Random acts of ranting
This is a set of random act about random things.
First of all, how hard is it to get a decent cappuccino in this city? Do we get up at 6am, leave the house caffeine-free, rush to Waterloo station to check in for a Eurostar train to Paris, only to get a 1.95GBP cup of water soaked in burnt beans? Do we rush out of the house to catch a late-running, over-crowded train, only to stop at the café on the way to the station and be made to wait 10 minutes for a nasty, frothed up cup of ashtray residue? Seriously, if you're gonna serve crap coffee, then don't serve it. It's so uncivilized. Stressed out commuters take the time out of their hectic journeys to patronize your establishment and they don't ask for much - the least you could do is give them a decent cappuccino. Really, it doesn't take much, and it certainly doesn't take 10 friggin' minutes. And wash out the spout between cups, or at least change the grounds so it doesn't taste like you've passed garden compost through your espresso machine.
Speaking of Waterloo station, there was a guy outside there the other day dressed as a gorilla, collecting funds for Childline. Now, I'm all for giving money for charity and all that, but what's with the gorilla suit? What is it that would make us give more money for a children's charity to a guy dressed as a gorilla than a guy, say, not dressed as a gorilla? Do we somehow think that a
man who decides to hide inside a gorilla suit is more trustworthy? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense... in fact, I think the whole sociology of donation would make an interesting thesis for some poor PhD student - see how much money you can wrangle out of people without dressing up as a mammal.
My last rant is about stupid people. I happened to be (yet again - there's a rant in there somewhere) queueing up to pay for a halogen bulb in the lighting department at John Lewis. My main objection to being made to queue is that you're invariably forced to hear the conversations of your fellow shoppers, some of whom simply shouldn't be allowed to consume our oxygen and pollute our atmosphere with the carbon by-products of their pointless respiration. For near the cashier was a stand with 'Blinky Lights'. Blinky Lights, it seems, are pointless, tacky, plastic, battery-operated cubes with flashing LEDs inside, which you can put inside a vase or some other container to impress your guests with your utter cheapness and complete disregard for the environment. It would take a person completely without taste to stop and admire Blinky Lights for more than two seconds. But would you believe it, there are such middle-aged women in the world, who would not only admire said tack, but would even contemplate buying them so she could serve them in a glass with a gin and tonic as a means of impressing some unfortunate acquaintance. Fortunately for her, there was another man in the queue with better temperament than myself, who politely pointed out that, actually, that might not be such a great idea, as gin and tonic probably doesn't go so well served with a Nickel Cadmium battery. "Oh yes, that's true!", she says, "I might give them lead poisoning!" (errm.... yes, if you served it with, say, filings from your Victorian water pipes!) "It takes a man to think of these things, doesn't it?" Well, no, actually, it takes a complete moron to have such a friggin' stupid idea in the first place.......
First of all, how hard is it to get a decent cappuccino in this city? Do we get up at 6am, leave the house caffeine-free, rush to Waterloo station to check in for a Eurostar train to Paris, only to get a 1.95GBP cup of water soaked in burnt beans? Do we rush out of the house to catch a late-running, over-crowded train, only to stop at the café on the way to the station and be made to wait 10 minutes for a nasty, frothed up cup of ashtray residue? Seriously, if you're gonna serve crap coffee, then don't serve it. It's so uncivilized. Stressed out commuters take the time out of their hectic journeys to patronize your establishment and they don't ask for much - the least you could do is give them a decent cappuccino. Really, it doesn't take much, and it certainly doesn't take 10 friggin' minutes. And wash out the spout between cups, or at least change the grounds so it doesn't taste like you've passed garden compost through your espresso machine.
Speaking of Waterloo station, there was a guy outside there the other day dressed as a gorilla, collecting funds for Childline. Now, I'm all for giving money for charity and all that, but what's with the gorilla suit? What is it that would make us give more money for a children's charity to a guy dressed as a gorilla than a guy, say, not dressed as a gorilla? Do we somehow think that a
man who decides to hide inside a gorilla suit is more trustworthy? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense... in fact, I think the whole sociology of donation would make an interesting thesis for some poor PhD student - see how much money you can wrangle out of people without dressing up as a mammal.
My last rant is about stupid people. I happened to be (yet again - there's a rant in there somewhere) queueing up to pay for a halogen bulb in the lighting department at John Lewis. My main objection to being made to queue is that you're invariably forced to hear the conversations of your fellow shoppers, some of whom simply shouldn't be allowed to consume our oxygen and pollute our atmosphere with the carbon by-products of their pointless respiration. For near the cashier was a stand with 'Blinky Lights'. Blinky Lights, it seems, are pointless, tacky, plastic, battery-operated cubes with flashing LEDs inside, which you can put inside a vase or some other container to impress your guests with your utter cheapness and complete disregard for the environment. It would take a person completely without taste to stop and admire Blinky Lights for more than two seconds. But would you believe it, there are such middle-aged women in the world, who would not only admire said tack, but would even contemplate buying them so she could serve them in a glass with a gin and tonic as a means of impressing some unfortunate acquaintance. Fortunately for her, there was another man in the queue with better temperament than myself, who politely pointed out that, actually, that might not be such a great idea, as gin and tonic probably doesn't go so well served with a Nickel Cadmium battery. "Oh yes, that's true!", she says, "I might give them lead poisoning!" (errm.... yes, if you served it with, say, filings from your Victorian water pipes!) "It takes a man to think of these things, doesn't it?" Well, no, actually, it takes a complete moron to have such a friggin' stupid idea in the first place.......
posted by CCT at 5:45 pm
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