Category Archives: Alastair’s Articles

Articles and stories written by Alastair Hazell. Includes humorous stories about everyday life, plus interesting articles on life, culture, The Internet and social trends.

Teenage Love… In The Middle Of Costa!

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Teenage Couple

Today, I have decided to work from Costa; as a break from being at home. I’ve got my coffee, I’ve got my sandwich and I’ve got my berry muffin. Unfortunately for me, I’ve also “got” a teenage couple sitting on the table next to me. These two teenagers have clearly just discovered the delights of kissing (they’re sitting there sucking each other’s faces off). Now, anyone normal would find a corner somewhere to engage in this private and newly-exciting activity. But, no, they’re literally sitting right in the middle of Costa.

I could move all my stuff (laptop, jacket, bag, coffee, sandwich) onto another table nearby. But, instead, I’m going to sit here, moan lots and think up some mischievous ideas for what to do next. I could:

  1. Tell them to get a room at a hotel (one that allows children!)
  2. Tut loudly
  3. Do nothing (and plug my earphones in)… far too sensible, that one!
  4. Hit them. Lots.
  5. Start singing. Perhaps a song such as “it started with a kiss…” by Hot Chocolate. I wonder, is there a song called “f*** off and do that somewhere else before I strangle you with my scarf and bury you both in a plant pot!!”
  6. Find the nearest supermarket, buy a can of beans, scoff the lot and… well, you can probably guess the rest…
  7. Take photographs, threaten to tell their parents and then blackmail them for everything they’ve got (£2.43 in pocket money and half a packet of Chewits)

They clearly think they’re invisible to everyone and that everyone in Costa is hard-of-hearing. I am, at this very moment, wondering whether such a public display of teenage passion is a decent motive for murder.

Maybe I’m just jealous. Do you think I’m jealous? When I was a teenager, I was just happy for a girl to notice me (usually followed by a face of disgust or a comment of “why are you standing outside the girls’ changing rooms?”). I’m not bitter… ;)

Oh crap. I’ve just noticed. I’m looking around at the other tables in here and EVERYONE is a teenager. I’ve accidentally walked into the local puberty asylum. There’s only one thing for it, I’m going to have to put on some tracksuit bottoms, spray myself with 13 cans of Lynx deodorant and don a baseball cap.

You know what, I’m going to be a bit nicer to this couple. I mean, we were all young once. I haven’t eaten my muffin yet, so I could give them that… in small pieces… projected with velocity at their faces!! No, you know what, I’ll go and buy them a present… do they sell Chlamydia Test gift tokens in Boots? ;-)

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Bulgaria

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Bulgaria

When I was deliberating over whether to write a blog article about my time in Sofia, Bulgaria, I considered putting it to a public vote. It would have been simple – shake your head to vote ‘yes‘ or nod your head to vote ‘no‘. Notice the problem with that? No, don’t nod for your answer, that just confuses things…

I was in Bulgaria for one week and I must say that during that time I felt both baffled and bemused with the whole ‘head nod’ means “no” and ‘head shake’ means “yes” idea. Bulgaria is, apparently, the only place in the world where this is the case – it’s the opposite of everywhere else. I have to say that I’ve never felt so popular with women and then been hit by such esteem-crushing realisation… I wish women in the UK would give me similarly enthusiastic head-nods when I ask THEM if they want to sleep with me… ;)

I find myself puzzling over where this communications concept came from. I mean, Great Uncle Bulgaria (the womble who founded Bulgaria as a nation) must have been smoking pot when he decided:

Great Uncle Bulgaria

I know, let’s switch things around and make this country like no other in the world. Let’s make the head nod mean no… oh, and let’s change the body language so that when someone says ‘yes’, they shake their head and act utterly miserable and pissed off! Yeah, that’ll really confuse the foreigners and keep them out of our country and away from our rubbish bins… (ok, enough of the womble jokes!)

On to transportation now. The tram and bus systems seem quite well organised in Sofia. They go underground, overground (wombling free…). However, their ticket systems really do need a re-think. You buy a book of ten tickets and use one ticket each time you get on the tram / bus. You punch it using the little machines attached to the sides of the bus. Obviously, when I say you “punch it”, you don’t stand there in the middle of a crowded bus jabbing it with your fist… “take that you little bastard!” Instead, you subtly lean across the seated passengers, thrust your armpit in their face, push the ticket into the little hole punch and then push down on the puncher. If you’re very unlucky, a miserable-old-bastard ticket inspector will get on during your journey, look at your ticket and then demand to see your next / previous / previous year’s ticket in order to satisfy himself that you do own your ticket and that someone else hasn’t given it to you in an act of amazing hospitality rarely seen anywhere in Bulgaria (no, I am being unkind there!).

hotel condiments

Onto the subject of sex now (well, I like to include the subject in most of my blogs). During my Bulgarian experience I noticed that the hotels like to accessorise their rooms with little luxuries – some expected and some not quite so expected. I took a photograph of some of them (left): soap, shower cap, shower gel, condom….

