Reach out - and I won't be there, I'll be at Curry's buying a new telly

Hello there.  I have been in an absolutely foul stench of a mood the last few days.  The joys of being a bit mental, eh?  But let's try and be positive - the mornings and evenings are getting a little lighter (unlike me), the bike season starts this weekend, and if it's true that these tickety things I got posted from the Foo Fighters get me into a secret gig in Frome tomorrow night, then I will be literally SOILING MYSELF.

I watched a very interesting programme this week called The Trouble With Dad.  It was a documentary about the comedian David Baddiel and his relationship with his father who has Pick's Disease, a form of dementia.  It was interesting to me because a) I really like David Baddiel (a lot of my teenage years were spent saying to my best mate 'See that blob of spit with all bubbles and bits of food in it - that's your swimming pool, that is') and b) I work in the mental industry but don't know a lot about it, so like to take the opportunity to learn more when I can.  The programme was quite moving, and actually very amusing too.  If you didn't see it, I recommend you find it on iplayer or something.  This chap's condition often manifested itself by way of swearing, calling people around him quite offensive names and generally being a bit inappropriate.  And it got me thinking, and worrying a bit too.  Because I'm a little unhinged, am I more pre-disposed to developing a dementia-type condition?  Has it already started?  And how will anyone know?  I call people twats all the time!  It will be like 'I'm really sorry but your mum has dementia' and my kid will be like 'nah, that's just Mum being normal.'

This week, this conversation happened -
19 year old kid 'Mum, you know if you're pregnant and have a really big baby, will you have to have a circumcision?'
Me 'I think you mean caesarean.'
Kid 'Oh yeh, that.'
Me *jumps off Beachy Head*

About two years ago, we had to get a new boiler.  Sometimes, the pressure in the boiler drops low and you get no hot water (invariably when you're running REALLY FUCKING LATE FOR WORK) so you have to twiddle with the knobs and refill the system or something.  Well, because it's a new boiler, I knew I would forget how to do this, so I wrote simplified instructions on the actual boiler manual and left these instructions in the airing cupboard RIGHT NEXT TO THE BOILER.  Where else would I put them?  So, you know what's coming - last week the pressure went, I opened the boiler up, and could I find the instructions?  COULD I FUCK.  Someone had moved them.  Now, why, WHY would you move the boiler instructions to anywhere else but NEXT TO THE BOILER?  You wouldn't put the boiler instructions next to the COCKING MICROWAVE, would you?  Or in the car?  Or in the bottom of the shoe cupboard?  No.  You'd leave them NEXT TO THE FUCKING BOILER.  They are not next to the boiler.  I still don't know where they are.  But I DID remember how to twiddle the knobs.  So suck on that, boiler instruction thief!  I will now have warm showers, and you will freeze in HELL!

I work a lot from home, but sometimes have to suffer the indignity and sheer inconvenience of actually getting dressed in the morning and going into an office.   I did this last week.  Twice.  I haven't got much to say except this - if you have a cough that makes you sound like you're auditioning for the part of Bob Fleming on The Fast Show, FUCK OFF HOME AND TAKE YOUR DISEASE-RIDDEN ARSE WITH YOU.  I sat for eight, count them EIGHT WHOLE HOURS listening to some absolute HOBO coughing and spluttering away all over the place, and he wasn't even sat near me, he was at least thirty feet away, but all you could hear was portions of his lung hitting his laptop screen.  I pity the poor fucker that was actually sat next to him, although he probably doesn't need my pity now that he's died from catching the plague off Mr I've-Never-Taken-A-Day-Off-Sick-In-My-Life-And-I'm-Not-Starting-Now Man.  Although maybe I'm just jealous that someone can cough that hard and that often without pissing their pants.

We live in England.  (I know a couple of you don't, but just go with it for now).  We live in England, therefore we speak English, with English words and phrases, for instance 'good morning', 'I'll have two pints of mild and a packet of cheese and onion please' or 'HOW MUCH FUCKING ROAD DO YOU WANT?'.  So, when I watch English TV programmes, or read English magazines, what I want to see is this -
'The Daily Shitrag contacted Mr so-and so....'
not this -
'The Daily Shitrag REACHED OUT to Mr so-and-so'
Reached out?  REACHED OUT?  What the FUCK does that mean?  I'll tell you what it means.  It means you're a prick and have no concept of the English language.  And today it became really apparent to me what an absolute BALLBAG this phrase makes you sound.  I was watching an episode of Elementary, the American Sherlock Holmes thing (yes, I generally don't like American television however this has Johnny Lee Miller in it) and this particular episode also starred that well-known Hollywood superstar Vinnie Jones (I used to play darts against his mum, FACT).  Vinnie's character was trying to establish an alibi for a murder, and said to Sherlock 'I was banged up, REACH OUT to Brixton Prison, they'll tell you'.  WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?  I very nearly put my foot through the television and sent Arthur Conan Doyle the bill.

