these are a few of my most hated things

Trash

2005-10-17T13:46:00.000Z

I HATE YOU TRASH!! I hate you and your stupid ‘dress code’ and your shit music and the pretentious wankers who pass through your doors tragically seeking some sort of validation or involvement in 'the scene’ - whatever that is...
I supposed I ought to deal with the music first: Well, if you take the most predictable, obvious indie – old and new – mix it will generic electro and throw in some deliberately obscure noise for good measure, you have a pretty accurate summary of the drivel that Trash considers a ‘good night’.
And what are you ‘Errol’? Are you by any chance a wannabe rock star who never quite had the balls or talent to make it, so you became a DJ so you could be worshipped by 16 year old girls (and those who wish they’re still 16!). Oh and now you just ‘happen’ to have some stuff out on CD, y’know, whatever, not like you’re bothered or anything. Yeah, right.
Somehow, somehow the beast that is Trash has clawed its way to the top of the indie club tree in London, to the point where it now wields a ridiculous amount of clout over everywhere else – the Topshop of indie land if you will…I can’t for the life of me work out who made Trash the standard against which all other indie nights are judged, but I really resent it – it’s so not cool.
Of course my hatred of Trash overlaps somewhat with my hatred of electro, but it’s not for this alone that I despise it. Mainly, it’s for taking the concept of ‘the indie club’ – pure, innocent and slightly geeky and transforming it into a shallow, cooler-than-thou lifestyle, complete with bitchy message boards and ideas above its station like the ability to ‘make or break’ new bands.

Holmes Place Rucksacks

2005-10-10T09:57:00.000Z

You see a smart City-type woman on the bus, elegantly dressed in a suit with matching shoes and handbag. And there it is, strapped to her back like a turtle’s shell, a huge, crammed-full, cheap nylon rucksack with ‘Holmes Place’ or ‘Fitness First’ emblazoned across it. I hate them for many reasons:
One is practical – they totally disturb the woman’s centre of gravity, rendering them as stable on a moving bus as a wobbly newborn lamb, which means they skitter about and crash into everyone with their unwieldy cargo.
My second reason is aesthetic: how can you ruin a nice, ladylike outfit with a huge, ugly, clumsy rucksack for God’s sake?!
And my third reason: They’re so pretentious. After all, there’s no law saying a person must carry workout stuff in the tacky free bag supplied by the gym. You could put it in a nice bag. Except they don’t because they want to say to the world ‘Look! I work in an office but I’m sooo good I’m going to the gym before work, or in my lunch hour, or after work! See, I’ve got my Holmes Place rucksack to prove it! Oops did I bump you with it...’

'Chuggers' aka charity muggers

2005-08-24T14:19:00.000Z

I'm not a bad person. I give to charity and refrain from kicking old ladies (though sometimes it's tempting). So why then do I feel guilty everytime I walk past some irksome, dreadlocked twat who apparently just wants 'a minute of my time'? But they don't, do they? What they really want is to guilt trip me into handing over my card details so they can take money out of my bank account every month.
That may be fair enough - after all charities have to compete in an aggressive marketplace for their share of the pie - rattling collection tins on street corners just ain't gonna cut it these days. However I do resent the implication that chuggers do their job for love rather than money - that's a big misconception. One chugger I had the misfortune of talking to (in a bar, cos they knew my friend, I would never stop to talk to them on the street) said they earned £9 an hour!!! At the time that was more than I earned um, 'slaving away' as a receptionist.

And I really hate the way that boy chuggers always target girls and vice versa, as if you're supposed to feel flattered that this hunky young moral crusader is practically chatting you up - yes you, dowdy office girl - right here in the street!! They also try to make some connection between you and them to startle you into stopping "Hey! You're wearing red and so am I!! Let's talk!"

One day soon some poor unfortunate chugger is going to feel the full force of my wrath - I've been rehearsing a speech in my head that's just the right combination of spite, wit and ethical superiority to make them feel like shit for a change.

