Things I Like

As promised, after last week’s doom-and-gloom-laden blog, I have put all my moans behind me, put a smile on my face, and song in my heart and I eagerly await the bank putting some money in my pocket, but I won’t be holding my breath…MAN January goes on forever! But enough of things I hate, I covered all that last week.

I like wind farms. I realise this statement may place me at risk of drowning in a deluge of tree huggers and the noise pollution brigade helpfully expressing opposite points of view, so can I please quickly point out that I don’t like wind farms because they are going to save the planet - indeed, the futurologist recently interviewed by the BBC stated that he did not expect wind farms to feature much in the planet’s energy generation systems in the year 2112, and since he is a guy who was clearly born with a crystal ball in his hand, who am I to argue? I mean, it’s not like he makes stuff up by guessing what’s going to happen in 100 years’ time. He’s paid to be a futurologist, so he either has a crystal ball or a time machine, and either way I’m not about to argue with the man. I just like wind farms because they are big, white and beautiful, and they stand tall on windy desolate moorland where no other idiot would go. I also love the fact that they have to be shut down when it’s too windy. I like a field full of wind turbines. Engineer likes a field full of round hay bales (dispersed neatly at regular intervals). We are the Weird Family.

I like my Brie rock hard. Not many people know, but there are 4 versions of Brie: Break-the-wall, bounce-off-the-wall, stick-to-the-wall and run-down-the-wall. Well of course you didn’t know. You have to be a cheese connoisseur to know. Of course I didn’t make it up. Mine has to be break the wall hard.

I like junk food. It grieves me that junk food is so bad for you. This raises the philosophical question, do I love junk food because I know it’s bad for me? Would I love carrots if they were classified as junk food? Don’t get me wrong, I like carrots. But I wouldn’t stagger out of bed with a hangover and head out to get hold of some carrots. I would do that with a Big Mac Meal though, or a multipack of salt and vinegar crisps and a boat load of Twirls.

I like the fact that people who send me spam messages actually believe that I am stupid enough to send my banking details to them so that they can help themselves to whatever is in my bank account. I had a message recently purportedly from Paypal and it was addressed “Dear Valued Costumer”. A dyslexic thief! You couldn’t make it up.

I like people who are under the misguided illusion that because their child walked / talked / spelled / read / wrote / counted / potty-trained early, they will be a rocket scientist in later life. These people are optimistically delusional and we should cherish them as an important and colourful ingredient in the fabric of society. There’s time enough for them to become realists, and when that time arrives, when their rocket scientist child who could count to a hundred aged 2 struggles with bastarding derivatives or ballistics aged 17, we should all be there to support them. Boxer climbed out of her cot aged 18 months and spoke a full, grammatically correct sentence: “Mummy, I want to see Daddy”. All this means is that she is extremely determined and resourceful, a total Daddy’s girl, and a right royal pain in the tonsils. I’m not naïve enough to believe that this somehow makes her a child prodigy. Judge says the six times table is a sod. I say that equips him well for A Level Maths, most of which is a sod.

Off to get a packet of salt and vinegar crisps.

Things I Hate

So this might sound like a slightly pessimistic post, but, unusually for me, I’m in a pessimistic frame of mind. It’s not like me, and it’ll pass, but hopefully a small blog-sized rant will aid the process of self-healing.

Politicians: What were we thinking, electing a bunch of old Etonian millionaires to run the country, a task which includes but is not restricted to passing us non-millionaires advice about how to manage our finances? I say “we”, I really mean “you”, since I bear absolutely no responsibility for their election, but someone must have voted for them. This is like having a swimming teacher advise us how to hang glide. For Mr Cameron and his cronies, it must be like having an extra-large Monopoly set to play with, except that only they can afford to purchase any properties on Mayfair or Park Lane. Apparently the easiest way to deal with this period of economic difficulty is to “just pay off our credit cards”. Well thanks Mr Cameron, why didn’t I think of that.

Childless or expectant parents advising actual parents on how to rear their children: No one’s perfect, and I know my parenting skills could do with a brush up, but having someone who doesn’t actually have any experience in it passing me tips can be hard to take, even from a health visitor or medical professional. Actually, the people who are least likely to give out parenting advice are parents themselves, because we are wise to the fact that we will be trying to outwit children until the end of time, and we will never succeed, no matter how many self-help books we read. The cantankerous little sods remain one step ahead of us at all times.

