Poor Man About Town

If these buggers aren't barging around in their SUV's of four by fours, they're on fucking bikes!. Seen today, twelve year old parent was riding this bike on a busy in tow of a plastic box on wheels, the contents of which were two of her sprogs. Big fat lorries and buses zoom up and down that road. New Model Parent could not give a shit about the possible dangers of using such a contraption. If they aren't on the road, they are cycling on the pavement with a sprog in tow riding another bike - the belief being they have a legitimate right to mount the pavement. This woman, complete with cycling helmet, came at me pel-mel on her bike telling me to get the fuck out of the way. It was on a pavement. I did not move so she and her sprog behind her had to circumnavigate me. It is illegal to mount the pavement on a bicycle and I'm not going to make any allowance for illegality. The solution to this problem is clearly evident - keep these buggers and their offspring off bikes.

Labels: bicycles, cyclists, M and S, middle class, modern, Parenting

I was watching one of those lifestyle fascism programmes on the box today, I can not recall the name; but the aim of the programme was to help people flog off some of their stuff to redecorate their home or parts of it. The victims were a young couple with one child and another on its way and they wanted the cash to redecorate the new arrival's room. The programme described the stuff they wanted to flog. All well and good until the arrival of the obligatory interior designer who has that annoying obligatory phoney cheerful (quasi-comic) manner. The day was saved by female of the couple, she was regaled with suggestions which pointed to modern lifestyle trashiness all of which she resisted. The interior designer introduced her to this selection of toy boxes. There was a cheap, cheerful and plain set, which the woman selected (cost £26), some flexi designer garden buckets made out of plastic (crap at £5 each) and another set of designer boxes which had a teddy bear's motif stuck on the side cost £90. Although the young woman expressed a preference for the plain boxes, it seems that she did not purchase them. She was the offered suggestions that baby could put magnets on this sheet and have playing with, cost £50, young woman looked at this item as complete bollocks. Then the interior designer offered up some black board paint, baby would have fun scribbling around on this, she said it would save the walls (gosh, this interior designer knows nothing about small children, you can let them loose in a paper mill and they would still write on the walls), as for the blackboard paint, plenty of fun with chalk dust and discarded chalks. Then she showed the young woman a selection of some rather garishly designed multicoloured duvet covers - the designs were so loud that the primary colours on them were screaming out thrash metal mega death - this bedding was designed to make your child into psycho killer. Young woman looked these in abject horror and icily refused them. I thought "great!", this young woman made it very clear that she was not going to have the peaceful ambience of her home trashed by this interior designer. For once, I was feeling quite gratified that schlock like this can be embarrassingly resisted by its victims.

Labels: crap, Lifestyle, modern, Television, trash