Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog

It’s another Fourth of July – Independence Day for us Yanks – and it’s got me thinking about what I miss most about America. Okay, if I’m honest, I’d have to say not a whole heck of a lot. However, if I’m also honest, well… there are some things. So to be fair to the old homeland and the Stars and Stripes (cue “Star Spangled Banner”), I thought I’d come up with a list – or rather a short list, since I really must put the kettle on!

Top of the pops would have to be clothes dryers. I mean, exactly what is this invention here in the UK they call a “clothes dryer”? It sure doesn’t dry clothes, I’ll tell you that much. It does, however, do a slap-up job of wrinkling the hell out of them (as does the great British washing machine and its mentally challenged sister, the “washer-dryer”). It’s no wonder my pile of ironing never diminishes. Whoever designed these things was surely taking the mickey out of people who like to wear clean fresh-smelling clothes. American washing machines and clothes dryers do a wonderful job, even the cheaper models. Frankly, I don’t understand why they’ve fobbed these ridiculous appliances off on us. Perhaps some primitive tribe on a forgotten South Pacific island didn’t want them, so the manufacturers said, “oi, let’s dump these piles of shite onto the Brits. They won’t make a fuss. Still upper lip and all that!” (Whoever said the war was over?)

Another thing I miss are doctors’ offices that don’t look like a waiting room at a rundown city centre bus station. Just try to find a magazine more recent than 2005, especially one that isn’t about fly fishing! There’s also usually some reasonably pleasant music playing in American doctors’ offices, as opposed to the dulcet tones of phlegmy coughing and wheezing that we listen to here from people who should probably be quarantined or shot, not sitting with a roomful of sorry bastards who might value another few years of life on this doomed planet.

Having said that, I don’t miss the exorbitant medical costs that go into having nicer patient waiting areas or paying the salaries of the ten dozen or so people per doctor’s office who just handle patient and insurance billing, but do nothing that contributes to a patient’s actual health care. Nor do I miss the terror of either having no health insurance or wondering if I’ll either be cancelled, refused insurance, have a claim rejected, or be able to pay for the portion of a claim the insurance doesn’t cover or, or that matter, be able to afford the next premium (which generally increases exponentially with each breath you take and far exceeds the rate of debt of all the Third World countries combined).

Something else I really pine for is the TV commercial for “The Clapper“. (And no, this isn’t some new STD.) It always comes on around Christmastime and features a slew of lazy buggers who can’t be bothered to switch off the lights or telly. My favourite out of this cast of loonies is the mad-looking old bat who’s lying all tucked up in bed, then suddenly from beneath the bedclothes these big gorilla hands appear, clapping the telly off. I tell you, American television just doesn’t get any better! (I wonder if I can land an interview with her for Mitzi TV?)

I also miss the fact that in America the majority of people can actually go for a night out and drink in reasonable moderation (well, except for students in frat houses or on spring break in Daytona Beach), rather than here where they fall into the gutter and pass out – and that’s only after they’ve left behind a pool of vomit for some unsuspecting pedestrian to step in – or slip and fall into. The real tragedy is, these people are going to bankrupt the British National Health Service with the vast menu of ailments and diseases which will develop from their excessive drinking. Perhaps some of the costs can be offset if the UK begins to export a new delicacy: pickled liver.

And lastly, most of all I miss the teeth.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could take the best of both America and Britain and create one great big wonderful country? Or perhaps we already have.

It’s called Canada.

Please Click Me!

Interview and discussion of erotic writing and male versus females writers; (broadcast on 24 June 2009, the Dave Monk programme, BBC Radio Essex)

Listen Now: http://mitziszereto.com/Mitzi-on-BBC-Radio-Essex

Mitzi Szereto at Teddy Tedaloo's London Photo Shoot

What’s a girl to do when her own bear upstages her?

A bear who hogs the limelight – it’s a problem I’ve had a number of times. Bad enough he blew me out of the water on Mitzi TV, not to mention pretty much knocked me off the page in the Sunday Telegraph a few years back. And it’s getting worse. Who do you think received an invitation last week to do a photo shoot in London? No, not me, but – you guessed it! Teddy. Like, what’s up with that?

I tell you, it never ends. He even steals my friends on Facebook.

Of course I had to agree to this caper, since I knew I’d never hear the end of it. So I packed a few changes of outfits for him (at his insistence) and what does he do? – sticks to his favourite red jumper and jeans. Here I’d been schlepping this stuff all over the place, only to end up not even needing it! Okay, I didn’t want to make a fuss; I admit the colour contrast between the red of his jumper and the black of my little vest top worked out quite well from an artistic perspective. Hey, I’ll give credit where credit is due – Teddy certainly has an eye for what works from a design perspective.

Which brings me to the London Underground. (How’s that for a nifty segueway?) I realise I haven’t had a good rant about the public transportation system in Blighty for awhile, and I didn’t wish to neglect this fertile subject. There’s nothing like a summery Saturday afternoon in Londoninium: the sun’s shining, there’s a nice breeze, people are happy (or at least their usual dour expressions are brightened by the sun, giving the appearance of “happy”). You figure hey, it was a productive day, we had some great photos shot, and we can get home early enough to chill out and fix a salad for dinner; there’s even time to stop off in Brick Lane for some Bengali sweets, since it’s practically around the corner from Whitechapel Road. What can possibly go wrong?