Herbal or holistic remedies: You know what, if it’s your last resort, nothing else has worked, and you’re prepared to give anything a go, then fair enough. Fill your boots with all the holistic mumbo jumbo you can lay your hands on. But seriously, what manner of an eejit would rather have colonic irrigation that a simple course of antibiotics?

Corporate or school playground bullies: Rule of thumb – if you wouldn’t treat your family and friends that way, it’s probably not acceptable to treat anyone like that. Life is so much more pleasant if you are respectful and polite to everyone, but I believe that for some reason this is a lesson we don’t learn until quite late on in life, around the time that we develop empathy, and some people entirely fail to learn it at all. A good celebrity example is Jeremy Clarkson. He’s ever so funny, until you find yourself being the butt of his jokes.

Reality TV: I will never understand the attraction of watching people sleep on live TV. Or watching people humiliate themselves on live TV. Or watching people be humiliated by a large audience on live TV because some cruel “friend” has told them they can sing – “seriously dude, you should go on X Factor…”. Those people who know me will know that Engineer and I have a secret X Factor habit though, but I have to watch the initial auditions through my fingers and I leave the room if there’s a cringe-invoking moment.

Always getting the weirdo on an early morning flight: Nothing is more offensive than having to sit beside someone who has partaken of a goodly quantity of Vodka for breakfast, except perhaps having to sit beside someone who considers toothpaste, deodorant and soap as nice-to-haves. Red eyes are bad enough. Malodorous red eyes are a step too far.  

Ah, that feels much better. I’ll do a piece on “Things I Like” next week, just to balance out the positive / negative pendulum, I promise.

2011: What a year that was…

Many notable things happened in 2011. I do like to have a few moments of mature reflection when the old year turns into the new one, followed closely by a good helping of immature reflection. I thought you might enjoy the latter more.

I got addicted to Angry Birds. This is a shame for Little Vulture and Bear, since I do not have an iPhone and they both do. This means that whenever I see either of them I am less interested in communicating with them, and infinitely more interested in feeding my addiction. This is not good for our familial relations, nor the battery life of their devices. As with most addictions, this one took hold surreptitiously and with frightening speed. One moment, I was vaguely aware of the existence of the game but completely disconnected from the reality of it, due to the simple fact that my employer favours Blackberry over iPhone (and I now see why – imagine the hours lost to Angry Birds in the typical workplace…). The next moment, BANG. Hopeless addiction. Cold turkey is the only way forward. Conquering my addiction is particularly important since my pleasure is diminished when I play it with the sound off, even though the noise of unscathed pigs chortling is almost more than I can bear. It must be a pain / pleasure thing.

I realised that Engineer and I can no longer laugh at what Boxer says when we are within her earshot because she gets mightily offended. This is because she is no longer a baby. So when she, on watching a football game, made reference to the guy in the black shirt being “The Janitor”, and Engineer, Judge and myself almost fell off the sofa laughing at the sheer appropriateness of this comment, she shut herself in her room in a huff and refused to speak to any of us for a whole day. When on earth, exactly, did she stop being a baby, and why wasn’t I consulted?

I came to terms with the fact that I do not understand what the Large Hadron Collider does, nor what the discovery of a sub-atomic particle will do for me. I realise of course that both of these items are of significant scientific importance. I still read newspaper articles about them. I am merely resigned to the fact that I will never be able to explain either of them to my children. I look forward to the day when they can explain them to me.

I now acknowledge that there is a place in the world for the Kindle. Just not in my world. I reserve the right for this stance to change in the future though (for reference, see my attitude to the iPod and CDs back in the day. You could be forgiven for imagining that I had had a job in HMV’s marketing department. “Downloading? It’ll never catch on.”). I’m just not an Early Adopter in the change cycle, quite frankly, as the paragraph below will confirm.

This final item will no doubt make me sound like I just arrived from 1985 in a time-travelling Dolorean with a bad perm and shoulder pads, but How Good Is Skype?!? This has been a video-conferencing Christmas – how amazing to be able to see my brother-in-law in Canada, and 2 of my Glasgow in-laws, all on the screen at the same time, all chatting away like we’re in the same room rather than hundreds / thousands of miles apart! And best of all, it’s FREE! I never could resist a bargain.

Happy 2012 to all my lovely friends.