The White Noise of Modern Complaints
There have been an increasing number of news stories of late that feature people complaining that they were caught for minor crimes. The majority of these have been related to driving - speeding, cars driving and parking in bus lanes, cars using bus and tram "gates", and so on. Additionally, the wailing and gnashing of teeth was deafening in a recent story in which a crackdown on litter in Sheffield resulted in people...shock!...getting caught and fined for breaking a law.
In these stories there is a continual white noise of petulence and pomposity, and this bothers me for reasons I cannot fathom. Drivers have long been so self-absorbed that they believe that buying a big car also buys them some kind of immunity. And their belief that by ignoring various minor laws they are issuing a rallying call to all drivers to stick it to the man is all the more laughable when their actions simply results pissing the rest of the traffic off just to shave twenty seconds off their journey.
This has to stop. So please, stop commiting such pathetic crimes. If you're going to shaft the highway code and hump the bylaws until they bleed, commit something worth committing. And remember not to piss away your dignity when you are pulled over by some condascending quota-chasing plod - don't run screaming for the nearest hack. We must face an important fact; there's no outlaw chic in using a bus lane to get to that left turn quicker, folks. Instead, why not jump on a Harley, swerve across several lanes of traffic, jump the curb, narrowly miss a line of nuns returning to the convent, before smashing over a pile of crates and returning to the road, screeching across in front of a 4x4 and flicking off the ugly mother behind the wheel? Then maybe I'll give a damn about your story when you have to pay your £50.
And let's lay to rest the big argument that says police should be doing other things than enforcing minor laws that are actually just exercises in raising revenue. The answer to this argument lies in the word "law". It's a law. A law it is. Don't break the damn thing if you're just going to bitch about having to pay a fine. In fact, fuck it, let's change the penalty for parking in a bus lane to being publicly horsewhipped. Hellish and draconian it may be, but it would make travelling by bus occasionally tolerable, and make for great street theatre when stuck in traffic.
The fact I don't drive myself is, of course, entirely unrelated to the above views...
Actually, this was never meant to be focusing on driving. I was thinking more about the unbearable level of whining about minor things that seems to be filling up the news in these times. Here's the truth...nobody gives a damn about your Bad Day. You got caught. Tough shit.
And then there's Grumpy Old Men. The first series was entertaining. Having a go at the absurdities in life that seemed designed to befuddle the older gentleman was fun to wallow in for half an hour, because we could emphathise and shout "me too!" at the television. But the second series, which ran for four weeks recently on BBC2, had metamorphosised into a month-long Daily Mail editorial. And, at the risk of screaming off on the second tangent in one paragraph, the amount of people claiming common sense as the panacea for all ills is becoming seriously excessive. Next time you see a news story in which an angry moron is arguing that it is "common sense" why such and such is correct, replace the words "common sense" with "my opinion that I haven't thought about and can't back up with an argument that nevertheless several other idiots who haven't really thought about it agree with". And then go around to their houses on a Harley and trash the place, before trapping them in the basement with their children screaming and wailing, whirling a chain around your head and threatening to rip out their lungs.
Not really. But I'm hungover, the sky outside is bullishly overcast and it's time I got some lunch, so I'll have to leave that thought hanging in the air like a bad smell and indulge in a rather abrupt end to this post. There.
In these stories there is a continual white noise of petulence and pomposity, and this bothers me for reasons I cannot fathom. Drivers have long been so self-absorbed that they believe that buying a big car also buys them some kind of immunity. And their belief that by ignoring various minor laws they are issuing a rallying call to all drivers to stick it to the man is all the more laughable when their actions simply results pissing the rest of the traffic off just to shave twenty seconds off their journey.
This has to stop. So please, stop commiting such pathetic crimes. If you're going to shaft the highway code and hump the bylaws until they bleed, commit something worth committing. And remember not to piss away your dignity when you are pulled over by some condascending quota-chasing plod - don't run screaming for the nearest hack. We must face an important fact; there's no outlaw chic in using a bus lane to get to that left turn quicker, folks. Instead, why not jump on a Harley, swerve across several lanes of traffic, jump the curb, narrowly miss a line of nuns returning to the convent, before smashing over a pile of crates and returning to the road, screeching across in front of a 4x4 and flicking off the ugly mother behind the wheel? Then maybe I'll give a damn about your story when you have to pay your £50.
And let's lay to rest the big argument that says police should be doing other things than enforcing minor laws that are actually just exercises in raising revenue. The answer to this argument lies in the word "law". It's a law. A law it is. Don't break the damn thing if you're just going to bitch about having to pay a fine. In fact, fuck it, let's change the penalty for parking in a bus lane to being publicly horsewhipped. Hellish and draconian it may be, but it would make travelling by bus occasionally tolerable, and make for great street theatre when stuck in traffic.
The fact I don't drive myself is, of course, entirely unrelated to the above views...
Actually, this was never meant to be focusing on driving. I was thinking more about the unbearable level of whining about minor things that seems to be filling up the news in these times. Here's the truth...nobody gives a damn about your Bad Day. You got caught. Tough shit.
And then there's Grumpy Old Men. The first series was entertaining. Having a go at the absurdities in life that seemed designed to befuddle the older gentleman was fun to wallow in for half an hour, because we could emphathise and shout "me too!" at the television. But the second series, which ran for four weeks recently on BBC2, had metamorphosised into a month-long Daily Mail editorial. And, at the risk of screaming off on the second tangent in one paragraph, the amount of people claiming common sense as the panacea for all ills is becoming seriously excessive. Next time you see a news story in which an angry moron is arguing that it is "common sense" why such and such is correct, replace the words "common sense" with "my opinion that I haven't thought about and can't back up with an argument that nevertheless several other idiots who haven't really thought about it agree with". And then go around to their houses on a Harley and trash the place, before trapping them in the basement with their children screaming and wailing, whirling a chain around your head and threatening to rip out their lungs.
Not really. But I'm hungover, the sky outside is bullishly overcast and it's time I got some lunch, so I'll have to leave that thought hanging in the air like a bad smell and indulge in a rather abrupt end to this post. There.
posted by Jamie at 1:51 PM
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