The Daily Rant - The Problem with Old People

An old blog entry from 18 May 2009. 

Ok, something happened today that I found HIGHLY irritating and I will now attempt to explain its intricacies for you, just to get it off my chest! Aaargh! My rant is about old people, and how they seem to revert back into children, the older they get.

Old people love their little rituals, don't they. Well, don't we all, however I have noticed recently in Starbucks while trying to enjoy a latte and read The Times that there is one couple in particular who I can't help but manage to find every single one of my 'gears' and simultaneously grind them all into oblivion.

First of all, they always seem to go in for their filter coffee at the same time every day. The husband waits at the 'bar' for their filter coffees to appear while the wife 'grabs' her favourite armchair. I say 'grab' but what I actually mean is she walks at a painfully slow pace, with much sighing and general hatred of life written all over her face, and then finally, with an internal gush of relief from me that the painful spectacle is finally over she plops down in the chair. Meanwhile, the husband carries their filter coffees to the sugar and spoons area and begins his own ritual of making an easy job look like a fucking university level chemistry experiment. I kid you not, he takes about a minute to do this, before finally sitting down with his wife as they sit in silence and drink their coffees. In between sips, the wife is clearly fighting the urge to have a power nap but she muscles on with a sour look on her face.

Now I have had two incidents with this couple which have led me to now be in this position of furiously bashing out this note.

A few weeks ago, I was sat down with Hannah opposite me and we were going through a mock interview for her. Nothing too loud, just two people getting on with their day to day life. We were sat in armchairs across from each other and the couple were next to us doing the same like so (X denotes the fogey) :-

X  Han
(TABLE)
X  Me

While talking to Hannah I noticed there was a sort of blemish on the wall next to me, where the plaster was exposed, so I began absent mindedly picking at it. This prompted much sighing and evil looks from granny. She literally looked at me like I was a turd that had sprung out of Satan's arsehole and landed on her shoe. She didn't directly confront me or say anything, and at first I didn't notice the sighing too much as I was wrapped up in our conversation. Eventually Hannah told me it was because I was picking at the plaster on the wall, so I laughed and stopped and probably muttered something less than friendly about granny.

Anyway a few weeks later (today) they did their usual annoying routine of making the simple act of buying two coffees and taking them to a table look like a fucking Astrophysics dissertation but THEN started to walk towards their usual spot by the armchairs (it is worth mentioning that these are the only four armchairs in Starbucks). Now what was alarming about this is that the armchairs are in very close proximity and that three out of the four armchairs were already occupied by students who were absorbed in reading books, taking notes etc, and who were obviously very comfortable in that zone, not bothering anyone. That zone has "personal space" written above it in pink neon lights I am telling you!

Now GRANNY proceeds to stagger towards her favourite chair all humpbacked with a fierce look of determination. One of the students looks up and notices this with a nervous glance then puts their head down back into the book hoping this disgusting apparition will go away. But it doesn't. Granny leans in close and mutters something to the student and I hear her reply "no it's ok, no one is sitting here", so Granny begins the laborious process of "sitting down" or should I say climbing Mount Everest. So what's odd about this, how is this going to get any worse? These students' personal space has already been projectile vomited on, Exorcist style, and then Grandpa pops along, pulls up a chair from another table, and slaps it right next to Granny like so:-

S X X
(TABLE)
S    S

Meaning, that not only are these students violated enough, but that now Grandad has topped the icing on the cake by sitting 15cm away from one of the students, so their elbows are literally touching in a cafe that is EMPTY!! Childish? I think so. Pointless? YES!

And all this, because these old people wanted their "favourite chairs". They were prepared to do anything to get them.

AAARGH!


Sorry for the epic note, but I HAD to get this off my chest!

Bury me in a 'Y' shaped coffin - the genius of Curb Your Enthusiasm

God bless Larry David in Curb your Enthusiasm, series 6. Angry at having been thrown out of Ted Danson's birthday party for misbehaving he is goes on to discuss where he will be buried in relation to Ted Danson, his wife, his best friend Jeff and his wife Susie (who he hates). In order to not be buried next to Ted (which is the current arrangement), it will mean that he has to switch with his wife Cheryl and instead be next to Susie, so he tries to get Susie to switch with Jeff, but Jeff won't do it because he doesn't sleep next to Susie on that side.

Later in the episode he does a favour for his limo driver, who is too drunk to drive, and he picks John McEnroe up from the airport, while pretending to be Charlie the limo driver. In true Larry form he annoys the hell out of McEnroe within about two minutes of knowing him and ends up stopping the limo in the cemetery so he can suss out the burial plots.