It’s a Bulgarian’s mini prostitute bathroom kit (prostitution is legal in Bulgaria). Get em to have a good shower beforehand… (I don’t mean a bathroom kit for Bulgarian midget prostitutes, by the way…)

When it comes to patience, Bulgarians seem to have little of it. I experienced this first-hand with my plane flights. No sooner had the plane touched down on the runway than the seatbelts were off and people were up on their feet opening the overhead lockers (which were crammed to bursting with cases). The fact that the aircraft was still travelling along at 80mph was seemingly unimportant. However, their desperation to get off the plane was not matched by their attempt to get to Passport Control. Indeed, their enthusiasm seemed to dissipate as soon as they took a step off the plane… switching to a slow-motion amble. Having waited until last to leave the plane (for my own safety), I found myself weaving in and out of people like a formula one car overtaking milk floats.

The impatience of Bulgarians is also demonstrated when it comes to driving. From weaving taxi drivers, whose idea of screenwash is to stick their arm out of the window and throw bottled water across their windscreen, to drivers who will not be defeated by steep hills covered in ice. They’ll find a way to do what they want if it kills them. And if you get in the way, you’ll get the horn (so to speak)…

I very much enjoyed my trip to Bulgaria and meeting the people there. But, I have to say that their mannerisms took a bit of getting used to. Honestly, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry… ;)

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Planes, Trains and Automobiles

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Travel

I realise that I normally write humorous articles. But, for once, I’m going to go against the grain and write a personal story – an account of my long journey home for Christmas. Unless you’ve had your head stuck up Rudolph’s bottom, you’ll know all about the severe cold weather that has hit Europe over the last week.

On Tuesday morning, I arrived back from a week-long trip to Sofia, Bulgaria. I had originally booked to fly back last Saturday. However, on Saturday morning the skies over the UK airports opened and dropped what can only be described as a “shit load of the white stuff”. The whole of the South East of England looked like a scene from the movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. Airport chaos followed, with runways closed and flights cancelled on a mass scale. I spent the next two days wondering whether I’d be home in time for Christmas. Thankfully, I found and booked a flight back to a different London airport, and so began 15 hours of travelling in an experience that contained both frustration and exhilaration.

So, why exhilaration? Well, the trip truly made me realise that when people face a common goal or a common enemy, they really can come together to face it as one. My 15 hour trip took in 1 taxi, 1 plane, 2 trains, 2 coaches and an automobile. But, more importantly than those statistics, it allowed me to meet and talk to other people, all of whom had the same goal – to get back to their families in time for Christmas.

First was Frank, who I met on the Bulgarian Airways flight to London Heathrow and who was, coincidentally, scheduled to fly home to London Gatwick on the same two flights as me that were previously cancelled. Throughout the four hour flight, we chatted non-stop, almost in relief at being with someone in a similar predicament. It turned a frustrating, slow flight into an interesting one as we chatted about our time spent in Bulgaria and our funny experiences of Bulgarian people (more on that in my next blog post). Our mini-friendship continued once we arrived at the airport, as we collected our luggage together and found our way onto the train network. It was at that point that I bid him goodbye and we set off separately on the next stage of our journeys. Continue reading →

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Yesterday…

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Yesterday

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away… but then I ate baked beans for lunch and the day started to turn. To start off with, I got chronic wind. Now, I won’t bore you with the details. But, let’s just say that you know you’ve had too many beans when you manage to whistle 3 verses of Good King Wenceslas in one go… from the wrong end. Not a good end to lunchtime.

After eating lunch, I visited the bank to withdraw some money from the cash machine. As I did so, I noticed a notice on the machine: “This machine may dispense 5 pound notes.” It seemed strangely vague to me. I mean, surely it MAY also dispense ten, twenty or fifty pound notes? Equally, it may not. Perhaps the notice is warning us that the machine is temperamental? Maybe it depends on the time of the month (a female ATM) or whether it likes the look of you. Do you think it sits there grumbling away to itself: “the little shit – he comes to me asking for 200 pounds. Right, let’s see his face when I give it to him in fivers…”?

