This is another post from the now defunct "Angriest Man in the Shire" Blog.
TEMPORARILY REMOVED FOR MAGAZINE SUBMISSION.
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Monday, 11 June 2007
Fat Kid Abuse
One of the first posts from my "Angriest Man in the Shire" blog. Incidentally, the story is entirely true!
This is not the best of starts, as the incident I'm about to recount didn't really get me riled up. Shocked yes. Appalled certainly. Mildly annoyed? Maybe. Disgusted? Absolutely. Yes, let's settle for disgusted.
I've always thought of myself as a pretty well read sort of person, although I must admit that over the past couple of years I've become a little out of touch with the publishing scene. So this weekend I thought I would get back on track and buy the Sunday papers for the book reviews.
A trip to our local newsagent means running the gauntlet of the tracksuit and Burberry brigade, who spend their days gainfully employed in hanging around the shop doorway, chain-smoking, shouting abuse and generally doing their best to maintain the tone of the neighbourhood. Yesterday was no different, but for once I barely registered the presence of the local trogs due to the abhorrent scene I had witnessed just moments before.
As I turned the corner at the derelict medical centre, I noticed a couple of "canny Geordie lads" standing at the gate of a house with a tatty St. George's flag hanging from an upper window. "It's ahl aboot the footbahl. We're not racist, we jus divvn't want them asylum seekers comin' and tekkin wor jobs and shaggin' wor birds. Ya kna?"
You know the sort of bloke I mean. Tracksuits, crewcuts, sovereign rings and a can of lager permanently attached to the right hand. Standard issue scum. Probably had Luv and Hat tattooed on their knuckles. Gathered about them were three or four sprogs, clearly the spawn of these two fine specimens of English manhood. The whole crew gazed vacantly up the street with lopsided, gormless grins on their orange faces.
Reluctant to pass too close in case I picked up a dose of chav, I crossed the street and saw what they were all staring at. Up the street, a massively overweight kid of perhaps 10 years old, was lying flat on his face in the street playing dead. His bicycle casually thrown in the gutter for added realism. "Wanker", I thought charitably.
Just then a white minibus roared around the corner and pulled up alongside the "victim". Even from 25 yards away you could tell that the enormously rotund and shaven headed driver was the kid's father. They stamp them out of moulds in these parts you know.
"Get up now!" roared the concerned begetter, "and get your f**king bike oot of the road." And with that he pulled up alongside his mates and their offspring. I shook my head and carried on my way, trying not to stare too hard at the kid. Other people weren't so kindly and openly gaped over their garden gates with mouths open. The corpulent little pussbag was looking around like a cornered animal now, faced by gawpers on all sides. He was blubbing like a low rent Dudley Dursley, all red-faced and tearful but still managing to screw his face up in fury. I contented myself with throwing the little grunter a disgusted look and looked the other way. You don't look too long at these people, because they start getting mouthy and the next thing you know you've got their entire tribe down on you and your brains end up smeared on the pavement. They look after their own round here.
Daddy, by now realising that perhaps he'd been a bit harsh on his boy, started calling out encouragingly "Howay son, you cannit hev hort yersel. Your fat will have protected you". His mates roared with laughter. I cringed.
"Come on fatty, come on" they called jovially, as if they were trying to get a wayward puppy to come home. I was flabbergasted that three grown men could behave in such a way.
Clearly the kid was a bit reluctant to return to the loving bosom of his family because he started dithering about with his bicycle. "Come here now, you fat c*nt!" boomed the father. I put my head down and turned the corner. I felt sick and sullied.
I wondered if I should report the incident to the police. It's abuse isn't it? Maybe, but if you cause trouble for these kind of people you'll end up with your brains smeared on the pavement for certain. It's the way of the world in deprived areas like this. Fatty in his turn will grow up to treat his own tribe with the same cheerful contempt. They in time will do the same. People in the North East don't change.
It reminded me of the outrage in the media a few weeks ago when some women were convicted for encouraging their toddlers to fight, whilst they filmed the incident on their mobile phones, calling the children wimps when they wouldn't get stuck in.
"How could they?" screamed the headlines, going on to comfort us that these bitches were somehow the exception to the norm.
"The majority of people round here are decent", is the usual cry from the neighbours. Sadly it's not true. Britain has a vicious underclass for whom abuse and casual violence are a way of life. Witness exhibit A: Fatty.
That's just how vermin are. Doesn't it make you proud?
This is not the best of starts, as the incident I'm about to recount didn't really get me riled up. Shocked yes. Appalled certainly. Mildly annoyed? Maybe. Disgusted? Absolutely. Yes, let's settle for disgusted.
I've always thought of myself as a pretty well read sort of person, although I must admit that over the past couple of years I've become a little out of touch with the publishing scene. So this weekend I thought I would get back on track and buy the Sunday papers for the book reviews.
