The lowest common denominator

DJs for local radio stations have call-screening just like every other radio station. So why then, do they insist on letting spoon-fed remedials grace their airwaves?

Whilst slouching on the side of my bed having had a cold-riddled night of snotty sleep, I was listening to such a radio station whilst attempting to gather my thoughts.

DJs mention Sue's name in every sentence. Impressive.

DJ: Okay, on the line we have Sue. Hello Sue.
Sue: Hi.
DJ: How's it going Sue?
Sue: Okay.
DJ: Excellent, excellent. Where are you right now, Sue?
Sue: On the couch.
DJ: That's great Sue, but what I really meant was where are you right now?
Sue: Oh. At home. Lawrence Hill.

It was quite apparent at this point that although there's a call-screening process for the radio station, there's no brain-screening process for Sue.

Losing my aim

Our office toilets are split into the two sexes, each sex comprising of two cubicles.

The instant schoolboy error that was commited was not allowing any daylight into said cubicles.

The second schoolboy error was to fit the main switch that controlled all of the cubicle lights outside the toilet door. One switch kills all lights.

Since our business centre started promoting a more environmental policy, somebody walks around turning the lights off now. It's a good thing too, but not in the middle of the day, and not when you don't know what the switch actually does.

So there I am. In the gents cubicle, having a pee, stood up.

BANG.

Pitch black.

Out go the lights, and I'm cursing the person that did it, whilst still trying to maintain a reasonable line on my stream of urine in the hope that it's still hitting the inside of the toilet.

I put it down to some spoon-fed not being aware of all functions of the light switch, and left it at that.

It happened again yesterday. So I put up a sign that read something along the lines of:

Please don't switch this light off.

You're not saving the planet, you're turning off the lights in the cubicles and spoiling my aim.

I came in this morning and looked in the kitchen bin. As I expected, there was my sign, screwed furiously into a tiny ball after it'd been ripped from the wall.

Whichever remedial that keeps doing it has learned what the switch does, and got a bit angry in the process. They'd taken it personally. Hehe.

If it happens again, I swear to god I'll run out of the toilets mid-stream to see who it is.

Capture the flag

Only a few people reading this will know what it's about, but I'll explain anyway.

Say that you go out with your friends for a mate's barbequeue.
Say that quite a few of you get drunk. Really drunk.
Say that there's a castle opposite your house.
Say that there's a French flag on display in said castle.

Your first instinct would be to go and nick the flag, right?

No?

Well it was someone's instinct, and someone legged it into a castle (where people actually live) to go and steal the flag. Trouble is, they didn't find the flag. They didn't even come close. They took something much more valuable. Something that the castle owner would miss much more.

They took a metal bowl.

Flag / Metal bowl. Not quite the same thing. In fact, nothing like what they set out for.

Being drunk as they were, the people decided to go back in for the flag. They didn't find it this time either, but were instead spotted by someone living in the castle, and our drunk friends had to escape the castle before they were caught. Without a flag.

So how hard is it to go and nick a bit of material off a pole?

If you're M. Weston or Martin W, quite difficult.

Three in the bed and the little one tried to spoon me

It's a long title, but it's a valid one.

When getting to a gig in London some weeks previous, I had to find a roof over my head for the night before I got a lift back to the South-West. Two friends offered me a space in their hotel, and I gave them some cash to cover the trouble, as it was two single beds pushed together.

After some laughing and general mick-taking, we settled down for the evening, and three of us laid in bed. Three men. The far-left fell asleep immediately. I was on the far-right.

After a little while, two of us drop off, and I remain awake, albeit barely.

However, I'm jolted awake by the feeling of the middle guy putting his left leg over my torso, and assuming the spoon position.

The shocking realisation set in that I was being cuddled by a fully-grown man, and I took immediate steps to avert the crisis of him waking up and us being fully conscious of this.

A close escape and a hefty reminder not to sleep in the same bed as a man, even if you are all straight.

Pet hates - A spiralling obsession

I've spoken about my workplace's communal kitchen before, but for the benefit of those who haven't read previous blogs, it's usually a bit of a state and in a constant state of disrepair. This is usually down to the mutant tramps who use it.

Instant coffee is strewn over sides, the bin is open and festering with yesterday's lunch, and flies are not uncommon.

What really gets to me however, is the way people handle their teaspoons.

There is a constant shortage of metal teaspoons in our kitchen. This is down to the way that they are misused. Bare in mind here, unless you want to stir your coffee with a fork, there is no alternative.

Here's my spoon-handling routine when making a drink. See if you can spot the points vital to kitchen preservation.

• Grab a spoon (Sometimes not always possible)
• Make drink using said spoon
• Rinse spoon under a tap
• Dry spoon using tea-towel
• Place spoon back in drawer

This routine takes a maximum of about 46 seconds (so what if I timed myself? Who are you to judge?).

Because the majority of office staff ignore those basic rules that amount to about 8 seconds of their 46 second routine, teaspoons are left in often precarious situations.

One such situation commonly seen is when a spoon is left in our sink, sometimes covered with some filthy scum's hair. It's not going to get used again.

Sometimes it's dumped into a substance that resembles milky coffee, but nobody really wants to take the chance and expose their skin to it in the process of spoon-retrieval.

Why not rinse the sodding thing off? Would you do it at home?

Maybe they do. Maybe it's part of their ritual. Maybe they're the polar opposite of obsessive compulsives, who insist on using a spoon only once before ensuring that it will never be used again.

Maybe they're just untrained filthy gits. You probably know them as a species about as much as I do, so I'll leave the choice up to you.