Being screwed by a virgin

Well, it's been a funny old week.  No, it hasn't, actually, it's just been a week of the usual BOLLOCKS.  I thought I'd got rid of my shitty lurgy but this morning I woke up with a throat as dry as a nun's gusset, I keep having nose bleeds because, apparently, I've 'always got my finger up my nose' (what the fuck is a finger for if not for sticking into things?) and I've been landed with trying to get my daughter out of parking ticket because she is 'poor as fuck'.  Aren't we all, dear?  But never mind - I got lovely roses and pink champagne because I'm an awesome not-wife, so it isn't all bad.


So last week, I moaned about Virgin.  And this week, I'm going to moan about them again.  I have a Virgin credit card, and always make my payments in a timely fashion, so you can imagine my ABSOLUTE FUCKING OUTRAGE when I logged on to check my balance last week, only to be confronted with LATE PAYMENT CHARGE £9.00 as my latest transaction.  'This cannot be right,' I thought to myself, and upon checking and double checking, I was indeed right and had made not one, but TWO payments last month, well before the payment due date.  So I pinged them off an email asking them to please explain the charge.  But actually, merely sending them an email did not dullen my TOTAL RAGE so I rang them.  I will now try my best to paint you an aural picture of the conversation (in a somewhat condensed version as I'm sure you have much better things to do with your time) -


Me - 'Hello, you've given me a late payment charge when I actually paid well before the due date, please can you remove it?'
Virgin - 'Um, let me just investigate.......(7 minutes later)....yes, your statement was produced on the 12th, but you actually paid on the 9th'
Me - 'Yes, that's right - I'm still failing to see how the payment was late?'
Virgin - 'Well your statement was produced on the 12th but you paid on the 9th, so your payment was too early'
Me - 'Excuse me?'
Virgin - 'Your payment was too early so it was taken off January's statement, not February's'
Me - 'So what you've actually given me is an EARLY PAYMENT CHARGE, not a LATE PAYMENT CHARGE?'
Virgin - 'No, it's a late payment charge. For paying too early.'
Me - 'Right.  So why don't you call it an EARLY PAYMENT CHARGE then, or even a YOU'RE TOO EFFICIENT AT MANAGING YOUR BILLS CHARGE?'
Virgin - 'Because you didn't pay February's so it's late.'
Me - 'I DID PAY FEBRUARY'S, ON THE 9TH!'
Virgin - 'No, that was January's'
Me - 'NO IT WASN'T, I PAID JANUARY'S ON THE 3RD'
Virgin - 'Oh yes, that's right, January's was paid on the 3rd'
Me - 'So the payment on the 9th was for February.'
Virgin - 'Yes but it was too early.'
Me - 'So how is it fair to charge someone a LATE PAYMENT CHARGE when in fact what they've done is pay you too early?'
Virgin - 'Well there's nothing we can do.'
Me - 'Yes, yes there is something you can do.  You can refund me the charge.'
Virgin - 'Well I can't really do that.'
Me - 'Well let me speak to someone who can.'
Virgin - 'I'll just put you on hold..........(another 5 minutes later).....hello, yes, I've removed the charge.'
Me - 'There, that was quite easy, wasn't it?  Thank you very much for your help, goodbye.'
I put the phone down, and spontaneously human combusted.


To be honest, it was reassuring to know that Virgin Money are not letting the side down, and are providing the exact same UTTER DOGSHIT customer service that every other Virgin company provides.  


