Look at that hideous piece of shit. It's not even just the styling that makes me hate this fucking thing but the name. The Fiat 500XL (or sometimes X or L separately).
Fiat 500XL
Fiat 500XL.
This is a Fiat 500.
It's a tiny little car, known for it's vintage style and inability to get up hills. This is a tiny car for use in the city that has a pitiful little engine. So, how is the Fiat 500XL a Fiat 500 in any way?
The answer, of course, is that it isn't. Beyond the name, all they share is a tiny amount of (terrible) front end styling and, most likely, the shoddy build quality that Fiat is known for these days.
This bastard child is just the most recent in a long line of fucking awful 'crossover' vehicles and they are all terrible.
Here's the Mini Countryman.
Why does this car even exist? Once again, they seem to have missed the entire point of what made Mini Coopers good cars. The thought process seems to be: "People like Coopers and idiots by crossover vehicles, so if we make a crossover look like a Cooper, idiots will buy it!"
And they were fucking right! I see these abominations all the damn time.
Here's why I hate crossover vehicles: They exemplify the idea "Jack of all trades, master of none."
Their large size makes them uneconomical and difficult to park (areas the Mini and 500 excel in) so they aren't great city cars, yet they're not 4x4 enough to actually go off road, so they're useless there, too. They're big yet still only have 5 seats and not all that much space. People go on about the high driving position, which is ideal for not seeing children which, given these pieces of shit seem to be most often driven by mothers on the school run, is just aces.
The other reason people use for buying these crapsacks is how safe they are. Let's talk about that, shall we.
Both the cars above score 5 stars on the NCAP (apparently, but I can't find the Countryman on the terrible NCAP site), which is great! But so does a 2003 Renault Espace, which would also give you more space and seats.
The problem is, these big, ridiculous cars are terrible for pedestrians and other motorists, for two reasons. One, if one of these things hits you, it's going to do a hell of a lot more damage than a regular sized car and if it hits your car head on, it's likely it will plough through your windscreen and into the cab. Two, if you see your car as much safer than other cars, you will actually drive more dangerously due to something called Risk Compensation. This would explain why so many people who drive these monstrosities do so like total bellends.
The prevalence of crossover type cars is growing and it drives me nuts. I have to drive near schools and mothers in these things are fucking deadly! They're too busy shouting at little Tabitha in the back to watch the road and pull up with no warning, usually on the yellow zig-zag lines which obviously mean Entitled Bitch parking.
I cannot even begin to express how disappointed I am in all of you.
There's simply no way that nearly 40% of the population are millionaires so I can only assume that some of you are middle or working class and yet you voted for the Tories. I won't act like I can even begin to understand why you would do such a colossally stupid thing.
But it's happened now and we're all in the same sinking boat. Apart from all the millionaires, obviously. They have helicopters.
After already wasting huge sums of money on a completely failed and pointless top down restructure of the NHS during the coalition years (money that could have gone to patient care) and after working out deals to sell big chunks of our health service to his rich friends, experts are predicting a slow death for the NHS. After all, it's not like Cameron and his Eton mates need to use poor people health care, is it? If they have no use for it, why should it exist?
Oh and they'll most likely start their own version of the NSA as well, as it was the Lib Dems that stopped them before. I wouldn't be surprised if the Great British Firewall comes back, too, because how can us dirty poor people be expected to know what is good for us? We need the nice millionaires to tell us how to lean a good, clean life. After all, politicians would never be involved in anything so depraved, would they?
So, when you're medical bills mount up and force you into bankruptcy and you lose your house, only to discover there is no no safety net and no affordable housing left and that even the food banks are gone, I hope you will think back to that day in May when you voted Tory and know that it is your fault.
Fucking telemarketers piss me off! Automated or not, I find it just as obnoxious.
Now, I get that people are often just doing their job and maybe it was the only job they could get but I have completely run out of fucks to give. Today I have had at least 4 automated calls regarding PPI and pensions, at least one after I had already requested to unsubscribe from the service, and at least 3 people calling me. In 5 minutes I had two calls from the same blame claim company 'regarding my road accident in the last three years'. I had one of these last night and told them I was pretty sure they were looking for Mr Gofuckyourself but it seems they haven't got the message.
