It doesn’t take much to fuck me off, but I do find some things are more successful than others at ratcheting me up to 100 on the Pissy Scale. (Copyright term, Ms Hush-Hush, 2008.)

Sadly God didn’t see fit to bestow me with an outer wrapping that turns golden brown the moment the UV hits. No, I was at the shallow end of that particular gene pool. Instead, I was to be found frolicking neck-deep in the puddle responsible for dishing out pale skin, dark hair and a vaguely rosy complexion. Stick on a pair of green eyes and what have you got? Irish colouring.

It’s not so bad; I’m sure the albinos have it far worse. Or indeed veal calves. I’m like the Asda version of the The Corrs (minus the minging brother), all rolled into one human. So far, so Maureen O’Hara. But then along comes the melted-fudge-mess of a London summer and fucks with my look.

I’ll be clear: I don’t do well in the heat. My face goes red and I sweat. I get pissed off and irritable. I don’t like people to touch me. I choke myself with excessive deodorant use and snooze at my desk when (I think) no one is looking. In short, the heat makes me envy all olive-skinned, non-perspiring goddess types.

But if my lot is to be pasty and tepid, then so be it. I can take it. Except for when certain people come right up in my sweaty and blotchy red face and say at the top of their voice:

“You’re really red in the face aren’t you? Why is your face so red?”

Then they peer at me with a mixture of disgust and pity, and the whole of London stops and stares in anticipation of my reply.

“Well, I don’t know but what is that green thing hanging down from your nose?” is what I did not say.

Confidence-withering fool, you ruin my day.

I am all for charity. Hell, I’ve even registered myself as one. But I’m sick to the impacted wisdoms of the clipboard-wielding hippies taking over the streets, imploring me to sign endless reams of direct debit forms for the sake of the poor children/donkeys/amputees/the entire continent of Africa.

It is the same with all these things. The more you are saturated with something, the more it a) irritates the fuck out of you and b) the more you become oblivious for your own sanity. Right now I am more of the ‘A’ persuasion, but I am loitering on the borders of ‘B’.

Perhaps we would all do better to buy The Big Issue from one of the many homeless souls in London. After all, the influx of free papers must be putting the poor bastards slowly but surely out of business.

Charity begins at home but the UK seems to be terminally overrun with the po-faced Nimby Brigade, who would rather lament the state of every other country except our own. This doesn’t apply to America of course, from which such mentalism pours we just shit ourselves instead.

It makes me cranky.

I know it’s not very genteel of me to say so, but I fucking hate my neighbours. You’ll soon see why.

Specimens 1 & 2

South African couple. Live downstairs. Play shit ‘world’ music at full volume. Shout at each other over shit ‘world’ music, instead of turning full volume down.

He and she leave for work at 7.25am and 7.30am respectively. He and she slam inner and front doors separately, in quick succession, as if in blind rage and attempting to rip doors from hinges. Wall behind inner door is now dented and about to crack like a Californian fault line. My alarm clock is rendered useless.

Fucking inconsiderate twunts.

Specimen 3

Unemployed, BNP voter next door. Married, one son, looks like a pitbull. Beats his wife. (Probably.)

Pride and joy is a vintage Jaguar. Dark blue, leather trim, walnut dash. Kept under wraps to presumably protect against scratching and vagaries of British weather.

Woke whole street up at 2am on Tuesday morning roaring, “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR, YOU C*NT!!!” and bashing on the driver door of a Peugeot 206 parked outside his house.

Turns out Peugeot 206 had accidentally nudged gift-wrapped and beloved Jag. Pitbull continued intimidating shouting at full volume for 15 minutes, while attempting to drag Peugeot driver out of car, presumably to rip them to shreds with his bare hands.

And how did Pitbull see that Peugeot 206 had dared to breathe on his car at 2am?

Because he was sitting in his house, staring at the damn car like a demented watchman, that’s why. Just waiting for a reason to go absolutely fucking postal.

Atrocious, eardrum-perforating music and certified psychopaths. Welcome to my manor, readers.

I’m fucked, aren’t I?

I have had it up to here (vehemently jabs space above head) with people, in particular strange men, babbling codswallop at me.

This morning the man in the coffee shop tried to tell me, in heavily accented English, that being tall is just like being short, except you know… it’s tall instead. Because apparently the two are one and the same.

I despise this aimless and nonsensical approach to conversation. It would piss me off even if it wasn’t 8.45am, but pre-caffeine it’s akin to navigating a confabulatory assault course. I am simply not up to such exertions.

