Volume 3 – Chapter 142: Not-So-Smart Phone

I was on the bus today, coming back from the fastest trip into town I have ever made, and the bus pulled away from the bus stop leaving two women who had just run for the bus banging on the windows like we were in a horror movie.

Now, before the age of health and safety was ushered in, it used to be that a bus driver could let you on and off the bus pretty much wherever he fancied. It didn’t have to be at a bus stop. I’ve seen people get off in middle of roads before now. And people have got onto the buses once they’ve left the bus stops before. It used to be fine.

But now, in this blame-everyone-but-yourself-for-being-a-dickhead and claim culture, buses can’t do that. You have to get on and off at a designated stop. Because otherwise the bus company is liable for any damage which may befall you because you have chosen to take your life into your hands and embark or disembark in a non-designated area.

And that’s what happened this morning. The bus had pulled away from the stop. It had not particularly made it any distance down the road, but the doors were away from the bus stop. And so the angry women couldn’t get on the bus and, in some ways, that served as good practice for us all if we’re ever caught up in a zombie apocalypse because I can imagine there would be similar scenes (assuming, of course, that during said apocalypse there’s still a public transport network – I admit, they struggle on a normal day so I’m not hopeful).

But what happened amused me.

One of the women went to the front of the bus and took a picture with her mobile phone.

Not of the bus driver, or the bus ID number. Of the route number on the front of the bus. You could tell from quite severe angle she held her phone at that she wasn’t particularly getting much else in the picture. Just the route number and destination.

Of the bus she was going to catch.

Well done, Mrs Lady. When you submit your complaint that you won’t do you were just hoping that you pulling out your mobile phone would scare the driver into letting you on, you’ll be able to include a photograph that shows you were wanting to catch the 328 bus. Something which, in your letter when you do complain, you’d probably put in the first couple of lines: “On Wednesday 22nd May I went to catch the 328 bus…” for example. But hey, at least now you can include a picture of the sign as proof of that.

It’s great that this age of smart phones allows us to capture things on camera in situations like this.

It’d probably be better if, to go with the smart phones, we had smarter users as well.

Volume 3 – Chapter 141: Little Joyous Moments

They say that life is a bitch and then you die. But then they would, because they’re joyless feckers. I prefer to try to look at it as if life is a series of little joyous moments and then you die.

Yesterday was one of those joyous moments.

It was my birthday. It was a birthday in which I unwrapped a drill. An actual drill. Bought by my parents, I think, in the hope that we will stop ringing them and asking them to come and drill holes for things as we do not own a decent drill. The drill we have at the moment is so rubbish, in fact, that we’d be better of painting the bits of wall we need drilling to look like a tree and coaxing a woodpecker into the house. Anyway, the drill is better than the year – while I was still at school – I unwrapped a Strimmer because, apparently, I was enjoying mowing the lawn. True fact. Imagine telling your friends at school what you got for your birthday and then having to explain that it really helps when it comes to dealing with the edges…

I appreciate the drill, though, and the next time my parents come to our house everything will have holes in. Whether it should have or not.

But that wasn’t the joyous moment.

And the joyous moment didn’t come on the drive to the zoo, or at any point at the zoo, or even the drive home from the zoo. I mean, it was lovely and all that and I had to keep pretending that I wasn’t falling asleep on the way home even though I clearly was but I think I got away with it and Carole will never know. Which I suppose is a joyous moment, but it’s not THE joyous moment.

The joyous moment came later.

In TGI Fridays.

Because there is nothing better – nothing at all better in this world – than managing to visit TGI Fridays, enjoy a meal and leave again without them ever finding out it’s your birthday and doing that bloody happy-clappy thing they do while they give you a tiny cupcake with a candle in that probably costs a small fortune but you’d assume would be complimentary.

While we were there someone had one of these birthday things and, from what I observed there and in the past, your table is surrounded by people wearing braces covered in badges – or flare, to give it the correct dining vernacular – who then shout words at you can clap a lot. I can think of nothing worse. As a child I had a phobia of the song “Happy Birthday” to the point where even now I won’t really sing it with any kind of energy. It terrifies me. And I don’t know why.

But then, I’m also quite scared of Greensleeves which means I can never buy an ice cream from the local ice cream van.

Or watch Lassie.

But I’m not so sure the last one’s a problem…

Volume 3 – Chapter 140: Can’t See The Wood Pigeon For The Ellies

Chester Zoo.

Happy Birthday to me!

EVERYTHING WAS SHAGGING!

Monkeys!

Tortoises!

Frogs!

Everything! Shagging!

“Are they fighting, mummy?”

“No, they’re, erm, they’re dancing! Dancing! Yes that’s what they’re doing. They’re dancing! Monkeys love to dance!”

