An Open Letter to all those with double standards.

Dear Double Standarder (I know that’s not a real word, so shoot me!)

I feel that it is now my duty to point out to you that having double standards does nothing but make you look stupid and hypocritical.

If you feel that you are in a position where you can openly judge other people on their actions, then it may be an idea to check that you’re not doing the same thing yourself.

If you are going to pick other people up on their manners, then you may want to take the time to examine some of your own.  When you have just spent 10 minutes pontificating about the manners of others and then sit there talking with your mouth full and interrupting other people – well, it just makes you look a bit daft.

If you are going to criticise the way other people may approach a situation and then go and do it the same way yourself, then you may need to acknowledge that you have double standards.  If you went to that person and explained that you had thought about it and now felt that you may have been wrong, then that would be fine, an explanation is all that is needed.

If you are going to spend the majority of your time bitching about someone behind their back and yet are as nice as pie to their face, then that makes you look two faced.  Yes, we all bitch, that’s human nature and none of us are saints, but at least have the courtesy to go and talk to them about the problem.

When you criticise others’ choice of lifestyle and the way they choose to interact with other people, then go and do the same thing yourself, people lose respect for you and your opinion.

We all have double standards about some things, I know I have, but at least I recognise mine and try to do something about it.  For you to have them and not acknowledge them makes your lack of insight very apparent and makes it hard for others to like you, or at least to not get very annoyed with you.

I am not asking you to change, I have no right to do that, I am just asking you to think about this and how it appears to other people.

Yours

Alcoment

I’m sorry for the rant everyone and I know this is unlikely to make much sense to anyone, but, god, that feels better!!

Please excuse me whilst I scream…

Ok. 

I will apologise now and warn you that there is a good chance this blog is going to turn into one long rant tonight.  I don’t even know if it’s going to make any sense.

For some people there is nothing more boring than hearing about other people’s dreams (I quite like them, I love to play analyst!). 

For others, it’s looking at people’s holiday photo’s (again, not something I mind).

The one thing that is guaranteed to have me running out of a room, ready to bash my head repeatedly against a brick wall, is hearing about someones pregnancy, especially if it’s not them who’s pregnant but one of their children.  I’m happy to hear about my friend’s pregnancies, but even then, not all the time. 

One of my work colleagues, The Posh Chav, daughter is pregnant.  I have been told about this.

In minute detail.

Everyday.

For the last two weeks.

Now, I understand that she’s excited for her daughter, and I am happy for her, but

For Gods sake, shut up or else I will not be responsible for my actions.

I am now in possession of such a large amount of information about this that I swear it could be my specialist subject on Mastermind (that or Hollyoaks, but at least I have educated myself about Hollyoaks, being a fan of teenage soaps!).

I know about the morning sickness (everyday, all day, the normal home remedies aren’t working), the hormones (terrible, she cries at TV adverts), the tiredness, the reaction of his parents, the…actually, I’m going to stop there, I’m boring myself now!

I’ve tried leaving the office for cigarette breaks that last an hour, carrying on working on the computer, talking over her and point blank ignoring her.

None of these have worked.  Every time I’ve either come back in or have returned from my daydreams of gags, she’s still talking.

She’s like some kind of unstoppable robot.

With no ‘Off’ switch.

I am considering going into work tomorrow with industrial strength head phones, it might be the only way forward.

Avoid eye contact

I have spent a lot of this week on a train, travelling to and from London (hence the lack of blogs). As much as I like travelling by train, it never fails to amaze me the lengths people go to so they don’t have to share their seat with anyone.

Over the years, I have noticed there is an unwritten code of practise for train travel. I don’t agree with it, but it’s there. It basically boils down to the fundamental rule of; unless there is some form of emergency, you must NOT acknowledge your fellow passengers. This can be quite a complicated process and everyone seems to have their own tactics, but there appears to be common techniques used by the majority.