Mouldy Sluggish Flies

2005-08-13T18:26:00.000Z

Yes it's that wonderful time of year again when stupid spazzy fruit flies lurch and drone their way around my kitchen, settling on every surface and exploding in clouds from the rubbish bin every time i open it.
I really hate them - they're creepy and sinister and gross and seemingly indestructible. They act all innocent and dumb - "oh, am i bothering you by hovering unhygenically and turning all your fruit mouldy? Sorry about that, but I am a moudly sluggish fly you know, it's my job."
I've done everything I can to make the kitchen a hostile place for them to be - ruthlessly bleached the bin within an inch of its life, wiped every surface with a rigour I seldom excercise, even grudgingly allowed the spooky spider to remain in an attempt at natural pest management, but all to no avail.
Still they hover, lazily - ooh look there's another one! SMACK! Got the little bugger - loitering in the air like a bunch of dissaffected, hoody-wearing teens.

Make Doherty History

2005-07-29T15:05:00.000Z

That's right folks, join the campaign started by St. Damon of Blur to get this scrawny, untalented no-hoper booted out of the public eye.
He clearly thinks he's possessed of a great genius and by surrounding himself with thickos has managed to perpetuate this myth, but Pete, my sweet, a few GCSE's doesn't make you Byron!
This sissy, middle class 'bad boy' created the fantasy world of 'Albion' popluated by junkies, poets, princesses blah blah blah. Get over it mate - you live in a stinky bedsit in Bethnal Green and you're nowhere near as talented as great indie poets like Morrissey (bows head in reverence), Jarvis or even bloody Menswear!
It's depressing to think that 'the kidz' worship this crackhead, who's managed to convince them that smack and talent go hand in hand. They don't.

Topshop

2005-07-26T16:02:00.000Z

I have always hated Topshop. I never thought it was an exciting wonderful place full of affordable fashion. Instead I saw it as overpriced and pretentious in contrast to its humble neighbour, Hennes (yes, I still call it 'Hennes' no matter how hard they try to convince me it's 'H&M'!)

No one in their right mind would ever set foot inside Topshop on a Saturday because truly, it is like descending into the bowels of Hell. Hot, crowded, noisy - your senses are assaulted, rendering you confused and vulnerable to their aggressive marketing tactics.

One of the many things that irritates me about Topshop is the way it stole my indie girl style. I don't want to see quirky faux-vintage dresses being sold off the peg for £40 - I want to find them myself in a charity shop and look different, dammit! It's most infuriating to find that most fashion looks better on 14 year old girls than me, and when they trample all over my style with their coltish limbs, I might as well give up altogether and start shopping in BHS.

I also hate the way celebrities are so desperate to get in on the Topshop act- where once they wore their designer labels with pride, now it's all "oh this? I snapped this up in Topshop dahling - I know, it's just fabulous!". Topshop sponsors young designers (ok, grudgingly a good thing, but I still prefer to imagine that they're slowly brainwashing them) and is a hot spot on the London Fashion Week map for visiting fashionistas.

The high street's relationship with high fashion has become warped to the point where it's no longer a one way street where the high street imitates the designers, oh no, now the designers are actually getting their ideas from Topshop - how tragic is that!!

Some other thoughts:

I hear Topshop is to open in New York. When will the juggernaut stop?

Provincial concessions - good or bad? Actually, quite good - I think it's just the arrogance of the Oxford Circus flagship store that really irritates me.

Mutton Dressed As Lamb shopping with their daughters - annoying and embarrassing and tacky...

I wait patiently for the day when the Topshop bubble bursts

Adults publicly reading Harry bleeding Potter

2005-07-25T14:37:00.000Z

The two most common offenders are:
Middle ages men in suits - they also wear 'comedy' ties and socks in a pathetic attempt to convince you that they have a personality.
Faux cutesy girls who wear a lot of pink, their hair in bunches and fluffy, faux fur garments with stripy socks, platform trainers and kid's satchels.
Grown ups should not read Harry Potter because It. Is. A Children's. Book.
Having been forced to read a few pages to a small child, I am also convinced that it is not a very good children's book. Formulaic, cliched and obvious.
It's fine for kids to read Harry Potter as long as they know that there's a lot more good stuff out there. But grown ups like to read it in public as some kind of creepy fashion statement "Look! I'm so childlike and innocent, I'm engrossed in a magical tale of wizards and magic! and I'm a 44 year old man! Aren't I sweet and endearing?"
No, you are creepy and predictable.
And I'm sick of hearing sob stories about how poor, pooor JK Rowling ('JK'? what, she seriously didn't think her book would sell if people knew a woman wrote it? spineless) wrote her mangum opus on napkins in a greasy spoon and she was a single mother! Booooring.