So, the first of the two (these people actually have my name so thanks whoever sold them my details) just got my usual response of 'Go fuck yourself' but when my phone rang again only minutes later I was somewhat annoyed. It went something like this:
Teletwat: Hello can I please speak to Mr FwF?
Me (annoyed): Speaking Teletwat: I'm calling regarding your road accident in the last three years that wasn't your fault. Me: What road accident are you referring to? Teletwat: The road accident that wasn't your fault and because the other driver was at fault some money has actually been put aside for you. Me: Which accident, describe it to me, because unless you can tell me which accident you mean, you're talking shit. Teletwat: there's no need to swear, sir. That's where you're wrong, Teletwat. There is plenty of reason to fucking swear! I'm sick of these cunts wasting my valuable time with their shit. All blame claims companies are scum to start with but the fact that they so strongly encourage people to file frivolous law suits sickens me. As it happens, I did have a road accident on the 1st of November 2011 when I locked the back wheel of my motorbike and got run over by a truck. In February of 2012, not long after I'd regained the ability to walk without crutches, I got a letter through telling me I was being sued by the truck driver to compensate him for soft tissue damage and muscle pain. Apparently the poor dear had to take a week off work. Bear in mind, the back six inches of my 200 kg bike clipped the front of his 44+ ton truck, there was no damage to the vehicle and he said at the scene he never even felt it, which he repeated to my boss when he visited my work to see if I was ok on the evening of the accident. I can only assume that someone encouraged him to make that claim. Of course, he really sued my insurance company but it was my name on the suit. Adding insult to injury, his description of the accident on the suit was mostly fictional and painted me as if I was riding dangerously which I certain was not. The police would have done me if I had! I begged my insurance company not to pay but I bet they did to avoid court. Cowards. And that's the problem. People file these frivolous, opportunistic suits and the insurance companies just pay, because it's easier. Then all our premiums go up. It's a fucking disgrace. I think I'll buy a whistle. Lets see how well they can make calls with busted ear drums.
I was behind you tonight on the M6. It was pitch black and out in the middle of nowhere, with a light rain falling.
Ahead of me was an expanse of road and darkness, dotted with various auto mobiles, including you.
I was driving along at some miles an hour, in the inside lane, where I should be. You were just ahead of me and there was a truck in the distance. I assumed you were probably going to want to pull out to overtake, but as you weren't going all that fast and were still reasonably far away from the truck, I figured I had plenty of time to go past you safely.
Once the guy overtaking me had gone past, I pulled out to overtake you. There was still loads of time; I'd planned well in advance. It was at this moment you decided to pull out to overtake the truck, which would have been fine had you bothered to indicate. Instead, you thought it was appropriate to sort of drift out into the middle lane, meaning I had to swerve into the outside lane to avoid you. Slamming on the brakes was not an option, as sharp, high speed braking on a wet road next to a cliff is a recipe for death.
Luckily, it was fairly quiet on the road and there was nobody in the outside lane. I had checked my mirror before swerving, to be sure. If there had been another car there, I would probably have slammed on and taken my chances. The last thing I would want to do is put another motorist in the position you put me in.
I don't know exactly what kind of car you were driving, as it was dark and I was too busy not crashing into you, but it was silver and probably a Ford Mondeo. After I managed to get past you alive, I flashed my indicators at you, hoping I might remind you that those yellow flashy things on the side of your car are not just fucking decoration. If I hadn't been paying attention, we would probably have both ended up at the bottom of a Scottish valley in a twisted pile of metal.
I hope you noticed. I hope you realised what you did. I hope you had that sick-to-your-stomach, shaky-knee feeling. I hope it makes you think more in the future. However, I fear that's wishful thinking and it's far more likely that you didn't even notice. You will probably go on being an oblivious cunt until you kill somebody. Maybe then you'll learn.
