Things you hate IV

I’ve got a pair of boxer shorts that are outliers. Despite being the same size as my others (according to the label that is) these are mahusive, Billy Smart’s circus top territory.

As such, they receive only irregular outings for casual lounging around and subsequently, I believe, less wear and tear. They may well have seen in the Millenium.

 

That’s so you can wear them outside your trousers when you’re in superhero mode.

 

The continued inability of a head teacher to turn on her computer,let alone use it.

I have delivered in her school for seven years.

Every August we have the charade of her panicking as she needs to access my LTA accreditation,where DBS, First Aid, etc etc is kept.

I have shown her,I have given her my password and login details. I have written down step by step the route she needs to take to find the information.

This morning I receive an email from the secretary asking for my insurance.

It's in the same sodding place! I have replied,with polite top and tails "Mrs Childs has access to all relevant documents".

She is a bright woman academically but clearly has zero common sense and about the same powers of retention.

It doesn't help that her office subscribes to the Iris Murdoch school of interior design. I'm convinced there are two ex members of staff and a cleaner submerged under the papers and crud.

Dismal.

 

True. It's generally not the cinema, or restaurant, or other thing that is annoying. It's usually having to rub shoulders with the poor.

 

Transfer Deadline Day. SkySports bigging up how much Premier League clubs spend when a lot of people are struggling financially

 

I was going to post - people who do not know how to listen.

I had a call with a recruiter earlier. He just cut me off at the end of every sentence and simply didn't get the information from me I was trying to convey. If he'd listened for 10 seconds, all I was trying to say was 'Tesco man is here so I can speak freely in 5-10 minutes." Instead it was much more convoluted and frustrating.

 

Having to mix with riff raff I can bear - it’s drivers stuck in the middle lane of the motorway overtaking nothing that really winds me up. To address this, I’m just finishing the installation of Bond style machine guns in my Renault Scenic. (Didn’t want to spoil the Aston.)

 

marzipan fruit box? I've not heard it called that before.

 

Only at Christmas!

 

I know. Chelsea are out spending £115m on a new centre half while I'm here at home trying to scrape together the money to get Domingos Quina on loan to do some decorating.

 

Post-Xmas time, TK Maxx usually have them.

 

Should be cheap. He won't be able to reach the high up stuff though . Good time to book him though, 2023 is going to be his year.

 

My decorator is named Michelangelo!

 

28 disciples and a kangaroo ?

 

My window cleaner is called Errol Flynn.

 

Make sure you keep him supplied with pizzas.

#turtlepower

 

Is he a Man City supporter?

 

He is indeed. You know him?

 

When I left university the job centre/dole office said that would only offer me money 'help' after I went on a "Getting Back to Work" (or something) course in Watford. ISTR spending an afternoon "honing my attractiveness to future employers" with him in the Estcourt Arms... Really nice bloke.

 

He's an absolutely lovely guy. I've recommended him to neighbours. His late dad was my bro's football coach when he was about 9. Known Errol ever since.

And he supported City all his life. Just a ransom unfashionable choice back when they were dogshit.

 

[ANECDOTE] Kerrist it's coming back to me. It was a week long course starting at 09h00 and finishing at 15h00(?) in '95(?). The 'course facilitator' was the camp love-child of Colin Hunt (from the 'Fast Show') and Gareth (from "The Office") - neither show existed at the time. It was all the usual cobblers you would expect: how to use a newspaper and how to use a computer to job search; how to write a letter of application; how to write a CV etc. ISTR I used their excellent (at the time) IT facilities to look for more details on the, then, rumoured "Preacher" film and to read all the quality daily newspapers. On Tuesday the 'course facilitator' let slip that he too had done this course and was found to be so unemployable "...good..." that the Job Centre employed him to join the course team. Each morning was the farcical claiming of travel expenses - I presented my return bus ticket that was examined in the manner of an illuminated manuscript, details were taken, recorded in my file and the 'course facilitator' checked with the bus company, by phone, if the fare was correct - ISTR Errol drove in and it was an even more convoluted process to get his couple of quid. We weren't exactly looking forward to Wednesday but it would be slightly more bearable as it was the 'course facilitator's' day off - but no, he's come in on his day off to torment "...assist us...". The 'proper' course staff manage to hustle him out after he had dished out our travel exes and, possibly as an apology, let us go early - Errol and I hit the pub. Thursday I'm allowed to get in later "...before 10h30..." as it's my signing-on day but just as I'm leaving my home postie delivers the mail which reveals a formal offer of engagement at the University of Newcastle in a month's time. I take it to the dole office show it when I sign-on and told that I don't have to attend the course and my 'Closing the Claim Interview' is booked for a week's time. I get home and the phone's ringing and it's the 'mincing fool' demanding why I'm not in 'his' course. I start to explain "Well I don't see the point of attending if..." when the 'theatrical buffoon' cuts me off shouting, screaming and threatening that he will cut off my money so I put the phone down on him. Fast forward a week and my 'Claims Manager' shows me the three page hand-written complaint from the 'flamboyant idiot' about my "....disruptive behaviour...." and "...ring-leader of the group that tried to continually undermine my authority..." which she then calmly puts in her bin.[/ANECDOTE]

 

ABBA Voyage

Maybe the wrong thread because I don't have a personal reason to hate this, it just infuriates me that they are getting away with it.

A concert is a chance to see your favourite band live. LIVE. The actual people up there, making live music and performing it for your pleasure.

You get good, you get bad, you get drug addled prima Donna's turning up 3 hours late and slurring through their set, but it's real.

ABBA, who long ago switched heavily onto the science of making money more than music, are fobbing people off with a computer generated video of themselves.

No 5 hour trips in a tour bus. No sound checks with dodgy equipment. Just a bloody video on a screen and people are paying concert prices to watch it!

It's an absolute grift.

 

what I don’t understand is how tickets have been selling day in day out for £100s, for months now, and are on sale for months stretching into the future.

When a mega live act does a stadium tour, they can usually sell it out a few times over, but they wouldn’t be able to shift the same amount of tickets as this thing ultimately will.

 

Perhaps, but I could pretty much forgive anything in view of “The Winner Takes It All” and “The Day Before You Came”.

 

Surely this thing could be simultaneously on in several stadia/arenas around the world at any one time. It probably is.

Even the Stones only have one set of aged rockers .

 

I could. Comfortably.

 

You’re wrong.

 

This ABBA thing is on Mrs Lloyd's radar. I've managed to avoid it so far.

 

Continually putting off doing awful things that your partner wants to do is an underrated art form.

 

Watching any Man City home game with the double height advertising boards. Almost unwatchable.

 

The fact they’ve got a banner for their lawyer and booed the PL theme tune makes them unwatchable for me.

 

You don't have to go, or hear or read anything about it. There's always football - and it's often LIVE.

 

The 6 Nations.

I just don't give a **** about it, but it's everywhere. People are making time to go and watch Wales Vs Ireland in the pub. People suddenly claiming heritage from other home Nations despite being clearly English.

It's on everywhere and everyone talks about it.

It's such a **** idea. 6 nearby Nations playing a sport which only about 5% of the world's population has even heard of. It's our equivalent of the World Series.

 

Even better. Convince her that you really don’t mind if she’d like to make an evening of it with a female friend. Earn brownie points and avoid it FOREVER.