Grumpy Old Man (Items 16 – 20)…

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When I started this, I didn’t think I had quite as many gripes as I (obviously) do…

  • People who say things like: “it feels like a Wednesday”, when it’s Thursday. Or Tuesday. Or even worse – when it is Wednesday. Is this really the intellectual level of your conversation? These are often the same people who proclaim —
  • — “but it’s really only five o’clock”, for days after the clocks have gone forward. How long can they continue to say that before it becomes irrelevant? No it isn’t five o’clock. Not here. You know where it is five o’clock? An hour to the west, that’s where. Across that imaginary line. But they never learn, because six months later when the clocks go back they say: “but it’s really still five o’clock.”
  • The guy who walks up to you in the office and wishes you a Happy New Year in April. Yes, April. Are you kidding me? And then he will try to shake your hand too. Give it a rest. From now on, Happy New Year well-wishes are banned once January is over… and even that seems generous.
  • Movie reboots. Stop doing it. Come up with new ideas. Not only are few of them any good, but recently re-imagined stuff like The Karate Kid or Total Recall invariably makes me feel old, because the originals reminds me of my childhood. If Hollywood ever even thinks about remaking Die Hard (the greatest action movie ever made), they will have to go through me first.
  • Self-service checkouts. They were invented to decrease the time it takes for you to buy your goods and increase traffic flow, but all I see is a bunch of machines that rarely recognise the item you try to scan, and an endless procession of people fruitlessly trying to peel apart the walls of those stupid plastic bags.

A friend has asked if these niggles are sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek, to which I said:

“Sure, tongue-in-cheek, yeah. Of course.”

Grumpy Old Man (Items 11 – 15)…

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All this chat about Room 101 is making me want to read Nineteen Eighty-Four again, but while I ponder that, here are a few more annoyances…

  • Facebook (in general), but specifically those people who have an insatiable hunger to post pictures of food that they are about to consume. Trust me; Gordon Ramsay’s job is safe, because most of those plates look about as appetising as a bucket of wallpaper paste. And while the description of roast chicken, my fave, mmm, is actually quite helpful – because until I read that I wasn’t sure if that overcooked mess was animal, vegetable, or mineral – there is less of a requirement for a caption of bday cake. All those candles and that crudely iced inscription kind of tipped me off there.
  • While I’m thinking about Facebook: I’d like to get rid of those (usually female) users who update their status with inane drivel like: I’m so sad, or boo hoo, or that old keyboard classic of 😦 , and then wait until a raft of followers ask them what’s wrong, before actually divulging what their issue is. It’s either a) my boyfriend dumped me, b) I can’t get in to my skinny jeans, or c) heavy periods. Guys don’t do that: they just post shit about cars, getting wasted, and how many chicks they scored with on the weekend. Classy.
  • Able-bodied, physically-capable people, who get in an elevator to go up or down one floor, especially when they’re not carrying anything heavy. And I don’t mean those people who jump in because they just happen to be passing when the elevator doors open. No. I’m talking about the ones who have pressed the button and have stood there and waited for it. Just use the stairs! I know you know where they are, because you passed them to get to the lift in the first place.
  • Teenagers who only recognise songs as being performed by the flavour-of-the-month group or artist currently in the charts. You just know their heads would explode (which may not be a bad idea) if you told them that One Way or Another was actually not an original One Direction song, or that Word Up charted almost thirty years before Little Mix got their poptastic hands on it. Whether or not they are good cover versions is irrelevant, but at least have the courtesy to acknowledge a song’s roots and not pretend otherwise.
  • Cyclists who assume they can double as road users and pedestrians, using whichever rules please them at the time, depending on traffic conditions/weather/how they are feeling.

Come on – I’m not the only one…

…am I?

Grumpy Old Man (Items 6 – 10)…

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So here are a few more gripes – some more obscure than others – that we can gladly throw into Room 101. This is probably not what Orwell had in mind when he penned Nineteen Eighty-Four, but anyway…

  •  Men who go to the centre of the silver urinal trough when nobody else is in there. If the toilet is empty, just take a corner like any normal person!
  • Keeping with toilets: men who don’t hold their business at the urinals, and instead, either stand there with their hands on their hips or – in one instance – text someone! What’s up with that? I don’t care if you can control your aim remotely. It’s weird and it puts me off my stream, so just do me a solid and hold yours next time, ok? Left hand or right, it makes no difference to me. Just do it.
  • Women who answer with: “you don’t ask a lady that”, when you ask them how old they are; closely followed by women who respond with: “how old do you think I am?” to the same question. Either tell me the truth or lie. Just give me a number. I’m sure that telling me your age will not contravene any national security regulations, so please don’t make this whole song and dance about it. By the way, however old you are, you look older. Happy?
  • People who get tattoos or strange piercings on their face and then get annoyed when you point/stare/laugh at them. It’s human nature. Society – quite rightly – says we shouldn’t gawp at disabled people, but there’s certainly no social rule about looking at you. If you insist on the ink and/or the jewellery and want to pass it off as ‘body art’, so be it, but this is the price you pay.
  • Google Maps. Google is good for a lot of things, and I – like many people – use it every day, but the map application was obviously programmed by a) someone with a sadistic sense of humour, or b) a drunk monkey. If I was tasked to find my way to mainland China and had to choose between Google Maps and a blind homing pigeon, I’d take the bird every time.

I’d like to say that was the end of my list, but you know, what’s life without a few (hundred) moans?

