Things that piss me off......

It’s years since the BBC ended its Grumpy Old Men series, in which a group of middle aged men, including Rick Wakeman, Bob Geldof, Jeremy Clarkson and John O’Farrell (and a host of other actors, writers, broadcasters and comedians) expounded on a wide range of issues, great and small, that quite frankly pissed them off. It was great fun and I found myself agreeing with a lot of it. Around that time, I was working in  Bulgaria and together with three colleagues, all of us of roughly the same vintage, used to meet up in an English pub close to the hotel and stage our own version of the show. Together with copious amounts of beer (local and imported) and delicacies such as cottage pie, burger and fries, and a local dish called a pork sword – it was a 12” long skewer of pork sausage meat and onions, grilled to charcoal and served with chips, and apart from looking frankly obscene actually tasted pretty good – we used to spend hours complaining about this that and the other, and reminiscing about the good old days (primarily the 70s and 80s) when football was a Man’s Game, the music was much better and the beer and women stronger and cheaper. And politics. And religion. And work.... You get the drift.

I’ve mellowed a bit since then, lost track of all my GOM colleagues and found something resembling peace in retirement. Stuff that wound me up terribly then never even crosses my mind these days, especially the nonsense we had to put up with on mismanaged projects where the customer was always right and we consultants always wrong and scope not so much creeping as galloping away unchecked from contract commitments despite our best efforts. Happy days......then and now.

But there are things that still drive me mad.....pissing me off seems an understatement. So I thought I’d have a bit of a rant with this week’s essay.  So here, in no particular order, are six of the main culprits and why they still piss me off.

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Tardiness. There is simply no excuse for it, under any circumstances. If you have an appointment – at the dentist, the bank manager, hospital, or to catch a train: whatever – get there on time. Not when you fancy it. The train won’t wait, the dentist or hospital will cancel your appointment (and quite right too!) and make you wait weeks for another one, and the bank manager will probably refuse your loan application. If you’re late for an interview, then job gone. It will be nobody’s fault but your own, so don’t bloody whinge about how unfair it all is. Besides anything else, it’s simply rude – someone is giving up some of their own time to deal with you, or someone more ill and in need of help than you is going to be inconvenienced because of your tardiness. If your school day starts at 8, be there at five to, not ten past. Your teacher is there on time, probably most of your classmates as well, so why should their efforts be disrupted because you’re too lazy to set the alarm on your phone? It’s not the job of your parents or anyone else to get you moving. Live with it. Get used to it. It’s your future and your duty.

Sloppiness. In the same way as poor time keeping gives a bad impression of you, so does your appearance. Wash your hair and clean your teeth, often.  Shave. Wear clean clothes and at least try to look smart before you leave home in the morning. This is not something to do merely for an interview or a date, it should be a given. If you can’t even be bothered to make the effort with yourself why should people think you would make an effort with anything or anyone else? It’s about respect: if you respect yourself, you’ll find it easier to respect others. Do that and the world – and your life! - will be better and easier.

Rude people, especially on public transport. I went into town the other day, partly to do a bit of shopping, and partly to meet up with My Beloved and conclude a bit of business (in the nicest possible way). I traveled by Metro, by tram and by suburban trains to get into the centre of the city and then off to a far flung suburb, and traveled in the middle of the day, off-peak. It was fun, I bought what I wanted on my shopping trip, was on time – a bit early in fact (note that!) - for my meeting with the missus and we got everything done to our benefit. But there are just so many rude and ignorant sods around these days. The Metro service came in, half empty, as you would expect at 2 in the afternoon, the doors opened and some people started to get off. I stopped to let them, and found myself shoved aside by half a dozen people desperate to get on, even before the people had finished getting off. And these were not young schoolkids: they were middle aged, even elderly, men and women, blabbing away on mobile phones or swinging wheeled shopping trolleys (I still have the bruise on my shin) who I would expect to have known better. We all got seats, so why the free-for-all? Simply ill mannered. It was the same on the tram when I got off, so I used my own elbows and belly to carve a way through the idiots shoving on – brought down to their level, I’m afraid. Which pisses me off even more than they did!

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Now some biggies:

Governments. As opposed to politics, which I find endlessly fascinating in all its complexities. No, it’s governments that really piss me off. They are a necessary part of the human condition, and have been since the dawn of time. No matter how important your individuality is (and it’s part of what makes us human rather than animal) I would argue some form of government is still needed for the greater good. The days when an individual could essentially do what the hell he wants to to make a living and support a family are long gone.  Even in the most remote tribe in the Amazon jungle or wherever, leadership is needed for the benefit if the tribe. That is what government is for. So why do they never seem to work? Why is it that when someone achieves a place, an office (no matter how minor), in a “government” then all the scruples and promises they made to their electorate go out of the window, forgotten or denied? I cannot remember a single UK government in my lifetime – and that’s quite a few, going back to Macmillan in the 1950s - that has not been racked by broken promises, incompetence, dishonesty, sleaze, nepotism, stupidity, self interest and personal greed.....and the current one is perhaps the worst of the lot!  Then there are the nations that are nor democracies - or at least in the accepted meaning of the word - where some gangster or religious nut seizes power, eliminates all opposition by prison, exile or death, and reigns supreme for years, with occasional "elections" where they are returned with 98% of the vote.  Meanwhile they milk the state coffers to amass fortunes in cash, real estate and luxury goods like yachts and planes, before being bumped off  (or if lucky retiring in old age) leaving his hated family and the population to pick up the pieces.  Think of Mr. Kim, he of the world's dodgiest haircut, in North Korea, that butcher Assad in Syria, and of the KGB's very own Vladimir Putin (amongst a long list of others).  With them, there is no more than a team of lackeys to do their bidding as they see fit: this is not government, it's despotism.  And it still proliferates throughout the world.  Now that does piss me off.