A trip to our local newsagent means running the gauntlet of the tracksuit and Burberry brigade, who spend their days gainfully employed in hanging around the shop doorway, chain-smoking, shouting abuse and generally doing their best to maintain the tone of the neighbourhood. Yesterday was no different, but for once I barely registered the presence of the local trogs due to the abhorrent scene I had witnessed just moments before.
As I turned the corner at the derelict medical centre, I noticed a couple of "canny Geordie lads" standing at the gate of a house with a tatty St. George's flag hanging from an upper window. "It's ahl aboot the footbahl. We're not racist, we jus divvn't want them asylum seekers comin' and tekkin wor jobs and shaggin' wor birds. Ya kna?"
You know the sort of bloke I mean. Tracksuits, crewcuts, sovereign rings and a can of lager permanently attached to the right hand. Standard issue scum. Probably had Luv and Hat tattooed on their knuckles. Gathered about them were three or four sprogs, clearly the spawn of these two fine specimens of English manhood. The whole crew gazed vacantly up the street with lopsided, gormless grins on their orange faces.
Reluctant to pass too close in case I picked up a dose of chav, I crossed the street and saw what they were all staring at. Up the street, a massively overweight kid of perhaps 10 years old, was lying flat on his face in the street playing dead. His bicycle casually thrown in the gutter for added realism. "Wanker", I thought charitably.
Just then a white minibus roared around the corner and pulled up alongside the "victim". Even from 25 yards away you could tell that the enormously rotund and shaven headed driver was the kid's father. They stamp them out of moulds in these parts you know.
"Get up now!" roared the concerned begetter, "and get your f**king bike oot of the road." And with that he pulled up alongside his mates and their offspring. I shook my head and carried on my way, trying not to stare too hard at the kid. Other people weren't so kindly and openly gaped over their garden gates with mouths open. The corpulent little pussbag was looking around like a cornered animal now, faced by gawpers on all sides. He was blubbing like a low rent Dudley Dursley, all red-faced and tearful but still managing to screw his face up in fury. I contented myself with throwing the little grunter a disgusted look and looked the other way. You don't look too long at these people, because they start getting mouthy and the next thing you know you've got their entire tribe down on you and your brains end up smeared on the pavement. They look after their own round here.
Daddy, by now realising that perhaps he'd been a bit harsh on his boy, started calling out encouragingly "Howay son, you cannit hev hort yersel. Your fat will have protected you". His mates roared with laughter. I cringed.
"Come on fatty, come on" they called jovially, as if they were trying to get a wayward puppy to come home. I was flabbergasted that three grown men could behave in such a way.
Clearly the kid was a bit reluctant to return to the loving bosom of his family because he started dithering about with his bicycle. "Come here now, you fat c*nt!" boomed the father. I put my head down and turned the corner. I felt sick and sullied.
I wondered if I should report the incident to the police. It's abuse isn't it? Maybe, but if you cause trouble for these kind of people you'll end up with your brains smeared on the pavement for certain. It's the way of the world in deprived areas like this. Fatty in his turn will grow up to treat his own tribe with the same cheerful contempt. They in time will do the same. People in the North East don't change.
It reminded me of the outrage in the media a few weeks ago when some women were convicted for encouraging their toddlers to fight, whilst they filmed the incident on their mobile phones, calling the children wimps when they wouldn't get stuck in.
"How could they?" screamed the headlines, going on to comfort us that these bitches were somehow the exception to the norm.
"The majority of people round here are decent", is the usual cry from the neighbours. Sadly it's not true. Britain has a vicious underclass for whom abuse and casual violence are a way of life. Witness exhibit A: Fatty.
That's just how vermin are. Doesn't it make you proud?
Sunday, 10 June 2007
Anger Management?
My first attempt at a blog was entitled "The Angriest Man in Shire", modeled after the character of David Carr in Nick Hornby's novel "How to be Good." It was short lived, firstly because I didn't think it was a particularly original idea and secondly, although I am indeed the Angriest Man in the Shire, usually by the time I reached the keyboard my furious temper had gone cold. It's that old adage of sleeping on a complaint overnight, instead of simply dashing of an angry letter. In this case it didn't work, because once the fire was gone, the writing became flat and lacking in real emotion.
Anyway this was the introduction:
Okay, let's be clear about this from the start. I'm an angry guy! Always have been. In fact I'm probably the most consistently vexed person I know.
My friends would probably say I am perpetually irate, annoyed, cross, vexed, irritated, exasperated, indignant, aggrieved, irked, piqued, displeased, provoked, galled, resentful, furious or enraged. But that would really just be trying to present a rosy picture.