Vice Magazine

2005-07-22T11:43:00.000Z

I REALLY hate Vice. I shall attempt to channel my bile into a spiteful, witty polemic, but I can't promise that it won't spiral out of control into incoherent ranting...
Vice is free - this means that it makes all its money from advertising and the people who make it don't need to worry about boring things like 'standards' or 'ethics'. So they can put people with learning disabilites into trashy couture and photograph it in a 'hilarious' fashion shoot. Or drench 12 year old girls in water and take snapshots of them frolicking together in a vaguely erotic, Lolita-ish manner. How post modern! How avant garde! Wow, they're really pushing the boundaries there! Controversial! etc...
I tolerated this nonsense until i opened 'The Sex Issue' (what, unlike every other issue?) and was confronted with a page of photos of exploded and dismemered bodies on the streets of Baghdad. Ignoring the fact that I have family living in that bloody, battered city, this is still one of the most tasteless things I have ever seen - made all the more offensive by the fact that it was included in the 'Sex issue'.
It seems obvious to me that the people who make Vice magazine are all closet gay, middle class trustafarians with some paedo issues. They perve at anorexic, underage girls and they love writing about how cool anal sex is - not protesting too much at all, are we boys?
How this is ok just because it's in an 'alternative' magazine is beyond me. If you saw it in the Daily Sport they'd be in jail in seconds. But because they're not making any money from selling it (I'm sure the revenue from advertising all goes to charity!) they have 'artistic licence' to 'explore' these controversial issues. Yeah right, sad perves.
And as if their sorry rag isn't obnoxious enough, Vice then bought a pub in 'trendy' Old Street and filled it with their pretentious cronies. Walk into this place just once, like I did and you will instantly turn around and leave with a bad taste in your mouth.

Emails from people who are 'travelling'

2005-07-18T14:01:00.000Z

Get this into your manky, dreadlocked heads:
I do NOT CARE about the mystical experience you had watching the sun come up on a beach in Thailand when you were off your face on cheap drugs.
Spare me the 'hilarious' tales of high jinks on trains and buses.
Don't patronise me with 'sensitive' accounts of local colour.
If you are a real friend, just tell me you're alive and not in prison or hospital.
If you're someone I went to school or college with but have not spoken to in years, fuck off.

Indie Boys

2005-07-11T15:28:00.000Z

It's depressing and disappointing to note that, in their own way, indie boys can be just as sexist, misogynistic and conservative as their pikey counterparts. Here's my top reasons for hating indie boys:
1) They're invariably skinnier than me - this results in 'milkmaid syndrome' and feeling like they couldn't protect me in a fight.
2) They spend longer on their hair than I do.
3) They only fancy Swedish and Japanese girls.
4) They always turn out to be gay, leaving you questioning your femininity. Don't worry, it's not you, it's them.
I hate the way it's assumed that just because an indie boy has alternative taste in music, and is fey and wimpy, they'll automatically have an enlightened attitude towards women. Most don't - they just want you to sit there looking interested while they witter on about the profound subtext to their favourite Belle and Sebastian b-side. Knobs.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner...

2005-07-08T14:26:00.000Z

Well I know most of my 'hates' are petty, trivial things, but today I just have to write about the hate that hurt London, the city that I love.
Just after we get good news - for once - that we won the Olympics and even an old cynic like myself gets caught up in the euphoria, the bombs came like a punch in the stomach.
London is a tough city - it's taken much harder hits before, so this will just be another scratch on its battle scarred surface, and because we'd always known something like this would happen, it's not really a shock.
But it still hurts.

