I chanced yesterday to hear the section on Radio 4, early evening, that section where Eddie Mair reads out the one liners that listeners send in.
It hardly ever interests me and I am rarely there to hear it.
There was however, yesterday, a long run of people outraged at the behaviour of parents with children -- their failure to control them, their inability to see the other person, their assumption that we are charmed by the products of their loins... their assumption that it is their own business though the rest of us are witnessing the learning process of aggressive sociopaths of many categories at the very least.
I fear it was voices crying in a wilderness.
I came into my least hated cafe a while back to find four of the tables near to electrical sockets blocked by by about half a dozen mid age sociopaths spreading out from tables in the centre. They were blocking all pathways and customers and staff were going round them. I needed the electrical sockets, one of them, and asked for assistance.
Tough shit, innit mate, said a cretin.
So I went round the long way. He watched me and clearly gained some pleasure from the process. I got to the now cramped space by the table, which was just enough, and began moving their luggage. I was told I had better watch it.
One went to the toilet and I moved my table to where it would have been, thereby reducing her imperial influence.
I was told that I resemble female genitals and I said that, in view of that opinion, I wished him luck with the opposite sex and hoped that he would soon lose his virginity.
I leave it open to my readers' considerations why so many who think that "cunt" is an appropriate insult to use of anyone get so upset if it is suggested they are virgins; the use of the word suggests to me extreme dislike and perhaps fear of women.
Once in a millinnium it might be true that they are virgins; mostly, and I must have used that line a dozen times in the last few years, it seems that to have actually had sexual intercourse is somehow a badge of honour.
It goes with the inability to think, I suppose.
Their subsequent threats were unpleasant, but my suggestion that the police be called and that we were probably on cctv (we are everywhere else) drew from them the opinion that the cafe stank and they were best off away from such a pathetic and ugly selfish little man as I -- the latter is a collage of several contributions.
I mention all this because they were replaced by a young and attractive woman who brought a coffee and two children to one of their tables; and the children spread out to fill the space vacated, as if reenacting those diagrame claiming to depict the difficusion of prehistoric races.
The coffee behaved like coffee, going cold rapidly and allowing itself to be drunk without resistance. The chiuldren behaved like a virulent disease. When she admonished them, looking up briefly from her iphone, one had a violent tantrum, hitting the floor and screaming; the other made no sound but hit her repeatedly. He did so rather hard. She showed her strength of character and continued using her phone is if neither of them existed, only leaving the cafe when she had finished her coffee at a civilised pace. What nice human beings those children will grow up to be.
To my right the people there are saying that the man being questioned in Aberystwyth on the supposed murder of a child should be charged because if he isn't guilty we are sure to find out.
So much to be grateful for.