Corporate Hobo

I hate so much that I'm in my thirties and and still don't have so much as a whisper on the wind to my name. Okay, I own my house, but sometimes I believe my bank just makes up my monthly mortgage payment amounts as they go along, thereby increasing their interest rate each month in direct proportion to how many surplus pennies I may have (and I stress the word 'may'):

"What's that. An extra 100 pounds? Sorry little missy but those hand-rubbers over at the Bank of England told us we just need to take all o' that off your hands, there."

F*cking feckers. And then there's the bank charges. Oh don't even get me started. On rare occasions I think 'sod it', I need to pay for something important, like, say, a weekly bus ticket or even a luxury item, like FOOD. Every now and then I will be a trifle naughty and take from the rich to give to the poor. In other words I will take just a teensy bit of extra cash out, knowing full well a direct debit is about to hit. Now, I know I will deserve a smack on the wrist in the form of a dreaded bank charge, really I do. Hell I'll deal with it next month. But 3 charges?! That's 3 smacks on the wrist... verging on bullying if you ask me. One month I got charged a £28 'unauthorised overdraft fee' , as well as a £30 'admin' fee as well as a £25 pound returned direct debit fee from the payee. Oh, and I got bollocked by my obviously more sensible other half for putting our credit rating in jeopardy. Anyway, that amounted to 83 pounds worth of bank charges. I ask you.

The money obviously paid for the 24 carat gold paper the bank used to write their smarmy, self-righteous letter to me on, gleefully advising me that I am a valuable customer rather than a valued one. And don't even tell me to switch to another bank- under my mattress is looking pretty good at the moment.

"Computer says no..."

Hand Soap

When I was a whippersnapper of about 12 or 13 I would spend my pocket money on useless items that were completely befitting my age: Dolly magazine, blue Constance Carroll nailpolish, Bonne Bell lipgloss, Clearasil facewash. Apparently I used to record this inane information in a notebook too, but that's a whole nother story.

The other day, during one of my rare and dazed lunchtime wanders around the shops with a colleague, I found myself in Body Care (the poor man's Boots, literally). Having mere pennies left in my purse before payday, I chose to spend 88p on, er, hand soap. I mean please, am I showing my age here? To be fair, I did also buy a 99p lipgloss and a 99p nailpolish (some things never change) but what the hell was with spending priority pennies on something so... bland and middle-aged? Back in the day, hand soap was one of those things I just never got, both literally and figuratively speaking. What was wrong with the standard bar of Dove in a dish next to the tap? Was the transition from bar-of-soap to liquid soap a class thing that occurred after my dad remarried 'up' in the eighties, when all of a sudden I lived in a house with liquid soap in every bathroom? Was it the effect of going to the toilet at new posh grandma's place and seeing what wasn't the usual dirty, cracked bar of Sunlight that I saw at Nanna's?

Or was it an age thing, when I realised that each of my thirty-something friends had every conceivable variety of the pump dispensing polite-for-guests stuff in their cloakroom loos? I really am confused about the whole thing, in fact it concerns me that I have thought so much about it. Maybe that's an age thing too.

Choons

Last week I actually heard someone listening to Michael Bolton on the bus. What concerned me was not only that they were listening to Michael Bolton at 7:15am on a Tuesday morning, but the fact that they weren't trying to hide this fact from anyone.

Now, I admit I love the fact that most Scots are pleasant and good-natured and not in the practice of laughing out loud at others, but come the f*ck on. I glanced across the aisle looking for the perpetrator but could only see a selection of folk who could all easily have fit the description of 'Michael Bolton fan' (yeah I know, nice bus I get eh?). So I sat in silent amusement, slightly put out at being the only one not in on the joke.

It was a little like the morning I sat right next to a 'Europe' fan. WTF? Well... that particular morning I was well and truly swept into work on the wave of 'The Final Countdown''s tinny guitar solo, as heard out the wrong side of eighties-style orange foam headphones (the irony) all the way down the motorway.

Wardrobes of the Work Weary

Commuting to work by public transport is one of those things that can be almost a pleasure if you live in a nice, leafy, affluent area. Catching the tram to the city from Balwyn, Richmond or South Yarra could often be a quite relaxing experience for me. And walking to work in summer was green, sunny and healthy. How we laughed.

The Scottish commuter experience, however, can often entail the greyest, longest, most miserable journeys ever. This can vary slightly depending on the season of course, but even when the sun is shining those confounding work 'fashions' still come out. And these 'fashions' excite me to the core. Sorry, I meant to use the word 'amuse' instead.

