Sunday 30 September 2012

A LITTLE RESPEC FOR THE OLD MAN PLEASE


  1. Look - is this pic of this person's front or the back?
    So, this lurid chunky Spandex nightmare came at me in the car park and said I needed to learn some 'respec' as I had distractedly neglected to hold a door open for her.

    This woman had a builders arse on the front end of her, astonishing. I don't know if her top was supposed to be up there above the navel (SMART ARSE WIFE) or was too scared of the crevice below it to venture down.

    I said I would likely respect her more if she understood the word rather than use it as a pointless and ill informed attack.

    One of her chins formed into a frown so I said I am older than you, maybe you should respect me for no other reason than I have managed to live longer than you.

    She got pretty fed up with my attitude if what passed for a response was anything to go by.

    There was certain words I understood but quiet a lot that was simply really heavy noise.

    They came at me at a pace and were made all the more terrifying as the pitch and tone directly corresponded with the movement of the front arse.

    It was hypnotic. I was lost in the rise and fall, the turn and twist, the agonised heaving of this heavenly body. It was awkwardly compelling, like watching a couple arguing in a pub.

    Young people please stop using the word respect without understanding its limitations.


    I pointed out to this young pie fan that the t in respect was not silent, it is needed, like it is in twat.

    The classic song is not R.E.S.P.E.C is it , no it's not. It is R.E.S.P.E.C.T - see the T is bloody important as that is how it is how we spell it, with a T.


    I have no reason to respect or indeed 'respec' you. Why would I? I resent the assumption from anyone that I should automatically respect them without knowing them or what they have done to earn the respect. 

    It is a vastly overused word. A word abused by those who fit the award about as much as the Spandex ugliness fitted her majesty in the car park.

    I respect people who are great at what they do, who are kind or brutally annoying.

    People who know what they are and are comfortable with that, or people who simply have never cared about the opinion of others towards them, I respect that.

    I don't respect someone because they are above me in the food chain professionally or are faster than me at football. I don't respect people because they are simply there and somehow deserving of it.

    I most certainly do not respect a two-arsed Spandex simpleton who cannot even say the word properly. If I had know before what I knew afterwards, I would have slammed the door shut.


    We parted company best of pals but I couldn't help thinking someone should buy her a full length mirror, just so she could check what she is inflicting on others as she heads through the town.

    She maybe needs to show a little 'respec' to the sensibilities of sensitive folk like me

    Oh and another thing, not everything is 'random', stop saying that as well.

GREGGS IS NOT ALONE

As a footnote to the Greggs post, I just found this ramble from a while ago that shows their staff are not alone.

I asked a young member of staff in Morrisons if they sold almond flour.

He said: "Yeah probably, this is a supermarket."

He then walked away.

My little son and I stood there in deep admiration of this wit for some time.

Made my day, I almost cried.

People need to learn that rudeness is not necessarily a bad thing.

LAPSES THAT TURN PRO


  1. A prolapsed bus
    So I had to get the bus to work a while ago there after an unconvincing lurch to the environmentally friendly from my mechanic who fitted my car with an unwelcome, unwanted and accidental immobiliser.

    It was a joy.

    Real people eating stuff, drinking stuff and talking as though they were happy. Most bizarre. Some were literally talking pish, great.

    The lady in front of me was telling her pal about her prolapsed bladder.

    I didn't know what a prolapse was and wondered what had lapsed so dramatically to make it a pro. 

    Can you get amateur lapses?

    I am a prolapsed Catholic, not like those amateur lapsed Catholics who occasionally head back to chapel to keep their hand in.

    She was pretty graphic at one point but I stared at my shiny new phone and looked up prolapsed bladder on Google.

    Crikey, I moved back a seat or two as I wasn't wearing my mac. I enjoy honesty as much as the next man, providing he likes honesty of course. If he doesn't then we are all knackered, but really, this was just too much for me.

    I could do without a graphic depiction of another's suffering as I make my way to work where, well I hear about other people's sufferings.

    I checked the overly chatty lady's seat after she got off just to make sure she had not forgotten anything. Am kind like that.

    I may get the bus again depending on the efficiency of the dopey mechanic. I fully expect to go to pick the car up only to find it has become a bike.

    I may get the train, although that is fraught with angry bags taking up seats.

Friday 28 September 2012


  1. FEWER BLACK PUDDING, LESS STRAWBERRIES


    Not the only pudding in the shop
    So I was in Tesco there buying strawberries and black pudding.

    Now I have tried the serve yourself tills but they laugh at me before I start.

    I can't even figure out the bags. They see me coming and glue themselves together.

    I see people of higher intelligence pulling theirs apart with ease and opening them as I wipe beads of angry sweat from my face.

    Then it says 'problem in packing area', of course there is gobshite, the bags are laughing at me.

    So the lady glides over as though on castors all polite smugness and tells me I need to put my shopping in a bag.

    I tell her her that I know that as I've been to university. It's just that, well look at them, menacing me.

    You would have thought my tears and sweat might make her help me but no, the lunatic presses a button and waves as if to say it's all yours.

    I hate her. I would buy a Tesco assassin to take her out but likely not be able to get them through the bloody tills.

    It only takes seconds before she is back after the thicko light comes on to tell everyone the sweating idiot has screwed up again.

    Anyroad, on this occasion, I decided just to go to the cigarette counter where a brutal looking teenager sagged dismissively while chewing gum. It was as close to multi-tasking as she would probably get.

    I handed her my strawberries and black pudding but noticed a sign reading five items or less.

    Well my dander was up.

    I pointed out it should read fewer.

    "What should," she said.

    "The sign," I countered,

    "Why?

    "Because less is wrong," I whined.

    She fought back: "I didn't write it."

