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Sunday 23 December 2012

A rant about humanity

It’s been a good year, both personally and not personally. By that I mean it’s been a good year for both me AND the United Kingdom. Personally, I met a nice girl, the relationship with my cat Charlie has grown even stronger, and Neighbours continued to pull out all the stops when it came to producing great soap opera drama. Generally (i.e as a country) it has been a good year, mainly because of the Olympics and the fact that the world didn’t end the other day. However, ladies and gentlemen, it is often the negatives that stick in mind, and I now must explain to you two particular negatives that have reminded me that there are some complete idiots/strange folk in this world.
Due to a general dis-trust of public transport, I ended up getting into Derby on Friday afternoon 2 hours before I was due to start work. I opted to walk around the Westfield shopping centre to look at the chaotic Christmas shoppers, knowing full well I had conquered my shopping days prior. In one queue, a father turned to his two young sons and said “Right, so we’ve sorted out presents for Sybil and your mama, just your mum to do now”. Play your cards right lads and you’ll still be getting your shopping done for you in 10 years time, like me. Then, incident one. Incident numero eins. #1
I was exiting the shopping centre, and a few yards in front of me sat a young child in a car. Fear not, it was a pushchair in the form of a toy car, provided to parents by the Westfield centre as a way to keep children who can’t walk satisfied. It wasn’t a real car.  This lad’s car started to roll, for we found ourselves on a gradient. “That can’t be right” I thought. I was now level with him. I looked him straight in the eye and he gave me that look that just said “I am not meant to rolling away, but it’s only a toy car so I can’t put my foot on the brake”. His young face was sad. He looked distressed. He was on his way to rolling down a hill into either an unsuspecting shopper, a glass door, or into the cold streets of Derby (if the door happened to open as he was hurtling towards it). I put my hand on the handle of his car and stopped him in his tracks and looked around to find who this little tearaway may belong to. There, behind me stood two chavs staring longingly into a grabber machine. You know, the machine where you put 20p’s in and manoeuvre a mini crane to try and win a soft toy, or a capsule with a toy Pokemon in or something. “Excuse me” I said. I didn’t need to say anymore because the situation was rather self-explanatory. “Sorry” said the lady, before taking control of the car and turning round to see what progress her chavy boyfriend had made on the machine. Unbelievable.
Not a ‘thank you’. Not a ‘oh my god you saved my son!’ Not a ‘I’m going to ring Holly Willoughby and get you on Surprise Surprise because what you’ve just done deserves national recognition’. Just a ‘sorry’. These types of folk were put on this earth for one reason. Jeremy Kyle.
Incident Two. Numero zwei. #2. This one is stupendous. I got on the bus tonight and sat on the back row, because a young couple (about 17 or 18) had taken the place I usually sit on the bus. A man of routine. A few minutes into the journey I looked up and right in my eyeline I saw the male was flicking through photos on his Blackberry. Him topless. Him topless again. Him flexing his muscles. Him topless. Him topless flexing his muscles. Repeat this about 50 times. I thought I was going to spontaneously combust. What on earth was this about? I watched, like a dirty pervert (a disapproving dirty pervert I must add), as he admired himself. He had a whole range of self-shots. Mirror shots, and shots where he just extends his arm and hopes he points his camera at the right part. He then zoomed in on his flexed bicep. He cropped this part, showed it to his girlfriend, who nodded like what he was doing was completely normal, and then did something with it on Blackberry Messenger. I can only imagine the BBM community is currently going mad for this piece of underwhelming bicep.
You know when things are so bad that you have to keep looking? It’s like a Facebook ‘friend’ who is so annoying, but you can’t unfriend them because they’re that annoying that they’re good value. That was this lad and his phone. After 5 or so minutes he gave up appreciating himself and went off the pictures. Then to my horror, my eyes met his wallpaper. A picture of his abdominals (or the place where abs are meant to be). Imagine waking up in the morning to check if you have any overnight texts, to be greeted by your own frigging stomach! An absolute monstrosity. What a terrible way to start the day. When I got off the bus and had time to cool down and assess what had just happened, I realised I was let off lightly. What if he had had pictures of his willy?!
Merry Christmas!