Utter Intolerability of Everything

Does anyone else find that everyday life in London propels them into an inexorable rage on a near-daily basis? I arrive at the tube station at an ungodly hour, where, half-awake, I am assailed by absurd 'health and safety' announcements made in a strange semi-English tongue. Boarding the inevitably packed train, the next thirty minutes are spent
standing up, someone's elbow jammed into my windpipe, whilst having to listen to a ghastly cacophony of repetitious hissing and popping noises emanating from numerous poltroons' iPods. This distracts me from my attempts to read the morning paper, in which I can learn about rampant gun crime, government lies, and on a lighter note, the latest indignities and degradations that our vacuous 'celebrities' have most recently and proudly subjected themselves to.

Alighting from the station in an intermittently-operational lift (so crowded that I feel I must be an extra in a Merchant Ivory recreation of the Black Hole of Calcutta) which London Underground insist they do not have the money to repair, despite charging the highest fares in Europe, I then try to dodge a multitude of red-light dodging, pavement-surfing cyclists as I walk to the office, where I then spend the next 8 hours engaged in a series of meaningless, unrewarding and repetitive tasks. Any attempt on my part to alert the management to the fact that - in the names of 'modernization' and flexibility' - they have installed a whole series of ludicrous, unproductive and contradictory workplace procedures, will be met by accusations of 'negativity', or of my not being a 'team player'.

The highlight of the working day is my lunch hour, most of which is spent being jostled in a supermarket so overrun by crazed mobs that it resembles the last days of Pompeii. I ponder (as I do each day) whether to choose a 'char-grilled organic vegetable tortilla wrap' or to plump for the 'sun-dried tomato and buffalo mozzarella panini' accompanied by a packet of 'hand-cut kettle chips'. Such is my empowerment as a stakeholder in Brown's New Britain, that this is the only meaningful decision I am now able to make that will have any impact on my life.

I then return to the office for more futile number manipulation and purposeless paper shuffling activities, until I feel I may safely go home, despite having worked the last hour as an unpaid overtime serf.

Perhaps later that evening I may relax by watching some football on TV, as a crew of overpaid, strutting, foreign popinjays bring disgrace and shame upon my once-proud team. It only remains for me to pour myself a third glass of overpriced, disappointing French red (from a supermarket's 'Finest' range), in order that I may be sufficiently anaesthetized as to fall unconscious for a few hours. But not for too long – as I must soon wake up and repeat the entire process the next day, and throughout the working week.

The notion that I will be performing this ghastly routine for the next 30 years or so, or at least until I succumb to some sort of major illness, is becoming increasingly intolerable, and one which fills me with suicidal despair and unmitigated rage in equal measure.

Does anyone else feel that modern life makes them want to literally vomit with fury? Or is it just me?

Free newspaper conspiracy

Look here; this London Lite and TheLondonPaper business - this is all very well in terms of providing commuters with something to pass the time on their journey - but I say, take a deeper look! Now, what is really going on here; hundreds of foreign nationals are being paid a pittance to distribute these free papers to commuters, who invariably discard them in the bus and train carriages after they have dispensed with them. The subsequent litter is then collected by other foreign nationals, again on minimun wages...THIS IS MADNESS.

And if we examine the content of these free papers; why yes, it does pass the time whilst enduring a tube or bus journey - but what are these papers saying? Celebrities' latest escapades and excesses, their indignities and failings being put on display for all to see like a medieval beggar displaying their sores and wounds...soundbite politics with no analysis...overpaid football popinjays throwing tantrums and diving hither and yon...a ghastly compendium of drivel.

And what other message lies within the pages of these papers? CONSUME. Keep "up to speed" with this weeks' "must-have" fashions, musical artists, gadgets, books, interior design, kitchen products. After all, one would not wish to be regarded as out-of-touch...

Besides, the economy depends on it. Do your duty, consume for Britain!

Absurd management jargon

I had to attend a meeting at work earlier today. It was neither enjoyable nor useful. The speakers employed a succession of absurd phrases such as "footprint", "footfall", "outside the envelope", and "singing from the same hymn sheet". Speak English you poltroons!!

Sheep-like use of this silly jargon only serves to highlight the sheer vacuity and bankruptcy of management methods today - short termism, style over content, buzzwords over substance.

Is there a section in the MBA handbook which commends the use of as much meaningless, dribbling jargon as possible, so as to reveal the speaker to be an utter nincompoop?

It would appear so.

Facebook madness

Has the world gone quite, quite mad? I notice from various colleagues that they and their friends are placing the most personal and intimate details about themselves on their Facebook profiles. Photographs of themselves in all manner of contorted positions and states of deshabille, photographs of their families, dates of birth, phone numbers - this is sheer folly! Leaving aside the dangers of fraud and personation, as well as the ever-increasing threat of falling victim to some deranged, gibbering 'stalker', what of the small matter of one's private life becoming public property?

And now I understand that Facebook is to make its 'data' available to search engines such as Google. Ye Gods!

London's Vanishing Cafes

Isn't it about time that Comrade Ken did something to impede the remorseless advance of faceless coffee chains such as Starbucks?http://www.classiccafes.co.uk/RIP.html

Every month seems to bring the news of another great London café being forced to shut (e.g The Tea Rooms, the Piccolo, Sidolis), to be replaced by a drearisome clone establishment. And now I hear that the fabuous New Piccadilly Restaurant of Denman St is due to close at the end of September. This is really a deplorable state of affairs. Pretty soon we will all be living in a Philip K Dick-style nightmare world with interchangeable, indistinguishable shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants.

Disrespecting 'Harry Potter'?

I read with some distress a missive in one of our free papers. The writer describes criticism of the Harry Potter books as being "disrespectful" – oh dear, where to begin?

Ignoring this use of the absurd U.S. "hip hop" argot that appears to have become de rigueur throughout our once-sovereign state, does this person believe that J.K. Rowling is somehow deserving of "respect" because of the undoubtedly huge sales of her books? I believe that Miss Jade Goody attracted millions of viewers during her appearances on the execrable 'Big Brother' – is she also worthy of "respect"? Or does s/he genuinely believe that the Harry Potter oeuvre constitutes the "greatest literature ever written"?

Can it be that our nation, mother to Shakespeare, Dickens, Milton and de Quincey, offers now the proud boast that it gave the literary world 'Muggles' and 'Hagrid'? God help us.

Queueing now 'uncool'?

Does my memory fail me ( not unheard of!) or were people in the habit of queueing for buses 20 or 30 years ago? Nowadays, there is a regular hodge-podge of shoving and jostling at the bus stop. This country was once famed for its queues! What the blazes is going on?

It seems to me that all the small civilities that made this country singular - and yes, great - are being rapidly dispensed with, on account of their being old-fashioned or 'uncool'.