Room 101 (Part Two)

Earlier this year I wrote a post about Room 101, a place where all of the horrors of the world are kept and promptly popped 10 things into the room so that they would never be seen or experienced by human eyes ever again – apart from by the eyes of those humans already in Room 101 – like Piers Morgan for example.

You can read it here.

Well, dear reader, it is time to put ten more things into Room 101.

And good riddance!

Monday Mornings

Like Garfield I hate Monday – particularly Monday morning at the precise moment my alarm clock drags me kicking and screaming from the bliss of my beauty sleep into a reality that forces me to get out of bed and go to work. There is no worse feeling than getting dressed and trying to psyche yourself up for the inevitable struggle through five days of frustration, ranting and pleading with yourself not to attack people with cricket bats.

It is the worst day of the week and needs to be dispatched to Room 101 with maximum prejudice.

Antony Worrall Thompson

In Britain we seem to be obsessed with cookery programmes and I hate them. What’s more, I am not keen on any so-called celebrity chefs either. I could spend all day ranting about cookery programmes but I will restrict myself to one person for now: Antony Worrall Thompson, one of the most irritating chefs on television.

His voice is so annoying it makes me feel like my head is pummelled by a woodpecker on speed. How did he ever become a TV chef?

It beats me.

What’s worse is that in 2008 he recommended that we all add a little henbane to our salads. Do you know what henbane is? It is a toxic weed that should not be consumed under any circumstances. Okay – he meant to recommend “fat hen”, a wild herb, so perhaps he could be forgiven.

Except in January this year he was caught shoplifting in Tesco – something he allegedly did on five separate occasions, leading to a tabloid headline “Ready Steady Crook”.

Off to Room 101 you go, Antony; Piers Morgan is hungry.

Immigration and Customs Officers

I am not a murderer. I am not a drug lord. I am not a terrorist. I am not a smuggler. I am not a criminal.

When I visit another country, I do so out of pure pleasure (except when I am working; nevertheless I try to find some pleasure outside work too). Yet when I enter certain countries I am subjected to an interrogation by immigration officers and or certain customs officials. What’s more, I even sometimes suffer on my return to the UK. On a visit to America once, Mrs PM and I approached the immigration officer together as “family” but because we aren’t married, I was bollocked by this uniformed stranger, sent back and then when he finally allowed me to come back, I was interrogated.

“What’s the purpose of your visit to the United States?”

“Let me see your return ticket!” 

“How long do you intend to stay in the United States?” 

“Where will you be staying?”

The temptation to be sarcastic is almost overwhelming but you daren’t lest you be carted off by armed officers, dragged into a room and then subjected to a search that requires a special glove.

Customs officials aren’t much better. On a return trip to the UK:

“Where have you been?”

“What did you buy?”

“Open up your suitcase: I don’t care if it has three weeks of dirty underwear – I have a special glove.”

Into Room 101 you go - and feel free to interrogate and strip search Piers Morgan.

Boy Bands

What is a boy band? A boy band is a bunch of pretty boys who can barely sing and regurgitate the same old insipid song over and over again for an army of teenage girls full of hormones and hysteria, or a bunch of old women who, for some reason, have abandoned all hope and want to be spoon fed dreary ballads.

I hate them; I hate them so much I can barely type out the words that express my hatred of them.

Take That, Westlife, One Direction, Boyzone and all other equally shit “bands” should be locked up and blasted to the planet Tharg at the first opportunity.

Please help me rid the world of them. Oh – OK let’s put them into Room 101 where they can annoy Piers Morgan with their crap cacophony.

Diving Footballers

I enjoy watching Premiership football but there are certain players who are so keen to win or gain an advantage that they throw themselves to the floor when an opposing player breathes on them, screaming blue murder in a vain attempt to be awarded a penalty.

The way some of them do it, you would think a sniper had shot them in the head from the stands. This is not the way football should be played. There should be no reward for cheating. If I had my way, I would ban players found guilty of diving for at least five games and fine them a month’s salary (which could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds). Sadly, I can’t – but what I can do is put them into Room 101.