Weak Lemon Drink Music

2005-06-13T10:19:00.000Z

Imagine a Radiohead song as a glass of Ribena. Then pour the glass into a swimming pool. Then taste it - that's how diluted the music of Keane, Coldplay, Athlete, Snow Patrol and their weedy, anaemic brothers is.
Somehow they've managed to convince the populace that their music is 'sensitive' and 'intelligent', but nothing could be further from the truth. They're just a bunch of wimpy indie boys with weak voices who whimper tunelessly about vague, generic 'issues' that could be applied to everyone - thus making everyone 'relate' to what they're singing about.
I shudder to think that the rest of the world believes this is what British music is about right now. The sooner weirdos like the Kaiser Chiefs and the Futureheads take over - with their kickass regional accents and witty songs (KC use words like 'thee' and 'digress' in their songs - God I love that!) - the better. They're the true inheritors of the Britpop crown - we need wit and oddity and eccentricity - not 'pale and interesting' Chris Martin with his nauseating worthiness preaching at us.
Good lyrics:
"Watching the people get lairy, It's not very pretty I tell thee, Walking through town is quite scary, Its not very sensible either...I predict a riot, I predict a riot!...I tried to get to my taxi, The man in a tracksuit attacks me, He said that he saw it before me, And wants to get things a bit gory, Girls scrabble round with no clothes on, To borrow a pound for a condom, If it wasn't for chip fat they'd be frozen, they're not very sensible"

Bad lyrics:
"In my place, in my place, Were lines that I couldn't change, I was lost, oh yeah. I was lost, I was lost, Crossed lines I shouldn't have crossed, I was lost, oh yeah. And yeah, how long must you wait for it? Yeah, how long must you pay for it?Yeah, how long must you wait for it? I was scared, I was scared,Tired and under prepared,But I wait for it."

I REST MY CASE...

Wheelie suitcases

2005-05-31T10:44:00.000Z

Picture the scene: You're struggling through King's Cross underground, inching your way through the throng when you spy a clear space up ahead. A concerted effort brings you to the blessed spot, when you discover, on tumbling head over heels, that it was a mirage - a fake space created by the concealed presence of the devil's spawn- a wheelie suitcase.
'Wheelers' (the pullers of these monstrosities, otherwise known as twats) always seem blissfully unaware that by dragging the stupid thing along behind them they're doubling the amount of space they take up.
Even more annoying is when the said suitcase is the size of a child's lunchbox and could easily be carried on one finger.

Ten Pounds Under

2005-05-26T15:42:00.000Z

This isn't particularly a 'hate', more an idea that hit me this morning on the bus. Women want to look like the celebrities they see in magazines, right? But we only ever see celebrities in photographs, on the TV and in films, right? And the camera adds 10 pounds, right?

So therefore are the celebrities not all 10 pounds under the weight they appear to be in pictures? Follow this logic, say a celebrity is known to be 9 stone. But to look '9 stone' in a magazine she must actually weigh 8 stone 4pounds - ie.10 pounds underweight. Now 99% of us are never going to be photographed in a magazine, so isn't it logical to assume that we need to simply weigh 9 stone to look like the picture in the magazine rather than 8 stone4?

I guess that sounds really complicated, but think of it this way - if you met a celebrity you'd be shocked at how underweight they looked. They have to look like that to look halfway slim in the photos. But we don't!

It never occured to me before, but strikes me as one of the benefits of not being famous.

Zebra crossings

2005-05-09T16:01:00.000Z

These are stupid and pointless.
If you're on a bus it can take hours to get through, with gormless pedestrians ambling along the pavement and then suddenly swerving onto the road as they decide at the very last minute that they do want to cross the road after all. And if you are on foot, woe betide you if you dare to step out on a zebra crossing when a taxi (boo, hiss) or white van is thundering towards you - zebra crossings do not apply to them, and they apparently have every right to mow you down if you dare to get in their way. Or something.
Deeply unsatisfying on both sides, yes?