There were several idiots on my long journey home this evening and you were by far the worst. I hope I have the good fortune to never encounter you on the road again.
I've mentioned before that I'm quite OCD. This means that little things in every day life really, really annoy me and I have to put them right whilst cursing the person who has done it wrong.
One of the things that drives me up the wall in my day to day life is Cutlery, or more specifically, the way cutlery is placed in a drainer.
After you wash cutlery, you put it in a drainer so it can dry before you put it away. Now, the correct way to do this is business end up, as in the eating end pointing upwards.
This is important for two reasons: First of all, unless you wash your drainer a lot, the bottom of it probably isn't the cleanest place in the world. Secondly, and more importantly, if you put the cutlery in eating end down then the water is all running down towards it, rather than away from it, and this often means it can't drain properly and you end up with water marks and soapy residue all over the bit you're gonna be using to put your food in your mouth. It's like washing a glass and putting it on the drainer the right way up so all the soapy water collects in the bottom. It's fucking stupid!
I would think that all this is pretty basic common sense, and I know it is common practice in the trade from some really shitty catering jobs I did once when I worked for an agency (which is another story altogether).
So why is it that so many people seem to be totally oblivious to this very basic premise? Why do people put the cutlery in handle up? Why?
In the kitchen at my work the cutlery is constantly the wrong way up in the drainer which means that, every time I go in the kitchen, I have to turn it all the right way up. Seriously, I cannot walk past a drainer with the cutlery the wrong way up without fixing it. This may seem like a small and stupid thing but when you're kinda OCD and it happens all the fucking time, it becomes pretty damn tiresome.
So I have made this handy chart (starring the drainer at work) for people to refer to if they forget which way up the cutlery goes.
Of all the FPS games out there, Call Of Duty is by far my favourite. Not that's I'm all that great at it but I enjoy trying to be.
I came into COD later than most; the first one I played a lot was World At War, which is widely considered to be one of the worst by most hardcore COD players. Regardless of your opinion of WAW, it got me hooked and I played the shit out of Modern Warfare II and, more recently, I've played a lot of Black Ops.
What I really want to talk about is one of the new features they brought in with Black Ops.
As well as the usual games, like HQ and Ground War, they have also brought in a whole new set of games where you bet Credits and the top 3 players get a pay-out.
There's a few of these new Wager Matches but I generally play Gun Game.
In Gun Game, you start with a Python Revolver and advance to the next gun with each kill. The guns get progressively better and then progressively harder to use. You start with the Python, then double pistols, then you move through a couple of shotguns, a few machine guns and eventually a couple of different sniper rifles and onto rocket launchers. The last two weapons are a crossbow with explosive arrows and then, finally, a ballistics knife, which is a knife you fire out of the handle at opponents. The winner is the first person to get a kill with all 20 weapons or the one on the highest weapon when the time runs out.
In Gun Game, it is also possible to demote people to their previous weapon by humiliating them. Humiliation is when you stab them with your combat knife but it's not really beneficial for the stabber as you don't advance in level unless you kill with your gun.
Yet you get some dickless wonders that just run around stabbing people! They're gaining nothing except the hatred of the other players. I just cannot fathom why people do it! If you aren't going to play properly then why not just fuck off and play something else? I know it's just a game but it is really fucking annoying when you've finally managed to get past the bloody Sniper Rifles, which are a nightmare as the levels are kept small, due to only having six players per game, and then some fucking ass clown stabs you and demotes you back down again.
Invariably, you then can't seem to get a kill and end up stuck on a shitty gun and loosing the game.
So this is a message for all those utter wankers who run around in Gun Game stabbing people:
One day Common Sense was walking down the road, minding his own business, maybe thinking about what he was going to have for dinner when WHAM! He's down and bleeding, head split open from ear to ear. He rolls onto his back and looks into the face of his assailants and there, standing over him, is Health and Safety. Then it all goes black.
Health and Safety is like Morphine: A little bit can take your pain away but a lot will ruin your life.