But aside from things that were shagging, we were enjoying the animals that had been born (literally) of prior shagging sessions.

Everyone was marvelling at the baby elephants. They’re so very cute. Look, there’s one that’s all hairy. And there’s one that isn’t. Look it’s picking up a stick. Now it’s using its tiny trunk to mess around in the dust. Now it’s got another stick. Now it’s following its mummy. Now it’s mummy is pushing it along.

It was lovely.

Many, many minutes were spent just staring at these wonderful creatures.

And then a family turned up, and the boy child was lifted onto the railings so that he could see the elephants and be amazed by what he was seeing. You could almost feel everyone swell with pride that a young mind was being introduced to the benefits of conservation and things of that nature. That he would always remember being lifted onto that railing to see the elephants in much the same way I remember my dad lifting me onto the Moon in the Science Museum (shhh! If anyone asks that never happened).

And then it happened.

“Pigeon!” he shouted.

And everyone laughed.

He wasn’t wrong, though.

There was a pigeon.

It was like the Emperor’s New Clothes, but with animals.

Maybe we’d have all seen the pigeon if we hadn’t been so distracted by the elephants.

Volume 3 – Chapter 139: Bed-Nagging

We’ve all experienced this at some point in our lives. We must have. It can’t just be me. It must happen to other people. I have to believe that. I have to believe that I am not the only one who has to live with this.

Bed-nagging.

You wake up in a morning, you’re all snuggly from a night of sleep. You’re snug as a bug in a rug, as the popular saying about unclean carpet accessories goes. You’ve just run your internal systems check – who are you, where are you and, most importantly, what day is it and do I need to go to work. You’ve done all that and the answers are to your liking. You know who you are, where you are and you don’t have to go to work. You can enjoy the cosy bed for longer, possibly as long as you like because you don’t have to be up for anything right away. You can just laze, stroke the cat, read a book. The world is your oyster.

But you’re not alone.

Your partner has also awoken. Maybe before you, maybe after you. Maybe because of you shouting “Yes!” when you’ve realised it’s a weekend. And she has run her internal systems checks as well. She knows where she is, who she is and that she doesn’t have to go to work. But ladies have an extra check they run. The list. They always run the list. The list consists of tasks that, for some reason, have to run through and explained while you are still enjoying the cosy bed moments. They are things that you, as an innocent bystander (bylayer) are either not aware of or have grossly under-estimated the importance of them because you never in a million years expected to be lying in bed being told about them on a lazy Sunday morning.

But there you are.

And then in case you haven’t got it, the list will be repeated. Maybe in a slightly different order. Maybe with a few new things thrown in, or some other things omitted. But it will be run through again. And, if you don’t acknowledge it correctly, a third time.

Maybe there will be a little break for a morning tinkle in between, but it will happen a couple of times before you have left the safe confines of the duvet.

The bed-nag, people.

Be aware.

Volume 3 – Chapter 138: Bee…. Bee…. Beep

Over the years I’ve stumbled across many a strange story born of scientific research. But none that have tickled me as much as the fact that honey bees could be used to find landmines.

Yeah. That’s what I thought as well.

Honey bees finding land mines.

Bees are dying out anyway, according to a variety of different scientific papers and now moves are afoot to train them to discover landmines? That doesn’t sound like something that’s going to end well. And when it comes to future generations looking back on extinct species they’ll find that our ancestors hunted the dodo to extinction and that we blew up the last honey bees using ground-based ordnance.

So how do you train a honey bee to find a landmine? Do you design new landmines with a flowerpot on top of it and the bees are attracted to the flowers that grow from the mine? Which means, I suppose, that you could just spot the landmines by sight – unless, of course, they happen to have been put down on those bits of grass that local councils grow crocuses on. No, instead, researchers are teaching the bees to find food that has had TNT added to it to get them used to the flavour. In much the same way as, when you were a child, you would have a crushed up paracetamol hidden in some jam to take away the taste (not that it ever took away the taste, and each generation of adults knows that but still continues the pill and jam combo). And as the bees get a taste for high explosive they will, of course, just seek out any landmines and try to drain them of all their nectar.

And, as we all know, bees are very direct creatures and don’t have any kind of elaborate flight paths that they follow to find food. Oh no, wait, that’s right they aren’t very direct. They fly all over the shop in a route which the first bee has found and then communicates to the other bees through some kind of sat nav system. So bees hunting out landmines, for me, doesn’t seem like a good idea. And, the bee handler could be picked off by rebel insurgents as they fanny about putting on all their bee protection gear that health and safety will insist they wear.

And the Taliban will start carrying bottles of Raid and a rolled up newspaper.

Curiously, though, I wouldn’t feel as strongly about this story if it was wasps.

Because wasps, as we all know, are bastards.