Then at lunchtime the man in the shoe shop practically ripped my left thumb from its socket. He was allegedly trying get a closer look at the ring I wear on that particular digit. (FYI it’s a simple, chunky silver affair.) He then embarked on a one-man soliloquy about finding great beauty in simplicity. Hell’s teeth, I went there to buy shoes, not throw up on yours, pal.

How I would gladly take an electric cattle prod to the behind of such bargain bucket philosophers.

The reasons I am cross today are multiple.

I see that kids are now being paid to stay on at school and do their A Levels/AS Levels/YTS bollocks, or whatever the fuck it is these days. This is to the tune of 30 quid a week. Thirty smackers a week?! If the little bleeders don’t want to stay at school, then let them bugger off and earn a living doing something else. The older I get, the more I realise that the whole point of life’s rich pattern is we’re not all supposed to head for Oxbridge and take the medical/legal/literary world by storm. Therefore what is the point of bribing slack-arsed teenagers into education if they’re not up for it? If they can’t make their way in the big bad world because they didn’t do the appropriate course or take the correct exam, the majority will soon learn and go back to college. And they will do so all the better for having learned a lesson the hard way for themselves and taking the correct steps to rectify the situation, willingly and with a smile on their mugs.

The corruption of this government doesn’t stop with children it seems. Now certain elements of Parliament are proposing to bribe obese people into reducing. For the love of fuck, it won’t work. That cash would be better spent on getting to the root of the emotional problems that make these pitiable people stuff their faces. Where do you suppose the bribe money will go if you incentivise people via their bank accounts? Straight to Ronald McDonald, that’s who. Gordon Brown might as well cut out the middle men and head straight down to the nearest golden arches with the security codes to the nation’s coffers.

What I would like to know is, when am I going to be led donkey-and-carrot style into doing what the bureaucrats want me to? Are they going to pay me to not drink anymore wine, so I don’t strain the already overburdened NHS when I require a new liver? Am I going to see my bank account fattening up when I sell my car and resign myself to the purgatory of the British public transport system, once and for all? Is Big Gordie going to send me a case of Champagne when I hike to my next holiday destination, instead of clogging up the skies on the most convenient charter?

I think not.

Sweet Jesus, Blog of Rob. If ever there was a withering and sanctimonious post to take the wind out of your sails, here it is.

According to this happy chap, most of us are going to die of either lung or liver cancer. It just depends on what your poison is. Fags or booze? What, both?! *Jaw clangs to floor* Then you’re doomed! DOOMED, I tell you!!!

Rob, did no one tell you that death is sooooo last year?

And while you’re updating to 2008, cheer the fuck up mate.

Yesterday I had cause to visit the GP. After waiting for one hour (That’s 60 whole minutes, folks. Count ‘em. I did.) I finally got to see the excessively gummy practice nurse.

‘Sorry for the wait,’ she trilled.

‘No, no, that’s fine, not a problem, I enjoy reading three-year old back issues of Good Housekeeping, blah blah blah, etcetera,’ I burbled good naturedly, as a murderous thought regarding time keeping speech-bubbled perniciously above my head.

It’s so bloody British that. Outwardly polite: inwardly seething. Why do we do it?

I’m going to see my homeopath today for a new year MOT and do you know what top of my list to talk to her about is? Acute sudden onset of the red mist. About twice a month I find myself in the grip of a teeth-gnashing, fist-clenching rage that incites fantasies of household breakages and screeching of the primal variety.

I honestly believe it’s at least partly down to all that ‘immediate reaction’ swallowing we have to do. What I really wanted to ask Nurse Gummy was why the hell she was an hour late when my appointment was early morning? What had she been doing in such a short space of time to spin out the lateness? Gossiping? Drinking tea? Stitching wounds? Performing an autopsy? WHAT??

Of course, I didn’t ask any of those questions, let alone raise my voice. Who wants to be the crazy yelling at the overworked, underpaid, unappreciated NHS frontline?

Not me. I’ve got manners. I was dragged up proper. I’ll leave the shouting to more liberated foreigners and mentalists. Let them be escorted from the premises, minus their consultation and dignity.

In the meantime, I’m going to start externalising:

1) More shouting.
2) More crying.
3) More throwing stuff around.

Although I’ll have to do it in private, otherwise I think I’ll find myself minus one live-in boyfriend. A man’s patience can only be stretched so far.

PS
On the bus home yesterday, I got smacked in the mouth by a little old Indian lady as she walked past me. It wasn’t her fault - the bus was lurching all over the place.

That is all.