Grumpy Old Man (Items 1 – 5)…

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Yesterday, someone asked me what – if anything – I would consign to Room 101. You know, stuff that annoys me; irks me. Things that make me want to reach for the nearest blunt object. For the few of you out there who are not familiar with the reference, read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. It’s one of the best novels you can get your hands on.

Anyway, I drew up a list which I was going to post in its entirety, but it turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would. So here, in no particular order, is the first clutch of those things that currently… make me want to count to ten.

  • People who talk on their mobiles/cells at upwards of 127 decibels. You’re on the phone: you really don’t need to shout! If you want to do so please wait until I have vacated the area and am suitably out of earshot.
  • And still on phones: people who find it imperative to tell the other person the minutiae of their every move: “I’m on the bus; yeah, I’m just passing the corner store now. Wait a minute, we’re stopped at the lights. I’ll just be a minute. Oh! I can see you now. Look, I’m waving. Can you see me? Yeah, I’m wearing my red coat. Thanks, I decided to treat myself. You’re right, I do deserve it. Ok, I’m just getting off now. Right, I’m hanging up…”
  • People (usually teenagers) who play music on their mobiles without headphones (usually on a bus), with the express intention of making everyone else listen to it. Why do they do this? The quality is rarely crystal and it’s always an artist or band that makes you want to jam the phone down the user’s throat just to see if you can still hear it from the depths of their stomach.
  • Adults who look to Harry Potter and/or Twilight for points of reference, disregarding the fact that these books/movies are aimed squarely at people no more than half their age. Minus one point for those who take pride in being able to quote these characters, and minus another point for the ones who attend fancy dress parties as either Dumbledore or Edward Cullen.
  • Women who haven’t read a book since The Hungry Caterpillar at school, yet managed to get through all three volumes of Fifty Shades, which now serves as their benchmark for what is good or bad in the world of literature. No, reading one titillating trilogy does not allow you to have an opinion on anything else – it barely categorises you as a reader. You’re just a horny housewife who has read three shit books, that’s all.

…more to follow, once I calm down…

Ellipses…

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Horror quarterly, Dark Moon Digest, have picked up my 2,300 word tale, A Week in the Life Of… for publication later this year – a story relayed as a series of diary entries, about one man’s descent into madness.

I originally drafted this story when I was nineteen, which makes it the oldest idea I have had accepted. Granted it has been through a couple of redrafts since that time – and is now somewhat better than its initial incarnation – but the tone and narrative style has remained relatively unchanged throughout. It’s certainly pleasing to know that I was writing semi-decent stuff when I was a teenager, but it does make me wonder about the quality of the pieces I’m producing today!

Que Sera…

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Que seraEvery Day Fiction will be publishing my 800 word literary flash piece, Whatever Will Be, tomorrow, on March 2nd. My experience with the editors over there has been second to none. They have taken a lot of time and effort to work with me recently, to ensure this piece is as good as it can be, and I wish more editors would do the same.

The story has undergone several drafts and their attention to detail has been exemplary. Sometimes editors seem to think their job ends when they say yes to a piece, but the folks over at Every Day Fiction have earned their crust and gained my respect.

Comments can be left on the page, so if you have anything to say, feel free to let me know over there.

But How Did She Get in There…?

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Issue 13My 1,200 word short story, The Girl in the Glass Bottle, makes its debut in Issue 13 of Australian ezine SQ Mag, which is live today, and available for your perusal now. It’s a dark fantasy tale that I wrote in April of last year, so it’s always nice to see something picked up without too much of a delay. The issue also contains work from – among others – Cameron Trost; a dark fiction writer from Down Under, who I’m happy to see is still producing quality work.

As usual, any comments (good, bad, or indifferent) are welcome. Well, mostly the good ones…

The Wanderer Returns…

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Yeah, I know. It’s been a while, so I’ll be posting updates over the next few days to bring whoever may be interested up to speed.

So, firstly:

The twenty-four hour online poker marathon in December went very well. I’m guessing the threats of violence obviously worked, because in the end over £1,300 was raised for Cancer Research UK – more than even my lofty expectations. Thanks to everyone who chipped in, and apologies to those I annoyed more than once for a donation… although some of you will know that’s what I’m like with charity drives. I always factor in a 10% friendship loss whenever I do these things.

You can check out the totals here. Feel free to throw me some cash if you have any Christmas money left over… or if you were one of those who promised but conveniently forgot.

Yes, I know who you are.

All For a Good Cause…

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Cancer-Research-UKI have been feeling a little… out of sorts lately, and I figured the best way to deal with that is to have a charity drive. A couple of years ago I raised over £1,000 for CLAN by dying my hair pink, and this time I hope to go a little better for Cancer Research UK.

At 11am on December 14th, my friend Kev and I will begin a twenty-four hour online marathon on the Sky Poker tables. That’s approximately 2,500 hands of poker. As well as the support we have got from the community over there, I hope to be able to count on my friends and family, as well as any other generous readers out there.

Ambitious total? Sure. But there’s no point doing it for just a few quid, is there? Besides, it’s amazing what you can achieve with threats of violence and blackmail. Cancer will unfortunately touch most of us in one way or another, at some point in our lives. Some of you may even be dealing with it right now. It is however, a disease we can beat, but we can only do so with your help.

I have set up a JustGiving page here, for anyone who wishes to contribute to the cause, or indeed if you just want to be nosey and see how we are currently doing against our target, well… that’s all right too. If you do wish to throw something our way, you can do so via the link, and you can be assured that every penny goes directly to the charity. I understand and appreciate that money can be particularly tight at this time of year, in the extended run up to Christmas, so let me say thank you now for the support: these things are so much easier with people like you.