Ode to a Dying Species: the Gentleman

In fact, I've got a story involving a man, but this works for any person who hasn't been raised in a barn...

On my way back from work (incidentally, allow a sub-rant as I wonder why some people feel the need to complain about being given work... at work. Yes, that happened today with someone who whinged miserably upon being assigned a quick and simple mission!), I took the tube, and we ended up playing rush-hour sardines. I'm used to the occasional anchovy position.

What I am not used to is a tall bloke (I'm 5'2", so everything's relative here) holding the handrail by the door and trapping my head between the door and his arm. There were many people, but he could have grabbed the handrail in the middle of the car; he was tall enough.

Ah... but you see, that would have meant letting go of his mobile and stopping scrolling down for three minutes! *fake gasp* THE HORROR!

Now, I wasn't raised in a barn (and I wasn't in the mood to be arrested for kicking him in the hazelnuts), but I did all I could to invite him to relocate his annoying arm. Alas, my bun's probably too soft to make him realize that he was trapping me against the glass (Merlin! That never happened to me in Tokyo - then again, there aren't many barns over there).

Then, the gentleman to my left noticed my unfortunate position, and at the following stop he vacated his spot so I could move there and save my head and my pretty face from the Barbarian with a mobile grafted on to his hand. I smiled at the gentleman, and he nodded at the oblivious biped as if to say "Raised in a barn, what do you expect?".

The idiot left at the next stop, which he almost missed because he was engrossed with his text reading. The gentleman moved back next to me, and we traded yet another smile at the expense of the oik. The next stop was my destination, and the gentleman opened the door for me.

It's not a question of gender. It's a question of education, as I can perfectly imagine women in the roles of "the troglodyte" and "the gentlewoman".

There was biped "A" in a "Me, me, me!' moment and not caring about anything, and there was a delightful member of society "B", who had the opportunity to do something to make someone's life nicer for a few minutes, and who did make my life nicer (and perhaps saved someone's cashews in the process, too).

Merlin, I loathe mobiles and the idiotic bipeds addicted to them!

Mobile Addiction

Still addicted to books here, but the mobile addiction in buses and trains is getting worse.

I've been travelling a bit over the past fortnight, and things were properly barmy.

Where I'm parked, it's forbidden to use mobiles in train carriages; if someone wants to use their phone to call someone, they must leave the carriage and use the space between two of them. Pretty simple - and pretty civil.

On the first train I took, almost every passenger had a phone. Most were listening to music or texting, but... a group of unionists on their way back from a demonstration were phoning left and right - and were quite loud, too. They were so annoying that a late teen left the carriage twice in order not to blow a fuse. For once, I didn't give a fig, but the fact that it was men in their fifties behaving like Klingons was odd.

There's really something weird about people and their relationships to their mobiles because, on another train, I had to deal with someone who was absolutely charming, but couldn't help phoning home every half hour in order to argue with various relatives.

Yes, mobiles are useful (and shinyyyyyyyy toys), but when someone's glued to it to the point of ignoring the world around, there's a problem.

Oh, and my adorable brother sent me this: 

The quote is a fake (I know), but I fear there's something true about it when it comes to some (not all, Merlin be praised!) bipeds.

We're probably doomed though... or we're heading towards a massive dose of Darwinism with sheeple getting brain damage (or death!) as they hold their mobiles, but not any bar on the bus or in the tube, as they keep reading their texts on the street (the next one to walk towards me without looking ahead shall be yelled at - in order to warn it that I'm there, of course), or as they drive and phone or text or whatever.

Dear Mobile Users (+ Other Notes)

Note to mobile-addicted bipeds: 

- if you're going to break up with your better half (and that's probably literal) in a call whilst on the bus, have a spot of self-esteem, and don't have the entire bus enjoy the whole thing. It makes you look like a demented creature who might well be just out of Bedlam - or at least in need of some education (then again, you all know about my love for mobiles).