That temperamental nature was also in evidence when I went to leave the bank. I had withdrawn money from the machine (in fivers) and put my wallet back into my pocket. I looked towards the bank door – it was open, inviting me to venture back out into the chilly cold. I walked across the floor towards the door and got within a metre of it before it closed infront of me. I grappled with it, pulling it open. As I squeezed out of the other side, it decided to open automatically again. I looked behind me, in disbelief. As I was doing this, another lady went to walk into the bank through the open door and it promptly slammed shut in her face, pushing her all the way back out again. She didn’t look happy. I, on the other hand, found it hysterically funny.

Later in the day came a final, bizarre, twist to my weird day. After completing my tasks and work in town, I made my way over to my Mother’s flat for dinner. We sat down to eat our meal in the lounge – cue a strange situation. I find there’s something slightly disturbing about eating dinner with your Mother whilst pandas urinate & shag on the television in the background.

Let’s analyse this for a minute. What does one do in that situation? Well, the way I saw it, there were three choices:

  1. Tell her not to let pandas into her flat in future – especially not at dinner time ;)
  2. Ignore the television, increase the conversation level and hope that she doesn’t notice the pandas humping against the tree… and in the shelter… and by the water…
  3. Quickly find the remote control and switch the television off… by which point she will definitely have noticed the content, leaving me to make a slightly embarrassed comment about why I switched it off.

I went for option 2…. it was the wrong option. The pandas urinated and humped their way through the next 20 minutes of TV time. Clearly, it was panda mating season and the male had been taking a daily dose of viagra with his bamboo. I’ve never talked so much and so loudly in my whole life!

Yesterday – what a day!

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The Humble Toothbrush

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Toothbrushes

As someone who runs my own business, I’m used to making difficult decisions. However, today I found myself facing one of the most challenging decisions I’ve made in a while. That’s right – I went to buy a new toothbrush.

Before you laugh, just consider what a complicated decision it has become to choose a new toothbrush. I spent several minutes pondering, bemused, in the supermarket aisle because I couldn’t decide between green and blue, soft and firm, springy head or non-springy head, tongue cleaning or non-tongue cleaning…

What I found particularly funny, other than imagining the sight of me scratching my head infront of the toothbrushes, was some of the marketing on the toothbrush boxes themselves. For example, the toothbrush that I ended up buying (because it was on special offer) was labelled as ‘professional’. Now, what exactly does that mean – can I call myself a professional tooth brusher? There seems little justification for being awarded this title. Surely I should have attended a training course, passed an exam and been presented with a certificate before achieving such an important honour?

Having graciously accepted this title (by agreeing to pay £2.50), I wonder whether it’s time for me to update my CV to include “professional tooth brusher?” Perhaps I could also include the fact that I do a ‘professional’ job of wiping my own backside too? (though I do say so myself!)

Onto another point now, regarding product marketing. I bought some toilet rolls today and on the packaging was a big star containing the text “Voted product of the year – consumer survey of product innovation 2009″. Have I been transported back in time several centuries? According to Wikipedia, “the first documented use of toilet paper in human history dates back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China.” So, they seem a little late in recognising this fantastic “innovation” (and, lets be honest, our bottoms wouldn’t be the same without it). One wonders what other products of ingenuity received awards at the same time – the wheel, the cocktail stick and the hairpiece, perhaps?

I can imagine that the 2010 awards will see another ‘hard fought’ competition, with the innovation of the year being something like… ah, yes, that new concept called the ‘bar of soap’…

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The Joy Of Text

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Girl Texting a Friend

Whether you love it or hate it, texting has become a major part of our daily lives. From keeping in touch with our friends to competitions and promotional offers on television and radio, these days we struggle to be away from our mobile phones for any length of time.

I saw a classic example of the promotional use of texting today whilst watching daytime television. A quiz was sponsored by a de-congestant and they were enticing people to find out more information by texting the word “mucus” to them. Lovely! What next?…

Latest offer: Win a pair of underpants. Simply text the words “I’ve soiled myself and my spare pair are in the washing machine” to 63352

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had numerous discussions with friends about frustrating text message conversations. Based upon those stories, I thought I’d write a post listing some typically frustrating types of text chat. You’ve probably been involved in some of the following types of conversation before:

Textual Harassment

This label applies to those people who bombard us with text messages. I’m sure you’ve been in the situation before where you finish writing a text message, hit send and a reply arrives back on your phone before you’ve even had the chance to put it down and take a sip of your tea. By replying, you’re signing a mini-contract to waste the best part of your day engaging the other person in pointless chatter. What a waste of bloody time!

Textual harrassers will, invariably, end up becoming stalkers and/or participants in late-night radio phone-ins. Continue reading →

As an amateur writer, I enjoy reading your comments. So I'd love you to leave one below. Oh, and please follow me on Facebook by clicking through to my Facebook page and hitting the 'like' button. I'll give you a big, sloppy kiss if you do. :)