The Turner Prize

Modern art leaves me stone cold. It is garbage produced by so-called artists for pseudo-intellectuals under the pretence that “it hasn’t been done yet”. The focal point for all that is wrong in the art world is the annual Turner Prize where “artists” compete for a cash prize by producing a piece that makes most people say “What the PHARKKK????”.

Past winners have included:

A bare room where the lights are on for 5 seconds then off for 5 seconds – called “The Lights Go On And Off”.

“60 minutes of silence” in which we see a whole bunch of policemen sitting there staring at the camera for 60 minutes.

It is insanity and only belongs in one place – Room 101.

Lady In Red

Lady In Red is one of the worst songs ever written – four minutes of dreary nonsense masquerading as a romantic song. If somebody were to play it to me in the name of romance I would vomit all over them. The lyrics are so cheesy that they could have been written by mice. And Chris de Burgh’s voice grates my brain and makes me grimace in pain.

A dreadful song – an utterly dreadful waste of four minutes. I’ll bet it is Piers Morgan’s favourite song – he is welcome to it.



Thick British Tourists

Some British people should never be allowed to leave our island. Why? Because they are not equipped to deal with life in foreign countries. In their minds, every country is just like good old Britain, where everybody should speak the Queen’s English and watch British television. In their eyes, Britannia Rules the world, so it is perfectly acceptable to say things like:

“I’m a British ciitizen – give me some Worcester Sauce NOW!!”

I have numerous examples of the obnoxious behaviour of Brits abroad and each time I hold my head in my hands and shake it in despair and shame.

“Give me a pint of lager! What do you mean you don’t know what a pint is?”

“DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH???? WHY NOT??? I thought EVERYBODY spoke English!”

“I’m not eating any of this foreign muck. Have you got any fish and chips?”

“Are you showing Eastenders in your bar? What do you mean you don’t get Eastenders in Spain?”

Let’s hope they are happy in Room 101 because that is where they are going.

Obnoxious Parisians

When I first visited Paris, I was led to believe that all French people were obnoxious arseholes. Later visits to La Belle France have corrected that initial wrong assumption - the problem is limited to a small percentage of obnoxious and extremely rude Parisians.

There are certain Parisians who simply don’t like anybody who is not from Paris. I can speak a little French and my general philosophy is to try to speak the language of the country I am in – with a phrase book if necessary. One summer, I was in Paris and my hay fever was so bad that I had to seek medication. I found a pharmacy and, with streaming eyes and constant sneezing, I tried to buy some antihistamine tablets. Sadly my French didn’t stretch to “Antihistamine” and the phrase book didn’t help. I was unfortunate enough to be served by an obnoxious Parisian:

PM: Pardon, monsieur (AAAATTTTCHHHOOO!!!!) Parlez vous anglais? (AAAAATTTCCHHOOOOO!!!)

Obnoxious Parisian: Non!

PM: D’accord. Avez vous (AAAAATTTTCCHHHHOOOOO!!!!!) quelquechose pour m’aider (AAAAAAAATTTCHHHHOOOO!!!!) ….

The bugger just left me standing there and went to serve somebody else. I tried to interrupt but he totally ignored me. The other person was quite surprised and started pointing at me and gestured for the arse to help me. I was clearly struggling – and I would have struggled in an English pharmacy to be honest.

What did this arse do? He shrugged in typical Gallic fashion and carried on serving the woman. Thankfully, another assistant came to my rescue and she spoke a little English. With an exchange of franglais she sold me a box of antihistamines with instructions in both French and English.

I saw her talk to the obnoxious arse as I left – and all he did was shrug again.

There are a fair few people like this in Paris, superior people who look down on non-Parisians. Mrs PM lived in Toulouse for a year and told me that people from that town are generally not keen on Parisians either.