    I explained that if the strawberries were off when I  left the shop then she would fix it if I brought them back, even though she took no part in picking or packing them.

    "I would hope the same applies to this complaint," I gestured.

    She said: "Are the strawberries off?

    "NO, the the sign is."

     I didn't write it."

    "Fine," I said, "can it be corrected?"

    "Why?

    "Because it's wrong." 

    She then defeated me: "Do you still want the strawberries or would you like them changed."

    She drooped like a defrosted fish finger and looked at me as though I had said I've just eaten my leg, do you have a napkin.

    I paid and left defeated.

    Next time I will fight the self service till, maybe take my own bag, have the last sad laugh. may go to Asda.

Thursday 27 September 2012

Pop goes the weasily shopkeeper

It said 88p on the bottle of pop in bold manufacturer's writing.

"122p," said stout shopkeeper.

"But it says here 88p," says I.

"That's a recommended price only," says he while expanding in front of my eyes.

"Then can I recommend you charge me that."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I have to make a living."

I gave him 50p and he said it's not enough.

I explained the 50p signage on it was only a manufacturer's recommendation of its value and I think it's worth 200p, can I have my change please?

That's another shop I'm not welcome in and I'm thirsty.

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Greggs - service with a snarl.


I have been known to go to Greggs on occasion. I do so now not for the rich buttery flavours of their amazing treats, but for the surly nature of the staff.

I was there last week when a woman, who had clearly been fired as a school dinner lady for tar and feathering a child, looked at me angry eyed and said 'what'.

An uncompromising opening gambit I thought for a shop trying to make me spend money.

I said: "I didn't know you served chips.

"We don't", she responded with her easy charm and rasping voice.

I said: "Well can I have the one on your shoulder then please?"

It didn't go down as well as I had hoped and she just sighed, smiled a one lip grin and said 'what' again.

I am pretty sure she was pretending to chew gum as well.

There is simply not enough of this type of crossness, of understated rage and disdain in Britain's service industry today. Too much have a nice day when if I was having a nice day I wouldn't be rushing lunch in a Greggs.

I got a cheese and onion pasty and she snarled: "Is that it?"

"Is that what, a cheese pasty? Yes I think it is. That's what I asked for anyway. Is it, you should know? You have me worried now. It's not a doughnut is it?"

Her eyes called me a prick while her sunken mouth said: "No I meant is that all you want?"

I was unsure: "I don't know, what do you think?"

She bored of me wonderfully and walked away. The pasty burnt my mouth with every bite. It burnt my throat on the way down and set fire to my gut when it landed with a "plop". I fear for the short term future of other bits of me.

I didn't remember ordering a cheese, onion and molten lava pasty but there you go.

They could insulate homes with these things, the heat never goes away.

I will be monitoring staff at Greggs in the coming months and shall report to their HQ any staff that I find being polite.

Try them yourselves, stand in front of the doughnuts and ask if they have any doughnuts, when they sigh and say yes they are just here, ask for a cream one and when they point one out, hum the theme from Rhubarb and Custard briefly and ask for a steak bake.


I did it once and the response was fantastic. I will tell you what it was if you try it.

Service with a snarl - the only way to get hold of utterly unhealthy salty volcanic treats.

I will report back every other week or so on the progress of the staff. I am fully expecting a customer to get punched for asking for a sausage roll, it may be me.

Tuesday 25 September 2012

I'LL GET A LIFE WHEN YOUR BAG BUYS A TICKET

So I was on the train to work there and it was mobbed, even at midday. I could see a couple of seats but one was next to a bloke who was clearly going to talk mince.

The other one was next to a woman in her 30s with an unironed face, drunk hair and fur around her lips. Her off white, oversized handbag was guarding her from the comfort of its own seat, my seat.

I stood there staring at her but she stared unblinking straight ahead. It was a masterclass in bluff

"Did your bag buy a ticket madam," I said as she continued to outstare space.

"Only I have," I continued as I ignored her ignoring me in a frenzy of ignoring. I picked up the pampered handbag and passed it to her with a sweet smile that would offend Beelzebub.

"I think you may have misplaced this," I said.

"Who do you think you are? How dare you?" she said.

"Don't mention it," I said. "It was no bother," I replied, ignoring the metaphysical debate about self.

Others in the vicinity tuned in. "How rude, could you not have sat somewhere else?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I couldn't find anywhere."


"Too lazy to walk down the train and look more like," she insisted.

I'm like an anger eater me. I feast on it. "You got me," I said. "Hey ho."

I then upped the anti. "Is your bag animate? Why is it not on your lap, are you ashamed of it? You could sit it on your lap and stroke it with uncontrolled malevolence and cackle every now and then. You would likely find the entire table becomes yours."

"You're pathetic," she said. "You're so rude. You need to get a life."

"When your bag gets a life and buys itself a ticket then I will. You tell me where to get this life you speak of and I'll tell your bag about the ticketing system.

"Until then here we are, me without a life and your bag without a seat. Why doesn't your bag find another seat? If you're so ashamed of each other you could maybe do with the break.

"In fact, if your bag can find me another seat then it can join me for the rest of the journey to Glasgow while you come to terms with how you treat it."

"F**k off," she said, my work was done.

It was timed well as a pregnant lady got on at Paisley and I offered up my seat to go find someone else to fight.

I said goodbye and good luck to the bag and wandered off to the sound of giggles and sat next to the bloke I didn't want to earlier, safe in the knowledge that he knew better now than to say anything at all.

Public transport is such fun. Why do people assume putting their bag on a seat makes them and the seats invisible to other train users.

It works sometimes as I see folk walking past or standing, too shy to offend.

Not me, am a vigilante ready to strike at the heart of this selfish arrogance. Bring your anger to me, am hungry.