How To Not Get A Drink

There seem to be a large amount of people in this world who seem determined to avoid being served drinks in pubs through the application of some carefully planned and varied techniques. I'm sure you, like them, would like to be able to so skilfully sidestep the danger of actually getting a barmaid to provide alcohol and so I thought I would share their wisdom. 

- Make sure you are talking on your mobile when you walk up to the bar, and make sure you don't say please as well. Oh and if you want to be completely sure of not being served don't bother even speaking, just grunt and point at what you want whilst continuing your conversation on the phone.

- Point out very loudly that you were next while the previous person is still being served. Nothing like obnoxiously assuming the person serving has the attention span of a gnat to get them to skip you and serve the next person, as we do actually know the order people arrived at the bar.

- Wave money at the bartender to let them know you're there. They'll obviously then work out you're a rude jackass and you'll dextrously  dodge that alcohol we serve.

- Make sure you enter the premises in a large group, about twenty should do, and then ask each person repeatedly what they want to drink. By the time you've gotten around to repeating it back to the person serving we've probably got bored of waiting on you and will be serving someone else. Alcohol dodging win!!

- If you do inadvertently start the process of being served a drink, make sure it's a large round and when it's finished order a pint of Guinness. You may have accidentally been served a drink but after a twatish move like that you'll be in no danger of getting a second one!

Follow these simple guidelines and you should have no problem avoiding getting served a drink. And if all else fails just talk to the staff like we're all retarded morons cos that will remove all problems; and also your presence from the establishment...!

Little Wonders

There are some things that just make me smile of a morning commute, and today was a good one to be fair.

- The bus turning up on time for a change.

- The driver of said bus being a really friendly chatty person; given my journey is short I often chat if I've seen them before.

- Rushing to make the closing doors of my train and missing them, but then being called over by the conductor who saw me and held a door open for me (seriously rare and appreciated!).

- Getting my usual seat on the train even though I boarded late which means I'm not squished and can curl up against the wall.

- Realising that I was wrong and I actually did remember my iPod so could sit writing contentedly with my music keeping my foot tapping happily.

- Seeing someone actually get up to offer their seat to a rather pregnant woman without anything needing to be said.

- Seeing the idiot who brought his bike on a train that doesn't allow cycles trip over his own pedals, leading me to laugh out loud and bury my head in my phone pretending I'm laughing at something else...

It doesn't take much to make a commuter's morning a little nicer, definitely a plus when it all comes together.

To Drink Or Not To Drink...

The heavens are conspiring to drive me to drink, seriously. It's currently lamping down with rain whilst I stare disconsolately out of the window of the train. Once I get to my stop I have a twenty minute walk home, in this weather. Or I could go to the pub across the road from the station, about two hundred yards and wait for the rain to stop...

If rain forces you into shelter and that shelter just so happens to serve alcohol it's technically not your fault when you have a drink right? Right...?!

The Next Generation - Oh Hell!

As I've mentioned before I work part time in a pub, it's a nice change of pace to my office and I wouldn't see half the amusing things I do without it! What always leaves me nonplussed however is the attitude when drinking of some parents towards those in their charge and the terrible example they set.

Quite recently while working a weekend evening shift a woman turned up about ten or half past and was followed into the pub by her two children, maybe twelve and six at an estimate. Now our place has a time rule for kids, they've got to be gone by half eight midweek and six on weekends. I quickly pointed that fact out to this woman who informed me it was fine and her kids would wait outside. Nice right?

The two children headed for the beer garden and I had to tell them they weren't allowed and needed to leave, so they went and sat on the top step by the front door. Number one they were now blocking the entrance and number two that's still pub premises. So I went over and asked them to move at which point the girl, the "eldest" of the two, told me to fuck off... Lovely child, but I just told her she had to be off the premises very calmly and was subjected to a tirade of swearing and questions as to where I would let her stand.

Okay change of tack, I went and told the mother, who was happily chucking vodka back, she'd either have to deal with them or leave. She told me they were fine and when told her charming daughter had sworn at me she just laughed and turned back to her drink.

Okay, let's try with the kids again. Told them to move off premises and got another load of verbal abuse off the girl. So I shut the door on her not wanting to hear anymore and she shoved it back open to carry on.

In the end the woman was told to leave and take her bloody offspring with her but remembering it still makes me cringe if this is what future generations are going to be like!

Or in a granny styled moment - We wouldn't have dared acted like that when we were kids!!!

Sad, but true!

Sorry, I'm Only A Girl!!!

