Tag: book

Psychopaths In The Pub

A very good evening to you all on an evening which is still muggy, despite some rain. I am not complaining about the heat because it will be winter soon enough (August-May) and we don’t see enough sun in this country. But that is not the point of my missive this evening – I leave meteorological predictions to those more knowledgeable than I, such as the rather lovely Tomasz Schafernaker on the BBC.

No, a rather more serious situation has arisen within the last half hour, much more serious than my original choice of topic, which was bicarbonate of soda, which I bought for the first time today. I had to search for the ‘Baking’ section of Sainsbury’s to find it and, as many of you will know, this is not a section I visit frequently – in fact, this was another first!

Before I get to the ‘serious situation’, however, I just need to ask if this is ‘Males Talking to Each Other in VERY Loud Voices’ Day? Having been in two pubs this evening with a sibling, in both we have come across large groups of males (or, even, groups of large males) speaking to each other in extremely loud voices, talking across each other as if they were appearing on Question Time, but with no David Dimbleby to calm them down or point to a member of the audience – ‘Yes, you, the lady in the pink spectacles. Yes, you. Oh, sorry, the MAN in pink spectacles’ – to ask for an opinion which is usually totally incomprehensible because the selected audience member turns into a ‘rabbit in the headlights’ and forgets all the arguments they had carefully marshalled before being asked to speak. Everyone else then boos or claps, depending on how much they’ve drunk, and the Daily Mail representative on the panel looks either very ANNOYED or very SMUG, depending on how much they’ve drunk. Piers Morgan, if he’s on the panel, just manages to look smug AND drunk.

But I digress … I now move onto the ‘serious situation’. I am typing this VERY QUIETLY because I think a PSYCHOPATH has walked into the pub and ordered a pint of Carling (that’s one clue for a start). You may remember that, a couple of years ago, I wrote an article about recognising an AXE MURDERER, although I found no correlation between this and the fact that I was reading a book about an axe murderer at the time, and I find the same lack of coincidence between the book I am currently reading (about a psychopath) and the man who has just walked into the bar… He looks ordinary, but I have finely tuned senses (often heightened by alcohol) for spotting these types. He looks mild-mannered, but the denim Jeremy Corbyn-type cloth cap and denim jacket are the real giveaway. WHO would wear double denim unless they were a psychopath, especially in a heatwave? AND he whispered when he ordered his Carling (although that could just be embarrassment) – psychopaths ALWAYS whisper. I shall make sure that he leaves the pub before me (not difficult) and I will send the aforementioned sibling ahead of me to ensure that he becomes the psychopath’s victim rather than me.
Enjoy the rest of your evening. And sleep well!

Possible Career Change

What could I do?

I have been considering a career change.
I have thought about:
1. being an actress. I believe that my forte would be in the adverts you see on afternoon television and so I have been practising getting up out of my armchair and walking across the room with a fixed smile on my face to show how pleased I am with my levitating armchair; however, I worry that the mechanism might go wrong and I would be flung across the room, so I have also been practising my mournful face for those adverts for specialist lawyers – injuries4u, I think, which always sounds vaguely threatening, as if they are going to send ‘the boys’ round to make sure you DO have an injury which will necessitate you employing them.
2. advising on horticulture and conservation. My garden is a haven for wildlife and would shelter anything from a baby elephant downwards. I like to think that I am helping to save bees and butterflies at this time of year, because they love dandelions for their early spring nectar after a long winter. The long grass is also an excellent place for Molly, my lucky black cat, to hone her hunting skills. So far she has caught three dead leaves, a broken peg and several particularly savage pieces of very long grass. She’s coming on a treat.


3. becoming a film critic. I’m sure you’ll have read some of my film reviews in earlier posts – incisive, apt, truthful, all designed to help you decide whether or not you want to see a film. However, I have decided against this job after listening to the BFG (Bazza the Friendly Geordie, mentioned in a previous post) when we had been to see a particularly unpleasant – but fascinating, nevertheless – French film called ‘Elle’. (We needed a reviving bottle of wine after that one, I can tell you!) I couldn’t better this review: ‘The violence was very violent.’ It says it all.
calculator4. becoming a professional fraudster, even though I’m not from Nigeria. This results from a successful impersonation of DOT (Dai of Turkey) when his bank called about some possible fraudulent activity on his debit card. The call was an automated one and required a return call to an anonymous automaton who simply asked me to press certain buttons in answer to a range of questions. After acquiring the necessary details from DOT, I was able to satisfy the automaton that I was my brother and that the transactions were genuine. I now have all the details I need for further activity on DOT’s debit card…
5. becoming a wine critic. This came under consideration for all of a Nano-second, for how could I criticise something so close to my heart… unless it has a two-word name, such as Blossom Leaves or Turning Hill, and is from California (these wines do not exist, to the best of my knowledge, although there may be wines with similar names, but I don’t want to get hit with a libel charge and have to employ some dodgy television lawyers).
6. being employed to shut people up. There is almost nothing more guaranteed to engage someone else’s interest than to sit reading a book in a pub, as I found out earlier (and on many previous occasions). The conversation will go something like this:
Bloke: Good book?
You: Yes, very good.
B: You like reading, then?
Y (vaguely sarcastically): When I can, yes.
B: Lot of pages.
Avoid the temptation at this point to say that that’s the trouble with books – they have lots of pages.
B: What’s it called?
Y: Dictator.
B: What’s it about?
Y: Cicero, the roman philosopher and orator.
Complete and utter silence…

(I’d just like to say that the book really IS fascinating. It’s by Robert Harris and is well worth reading [as are all his novels] – history made into a good story.)

Enjoy the rest of this sunny weekend before we return to arctic conditions next week.