In the other parts of France I have visited, I have been welcomed with open arms and encountered some of the friendliest people I have ever met. I want to dispatch these people to Room 101 where they can be rude to Piers Morgan.

The rest of the people in Paris can then make me welcome next time I visit that beautiful city.

My Hair.

I hate my hair. You can read about the reasons here.

Every day is a constant battle to keep it under control. Every day I look into the mirror and grimace in shame because it has morphed into a totally embarrassing shape. One time, on holiday in Spain, I spent a fair amount of time swimming in the sea before strolling around the holiday resort for the rest of the day. When we returned to the hotel, I looked in the mirror and my hair, which was admittedly a little longer than usual, was sticking up all over the place.

“You let me walk around like this?” I asked Mrs PM.

She sniggered and said “Your hair looks like that all the time. It’s lovely!”

It’s not. And here are some examples:

Shocking hair aged one.

Shocking hair aged 12

Can you spot the bad haired boy in this picture?

Shocking hair aged 17

 Into Room 101 you go – and give me a decent hairstyle.

That’s it for now. I will add some more items to Room 101 next year some time.

I have thousands of things destined for Room 101.

I hope Room 101 can cope.

Mind Your Language

Fear not – this is not a post about swearing.

Instead it is a little confession about one of my regrets; my lack of fluency in another language.

I speak a very limited amount of German, a little more French and, if it were still spoken, I could get by in Latin. Sadly, for me, I was coached in these languages thirty or so years ago at school and the knowledge has been replaced by other, seemingly more important information over the years – stupid stuff like the lyrics to songs – you know what I mean.

I’ve just returned from a business trip to Zurich, a place I have visited many times before. It’s a wonderful city and the Swiss are one of the friendliest people in Europe, if not the world. In Zurich, the official language is German, although really it is Swiss German, almost a different language. I hadn’t been there for eighteen months, and had visited enough to actually start picking up snippets of German again. In those eighteen months, however, the snippets I had acquired had been replaced by yet more song lyrics.

As I was waiting in the airport to return home to Manchester, I began to reflect on the previous week. I had been working in the office, listening to the guys speaking German and then switching to English in order to accommodate me. A lot of these guys were fairly fluent in a couple of languages and I began to feel inadequate, so much so, that I started to try converse with them in very poor German. They were quite impressed that I had made the attempt but it became apparent very soon after I had uttered the first words that my vocabulary was extremely limited. I soon switched back to my native English. I was filled with disappointment.

It was so different when I was younger. At the age of 21, I left university and had the entire summer before entering into the rat race. I decided to have one last adventure and set off for a four week jaunt around Europe with two friends. At that point, my French and German were both strong enough to make myself understood and . My friends weren’t quite so good though. I nominated myself to do most of the conversing in France and they agreed. I managed to speak to Parisians in their mother tongue and could understand them too. I was filled with a feeling of pride and achievement. Alas, one of my friends, a guy called Chris, decided that he would attempt to speak French as well, a bold gesture in city like Paris if your French is not up to scratch.

Paris is a beautiful city but I have always found Parisians a little stubborn. If you walk up to a Parisian and say “Parlez-vous anglais?”, they tend to stare at you with a look of utter contempt and say “Non!”. You have to make the effort. In their eyes, you are in the capital of France therefore you must speak French. So Chris, not a shy lad, grasped the nettle and attempted to speak French as much and as often as he could. Sadly, his vocabulary then was far worse than mine is now and he frequently confused and shocked Parisians, as well as making them howl with laughter.

For example, as we were leaving Paris to head south on a train, we discovered that each carriage was absolutely full. We walked the length of the train looking for a compartment with three spaces and were just about to give up, when Chris spotted one. He opened the door and saw several old people, who stared at him with disgust (we were travelling light and probably looked a complete mess). Chris, being ever so polite but bold, gestured at the three seats and said:

“Le corridor – il pleut.”