The Rugby World Cup is on it's way very soon, and I can't wait! Having watched rugby avidly for a fair few years now, and given that unlike footballers the rugby players look like real men it's safe to say September is a good month for me this year!

BUT I was also recently subjected to that typical stereotype born in the mind of idiots, that women don't understand sport; apparently this is supposedly true for any sport.

Now I'm really not the right person to voice that rubbish to, but apparently the judgemental twerp in the pub completely believed it.

Me - Oh come on, that should've been a try!

Him - Excuse me, do you play rugby?

Me - Um no, why do you ask?

Him - Okay so you don't know what you're talking about then.

Me - Excuse me?! No I don't play rugby but I've been watching it for years and love it. Do you play?

Him - No.

Me - (desperately trying to keep it polite) Then how can you say I know nothing about it when NEITHER of us play it? Oh but my friend I'm with does play.

Him - Yeah but you're a woman.

I should point out at this moment his girlfriend was trying to shut him up and looking exceptionally mortified at his behaviour. He'd obviously had a few pints and was embarrassing her quite a lot. Not long after they got up to leave.

Me - Are you not staying for the second game?

Him - Didn't know there was a second one on.

Me - Oh right, guess I definitely do know more about it than you then...

See I can understand where the stereotype comes from, a lot of women don't like sport so they don't watch it. But what's with the attitude that regardless of whether or not I watch it I can't possibly understand it? Too complex for my poor strained girlie brain? Good thing I didn't tell him I love MotoGP really, don't think his brain would've been able to deal with that!

Women? Liking motorbikes? Oh no no no that simply won't do!

Best get on though, I'm sure I have some ironing to do or I might go crazy exciting and knit something...!!! *eye roll*

London Riots - The True Fails

Between working in London, living just outside London and having friends in the police force I have heard and seen some truly fabulous examples of ineptitude throughout the rioting in London, and I thought it only fair to share...

1. Tottenham Court Road - Looters left a shopping centre untouched and yet smashed around £500 worth of glass windows to gain access to a coffee shop and steal £30 of biscuits. Apparently rioting gives you the munchies...
2. Not sure whereabouts - Looters decided to rob a Ladbrokes by throwing chairs at the windows to smash them. Due to shatter proof glass said chairs bounced off and hit them in the head. Knock some sense into them? Please?!
3. Not sure whereabouts - Guy poses with a big bag of stolen Tesco Value basmati rice. The tesco value one, I mean seriously if you're going to be so pathetic as to steal rice, wouldn't you at least steal NICE rice?! As someone posted at the time, maybe he misunderstood when his mates said they were off to raid currys...
4. Tottenham - Rioters burnt down the post office. Where they issue their benefits. Which they pretty much definitely all claim. Fail...
5. Clapham Junction - One woman with a tv asked why she was stealing stuff and she replied "I'm getting back my taxes". Now not only am I pretty sure that she has never paid taxes in her life but since when do people pay taxes to Currys?!
6. Ealing - Looters raiding the party shop and then setting fire to it. They all wore masks from the shop before setting the fire, because that makes it's harder to spot them?, and then they set fire to an enclosed area with helium canisters, are you stupid?!
7. Not sure whereabouts - People looting Primark. We've already covered this people, if you're going to steal stuff don't steal the cheap stuff!!!
8. Multiple locations - Breaking into Nandos, Burger King, KFC, all you're going to find is raw stuff you morons!!!!

These Boots Really Were Made For Walking

Half eight on a Thursday morning, it's primo commuter time and the underground is packed as ever. I've already had warning that there's overground issues which thankfully never materialised and now even the tube seems to be running without issue. It's a regular, busy but relatively stress free morning of travel. I've had the idiot on the train who seems to think he needs a seat and a half and I'll make do with what's left but that was easily remedied by the application of stubbornness and fidgeting... Mrs P 1 : Train Numpties 0!

Anyway, the Bakerloo line is jumping as ever, but I find a handy spot near where "my" carriage pulls in and relax into the music pulsing relaxingly down my headphones. The tube train pulls in, the carriage is quiet with plenty of seats for the baying hoards waiting to board. The tube slows, then stops and the doors slide smoothly open triggering the slow movement forward of the one guy in front of me. Swiftly followed by the decision by him to stop dead despite the moving traffic behind him which pushes me into him.

Ah but surely there's some sterling reason for his cessation of movement. There must be someone disembarking unexpectedly and he's stopped to ensure their ease of departure like a gentleman? No? Well maybe someone crossed in front of him pushing to get to the seats and it's forced his absence of movement? No again? Okay, there must be something... He just decided that was where he wanted to stand ignoring the fact that there's a large amount of people behind him and he's blocked the passage? Yes? Really?! 

