Excessive packaging: Enough is enough
This week I’ve started my Christmas shopping. I’ve managed to fit in a few hours away from playing Bookworm. If I get out of the house early enough I can usually beat the hoards of screaming kids, teenagers who do nothing but mooch about cluttering up the streets and old people who stop suddenly right in front of you and then look around wondering where the hell they are.
There is the usual range of absolute Christmas shite in the shops like these Lynx gift sets. Firstly, if you know someone who stinks, don’t buy them Lynx. At least buy them a decent brand of aftershave. And what is with these ridiculous boxes? It’s just some shower gel and deodorant for goodness sake! Ok, maybe they are trying to help people by putting it in a box so it’s easy to wrap up – but let’s face it, men will still make a pigs ear out of that job and it just gives women an excuse to waste more time and money on bows and ribbons. No amount of packaging could make a gift like that seem half decent and the more you dress it up the greater the feeling of disappointment will be when the poor victim opens it.
Why do we need to create more rubbish for such a crap gift? 95% of that gift will go in the bin – and if the receiver has any sense so will the other 5%, but that’s another story and I don’t want to slag off Lynx too much. Our landfill sites are practically overflowing yet every year manufacturers put an extra load of shit around their goods, and for what? You’re not kidding me, I know it’s a gift set and in a nice box, but you can’t get past me that easily. It’s a bottle of shower gel and some cheap deodorant.
I have to applaud Nestle - yes them of the African infant formula milk scandal. Their selection boxes this year have new packaging – without the pointless little plastic tray drastically reducing the wastage. Well done, maybe more manufacturers can follow suit?
It’s ridiculous how much waste there is on these Christmassy products. We produce enough as it is and it’s about time there were new rules limiting the amount of it, I’m not alone in thinking this surely? Those friendly tree hugging types do sometimes have a point, look at this video from Friends of the earth:
Crazy isn’t it? You can’t even buy a banana these days without some health and safety official insisting it should be wrapped in plastic. Yes, I’m serious!
Apples used to be sold loose too, now they come encased in plastic and little trays. Why? It’s an absolute joke. It’s time more of our products were sold naked. Nobody is stupid enough to be taken in by a load of flash packaging are they? And even when the packaging is totally clear and has the sole aim of protecting rather than promoting, it’s still excessive. Why not put these muffins in a paper bag like you do with donuts? Yes ASDA, I mean YOU.
I’m really trying to cut down on buying packaging which is surrounded in excessive packaging. I’m also going to make an effort to stop ordering things online from companies who insist on putting tiny items into massive boxes. My bin men will probably have one less bin to empty as a result mind, but I won’t lose any sleep over them. They’ll probably be on strike again soon anyway.
Households up and down the country will throw out tonnes of cardboard and plastic this Christmas, most of it going into landfill when it need not have even been produced in the first place. But it’s our fault, if we don’t like it we shouldn’t buy it. Let’s make a stand against this silly practice. Avoid buying ridiculous gift boxes of items which can be bought separately – probably no more expensively either. You know what’s inside, so don’t let the marketing people fool you into thinking you’re getting something better than you actually are. Let’s stop giving them an excuse to waste cardboard and plastic!.Viva la revolution. Or something.
What’s the worst item you’ve seen so far this year? Let me know.
Mega Bookworm! Yea!
Regular readers will know I have recently been playing a lot of Bookworm on my iPhone. Well today I set a new record. My new high score is a whopping:
1,100,030
That’s one million, one hundred thousand and thirty points. Oh yes! And it absolutely obliterates my previous high score. This now means I am ranked as a Mega Bookworm. Quite a feat I’m sure you’ll agree.
Let me know your high score fellow Bookworm nerds!
I am now a vocabulist
It’s official. After a marathon session on Bookworm I beat my previous high score, in fact I smashed it. My new personal best is 430420, which makes me a vocabulist – much better than being a wordhoarder.
Seems I have a long way though. My score wouldn’t even make this top ten…
Go out on a saturday night? I’d rather play Bookworm
I’ve recently bought an iPhone, because I’m a total Apple fan boy and because, well, I can afford one.