This week, good old Trowbridge has kept up the good work by being in the national news, by being the winners in the WHO CAN HAVE THE SHITTEST FIGHT IN THE SHITTEST PUB COMPETITION 2017.  You may have seen the 10 seconds of grainy footage of some pissed-up 22 year old virgins that can't handle their Fosters throwing punches that quite frankly MY 87 YEAR OLD GRANDAD would be ashamed of.  Now, I interviewed a person that was actually there at this 'fight' (ok, ok, it wasn't an interview, it was a couple of texts from my drunken kid who was there, and I know she was there because a text WOKE ME THE FUCK UP at 1am going 'haha there's a fight in Lloyds' like, no shit, I really needed to know that at 1am YOU GOON).  The news, as usual, has sensationalised it all, calling it 'a 100 MAN BRAWL' (30 at most, according to my source), 'even GIRLS were throwing punches'  (WHATEVER NEXT!) and going on about how awful it all was because it was in a Wetherspoons, as if it is usually some high-class fucking cultural gathering place for people with degrees in being called Tarquin.  Let's be honest here, it's a STICKY-FLOORED HOLE full of kids that think Jaegar-bombs are one of their five-a-day and middle-aged divorcees wiggling their cellulite to Greased Lightning in the mistaken belief that 'we've still got it, ain't we Shaz' and trying their best to get fingered in the cow-sheds (are the cow-sheds still there?).


Middle-aged - CHECK
Divorced - CHECK
Cellulite - CHECK
Grease fan - CHECK


Look's like I'm off out on Saturday night then!


Things that really piss me off #427 - people that call Lego 'LEGOS'.  Like, plural.  NO.  STOP IT.  IT'S FUCKING LEGO.  Not LEGOS.  Not A LEGO.  JUST LEGO.  Anyone that calls it LEGOS deserves to stand on a piece of Lego.


Lastly - a good pal of mine who is also one of the funniest people I know and an author has written a book and he'd be mighty glad if you took a look. (If that link doesn't work, copy and paste it, I already told you I'm not very technical and I think I've fucked it up)


https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Exs-Ex-Dan-Sweetman-ebook/dp/B01CYFZJNQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458324104&sr=8-1&keywords=dan+sweetman

Big angry parcel of bollocks

I have not been very well this week so am a little bit grumpy (SHOCK).  In fact having just read back this entire post I have quite a lot of negative energy to expel today.  I’ve had a three-day headache and a throat that feels like someone force-fed me a cheese grater.  So I had a couple of days off work, accompanied only by some Strepsils, the telly and three smelly cats, who now sleep in the kitchen because I did indeed have a mental breakdown about the piss, like a proper, crying, I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE meltdown, except the pissy one now likes to sleep on the breadboard which is DISGUSTING (the cat’s ass, not my breadboard, although now you mention it…) so now every night before bed I have to play CAT JENGA, which involves me balancing EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER OWNED on the kitchen worktops to try and deter her from climbing up there.  I’m winning (and I haven't even had to chop her legs off yet).  Anyway, it’s been ages since I watched daytime telly, so I thought I’d have a laugh and watch Jeremy Kyle.  Well that lasted all of five minutes, because he’s still a cunt.  In fact, he’s such a cunt that it makes you feel almost sorry for his guests, even the ones that need extensive dental reconstruction (oh wait, that will be ALL OF THEM THEN).  But I thank him, because instead of watching him, I downloaded a series of Elementary with Jonny Lee Miller, and sat under my blanky thinking how wrong actually is it to fancy Sherlock Holmes?

So anyway while watching telly, I saw an advert for this new fangled box thing from Virgin telly, that you can apparently record SIX DIFFERENT CHANNELS at the same time!  Brilliant!  Except I DEFY YOU to find SIX DIFFERENT PROGRAMMES worth watching across the whole week's television schedules, let alone ON ALL AT THE SAME TIME.  And do you know why Virgin cannot find SIX DIFFERENT PROGRAMMES that are worth watching?  It's because they have no money to buy decent programmes for their TV packages.  And do you know why they have no money to buy decent programmes for their TV packages?  It's because they've spent all their money sending me an A4 fucking mailshot THREE TIMES A DAY FOR THE LAST TWENTY FUCKING SEVEN YEARS offering me their shitty new TV box.  You'd think that after the first few times of them sending me their SHIT in the post and me not responding, they'd get the message, but oh no, still my letterbox is filled with VIRGIN BOLLOCKS.  I have now decided I will collect all their junk mail (and probably some of the other ABSOLUTE TOSS I get in the post too) and post it back to them on a regular basis, just so they can be annoyed about thinking there is something important for them in a big envelope, only to find out it's another letter from the grinning beard-faced billionaire.  Fucking junk mail gets on my tits, I even got something from some arthritis support group - ARTHRITIS I TELL YOU, I'm as agile as a fucking gazelle!  Who is sending me this shit!