I absolutely despise Health and Safety. In the half a century I have been alive, I have watched it grow from a Common Sense based practice to an exercise in utter lunacy.
Thanks to Health and Safety people can't do their jobs effectively. Bin men aren't allowed to handle rubbish; Window Cleaners are often not allowed to use ladders; TV Aerial fitters aren't allowed on roofs. It's fucking stupid. And who's fault is it? America, that's who. Their culture of Sue, sue some more, ask some questions and then sue again has come over to the UK and utterly buggered the place.
Must be worth a mil!
I think it's worst for kids. Sure, our insurance premiums are all sky high and a lot of us have difficulty performing our jobs, but Health and Safety wants to suck all the fun out of childhood.
I've heard cases of schools where children aren't allowed to run in the playground, in case they fall over. Seriously! How fucked is that? A lot of schools have had to rip out play areas because a kid has fallen and hurt themselves (like kids do) and the parents have sued.
When I was a kid, if you fell you got the fuck up and carried on. If it was bad, you went to the school office and, depending on the situation, they either gave you a plaster or called an ambulance. Now, most schools aren't allowed to give out things as simple as plasters anymore because 1 in a million people might be allergic or some such shit. It's fucking stupid. Many schools have banned Football and other ball games, deeming them hazardous. What are kids supposed to do now? Stand still in the yard and talk quietly?
When I was a kid we would spend our break times running around, playing football, chasing each other; generally having fun. I remember a few injuries, but not many! Me and my friends used to play full contact roller hockey in a school playground with almost no padding and we never had one serious injury. Not one. I spent most of my childhood either on a mountain bike, jumping over whatever I could find, or on inline skates; on the street and in skate parks. I saw many a broken wrist or ankle in the skate parks (though I never had one myself) and, nearly every time, I would see the skater back again, often still in a cast, as soon as was possible. What does a broken wrist really matter, in the long run?
But it isn't even about that, is it. It's nothing to do with the health and welfare of the child. That's the bit that annoys me the most. No-one actually gives the faintest fuck about someone getting hurt: They just don't want to get sued.
Judges need to wake the fuck up and stop awarding claims to idiots who fall over because they haven't the sense to look where they're going. It's not the Council's fault that you can't walk down a pavement without falling on your face. That's your fault.
It's not the schools fault if your kid falls over in the playground. That's just what happens to kids. They'll be fine.
It's not your employers fault that sometimes floors need to be cleaned and this makes them slippy. Look where you're fucking going.
The system is there to help people who are the victims of others being idiots. It's fair enough to make a claim against someone who rear-ends you at a traffic light because they were adjusting their eye make up or if a builder chucks something from a scaffold and it breaks your skull.
The problem is, of course, that the system gets abused: people make claims they shouldn't make and they win! It costs UK governments about £800 million per year and we cannot afford to spare that sort of money!
The bulk of these claims are from people tripping on pavements that have cracked or become uneven, the irony of course being that the councils can't afford to fix them because of all the claims being made.
"Had an accident that wasn't your fault?"
Look, I have fallen over many, many times in my life. I'm fallen over pavements, fallen off walls, fallen on my face whilst skating, and I have never sued anyone. I think ambulance chasing lawyers are parasites. They encourage people to sue over stupid things that are their own fault. The adverts drive me up the fucking wall, as well. They're so ubiquitous; you can't get away from them. TV adverts, radio adverts, billboards, posters; Accident and Emergency departments are strewn with posters and pamphlets for them. It makes me sick. They may as well have some greasy lawyer going around whispering to everyone like Grima fucking Wormtongue.
As a song once said: What the fuck am I working for? Just fall over in railway station and climb 2 mil in compensation.
If we all used our common sense and admitted to our mistakes the world would be a better place. We'd all save money on our insurance and we'd be able to do away with snivelling little Health and Safety workers and slimy ambulance chasing lawyers.
Author's Note: Once again Monday has rolled round and I have nothing prepared. I am working on a good one that will have diagrams and everything, I promise. For now, here's a post about a news article I read this morning.