It’s great, but the idea of having a new toy which should impress my friends and allow me to keep in contact with them isn’t quite panning out. That’s because I spend all my time in the App store looking for new things to keep me entertained. Who’d have thought you could get so much pleasure from trying to toss a virtual ball of paper in to a virtual office bin? My favourite app though is a game called Bookworm, by PopCap games, it costs £1.79 and it is bloody brilliant.
The idea is to link the letters to make words, simple eh? You can play it here, even if you’re a total dinosaur who doesn’t have an iPhone.
It’s incredibly addicitve. I’ve refused to go out into the real world tonight because I’m trying to beat my high score of 330540 and I want to move up a rank from “Wordhoarder”. My only break today has been to write this pointless blog post, I’ll be playing long into the night and the screen you can see in the pic above will be burned onto my retinas so I’ll be seeing it even when I close my eyes, and I’ll obviously be dreaming about it.
It’s hard to put into words how satisfying it is to create a new word just in nick of time or to make a 9 nine letter word (My best so far is performer). I think it might almost be better than sex. And it’s even better if you use the bonus tiles or you manage to make the bonus word against all the odds. It’s just letters on a screen and it’s so satisfying, which is pretty crazy seeing as the iPhone can do practically anything you want it to, yet I’m getting cheap thrills out of a green worm and creating new words.
My only gripe with it is that it doesn’t recognise enough slang words or swear words, which is just fucking ridiculous. It won’t even allow you to make the word ‘poo’ so shit, fuck and cunt definitely out of the question. Not being able to use those words has cost me big time so a handy hint for anyone who’s playing, don’t rely on swear words getting you out of jail. I mean, if I’m staying in (And thus denying one lady the night of her live) and playing this, when I’ve already paid almost £2 for it, surely I should be allowed to swear? And I was very disappointed that it didn’t register the word Tobined as in, “You’ve been Tobined” (To fall in love with the incredibly delectable weather girl Laura Tobin), but hey there’s still time. Maybe being Tobined just hasn’t made it to Bookworm HQ yet?
Society is going crazy though, if we can’t have a bit of everyfuckingday swearing then what can we do? Oh well, my point is, Bookworm despite it’s swear ban, is bloody amazing and if you have an iPhone you really should buy it. If you’re a regular Bookwormer, post your high score here and we can compare notes like a bunch of total nerds.
Time to beat my high score. See ya.
Get your brat away from me
What is it with new parents and their offspring? Why do they think everyone else cares about their new pride and joy? Ok, so they’ve had a baby, good for them, but excuse me if I don’t get too excited. It is afterall only a new born baby, of which there are millions born everyday. It’s not a miracle, it’s nature, we all know how it works.
Not all of us want kids and not all of us get excited about these “little bundles of joy”. Not all of us think they’re “cute” or “bonnie” (Even though people say that about EVERY baby, for once it’d be great if someone would say “Jesus, what happened to that? What an ugly little thing”). Not all of us find their vomiting, pissing, shitting and screaming cute – some of us actually find it incredibly annoying.
So please don’t make me feel like a bad person when you try and insist I hold your baby. If I decline your offer please just respect that I’m not interested and stop forcing the little bastard on to me. If I asked you to hold my new iPhone you might not be interested but I wouldn’t insist you held it, so why should it be any different with your kid? To me it’s just a baby, a little package full of blood and organs, I’m really not arsed about holding it. I don’t want to talk to it in a silly voice, I don’t want to pretend to be some daft character and I don’t want to play with its toys or sing along to the latest politically correct nursery rhyme.
Most parents feel the same about other people’s kids. You might be the most naturally maternal person in the world, but you’ll still come close to exploding with rage when someone else’s child is running around being a nuisance. If its your own, then it could shit in your face and you’d laugh about how cute it was. So I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but your kids really aren’t that special, to you they might be, that’s fine but don’t expect the rest of the world to join in.
