Need a new years resolution? I’ve got a couple for ya, and they don’t involve putting down the pie
I’ve been chewing this article around for a few weeks now, and it was only today (01/01/12) that I realised I could make this article a topical “Happy New Year” article, with the tinniest of tweeks. So with that rather deflating confession out of the way, let’s get to it. This article is pretty much “Things I want people to stop doing”, so if you don’t have a new year’s resolution, and one of these applies to you, you can thank me by telling your friends and family about my words of wisdom (or just cash in hand).
Nice and simple one to start with, I want people to stop revving the balls off their cars/ motorbikes. This particularly applies to car parks, and Milton Keynes. I don’t really care if you do it at traffic lights, because I understand that you think you’re Vin Diesel and that your woefully clapped out Nissan Micra is actually some hyped up supercar, I understand that so I don’t really mind (read “understand” as pity and “mind” as care). However, in Milton Keynes the average road (although a duel carriageway) is about three metres long, before you hit a roundabout. So revving your stupid, cretinous car away from a roundabout, only to stop at the next one not only makes you look like a cock, but also a wanker.
Revving in car parks is the worst, it just doesn’t make sense, if you were in a queue at the post office or the cinema (in one of those windy, nylon mazes) and the guy in front of you EVERY time he moved forward went “AAAAAHHHHHHHHH” then stopped, you’d think he was mental. However, when someone does it in a car park, it’s obviously the coolest thing going. I actually saw a guy in a Ferrari in a car park at Morrison’s wheel spin INTO a parking space, now either he can’t drive properly or he’s a bell-end…given that he was (clearly not disabled) parking in a disabled space, I’m going with the latter.
I think, this argument is a slight variation of the phrase “only the mad man, doesn’t think he’s mad” instead it’s “only the dick revving his car, doesn’t think he looks like a twat”. Now, I know very well that my blog contains words far too large for any of these people to read, so I’m asking that if you know anyone who does this, tell them to stop, for me.
STOP walking in formation!
This isn’t a rant about rambling bank statements, or strolling medical records (see what I did there?). This is about walking in formation on public paths. I feel that I am at a stage in my life, already, that I fear most people don’t reach until their mid 60s, and that is the stage where I want to stop a group of people, and explain to them, with raised voices, why they are pissing me off. In Milton Keynes we have the red-way, it’s a fantastic idea, basically it’s a really wide path that goes everywhere, making the whole town accessible on bike or by foot, without crossing massive, dangerous roads. However, they are testament to the well known proverb “the wider you make the paths, the more people will spread out”. I went for a run today and had to run on the grass because of a gang of middle-aged people with dogs were taking up the entire path. It doesn’t take much courtesy to say to yourself “I’d better move over, seeing as this is a path not a fucking one way street” but no, people need all six of their brain cells to contemplate how lovely the ducks are today…..well I’m telling you now STOP IT.
STOP Talking about global warming
I have a degree, in biological sciences of all things, I have been forced to sit through hours and hours of lectures telling me that the earth is heating up, carbon dioxide is too high, ice caps are melting, most animals already endangered are fucked beyond repair and that the end is more nigh than we expect. So it kills me a little inside to leave university and to hear, a worrying number of times, people talk about “this global warming is a load of bollocks” or “it’s freezing outside, so much for global warming!” or “one train from London to Birmingham uses enough electricity to light up Jupiter, so I’m fucked if I’m switching off my TV at night”.
I, honestly, don’t care enough about global warming to be overly defensive of it, I “do my bit”, energy saving light bulbs etc, but I do know that it is a drop in the ocean. So, I don’t care that people don’t care, but what I want is for everyone to STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. If you think it’s pointless, wonderful, don’t help save the world but do it QUIETLY. The problem with global warming is that it sounds like a really simple concept and people think “I know what global means, and I know what warming means….therefore, I am an expert in this”. Not helped by the waves of useless, inaccurate, badly interpreted information conveyed in the media, people just think they can pluck brilliant scientific insights out of the air, well you CAN’T. Unless you have a meteorology degree, or you actually understand the workings underlying global warming just stop talking.
Imagine if other parts of science were made that simple, or given such simple terms, everyone would be giving their opinion of it.
“I hear Jean had another cancer hacking operation….frankly, I don’t see the problem; you open her up and scoop it out, piece of piss”
“Yeah, I heard due to a balls up with the numbers scientists recon neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light thanks to their “throw neutrinos at Italy” experiment….I don’t see what the problem is, if I throw a ball to my nephew I can tell how long it takes, what a bunch of muppets!”
And on, and on it would go. This argument of course, can extend to a very simple “Don’t talk extensively about things you know nothing about” rule.
You may think this is a joke, but for most people Hammer-time is a serious problem. For those of you who aren’t aware, in the Pacific Ocean island of Kiribati, at half 7 every Tuesday the adults participate in what is colloquially known as “Hammer-time”, this is where they beat their children with hammers in order to stop them growing taller than them. Having children grow taller than you is considered deeply embarrassing and humiliating to the people of Kiribati. Due to the very nature of this procedure the people of Kiribati have been getting both shorter, more brain damaged and indeed less alive every generation. I think this needs to stop, and that the hammers be replaced with spatulas, that way it will stunt the growth of the children but just enough that they end up the same height as their parents, avoiding embarrassment and creating a very specific average height for the people of Kiribati.
Hope you’ve enjoyed my new year’s resolutions, please go out and enforce them, and then maybe next year, I can think of some more, thus slowly transforming the world, by proxy, through my incessant nagging.
