Ship WRECKED

So I went out to Birmingham this weekend, for once able to leave all my toubles behind and enjoy my birthday.

I had drinks bought for me, people listening to what I had to say, and virtually no drama, aside from a couple of foolish people who had their own private little drama after they both said it wouldn’t happen. Welp, it’s not my problem any more.

Oh, and one twat who I didn’t want to see turned up uninvited, but he seemed to get the message pretty quickly and fucked off, but not before following me around, oblivious to the fact I was deliberately trying to avoid him. Seriously, this thick cunt has had some fantasy about he and I for months, no matter how often I told him I was simply not interested and wanted nothing to do with him. He’s lucky he got lost when he did, I’d had enough to drink to be more than happy to be violent towards people I really dislike.

Anyway.

Other than that, it was a lovely weekend and I got to leave my worries behind for a bit, I got to meet some new people and have fun with old friends.

I’m not watching the 100 scariest moments 2003 on Youtube, trying to decide if any of these films will scare me if I haven’t seen them before.

Lol no.

The Long Voyage Home

Seeing as taking a trip in a car to or from work is a disastrous and stressful experience I’d rather avoid, I decided to once again take the bus.

Though I was shielded from the dreaded cyclists, I cannot say these were pleasant trips.

Okay, the journey there was fairly uneventful, but the one home was a completely different matter.

Bearing in mind I’d been at work all day and was as thus tired, hungry and irritable (like I need an excuse) I was in no mood for irratants. On observing a child in the front seat, I nearly backed out and walked home. But, she was asleep, so I reckoned I could bear it.

Five minutes passed as I stared out of the window, lost in my own thoughts. We soon stopped at the local Sikh temple to pick up worshipers. It all went downhill from there.

The main passengers coming on to the bus were elderly Indian ladies, all wearing those pretty shawly things they do (which I actually quite like) and jabbering like a bunch of little monkeys.

Seriously, you know when you sit in a café or restaurant or such like, and you zone out slightly and become aware of the background noise? The babble and clatter? The sound that’s always used in films?

That was the bus for half a fucking hour, except it was all in old lady voices, and a different language.

I actually felt like I wasn’t in England any more for a moment or two.

Seriously though, this noise was the kind of eardrum stabbing din that would make a parrot hang its head in shame. It was incessant and unrelenting, and several times I felt myself sliding off the cliff of sanity into the frothing, foaming sea of delightful lunacy. Many homicidal fantasies were had.

If the noise wasn’t bad enough though, the woman in front of me smelled like curry. Stale curry. If you don’t know what stale curry smells like, you’ve never been a student. I know it’s a “stereotype” to say Indian people smell like curry, but this one seriously did.

I kept getting blasts of it in my face every five minutes or so. You know how you get used to a scent? I’ll bet this woman had a sensor in her hair to tell her when I’d got used to stale chicken tikka masala from last month, and her scalp would send out a pulse of old food Eau Toilette right into my poor nose.

To make matters worse, some mad old cat lady decided she’d park her big ol’ arse next to me, and spent the next twenty minutes or so trying to expel her lungs from her ribcage into my hair. I’m too scared to look just in case there’s phlegm there.

Wait, it gets even better.

When I finally escaped the noise, odour and potential tuberculosis of one bus (having to sidestep the women who sat in front of me, as they’d decided to have a conversation right in front of the bus doors) and jumped on the connecting bus, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Which soon turned into a retch.

There was a tramp on the bus, and by god did he stink.

 

I have a lot of sympathy for some homeless people, you know, life’s got you down and used you as its toilet paper, but having a fairly good sense of smell, I really don’t like being near them for longer that it takes to give them a fiver or a sandwich. Being in a confined space with one with the heating on?

Fuck.

There were also a bunch of dirty chavs in the back, swearing and playing Nikki Minge or whatever her name is, or Justin Beaver (I can’t tell the difference) like chavs tend to do. I was ready to commit murder.

Coupled with a tantrum throwing child, a woman who kept trying to engage random people in conversations about her frog collection and the bus’s squeaky brakes, I’m lucky I haven’t been incarcerated yet.

Things That Annoy Me: The Cyclist Edition

I would like to think that there are few things in life that annoy me, but the truth is, as it is with many people, that nearly everything pisses me off in one way or another.

Now, these irritants are often easily dealt with, minor annoyances that can be endured, if not ignored. Things like someone putting the spoons away the wrong way round, so your hands touch the spoon head instead of the handle, the wind blowing hair into your eye, or the Kraken popping up and eating your ship. A simple, minor annoyance that can be dealt with quickly and one that has no continuing adverse effect on your day.
I know these things can build up and make a person explode, I am just as guilty as the next pirate, but most of the time, I can let it go.