Not only does this majestic absence of common sense fill me with disillusionment of the small fraction of intelligence I assumptively gift my fellow commuters with but he goes so far as to turn round and have a go at me for knocking into him! Funnily enough that's what happens when you stall natural flow patterns, they crash into each other!!!

He first starts berating me for knocking into him, really not my choice, not like he was good looking or anything but who am I to hold back thirty odd stressy commuters? Then I get informed I should have gone around him, which seeing as people were boarding wherever there was a gap was pretty unlikely. Finally I get past him and he spends the next ten minutes or so glowering at me futilely as I studiously ignore the odious little twit. So next time I think I need to wear not only boots that are made for walking, but ones that are perfectly equipt for imbedding into morons backsides too! Plan!

Is This A Sign?!

Whenever you enter a restaurant, bar, pub, office building or any other building outside a private residence you can easily identify the toilets by the signs on the door. They can range from a word or letter to a pictorial notification. And sometimes these signs can be a little on the strange side...

This is the simple design from the ladies toilet doors from my office.

Nice and simple. Not misleading, not confusing, not remotely open to interpretation right?

Here's the one, from the same office, for those toilets that are for use by both male and female. These are the ones that have a shower in them.

Now maybe it's just me, but how dodgy does that look exactly? Best I can make out is that particular cubicle is only for the use of couples. To be fair that would make it even more concerning, our toilets aren't exactly roomy...

Whole new meaning to the phrase "tight squeeze" then I guess...?!

A "Buzz" In The Night

This is in no way as good as it sounds... It is however, now it's a past event, bloody funny, well the imagery of it makes me laugh!

I work in a pub once or twice a week, and when I work a Friday or Saturday night I don't tend to get home before around two in the morning, later if we stop for pizza afterwards. On the particular Saturday night in question I got home around half two with every intention of doing my usual "stay up until 5am drinking wine, watching movies and have a long lie in the next morning". Well for whatever reason, it had been a long shift, around half three I decided I had had enough of yawning and for once headed to bed before my husband who elected to stay up to read to the end of the chapter in the book he's reading.

So I head into our room and get myself settled in to bed as normal, but figured as he wasn't going to be long I'd read a book on my iPhone and wait for him. Five or ten minutes pass peacefully and I suddenly hear this buzzing sound to my left, right by the bedside lamp. I turn my head very slowly and see this wasp hovering over my bedside table. Now, simply put, I hate wasps!!! I remember when I was about thirteen or so and at boarding school, there was a wasp nest outside my dorm window and they crawled in and under my duvet cover and I got stung about twelve times in one night and ended up sleeping on a chair...

So suffice to say the teeny, tiny, buzzy insect scared the ever living hell out of me prompting me to sit bolt upright before tearing off the covers and sprinting to the door. The only thing missing was the screaming and waving hands over my head... Think this sort of thing...




Having reached the door I switched the main lights on to see exactly where the little flying piece of evil had gone and it proceeded to shove off up to the lights and buzz round them. At some point during my panicked flight from the other side of the room I had grabbed a dvd and was now brandishing it "very" ominously at the wasp. What the hell I thought I was going to do with that I have no idea because my bedside table is covered in perfume bottles and therefore not exactly "swat friendly" and now it was up by the ceiling there was no improvement as I now couldn't reach it.

Whilst standing there debating my options I suddenly saw another of them fly up to the lights. Oh great, now there are two death delivering winged devils in my room!

It was around this time that my husband decided to come to bed and upon walking into the hallway was accosted by the sound of his rather scared wife calling his name. He walked in to find out what was going on and I just pointed and muttered "wasp", because obviously speaking loudly would've gotten their attention... *eye roll*
While we watched through another flew in through the curtain, and then another! We both seemingly came to the same conclusion that we no longer wanted to inhabit the same space as them and shot out the bedroom door closing it behind us.

This led us to standing in the living room debating what on earth we were planning on doing, which then in turn led to the realisation that due to me having been in bed my clothing situation was somewhat less than ideal, which led to my husband handing me his coat, which comes to the waist... Thanks soooooo much hunny...!
I grabbed a throw off the sofa and wrapped that round me but I still think I would've been considerably happier in something more substantial, you know like a beekeepers suit or something like that! During my haphazard assembly of some vaguely useful clothing ideas (oh and it should be noted there was a ton of fresh laundry hanging in our hallway but my adrenalin soaked brain seemed to bypass this information) my husband had gone outside to see if he could see anything and come back to inform me that not only were all our bedroom windows wide open but also there was a lovely big flowering bush under them. Deep joy and rapture. He proceeded to push the windows closed with an umbrella which removed any danger of any further invasion but still left us with a decision to make about the ones already inside, which we decided to check on, and walked in to find there was now somewhere in the region of ten of them all flying around our lights.

