(C) 2005 Martin Horton.
People washing cars on a Sunday with (god help us) zeal in their eyes. People visiting Garden Centres and fighting (politely) over the last faded Tomato Plant, queues at IKEA and church bells calling the faithful for their weekly dose of salvation. ?Suffer the little children?, they pray (or is that prey?), then shuffle out on their Zimmer-frames to bellow obscenities at some four-year olds who have the temerity the kick a ball against a wall. That great British institution - the car boot sale, with hungry gangs rummaging over piles of some strangers unimaginable garbage. Discovering you have male pattern baldness on the day before an important Monday morning meeting.
Elderly folk going for an agreeable Sunday drive, blissfully aware that today is the day when those with 500cc Motorbikes deem that this is the day when they have the god-given right to defy death, and that of other bastards, as they please. Hung-over teenage shop assistants (I lived through the Falklands War for them!) who treat you with a sigh and surly contempt as they hand over your over-priced goods, forgetting that is they who are meant to be providing you a service. And have you noticed how many times we unnecessarily say please and thank you, for the most mundane things? Think about it next time you are getting off a bus. Try not to say thanks to the miserable (he lived through the Second World War for us!) driver for being king enough to drop you off at the bus stop where he was required to, as are the terms of his employment. On the continent, if you say thank you more than once when the transaction is over then they will, at best, think you are patronising them, or at worst, look embarrassed and mutter something to their companion (in a ?funny? language) about the English and their strange ways. They are sure we would say ?Thanks so much.? then gouge their eye out with a spoon to treasure as an authentic foreign keepsake. We don?t say a simple thank you. We say; ?Thanks, cheers, thanks a lot, thank you very much, cheers, bye now. Take care.? Pubs that insist at shutting at 10:10pm. Why? Do they or the government really care if we wake up on a Sunday with a hangover because of one more pint? People who attend church on a Sunday and think that all atheists, as they obviously have no moral code, are therefore serial killers and set fire to kittens for fun. Sunday schools that refuse to employ male teachers because, of course, all men are paedophiles.
People tending their gardens because they think they have to, should do. Grown men fighting with lawnmowers. The dread of tomorrow etched on everyone?s face. Offers in Sunday supermarkets for ?Two for the price of one.? Why not one for the price of half? Vomit on the pavements. Garden gnomes on top of traffic lights. Richard Littlejohn. The ?Mail on Sunday? and it?s skull-crackingly knee-jerk reaction to everyone and everything except a good old British Sunday roast, and the teeming mass of middle-class turds who read it over breakfast and agree that the world is going to shit because of, well, everything and everyone except the Sunday Roast.
The Horrors of Sunday in Suburbia.
Football in the park. Ah, another great British pastime. Football played by shaven headed and inebriated ABSO delinquents who challenge a team of younger children to a game and, once they have broken a sufficient number of bones, throw bottles of half empty vodka at the paramedics who come to pick them up. The tabloids. The frankly quite impressive dishonesty of politicians when evading the simplest question and the Sunday ?politics? programs that tell you nothing about politics but all you need to know about deceitfulness. Police cars that slow down and eye you with suspicion if you are taking a simple daily constitutional. Newspapers and their editorial ?comment.? Do we care? We don?t want to hear what these professional bullshitters have to say. We want news. Middle-aged women who, believe it or not, write a letter, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it, walk to the post box and send it to ?The News of The World? in the hope that it will get printed (and win ?10) so that the readership will laugh at the fact that their six-year old nephew/niece said ?Poo Poo? in front of the vicar (who came round for Sunday tea, secretly wishing he were at home surfing the net for porn ? after all, they are only human). The travesty of humanity that is Robert Killroy-Silk. The necessity of (gawd bless ?em) Sunday roasts and the intestine ripping agony that follows.
The Horrors of Sunday in Suburbia.
?Wacky? TV chefs. Why? Sunday cookery quizzes where, I kid you not, points are awarded for the first contestant to correctly identify a plate of Asparagus. Songs of Praise. Horizon specials that tell you less about the universe/volcanoes, etc, than a child would know. Going to the beach on a Sunday and getting sand in your sandwiches. The Pope at Sunday mass, sermonising about the world?s poor, his ?5,143 watch glinting in the warm Italian sun, condemning half the planet?s population to hell or poverty for such terrible sins as enjoying sex, being female and of course homosexuality. Weather forecasters promising snow drifts on Monday morning, only for the children to wake and have to trudge to school though a cold mucky slush. Returning home after a pleasant weekend and having to pay ?40 for the privilege of standing up on a overcrowded train for a journey that should take an hour, but takes six, but not before you have to endure the astonishing agony of delayed trains and listening to the automated apologies as you shiver to death on a deserted platform. For those of you who are as manically neurotic as me with regards to public transport, listen to these apologies. It?s a fun game. If a train is <10 minutes late, they are ?Sorry for the delay?. Over 15 minutes they are ?Very sorry for the delay?. 20 Minutes and they are ?Extremely sorry for the delay?. Any longer than that and, it seems, they?ve run out of ways to apologise. Perhaps something along the lines of this would better recieved; ?Jesus, we?re really fucking sorry about this guys. Some stupid bastard has forgotten to fix the signals so the train will arrive sometime before hell freezes over. Anyone fancy a pint till it arrives? I?m buying.?
The horrors of Sunday in Suburbia.
