I’m in a foul mood today. A real stinker. A full up dump trunk funk of the highest order. You wouldn’t want me round your house on a day like today; I’d only blacken the mood and then you might not invite me again. Today feels like a new low in a year of lows and there are several reasons – it’s like the perfect storm of utter shit, everything that annoys and depresses me ganging up and putting the boot in. It didn’t help that last night I consumed two big plates of curry and quite a bit of wine and then was woken up early because we just happen to have arseholes living next door to us, but that is really just the tip of the fatberg.
What else? Well it doesn’t help that it’s Halloween today: the emptiest, most plastic and least scary day of the year. Those neighbours of ours have splashed the front of their house with all the cheap, turtle choking rubbish that they can get their hands on and if they come knocking on our door tonight I might have to stab one of them through the letterbox. The pub down the road has also kitted itself out with fake cobwebs and all the rest for a kids party that they can’t host because of Covid restrictions – I’ll leave you to tell me how stupid that is. To add to this everyone on the breakfast show this morning made a point of wishing each a ‘Happy Halloween’, and I wondered when that started happening. You don’t wish someone a ‘Happy Bonfire Night’ or Happy Death of a Relative Day’ so why waste your breath with Halloween. I hate Halloween. It means nothing.
What else? It’s supposed to be a big day of rugby today, with the 6 Nations rumbling and farting back into action. Small shorts, fat thighs and unwelcome hyperbole. You don’t have to imagine the kind of people that will have spent the last 9 months waiting for today; they’re the kind of people that wear Guinness polo shirts to dinner parties. I literally could not care less about the rugby and would be far happier if that through some quirk of calculation all the teams managed to equally lose and just went home. Football is instead mourning the death of Nobby Stiles. Only British sport gets people like Nobby Stiles. By all accounts he was a very decent chap and his death is as sad as anyone else’s, but as is now the norm we must look back and celebrate the contribution of another 1966 World Cup winner. By the way they are worshipped you would have thought Charlton, Banks and all the others had won World War III in 1966, not a football match. Are we so bereft of proper game changers that we have to turn to a kick about in Wembley 54 years ago to find our heroes? It’s sad that Stiles is dead, but it is still just football and Bill Shankly was wrong about how important it is.
What else? Storm Aiden is on it’s way. Another day, another storm. In fact it’s already here, outside our house, trickling down the windowpane and whipping the trees bare. A friend tells me that we’re in for a cold winter, one of those winters where pensioners run out of heating and traffic all clogs together, making every road like a bloated intestine. It really couldn’t come at a better time. All we need next is an accident at a nuclear power plant, a meteor strike and the internet to stop working and we’ll start to get an idea of what the end of the world really looks like. I don’t think I’ll be very good in a post end of the world landscape, so I’m going to have a gin and tonic and consider my options.
What else? The lockdown, of course. News that Boris is about to commit to a high calorie lockdown is not very welcome. Oddly enough it isn’t so much the idea of a new lockdown that I find tough but the whole shambolic, arrogant, misguided mismanagement of society in general. In fairness some pockets of society haven’t done a great job either. It’s a huge fucking mess and it feels like almost everything we’re doing is either wrong or late. Most likely both. I think we may as well just bring it on; let the virus run rampant all winter and hope for the best. No, hold on, I think we should all stay at home until Easter. No, hold on, I think we should all form a big circle and hold hands and pray until everything is completely back to the way it was before. Do you remember the way it was before? You know, when everything was brilliant and there were no problems at all. Of course you don’t. It was shit before as well, so there’s little wonder I’m in a bad mood today with all the value added whatnot we’re having to put up with.
What else? Sean Connery has just died, Hairy Mary is in an even fouler mood than me and, even worse, someone didn’t put the milk back in the fridge this morning. I mean, why do bad things happen to good people? Wishing you a miserable Halloween.
G B Hewitt. 31.10.2020
On stupidity......and other causes for concern. 