You do my head in. If you’ve got kids and they make you happy and you love being a parent, then that’s great, but keep it to yourself and respect that fact that some people just don’t give a shit about you. And the whole world doesn’t change just because you’re up the duff. If you board a busy train and there are no spare seats, do not even dare suggest to me that I should give up my seat for you. If you’re that bothered about being sat down you should have reserved a seat. Harsh? Tough, life’s harsh.
If you bring your child into a pub, don’t expect me to stop swearing just so that your child’s ears can be spared. Bring a child into an adult environment and you’ve got to expect adult behaviour. I doubt if my niece took me to a Wacky Warehouse my complaints about the noise would go down too well (Just as well then that I’d actually rather eat my own toes than go near one of those places). It’s also worth noting that letting your kid run around a shopping centre might just piss a few people off so don’t act all surprised and disgusted if people ask you to keep it under control.
And to those mothers who have 2, 3, 4 or maybe even more children, do not even dare to mention how painful it is. You know it’s going to hurt so just get on with it rather than telling the world about all the stitches you had to have to repair your clunge. And if the pain was so bad the first time, then why have more? What’s that you say, because the babies make you happy? Well then, the pain is worth it isn’t it? And you can stop complaining about how expensive kids are as well. Did you think it’d pop out with a bag of money or something? If you can’t afford to bring a baby into the world then don’t. If you can’t afford a nice holiday or a new care because little Tarquin and Angelica need new clothes then that’s your own bloody problem so stop bleating on about it!
Society has just gone child crazy, they are over protected and smothered so much these days and every child is someone’s “precious little princess” or whatever. Everything is about what the kids want, they are absolutely spoiled rotten and they are growing up into monsters. The level gets worse with each new generation too. Don’t get me wrong, I like kids (Actually, no I don’t) but the whole modern parenting culture really grinds my gears. Just tone it down, please. They’re like little accessories. Some like Jimmy Choo and all that bollocks, others like having a designer baby. Keep it away from me, I’m not interested.
The usual stock response to my gripes is something like “Oh but you were a kid once”. Yes, and I was probably a right little shit, I still am, afterall. But that’s not my problem, I didn’t have any choice, that’s just how kids are: runny nosed, smelly, noisy, irritating little shits. So please, get your brat away from me.
Turn the bloody lights off
Oh look, Pete and June (And their 3 bloody awful kits, 3 dogs, 7 chickens, 2 rabbits and their constant stream of posh friends who come and go) have decided to put up their Christmas lights meaning I might as well be sleeping in direct view of the sun as their lights are so bright. Not to mention tacky.
What I find strange though is that garish and over the top displays are normally reserved for those who live on council estates. The general rule is that the less money someone has, the more they spend on Christmas lights. It’s an actual scientific fact. Walk down any street where the average family is close to the poverty line and you can guarantee that at Christmas it’ll be like walking through Las Vegas. But my neighbours are the richest people I know.
I’m sure none of these people give a shit, but I have to say, your displays look absolutely hideous. And since when have Homer Simpson and Winnie the Pooh had anything to do with Christmas? A tacky star or nativity scene, yes. Even a snowman is just about acceptable. A 6ft inflatable cartoon character however? You must be joking. Is it not enough for you turn your neighbourhood into a walking display of tat without you well and truly taking the piss out of Christmas and what it’s supposed to stand for by using Winnie the Pooh as your main centrepiece?
I mean, just look at this from a quick google search:
Daisy’s dream? It’s an absolute nightmare.
And you just know the people inside the house can’t afford to eat because every last penny is being swallowed up by the electricity meter and it’s paying for the Chief Executive to have daily champagne baths whilst being rubbed down by a work experience girl.
Some displays look quite nice – about 1% of them in fact. But it’s a dark November evening, I’ve got my curtains shut, yet I still need to wear sunglasses inside my own house because the neighbours insist on showing off. Turn them off. There should be a law that these lights are only allowed on for 5 minutes on Christmas Day.
Get into the Christmas spirit? No thanks, it’s still a month away and I’ve already had enough. Still, eyes peeled for the tackiest display…
Gosh, awful weather isn’t it?