Basically he told them that it was raining in the corridor. Some laughed at him; the rest stared at each other and said “Huh?”

I intervened and asked them if we could sit down. They reluctantly agreed but openly talked about us whilst sniggering at Chris. I understood a fair amount of what they said and they were criticizing our lack of French, even though we had at least tried.

I’ve been to Paris and other places in France on several occasions since then and have always tried to speak the language. As the years have passed, however, my ability to remember the words has diminished and I have had to resort to a pocket dictionary or a phrase book. Happily, in the last ten years my job has been made a lot easier because Mrs PM speaks French almost to fluency. She’s a little rusty these days but she can hold a decent conversation with your average French person. On a recent trip to Bordeaux, she was taking snaps for her photography course, when a woman started talking to her. The conversation was fascinating, mostly because Mrs PM was laughing and making the other woman laugh as well – not because of her poor French but because she was cracking jokes. How I envied her – I still do.

As far as German is concerened as I have said above, I have been to Zurich quite a few times over the past five years made a conscious effort to at least try to speak German outside the work environment. In the past, I have managed to ask for my room key, order food, order beer, buy train tickets and even have attempted to switch to German when talking to other people, switching to English only when I have had to. The more often I have been, the more progress I have made. Sadly, though, lack of practice makes you forget and this last trip was frustrating because I had reverted to having to ask for things in English again.

I still make an effort, whenever I visit a foreign place, even if I don’t know the language. In Moscow, for example, I learned a few choice phrases that helped me out.

“Two beers” – “два пиво “ (pronounced – “dva piva”)

“Thank you” – “Спасибо” (pronounced “spassiba”)

“Hi” – “Привет “ (pronounced “preevyet”)

I was stuck in Moscow in the middle of a harsh winter, with temperatures of minus 20 degrees and managed to find my way around the city, by learning how to pronounce the Russian alphabet. Sadly, speaking the above phrases only helped in a bar, so I ended up drunk.

Sometimes, attempting to speak a foreign language can be embarrassing (as Chris had discovered). In Beijing, I was in a restaurant with Mrs PM eating crispy duck, having had a few beers. Obviously nature had to take its course and I had no idea where the toilet was. In the end I had to ask a waiter. I waited until one of the male waiters walked past and pointed out the word "toilet" in the phrase book. He began to explain in Mandarin but I just stared at him like a lost kitten. He realised that I had no idea what he was saying and beckoned me to follow him. Feeling strangely courageous, mainly due to a little alcohol, I decided to practice the word as we walked. The phrase book had an English pronunciation for the word and I attempted to say it to him. He smiled and said the word properly. I repeated it and got it slightly wrong, so he repeated it again. This continued all the way across the restaurant when I finally pronounced it in an acceptable fashion. Just then, I noticed that a lot of people were staring at me with an ill-concealed look of mirth on their faces. I couldn't work out what was so funny. And then I realised; I had just walked across the restaurant with a Chinese waiter saying the word "toilet" very loudly and very badly and very often to him. He in turn had responded with the word "toilet". They had witnessed two grown men marching across a restaurant shouting "toilet" at each other. No wonder the patrons were laughing. Slightly embarrassed, I smiled at a couple seated next to the lavatory, pointed to the door and said "toilet" in Mandarin. I thought the woman would have a seizure. Her hand covered her mouth and she grunted and snorted, trying to give me the impression that she was choking on her food. The man stifled a laugh but nodded approvingly, simply, I hoped, because I had made an effort.

Ultimately, when we retire Mrs PM and I may want to spend a lot more time in France. If I can find the time beforehand, I will make an attempt to re-learn French to fluency. I may even have a go at improving my German. I don’t think it’s too late to try – I just need to fight another battle against my willpower and fill this particular void. I sense an oncoming war against procrastination.

Thankfully, this year our trips abroad include America and that’s a country where I can speak the language almost fluently. I need to get to grips with words like “faucet”, “sidewalk”, “diaper” and “garbage” to master the language fully.