Category: Unmitigated Loathing

Avatar Knee windows

I’m definitely getting old. I mean, we all know this, it’s not news to any of us. But sometimes I still get surprised by my reaction to things.

The other day I was on a London Tubular Train. These are clever trains that have the corners sliced off so that they can run in the sewers. I was listening to a Radio 4 podcast (a sure sign of getting old – surely this should have been a stark reminder of my age) and minding my own business. The train stopped at a station and a young woman got on and sat opposite me.

It was at this moment that I realised that I am definitely getting on a bit.

Young Chris would have seen this young woman and thought well hello there. Young Chris would have been appreciative of her pretty face. Young Chris would have found his thoughts turning to the fact that she was wearing a grey tracksuit that dropped some hints about an attractive figure.

Young Chris isn’t here any more, though. No. Old Chris is at the wheel these days. Old Chris wants to know what on earth she thinks she’s doing out and about in January wearing a tracksuit with no coat to keep her warm. Old Chris starts his train of thought with the words bloody hell, isn’t she cold?

Old Chris has a Daily Mail style fit when the young woman sits down. He finds himself thinking well I never and considers folding his arms (but decides not to because he’s a bit arthritic, what with the cold and the damp lately). You see, lately, ripped knees have come back into fashion for those wearing jeans, and the rips have become ever sillier. It’s now fashionable to basically just have a huge hole where your knees can be seen. The young woman on the tube, though, was wearing a tracksuit. A tracksuit where the front of each trouser leg came in two parts, overlapping at the knee, with the result that when she sat down the fabric parted to show off her knees to the world.

She had knee windows.

Well, obviously I wrote a stern letter to the Telegraph at once, and blustered barely-intelligible words at anyone who would listen for the rest of the day about how ridiculous these young people’s clothes are. I mean, it’s just not on. I can’t stand idly by while people go around doing damn fool things like that.

Old Chris can’t be doing with knee windows. Old Chris doesn’t understand young people’s clothes any more. Old Chris isn’t fashionable.

Old Chris has decided to embrace old age. Old Chris is going to start wearing his flat cap more often.

Avatar What’s missing?

Due to the massive popularity of “guess who’s back?” I’m back again with a new game… What’s missing?

 

This time I have a riddle for you:

My first is in the, but not in book

My second’s in the, but not in book

My third is in the, but not in book.

My fourth is in book, but not in the.

My fifth is in book, but not in the.

My sixth is in book, but not in the.

My last is in book, but not in the.

 

What’s missing?

Avatar The sting

I was going to make a content-free post that would be blatantly and cynically intended just to get me up to four posts for December and win me a coveted bean. But then something happened that was worthy of making a whole post, so actually this will have something in it.

I’ve decided to buy myself a big Lego set as a Christmas present to myself, because I want one, and I’m a grown up so nobody can stop me. I was going to do it on Friday night, but now I have plans on Friday, so I set off to do it after work yesterday instead.

What actually happened was that I got to the Lego store, found the shelf where my Lego set should be, and saw that it was empty. So I asked one of the staff.

While he was explaining to me that it was sold out, and looking up when a new delivery would come in, I felt something odd on my head, and put my hand up to see what was in my hair. It felt like sticking my fingers into a ball of needles. A spiky black thing fell on the floor, crawled away for a bit, and then flew off. “Oh yeah,” said the assistant, “we’ve had wasps in here today”.

Wasps? In the Lego store? In a big shopping mall? In December? Unlikely, yes, but a wasp is what it was. A big bastard of a wasp who tried to sting me several times and did actually get his syringe of doom into my little finger.

So last night I went home, very very late, with no Lego, but with a wasp sting on my finger.

That’ll show me.

Avatar Words I Hate, Part 1

Generally speaking, I like words. Many words are lovely, like “frisky” and “solitude” and “rescind”, and I would tuck them up in bed every night and kiss them tenderly on the forehead if I could.

There are other words that sound wrong. Awful-sounding words that leave a nasty taste in my mouth. Words I wish I could replace with something else so I never had to say them again. Words that come back to haunt me, time and time again, words I cannot escape from.

In this post, the first of an important new series, I will bang on at length about words I don’t like. There will be more later. Feel free to add your own.

Portion

This word is almost always used in reference to food, but it doesn’t sound like something I want contaminating my lunch.

You can’t say this without sounding like you’re a bit posher than you are. You can’t say this without it sounding like you could have said something more conversational, as if you’d just said “crestfallen” when you meant “sad”. Except there’s not much else you can say, there’s not a straightforward conversational equivalent. Serving? Helping? Load? They all have their place but there’s some situations where only portion is right.

That’s how it gets you. That’s how you can’t escape. At some point you’ll want a bit of food and the word portion will arrive, ugly and aloof and inevitable, and you’ll have to eat your food with the nasty taste it left behind. Ugh.