General election – Vote for me!

Theresa May has called a snap general election for June 8th. Please vote for me – I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear (it worked for Donald Trump).

I’m a safe pair of hands, and will cut through the red tape and in-party bickering by running everything myself. I mean, how hard can it be? Sure, I’ll be busy, but there are quite a few jobs in government that seem pretty undefined a best.

Lord Privy Seal? No idea. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster? Aren’t other towns allowed one? And what do they do anyway? Is it something to do with that song “Pass the Duchy?”

The Grumpy Party will be a voice for the disenfranchised (once I’ve worked out what ‘disenfranchised’ actually means). I’ve got a great slogan already for the campaign: “Vote Grenville – Grumpy is terrific!”, or, if you’re pushed for space, you can abbreviate that to “Grenville – GIT”. Catchy, no?

If that isn’t convincing enough, let’s move on to my policies, which I’ve hastily scribbled on a toilet roll I borrowed from the office (sorry whoever went in next – that was the last one.)

Publicly funded soft toilet rolls for all workplaces. No more cheap, thin, rough stuff! Velvety loveliness for all our bottoms. And I’ll make sure there’s always a spare roll, in case some idiot used the last one to write their manifesto on.
Why are they general elections? Vote for me and I’ll remove this vagueness. We want specific elections, and we want them sometime soon-ish! Or not. Maybe. Meh.
Immediate ban on people who say “Can I get...” instead of “I would like”. This isn’t America, people. Jeez. Get with the program or I’ll go all potato chips on your cell phone.
People who own ‘tapes’ (Video or audio) will be hailed as wise elders of the community, and afforded the respect they rightly deserve for not contributing to the landfill problem.
Extra levy on 4x4 owners, who live in towns and slow down at the sight of puddle, to be used to fix roads damaged by 4x4 owners.
Immediate Knighthood for the Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne, for services to listening pleasure and happiness. (National Anthem also replaced with “Mr Blue Sky”.)
Creme Eggs to be available all year.
The PLL (Ploughman’s Lunch Law) will heavily fine any establishment attempting to sneak salad onto the plate, or not provide a pickled onion. You’re monsters. I’m coming for you.
Chocolate to be put on the top of biscuits, not the bottom.
More kitten videos. Because kitten videos!
Any reality TV shows, dancing contests, etc. must have ‘celebs’ who at least 75% of the population can readily identify.
Extra personal Bank Holiday on your Birthday.

You know it makes sense. Let’s make this country really ticked off about something again! Vote Grumpy Party on the 8th of June.

Your alternatives aren’t much better...

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 21st of April 2017. You can view the version used by the paper on their website here, where it was re-titled as "Voting grumpy is the route to happiness".

Just in case it isn't obvious, I enjoyed writing this one. I suspect the list of my policies could easily have been much longer, but the original idea was to pick up on various topics of irritation from columns from the past, starting with wind chimes. In the end, other stuff escaped the strange container of my mind instead.

(CD A-Z: A new one from the Twelve Inch Eighties series - "Hold Me Now". Highlight so far has to be "Keeping the Dream Alive" by Munchener Freiheit. Wowzers.)

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

grumpyf1

Search This Blog