Tube and bus etiquette

2005-05-04T16:09:00.000Z

It's taken me a while to get round to this one, but that's because there's just so much to say!
First of all, if you are a tourist, annoying as you may be, you are exempt from this rant. Although actually, when I go to foreign cities I'm usually quite adept at navigating alien subway systems and complex bus routes, so maybe they are simply stupid and should be included after all.
If you travel on public transport every day, you will be aware of the silent, tacit agreements and rules that make the experience just about bearable.
The obvious ones like Letting People Off Before You Pile On seem to be beyond some - they are scum and should be trodden on, elbowed, or at least given a very dirty look (being a coward I usually settle for the latter, coupled with a martyr-like sigh).
If you are on a bus or tube, for Christ's sake move down the carriage! There is nothing that makes me loathe humanity more than seeing a giant space at the back of a bus as it's pulling away without letting anyone on because it's 'too crowded'. I hate you people.
And if you're sitting on a bus, don't sit in the aisle seat and hope no-one will be brave enough to ask you to move over. You will get your comeuppance when a fat, smelly, ominously damp tramp sits on top of you - should have let a nice girl like me sit down, shouldnt you? And don't try putting your bag next to you either - that's just weak.
I also hate people that demand detailed instructions from the bus driver - 'do you go to 42, Cranbourne Terrace?' - why on earth should the bus driver know or care? Can't you read a map?! Morons...
This is getting a little long so I think I'll have to put up 'Tube and bus Etiquette II' when I've calmed down a bit. Feel free to make any suggestions folks - I think we're all united in hate on this one.

Annoying ringtones

2005-04-29T15:16:00.000Z

God, I hate these so much.
I didn't think things could get much worse than the motherf*c$ing Crazy Frog, but then my imagination is not a dark and withered place so I could never have concieved of Sweetie the Chick, that stupid bastard dragon n 'chums'.
I think it's the faux cutesyness that really bugs me - the sort of ridiculous looking doe-eyed cartoons that make pikey Vicky Pollard-type teens go 'ahhh, bless, he's so sweeeet'. Retch.
Then again, it could be the moronic repetitive 'tune' itself which makes me want to drive knitted needles into my ear drums - infinitely less painful than listening to a monkey farting Happy Birthday or whatever the latest one is.
Either way, I stongly advise everyone who knows a person with 'sweetie the chick' 'nessie the dragon' and maybe even the dear ol' crazy frog to cease contact with this audio hooligan - slap a friendship asbo on them.

The lady in question...Me!

2005-04-17T04:16:00.000Z

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Exhibiting my slightly crap photoshop skills.

Smoking

2005-04-14T12:22:00.000Z

That's right kids, it's not cool. And if passive smoking gives me cancer and I die, I promise I'm going to come back and haunt each and every one of you.
These stupid Australians live next door to me and as well as apparantly thinking it's 'hip and edgy' to play the same Maroon 5 song over and over at random hours of the day and night, they smoke on their balcony. Which means the foul stench doesn't permeate their flat, it goes straight into ours! Every time we open the Goddam window...
I hate walking behind someone who'se smoking - I always make a point of coughing in a pompous manner, just so they feel ashamed and sheepish. I simply don't understand why intelligent people would willingly hand over fistfuls of cash on a daily basis for the privilege of getting cancer and smelling like a stale ashtray.
You don't look like James Dean, you look like Dot Cotton.

Julie Burchill

2005-03-29T12:45:00.000Z

I hate to slag off a sister, but this baggage needs taking down a peg or two. From her journalism I had always thought she was intelligent - if a bit mouthy. But then I watched her documentary on 'chavs' on Sky One and it made me go to bed angry, so I thought it was worthy of a rant.
Essentially, she was complaining about the middle classes 'bullying' the working classes, who we now call 'chavs' - according to her. She also said 'some of my best friends are chavs', chavs are really fun, great etc. and played up her own working class 'roots' ad infinitum. What she didn't seem concerned by was the fact that as an ex-Guardian journalist who lives in Brighton, she couldn't actually be more middle class if she tried.
I guess she's entitled to her opinion, even if it was a singularly ill-thought-out one, but her 'ickle baby voice' and inability to listen to a differing viewpoint without throwing a strop were really irritating. What's wrong with the woman? She's so 'ballsy' and yet can't handle someone disagreeing with her? Pathetic.
What was most amusing (apart from the sight of her and her 'chav' mate with the cut glass R.P accent cooing over racks of fake Burberry on some scabby market) was the fact that Sky One clearly had a different idea of what the programme was about to her. They wanted to make a 'Chavs Uncovered' hilarious pastiche of all those tacky images we've been exposed to in the last year - Daniella Westbrook and child in head to toe Burberry etc, while 'Ms' Burchill wanted to have a good whinge about the snotty, stuck-up middle class stamping all over the downtrodden working class - or chavs, as she would call them.
What I would argue is that 'chav' has got nothing to do with class or money, it's about attitude, and more specifically, bad attitude. If you're mean, nasty, aggressive and enjoy intimidating people with your antisocial behaviour, then you're a chav, and a bully. The idea that middle class people who feel uncomfortable on busses, trains and just walking down their local high street because of jeering gangs of yoofs in baseballs caps could be seen as bullies is laughable. I reckon if ol' Julie actually had to live anywhere near a chav, she might have a slightly different opinion of them. Stupid pseudo-lesbo toad face.

