Things Which P**s Me Off (idea first used by the late Bob Monkhouse in his autobiography)
- Indiscriminate use of the words: basically, obviously, y’know.
- Music played in shops/stores.
- Tannoy announcements in D.I.Y. etc. “sheds”.
- People in the queue at a till who commence looking for their wallet/purse/money after being told the cost of their purchase(s).
- Use of the incorrect word e.g. something/somethink, bought/brought.
- Spelling errors.
- The French.
- Bad time keeping.
- Objects out of true (not level or perpendicular).
- Sales assistant in conversation with a third person while I am being served.
- People who talk loudly on mobile phones in public places. (I’M ON THE TRAIN!!)
- “Immigrants” who constantly refer to alleged better conditions in their native country.
- People who pay for small items with a £50 note. (usually for a tube of toothpaste, or similar, 10 minutes after the shop has opened).
- The use, by English people, of a continental figure 7.
- Overpaid sports personalities who are constantly whining about the hard work they have to do (usually footballers on £20K a week when they play twice in a week - try professional cycling and ride for 6 hours up a mountain side then repeat the following day pal!)
- People who allow very young children to answer the telephone.
- Non-operational clocks in public places.
- People (usually women) who sign their names on cheques etc. with their title e.g. Mrs. J. Smith.
- Use of the adjective instead of the adverb.
- The use of military titles by retired personnel.
- “Untidy” parking. Back to Top
- Dog “poop” on pavements.
- Litter.
- People who allow their pets (dogs or cats) to pee or poop in my garden.
- Spitting sportsmen (footballers again).
- People who chew while talking.
- Chewing gum on pavements.
- “Chelsea tractors” and their drivers.
- The Germans on holiday - (I’m not really xenophobic, I just don’t like bloody foreigners especially those who hog the sun loungers!)
- People sniffing, especially when in conversation.
- Being told how beautiful the weather has been while I have been away on my sunshine holiday.
- Bad road manners.
- Bad manners of any sort.
- The slow service in continental bars and restaurants (in fact, slow service anywhere).
- Garden strimmers.
- American comedians.
- Unreadable till receipts.
- Bad ventriloquists.
- Pregnant celebrities who insist on displaying their enlarged abdomen.
- Charity collectors who expose you to emotional blackmail “Would you like to help terminally ill children?”
- E-mail typed in CAPITAL LETTERS.
- The use of the word HERO to describe a sports personality. Back to Top
- Advertising flyers etc. left under my car windscreen.
- Wobbly restaurant tables.
- Airport baggage carousels.
- Toilet seats which move about when you are “enthroned”.
- Men who wear replica football team shirts.
- Uncleared tables in cafés/restaurants.
- Stickers in car windows announcing “Baby on Board”.
- Garage mechanics who do not return my car seat to its original position (rake, height etc.) after a vehicle service.
- Sports event spectators who display the Union Flag upside down.
- Traffic queue jumpers.
- Any type of queue jumpers! (an Empire was built on the tradition of queuing)
- Person holding a mobile phone conversation with a third party while being served in a shop.
- Having to pay to visit a craft/antiques fair. (I never charged customers to enter my shop!)
- Butter fresh from a chiller served with my bread roll in a restaurant - a blow torch is needed before it can be spread.
- Motorists who drive on side/parking lights and not dipped headlights in conditions of poor visibility.
- Posters attached to lamp posts, etc., advertising an event which are left in place long after said event.
- Use of trendy business words/phrases e.g. “thinking out of the box”, “touching base”, etc.
- People stating that they will give 110% (or more) effort to an event - it’s not possible stupid!!
- Drivers who fail to cancel their indicators.
- Drivers who fail to acknowledge me when I have pulled to the side of a narrow country road etc. to let them pass.
- Use of so called “text speak” e.g. “c u l8r” = see you later. Learn to spell for god’s sake!!
Back to Top
B.
There are a number of versions of this text circulating but even if you have read it before its worth another glance even if to just remind yourself what life was really like “in our day”.
WE WAS BRUNG UP PROPER!!
“and we never had a whole Mars bar until 1993!!”
Congratulations to all my friends who were born in the 1930’s, 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos . . . . . . .
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
Then after that trauma our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, childproof locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitch-hiking.
As children we would ride in cars with no seat belts, air bags or child locks on the doors.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
Take away food was limited to fish and chips (wrapped in old newspaper), no pizza shops, kebab shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nandos.
Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and remained closed on Sunday, somehow we didn’t starve to death!
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy toffees, gob stoppers, bubble gum and some bangers for blowing up frogs.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because . . . . . . . . .
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on (if there were any!).
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride them down the hill only to find out we had forgotten to add brakes. This was rectified after crashing into nettles, etc. a couple of times.
We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with Matchbox cars.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii, X-Boxes or other video games, no 999 channels on Sky TV, no video/DVD films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no internet or internet chat rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth yet there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
Only girls had pierced ears!
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt and the worms did not live in us forever.
You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time and Christmas shopping didn’t start until December . . . . . . . .
We were given air guns, pocket knives and catapults for our 10th birthdays.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Mum didn’t have to go to work to help Dad make ends meet because we didn’t need to keep up with the Jones’s!
Not everyone made the rugby/football/cricket/netball team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with the disappointment. Imagine that!!
Getting into the team was based on
MERIT
Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and throw the blackboard rubber (or bunch of keys) at us if they thought we weren’t concentrating.
We can string sentences together and spell and have proper conversations because of a good, solid three R’s education.
Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law!
Our parents didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like ‘Kiora” and “Blade” and “Ridge” and “Vanilla” and “Tiger”
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the good fortune to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
P.S. The big type is because your eyes are not too good anymore at your age.