So the options were simple.

1. Sleep in the bedroom regardless and hope we don't get stung - Oh hellzzzz no!
2. Spend the next however long trying to kill them all before going to bed - It was already around half five in the morning by this point and I had work at midday so that seemed a little time devouring
3. Sleep in the living room and leave the lights on in the bedroom so we know where they are - SOLD!

Plan decided upon, we still had a few more details to sort out. Namely we needed to switch off the bedside lamp, I needed my phone and I also needed a pair of jeans for work the next day. So Operation Wasp Dodge was born. *fanfare*

The idea was simple. We would both go into the bedroom with seperate objectives and that way we could halve the amount of trips into Sting Central would be required. I had managed to kill one on a previous scouting expedition but it was in the centre of the bed making it a little hard to get across without getting stung. Still we decided I would go for the light as I knew where the (hopefully) dead wasp was and my husband would get my phone. Then we would reconvene and choose new targets.

Opening the door I led the way into enemy territory and very slowly and quietly inched my way to and then across the bed to the lamp. Switching it off I then shuffled backwards to the door and scarpered, followed swiftly by the husband with my phone.

As the only other absolute necessity was my jeans I said I would go back in for them, and ventured back inside once more. I would love to have been able to see this from above, me crawling carefully across the floor like one of those soldier toys only to grab a pair of jeans and do the crawl/scramble/backup version of a panicked flee from the room.

As it turns out leaving the light on was a good call as they all fried themselves overnight pretty much and we've since found the nest and had it taken care of, but I love that we can turn a wasp invasion into all out war with something a minute fraction of our size...

London Predicts A Riot

We're three days (or nights rather) into the riots and looting in London and I for one am truly disgusted by the behaviour of these "tax paying citizens" who all look suspiciously young to be "getting back our taxes" as stated by one of them in Clapham last night whilst stealing a flatscreen tv...

All through this the police have been a silent and unseen presence, or so the media would have people believe. As fires swept through the capital a terrified cry rose above the noise of sirens and alarms pleading for police assistance and firefighters. And they answered the call, every single one of them, and we should be damn proud of them, I know I am.

Yes there were areas where people felt unprotected but they cannot be everywhere, it's simply impossible, they were massively outnumbered in many areas and quite cynically and simply why would the media report on areas of London where the rioters have been quelled? I doubt it would make as "good" viewing compared to the fear and suffering that could be broadcast from other areas.
And if the police had adopted a more aggressive stance then all we'd be hearing today is about their terrible heavy headed approach and police brutality! They can't win and yet they still stand up to protect us. Maybe some support and gratitude should be in order?

Then there is the social networks which seemed to cover the two extreme opinions from unquestioning support of the looters to utter horror at the degradation of our society. Warmed the heart though to read page after page condemnation for the actions of the reprobates who quite clearly thought everyone would be behind them. Well technically I'd like to be, but I'm not going to jail for the use of garrotte wire on one of those opportunistic leeches!

I spent half the night following the news coverage and trying to contact my family and friends to ensure their safety, and thankfully it would appear those dear to me have come off unscathed.
I was recounted a story last night by a friend who had heard from a good friend us his hiding on her roof because her home was being trashed by these scumbags. How is that protest? Or any statement other than "we do not deserve to be heard"?!

I would truly like to see every single one of those condemning the emergency services being forced off their sofas to kit up and stand shoulder to shoulder with the brave men and women  in uniform.
And as for those guilty of the atrocities across London who are caught and charged, if they want a fight then let's let them have one... on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan with the soldiers who've been risking their lives on these "people's" behalf for the last god knows how long.

In the face of Theresa May's assertions that costs can be cut to the force without repercussion she was proven wrong in the most truly spectacular fashion.

This morning though I was proud to be on my way to work as normal. Bomb trains, riot and loot our homes and businesses but Londoners still stand tall and keep going. Not breaking our spirit!

As I head home tonight the fourth day of trouble appears to have started once again with reports of trouble in Wimbledon already filtering through. To the 16,000 police on our streets tonight I say, those I know and those I don't, thank you and please be safe tonight.