Last night some scumbags broke into a motorbike shop in Altrincham and drove away on £20,000 worth of motorbikes.
Police were called to the break in, saw the aforementioned scumbags fleeing the seen on the motorbikes, radioed for instructions and were told:
Supt Steve Nibloe, of GMP, was quoted as saying: "The officers were asked not to pursue the suspects, as they were not wearing the correct safety equipment and were not wearing helmets, so it is clear to me the correct decision was taken."
No, Steve, it absolutely fucking wasn't. I don't know about you but, personally, if one of these fucking thieving little cunts fell off one of the stolen motorbikes and killed themselves, I would call that karma. If they choose to break into a shop and steal motorbikes then they have chosen their path. If they die whilst fleeing the scene, good.
Criminals have too many rights in this modern age. The law has been totally skewed so that the health and welfare of a criminal is put ahead of that of the victims. Like if some son of a bitch broke into my house and I kicked the fucker down the stairs and he broke his neck there is a damn good chance I would get done for it when he came onto my property and got injured in the course of committing a crime.
During the course of a crime and any ensuing chase, criminals should have exactly zero rights of any kind. Between commencing the crime and being taken into custody it should be a free for all where any victim or bystander can do what they like.
For instance, you're driving along and you see some prick nick and old lady's purse. You should be allowed to run the bastards over! Purse is returned, scumbag is caught. Where's the problem? If they get injured or killed then who cares. They had it coming the moment they chose to mug an old lady. The world will be better off without them.
There has been cases, more in the States than the UK, of burglars injuring themselves whilst robbing somebody's house, suing and actually winning the fucking case! Any judge who would allow that to happen should be removed from the bench immediately as they are clearly a moron with no concept of right and wrong.
In conclusion, fuck criminals and anyone who thinks that the rights of a criminal are more important than the rights of a victim. If that's you, I advise you take a long, hard look at your life.
Imagine if the victim was you or one of your family members. Would you rather be able to defend yourself, regardless of the outcome, or just have to sit back and let the criminal do as they wish, even if that means dying yourself?
You know that feeling, when you come to the end of a book and wish you hadn't?
Like, with Films there's always an Ending (with a capital E) and everything gets tied up in a nice little bow. But so many books end on a sort of, "huh..." and then there is no more and you'll never know if White Fang went on to have more adventures or not.
Did he get over his injuries? Did Collie ever stop being a Bitch?
Dammit, why can't I know?!
The other place this happens a lot is TV Shows. This can be because they got cancelled (possible due to Fox Network being a load of dicks), the latest season has not started yet or that's how they choose to end it. Regardless of why, it is really fucking annoying.
I fear change and get very attached to the things I watch and the characters there in. You watch and you watch and over time you grow to love the characters and then suddenly, one day, that's it. You get to the end of a seemingly innocuous episode, never suspecting the abandonment just around the corner, and BAM! There is no more. It's like the TV show is saying, "Look, I know we've had good times together and it's been fun, really, but we both knew it had to come to an end one day."
We'll always have Hallmark.
Law and Order: SVU is one of my favourite shows ever and it fucking finished. You watch a show from the very beginning, you think you know it, you think you have a connection and then it goes and finishes without any concern for your feelings or how you're going to fill the void it has left in your life.
My planner is empty and I feel weird inside.
Ok, I just Googled it and it would seem that I have seen to the end of season 10 and they are currently making season 12...
So where are the new episodes? Why has Hallmark gone back to the beginning? WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS TO ME?!
The last episode I watched was filmed in June 2009. Does this mean I'll have to wait till next year for the newer episodes to hit Hallmark? Why wont IMDb tell me what channel they're on? Why are they all conspiring against me?
Now there's a very good chance I wont know they're airing the new episodes until I've already missed most of the season (which happened with House and Lie To Me) and then what the fuck will I do? I'll have to wait for Hallmark to play them from the beginning all over again! I cannot wait that long!
I'm going to go find a quiet corner and have a little cry.
