Christmas Markets

The sign pretty much says it all:

"Welcome to Southampton's German Christmas Market 2005"

'Christmas Market' is a slightly misleading term actually. What it should be called is 'Christmas Sheds', or rather just 'Sheds', seeing as it's nowhere near fucking Christmas just yet.

I'm not lying about the sign though and in fact, neither are they. It's exactly the fucking same as it was last year. And the year before that.

If there was some strange chemical imbalance in my brain that made me want to buy vile 'lamps' that are supposed to look like rocks, I'd have bought one two years ago. Beads on string, which are apparently classed as jewellery these days - and even 'rustic German jewellery' just because the woman looks like a bit of a pikey - no thank you, again. For the third year running. I didn't want them last year or the year before so, suprise surprise, I don't want them now.

Come on German Market people and suited wankers at the council who book them every year - innovate, challenge, evolve. It's not that fucking hard.

The only good thing about this is the beer and sausages. Although, to be fair, it's not often I walk down the high street and think 'I'd love an overpriced pissy beer and undercooked sausage right now, so I can stand in the rain and eat it whilst getting cold and wet.' They even put a sign on the sausage stand that says 'Meeting Point'. Like we spend the rest of the year walking round in a fucking daze trying to find our friends.

Our Cooker

The hobs. I've lived with it for five years, and I have got used to them, but it doesn't stop them being fucking annoying.

They're electric, you see, which is a bad thing to start with. But it's worse than that. If you were making an electric hob you would design it to perform along the following lines, right?

Hob is set to 'number 3' (out of four). Hob heats up to 3 level and stays at 3 level. Hob is reduced to number 2. Hob reduces heat to '2' level and stays there.

It's easy, isn't it? I mean really fucking easy, right? So why the fuck did someone think it necessary to make our hobs like this:

Hob is set to number 3. Hob gets REALLY FUCKING HOT - LIKE, HOTTER THAN YOU WOULD EVER NEED IT. Then, after about two minutes, reduces to what you would expect to be about number one level.

I'm just...I dunno. Dumbfounded. Speachless. Who the fuck are these people and why aren't they being rounded up and shot? No, actually, not shot. I want answers before we kill them. Rounded up, tied up and made to explain their fucking backward thinking. Then shot.

Back to hating: Crap Drivers

I spent approximately eight hours on our lovely motorways at the weekend and, as always, I was struck by JUST HOW FUCKING STUPID SOME PEOPLE ARE.

Middle lane hoggers. A motorway IS NOT a slow lane, a fast lane and a faster lane. A motorway is, essentially, one lane (the left hand lane) and two overtaking lanes. If you are not overtaking someone (and no, the car two miles ahead travelling 2mph slower than you DOES NOT count) you get in the left hand lane and FUCKING STAY THERE until you need to overtake someone. Once you're done overtaking, return to the left hand lane. This way, those of us who want to go faster than you have two lanes in which to organise ourselves instead of (legally) one.

But we all know this, right? If you're sitting there thinking, 'No, the left hand lane is the slow lane for lorries' then it's you I'm talking to YOU ANNOYING CUNT. And it's no surprise that most of the middle lane hoggers I pass are talking on the phone. I've seen enough accidents and near misses in my many motorway miles to know that it's a risky business and you sitting there chatting on the phone is putting me one step closer to getting killed, so fucking stop it.

When a middle lane hogger is encountered another breed of annoying motorway driver is inevitably experienced - those cunts who come as close behind you as possible and flash their lights in a 'get out of my way' style gesture. Now this, used against the middle lane lot, or similar, is fine (maybe not the getting-as-close-as-possible-thing, but the flashing). They're illegitimately in the way and you're asking them to move. If I'm overtaking someone, however, having pulled out with plenty of room, legitimately taking up overtaking space, I'll be fucked if I'm speeding up anymore just so Mr Wanky Audi can prove he's even more of a prick than is blatantly obvious. And it's always Audis, isn't it? Next time you're on a motorway and you think 'what a wanker', have a look - I bet it's a fucking Audi.

I'll tell you what else I hate - fucking motorway service stations. Most of the time you want to pull in, fill up with petrol, then continue, right? So how come I always end up in the tossing HGV park? Or driving round the fucking car park? I'll tell you why - because the signs are crap and they're trying to fool you into going into their overpriced, piss-stinking excuse for a set of shops. No, I don't want to spend £1 on a packet of crisps that would cost me 20p from a normal shop, you thieving bastards!

It's been a bit of a week for genitalia

Walking through the park the other lunchtime I passed a fairly ordinary looking bloke. He was about 50-ish, I would say, and slightly scruffy - not a drinking-cider-all-day kinda scruffy, just not particularly smart. He was clean shaven, wore a blue coat and a smart-ish pair of trousers. He was carrying a carrier bag but, again, it wasn't a holds-all-his-worldly-posessions kinda carrier bag, just a normal sort of couldn't-think-of-anything-better-to-put-it-in kinda carrier bag. He was as non-descript as it gets really, minding his own business, apart from one thing - his cock was hanging out the front of his trousers. I've no idea if he knew this or not, but there it was, dangling around for all to see. I suppose he might be a park-wanking pervert of some kind, I don't know. He seemed not to have particularly noticed.

My Spanish teacher is a middle-aged woman of average height and build and, like park-wanker, fairly non-descript. That is, of course, apart from one thing - she was today sporting the most blatant and extreme case of cameltoe I have ever seen. Quite frankly, it wouldn't have been any more obvious if she were naked. Some less-selective perverts than myself might have seen this as a good thing. I have to admit, it was difficult to ignore after I'd seen it initially, but I certainly wasn't storing the memories away for later, if you know what I mean. No - loud, scatty, middle aged, very, very Spanish women don't really do it for me I'm afraid, even if they are showing off their bits. And, for some reason, I can just imagine them being very, very hairy bits.

I really need to go and not think about this.