Wednesday, Bloody Wednesday

Aloha all. I got myself set up for a massive work related rant today, but I don't have the heart anymore so i'll spare you all the dull details.....

IRK OF THE WEEK:

Why do buses randomly change the prices that they charge? I usually pay £1.25 for the privilage of sitting on a packed bus full of the following misfits:

1) Scum-Bag Scroaty School Kids who haven't got an ounce of manners in them. Last week I had to wait while a prosession of teen arse-holes paraded from the back of the bus to get off, practically every one of them kicked Cameron's push chair on the way past, and not one of them stopped to let me get out. Grrrrrr. And i've been relyably informed that murder / assualt is illegal? Is there no justice?

2) Ghetto Mothers who are usually 14-19 and the type that use their children's prams as a handy wind-break when lighting up a cig. These invariably congregate at the front of the bus swapping tales of "Our Baz's" latest appearance in court. They seem to spend the rest of the time screaming / swearing at their kids in the vain hope that threats of violence are going to stop little Darryl from shouting "Wanker" at all the old people. Mind you, when his mothers' favourite phrases include "Fuck Off" "Twat" and "Wanker" you tend to see why*...

3) Dribbling weirdos who rock back and forth and have haircuts like Lego-men. I've got nothing against the mentally affected people of this world, but sometimes I wonder why half of the sunshine -bus people you see round Scarborough are allowed out without assistance. There is one guy, for instance, (locally known as Wet-man because of the healthily greasy sheen of his hair) who spends the entire day sat on the floor in the middle of town. He obviously hasn't had a shower for approx 5 months.

4) Old People, they generally seem to be under the impression that they have the divine right to everything. Last Friday I had been stood at the bus stop for about 20 mins, just as the (very busy) bus pulled up, an old woman appeared and tried to climb onto the step before I did. Now usually I would have waived her ahead of myself anyway. I like to think that i'm quite a polite person, I hold doors for people, let older people sit down at the front of the bus, let people pass on, say, a narrow path rather than shoving past them, sometimes I even let my housemates use the Sky TV remote, but it really pisses me off when old people EXPECT preferential treatment. Fuck-off, you are all going to die a lot sooner than I so you can wait a bit, my time is more precious....

5) The Guy who also rides the train, you know the one, you finally get a carriage / seat on the bus all by yourself, you whip out your copy of "The Lost Continent" by Bill Bryson, on goes the i-Pod, you're all set for a blissful journey into literary heaven, when some smelly freak comes and sits next to you and starts to talk to you. My usual method of defense against this (on trains, anyway) is just to ignore said fool until they get bored and talk to someone else, but on the bus there is no safety. Whoever is responsible for designing the seats on buses could only have been a double leg amputee, and with a a waist size that Karen Carpenter would have been proud of. So when one of these nutters plonks their (invariably) over-sized ass next to yours, you know you're in for a torrid journey. A fornight ago one of these wierdo's (he could have fitted perfectly into catergory 1 too) sat next to me. Stared at me silently for about 5 minutes, before uttering one of the most intellectually taxing statements that had ever befallen my ears:

"I like cats"

I mean honestly, what was I supposed to do? Well I did what any other sane person would do and asked him to move his legs so that I could sit somewhere else.

(And you wonder why I collected the United Nations International Man of Tact award for the third year in a row?)


* They also have a certain penchant for repeating the phrases "Blatantly" "Know what I mean" and my personal favourites, "To be fair" and "Like" as many times as is humanly possible in one sentence. They also come out with such grammatical wonders as adding the word "Me" to EVERY VERBAL OFFERING (as one of my friends overheard in a club the other night) as "That DJ, Peter Piper, is shit me." (what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Can anyone out there please calculate exactly what the utterer of the above sentence actually meant?)

Good News: England won the third test, and drew the series. Well done lads, you've done us proud.

All's Quiet on the Mort-o Front

It is Saturday morning and I am sat at work. I've got a busy day ahead of me because straight after work I have to go to a kid's birthday party (where Cameron is) and wait there before rolling back into town for about half two, so many, many buses to catch, grrrr.