We know this to be true and the proof of it is most prevalent online.
Although there are myriad examples, I am going to concentrate on the ones that most annoy me.
The first real incarnations were those emails we all used to get that said something like:
"Little Maisey was horribly maimed in a freak Goat Milking accident and now can't provide Goat Milk for her family. Microsoft are tracking this email and, every time you forward it, Microsoft will donate $0.99 to a fund to help buy Maisey special goat milking prosthetic arms."
This will normally be accompanied by a picture of Maisey, sans arms, and some other bullshit and will also often contain a list of people who have forwarded it before [read: idiots].
Now, anyone who knows the first thing about computers will know that there is no actual way for Microsoft to track such an email and it is what we in the know call Utter Shit. (Let me know if my tech-y language becomes too much for you.)
This has evolved over the years to utilise whatever is the current social tool of choice.
As bona fide hard copy chain mail is now basically non-existent and even e-chain mail has dwindled to only the 'Pass this on to all the people you love/care about/blah' type, a new trend has appeared.
Yes I am talking about the 'LIKE THIS AND GET A FREE iPAD!!' groups and pages on Facebook.
How many times have you seen something along the lines of this:
Like this to prove you're retarded!!
Every time a new, hot gadget comes out (especially if it has an Apple Logo on it) these groups appear like buboes on a plague victim.
It is not the group itself, but the amount of people actually stupid enough to believe it that baffles my mind. There are hundreds of these groups around and all of them have subscribers numbering from a few to tens of thousands.
These groups normally link you out to pages that contain thinly veiled pyramid schemes.
'Accept one of our partner offers, refer 10 friends (who all have to accept and refer ten friends) and you get your iPad/Laptop/iPod.'
This, obviously, makes it prohibitively difficult to get your free iPad. Most people don't have the time, volition or friends to get the 10 referrals. Plus, a lot of people don't want to sign up for the offers because they know that along with the very far fetched chance of actually receiving the aforementioned gadget comes an infinite amount of spam mail.
The other one that really gets me also evolved from e-mails and now infects the world of social media. It goes something like this:
'OMG YOU GUYS, IF PHIL MCKRAKEN ADDS YOU DO!! NOT!! ACCEPT!! IT'S A VIRUS AND IT WILL INFECT YOUR COMPUTER AND EVERYONE ON YOUR FRIENDS LIST! COPY AND REPOST OR THE WORLD WILL END! OMG!!'
Caps Lock, Check; Fear mongering, Check; Lack of computer knowledge, check.
Sorry, but viruses just do not work that way.
After replying in the picture above I looked up 'Koobface' and found out it was a real virus and a fairly nasty one. Of course to actually get the virus you needed to follow a link and download a file from some dodgy website. It disguises this download as an Adobe update.
First of all, I imagine going to such a website would make your virus scan scream rape and beg you not to open the page.
Secondly, if you are stupid enough to actually do this, you probably deserve the virus. It's like giving your credit card details to somebody over the phone when the call was unsolicited, or sending Prince Umbooboo that 50k he's asking for so he can get millions out of the country to share with you.
It's Darwinism for the computer age. If you can't spot the proverbial Sabre Tooth Tiger you deserve to be eaten for the betterment of the species.
That is so utterly un-cool that I can't even get my vitriol together to rail at it.
Seriously, I hope whatever money grubbing, corporate prick made that decision fucking dies.
Futurama is the best animated show for adults since The Simpsons and the only reason it got cancelled before was because of the usual Fox fuckery.
Have Sky 1 not got space in their line up for an amazing and creative show?
No, because their line up is chock full of utter shit. Granted, there is some good stuff on there but in the 8pm Thursday night slot, where I imagine Futurama would go, they're airing Real A&E and Real Filth Fighters. More reality fucking television. I counted over a dozen different reality TV shows on this one channel ON ONE FUCKING DAY!
Not only are these shows the usual vacuous reality shit, they're being aired between The Simpsons and Lie To Me. That is the ideal spot for Futurama! That slot was made for Futurama. Futurama belongs in that slot.
