Sunday, January 06, 2008
Table Manners
I can be quite liberal when it comes to table manners. Greg Proops asked who, in private, scoops ice cream into a bowl?. I don't consider myself a prude when it comes to sex; but when the table and sex come together you have a choice - either you eat from it or you shag on it, of course some people use food as a sex aid. That's their business.
When I go into a restaurant, however, I expect a fair degree of decorum from my fellow diners - of course, this respect is reciprocated. This was not the case when I went into a Chinese Restaurant in Central London today. There was a couple in their late teens but fitted the twelve year old bill. The male of the couple was sporting a baseball cap under its peak was hanging that rather irritating lopsided fringe favoured by twelve year male old pop stars. The female was a blonde bimbo.
They pawed at each other like two dogs on heat, they exchanged bodily fluids by long wet kisses; all of this done in the middle of a restaurant where people were trying toeat. This activity was really getting on my nerves. Worse was yet to come, the lopsided fringe male had his meal to brought to him; he stopped eating mid-way, pawed at his girlfriend and wet-kissed. Bloody hell, I did not need to witness a mating while eating.
It would be a really good idea for the government to introduce legislation stopping people under the age of 25 entering restaurants unless they are accompanied by a forty year old.
When I go into a restaurant, however, I expect a fair degree of decorum from my fellow diners - of course, this respect is reciprocated. This was not the case when I went into a Chinese Restaurant in Central London today. There was a couple in their late teens but fitted the twelve year old bill. The male of the couple was sporting a baseball cap under its peak was hanging that rather irritating lopsided fringe favoured by twelve year male old pop stars. The female was a blonde bimbo.
They pawed at each other like two dogs on heat, they exchanged bodily fluids by long wet kisses; all of this done in the middle of a restaurant where people were trying toeat. This activity was really getting on my nerves. Worse was yet to come, the lopsided fringe male had his meal to brought to him; he stopped eating mid-way, pawed at his girlfriend and wet-kissed. Bloody hell, I did not need to witness a mating while eating.
It would be a really good idea for the government to introduce legislation stopping people under the age of 25 entering restaurants unless they are accompanied by a forty year old.
Labels: eating, Food, Manners, snogging, teenagers, twelve year olds, youth
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
A Fully Booked-up Life
I was on a bus journey through London's West End a few days ago. This woman sat opposite me on the back seats, she was babbling into a mobile. Middle class accent, well heeled; she should have been driving around in a Porsche rather than having to cope with the indignity of travelling on a smelly London bus*. I guess she must have been disqualified from driving hence her reduced circumstances in transportation. The babble was the usual public exposure of private life, names of friends, what they did last friday; with whom she intends to have to suppernext Saturday; Jocelyn getting quite legless on Sunday night and attempting to paw at her...Then came the discussion about when she should meet up with the person with whom she was speaking "No, can't do next Saturday, attending a wedding...can't do that either...no, no...no...fully booked in June; as for July, I am going on my hols. August, now let's see..." This was getting excruciatingly tedious and I felt like saying to her "Why the fuck don't you tell that person that you can't meet up until 2035 but that you can still keep in contact on the mobile". This woman's life was so fully booked that it caused me to wonder whether she had any life at all. This phone call was intrusive, it ruined my concentration for the book that I was reading. Maybe I was too polite by not saying anything. Maybe the etiquette is such that we have allowed people to babble on ad-nauseum into mobile phones - the die has been cast in that regard. Can anyone suggest from where I can get a mobile phone zapper?
Labels: Lifestyle, Manners, mobile phones
Monday, April 02, 2007
It's a gas!
I am having fun with British Gas - they need to come and do a gas safety check on my meter. I had arranged one earlier this year, the meter reader failed to turn up. I spent an entire morning off work. It's happened again. In the old days, British Gas used to have their own people come and read your meter, now they outsource the work to a company, I believe, called Accuread. I dread when work gets outsourced it always leads to shoddy service and consequent inconvenience. I have lost two days annual leave waiting for British Gas to read my meter.