Why is it that people sound so surprised when it’s cold and wet in winter? There is nothing wrong with what they’re saying, the weather at the moment is awful, but it’s November, it’s supposed to be cold.
Of course, people aren’t really commenting on the weather, they just hate silence and have to fill every quiet gap with inconsequential small talk, which is invariably made up of mundane clichés and fake smiles. People really shouldn’t waste their time, this country probably wastes millions of hours a year between all the small talkers.
Just think what they could do with their time, I know what I’d do, particularly if I was also partial to the odd bit of weather chat: I’d set up Sky Plus to record every second of Laura Tobin’s weather forecasts. Good grief, what a fantastically gorgeous woman. Since when have weather forecasters been meant to look so good? And if it’s pouring down you get the chance to snigger like a little schoolboy when she mentions the word “moist” and “warm fronts”:
She certainly makes my isobars tighten. More of Ms Tobin please BBC, I might even pay my licence fee if the standard of weather presenters remains so high*
Anyway, the small talkers will have plenty to moan about in the coming weeks seeing as winter is well and truly in full flow now – something which happens every year, yet still seems to catch people completely unawares. I’d just rather they kept their weather chat to themselves. Yes it gets cold, it gets wet, it gets windy. Put a jacket and scarf on and shut your face. “I need some sunshine” they moan, bollocks do you. You’re the same people who spend all summer moaning that it’s too hot and that it’s so dry your plants are dying. Make your minds up or better still, just get on with your lives and let the weather take care of itself. It will be ok, not passing the time of day with someone whilst pondering whether or not the weather will “make its mind up” won’t hurt you, the world won’t end.
Though if people stopped caring about the weather, would that mean forecasts would be pulled and there’d be no more Laura Tobin? I daren’t contemplate that, keep it up smalltalkers! You’re doing a fine job.
*I do pay my licence fee, I was just being humorous. Guffaw!
Children in need? Spare me
Here we go again. More tin rattling and smug Z list celebrities telling us we’re a bad person who probably rape hedgehogs if we don’t donate. And yet more Wogan. About time he retired isn’t it? Children in need is probably a worthy cause, but can we at least do away with all the ridiculous fund raising ideas and dreadful pantomime comedy? Do we really need to see Adrian Chiles getting gunged in order for us to stick our hands in our pockets? Or the cast of Hollyoaks doing a tribute to Queen? Is this really what it’s come to. Oh and what’s that I hear, a charity single from Peter Kay? Well fancy that, doesn’t he have a tour coming up with yet more recycled gags? Please, I’ve only just managed to rid any last trace of “Amarillo” from my head. ”It’s been a real labour of love but the result is joyous, potentially another Amarillo!” Oh right, thanks Peter.
What kind of society are we when we only donate money to the needy if we get some entertainment in return? Perhaps next time I see a beggar on the tube I’ll ask him to sing a little song and do a little dance before I decide whether he’s worth the spare 26p in my pocket.
Come on BBC, stop this ridiculous happy clappy smug charity nonsense. Or at least leave the normal BBC one schedule alone and stuff C.I.N onto BBC 2. Maybe it’s all a big plan to get broken Britain away from the tv. “Oh no, it’s that smug overpaid Wogan guy again and all his unfunny celebrity pals. What else is on? Just Emmerdale. Right that’s it, we’re having a family night out away from this dross”.
But then what? You go out and there’s some facepainted moron juggling squirrels in the name of charity asking you for more money – sorry pal, I gave my last 26p to the performing tramp on the tube. Not to mention the £100s of pounds I donate to charity every year, stop forcing all your charity spirit on me and leave me alone. And the same goes to charity cake stall organisers and people doing trips around the world in aid of charity – here’s an idea, use the money you’d spend on the flight and all the other associated costs and donate that instead. What do you mean that wouldn’t generate any publicity for our celebrity friends?
Yes I’m sure millions will be raised for good causes, but leave me out of it.
Please donate generously etc.
iGrump donated £5 for this moan.