You sit on the seat next to the window, with your bag on the aisle seat, then, either look like you’re reading, put your i-pod on or talk into your mobile. Or all three at once. It doesn’t matter if you are actually doing any of these things, as long as it looks like you are, then you may fool the people that get on at the station after you. One of the most important parts of this process seems to be that you must not make eye contact with people trying to get a seat. If you do, then the good old British sense of duty may kick in and you will end up moving your bag and having to actually sit next to someone for the duration of your journey.

If you find yourself on a commuter train, you will have no choice but to sit next to someone. You will find yourself squashed up against a random person, whilst you all desperately try to avoid the reality that someone you don’t know is about to sit on your lap. However, the tubes are worse in rush hour. There, you are very likely to find yourself in the position of having your nose in someone’s armpit whilst someone else uses your back as a convenient place to lean.

One of the most popular ways to deal with this seems to be to go to sleep. And snore. And dribble. On your neighbour’s shoulder preferably. Then, when you reach your station, you must suddenly leap up and trip over your fellow passenger’s feet as you try and get off the train before the doors close.

Your other alternatives to try and convince yourself you are in fact the only person on the train (or at least irritate the others enough so they might move) are; chat on your mobile, telling whoever’s on the other end that you are on the train (Really? Bloody hell, my mistake, I thought we were on some kind of magic carpet!). Put your bag on the overhead rack and then stand up every five minutes to get something out of it. If you can drop something on your fellow passenger’s head whilst doing this, then that is a bonus. When you have to sit in one of the blocks of seats that face each other, ensure that you place your legs in a way so that no one else can put their legs in a natural position. This way, when you stand up, you will be the only person not to fall over due to the complete lack of blood flow to the lower limbs for the last hour.

Trains are supposed to be a convenient way to travel around the country. Sure, as long as there’s not the wrong type of leaf/snow/rain/cow on the line, then they can be great. However, it involves such a complicated set of rules, that I feel that everyone should be made to take a test before travelling to avoid mistakes!

An open letter to all diet whores and bores

Dear Diet Whore or Bore (delete as appropriate)

I am writing to you as I feel that there are some things I need to point out. This is for your own good; it will mean that I do not have to beat you around the head with your latest ‘miracle’ and force feed you cream cakes.

The first thing I need to make you aware of is that buying the book and looking at the pretty pictures is NOT enough! If you are going to follow this diet then I’m afraid it means that you have to actually cook the suggested meals and then eat them. By that, I mean eat the recommended portion and not the whole thing plus the contents of your freezer!

I also need to make you aware that following a diet for one week will not have an effect. Have some willpower and at least give it a go if you want to. If you give up, please do not issue us with a list of excuses. Do not tell me that it didn’t fit into your lifestyle but the new one will – I don’t believe you.

Also, please realise that I do not care which one you are flirting with this week. I do not need to know that you are following the Weight Watchers plan and exactly how many points your meal has consisted of. When I wake up in the night reciting point values for everything in my fridge (salad is 0 points, but an egg has 2!) then things have gone too far! When you are on the Atkins, I do not need to know where the dreaded ‘hidden carbs’ are hiding, it does not interest me at all.

When you are following Gillian Whats-her-face I do not need to be made aware of the fact that eating fruit and seeds has done wonders for your bowels, or that you can do amazing things with tofu. I have no interest in which seeds you are going to buy wholesale, as I know that in a couple of weeks you will have moved on to something else.

I do not wish to be informed about what I should swap for what. I do not care if what I am eating contains 500 calories, whereas if I made a slight adjustment I could save…Ooo, all of about 5 calories. I have no desire to discuss whether counting calories, fat or carbs is better or how far I would have to walk to burn off the doughnut I have just eaten. I enjoyed the doughnut, why would you want to ruin it for me?

I hope you understand the intentions behind this letter. I do not mean to cause you pain (yet!) but I am worried that, in time, I will be unable to stop myself. For your own sake I am going to issue you with the following advice…

Put the diet book down and eat some bloody chocolate!

Yours

Alcoment

Two things a girl should love?

