Room 101

Room 101 was the infamous torture chamber in George Orwell’s ‘1984’. The prisoner is subjected to their worst nightmare or phobia, with the sole intent of lessening their resistance.

You asked me once, what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.

These days it is more commonly perceived as a room in which you would banish the things you would no longer like to see in existence. So, with that view in mind I am going to list my ten least favourite things in the world and banish them forever!!!

Dolls

I hate these things. Actually, that’s a lie. I am absolutely terrified of these things. Now when I say dolls I ought to clarify exactly what I mean. I don’t break into a cold sweat at the sight of a Barbie, and my knees don’t tremble when I get confronted with a rag doll. I am very specific with my loathing here.

If you place a porcelain faced or china doll in front of me there is a strong likelihood it will cost you at least a couple of teeth as I run straight through you to escape. I’ve done it before, jumping out of a first floor bedroom window to escape someone who though my fear was a mere dislike. It is more than that, it is complete and utter abject fear, bordering on the farcical. There is nothing that terrifies me more.

I have a reason to fear them. They are evil. Those dark soulless eyes staring out of a bleached face, often with real human hair on top of a head that is planning to do things that are just evil and absurd. I’ve heard of stories where these things shed tears. The few I have ever encountered have been burned, if I could get them, or kicked, or hurled off cliffs. Anything to rid the world of another little Chuckyesque manic mannequin man killer.

With most things that plague sane minds conscience, there is a reason why they feel that way. I have an experience that I will save for another time but suffice to say, I don’t think, I KNOW these things are the epitome of evil and cunning. Little shit bastards that wear a dress but actually want to be at your funeral. Room 101, you can have these

Eyebrows

The romantic among us consider the eyes to be the windows to the soul. Look in a person’s eyes and you will learn more in a second than listening to them talk for an hour. Now essentially a window is just an opaque portal, what sets it apart from other windows is the surround, the frame. So, at what stage does a woman deem it sensible to remove her eyebrows and then colour them back in with a crayon or Sharpie pen.

Now I understand fully where someone who has actually lost their hair, whether through illness or accident, would choose to do this. I have no complaint or reason to criticise there. Where I find it hard to comprehend, where sheer logic breaks down for me is when somebody who has an eyebrow decides to shave it/wax it/pluck it away and then get the war paint out. If you do not like your eyebrows then pluck, pluck away to your hearts content, get rid of it completely should you choose. But then why bloody replace it.

It never looks good. You may think it looks trendy or fashionable, it doesn’t. It suggests that you have the mental acuity of a turnip. The thing is, if there was a genuine market for the sale of eyebrow toupees, and they looked convincing there may be some justification in the stripping away of the hair, but there isn’t.

Women who do this invariably look like a manic clown that has hit a down patch in their life and just thought, ‘Fuck this for a laugh, I’m going to look like a vain twat’.  It must surely be vanity, and a deluded sense of vanity at that for no man ever has said ‘Wow, you done a good job drawing them on love’. It is as convincing as a delusion as wearing a gorilla mask and thinking you’re King Kong. As authentic as a botox smile, I have yet to ever see a set of eyebrows sponsored by Dulux and thought they look great. They don’t they never will, just stop bloody doing it.

Slugs, worms and snails

Diverse and both educational and awe inspiring, in most parts.  I can see so much in nature that has a wow factor, the migratory trials of the wildebeest, the march of the penguins, the raw power of the big cats and the casual grace of the giraffe. There is the intelligence of the higher mammals, the dolphins with their almost human like curiosity and playfulness, the tool making, hierarchical structure of the primate families or the sheer grace of an eagle on the wind.   I simply love the animal kingdom.

The slimy, vile little things that come out in the rain are not such an example. I know there is an argument that we are all God’s creatures but the bearded one must have had his ambrosia spiked the day he designed the belly sliders. They are simply disgusting in every aspect. They look hideous, serve no purpose other than for birds to feed to their equally as ugly offspring and frankly, they scare the shit out of me. If I took an axe and chopped a person in half they would die, they would not just stroll off in different directions. Neither do I see the need for the trail that slugs leave behind. The only reason I can think of is sheer arrogance, a big ‘Fuck you, I’ll slime where I want’ to the rest of the world.

