Skip to main content

The pleasure /pain principle

You remember the ads. Don't make out like you don't. Someone eats a tasty yoghurt (or signs up for a credit card, my memory's somewhat hazy) and someone else sticks their hand in a wood chipper (or is gored by a rhino, again, I forget). Well it's an interesting idea. Well no, it's not, but it's a fragile peg on which to hang a blog post, and I'm bored. So it'll do.

So, in the spirit of those adverts for either a yoghurt I never ate or a credit card I never got (still not sure) here are my top five hateable individuals, each piece of bile balanced with what may prove to be a redeeming feature. Or not. The jury's out.

CHERYL COLE
AGAINST: that single, you know the one. Also massive racist, though that seems to have been forgotten.
FOR: married Ashley, so nobody else has to, doesn't sit well with the charge of racism I know but hey. We're due some revision.

TAIO CRUZ
AGAINST: see below
FOR: endearing admission in an interview that he invented a grammatically incorrect construction in an attempt to prove himself as being "down with the street"

CHRIS MOYLES
AGAINST: now surely I don't need to go into detail here, I've actually attempted to listen to his show, some radio reviewers of decent standing have actually been complimentary and whilst it's perceptible that there's a vestige of an articulate human being in there somewhere it's drowned in a sea of him bellowing over his co-presenters. Boorish.
FOR: CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN! FOR CHARITY! WITH CHERYL COLE! Actually give Cheryl another point there. Though it was in africa, so she probably wasn't too happy about it. And I don't know. I still have a sneaking suspicion that he's actually a decent guy. I have no evidence to support this, though.

JULIAN CASABLANCAS
AGAINST: Floppy-faced, cack-handed, self regarding wankbag whose new record makes alphabeat sound like Carcass. The living embodiment of everything hatable about hipsters.
FOR: Has a dog called Voltron

HRH THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH
AGAINST: gun-happy, xenophobic leech
FOR: best value for money of any royal, see recent rant about having to "make love" to TV remotes to get them to work. Also that crack to a scottish driving instructor about "keeping the natives off the booze" (apologies to scottish readers, nevertheless amusing)

so there, you see? Coastalblog. Balanced. Even handed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Creepy old men

I note, somewhat wearily, that creepy old men are back in the news, being creepy. Creepy old men, and their apologists and enablers, who argue that their creepiness is somehow the natural order of things. Old men would have you believe that it is difficult to not be a creepy old man. That it is a task of epic proportions. It is not that difficult. It is a matter of intention. As yet more of the grimness of Epstein unfolds, creepy old men are, sadly, a flaccid topic once again. Whether it be pursuing students thirty years their junior, or simply not asking too many questions about the background of the probably legal young woman who you've just been introduced to by your good pal Jeff. To be clear, I am not referring to criminal creepy old men, the ones who actually committed statutory rape, the ones who fucked trafficked hirls. That is not something which is allowed to get away merely with the contempt of the observer.  That deserves prison.  No , I'm referring to the hinterla...

Inedible

"He says it's inedible" said my front of house manager, as she laid the half-eaten fish and chips in front of me, and instantly I relaxed.  Clearly, I observed, it was edible to some degree. I comped it, because I can't be arsed arguing the toss, and I want to make my front of house's lives as simple as possible. The haddock had been delivered that morning. The fryers had been cleaned that morning. The batter had been made that morning (and it's very good batter, ask me nicely and I'll give you the recipe some time). The fish and chips was identical to the other 27 portions I'd sent out on that lunch service, all of which had come back more or less hoovered up, we have have a (justified, if I do say so myself) very good reputation for our chips. But it was, apparently, "inedible". When it comes to complaints, less is more. If you use a hyperbolic word like that, I'll switch off, you've marked yourself as a rube, a chump, I'm not g...

The daftest complaint I ever had

I have written here several times down the years about customer complaints, both justified and idiotic. Working in hospitality they are an ineivitability. No matter how good you are, how consistent, you will get complaints. Very few of them stick in the memory, but some, by virtue of their extreme idiocy, do. And one popped into my mind as I was plating up a dish this lunchtime, and I thought, why not, it's as good a thing to write a blog about as any. It's also an entertaining example of how events can play out in ways you may not expect at the time. It sticks in the mind as it combined stupidity with a petty malice and venality which leaves me with no qualms about taking the piss out of it publicly. I rarely let bad reviews lie, if I feel they're unfair I might demur, if I feel they're reasonable I'll make a point of apologising. If they're stupid I'll take pleasure in replying very politely. This one got ignored. It happened on a Sunday, which is another ...