Don't Complain...

  I’m English, and therefore my chief hobby is complaining that everything is shit.

 (If you didn’t know I liked complaining about things, hi! Welcome to the blog. You probably want Luke Haines the musician, and that’s another site. Sorry.)

 Anyway, yes, complaining. We all love it, but it’s very hard not to become one of those people. You know the ones. Professionally offended about whatever they can think of, in perpetuity.

 Today I had to drop some keys off at a house I’d never been to before, and, having eventually tracked it down behind a tattoo parlour, I found myself totally without my bearings. I eventually made it back to roads I half-knew, but ended up heading out of town towards Weston Super Mare.

 In a bizarre, “all roads lead to Rome” sort of situation, once you’re heading towards Weston you effectively can’t escape. It’s the only town in Britain that seems to have an event horizon.

 After turning off onto three separate side roads (all of which lead back onto the Weston road, because Bristol’s traffic system was laid out by M.C. Escher when he was hung over one day) I ended up grumpily accepting that I'd be going to Weston. At least Weston has a beach and a pier. “Fuck it! I’m going for an ice-cream!” I spat, which is probably the second lamest outburst anyone has ever had.

 The lamest, in case you were wondering, came half an hour later when I couldn’t find anywhere that sold Mr. Whippy ice cream, and rather than settle for a Solero, I growled “I’m gonna find a fucking Mr. Whippy if it kills me!” In your head, try to imagine me being played by Jason Statham for that one.

 So far, I’d mentally racked up a full day’s complaining about the road systems around Bristol, the traffic and the lack of decent ice-cream in the world, but all of those felt somehow okay. It was the next thing that made me worry.

 Sign in the ice-cream shop window: “We do not except £50 notes.”

 We do not "except." By not understanding the difference between “accept” and “except”, the sign had managed to make exactly the opposite point to the one it was designed to convey; if they do not except £50 notes, by implication, they must include them. They’re fine with fifties. Says so on the sign.

 It drove me crazy. It’s still driving me crazy now. But here’s the thing: I couldn’t bring myself to tell the woman in the shop that her sign was a) wrongly-worded and b) relaying the exact opposite message to the one she intended. I just grit my teeth, paid for my Mr. Whippy and left.

 I should have said something.

 It felt like leaving the scene of an accident.

 I may wake up screaming.

 But I still couldn’t bring myself to say anything, because as soon as you start correcting people in public about their grammar and word-use, you become one of Them. The sort of people who write in to Points of View and who call Jeremy Vine to complain about literally every-fucking-thing in the world.

 I can’t become one of those people, I’d have to buy a beige cardigan and a bible and start sitting at home all day, channel-surfing for something to be irate about.

 Nobody wants to be those people.

 Except, of course, we should. Because I’ll tell you right now: It’s the winning team. They’ll get what they want in the end. Through sheer, dreary weight of moaning, dull numbers they’ll grind us all down until they get that programme taken off the air, or that billboard changed, or that group of people to stop dressing in a way they don’t approve of.

 And contrary to what you might expect from me, I think that’ll be great! Because then they’ll all go spectacularly mental.

 Think about it. Everything will be bland and nice. The TV will show nothing but repeats of Bagpuss or something equally unobjectionable, the radio will play nothing but Pat Boone records and adverts for cushions, the national speed limit will be “walking” and they’ll have absolutely nothing left to complain about.

 And then, after about fifteen minutes, they’ll snap, tear off their beige cardigans and all start fucking each other whilst screaming obscenity-laced tributes to Satan. I guarantee it.

[Some sort of car show in Weston today, by the way. In a seafront packed with Ferraris, Mustangs, TVRs and the like, there was one poor bastard who had to man the tent for the Ford Focus Owner’s Club, and I can’t imagine how crushing that must have been. Whoever was in there must have drawn a short straw or else gone there of their own free will, and that means they either had balls of steel, or a beige cardigan.]

[Also, on the way home? Stopped at the services. The hitch-hiker with a sign saying “South West” apparently had no idea that he was stood by the Northbound exit. I was tempted to pick him up and try to bluff it. Had he fallen asleep, I’m pretty sure I could have got him as far as Preston, and told him it was St. Ives.]