This leads me onto that other place that is filled with absolute crap, Facebook.  Now, I might offend some of you here, but, let's face it, if I didn't offend someone sooner or later, you'd be well disappointed.  'Like and share'.  Now, there are very worthy 'like and share' posts.  Your mate is running the marathon to raise money for The Man With Trees For Hands, that's fine, I'll like and share it to try and boost his marathon coffers - or someone posts that FUCKING HILARIOUS video of Anthea Turner getting blown out of the back of an army truck, that's great, I'll happily like and share it - or your dad's started a new business importing girlfriends from Korea, I'll like and share it because I admire a bit of initiative.  But I'm afraid what I won't like and share, or say AMEN or HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH to, are these fucking pictures of disabled or disfigured people and animals - 'my mummy says nobody will like my picture because I look like Mick Hucknall', 'if you don't say AMEN to this poor man with a hippo's ballbag for a chin it means you're a heartless wench', 'share this picture of this poor emu that has Rod Hull's hand stuck up it's ass or you will have bad luck for 12 years', 'if you ignore this picture YOU HAVE NO SOUL'.  Yes.  That's right.  I am heartless, and soulless.  SO FUCK OFF.  I'm not liking it, I'm not sharing it, I'm not saying fucking AMEN to it.  And that doesn't make me uncaring or heartless, it makes me NOT FUCKING GULLIBLE. 

Delivery persons - why are you stupid?  I have a lot of things delivered - food mainly.  On my Tesco instructions, it is very clear to come through the gate by the garage door (I even tell them the colour of the garage, and my house number is very clearly marked both on my gate and my fence).  This is the back of my house, but because my house is ass about face, the back of the house is the bit by the road - the front is on a green, so it is much easier for people in a great big van to come to the back.  NOBODY uses my front door (ooooer missus), except the postman, and that's only because my letterbox is in the front door.  So just recently Tesco's arrived at the front door.  I said to the delivery guy (who I have to admit are always generally polite) 'yeh I put on the instructions to go to the other door as it's easier for you not to have to carry five crates of shopping four hundred miles across the green from your van to my door'. Do you know what he said? 'Oh yeh, we NEVER READ THE DELIVERY INSTRUCTIONS'.  Really?  Then how come ALL YOUR OTHER DRIVERS COME TO THE RIGHT FUCKING DOOR YOU BELLEND? And why bother giving me the option to write delivery instructions if you're TOO FUCKING THICK TO BE ABLE TO READ? In fact HOW DID YOU EVEN FIND MY HOUSE YOU UTTER MORON, with your INCREDIBLE READING SKILLS?  This ABSOLUTE BUFFOONERY also applies to Parcelforce - this week, when I was sat moping with my illness in the living room, I heard a noise by the front door, I went and opened it and their was stood Parcelforce man, with, unsurprisingly, a parcel.  'Oh, you are in' he said.  'Yes, I am', I said 'why didn't you ring the bell?'.  Do you know what he said?  'What bell?'.  WHAT BELL?  I pointed at the bell, thinking 'the fucking bell that's RIGHT HERE UNDER YOUR NOSE THAT'S BEEN THERE FOR THE ENTIRE TEN YEARS I'VE LIVED IN THIS HOUSE'.  'Ah right,' he said, 'I didn't know if it worked or not.'  What I wanted to say was 'well, why didn't you try PRESSING IT, you absolute fucking JAPS-EYE', but you know what?  I could not be bothered, I just wanted my parcel.  Parcelforce?  ParcelSHITE more like.

Guess what?  The parcel wasn't even for me.  FUCKSTICKS.

Bikes, bellies and biscuits

Hello.  It's been a fairly quiet week.  I've only cried once and I can't even remember having to shout WANKER at anyone while driving to work.  The news is full of the same old shit - Donald FuckTrumpet being a twat and Theresa May crawling so far up his ass that every time he yawns you can see her beady eyes gazing at you from either side of that thing that dangles in the back of your throat. But I did see Ewan and Jonny's dicks, so it wasn't a totally unsuccessful week.


