criticism is a personal attack and thus must be booed.

Take gaming, too. I have zilcho, zippo, nada interest in the upcoming “big” games that are bearing down on us like multi-million dollar juggernauts. I don’t want to play Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed III, Halo 4 or anything like that. (I did recently play Binary Domain, which certainly was a an impressive experience, but one destined for obscurity)

Or the Internet at large. Everything must be social these days, it seems. And long-time experience has taught me that if you make something social, you will generally attract illiterate, ill-informed, angry morons. Just look at the comments section of any website ever. (I often find myself wondering why the most notorious cesspits don’t just close comments forever. It’s rare that any meaningful discussion takes place on them. Obviously I’m excluding my own blog from this because I have a small group of intelligent people who sporadically comment here and are willing to engage in actual conversation, as opposed to a vast community of pillocks.)

Fortunately, any time I start to get frustrated by any of the experiences I describe above, a moment’s reflection simply reminds me that they are not the only experiences out there — just the most visible. And while that can in itself be frustrating in that you have to look a little harder to find people with whom you have things in common, we’re certainly not beyond hope just yet.

On TV, I don’t have to watch Britain’s Got Talent. I can watch Community. My Little Pony. And a whole host of other stuff thanks to the magic of streaming video, giving me access to a whole ton of quality entertainment that doesn’t make me want to throw bricks at my TV. I haven’t seriously watched live TV for ages, a couple of episodes of The Apprentice aside. Instead, I can binge on Star Trek thanks to Netflix, or dig up obscure Channel 4 shows on YouTube.

In the gaming world, I can play everything from Binary Domain to Pandora’s Tower and A Valley Without Wind to escape from the blockbuster insanity. Gaming is now so big that you literally can’t play everything that comes out.

On the Internet, there are mature communities. I have the Squadron of Shame. You lovely people who comment on this blog. Twitter (at least the people I’ve trimmed my “following” list to, anyway). Gamers With Jobs. Fitocracy.

While the world may not be built with me in mind any more, I certainly don’t have a problem living in it for the moment.

Unless you make me watch Britain’s Got Talent. Then we might have a problem.

#oneaday Day 823: Information Diet

Know what I hate? Chavs. Know what else? Teaching. Know what else? We could be here a while. I’ll tell you. Press embargoes.

I get why they happen, obviously — publishers and their PR people want to ensure that coverage of something is coordinated nicely so that everyone gets suitably whipped up into a frenzy all at the same time. But there’s an unfortunate side-effect if you happen to, say, follow a bunch of different video games outlets at the time a major announcement happens: everyone bellows the same fucking thing at the exact same fucking time.

It’s happening more and more nowadays, too. The most notable examples that stick in my head in recent memory are Assassin’s Creed III and Borderlands 2, both titles that I have a passing interest in but find myself becoming curiously resistant to the more and more I get battered in the face with the same information from slightly different angles.

I think, on the whole, this is the “problem” I have been having with mainstream gaming overall. There’s too much information out there — too much coverage, too many “behind the scenes” videos, too many “exclusive” interviews, too many press releases announcing a single screenshot (yes, that is a real thing I received today and I have no shame in naming Square Enix as the perpetrator). After a while, you become completely saturated with information about a product and subsequently have absolutely no inclination to want to touch it, ever. This was a big part of why I didn’t want to play Mass Effect 3, for example — EA’s appalling behaviour was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, really.

I feel for my friends who work in games PR for “B-tier” games, too. It’s hard enough to get a title like, say, Risen 2 noticed at the best of times but when you’re competing with everyone beating themselves into an orgasmic and/or angry frenzy over Mass Effect 3, there’s little hope for your title outside of groups of people like me who have forsaken the mainstream in favour of enjoying less heavily marketed titles.

Conversely, the games I have been playing and enjoying are the ones where information has been trickling out slowly, usually straight from the developers mouths without dribbling through the PR sieve. Take the “Operation Rainfall” RPGs Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower (which I’m currently playing), for example — these received very little in the way of press attention despite being fantastic games. The aforementioned Operation Rainfall, a grassroots campaign to get these three excellent games localised and released in Europe and the US, received plenty of press, but information on the games themselves was conspicuously absent. As a result, I was able to go into all three of them pretty much blind and have a fantastic experience in the process — a big part of what made all of them great is the sense of discovery inherent in all of them. That just doesn’t happen if you’ve been smothered in information for the six months leading up to the game’s release.

As a result of all this, I’ve come to a decision, and if you’re feeling the same way as me, I recommend you follow it too.

Cut back. Cut out the crap. If you follow a buttload of games journalists and outlets on Twitter, unfollow them. If you want some gaming news, pick one outlet and keep it on your follow list, but chances are if you follow lots of gaming fans, someone will retweet the news as it happens anyway. Otherwise, go seek out the news when it’s convenient for you. Check the sites when you feel like it. Subscribe to their RSS feeds. Use Google Currents or Flipboard to receive information in an easily-digestible format. Receive information on your terms, not that of a carefully-crafted PR campaign.

This doesn’t have to apply just to games — it can apply to pretty much anything that suffers from the problems described above. Film, TV, celebrity news, business, tech… anything, really.

I’m going to give this a try. It will doubtless initially feel somewhat weird to not see some familiar faces and logos in my Twitter timeline, but I have a strange feeling that I’ll be a lot happier, less frustrated and less cynical as a result. Check back with me in a week or two and we’ll see.

(If you’re one of the people I do happen to unfollow, it’s nothing personal. You just might want to consider getting separate professional and personal accounts!)