Some days I'm infuriated, in a temper, incensed, raging, incandescent, wrathful, fuming, ranting, raving, seething, frenzied, beside myself, outraged. But of course no one has the energy to be at their maximum limit every minute of every single day. If you did you would simply boil over and leave a nasty mess on the lino.
Take today as an example. It's been a typical quiet Sunday and at very worst you could say I've been in high dudgeon, irascible, bad-tempered, hot-headed, or choleric. All right, I grant you that this morning I might have been a bit splenetic, perhaps even dyspeptic but not really, really apoplectic.
Tomorrow is Monday and the beginning of a new week so I'll probably start the day a bit tetchy, testy, crabby and waspish. By mid morning I might become hostile, antagonistic, hopping mad, wild, livid or even boiling. This is the time of day when the junk mail starts to drop through the door and I get a bit bent out of shape.
Around lunchtime I like to take a break and watch BBC News 24. That's usually enough to get me riled, hot under the collar, or up in arms. Of course some days Tony Blair isn't in the news.
Then I'll probably just make a sandwich and spend the afternoon getting steamed up and in a bit of a lather about the amount of housework that needs doing, or the mess that the refuse collectors have made in the street.
I might be feeling particularly aggravated, which could result in a narky telephone call to the Council to make a complaint. If I'm really on the warpath and foaming at the mouth then I might dash of a stroppy letter to the bank or scribble a few lines to pour scorn on AA Insurance, NPower or some other useless, contemptible and faceless corporation.
By mid afternoon I generally try to get settled down to some work on a magazine article or my novel. Depending on how successful the writing has been, I might be in a bit of a paddy by the time my wife gets home from work. This could result in me being snappy and shirty until dinner. Ratty if it's my turn to cook. Over our Sainsbury's organic wotnot (bloody supermarkets) I'll tell the wife all the narky things that have happened and generally justify why I'm a bit ticked off.
For the rest of the evening I'll flick irefully through the channels on the Sky remote, getting increasingly peeved at the lack of good telly on these days. Eventually my eyelids start to get too heavy and I slope off to bed in a bit of a bate because I'm too sleepy to read a chapter of whatever is by my bedside.
Let's not beat about the bush any longer. You get the idea. I'm usually a bit pissed off.
Anyway this was the introduction:
Okay, let's be clear about this from the start. I'm an angry guy! Always have been. In fact I'm probably the most consistently vexed person I know.
My friends would probably say I am perpetually irate, annoyed, cross, vexed, irritated, exasperated, indignant, aggrieved, irked, piqued, displeased, provoked, galled, resentful, furious or enraged. But that would really just be trying to present a rosy picture.
Some days I'm infuriated, in a temper, incensed, raging, incandescent, wrathful, fuming, ranting, raving, seething, frenzied, beside myself, outraged. But of course no one has the energy to be at their maximum limit every minute of every single day. If you did you would simply boil over and leave a nasty mess on the lino.
Take today as an example. It's been a typical quiet Sunday and at very worst you could say I've been in high dudgeon, irascible, bad-tempered, hot-headed, or choleric. All right, I grant you that this morning I might have been a bit splenetic, perhaps even dyspeptic but not really, really apoplectic.
Tomorrow is Monday and the beginning of a new week so I'll probably start the day a bit tetchy, testy, crabby and waspish. By mid morning I might become hostile, antagonistic, hopping mad, wild, livid or even boiling. This is the time of day when the junk mail starts to drop through the door and I get a bit bent out of shape.
Around lunchtime I like to take a break and watch BBC News 24. That's usually enough to get me riled, hot under the collar, or up in arms. Of course some days Tony Blair isn't in the news.
Then I'll probably just make a sandwich and spend the afternoon getting steamed up and in a bit of a lather about the amount of housework that needs doing, or the mess that the refuse collectors have made in the street.
I might be feeling particularly aggravated, which could result in a narky telephone call to the Council to make a complaint. If I'm really on the warpath and foaming at the mouth then I might dash of a stroppy letter to the bank or scribble a few lines to pour scorn on AA Insurance, NPower or some other useless, contemptible and faceless corporation.
By mid afternoon I generally try to get settled down to some work on a magazine article or my novel. Depending on how successful the writing has been, I might be in a bit of a paddy by the time my wife gets home from work. This could result in me being snappy and shirty until dinner. Ratty if it's my turn to cook. Over our Sainsbury's organic wotnot (bloody supermarkets) I'll tell the wife all the narky things that have happened and generally justify why I'm a bit ticked off.
For the rest of the evening I'll flick irefully through the channels on the Sky remote, getting increasingly peeved at the lack of good telly on these days. Eventually my eyelids start to get too heavy and I slope off to bed in a bit of a bate because I'm too sleepy to read a chapter of whatever is by my bedside.
Let's not beat about the bush any longer. You get the idea. I'm usually a bit pissed off.
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