If the meter does not get read, they say in the note they will apply to a court to bust down my door to read the meter - that's fucking marvellous isn't it - here I am doing my best for them and I subject to a threat like that.
I contact British Gas, the usual keypad ritual "press 1 if you want to give a reading...press 2 if you want to enquire about your account...press 3 to fuck off!". The taped voice then asks me to key in my phone number; I get a little rebellious at this point and ignore the two requests to do so, I just pretend I don't have a phone, chuckle, and they may get convinced I don't have a phone - that's how warped my logic became at this point. Then I was put on fifteen minute wait with that dreadful Coldplay music that is piped in B & Q and Sainsbury's - this was interspersed with advertisments about gas leaks and gas safety. It was an excruciating 1/4 of an hour.
I finally managed to get through - I was feeling quite vexed by this point, I was feeling provoked by the long wait, by the Coldplay and the cheerful gas leak ads. I was ready to launch into one on the call centre operative, but thought "oh shit...these poor people must have to put up with this kind of shit throughout the day...try be helpful" I got a new date and an assurance that the meter reader will come; I did not, however, get a job number, the computer says "no".
Oh fuck it, I wonder if British Gas will go the same way as Enron
If the meter does not get read, they say in the note they will apply to a court to bust down my door to read the meter - that's fucking marvellous isn't it - here I am doing my best for them and I subject to a threat like that.
I contact British Gas, the usual keypad ritual "press 1 if you want to give a reading...press 2 if you want to enquire about your account...press 3 to fuck off!". The taped voice then asks me to key in my phone number; I get a little rebellious at this point and ignore the two requests to do so, I just pretend I don't have a phone, chuckle, and they may get convinced I don't have a phone - that's how warped my logic became at this point. Then I was put on fifteen minute wait with that dreadful Coldplay music that is piped in B & Q and Sainsbury's - this was interspersed with advertisments about gas leaks and gas safety. It was an excruciating 1/4 of an hour.
I finally managed to get through - I was feeling quite vexed by this point, I was feeling provoked by the long wait, by the Coldplay and the cheerful gas leak ads. I was ready to launch into one on the call centre operative, but thought "oh shit...these poor people must have to put up with this kind of shit throughout the day...try be helpful" I got a new date and an assurance that the meter reader will come; I did not, however, get a job number, the computer says "no".
Oh fuck it, I wonder if British Gas will go the same way as Enron
Labels: Corporations, Grumble, Lifestyle, Manners
Friday, January 19, 2007
Ad Reservations on the Train
I think I may have recorded that there was this idiot who had managed to occupy all six seats in a railway carriage by spreading out articles of his person on the seats that should have been available to passengers who boarded the train. Not only this but the bugger regaled us with an operatic performance on his mobile phone.
Saw two similar things happen again today. There was a middle-aged guy who managed to occupy the five available seats; he did this by seating himself on the outside seat and then placing a different shopping bag on each of the seats. The shopping bags looked like bagged rubbish. What a cunt!
Then I boarded another train and some twelve year old woman boarded the train with an overnight bag. She parked the bag on the window seated and seated herself on the outside seat. She sat there texting some shit on the mobile and had this expression that her shit did not stink!
What the fuck is happening is this country? Have we become so selfish that we treat seats on trains as temporary development.
Saw two similar things happen again today. There was a middle-aged guy who managed to occupy the five available seats; he did this by seating himself on the outside seat and then placing a different shopping bag on each of the seats. The shopping bags looked like bagged rubbish. What a cunt!
Then I boarded another train and some twelve year old woman boarded the train with an overnight bag. She parked the bag on the window seated and seated herself on the outside seat. She sat there texting some shit on the mobile and had this expression that her shit did not stink!
What the fuck is happening is this country? Have we become so selfish that we treat seats on trains as temporary development.
Labels: Manners
