Outing My Inner Meldrew

There is something about January that brings out my inner Meldrew!  I find my tolerance of the arrogant, the bullying, the silly, the mediocre, the unnecessary, is at its lowest ebb.  Given that one of my targets this year, as ever, is to be a better and more compassionate human being, I am acutely aware that such intolerance is going to be a problem.  Therefore, I have decided to air the issue.  Why keep secret one's serial grumps when one can spread the misery and act as a beacon for other Meldrews?

I have already started my grumping day on a relatively serious note by dashing off an email to Ruth Davidson, MSP and new leader of the infinitesimal Scottish Conservative and Unionist parliamentary flying wedge, drawing her attention to the bully-boy tactics of her shiny faced colleague the Prime Minister, with regard to who is 'the boss of us' , just in case she hadn't noticed his incursion.  There is an irony here, given that few physogs so invite a skelp as the smug visage of Scotland's First Minister, but by comparison with the man I call 'botoxboy', he has a lot to recommend him.

Thus limbered up, I am of a mind to rant on other topics as well.  Last week, just when I thought I had entirely detached from my former calling, I found myself rising to the bait of a bit of sloppy language.  An 'Advisor' I had never heard of to a Commission I have never heard of appeared to find that most Scottish schools are 'bog standard'.  Being in a position to know this is not true, I dashed off a quick rejoinder to that little bit of slapdashery!  No response yet: what a surprise!

One of my usual targets, the Met Office, is lying fairly low at the moment but I am alert to possible future opportunities.  It was also disconcerting to find that recently the Police seemed to abandon their much vaunted  " ...not to undertake a journey unless it is really necessary", which is incomprehensible as advice, in favour of the more useful "Stay off the bloody roads! They're all shut anyway!  And that's you tell't!" which presumably means that if your employer demands that you skid 25 miles to get to your snow-buried place of work, you can at least sue them should you or your vehicle suffer injury.

While I'm scanning the horizon for other prey, could I just draw attention to the fact that even when they are two years old and repeatedly washed, M & S's navy blue bath towels shed enough fluff to intimidate the dust in any self respecting bathroom, and that is in addition to the dust other people are somehow leaving around our house ... it can't all be ours!

Then there are the people who stand in groups in the middle of the swimming pool, having a conversation!  I accept the social function, but I'm fed up swerving round them when I'm puffing my way through my lengths; and that's before I encounter the single person who is doing breadths so as to maximise the irritation of all his fellow swimmers!

And what about 'recent research'?  Isn't it comforting to know that scientists, having spent millions in funding on their research, are now in a position to tell us that people who report themselves to be happy tend to smile more; that children who are never cuddled by their parents tend to do less well in their Higher exams; that some men are taller than some women; that starving in a developing country makes you less likely to watch reality TV.  If I hear one more po-faced stating of the blindingly obvious I will ..... well, I don't know what I'll actually do, but it won't be pretty!

I could go on for hours about the mining of January irritations and grumps, but I've decided the best way to deal with this is to get into the cage with the lion!  So I'm off now, to meet with three representatives of different replacement window companies to decide who gets the job of fitting four new windows for us!  Yippee!  What a source of Meldrewing material!  And if just one of them says "I just need to phone my Manager ....."!!