Sadly, I was denied the chance of mouthing off at Sky yesterday.  As you may know, we like watching motorbike racing quite a lot.  Most of that is on Eurosport, which is apparently owned by Discovery Channel, and Sky decided that, despite that fact that each month I pay them the equivalent of 37 years salary for the privilege of having 150 channels showing TOTAL SHITE THAT I NEVER WATCH (that's 75 actual channels and 75 '+1' channels - what the fuck, they think 'oh, nobody has watched that TOTAL SHITE, so we better put it on again an hour later just in case they want to NOT WATCH IT AGAIN), they weren't going to pay Discovery what they wanted so we were faced with the ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE POSSIBILITY of not being able to watch the racing on a Sunday.  This would be an absolute DISASTER, as it would mean that I would have to use Sundays to DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE instead of sit on my ass eating bacon and dribbling over helmets, while listening to the old man say 'ooo that was a cracking start by Barry Sheene' and then promptly falling asleep until the last lap.  Thankfuckfully tragedy was avoided, Sky decided to cough up the benjamins and my Sunday bacon is SAVED!  But it did mean that I couldn't ring up Wee Jock Poo-pong McPlop in the Sky call centre in Balamory and do a half hour rant about how they're happy to pay 14 trillion of my pounds to watch a bunch of BELLENDS trip over non existent blades of grass and cry like girls and then cancel my contract, which was a bit of a disappointment.  To be fair though, you do sometimes get a gem of a documentary on Discovery Dave Plus Challenge like 'The Man With A 15 Stone Bollock' or a good DIY show like 'Garden Makeover with Fred West'.  So I'll keep it for now.  Although I really begrudge the fact that I still have to give my hard earned cash to BT just to watch MotoGP.  BT 'customer service' are the BIGGEST BUNCH OF INCOMPETENT RECTAL SCABS that ever graced our clean earth.  When I made the frankly IDIOTIC decision to get BT broadband a few years ago, little did I know that I was about to enter a parallel universe of TOTAL COCK-WANDERY inhabited by polite, well-meaning but TOTALLY FUCKING USELESS Indian customer service agents with made-up English names like Norman and Melvin.  I won't relate the whole story because quite frankly you will probably want to HANG YOURSELF if I did, but at one point, I have Melvin on the phone insisting 'your connection is fine and working Mrs Rachel' (yes, Rachel is my FIRST name), while I, on the other end of the line, am standing in my garden with the fucking cable SWINGING AROUND IN THIN AIR NOT CONNECTED TO A FUCKING THING saying 'how can it be working, it's not connected to anything, you've dug up my garden, put a cable in it, and left the end of the cable SWINGING AROUND IN THE BREEZE' but oh no, Melvin is insistent 'yes it is connected and working perfectly Mrs Rachel' - no, Melvin - no it isn't.


So Beyoncé is preggo with twins. And to celebrate, she's putting out loads of photos of her in the buff showing off her belly.  Now, I know she's a mega-uber-superstar but I couldn't really give a toss about her uterus, and here's why.  Because it's all bloody fake.  These beautiful photos of her with wispy lace things draped all over her, a la Demi Moore, with not a blemish in sight, us ladies that have actually had real babies know that it is all HORSESHIT.  Nobody looks like that when they're pregnant.  You know that evil weird faced spacehopper?  They based that on me when I was five months pregnant.  Round, red-faced and looking ready to kill someone.  I was covered in ZITS, my hair was SHIT, I had stretchmarks on my fucking FOREHEAD and I walked like I'd shit my pants because I had sciatica.  And why do these celebrities think everyone wants to see them naked? All she's basically saying is 'look at my belly, it's full of Jay Zed's jizz' and that is something that nobody needs to have shoved down their throat.  Although I suppose if that HAD been shoved down her throat, we wouldn't have to put up with photos of her bloody belly.


Some people are horrible. My kid works in a well known multi-million pound supermarket chain (the one that I spend LITERALLY MY WHOLE LIFE IN and that is full of KNOBS).  The other day I was waiting to talk to her, and she was serving a fully grown man, who, when he realised I was her mum, felt the need to make a 'funny comment' about her appearance before walking off looking smug.  WHAT A CUNT.  Why would someone do that to a young person?  I'm all for taking the piss out of twats that put themselves in the public eye, like Penis Morgan or Anthea FUCKING Turner or those fucking skanky harridans on Loose Women, but why does someone think they have the right to make remarks to a young, anonymous person working for a shit wage dealing with UTTER MUNGBEANS all day long?  So if you're reading this you prick (which is completely unlikely but you never know) YOU'RE A CUNT, and you look just like a man I used to know who turned out to be a sex-pest, so I hope you get mistaken for him and someone KICKS THE FUCK out of your genitals.  Anyway the next day I went into her room, and she'd done a fake tan because she was going to a posh do, I said 'how's your tan looking' and she said 'it's fine, but it smells funny - come here Mum, MY LEG SMELLS OF BISCUITS'.   I bet nobody in the entire world has ever said the phrase MY LEG SMELLS OF BISCUITS.  But then again, this is the child that at age 4, when I thought it was raining, said 'don't worry Mum, it's probably just a fly's wee', and also asked me, when she was about 15 'how come there is such a thing as obese Christians, because aren't they supposed to not do greed and gluttony?'  Lord help me!