On a weekday morning the theme largely and strangely seems to be fleecy jumpers for both the girls and boys. I honestly get a start when someone well dressed gets onto my bus. And I'm not talking the usual (god, so usual) outfit of 'smart' bootcut suit pants worn with heeled ankle boots, teamed with a v-necked Marks & Spencer top (yawning yet?) and all nicely finished off with hair that has been GHD'd to within an inch of its natural life. It's 'well-groomed' in a 'day out at Chaddie' or a 'night out at Crown' sort of way. Le Suburban Bogue, Scottish style.

And let's not forget the handbag-plus-sandwich-bag combo, paired carefully so that the handbag covers whatever unfashionable store name the plastic bag may bear. Marks & Spencer, Top Shop or Next is acceptable. Asda, Tesco or Morrison's is not (they're for the male workies who are too macho to even hold the bag by the handles, just grip the bag roughly just above the bit where you can see the outline of a bottle of Irn Bru and a packet of fags). Dunnes or New Look bags are just the right side of okay but Zara or Cruise are plain showy. A small patent Macy's or Bloomingdales number (specially purchased by Aunty Joan in the Big Apple) may look great in the shiny NYC shop but over here just looks try-hard. Besides, every second female commuter in her beige mac and cheap fake-fur scarf has one.

But let's get back to the matter of workwear. There's this woman who gets the same bus as me each and every morning and each and every morning she wears the same thing. Each and every single day, I kid you not. Well, not exactly. When the clocks go back for winter she wears black trousers, a black fur-lined hooded parka and black shoes. So she wears this uniform every day, except with a uniform you rotate 2 or 3 of each garment, not wear the same garment which still has creases in it from the day before, and I know this because I'm a sad bastard and I check. So she wears this outfit until the weekend the clocks go forward again, so that on the very Monday after (oh-ha-ha, like clockwork) she is in her 'summer' outfit of denim jacket, white hooded jumper, black trousers (okay, so this she doesn't change) and white Adidas trainers.

She has done this for the last two years. She will be wearing it at the bus stop on Monday. If I could get away with taking a picture of her with my mobile I would. But then that would be almost as sad as writing a blog about it. Er.

Carbunkles & Cretins

Walking through the carpark at my local town centre is not unlike one of those playstation games where you have to investigate in and around a dilapitated old building: Dimly lit ramps leading up from the pot-holed walkway, light bulbs nearing the end of their lives, flickering and buzzing from within their age-yellowed glass fixtures.

I've been up there enough times now for it not to depress me, intimidate me, or for that matter move me at all.

A bleach haired young harridan pushes her pram and splutters self-importantly about curtains or nappies or football to her clearly under-the-false-nailed-thumb companion. He looks like a shell of a man as he shuffles along just behnd her, grunting appreciatively in all the right places and carrying heavy Tesco bags with rounded shoulders. He can probably no longer hear her banshee-like wail as she yells out to her unruly toddler; she no longer takes his glazed look as a sign of disinterest. More likely submission.

I take in their presence with a quick sideways glance, roll my eyes and sigh loudly (as I do, being a miserable cow) and make my way quickly back out into the daylight.

Can I Help You?

Since living in the UK I have come to believe that there are certain cultural attitudes which, no matter how long you live in a place, never change.

With the best will in the world I have tried to appreciate that the British like to hold on to tradition, and in some cases I completely respect this. However, on the flip side, in relation to some matters of everyday life I just think they're too lazy and/or ignorant to try and change some infuriating and old-fashioned ways.

Over the course of several years it has sucked the life out of me to simply put up and shut up. And put up I often have.

I used to find it quaint the way people queued all the way out of a shop, for instance a bakery, to get served. I giggled each time I passed a sandwich shop and saw the quiet, single-file line of customers jutting out almost onto the road. In typical obedient British style, these people queued without complaint, the only movement being a shuffle towards that hallowed place at the front of the line. I have done the shuffle myself now, many times.

Once you make it to the counter you get the kind of 'service' that could only possibly be given by an 18-year-old bovine who really couldn't give a small toss what you're having for lunch ("I'll have a mayonnaise sandwich on stale white with extra butter please, oh and hold any salad unless it's that limp piece of lettuce sitting at the back there, under that fly").

The counter assistant (or should I say counter productive assistant) could then do something novel, like ask you what you would like before going about the all-important business of doing what he or she's paid for. But no, they would rather finish telling their hilarious/miserable/highly important story to their colleague before they even acknowledge your presence. And when they finally getting around to even looking at you, let alone asking for your order, they don't bother apologising for the wait because, as I say, they really couldn't care less.

Ironically, you're the mutant in their world, you interrupt them several times a day to ask them for stuff and, like, give them you're f*cking money.

Rant finished.

When I was back home on holiday recently the girl at the checkout at Coles asked me how I was and I almost blacked out, put it that way.