But.

If there’s one thing that annoys me more than anything, it’s cyclists. Fucking. Cyclists.
I do not enjoy driving, I have never enjoyed driving. However, in this day and age one must recognise it is a necessity, and I can’t rely on my mother to continue to ferry me about everywhere. It’s immature and thoughtless on my part if I expect that. However, rather than drive, I’ll walk if I can, or get the bus. It’s a pity there’s no sea travel in the Midlands. Sucks to be a pirate in the Midlands.

Anyway, I started my university placement recently, and as amazing as it is, it’s a bitch to get to. There is no straight bus route to the location, and any driving route is fiddly and stressful. I’d been leaving the house early every day to ensure I got to work on time, however, the damned bus would always be late, condemning me to an uncomfortable and irate half hour wait in the cold while I waited for the next connecting bus.

ANYWAY.

The point I’m trying to make is, seeing as the busses are useless (I’m looking at you, Stagecoach X17), and ridiculously priced, I decided to take the car today. Plus I had my laptop and I’m lazy and didn’t want to carry it.

I left with two hours to spare to avoid rush hour traffic. Two hours. Two, fucking hours for what should be a fifteen minute journey. The reason for this? Rush hour had already started at half seven in the fucking morning, and there was an abundance of

CYCLISTS

They. Were. Everywhere.

In the middle of the road, not moving over, having no consideration for other road users or pedestrians, nope! They just went weaving all over the place, making sure to slow right down on the corners so all people with respect for human life had to slam on the brakes and trundle along behind them at four miles an hour, unable to overtake.

Even when I pipped my horn at some bastard who thought it would be funny to cycle in the gutter, turn and see me coming and scoot out into the middle of the road, he didn’t fucking move. I swear, I’ll run the bastards down, the filthy landlubbers. If only you could keelhaul people with cars.

It just pisses me off beyond comparison, how these twats can be so inconsiderate and risk their own lives with abject stupidity. If a three tonne metal box on wheels comes roaring up behind you, you get the fuck out of the way. If you’re walking in the road, you move over, because you don’t want to get squashed. Why can’t these imbeciles just move over to the side of the road, or even better, stop to let traffic past?

Okay, I understand that it’s not possible all the time to stop, you could be in a rush, or something like that, but if a long line of cars, or just one car, is behind you, unable to overtake due to windy roads or whatever, pull the fuck over and let them past. Has it ever occurred to you that they could be in a rush? Some of these arseholes don’t even move over for emergency vehicles. “Nope, I’m a cyclist, they can go around me and all other traffic can move, but I don’t have to”.

Consider this.

That extra twenty seconds it cost that ambulance to get around you meant that somebody died.

The bloody cheek of it all is that cyclists think that drivers are the ones to blame! Sure, you’ll get moronic chavs and YOLO/SWAG type oxygen thieves who drive like lunatics, but the majority of drivers actually slow down on the roads, because hey, they don’t want to kill someone.
And what happens when a cyclist is weaving around like a drunk bluebottle and gets hit by a car coming around the corner at night? Despite the fact they’re not wearing high-visibility clothing or a helmet? It’s all the driver’s fault. Even if they did everything they could to avoid a collision, they’re still the ones at fault. It’s fucking ridiculous.

Even when I’m a pedestrian I can’t get away from them! Cycling on the pavement (which admittedly, I prefer to the road, but hear me out) and, as with the road, charging along slap bang in the middle of it, running old ladies down and sending small children flying off across the street in a one way trip to a coma. Even when I try to cross the road they’re not paying attention to red lights, and go haring off into traffic or people. I saw one son of a pile of pig shit catch an old man’s arm with his handlebars, causing the poor bloke to fall over, and the cyclist paused only to shout at him for getting in the way, then cycled off! I ask you.

(The old man was okay, just shaken, but that’s not the point)

You know, if they actually paid to use the roads like the rest of us did, and had licence plates on their bikes to identify them, maybe I wouldn’t have a problem. Maybe then, cyclists would be a bit more respectful of other drivers, knowing that when they act like twats on the road, they can get into just as much trouble as a car user.

And before all you cyclists out there reading this flip your shit, I KNOW there are people out there who do obey the rules of the road, and who are considerate to drivers, but I am yet to see one. I’m sick of being late for work/school/university/appointments because some selfish cockblast thinks he can own the road on his teeny tiny metal frame of piss.

The annoying thing? They totally do. Car drivers are too afraid of hitting the cunt and suffering to do what they deserve, play car hockey and punt the little spunk monkey into a ditch.