Peeves and Bluster

The first in an ever-expanding list of things that are beginning to annoy the hell out of me…

Things people say:

• “Life isn’t fair, get used to it.”

  Well, it won’t be so long as people excuse injustice by saying it’s an unavoidable fact of life. Injustice is one of the three things that should never be accepted, the other two being a reverse charge phone call from the International Space Station and an invitation to a pool party at Michael Barrymore’s house.

• “There’s no smoke without fire”

  If I started a random and totally unfounded rumour about someone – that the Dalai Lama was riding in the 4:15 at Haydock for example – does the very utterance of the suggestion make it a fact? No, of course it doesn’t. It’s a vain attempt to justify petty minded gossip-mongering, something that the man formerly known as Lhamo Döndrub would have disapproved of. Probably.

  And for the record, it’s not an onerous task to make smoke without fire, as my feeble attempts to make toast for my children will attest.

• “I’m not being funny, but…”

  No, you’re not, you’re being irritating. Stop it.

• “This’ll make you laugh” (aka “You’ll like this” and “You’ll never guess what just happened”)

  Almost always precedes the most tedious and unfunny series of events that couldn’t be turned into something amusing even by the world’s greatest comedian. Or Les Dennis.

• “Hot enough for you?” 

  A common enough ice-breaker during the briefly sunny interludes we always mistake for the beginning of summer, but extremely annoying when asked in mid-January while knee deep in snow. Why would you ever ask this question of anyone? It’s not funny, it’s not amusingly ironic and no, it’s not hot enough for me if I’ve just lost my toes to frostbite!

Things:

• Daily Mail/Express/Star

  By mealy-mouthed racists and for mealy-mouthed racists, they have the same level of journalistic integrity and balance as the Daily Sport but are even more pointless.

  The Daily Diana Mail recent ran a mundane non-story about a regional swimming baths replacing its ‘modesty curtain’ by the ground level windows with an opaque film following requests from its patrons. So far, so very page 13 of the local free rag. However, by the time it hit the presses it had become a frothing front page story about how Muslim women ordered the blacking out of every one of the 250 windows, thereby plunging the pool into darkness. They know you can’t beat a badly written, inflammatory anti-immigrant story to whip up the chavs.

  Having said all that, it’s always worth reading just to keep up to date with everything that is both a cause of and cure for cancer.

People:

• James Delingpole

  A painfully ill-informed pseudo-journalist whose manner of arguing against anyone with whom he disagrees comes straight from the Jon Gaunt school of uneducated arrogance and kindergarten name-calling. Every article he now writes not only confuses climate change with the weather, but abuses ‘warmists’, as he ‘hilariously’ dubs the theory’s supporters. I mean, why bother checking facts before spouting vitriol? Now refers to himself (and this is real Perrier Award-winning comedy genius) as a ‘climate change realist’. Or maybe I’m giving him too much credit and he has just misspelled ‘denier’.

  Either he is employing an ironic, post-modern, totally made-up public persona or he really is that irritating. Avoid like you would any genuinely pointless idiot.

• Gillian McKeith

  Or, to use her full medical title… Gillian McKeith. Is she a sham, a fraudster, a litigious, multimillionaire bully with a wide range of illegal or fake health products? In the words of Francis Urquhart, "You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment". Is she actually a Doctor? Does she have more than a vague knowledge of science? No, as this article on the Bad Science website shows – it makes for very interesting reading.

• Any, and I mean ANY astrologists

  Despite being obvious to almost literally everyone as being complete and utter cobblers, it is worrying that there are perhaps only three scientific astronomy magazines on the shelves of WH Smith that can tell you about the science behind planets and their orbits, but maybe a dozen managing to convince the gullible that the position of said planet can have a some undefined yet powerfully vague effect on who they might meet later that day.

  The First Point in Aries, the base-line point in the sky from where all these ‘calculations’ are made, is actually in Pisces now, due to the genuine scientific mechanism of precession. Consequently all the horoscopes are a month out, which of course makes no real difference as they are all so deliberately woolly that they manage to apply equally to everyone/no-one. Why allow Russell Grant and Mystic Meg to exercise any control over your life. I mean, have you seen them?

  Addendum: Astrology fits nicely into the recently published Periodic Table of Nonsense: http://bit.ly/d3iTrA

• Homeopaths

  Don’t even get me started. I would suggest we get rid of them all but it only takes one millionth of one percent* of these charlatans to avoid the net for them to become infinitely more powerful and potent than ever. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0 for a critical appraisal and ‘a bottle of mostly just water’.

  If you needed any further convincing, Paul McCartney, David Beckham, Caprice (remember her? Me neither), Jude Law and several members of The Royal Family are all alleged fans. All of them rich, none of them scientists. Coincidence? (This also applies to the Church of Scientology.)

  *a ‘4C’ concentration in homeopathy – see, I do my research!

• Anyone who complains about getting a parking/speeding ticket

  You knew the risks when you parked on those double yellows “for literally 2 seconds – I swear they just hide behind the bushes” or went at 85 mph in a built-up area bestridden by Gatsos “I’m a very good driver and it’s actually much safer than going too slowly”  (though well done if you did them both at the same time), so don’t cry and stamp your feet like a hard-done-by child when you get caught like an expenses-fiddling MP. Do the crime, do the time.

And if anyone reading (is there anyone reading?) thinks I’m being harsh on these people, well, I’m not being funny, but life isn’t fair, get used to it!