This woman irritates the crap out of me. When I turn on the telly and she’s there, she makes me gnash my teeth and start ranting.

For a start, she’s got this rubbery gob that she manages to manipulate like Play Dough. (In a bad way boys, so no getting funny ideas and letting your minds wander while you’re reading my blog, ok). She gurns and grimaces through the autocue while she peddles her second rate, Butlins-esque brand of presenting. She makes Lesley Ash look thin-lipped in comparison.

She’s currently pissing me off even more than usual because she’s co-presenting Strictly Come Dancing with that geriatric bore, Bruce Forsyth. I can’t believe they’re still wheeling him out. The pair of them together are insufferable, but I continue to tune in when I’m in the house of a Saturday evening (which isn’t that often, party people), because I like the prancing. It’s entertaining, unlike Ms Daly who would do better as the back end of a pantomime horse.

All that hammy fist punching, kissing Forsyth’s arse and attempts at ‘dead serious’ interviewing of the contestants does my frickin’ head in. She is inane and vacuous and makes me irreversibly cranky.

And have you seen some of the atrocities she’s been wearing lately? I ask you. At what point do you think, ‘Hmmm, should probably start flicking the light switch to ‘on’ when I get dressed.’ Who the fuck is advising her? And are they on some monumental piss take? Take this weekend just gone, for example. Floor length royal blue taffeta, the shape of which was clearly modelled on those cut-and-shut Cindy dolls that have been made into toilet roll covers by your Aunty Maureen. It was cinched in at the waist with a random gold belt that was not only mismatched, but looked like the kind of tat you find in a Primark bargain bin. Then the crowning glory was the asymetrical sleeve arrangements. One was down to her elbow, and t’other one was a scrappy bit of off the shoulder idiocy.

Fuck knows what was on her feet. I couldn’t see past the horror of bouffant blue, which all things considered is probably a very good thing.

She’s an assault on the eyes and I’m going to write to the BBC wardrobe department to complain. Is this what my licence fee is going on? Tess Daly’s dressing up box? I can’t take it any longer and neither can my blood pressure.

There’s only one thing that could push me over the edge: a guest presenting slot with Vernon Kay.

Arrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I thought I was cross because of the flapjacks.

Read this; The Girl’s got a excellent point, well made. But now I look like a beautific, over-fed Nigella Lawson next to a firey and fuming Gordon Ramsay.

I wanna be Gordon. About time I got all riled up like I did here.

I’ll go home, get a bit shouty and see whether something pisses me off tomorrow. It probably will, especially if The German forces me out of bed at 7am to go running.

Outraged of London, coming soon…

It’s always nice to be able to relate to something. Today’s theory of relativity came in the shape of the latest post of one particular blog I like to visit: I Am Livid. I particularly enjoy this piece of online entertainment because, as anyone who knows me will attest to, I like a bit of a rant myself. Gimme a soap box and I’ll wow the folks at home with vitriol.

Anyway I digress. The author was understandably pissed off that instructions for cooking a jacket potato told him to preheat the oven to a spurious, and seemingly unconvertible, temperature in fahrenheit. Which is for Americans and being as how this is Britian, not much blinkin’ use.

I get what he means. The other weekend, I was cooking flapjacks. I did this once before, but I went freestyle and fucked it right up, so this time I thought I’d follow a proper recipe. So far, so good - until I got to the temperature bit.

“Preheat your oven to gas mark 5.”

Oh good then. So what please, Dear Recipe-Writer, is this in centigrade? Because gas mark 5 isn’t on my cooker. It probably hasn’t been written on one since about 1953. And to add to the confusion, my cooker is powered with gas, not electric. This was starting to make me cross. I just wanted flapjacks. I didn’t want to have to do mathematics, which I am very bad at.

So I’m truly baffled. But I’m also lazy and couldn’t be bothered to look on the internet to start converting gas mark 5 into something I could understand. I just got a bit more cross, had a guess (lick finger, stick in air, wind says go with 150C) and whacked the flapjacks in with a ‘Fuck it and see’ shrug of the shoulders.

Then because I was feeling a bit huffy still, I opened a bottle of wine to cheer myself up, forgot to set the timer and only remembered about the flapjacks two hours later. There’s nothing like decimated oats and raisins to make your Fairy Liquid bottle quiver with anticipation. And Christ on a bike, the smell. It was a cross between biscuity old ladies and burned toast. Thoughts of being a lifelong domestic failure weaved through my mind, but thankfully by this time, I was too sozzled to care.

At least I’ve learned a valuable lesson. In future, leave flapjack production to bakers and mathematicians…