I've just had the biggest ignoramous I think i've ever had on the phone. We request "Certified" copies of people's identification when they are opening a mortgage account. The reason why we odn't take original documents anymore is that we have a large office that seems to have several Black-Holes in, where many a customer's Passport has disappeared in the past, so now we try to lessen the risk.
Anyway, this lady called today asking if she could just send in her passport, I gave her a brief run-down of why she couldn't and what she woukld have to do to get a certified copy (basically get a photocopy signed by a professional/regulated person, i.e. a Police officer, solicitor, Bank Manager, Government Official, Doctor, etc). She then told me that she didn't know any of the above examples and wantyed me to give her the dictionary definition of "a Professional person".
I put her on hold, swore like a fish-wife (whilst going to find a copy of our customer information booklet) only to return to the phone to find a very bemused customer talking to herself. Apparently the original customer had hung up (thank God, because I was worried she might have heard me saying all the rude, but highly justified things that I said about her) and a new customer had come through, heard my automatic greeting and presumed that someone was on the other end of the phone. Very bizarre, but also highly amusing. *

Fun Link of the day:

http://members.home.nl/saen/Special/Zoeken.swf





*Aplogies for the crap post, but I don't have much time, and can't think of anything too exciting to write.

Idle Chit Chat

Does anybody else get really annoyed with soaps & teen-soaps? I stopped watching Neighbours regularly about a year or more ago now, but it still manages to rile me like no other programme on t.v. Hollyoaks has the same effect, which is why I stopped watching that about 6 months ago. There are several reasons for this.

1) Everybody is far too healthy.

Everyone seems to be a perfect specimen of the human race. Nobody smokes, drinks or uses recreational drugs. Now I know these are supposed to be "Family Shows" but I hate the way that if any indvidual appears on these programmes and does smoke or drink, they are portrayed as a rebellious scum-bag, often with evil intent.

2) People get away with bullying too easily.

When I was at school, if some other kid started to have a go at you there were generally two courses of action available: Tell them to F*ck off, beat them up, get someone bigger to beat them up*, or be a wuss and tell the Teachers.
In Neighbours (and also Hollyoaks) why do you often see a character getting bullied by the most weedy looking idiot you've evr seen, and all they do is submit to them! For the love of god fight back!

3) The plot never moves on.

Like I said, i've not watched either of these shows for a fair while, but the other night my house-mate was watching Neighbours. The story was exactly the same as it had been 12 months ago, with the exception of the introduction of a few more hags. (Does anyone remember when Neighbours used to have fit women in it? And for the ladies, didn't it used to be full of buff men like, oh I don't know Drew, or Jason Donovan....er, o.k, point taken..)


So there you go...

Most of my celebrity-based rants are (I think) quite valid. All they seem to do is whinge and moan about stuff, yet they have everything handed to them on a plate. Take a look at the list at the bottom of this page and I think you'll agree that if ever there was cause for me to be given an international License to Kill and a free sniper rifle, then there's no better time, quite frankly.

ON ANOTHER NOTE...

Recently i've been studying for my CeMAP qualifications at work. I won't bore you all with detail, but it's basically a financial qualification that covers evrything from Tax to Mortgage lending. Now I sat and read all about the UK tax system yesterday and all I can say is, Is there anything left that our government won't tax? You spend your life working hard to earn money. This is taxed. You put what's left of this money into a savings account. This is taxed. When you die, you cannot simply pass on your belongings to your family, because, wait for it, you'll be taxed! So even when you're dead-and-buried the Government still want to get their greasy-overpaid paws on your hard-earned money. (Which, as I previously stated, has already been taxed!) Would be interseting to hear from you guys in the states, Oz, Holland etc as to your opinions on your respective tax systems.....

Website of the week:

www.subservientchicken.com

Tell him what to do and he'll do it. If he doesn't like it, he'll tell ya!

Regards, Mort.

Oh, and I almost forgot, for those that may be interested, Cameron seemed to like Pancakes, and he also likes Marmite. Just like his old man, good lad...




*Of course I would like to mention that Mort does not condone violence of any sort. Unless it is against any of the following:

Vernon Kaye (crap DJ/TV presenter)
Chris Moyles (Self-obsessed DJ)
Colin Murray (As above)
George Bush
Julian Clarey (There are only so many innuendos you can make about being a Chutney-Ferret, give it up man)
The entire cast of Friends (except the monkey)
Mel Gibson (Stop changing history mate)
Tom Cruise
Ricky Ponting
Paris Hilton (Do I have to specify why???)