- if you've just done drugs, don't phone your best mate to tell him (in great details!) how you feel and everything. The world doesn't need to know what you took, how long it made you puke, how dizzy and high you're feeling and how hungry you are (okay, that part made me go: 'Helloooo, Amazing Grace!'). Once more: self-esteem and good education.

I've got some seasonal extra work now, which means that I'm covering for other people, and I got to meet students who are not "mine". 

Bottom line? I may have slightly scared mine, but now they arrive on time, they keep their mobiles out of sight, and they do their homework (not all of them, but most of them, and I'm darn proud of that because I hope they'll remember to behave decently outside of school, and I want to believe that a bit of what I taught them will stay with them after they leave my care). The others? Simple... when I left the room, I started wondering what half of them are smoking, inhaling or taking.

Utterly disturbing and odd.

May the end of the week be quiet for all of us...!

My Village Idiot (Mobile Weirdness, Take 2)

Travels can be so strange.

On the train last week, I found myself stuck with a teen in hoodie. That bloke was a walking cliché… not in the way he dressed, but in the way he behaved.

He was listening to some music on his phone… without earphones (he even managed to annoy girls who were his age!).

At one point, I considered asking him:

-         if he was an orphan and had never been taught to behave properly in society

-         if he’d just lost his earphones, but was addicted to music and couldn’t survive without a few songs until he reached his destination

-         if he was just too poor to buy earphones

-         if he was deaf and didn’t realize that his taste in music was appalling

-         if he’d been smoking things and was unable to behave like a decent human being living amongst brothers

I kept my mouth shut… for several reasons.

I wasn’t afraid (yes, I am that stupid); the teen was not very tall and looked like a matchstick. As well, since he knew that he was behaving like an idiot (he turned the sound down when the conductor came), he’d probably have turned the bloody thing off if asked.

Then, and this is more important for me, I tuned the teen out (bless Zen!) and I took down notes to use him as a character in some story. I don’t have a plot yet, but come one day, he’ll be in one of my stories… all the more since he was attempting to sing along (attempting is a keyword here, the poor kid couldn’t carry a tune to save his life!) and he was nodding like a stressed chimpanzee. He was utterly ridiculous.

I don’t know that kid, and I’ll probably never see him again, but I almost giggled when I saw that he got down where I stopped.

I knew I had barmy neighbours, but this one’s a winner (silver medal, I’d say).

Weapon of Choice? Mobile!

Perhaps the title should be "Killed by Mobile"...

[Okay, general disclaimer for this post: I’m going to swear a lot, so pardon my French, or hop to another page]

Let's start with a confession: I don't have a mobile.

Most of the people I'd like to chat with are in other countries or on other continents, which means that I can't afford the kind of package that’d allow me to reach them on a mobile (all the more useless since my landline does have a package that allows me to call them at no extra cost), and if I had a mobile, it’d mean that my relatives could reach me 24/7, which is something I cannot allow to happen.

Besides, there’s perhaps one time a year when I’m stuck in a traffic jam and I’d need to call the person I’m meeting to say that I’ll be late, but that’s so rare that it doesn’t justify the purchase.

So, I don’t have a mobile, but I get to be bugged by the ones around me who do have one.

At the supermarket, I don’t care if some twat (male or female – both do it) is chatting on the phone about what to buy, the weather, the kids, or if they gossip about sordid stuff.

Don’t care.

I can tune them out.

But when some twat is queuing in front of me and is still chatting on the phone as s/he reaches the checkout counter, I want to scream: ‘Use both hands to empty your basket, you moron!’

Since I was too well educated (no kidding, just bump into me, and I’ll be the one apologizing, if that’s not conditioning I don’t know what is!), I say nothing. I don’t even growl or glare, but my brain’s usually yelling strings of insults that’d make a sailor blush like a virgin on her wedding night.

On the bus (or tube, or train), sometimes we all can follow chats about things that we simply shouldn’t be hearing.

