Once again, today is filled with many things I should be doing and due to some bad planning I’m doing this blog far too late in the day which means it’ll be a tad rushed. Not that they aren’t always a tad rushed, hence misspellings, grammatical errors or simply paragraphs of the sort of literature you would find were some of those million monkeys with a million typewriters given laptops with word to try and speed things up. The ideal, every day, is for me to get up, have some brekkie, do one of those sort of laughs at This Morning that you might see on a cheesy American 70s sitcom – you know, that kind of warm ‘ha!’ that says ‘while that wasn’t funny, it was hugely endearing – and then write my blog before the day progresses. This means I’ve written stuff before I have to write stuff and the day can roll forwards like a fat man who’s fallen over on one of those airport moving walkways. Slightly off subject, that’s reminded me, please if anyone who reads this blog does sports commentary of any kind, can you, when commentating on football, one day say the line (when appropriate): ‘Oooh! That went wide like the fat man it is.’ Thanks. Now for some small bits of thinking. Or bits of small thinking. Take your pick:
TWERRORISM
I saw bits about a man being arrested for his joke tweet spaffing round the Twittersphere yesterday and it all became a tad more clear when I saw this today:
MAN ARRESTED FOR TERRORISM ACT FOR TWITTER JOKE
Now, it doesn’t need me to say how ridiculous this is, but this is pretty ridiculous. Is there really that little terrorist activity to keep the police busy that they have to waste valuable time and energy on something that was clearly a joke. Last time I checked, terrorists weren’t Twittering their terrorism plans. Far from me to guess these sorts of things, as I am by no means an expert, and nor do I follow @AlQaeda, despite how brilliant I’ve heard their tweets are (please note coppers, that bits a gag), but I’m fairly sure it would be a bit of an own goal to start blabbing about your aerial bombing plans across a social networking site.
I’m not going to rubbish the ‘making jokes about bombs’ bit. In an ideal world, airport security staff would know when people are being ‘hilarious’ or serious, but while the current ever constant state of high ‘lets-induce-fear-on-the-masses-to-gain-constant-control-of-fucking-everything’ level of alert is around, it takes a small amount of common sense not to walk up to the check in desk and spout about whether or not you ‘remembered to pack the C4’ for a laugh. Last summer me and Layla were held up for ages on a plane from Spain because some complete dick had joked that he had a gun on him. He was neither funny, nor was it funny making everyone wait for him when after scanning him and realising he was a dick, they still kept us grounded until he was taken into custody. Not our fault. I didn’t make the joke, and if I had, it would’ve been better than that.
But that man said it out loud, not days after whilst not even close to the airport and online. It suddenly makes you think just how safe any of our online activities are, and rings a tad of the Thought Police, especially when some people are dull enough to tweet every thought they have. Some police type out there will know what everyone’s had for breakfast or their thoughts on Glee. My worry is things like last night’s #twitterbrawl (check the hashtag on twitter for an hour of mayhem fun) might now instigate me as some sort of riot organiser, instead of merriment hobbit as I am. I fear that next time I go through security at an airport they will not only x-ray all my stuff, ask all the questions, but then possibly keep me there for 2 hours while they read back through my blogs incase I’ve posted any secret codes, check back through my tweets and facebook statuses before looking through my iTunes choices. They’ll find Rage Against The Machine ‘Louder Than A Bomb’ and arrest me incase I try to shout a plane down from the sky. Of course, what do I know? Well I know that maybe we should all start a campaign where we all tweet how we plan to blow up and destroy everything until the police are forced to arrest everyone on Twitter. Except Stephen Fry, he’s on twabbatical.
INANE WORK CHATS
I’ve asked people online today for the most inane chats they’ve had or heard at work. This is entirely selfish as I’m in the process of writing something and need such input, but having not been in an office environment for some years, I don’t remember any of them that I had or overheard. I know there were a lot, but I, in a constant hatred against being in an employment situation doing work that people with lobotomies could do in 10 minutes, managed to block them out. I would find every possible loop hole in order to listen to my headphones or zone out and act weird so no one would engage me in conversation. Even when I worked in a restaurant I would spend time doodling pictures of talking whales which often meant most of the other staff just wouldn’t bother.
The only insane conversations I had were when working in a housing association call centre as my first proper job out of uni. As we dealt with building repairs, I would often be on the receiving end of abuse from the most insane of tenants, some with drugs or booze problems and several that just liked shouting more than Kanye West liked Beyonce’s video. One of the worst ones ever was when a man rang up with no heating. Taking a leaf out of @Liza_Butterfly’s excellent blog HERE, here’s a little transcript of what I said.
CALLER: (sounding like a very timid elderly man) My heating’s broken and I’m very very cold.
ME: Right, ok, well we can send someone out to look at your boiler tomorrow. What time would be best?
CALLER: I can’t do tomorrow. I’m going into hospital. They’re going to cut off my leg. I’m going to lose a leg. Do you understand. (sounds like he’s going to start crying).
ME: Oh. Ok. Well do you have someone that could be there so it can be fixed for when you get back?
CALLER: (actually crying) It’s because I can’t feel it anymore. So they’re going to take it away. Do you see? Unless I get better they’ll take the other one too.
ME: Oh. Well I suppose look on the bright side. It’ll be less to heat.
CALLER: (more crying)
ME: (Realising last comment was hugely innapropriate). Well why don’t you call us when you get back and we’ll endevour to fix it as quickly as possible for you and make you a priority case?
CALLER: Ok. Thank you.
ME; Hope it all goes ok. (Again, it won’t. He’s having his leg cut off). Bye.
(CALLER hangs up)
I lasted nearly two years in that job. I really don’t know how.
WINNIE THE POOH DAY
It’s Winnie The Pooh Day today! This is based on A.A.Milne’s birthday and we are to celebrate by hanging around with tiny pigs all day, throwing sticks in rivers and finding the most miserable donkeys ever and watch them dangle dangerously close to suicide. I used to, and still love Winnie The Pooh. Not the actual bear, he’s a bit of a bumbling dick. Nor Piglet, who I’m fairly sure has a backstory where he was born prematurely and was never going to grow much. No, its because of Tigger and Eeyore who are two of the most amazing creations ever. Tigger’s energy and attitude may drive people insane, but he’s the sort of character I could imagine seeing drunk, late night on the tube, keeping others entertained while not harassing them. Just bouncing around and eventually injuring himself, only to be captured on youtube and become a sensation.
The Tigger Movie is the saddest film ever. If you haven’t seen it, be wary. Its worse than The Road (the book, I am yet to see the film. I’m trying to persuade Layla its a romcom so we can go), in levels of misery. Tigger discovers he is the only Tigger and gets depressed. Pooh and the others think it would be nice to all dress up as Tiggers and hold a family reunion to make him think he has family. Of course this goes wrong and Tigger’s hopes are massively dashed as he realises his friends are just seriously cruel bastards that love giving each other false pretenses when at their lowest then really kicking them while down. Horrible. The Tigger leaves and gets even more sad. I don’t remember what happens then as I had to go and drink sugary drinks till I could smile again.
Eeyore is even better than Tigger because of phrases like this:
“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily.
“So it is.”
“And freezing.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”
If only more people thought like that, then High School Musical would never have been made.
LONDON COMEDY IMPROV
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=250285743496&ref=mf
I’m going to this tonight, with Mr Douieb Sr (ie my dad), and its gonna be awesome. Come and along and hang out with the Douiebs. The Christmas one was brilliant and I’m looking forward to being an audience member and shouting the sort of suggestions I was praying I hadn’t been given when I did it.