Sexist adverts

2005-03-23T09:58:00.000Z

Have you noticed there's a new type of advert on TV at the moment - possibly inspired by Bridget Jones making it ok for girls to be 'a bit ditsy'. They piss me off because they're patronising and just as sexist as the old 'mum in the kitchen' ones, just in a more sneaky way. Here are the worst offenders:
1) The absolute most depressing ad on TV at the moment - 2 dowdy, frumpy women squabbling over cut price sanitary towels. Tragic, makes me want to weep for the sisterhood everytime I see it.
2)Herbal Essences' 'hilarious' play on the similarity between 'organic' and 'orgasmic' - eg. woman breathily purring 'it's a totally organic experience'. Now seriously, how long have we been used to the word organic? It doesn't actually sound that much like orgasmic, unless you're a sniggering 12 year old boy. Yet another example of the sub-standard work of cheesy, past it ad men (with pony tails and jacket sleeves scrunched up to the elbows saying things like 'yah, let's think outside the box guys' - see if they can stereotype, so can I!).
3) 4 cackling hags practically wetting themselves with all the innuendos they can get out of a tube of Pringles: 'I like 2 at a time' recieving shocked silence - 'how can she be so risque?' and then it dawns on them- 'oh, she means the pringles! hahahahahaha!!!!' etc etc. Losers. You might get excited about a snack food made from the by-products of the vodka industry, but I don't.
4) Caramel Areo - Hollyoaks types cramming their faces with an exciting new chocolate bar and then spraying it all over each other as they rhapsodise over the fact that - ohmygoodness' - it has caramel in it!! 'I love caramel!!' 'No, I love caramel!!' and on and on until I want to kick the TV in. Small satisfaction can be taken by the fact that they probably didnt eat for days afterwards to make up for any of the chocolate they may have accidentally swallowed.
5) The Actimel woman. Say no more.

Sometimes I feel that women didnt deserve to be emancipated, when I see them ritually humiliating themselves to sell cheap crap nobody wants. But then the ad industry is dominated by men, so until women smash that ceiling I guess this is what we're going to get.

some things i like!

2005-03-17T11:36:00.000Z

Was feeling a bit guilty about my little taxi outburst, so have decided to add a short list of things I actually like:
Nick
Reading books
The view from Waterloo Bridge
The shipping forecast
The Queen
Conversations over red wine that get very heated - 'but that's exactly how I feel!' etc.
Bottega Veneta handbags
Libraries (I have a bit of a library fetish actually - those long dark corridors with musty books spilling off shelves, mmm...)
Kissing
Daschunds and corgis (the Queen bred them to make a dorgi, and her first ever corgi was called Susan, in case you're interested)
'Programmes' (said in a nerdy trainspotter voice), by which I mean any history programmes involving Alan Hart Davis, Dan Cruikshank or Simon Schama, and nature programmes, even the ones that make me cry because the baby caribou gets abandoned in the snow by its mother, and, sob, freezes to, gulp, death aaaall alloooone!!! howwwlll!!!
Ok, that's all for now, before I start singing about whiskers on kittens etc.
Although actually I really do love kittens...