All you’d have to do is get them to associate buried landmines with family picnics and you’ve got that one sorted…

 

Volume 3 – Chapter 137: Rush Hour

One of the stereotypical things about people with mobile phones is that they will always phone people to tell them that they are on a train. “I’m on a train,” they’ll cry. Before being cut off because of a tunnel or something, after which they’ll phone back and explain that they were cut off because they were on a train and it went into a tunnel. And so on. In terms of actual conversation, it would probably be easier to save it all up and actually have the conversation when you get there. You’re less likely to be cut off by a tunnel then.

Or, conversely, people will happily sit on the train and divulge bank account details and all sorts of things seemingly oblivious to the fact that there are other people all around them who now also know all those details.

But there’s another sort and one that I’ve noticed over the last couple of days.

The rushing-for-a train-but-still-talking-on-the-phone person.

These people will barge past you, push you out of the way or just charge past because they are in a rush. They’re the sort of people who are always in rush. You know, those sorts of people. The sort of people who complain that they’re really busy at work every day but spend a lot of time chatting, on fag breaks, coming into work later or leaving earlier. Those people.

But for some reason, whenever they’re in a rush they feel the need to be accompanied through ever puff of breath and muttered curse by someone on the end of the phone.

You know what I noticed during the Olympics as I watched Super Saturday unfold? I noticed that Jessica Ennis and mo Farrah moved very quickly without a phone pressed against their ear. I noticed that their running style used their arms as a kind of pump which propelled them to their optimum speeds. I’d be willing to be that if they had to run their races again, but make a phone call at the same time, they probably wouldn’t do as well.

Just put your phone down, people. Just for a minute. What is it that you’re talking about while you’re in a rush for your train that can’t wait until you’re on the train when you will be cut off by tunnels? All you’re doing by rushing around the station with a phone pressed to your head is turning your right elbow into a upper chest and neck level lethal weapon which you seem to think it’s ok to poke, push and shove people with before tutting into your phone and complaining to the person you’re on the phone with that people are in your way while you’re rushing for the phone.

Just put your fricking phone away.

And those among you who are not only making a phone call while rushing but drinking a hot beverage from a coffee establishment. Don’t even get me started on you lot. You’re even worse. Because you get to tut each and every time your drink is jostled as well.

But you know what? If you hadn’t stopped off to pick up your non-fat, tall, skinny, wet, flouncy, creamy, bollocks twatty coffee in a cup you probably wouldn’t need to rush for your train.

 

Volume 3 – Chapter 136: Hey Mickey, You’re So Fine, You’re So Fine You Blow My Mind…

I could sit and listen to Mickey Flanagan talking about the wanking part of his brain all day.

Which, now I’ve written it down, sounds a little bit weird.

But it’s true.

We’ve just been to see Mickey at the fabled Victoria Theatre in Halifax and two-and-some-portion hours just absolutely flew by and everything was funny. From the opening bit about not having a warm-up act, through the 1970s sex scandals, North Korea, and how his wife honestly doesn’t mind the jokes about her. Everything was funny. And delivered with that little cheeky chappy smile that makes you think that he’s telling these stories for the first time and that he’s enjoying it as much as you are. Which I genuinely think he is.

And now Carole has decided that we must be more comfortable in comedy gigs because we laugh a lot louder than we used to do.

Apparently.

I hadn’t noticed this, to be honest. But Carole has. And if Carole notices something then it’s bound to be true and not like the webbed toe on my foot that she didn’t notice for nearly two years.

Try not to think about the toe.

This blog is not about the toe.

It’s about the laughter being louder now than it was.

In which case I would like to apologise to Lucy Porter (for the laughter thing, not my webbed toe). As she was the first comedian we saw together, we clearly won’t have laughed as loudly then as we would now and I don’t want her to feel that it was anything personal. Especially as chances are I will probably see her in Edinburgh during August and that could be awkward because she’s a lovely lady and I wouldn’t want to offend her.

But our laughter, louder and more laughy than it has ever been before, was nothing compared to the man-mountain sitting to our left who was banging on the balcony with every guffaw that left his body. The man-mountain and his tiny girlfriend (who was dressed like she’d just been collected from some sort of medieval setting) arrived mere seconds before Mickey set foot on the stage and from that moment on you could judge how funny a joke was from the cloud of dust motes kicked up by the huge arms slamming into the carpeted top of the balcony rail.

And once he’d refuelled on his interval one-biter Magnum (yes really – one minute it was there, the next it was just a stick) he was well away and fully-charged for the second half which, judging by the banging, was a lot funnier than the first half. I can only imagine that man-mountain’s girlfriend harnesses this power in some way while at home – maybe slipping a comedy DVD on when he’s not looking and as he laughs she’s using his comedy slamming action to crush the cans for the recycling bin.

I wonder how many more gigs we need to go to before we’re banging stuff like that…