Larry David is a bona fide genius, and I don't understand why no one really talks about the show. It's not just my favourite comedy - it's Ricky Gervais' too. It is unscripted. There's no audience laughing in the background. It is what it is; bedlam. Everyone has a bit of Larry in them - it's whether they choose to embrace it or hide it away! Perhaps that's why I identify with this show so much.

Natty Threads Mon.

Florence and Fred (the Tesco clothes label) have come up trumps with this baby t-shirt with moustaches all over it.

I took him into Truro yesterday, proud in the knowledge that a) he looked incredibly well dressed with green trousers and white hoodie to complement the cool moustache pattern b) that he looked like a skater or gangsta rapper, c) he can play a synthesiser in his sleep.

So who is Ashton Agar ?

If you're a cricket nut like me you won't have failed to notice the phenomenal debut of Ashton Agar in the Ashes. So exactly who the hell is he, and why was he batting at number 11? I decided to investigate.

A bit of a wildcard entry into the Australian test side, Ashton is 19 years old and had played only 10 first class matches yet he battered the best of the English bowlers to all ends of the park with 12 fours and two big sixes. Hardly the behaviour of a tail end batsman! Let me remind you, these guys tend to look like frightened rabbits avoiding the chin music being hurled their way by angry seamers. They are the type of people who desperately try to get bat on ball and look relieved when they get an edge on it for a cheeky run and some brief respite at the other end. A pace bowler loves nothing more than smashing a number 11 on the helmet or spread-eagling their stumps and yet this teenager defied all odds by playing a cultured innings and very nearly getting a century! Astonishing.

Bosh.

Ashton was born in Melbourne in 1993 to an Australian father and a Sri Lankan mother and plies his trade for Western Australia Cricket Club and also the Perth Scorchers 20/20 team. Due to study a law degree at Deakin University, he was called up to the Aussie side to make his test debut at the Ashes - the biggest contest in cricket. I guess he must have been on cloud nine, yet nervous diarrhoea was squirting down his legs at the prospect of bowling to some of the most fearsome and big hitting batsmen in the world and then facing a renowned bowling attack that has already reduced Australia to ribbons on many occasions.

What's even more incredible about the innings is that he scored his 98 runs from 101 balls - a healthy strike rate for an opening batsman in a one day game. Even the mighty Sachin Tendulkar would be happy with these figures. So I think Cricket Australia and Darren Lehmann has a lot to answer for, why on earth was he batting at number 11 despite already having hit three half centuries in 10 first class games of his career. Most rabbits fail to make one fifty in their careers, let alone three! Agar has now scored 336 runs at an average of 39.45 and presumably is only going to get better from here.

Agar's wagon wheel of his 98 runs features two beautiful straight sixes over the bowler's head and a nice array of different strokes!

Source: cricinfo

He is the first player to ever score a half-century as a number eleven batsman on debut, it is the highest score by a number eleven batsman, and it is the highest partnership (163 runs) with Philip Hughes for the tenth wicket. This coming in from a guy who is supposed to be in the headlines for his bowling. Lovely stuff. Although to be fair he is showing great promise in this regard as well, having scalped our talisman Alastair Cook. 

Ashton Agar - the heart throb

It gets better, Agar is a marketer's wet dream, possessing boy band looks (and locks) and will no doubt be the new pin-up of cricket. Even my mother, who is in her seventies, commented "he is rather good looking, isn't he". Well girls, sorry to break your hearts, but Ashton has a girlfriend called Madeleine Hay, who was pictured at Trent Bridge looking quite frumpy and miserable. I doubt she will be around for long as he is now going to have girls throwing themselves at him, not to mention sponsorship deals.

Madeleine Hay, the WAG.

Even now, Australia is getting excited because Ashton has two younger brothers, Will and Wesley, both promising cricketers who play for Richmond Cricket Club in Melbourne - a club that has already spawned 13 test cricketers. They are touting this as the next Chappell or Waugh dynasty, and in an ironic twist of fate it was Greg Chappell who scouted the young prodigy. I read a lovely anecdote in The Guardian about how when he was 17, at the 2010 Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, he was drafted in to a net session to give the batsmen some practice. He bowled Ricky Ponting yet was incredibly modest about it when one of his mentors, Peter Wells asked him,

"Hey Ash, did you bowl Ponting yesterday?" he asked.

"Yeah, I did," came the measured reply.

"Was it a good ball?" Wells asked.

"Yeah, it wasn't bad," said Agar.

Here's Will, Ashton and Wesley Agar in their back yard in 2010. It seems surreal how recent this is and how young he is, yet the guy in the middle bowled Ricky Ponting around the time this photo was taken!

I think his inclusion in the test side is a triumph for Australian cricket. A big gamble that could have been a disaster, but has now poised this test match on a knife edge and could possibly result on those ghastly Ozzies winning it. This event, this magical debut, is one of the things that makes cricket so special.