Beer And KP's Nuts

My girlfriend, Lucy, has never banned me from drinking beer before midday. It remains a practice which is strictly frowned upon, but not actively opposed. Discouraged, but not prohibited. I only mention this, because I recently found myself “in between jobs”. I joked about sitting around in my dressing gown, drinking special brew and watching Judge Rinder on TV, before Lucy remarked that I was describing a normal Sunday.

I will only remain unemployed for a week or so more, but I have found it difficult to use my time productively. For a while there was the distraction of finding a job. Then the election. There’s always Twitter to occupy me, of course, and it was on Twitter that I found myself reading about a particular incident that put me in mind of the recent bank holiday weekend.

There’s a zoo in Bristol, called Bristol Zoo. It isn’t by any means a large enterprise. There are penguins, and in Lucy’s book, that is enough reason to warrant a visit. The love for an animal, based on its propensity to trip over rocks into small bodies of water, can be deceptively strong. Presumably there’s a link between that and her love for me.

We spent a couple of hours wandering the exhibits, before we made our way to a pub for some lunch. I fancied a pint of lager, and like the human adult I claim to be, I ordered as such.

“Beer?” Lucy exclaimed, with a look of stony reproach. It was well past 2pm, but I knew the rules had been changed. She had the air of a repressed tyrant. For a moment, she was Genghis Khan’t.

“Well, I just fancied a beer with lunch…” I muttered, feeling like a child being unfairly denied chocolate before dinner.

“Oh OK, you can do what you want,” she shrugged, and returned to perusing the menu, despite having already ordered. The passive-aggressive force of the action would have made David Cameron vote Green.

I wasn’t banned from drinking beer with lunch, but to do so was to risk being shot, hanged, or worse: spurned.

And so, when I came to hear of Kevin Pietersen’s recent plight, I could sympathise. Here is a man teased with the prospect of a return to international cricket. A man who had made a career best 355 not out, on the same day he was told he would not figure in England’s “short term” plans. I should add, he has not been explicitly banned from the England squad, but he’s got as much chance of making the England test squad as Ed Balls1.

He seems pretty good at his job. There are plenty of people that aren’t good at their job, remaining in prominent positions. Everyone in the ECB for instance. David “Ham Face” Cameron has retained his appointment as Prime Minister, looking like the cunt that got the cream, despite… well, everything.

I know he did some things that has strained relationships. I changed Lucy’s phone so it referred to her as “Piers Morgan” whenever she asked it a question, but she eventually forgave me. We all do things we regret, or things we should regret, but don’t because having a computer call your girlfriend “Nigel Farage” is never not funny, even if your girlfriend is Nigel Farage.

KP’s nuts, but he’s the best. So have a beer, swallow your pride, and get him back in the England squad.

1Whose chances did, admittedly, increase markedly this week.

Train To Complain

Ofcom recently censured Channel 4 after a Hollyoaks episode aired, pre-watershed, that depicted a character dying after a fight. The character, Simon Walker, was left reeling by a kick that hit him like a train, before being hit by a train. Despite the intentionally distressing nature of the scene, only one complaint was received, the rest of the show’s audience no doubt struggling to notice the difference between the character before and after his death. I watched 12 minutes of one episode before I realised the TV was turned off. Ofcom have not, as yet, responded to my complaint that the remaining characters remain alive.

Of course, I’m being intentionally flippant. I couldn’t do what the actors of Hollyoaks do; read a Hollyoaks script aloud in front of people.

It’s hard to know when to complain and how to approach making a complaint. I worked as a waiter in a restaurant for a number of years, and I’ve been an avid consumer for as long as I’ve had money (I’m 29 now, so, let’s see… yes, three years...), so I know a thing or two about the giving and receiving of complaints.

And yet I can’t bring myself to actually make one. When my food is delivered to my placemat with all the pomp and ceremony befitting a beef burger with onion ring, bacon, cheese, relish and side of fries thin chips, only for it to be lukewarm; I sigh with the resigned air of a man powerless to stop his blood pressure rising without even taking a bite. I curse inwardly, but outwardly bemoan the burden under which the understaffed kitchen team had slaved in order to produce the meal, however substandard.

I’ve faced the banshee like objections of a woman who thought a sultana in her scone was a stone. I smiled, fawned and apologised. I refunded, distracted and withdrew. It was a slightly crispy sultana, and I acted like President Assad at a UN security council cocktail party. And even though I would likely get the same reaction, were I to complain myself, I still can’t bring myself to do it.

I have no idea what “compensation culture” could be. I’m probably the only person that could legitimately claim back on mis-sold payment protection insurance, but I’ll never know. By contrast, my girlfriend once complained to her energy supplier when she found a spider in the gas meter box, outside her house. They told her to call the RSPCA.

It could be the old-fashioned English reserve that Hugh Grant made so famous in his many films, and when picking up prostitutes, presumably. I have loads of that stereotypical reserve. I have huge reserves of reserve, like Africa, but where the antelope smoke carved wooden pipes with bemonocled cheetahs, and lions sip Earl Grey with zebras.

Perhaps I should practise. If you work in the retail industry in Bristol, beware the extremely pedantic consumer about to cross your path. At the merest sign of a less than

enthusiastic welcome, or service that would be more usually associated with a kebab shop, expect a drama more hard-hitting than a Hollyoaks omnibus.

If so, apologies. You can always complain.