As it happens I have just cancelled my Sky television and moved back to Virgin. I'm glad I did because, if I hadn't already, I would be now.
It may seem silly for an 'adult' to be so angry about a cartoon not being aired but I don't care. I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for new Futurama. The mini-series we got over here in the UK (which I believe were released as feature lengths in the US) were good and kept me going for a time but that is not enough.
So, answer me this Sky... Why are you not airing it in the UK?
Are you worried that airing such a creative and amazing show will alert people to the fact that 99.9% of the rest of your line up is shit?
Can you not fit it into your line-up between re-runs of old shows and inane reality TV?
Does it scare you because you are too fucking stupid to understand it?
Fuck you, Sky. I'm glad I cancelled my service and won't be giving you any money.
You'd only waste it on more shitty Reality TV, anyway.
Author's Note: I will start by saying this is not going to be a wholesale attack on Religion.
Although those who know me will know that I have a habit of getting over-zealous in religious debates, I do not intend to do that here.
In saying that, I will also state that I think religion is archaic and wielded as a weapon by many of its proponents.
I knew from a very young age that religion was not for me. My parents never wanted to force any religion on me and my sister and we were never christened or made to go to Church.
My Gran, however, would have liked me to be religious and took me to Church pretty much whenever she got a chance.
When I was 5 or 6 years old, maybe a touch younger, I distinctly remember being in Church one Palm Sunday and being struck by the absurdity of it all.
Animooted and well worth watching!
Up till the age of 5/6 I went to a school that said The Lord's Prayer in Assembly and sometimes in class and I never liked to say it. I would sit there, eyes open, and wait quietly till it was finished, a practice which I still continue on those rare occasions I find myself in a Church, such as funerals.
Due to this I can say that I probably decided Religion was not for me at around 4 years of age.
That may seem ridiculous, that one so young could make such a decision, but it's the truth.
This is not to say I am against religion, per se, but I am against the way people use it.
A religious friend of mine is a very good case-in-point on the positive effects of Religion.
He volunteers his time at his Church and local youth groups, helps put on plays, writes a religious themed blog and does many good deeds.
He has taken the tenets of Christianity, such as 'Do unto others...' and 'Love Thy Neighbour', and run with them in the way I believe they were meant.
He doesn't do these things for money or notoriety. He does them simply to be a good person.
That is, to me, what Religion is about.
Unfortunately, most people are not like him. Most people use religion as either a catch-all excuse for their actions and the actions of others or as a club to beat those who do not subscribe to their brand of Sky-Man. If somebody disagrees with them, they are a heathen. If somebody is different to them, they are a sinner. If somebody should have the audacity to be of a different sexual orientation, they are a filthy beast.
This is caused by indoctrination and ignorance. These things are perpetrated and perpetuated by the Institutions. It is not individuals (for the most part) who lionise these reprehensible ideals.
Take The Catholic Church, for instance.
I find the Catholic Church, as an institution, absolutely deplorable. They are one of the richest corporations on the face of the Earth, yet they let the churches in smaller towns go to rack and ruin, worshippers be damned, even though they earn billions and billions every year, around the world.
They propagate hatred and encourage their followers to hold disdain for people of other denominations, lifestyles and sexual orientations.
Even those who attempt to do good in the name of the Catholic Church often do more harm because of the way Religion can limit your world view. The best example is not going to be a popular one but fuck it, I'm gonna say it anyway.
Mother Teresa.
Although she did help many and her intentions were good, she encouraged the spread of AIDS by not allowing people to use condoms as it was against her beliefs.
Thousands of deaths are on her hands because of an arbitrary law taken from a text written many centuries before the invention of the modern condom.
That leads me on neatly to my next point. Abortion.
Abortion is a touchy subject to many people but I never shy away from touchy subjects.
Many Church leaders actively encourage people to picket Family Planning Clinics, even to the point of committing vandalism or violence against the staff.
Although they may not believe in or like the practice of abortion, the way they show it is utterly against the beliefs at the core of their religion!