People washing cars on a Sunday with (god help us) zeal in their eyes. People visiting Garden Centres and fighting (politely) over the last faded Tomato Plant, queues at IKEA and church bells calling the faithful for their weekly dose of salvation. ?Suffer the little children?, they pray (or is that prey?), then shuffle out on their Zimmer-frames to bellow obscenities at some four-year olds who have the temerity the kick a ball against a wall. That great British institution - the car boot sale, with hungry gangs rummaging over piles of some strangers unimaginable garbage. Discovering you have male pattern baldness on the day before an important Monday morning meeting.
Elderly folk going for an agreeable Sunday drive, blissfully aware that today is the day when those with 500cc Motorbikes deem that this is the day when they have the god-given right to defy death, and that of other bastards, as they please. Hung-over teenage shop assistants (I lived through the Falklands War for them!) who treat you with a sigh and surly contempt as they hand over your over-priced goods, forgetting that is they who are meant to be providing you a service. And have you noticed how many times we unnecessarily say please and thank you, for the most mundane things? Think about it next time you are getting off a bus. Try not to say thanks to the miserable (he lived through the Second World War for us!) driver for being king enough to drop you off at the bus stop where he was required to, as are the terms of his employment. On the continent, if you say thank you more than once when the transaction is over then they will, at best, think you are patronising them, or at worst, look embarrassed and mutter something to their companion (in a ?funny? language) about the English and their strange ways. They are sure we would say ?Thanks so much.? then gouge their eye out with a spoon to treasure as an authentic foreign keepsake. We don?t say a simple thank you. We say; ?Thanks, cheers, thanks a lot, thank you very much, cheers, bye now. Take care.? Pubs that insist at shutting at 10:10pm. Why? Do they or the government really care if we wake up on a Sunday with a hangover because of one more pint? People who attend church on a Sunday and think that all atheists, as they obviously have no moral code, are therefore serial killers and set fire to kittens for fun. Sunday schools that refuse to employ male teachers because, of course, all men are paedophiles.
People tending their gardens because they think they have to, should do. Grown men fighting with lawnmowers. The dread of tomorrow etched on everyone?s face. Offers in Sunday supermarkets for ?Two for the price of one.? Why not one for the price of half? Vomit on the pavements. Garden gnomes on top of traffic lights. Richard Littlejohn. The ?Mail on Sunday? and it?s skull-crackingly knee-jerk reaction to everyone and everything except a good old British Sunday roast, and the teeming mass of middle-class turds who read it over breakfast and agree that the world is going to shit because of, well, everything and everyone except the Sunday Roast.
The Horrors of Sunday in Suburbia.
Football in the park. Ah, another great British pastime. Football played by shaven headed and inebriated ABSO delinquents who challenge a team of younger children to a game and, once they have broken a sufficient number of bones, throw bottles of half empty vodka at the paramedics who come to pick them up. The tabloids. The frankly quite impressive dishonesty of politicians when evading the simplest question and the Sunday ?politics? programs that tell you nothing about politics but all you need to know about deceitfulness. Police cars that slow down and eye you with suspicion if you are taking a simple daily constitutional. Newspapers and their editorial ?comment.? Do we care? We don?t want to hear what these professional bullshitters have to say. We want news. Middle-aged women who, believe it or not, write a letter, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it, walk to the post box and send it to ?The News of The World? in the hope that it will get printed (and win ?10) so that the readership will laugh at the fact that their six-year old nephew/niece said ?Poo Poo? in front of the vicar (who came round for Sunday tea, secretly wishing he were at home surfing the net for porn ? after all, they are only human). The travesty of humanity that is Robert Killroy-Silk. The necessity of (gawd bless ?em) Sunday roasts and the intestine ripping agony that follows.
The Horrors of Sunday in Suburbia.
?Wacky? TV chefs. Why? Sunday cookery quizzes where, I kid you not, points are awarded for the first contestant to correctly identify a plate of Asparagus. Songs of Praise. Horizon specials that tell you less about the universe/volcanoes, etc, than a child would know. Going to the beach on a Sunday and getting sand in your sandwiches. The Pope at Sunday mass, sermonising about the world?s poor, his ?5,143 watch glinting in the warm Italian sun, condemning half the planet?s population to hell or poverty for such terrible sins as enjoying sex, being female and of course homosexuality. Weather forecasters promising snow drifts on Monday morning, only for the children to wake and have to trudge to school though a cold mucky slush. Returning home after a pleasant weekend and having to pay ?40 for the privilege of standing up on a overcrowded train for a journey that should take an hour, but takes six, but not before you have to endure the astonishing agony of delayed trains and listening to the automated apologies as you shiver to death on a deserted platform. For those of you who are as manically neurotic as me with regards to public transport, listen to these apologies. It?s a fun game. If a train is <10 minutes late, they are ?Sorry for the delay?. Over 15 minutes they are ?Very sorry for the delay?. 20 Minutes and they are ?Extremely sorry for the delay?. Any longer than that and, it seems, they?ve run out of ways to apologise. Perhaps something along the lines of this would better recieved; ?Jesus, we?re really fucking sorry about this guys. Some stupid bastard has forgotten to fix the signals so the train will arrive sometime before hell freezes over. Anyone fancy a pint till it arrives? I?m buying.?
The horrors of Sunday in Suburbia.