Diplomacy – especially with respect to the old Soviet Union and, now, Putin’s Russia. If diplomacy is the art of negotiating in order to find compromise and solutions to big international issues without causing open warfare, then it seems to be working less well these days. Diplomats the world over tend to be urbane, intelligent and usually multi-lingual, able to represent fairly their countries' best interests, adept at picking their way through intellectual minefields to achieve tricky objectives without loss of face. It requires an intelligence and tact, the ability to criticise in public without offence, and accept criticism without anger. It also requires an ability to lie with a straight face, and recognise when being lied to without reacting in public. Of course, the results are rarely all that one side is demanding, or often less than the other side is prepared to give. It rarely avoids a conflict but can delay one. All well and good. But these days, especially in dealing with the Great Bear, it has become so transparently dishonest that no-one in their right mind could believe the tripe that Putin’s lapdogs, led by the urbane, intelligent and multi-lingual Lavrov are saying over the Ukraine crisis. I watched in awe yesterday as the Russian representative on the UN Security Council, during the debate on that situation, denied that Russia had ever done anything bad to Ukraine, that any problems were the fault of either Ukraine, the US or the EU and NATO (or a combination thereof) and the few troops that were surrounding the Ukrainian border were on legitimate exercises. How he kept a straight face while spouting this filth, and his audience refrained from laughing their heads off at it, is quite beyond me. In an article in the New York Times yesterday, the distinguished American historian Anne Applebaum, an expert in Russian and Eastern European affairs, married to the former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, argues that Putin and Lavrov have spent the last 20 years lying and abusing Western diplomats, simply ignoring international treaties that they themselves had negotiated and signed up to, and were generally making complete fools of Western diplomacy by their bullying dishonesty (I paraphrase from the poor quality English to Polish and back to English translation I saw, but that is the gist of it). She is, of course, absolutely right. She also said it was about time Western diplomats stopped allowing this to happen and bit right back, with a few home truths, both at the negotiating table and in the usual stage managed press conferences. Call them liars to their faces. Refute their nonsense with verifiable facts and examples – there are more than enough to go around. I would go further than that. Russia should be removed from the UN Security Council, and all Western countries break off their “diplomatic relations” until such time as the 150,000+ troops and their weapons (tanks, artillery, aircraft, missiles and all) are removed – once again, verifiably.  Unlikely to happen of course, because Western governments lack the moral courage to do so, and I believe the UN lacks the authority under its Charter to remove a permanent member of its Security Council without the agreement of the majority of its overall membership, and Russia can always reply on the veto of China, Belarus and Cuba, amongst other client states. But, God, it pisses me off big time the way that cocky little toerag in the Kremlin gets away with murder – quite literally.

The International Olympic Committee (and others).   For good measure, let's add here FIFA and  UEFA, but in pissing-offness the IOC reigns supreme.  It's supposed to run international athletics, but also for good measure runs winter sports like downhill skiing, ice skating and - er - curling, and brings 'em all together every four years in the world's biggest (and by a margin most expensive) sporting event costing billions of dollars to host but generating even more billions in profits (most of which finds its way back into the coffers of the IOC).  The Olympics was always the preserve of the plucky amateur, and sometimes there is a little feel good story that supports this notion (think of the Jamaican bobsleigh team and Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards 50 odd years ago, or this year's Jamaican downhill skier who at 38 is competing despite not trying on a pair pf skis until he was 32).  But once the sports turned professional all kinds of skulldugerry has come along - notably the widespread use of "performance enhancing substances" - i.e. drugs.  Now and again, someone is caught doing it - remember Ben Johnson, the Canadian sprinter and gold medal winning "fastest man in history" years ago?  Weight lifting has long had its dopeheads too.  Then came our friends from Russia: after being caught in several doping cases, their drugs testing facilities and practices were found to be so bad that Russia was kicked out of elite level (i.e. Olympic professional) sport.  After a predictable outcry, mainly from the Russian press and of course Putin, the IOC caved in, quite disgracefully in my view, and allowed them to compete - but on condition the team was called the Russian Olympic Committee, wore unadorned tracksuits and equipment and didn't carry the Russian flag.  Punishment? Pah! Don't make me laugh.....  They did so in the 2020 summer games, and picked up a total of 71 medals, including 20 Gold, and returned home heroes as the nation laughed at the rest of the world.  At this year's winter games they are again competing, and despite regular protestation about how clean they are, a 15 year old girl ice skater - yes, fifteen - has been found to have failed a drugs test - two months ago!  Why was she allowed to compete, let alone win a team gold?  And compete, even after the furore, in the individual competition (where she finished fourth, which so displeased Putin that the future lives of the girl and her family are being discussed....).  It's a travesty: the entire team should be kicked out and stripped of any medals won.  As indeed should any team where such practices are uncovered.   As far as FIFA and UEFA are concerned, while doping is not widespread (at least to my knowledge) both organisations and their leaders have been investigated for corruption, falsifying tournament bid results, paying and receiving bribes.  The leaders involved have been kicked out, and sanctioned, court cases and lawsuits flying all over the place, while still denying doing anything wrong.   Their replacements, while not apparently adopting corrupt methods - despite the rumours - are busy ruining the sport with stupid rule changes and proposals to hold a World Cup every 2 years alternating with a biennial European tournament, to add to the biennial South and Central American tournament and African Cup of Nations competitions....as well  as increasing numbers of club competitions.  No wonder players are often accused of burnout.......  And, as a life long football fan, this one really really pisses me off!!!

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By the way, this was not intended to be the anti-Putin, anti-Russian piece it's ended up.  But then, as the saying goes: "If the cap fits...."