What it comes down to is tact and consideration.
If you're a religious person of any description, good for you. That doesn't mean I want to hear about it. I'm also utterly disinterested in your opinion of me.
You may think I'm a sinner and a heathen but I honestly could not give less of a shit if I spent the entire rest of my day concentrating on nothing else but not giving a shit about your opinion.
I understand that you love your Sky-Man and want to spread that love and joy to others. That's fine, but let people come to you if they're interested rather than bombarding people with door to door visits, flyers, whatever.
If you must judge others, turn that judgement on yourself from time to time.
Just because you believe in your brand of Sky-Man does not mean everybody does. This does not make you better than them or vice versa.
The moral of this post is Live and Let Live.
We all have our own beliefs that help to shape who we are and we all think we're correct.
The fact of the matter is, we just don't know for sure. If you claim you do you are either a liar or self-deluded.
As a believer in Science and tangible evidence I could say I am right, but that is not the scientific way.
Question everything, always. If you blindly accept and never question you are not a true believer in anything. A true believer always questions what they believe, because only by questioning our beliefs can we re-affirm them.
And always remember, if the religion of others seems absurd to you, your religion probably seems just as absurd to them.
I leave you now with this video from the wonderful Mr. Tim Minchin.
Watch it all if you have time or skip to 4:12 for the song.
I like to think that I do things efficiently. This is not to say that I always do things promptly as I am a very lazy person and I make no excuses for it.
However, I do believe that if you need a faster, more efficient way to do something, give it to a lazy person and they will find the quickest, most efficient way to do it, so they may resume sitting on their arse and watching Animal Planet.
This means that I do everything in my day at the highest possible speed and in the most efficient way.
I am also rather OCD, which means that I get really annoyed if people screw up my routine with their inability to perform tasks efficiently.
Today for instance, I was on my lunch break from work and needed to go and run some errands in the local village. So I drove to the village, parked and joined the queue at the cash machine.
Now, I know that using a cash machine is a quick and easy thing to do. Card in, PIN number, Cash, £50, no I don't want a receipt, card out, cash dispensed, done.
Easy. Couple minutes, max.
So why do people spend so fucking long at the cash machine when I have things to do which are obviously far more pressing and urgent than whatever pointless thing they're doing? They stand there for what feels like hours, like the machine is written in Ancient Egyptian and they have neglected to bring their Babel Fish.
Had I gotten to the cash machine straight away I would have been able to complete my other tasks and get back to work by 1:25pm, which would have given me the right amount of time to do the other things I needed to do, like, you know, eat. As it was I didn't get back till about 1:31 which screwed up the timings for the rest of my routine. If you are saying to yourself, 'It's only 6 minutes, what's the big deal?' you do not understand OCD and for that you are truly lucky.
Another place that people move at an infuriatingly slow pace is the Supermarket.
I try and get around Asda as fast as possible because if I'm there too long I will commit murder and I'm far too pretty for prison.
People dawdle along as if this is all they have to do this week so they may as well take their time. They seem to be utterly oblivious that I'm behind them burning holes into their back with my eyes as I desperately try and find a gap to get around them.
This is made even more difficult when people leave their trolleys in the middle of aisles and wander off to look at things further down with no consideration for others. I am a very, very polite person pretty much all the time and this means that I can't move their trolley because that seems rude to me.
As if that wasn't enough, People stop dead in the middle of aisles without looking behind them and if you bump into them suddenly YOU'RE the arsehole!
Old people are the fucking worst! I understand that old people move slower out of necessity rather than an innate desire to fuck up my day but what I cannot fathom is why they shop on the weekend. They are RETIRED and therefore do nothing all damn week! Why shop on the weekend? It means that if I have to venture from my safe, dark house on a weekend for vittles I not only need to contend with hordes of rude morons but also ancient, gnarled people who move slower than your average glacier.
Well, with the amount of F-words in that post google AdWords is probably gonna throw a tantrum...
Fuck it! In for a penny in for a fuck load of F-words!
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