When will I learn not to subject myself to the shopping centre on a Saturday? Each time I say I will not go back on a Saturday, but then I do! After work today I went up to get Mr Playmate’s birthday present. Though there were the same things to annoy me as last time I found new things to get irate about, and I didn’t even have a hangover! Other people, they drive me mad. Now, I know that many people like to wander around a shopping centre on the weekend, window shopping, meeting friends and generally enjoying themselves, but, oh my god!, why they hell can’t they get out of the way!

There I was, trying to end the hideous experience as quickly as possible but kept being thwarted by groups of people taking their own sweet time. What’s really selfish is that a large group will spread out across the whole of the walkway, you can’t get past them! Is this some new form of torture? Are they paid by someone to do this, maybe by a large retailer, forcing people to slow down and look at their shops? Surely that many people cannot be so unaware of others, they must hear the sighs and pleas from the people trapped behind them, and yet they do not move. I really think that shopping centres should install a dual carriageway system, just like on the roads. That way, you could have the slow lane for people who want to amble around, as if they were at a gallery experiencing great works of art, the Sunday Drivers of the shopping world so to speak. That would leave the fast lane for the formula one shopper’s, who know what they want and where to get it and are not going to tolerate being inched around some never ending system of tinny music and bad lighting. I wonder who I need to propose that to?

In other news, Poetry Man has sent me the biggest bouquet of flowers I have ever seen, they fill two vases! He says that they are a thank you for supporting him over the last few weeks. The problem is that they are just too over the top. He is lonely and has had an emotional crisis (unrequited love, never easy!) that he has been talking to me about. He never mentions friends, so I think I might be his only one. Poetry Man is a sensitive soul, goes for long walks, writes poetry and generally tortures his soul with life angst. It also appears that he’s into over the top gestures! A thank you to a friend (especially not a close friend) is not an expensive bunch of flowers. Stupidly I told Mr Playmate about this, who is taking great delight in taking the piss out of me constantly. What makes this worse is that this is the first bouquet anyone has ever sent to me. Don’t get me wrong, they are beautiful and look lovely in my lounge, but my first bouquet is from Poetry Man, not the way I wanted it to be!

Socially accepted anti-social behaviour.

At the moment the whole of England is currently obsessed by the smoking ban. You either love it or hate it, it’s either making you feel virtuous and righteous or, like me and the rest of us on the dark side, making you rebel and smoke more. I’m not going to go in to my thoughts about this as it will just turn into a soap box rant about Big Brother, human rights and governmental control. However, I will point out that if this to be taken in the way the government want us to, i.e. “We are protecting your and other people’s health”, then I am looking forward to the day they ban the consumption of high fat foods in public places!

I would like to talk about another way of being inflicted with other people’s bad habits and antisocial practices. I would like to talk about other people’s children! Now, parents will tell you that it is their right to breed and that their little darling is just learning to express his emotions when he is screaming in a supermarket at a decibel level that would rival a pneumatic drill, and Darling Jane is exploring her creative side when she sprays some lurid coloured drink all over someone’s sofa!

Just like non-smokers, I do not see why I should be subjected to other people’s choices when all I am trying to do is finish my shopping. Yesterday, for example, I went to the shopping centre, just needing a few bits. The place, being a Saturday, was over run with small people believing this was their own private playground, whilst the parents looked on adoringly. I headed for the sanctuary of M and S’s food hall, only to be confronted with more of the same – shouldn’t there be some kind of minimum age limit in these places?!? Yes, I know I had a hangover, but in any state of mind I do not want to be stood in a queue for 10 minutes whilst the little cherub behind me alternates between kicking the backs of my legs and leaving me wishing I had industrial strength earplugs, whilst he makes his negative feelings towards vegetables very clear!

Don’t get me wrong…as a rule I do not like children and certainly don’t want any of my own, however, I love my niece’s and some of my friend’s children are pretty cool, though only in small doses. I just don’t get why all parent’s feel that it’s only fair and, in some cases expected, that everyone else will recognize little Fred or Mary as the obvious genius they are and indulgently allow them to “express themselves” as they see fit. If the government launched a campaign for designated adult only areas in all public places they would have a very loyal supporter in me, I may even consider forgiving them for the smoking ban!