People who can't drive

I received an email today that prompted me to write this rant, it does not change my earlier rant on cyclists but as the sender is a pedal pusher himself I felt that it is only fair to rant about one of the other irritations on the road - people who can't drive.

Now you could fall into the "can't drive" category for a number of reasons;

1. You are a Chelsea Tractor (that's a posh 4x4 for those who don't know) and have both no consideration for any other sentient being within 10m nor do you have the faintest clue as to how big your vehicle is pushing everything out of the way to ensure you stay clean
2. You are a big city town driver in a small town - cutting everyone up because you can't wait
3. You are a small town driver in a big city - never able to pull out of junctions
4. You are more concerned with putting makeup on than driving - I have seen far to many women attempting to put lipstick on at traffic lights or even worse WHILST driving
5. You are too old to drive and too stubborn to give it up.
6. You wear burberry or any other chav like material

My friend made a very astute point - that it is generally the person in question who is the irritation and it is not the act that they do.

A poor and inconsiderate driver will more than likely be an arse on a bike too. However, if I changed the rant to "inconsiderate people" then the subject would be too broad to write comprehensively and there would be few other rants.

If you can't drive but just haven't admitted it to yourself or others yet then stop. If you know someone who can't drive then for the love of whoever tell them. Bad drivers cost lives and irritate the hell out of me in a morning - especially ones in convertibles who go in the wrong lane for their exit on the roundabout at the top of Dalton!

Christmas

OK, this rant is NOT about Christmas itself because that is a joyous period that I totally enjoy. This rant is about how commercialised the whole ordeal is becoming.

Christmas has never been about the presents for me - well possibly as a young child - but certainly for as long as I can remember it has been about spending time with my family. For the retail industry though, Christmas is quite obviously all about making money.

I saw my first Christmas advert on tv LAST MONTH! I heard my first Christmas song on the radio at the beginning of this month (November for those reading in the future) and I don't even want to try to remember how long ago it was that I saw my first load of Christmas orientated items in the shop (like advent calendars)

Perhaps the reason why each year I don't feel like it is Christmas until the final few days, is because it is being watered down and is no longer an event that lasts a few weeks (I don't mind starting to get "christmasy" in December) but an event that lasts for a few months.

(editorial note: not too sure how good this rant is but hey ho...)

I want to return back to the days when it was all "YEAY its Christmas" and not "WHAT... its friggin October - why the **** are they advertising the Christmas sale?". I'm quite simply not ready to be festive yet, so why do I have to see a dancing Santa when I enter ASDA? Well, because a group of already fat and greedy people want to be fatter and greedier. They want us to spend more money, and by getting us to buy things over a longer period of time they will get what they want.

So, to you fat greedy early Christmas pushing pieces of mouldy frogspawn I quite simply say this...

"P**S OFF, it's my Christmas, you ain't invited, and I'll start celebrating it when I say so, and not you!"

Facebook

To coincide with the recent revelation in the blog section (or not recent if you are reading this at some point in the unknown future - the blog link is here)

it made perfect sense to follow through with a new rant, and what better a subject than the revelation itself... Facebook

The idea behind it is beautiful, it’s an easy way to update the world with what you are doing/feeling/thinking share pictures, content you have found on the web. The thing is, that I used to do all of these things, here on this very website.

So why did I get drawn to Facebook? Probably due to the fact it seemed easier to update (I say "seemed" because it got buggier and buggier and more problematic the longer I used it) and that is possibly the true point of this rant.

Yes there is a drive in life to do things in a simpler way, but at what cost? The cost of me using something other than this site was the irritation and feeling of failure for ditching a project before it was a year old (is that what I have done to facebook...) a cost of the content I would update, limitations on how much I could say. THIS IS BAD, yes we should make life easier but not at a high cost. Let me elaborate more.

Computers - great things, great software, reduced times to do things by ridiculous factors. But a cost... a generation that can no longer write, can't spell or punctuate as they rely on auto correction tools. For some, even the complete and utter destruction of social skills.

Mobile phones - the ability to communicate from almost anywhere, and communicate in every form except touch and smell (and maybe some others I haven’t thought about yet) yet this is also a downfall, they are a convenience at the price of constant interruption of your life (see earlier blog)

So, this may not have been the best of rants but I am out of practice. But a lesson has been learnt, yes I should make things in my life easier but only if that is not at a huge sacrifice. And this leads on to the potential development of the site, how to make things easier to maintain? Rants for example could be controlled by being a blog themselves... and soon... they will be!