Snails are just the aristocrats of the ooze monsters that make camping such a misery for me. If they are that strong that they can carry their own house on their back perhaps they should invest that energy into evolving into something useful, like a pelican.

The animal kingdom should take along hard look at itself. The United Kingdom sent all their belly sliders to Australia. 200 years later and they have evolved into barmen and alcoholics. Perhaps this is what should happen, send them all to Australia to evolve into something less slimy and a bit more practical.

Audi drivers

As with most things in life, value should not only be measured in monetary terms. I have a good friend who drives a Range Rover or a Porsche. He is a genuinely decent bloke, mostly. The cars have not changed him. He doesn’t drive an Audi though.

For all their Vorsprung durch Technik, they are actually underselling themselves. This is not ‘progress through technology’, oh no, far from it. It is a machine that genetically modifies a sane human into a contemptible twat.

Ignorant of the Highway Code there seems to be an ability to bypass ordinary motoring laws in order to piss off every other road user within a ten mile radius. Why bother with the optional indicator that Audi provide, or adhere to speed limits.

Yes, you have a fast car. I also have a fast temper but tend not to hit everyone I see because ‘that’s what I’m built for’.  It’s not like your top of the range rich either is it? You may earn good money, or most likely have a company car, but it is no substitute for class. They say a car can tell a lot about a person. AUDI is more Le Shark than La Coste. It is not an indicator of anything tangible other than you are an obnoxious c**t that thinks you are special because your car is oozing a level of class you can only aspire to.

This strangely enough though, does not apply to women AUDI drivers who actually are ok. It is just the men with the ‘size’ issues I suppose.

Cold Calls

I am all for people wanting to work, hell, needing to work in today’s society. As always though there are exceptions to the rule. I used to despise solicitors and politicians with an even hand, I have never been a fan of fat cat bankers and the whole idea of ‘stock investment and hedge fund’ charlatans who make a fortune from the manipulation of figures galls me but there is a clear winner right now. Ambulance chasing firms that ring you several times a day asking if you have recently been injured, or involved in a car crash. This just shows how much lucre there is on offer for these parasitic cock wombles and their twat monkey bosses.

I have now had to resort to abusing these callers. It will not stop me getting their calls, far from it, but it provides me with a moral victory of sorts that I may upset their day even a percentage of how much they upset mine.

Here are some of my retorts that result in the phone getting put down.

‘Hello Sir, how were you injured’? ‘Falling off your mother last night when she farted.’

‘Hello Sir, how were you injured’? It was whilst I was feeding my neighbour’s dog the remains of his dead wife……… hello? HELLO??

‘Hello Sir, how were you injured’? It was most bizarre in all honesty, have you got a pen? You have, good. I was in Lllanfairpwllgwyngychgogerychchwindrobollantysiliogogogoch on my way back from my Aunty Myfanwy’s in Castell Y Mynydd, by Machynlleth. No, no, two ells, hello, HELLO??

These people are the scum of the earth. One day someone will be able to honestly answer they were injured having cold called a Welshman who then decided to break every bone in their calling hand whilst carving their name onto their eyeball simultaneously.

Jordan and her chums

There are so many of these to choose from. I will begin with an obvious one. Katie Price. She considers herself an author, actress, singer and supermum. I consider her an old slapper with plastic tits and teeth who serves as much purpose as the Lord of the Slugs. Her inability to actually do anything would be staggering if it was not for the fact she is actually portrayed as a role model for the modern woman. Now let’s get this right and in no uncertain terms, JK Rowling was a single mother who turned her life around as an author. Credit where it is due, this is a role model. She became famous because she could write.

Susan Boyle has a face that could scare a mirror into a pile of sand, but she never claims to be a model. She is a singer, and a bloody good one. No delusions of grandeur and she should be applauded for it.

You see, equality is all about the equality between men and women. It is showing that women can rise from any background and make a success of themselves, not because they are women but because they are equal in ability, intellect and determination. Therefore excuse me if I don’t see the ‘role model’ qualities in a woman who only had the opportunity to write, sing and act badly following a long stint as a topless glamour model and a footballer’s prick cushion. It is fair to say that Jordan is famous only because she got her tits out and if that is the benchmark for equality then the modern woman is eschewing all the sacrifices that have gone before. The real message from Essex’s finest, get your tits out for the boys and all will be ok.

I don’t hold her in total disregard however, there are worse. Joey Essex is the closest you can come to being intellectually dead without removing your own brain. He has made a fortune from being incredibly stupid. There are few people who could have made Jade Goodey look like a mastermind contestant but this dribbling oik could do it at a canter. Stupidity often equates to celebrity these days, another example being Russell Brand. He thinks that he is funny, he thinks that he is ‘edgy’ and he thinks he is a sex God. He may very well be the last, who am I to judge, but he is not intelligent. He is a preening peacock with little need for the pea. He is dated, unfunny and his ‘controversial’ edge is as real as Jamie Oliver’s  mockney accent. Anybody who turns up at an austerity march in their own top of the range Range Rover Sport is clearly not intelligent enough to realise the message this sends out. He did state he would set a firework off up his own rectal passage should the Tory’s win the last election. They did, so one can only hope that in the near future there is a short blue fuse on a bloody big rocket, lit by Andrew Sachs.

Text talk

I’m not old fashioned, honestly. Maybe a little stuck in my ways but I accept that languages change as a result of invention and advancement in many spheres of life. I don’t mind the odd OMG in a conversation and I really am not too averse to LOL’ing myself. There is a time and a place for all sorts of communication .

There was a time however when the identification of the different uses of your, you’re and the there, they’re and their trilogy were a sign of an educated mind. Now, with today’s drop in linguistic standards they are actually equivalent to the three GCSE’s and an AS Level., or they should be. I hate things like this, ‘Yo wot u up 2 innit bud’ or ‘ I noze dat u fuka like init bruv’. If you are going to swear do it fucking properly. Stop beating around the proverbial bush, and say what you want to say, but do it with purpose.

People will say it doesn’t matter how you say something, rather that the message is conveyed. Bollocks I’m afraid. There are times that speaking properly and using correct vocabulary in its correct context is not a nod to the olden days, it is a prerequisite to appearing as though you actually care. SPEAK PROPERLY YOU ARROGANT LITTLE TURDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Soldiers rule the world.

A footballer earns twenty thousand million pounds a second but a soldier earns two pence a year. Is this fair? Politicians get a billion pound Christmas bonus but soldiers have to kill their own turkey.

Those two sentences are obviously overegged but any Facebook follower will have seen them before, or similar. This really pisses me off massively, more so because having served it is an utter crock of horse shit. Footballers earn far too much money, that is a fact. Undeniable in fact. How much do they cost you though? How much of their money do you actually pay yourself? Unless you attend football matches, subscribe to the TV channels or purchase the merchandise they aren’t costing you a solitary penny. In fact the tax alone, even after they have dodged most of it in fairness, is still far more beneficial to the country than you would care to admit. So get over it.

Soldiers, sailors and airmen join up to serve because they want to. Nobody is press ganged, ever. If you feel that sorry for the poor, poor military then the next time you see a serving member of the forces give them some money, buy them a CD or a sausage roll. You won’t though. You’ll tip your paperboy at Xmas and maybe give the milkman a Xmas bonus if the spouse is away, but most wouldn’t cross the road to meet a real soldier. It is jingoism and so transparent in most cases. In 1998 we were not allowed to wear our uniform outside of base units.

This wasn’t just because the IRA were on the hunt for us, it was because the British Public hated us too. There may be a collective shaking of heads and that was a broad generalisation but the simple truth is just that. We would be spat on, assaulted, abused both physically and verbally. We didn’t care then and we don’t now.

The one set of people who are fed up of being used as the ‘poor relation’ is the servicemen. We get paid well, in some cases and specialisations, very well in fact. Stop banging someone else’s drum and form your own opinion. Jingoism is all this new movement of ‘respect our Forces’ is about’. Next time there is a war; stand up alongside them if you care about them that much. Moral hypocrisy from ivory towered residents who bemoan men who entertains millions whilst their tax keeps you on the sofa, watching your mum appear on Jeremy Kyle. Staggering.

Religion

Controversial? Not really. If somebody has faith then that is great, good luck to them. I am not knocking anyone who believes in a higher power, that is an individual choice. What I don’t understand though is absolute faith. You see, there are different religions, with differing beliefs. Someone has to be wrong, but who?

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Israel. A truly remarkable place, on many levels. According to Judaism the Messiah hasn’t arrived just yet, but he may be due any day soon. When he does arrive he will enter Jerusalem, through the Golden Gate, one the seven gates of the Old City. Problem is though, the Muslims bricked the gate up. They also put a graveyard right in front of it. Why? If their confidence in their own beliefs was that high there would have been no need. If the Jewish Rabbis were that confident in their own beliefs then why haven’t they unblocked the gate and moved the graves?

As for Christianity, where do I begin? The Earth is approximately 7,000 years old. Methuselah lived to be 969. Really? Does anybody believe this to be true? If you do, you may be slightly mad I’m sorry. There so many continuity errors, flawed logic and contradictions in the good book that it is hard to take it seriously.

Through the millennia, there have been so many monotheistic, polytheistic and animalistic religions it would appear to be very much a case of ‘pick a winner’. Every mainstream religion has had a schism allowing it to be shaped to suit those who want to follow slightly different rules. Baptists, Catholics, Protestants and Adventists. Shi’a or Sunni. There is a branch of religion to suit everyone, and the books that dictate their life can always be ‘interpreted’ to account for the next disgraceful act of wanton destruction carried out in the name of God.

Religion teaches us to follow a peaceful path, there are very few that preach open warfare. Incredibly ironic then that so many people have been killed in the name of Gods from every religion. Fancy a crusade? No! What about a good old jihad then?

The plus side of religion is that it does bring a great deal of happiness to those who choose to actually follow the common sense approach to living a normal life. Be nice. That is all that is needed. Show kindness, sympathy and help others when you can. It is not difficult to be a decent human being these days, it is just unfashionable.

BULLIES

No place in a humane society for these sort of scum. The problem is that bullying is so often perceived as a schoolyard trait. A stereotypical boy from the rougher part of the neighbourhood, lacking in intelligence and with his faithful sidekicks, emptying the dinner money from the teachers pets’ pocket. Very Grange Hill.

Draco Malfoy is a prime example in the Harry Potter series of books and films. It is almost a romantic fable in these scenarios, with the bullied child eventually making a stand and winning the girl, the respect of his peers whilst the bully himself realises the error of his ways and becomes a better person for the whole ideal. Bollocks.

If you think of bullying in these terms then you probably believe that the saying ‘sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me’ holds some deep philosophical meaning. It doesn’t. I have yet to have a bone broken by either a stick or a stone. Stones perhaps, when a melee from my bouncing days landed on my leg and snapped it, but little pebbles, no. Names however can carry a pain that lasts through life, they won’t scar your surface but you may never forget the names that have been aimed at you. The scars you carry on the soul, at your minds edge, they damage you, they change you and they grow with you.

Neither is bullying found exclusively in school dinner halls and playgrounds. It is prevalent in almost every walk of life. I’ve been bullied but you see, nobody believes that. I’m a big bloke, nobody would dare front me up physically. In fact, the last two instances where somebody tried to intimidate me were comical. Road raged drivers screaming up to my car until I wound down the window and glared at them. Amazing how someone can go from a raging animal to a contrite little gnome when they realise someone is bigger and scarier looking than them.

Unfortunately bullying in the work place is incredibly common but very few speak out about it. Invariably it will lead to even more persecution, and that is the key word with bullying, persecution. The belittling, intimidation or perceived threatening behaviour of one individual towards another.

Today’s kids have it ten times worse. Whereas in my day you could quite simply avoid a bully for the most part, that option is almost impossible these days. With the advent of social media and mobile technology, you can never be truly safe, never truly escape because if someone wants to make your life abjectly miserable, they will.

Standing up to a bully takes incredible courage and is not guaranteed to solve anything in the long run. It is a horrible trait that people possess to feel the need to feel superior through the cowing of someone else. I am fortunate, in the sense that despite my own character flaws, I have no need to compare myself to others. I am what I am, you are what you are and if there is mutual respect we will get on just fine.

So, there we go, bullies can all go into room 101 and flagellate their deflated egos to their hearts content. Perhaps they can drive an AUDI whilst they are in there, and if they happen to crush a few worms and snails, all the better.

Main Image photo credit: Dave at Flickr. Shared under the Creative Commons Liceince.