taxi driver scum

2005-03-16T16:51:00.000Z

I hate taxis.
This may have something to do with the fact that I was run over by one.
Hilariously, the fat pikey taxi-owning bitch (I'm imagine she looks like Big Mo from Eastenders) tried to sue me for the windscreen I so selfishly smashed with my head.
All I can say to that, in an Alan Partridge-esque voice, with a disbelieving shake of the head is this country...
But even if I hadn't been run over by a reckless, irresponsible taxi driving twat, I would still hate them, because they are the most dangerous things on the roads.
Forget white van men, sports-car-driving mid life crisis losers and cyclists (although they are really annoying - 'look at me, I'm ethically superior to you because I'm on a bike and that gives me the moral right to speed merrily through red lights because they don't apply to me because I'm so special!'), taxi drivers are the worst.
Have you seen them hurtling across zebra crossings, scattering pedestrians in their wake, doing illegal turns in the road across multiple lanes of traffic, blithely ignoring red lights and generally disregarding human life left, right and centre?
For a while I thought that taxis actually have special legal exemptions from normal road rules, because they're 'different' - like buses or police cars, but then i realised no, they're just horrible loutish chauvinists who don't care about anyone but themselves and the lazy rich so and so in the back.
There was something on the news the other day saying this precious London institution - as recognisable as red phone boxes and Routemasters, was in danger of being phased out, and we should campaign to save the London cabbie. Or something.
But they're big, dangerous and smelly...And the taxis are pretty bad too! haw haw!
sorry, anyways, where was I? Oh yes, on a big incoherent rant.
I saw a bus plough into the side of a taxi once - it was great. Obviously no-one was hurt or I wouldn't be so gleeful (I'm not that nasty), but the crumpled side of the taxi was a beautiful sight to behold, as was the impotent rage of the cab driver in the face of the bus driver's impassive, disinterested gaze. While the cabbie hopped around in a fury, the bus driver got out a little disposable camera and started taking pictures of the damage to the bus - priceless!
So please, don't encourage them - whenever you can, walk or take the bus - that way you'll save loads of money and feel really smug. Or if you absolutely have to take a taxi, make a point of refusing to engage in conversation with the Cockney twat driving it - their over-inflated egos ('I'm salt of the earth, me') do not need any more encouragement.

most hated things no.1

2005-03-09T13:59:00.000Z

Right, I've peeled off my mittens to reveal small but sharp little talons (painted an attractive shade of pink by Chanel, if you were wondering) and I'm ready to launch into my first rant with gusto! I'll try to keep it short and sweet, but can't make any promises.
Last night i went to see my friend djing in a bar in Dalston - all well and good so far you might think...but then, 'the band' came on...
Oh Lord, I have never seen a more pretentious, talentless bunch of self conscious no hopers in my entire life. Let's break this down into manageable, bite sized chunks shall we? (Just so they don't get stuck in my throat)
They couldn't play their instruments, or sing, or write lyrics. So they just screamed, thrashed and strutted about the stage for what seemed like an eternity.
The lead singer was wearing a gold lurex gran's jumper and a white woolly baby's bonnet. A baby's bonnet I tell you!!! This was nicely complemented by the 'guitarist' with his red Pat Butcher-style jumper, adorned with gold sequins. Classy.
I wouldn't mind all this pomp and circumstance (the scrawny groupie clinging to baby bonnet bloke in the desperate hope he'll turn out to be the next Pete Doherty), if they were actually remotely talented or had something to say. My frustration with this new breed of art-rockers is that they reckon they can get away with style over substance, and it's simply not good enough.
I mean, even Menswear managed to write a good tune for Chrissakes, so why are this lot unable to manage it? Too lazy? Too thick? I actually really don't care. I feel too old for all this posing, at the grand old age of 24, and I'm going to retreat into my shell sullenly clutching my Britpop back catalogue until something better comes along.
Maybe it never will - maybe the music you listen to when you're 15 or 16 affects you so deeply that everything you hear after it sounds hollow and false.
Next post: my gripes about skin tight jeans...

welcome!

2005-03-09T13:02:00.000Z

Hello and welcome to my brand new blog.
I firmly believe that blogging is a pretty arrogant concept - 'hey, I'm really interesting so read all about my life and my profound thoughts etc', but if everyone else can have one then I want one too!
It might be a tiny bit more entertaining than the average 'I took my cat to the vet today' drivel because I shall be using it as an outlet to vent my frustration and hate for pretty much everything in the world. Oh, is that was other people do on their blogs too? Ah well, nevermind...
I live in dirty, dangerous, crowded London - a city that I adore, but that is unfortunately full of the highest concentration of pretentious fools in the world, so they shall give me plenty of fodder for my rants.
If anything about modern life really gets your goat, feel free to share the hate.
Actually, I might get bored of moaning all the time so the odd jolly entry will be added to lighten the gloom.