Elections and The Curse of 24-hour News

I would like to say "It’s that time again". But, to be honest, elections don’t come around that often, which would render a statement like that a little redundant. I think my major grievance is with the shear extent of coverage that the election receives.

As somebody who has a pretty serious addiction to 24-hour news, I have to say I am presently at a loss with what to watch. Even if the Beeb do happen to be covering another story, they will cut it short to bring us news that David Cameron, has been caught short and have decided to visit a public toilet. To make matters worse, they even have a reporter following the candidates around, which means you also get a blow-by-blow account of the whole situation. My idea of what news is seems to differ greatly from what the Beeb find interest in:

"That’s right John. I’m standing in the lavatory, where David Cameron has just finished lining the toilet seat with paper. It looks like he has decided not to use the toilet paper and has opted to use his own manifesto".

"Jane, can you tell us what the likely repercussions of this action will be? Well firstly John, public toilets have loo-roll like greaseproof paper, so the pages of the manifesto will probably make for a better wiping material". In terms of Mr. Cameron’s policies, there is already a lot of shit in there anyway, so it shouldn’t make much of a difference in the long run".

Meanwhile, they reinforce the headline by providing a helpful text rundown along the bottom of the screen, which says things like:

"David Cameron stops for crap in Bognor Regis".

Anyway, I suppose the whole sordid affair will be over and done with in another 10 days or so. So all I can really do until then, is suffer in silence.

Now boarding "priority passengers"!

Yep! You guessed it. I was on holiday recently and have returned more than just a little pissed off about airline companies!

The trouble started when I thought that flying out of Dublin Airport would be a "good" idea. Ohh how wrong I was!

Having confirmed my departure details, I figured that all would be fine for the negotiation of Dublin airport. Task one was to go to Checkin area 14, which would in most cases mean that when in the vacinity of check-ins 1-13, that checkin 14 would be nearby! Nope, not in Dublin airport it isn't! Check-in 14 is on an entirely different floor altogether, if you didn't already know!
After negotiating that particular hurdle you then need to engage your skills as a cryptographer and negotiate the departure gates. Reason would dictate that the gates would be run in a sequence of A, B, C and D. Not in Dublin Airport. Somebody saw fit to mark the gates in a sequence of A, C, B, D. Not sure why, but clearly the mastermind behind that one was what society refers to as "Special".

After about 20 minutes of waiting at the departure date, the delightful lady with the nassal Irish brogue, announces over the tannoy, that "We are now boarding passengers with priority passses and young children". I know! Talk about a classic case of discrimination against the able-bodied! Aside from the blatant discrimination, some of the people have children that look like they just sat their GCSE exams!
Finally, the rest of us 2nd class citizens are told we can board the plane. Nice and easy, since we all have full use of our limbs and just want to get to where we are going. Once on board the plane the situation has become instantly apparent. Those priority passengers with young children that boarded before me, are now sitting as far away from their bastard children as possible. Quite simply this means that their hideous spawn are going to spend the next two hours, kicking the back of my chair, making as much noise as possible and doing their damnedest to piss me off!

I always wondered why people completely lose it on planes and try to open the doors in mid-air. Finally, I have managed to answer my own question. It has nothing to do with recycled air or anything technical like that, it is simply caused by the irritating off-spring of the people at the rear of the plane!

Anyway, I'm off! If you have any issues with the statements and outrageous claims within, let me know and I will be sure to send a response detailing why you should be beaten to death with a rubber hose!

Afternoon of the living dead!

I am starting to think that no stone is going to be left unturned in the quest to point out why everything seems to be spiralling into oblivion. It has reached a point where I am actually becoming annoyed at myself, if for no other reason, the individuals that bear the brunt of my hatred are quietly frankly extremely easy targets. I’m serious, there’s just no sport in it, but I suppose I will just have to resign myself to accepting that these things need pointing out.

The target of my loathing today is youths, or yoot, as I believe they now like to be called. The reason why they appeared on the radar is that they have this increasing propensity to look brain dead. If you are unfortunate enough to be walking through the city centre at the same time as the little cherubs, you probably won’t pay much attention to them. Look a little more closely however and you will start to get the feeling that you have just walked onto the set of every zombie film ever made. That’s not a simile that I reach for easily, as I find myself questioning whether zombies are more or less on the ball than youths.

If you happen to have the dubious pleasure of casual observance in the near future, you may wish to consider looking for the key features displayed by our brain dead under-generation. The eyes will be partially rolled back into the skull - giving the delightful impression of total disinterest - combined with subtle undertones of a pseudo-comatose demeanour. Watch even more closely and you will also notice that they have absolutely no purpose or particular direction of travel and will no doubt spend a number of hours drifting round town with no reason nor purpose.

Personally, I can only speculate that this is down to a combination of 24-hour television and games consoles, but perhaps they just aren’t getting smacked enough by their parentals. I would love to seem games consoles coming in kit form, which would at least mean that they would have to display some level of cognitive thought, before sinking back into the world of the brain dead.

As per usual, any comments, quips or gripes should be directed to the comments section. Alternatively, if you are one of the aforementioned yoot and have inexplicably taken the time to read this, then feel free to mash the keyboard with those chubby little cocktail sausages you like to call fingers.