Just today, there was a bloke on my bus who shared the medical condition of his daughter with the rear section of the bus. No fun, but that won’t beat the time when a gal quit a job on the bus after a heated talk with her, by then, former boss; she must have thought she was in her office, but she was in a public space!

At work, one day, I’m going to get in trouble because I work with a few people who just can’t turn the bloody thing off, and then right in the fucking middle of a meeting (that they called because they need to hear their own voices about some pseudo-important topic), they take a call and leave the room – or not!

If you look at them as if to ask ‘Where you raised by wolves?’ they glare at you because they just don’t understand how ill-mannered that is.

I’ve even got a friend who can’t refrain from checking her voicemail and e-mails as we’re supposed to have a chat!

I understand that the world is changing.

I understand that a mobile can be really useful (to call for help, to stay connected, to book something on the internet while stuck in a traffic jam, etc…), but it should come with some etiquette and proper education.

When I see someone unable to put the device down, I want to find the address of a rehab centre or something. If you’re in a meeting, you turn the mobile off, except if you’re expecting the Queen, herself, to call, and even then, you have the courtesy to warn the people with you that you might have to take an important call. If you’re getting an OBE, it’s okay, but if the dry cleaner calls to tell you that your tie’s ruined for good, it can bloody go to voicemail!

Of course it’s a useful tool, but it’s not the boss of you. It’s a tiny box with chips; that’s all.

What the two ladies I overheard on the bus this afternoon said sums it up quite nicely. They were commenting on the loud bloke and came to the conclusion that people with a bad education and somewhat selfish were loud and uncaring, while the ones who hadn’t been raised in a barn on a desert island knew how to behave in society.

These examples are annoying and drive me up the wall, but that’s all, it’s just annoying.

Yet, mobile addiction can be dangerous.

After work, I took my usual bus, got down at my usual stop and walked up my street to reach my building.

Thank Merlin for winter because, thanks to the night, I saw the lights of the car that was approaching suspiciously slowly. That particular street is rather quiet, but the way it’s numbered sometimes puzzles people, and I thought I was dealing with someone looking for his/her way.

I stopped on the zebra crossing, protected by a parked car, and the moving car moved closer, but very, very slowly. It was so incredibly slow that I leant to check if the driver was looking for a spot to park, but no…

No, it turned out that that wanker was looking at, you guess what… his mobile. Eyes firmly on the tiny screen, not on the road, not on me. No, looking at the almighty mobile. The important mobile.

When he reached the end of the street, he looked ahead (at fucking last), but that’s because he was about to drive into a bigger street. He finally looked at me, and by then I must have looked quite flabbergasted by his nerve and utter stupidity (I feel like turning “moronitude” into a word), and he realized that I was waiting for him to see me and allow me to cross the street, as in, you know, the Highway Code (‘Thou shalt not turn the poor pedestrian into marmalade’, or something).

He mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ and turned onto the bigger street, and that was it.

I crossed the street in one piece and headed home, and it’s only there that I realized that I was so shocked and surprised that I forgot to note his registration plate down. Drat!

If that had taken place in broad daylight, I might have been distracted by something.

If I’d been more tired than I am, I might have ended up under that SUV (who needs that kind of car in town, by the way?!!).

I could have been injured or killed because some prig wanted to check something on his mobile.  Swell.

I guess my conclusion is going to be, yes, by all means use your shiny mobiles as much as you want, but you’re living in society, you’re a part of it, and a piece of technology doesn’t make you King or Queen.

Respect is one thing; as in, you’re not bloody alone on Earth, keep that in mind, you selfish twat.

As well, if you’re walking or driving, the phone is turned off. Clear? If you break your leg or your nose or kill yourself, it’s your problem, but don’t drag me into your plonkerishness.

If you break one of my limbs, I can always go see you with my faithful rolling pin later, but if you kill me… not much to do then. Oh, I’m sure you’d feel bad… for five minutes or so, but today we can see that stupidity kills.

So, use your phone to locate the closest pub, but don’t behave like an animal and use your brain… and don’t be selfish; you’re not on a desert island.