#oneaday Day 513: Just Cut It Out

The world — particularly the online world — is proving particularly infuriating of late, what with childish hacker collective LulzSec harassing the Internet and now companies via phone, and the earlier news that 2K Games unceremoniously fired their PR company for its head honcho’s passionate outburst of frustration at the overly-negative reviews of Duke Nukem Forever. (Yes, he was a tit to talk about blacklisting publications in public. Yes, it likely goes on anyway. But I kind of understand where he’s coming from — to have your job being to show genuine (or at least genuine-seeming) enthusiasm for a product then to see the world unceremoniously take a large and steaming dump over it and then revel in how “clever” they’re all being with their scathingness must be an awful feeling.)

It’s times like this that it’s easy to feel like you miss that simpler time when “The Internet” only existed when you plugged it in and endured listening to that horrendous noise of a modem connecting. (Weeeeeeeee-skkrrrrrroooooooo!!!! BEEEOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW KHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH FFFFFFFKKKKKKKHHHHHHHHHHHHH.) But now the Internet is always there, and you can’t, it seems, get away from the bad things.

This is, in some ways, a good thing, as everyone is more aware of things that are going on thanks to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and all manner of other services. But in other ways, it’s a bad thing — I recall around the time of the most recent major natural disasters that many commented a feeling of “disaster fatigue” brought about by the constant rolling coverage on TV and the constant stream of articles on the Internet. In many ways, having constant coverage spread out over a course of hours, days or even weeks reduces the impact of something happening — and as a result, the media feels the need to ram it down our throats even more, and so on and so on and so on. It also happens with reality TV shows, with the media going X-Factor/BGT/Big Brother/I’m A Cunt, Please Shoot Me crazy for the few weeks each of those respective shows is cluttering up the airwaves with its offensive stench until everyone is absolutely sick to death of seeing whatever Generic Talentless “Celebrity” X has had for lunch today.

Such is, presumably, the case with LulzSec. They hack someone and highlight their security flaws — that makes a point. But now it’s just a case of “HAY WE GONNA KEEP DOING THIS CAUSE IT’S FUNNY”. Whatever point they may have once been trying to make, it has been lost amidst some grade-A cuntishness of the highest order. And the frustrating thing — not to mention the thing they’re probably enjoying the most — is that the average person, annoyed, upset and frustrated with them, is absolutely impotent, with nothing they can do about it. Of course, you can try reporting it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, but who’s to know if they’ll be able to do anything about it?

I suppose the way to deal with it is to follow the advice your primary school teachers gave you when dealing with bullies — just ignore them and they’ll stop.

But will they? Perhaps a punch in the testicles will work just as well — perhaps even quicker.

#oneaday, Day 244: Halo? More Like…

I have a peculiar and complex relationship with the first-person shooter genre of gaming. On the one hand, I have very fond memories of growing up playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. In fact, as I may have shared before, such was my obsession with Wolfenstein 3D and the early days of the mod scene, that 10 of my levels are part of the official Apogee “Super Upgrades” expansion pack, a feat which netted me $200 and means that I can technically call myself a professional game developer.

On the other hand, I have vivid memories of playing Halo, Gears of War and Modern Warfare 2 and getting inordinately frustrated with sequences that are so difficult they require you to play, die, play, die, play, die, play, die, sometimes for hours at a time until you figure out the way to beat that particular sequence.

Such is the experience I’m having with Halo: Reach at the moment. There’s no denying it’s a great game, and the sheer amount of stuff that Bungie have crammed into the game is incredible. The fact that any mode can be played in multiplayer, and the fact that Forge World actually allows the construction of some truly hilarious structures, is enough to make me adore the game and praise its name for all eternity.

What was almost enough to make me fling it out of the window, though, was the Campaign mode. I had played through the mission called “The Long Night of Solace” and was reaching the end of it. Those who have played that mission will know it’s the awesome one that includes space combat. As a matter of fact, the space combat was so good I happily proclaimed on Twitter that I’d play a whole game based on that engine. And I stand by that. It was stunning. Not only that, it allowed a full 360 degrees of movement, which is practically unheard of in console-based space sims. So hats off to Bungie for that.

Unfortunately, all of the hard work that mission did to convince me that yes, Halo is not all that bad really, was promptly undone by the very last sequence of that mission. Here, you get jumped by about six Elite Specialist enemies, all of whom are armed with weapons that are quite capable of one-shot killing you. Not only that, but they spread out around the room so there is no place where you can find cover. Not only that, your companion who, it should be added, has an absolutely fucking massive gun and is invincible, is utterly useless at killing them, so of course it’s up to Muggins, sorry, Noble Six, to save the day.

I must have repeated that sequence a good thirty or forty times. By the end of it I was literally screaming obscenities at the television. I was very glad that no-one else was in the house.

“Well, then,” you may say. “Don’t play the Campaign mode. Play the stuff you do like.” But… Achievements…

In seriousness, I do kind of want to play the Campaign mode through to its conclusion because of my good friend Mr George Kokoris‘ regular assertions that Halo‘s lore is, in fact, far more in-depth and interesting that “OMG SPACE MARINEZ AND ALIENZ LOL”. And to be fair, thus far I’ve mostly enjoyed the Campaign. I just find it a pity that there are short sequences such as the one I’ve described above that (temporarily at least) spoil the experience. It causes a curious ping-ponging effect where I bounce back and forth between loving and hating the game. Sometimes I get stuck on the “hate” part, and it’s for that reason I never beat the original Gears of War and have no interest in the remainder of the series. There was one sequence that involved a sniper who repeatedly one-shotted me in that game that eventually caused me to turn it off, put it in its box, trade it in and never speak of it ever again except to slag it off.

Hopefully it won’t come to a fit of nerd rage with Reach. At least there’s plenty of other stuff to enjoy if the Campaign does get too much.

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: