We’ve talked about the fuckwits who conga-train into the middle of that gig you’ve been looking forward to. But let’s not forget that they are everywhere and operate at all times. For this thread, I’m not looking for the bad parking or the littering type – bastards that they are – but the more subtle behaviours.
Geoffrey Fourmyle (not his real name, but that’s who he looked like, George & Mildred’s neighbour) used to go to a church I went to. He was blessed with a wife and three children – two pre-schoolers, one baby. As you can imagine, their family group was a logistical nightmare, but there they were, right at the front every week. At that time, I was in a similar position and I admired how organised they seemed to be.
One week, we actually got ourselves ready in good time and got decent seats near the front. The proceedings start, and the packed hall pile into singing whatever hymn it is with gusto. I notice a kerfuffle at the very front, Geoffrey is there with his family and they are looking bewildered and distressed – Geoffrey has a baby in his arms. His eyes are anxiously scanning the packed venue, looking for somewhere to sit. Presently, an older couple graciously give up their seats – it’s the right thing to do. The young family gratefully accept and all is right with the world. So what’s the problem?
Geoffrey pulled this stunt every week. When I thought about it, I remembered I’d seen him doing this before. So on the occasions where we were on time and in situ somewhere near the back, there’d be the opening hymn – kefuffle at the front and sure enough there’s Geoffrey and family, looking distressed and all-at-sea – right at the front.
So far so good – I almost admired his audacity. But then we had a funeral to go to. A lady taken from us in her 30s due to cancer. Childhood friend of my wife and they were close. She left a husband and a couple of small children who were there in the front row. The hall was packed to the rafters.
You’re ahead of me here, aren’t you? In comes Geoffrey right in the middle of the first hymn. Now even Geoffrey wouldn’t displace the widower and children, but it sure as hell didn’t stop him accepting seats from other adjacent family members of the deceased who hadn’t seen Geoffrey before and took pity on his plight. To be clear, Geoffrey had no relationship to the deceased or the family – but he felt entitled to a front row seat all the same, no matter what. What a bell end.
Anyway – it feels good to get that off my chest. Did I ever confront Geoffrey? Good God no, I’m British! Far better to ramble on about at least a decade later to people who, in the most part, I don’t know personally on the other side of the world.
Have you come across this kind of thing? Real-life Alan Partridges who take their own enormous plate to the buffet?
No one springs to mind at once. But what a wonderful description that was.
Worthy of Alan Bennett or Alan Ayckbourn!
Thanks KFD. I love Alan Bennett’s writing, so that’s quite the compliment.
Bloody hell, I never thought god bothering could be so err, bothersome.
I wouldn’t call “Geoffrey” half-witted, pulling the same sneaky stunt time after time and getting away with it. Brass-necked is the term I’d use.
Reminds me of brass-necked twins of a thieving disposition that I used to know back in the early ’70s.
Their best stunt was dressing up in warehouse coats and going into the students union of the local tech college one afternoon, where a few students were watching TV.
They told the students the TV was being replaced with a new one, disconnected it, took it out to their van and drove away with it.
There’s a scene in Phoenix Nights where that happens.
You don’t see those brown coats any more. The equivalent these days is a hi-vis. Put one of those yellow numbers on and it’s access all areas. Brown coats don’t make it.
On railway premises it would need to be an orange hi-vis, not a yellow one.
We pulled a similar stunt at the Wembley Stadium construction site, when it was being rebuilt some years back.
We were working in a train maintenance depot next to the stadium and the canteen there was just basic facilities to make your own tea and microwave food you’d brought. After about a week of that, the rail safety man who was with us suggested doing as he did and changing out of our orange hi-vis tabards into yellow ones and going into the stadium to their big site canteen. We just strolled in unchallenged and filled up with cheap hot food every day.
I’d heard something similar except that the two brown-coated ones took a piano away to be ‘tuned’
This happened at the head office of a certain chartered professional body during the late 1990s, although in this case the two men went away with their main Netware file server.
This one happened today. Don’t know if it is fuckwittery or just plain dumb.
My wife and I had just got off a plane from St.Lucia and proceeded to customs at Gatwick.
When you go to the electronic reader you place your passport face down, the reader takes your photo and then after a few seconds allows you to pass through.
This silly cow this am went to reader, placed her passport face down and kept turning round to her friend to engage in some inane chat. The scanner could not take her photo – 4 times.
I was further back in queue but was yelling to her to pay attention. Thick as shite.
I had this frustration recently too. In this case, a lady had her massive carry-on case behind her so that the gate wouldn’t close. After about 10 seconds the system resets she has to go out and do it again. I was right behind her – she must have had about 8 failed attempts. She knew exactly what the problem was but declared the machine stupid and each new attempt there was a “eeh what am I like?” good-natured chuckle.
Why are these people even allowed to travel?
I went through those gates at Heathrow once and managed to get through without any issue with reading passport and taking a selfie, except I forgot my carry on bag and left it behind when exiting! So I am a “fuckwit” too, in my defence it was about 8am in the morning after a sleepless night flying from Montreal so I hardly knew what day it was. A nice agent allowed me to go back in and retrieve the bag (he was shaking his head though).
If somebody has not used the gates before they may not have a clue as to how it works.
Those gates aren’t exactly new. There are also lots of signs
explaining how to use them.
It’s the same sort of people who hold everyone else up by “not knowing” the 50ml limit on carrying fluids
If you have a beard on your passport photo don’t try to use the gates if you’ve shaved it off, if you don’t have a beard on your passport photo don’t grow one.
They won’t work.
A beard is for life, not just for Christmas – S. Claus
Not everybody is flying very often especially after/during a pandemic and last time I used them (Gatwick in August) they wouldn’t let me or my daughter through. We had to then join a thankfully short queue to see a human being. Maybe it was because we used our Canadian passports but they were listed as being acceptable and we had the correct ones with chips in
My daughter did a summer in Shannon Airport, security screening passengers. It nearly drove her mad. It seemed every second passenger was unaware of restrictions on liquids, and took it out on her when she explained that they could not take their special energy drink on board with them.
@black-celebration someone’s made a whole movie about them.
I think there is a grudging tolerance, even respect for, weapons-grade billionaire-asshole chutzpah – but the more day-to-day assholery like Geoffrey in the OP is the kind that annoys me more.
I draw the line at Boris Johnson spaffing 100 million on shit PPE so that a mate of his gets a nice payday – that should mean prison. However, I sense that a large part of England chuckles and says “ahh Boris, what is he like eh?”.
Why are these people even allowed to vote?
But they end up with broken hearts.
Middle finger to bankers in Milan
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/love
I was driving on the motorway near Manchester on Boxing Day, as I’d offered a lift to an aunt who was coming to ours for a family do.
Now, I’m not one to bash White Van Men in general – not least because I actually know a few, and they’re decent coves. However…there was a white van in the middle lane of the motorway, and if he’d have been going any slower, they could have nabbed him for kerb crawling. The fast lane was pretty busy, but I had to overtake him, such was the flow of the traffic and the Stannah stairlift-esque, serene-to-Buddhist approach he’d adopted for motorway driving. So what happened? I went to overtake him, and he increased his speed so I couldn’t. I slowed down; he slowed down. I increased my speed, and so did he. This was on a busy motorway in the dark, where it wasn’t just raining cats and dogs – it was pissing down a full zoo.
It was ridiculously dangerous, and I was so angry, you could’ve sold me to NASA and sent me to the moon, fuelled purely on enragement. I haven’t been angry since about 2005, but I couldn’t believe he was being such a humming pile of pure bellendery.
This may be on the outskirts of Bellend-on-Sea but worth sharing perhaps. A work lunch with someone from another company involved the other person ordering 2 servings of her meal – with one of them boxed up for later at home.
This next one is very much in the central town square. We were all about 20, big group of us in a pub. I ask bloke who was a friend of a friend if he’d like a drink. He replies that he doesn’t drink so, no. However, he’d like the pound that I would have spent on his drink in cash. He argued that it made no difference to me so what’s the problem?
Re shared meals. There’s always one twat who insists on holding everybody up by insisting on paying less as his/her meal cost less or they’d skipped one of the courses/rounds of drinks, etc
Bellend-on-Sea…. very salty
I’m sure I’ve told this before, but the crowd are calling out to do some old.
I live in a house on the corner of a T-junction on a bend of a narrow and fairly quiet cul-de-sac. Opposite side of the road is a narrow strip of grass, a fence, and a large Oak tree in the corner of a park.
Not long after we moved in, a pensioner (a bit of a ‘rough diamond’) in a nearby house started having deliveries of old bangers on car transorters, which would block the road (invariably when we were trying to leave for work & school) and park the clapped-out motors outisde his neighbours’ houses, on their driveways, and on the grass verge, making visibility of what’s coming round the corner impossible. There was one shunt and quite a few near misses, and pedestrians/kids on bikes/parents with buggies would have to cross the road on the bend to access the park.
I politely asked him to park his collection of motors more considerately. Mrs F came home from work to find both our off-road spaces occupied, she was less polite.
“I’m not doing anything illegal. F*** Off!” was his reply.
So I rang the council. I bought the strip of grass opposite (it cost about £1000, most of which was council paperwork), told him to remove his rusting collection or I’d send the bailiffs in, and put a short chain-link fence round the verge, leaving access to the park for pedestrians. And a little sign which says “pedestrian access by permission of the landowner.”
About two years later he came over when I was mowing the grass and said “I understand I was rude the last time we spoke”. “Yes, you were.” “Sorry” and offered his hand.
He hasn’t spoken to me, or any of his neighbours, since.
….so what happened to his hand?
It was a stinking hot high summer afternoon, I’d been pushing the mower for over half an hour, I hadn’t showered… I wiped my sweating forehead with my right hand, wiped the sweat off my hand under my left armpit*, then shook his hand.
So it has probably withered away from some flesh-eating disease.
(*) I missed a trick there – I could have done an impressive armpit fart.
@Moose-the-Mooche
@fentonsteve
I took it to mean that fentonsteve and his missus had broken up and the OAP offered him his hand in marriage – like the way warring Royal Houses used to – ahem – unite their lineages in ye olden days
Good idea. Is he rich? I could hitch up, bump him off and inherit his house (and a collection of ‘bargain runners’).
Cars, unlike records, do not become “classic” just because they’re old. Many of them don’t get on the now-low rung that is “iconic”.