Dare you ask?

Thinking I’d save myself the hassle of passing through Liverpool Street station with its teeming mass of manic commuters who take delight in mowing you down at warp speed, I opted for the District line to Mile End, where I’d change to the Central Line to Stratford. I’d done it on the way in – easy peasy! It made perfect sense to do the same thing on the way out. Well, there’s no fool like a fool who travels on the London Underground. An ominous feeling began to take hold of me as our train sat for nearly ten minutes at Whitechapel station, with swearing and shouting Chelsea supporters (I presume they won) in the next car. Finally an announcement came on saying that we were waiting in order to “even out the gaps between services.” (At least there weren’t any leaves on the line or – considering it was the Underground – dead rats.)

At long last we lurched back into service. I rose from my seat in readiness to propel myself and my important passenger out the door at Mile End. Alas, that ominous feeling returned in full force when we sped past what appeared to be a station platform packed with commuters, our train barrelling deeper and deeper into the darkness beneath East London. The electronic signboard inside our car claimed the next station was Mile End. Well, if that were the case, Mile End should have been renamed Ten Mile End. And then we arrived.

In Bow.

Did I want to go to Bow? No, I didn’t want to go to Bow. Did Teddy want to go to Bow? Not that I was aware of. Fine, whatever. I figured the driver was probably some descendant of Jack the Ripper and was tormenting us by skipping stops. Being resourceful, I climbed the stairs and made my way round to the other side so I could catch another train heading back in the direction from whence I came. Made sense, right? Well, it did until I finally managed to decipher a garbled announcement informing us that Mile End station was closed due to a “passenger incident.” Now this could be anything: a suicide, an attempted suicide, some nutter pushing someone in front of a tube train…

Well, if someone wasn’t dead, I sure as hell felt inclined to help them on their way.

An official (loose usage of the term) from London Underground told me I could walk to the Docklands Light Railway. “Two minutes!” he claimed. If so, it was the longest two minutes I’ve ever experienced – and I’m a fast walker, especially when I have the safety of my bear to consider. Bow isn’t exactly … errr… Holland Park. It’s amazing how many friends you can make in London when you’ve been done over by public transport. I found a kind young gentleman who escorted me to the DLR, and he too, was wondering why two minutes seemed to be lasting a lifetime. As we waited on the platform, we marvelled at the fact that the DLR method of timekeeping jibes with any form of timekeeping known to man (or woman). The electronic signboard claimed seven minutes to the next train, but by everyone’s watch, it was more like fifteen. Funny, that.

To pass the time of day, my new friend entertained me with a tale of how he’d been late for work because a pregnant woman decided to suddenly give birth on the underground train he was riding in. His boss wasn’t having it, however. It was only when an article finally appeared in a newspaper featuring a beaming London Underground worker holding a baby that he got back into his boss’s good graces. Soon others chimed in with their tales of woe…

… until the DLR train arrived to ruin our fun.

Ted and I got home safely, albeit hungrily. It was 9:30 pm before I sat down to eat my salad. (I’d been reckoning on no later than 8 pm.) To be honest, I was so exhausted I barely managed it. Oh, well, who needs all those faddish diets with weird berries when you have the London Underground? The problem is, I’m not even on a diet!

Mitzi Szereto presenting Mitzi TV

Mitzi TV goes on the prowl in London in search of the famous East End Cockney delicacy, the jellied eel… (Turns out these scary denizens of the deep weren’t our cup of tea. We should’ve ordered the pie and mash instead!)

Visit the official Mitzi TV website at: http://mitziszereto.com/tv

Mitzi Szereto's "In Sleeping Beauty's Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales"

You know that expression “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings”? Well, I don’t even give her a chance to open her mouth! I apply this methodology to my professional life and to my personal life. Alas, the latter hasn’t proved as successful as the former, but we aren’t here to talk about that, are we?

Indeed, I’m not the kind of woman who takes “no” for an answer. When I started out in this literary gig, I knew the odds were hugely stacked against me. Hell, they still are. You think it’s easy to sell a book? – especially when you refuse to churn out the same shite everyone else does? I’m definitely my own drummer, and when I think what I’m doing is right, there’s no convincing me otherwise.

Case in point: my book of solo short stories Erotic Fairy Tales: A Romp Through the Classics. How I laugh when I hear some precious writer grumbling that their precious novel went to seven publishers before it finally found a home. Seven? What is seven? Try fifty, baby, then you can start grumbling! Yes, my little masterpiece went to about fifty publishers worldwide. I even had a literary agent working on it for a year (and believe me, I’ve lost track of the number of agents I’d submitted the thing to before I went with this one). Not that he did sweet FA, other than collect money off me for every conceivable cost, save for loo roll. (Wait, I think he did bill me for a jumbo pack of Charmin!) Half the publishers the manuscript was submitted to were ones I suggested to Mr. Literary Agent, the other half he came up with – and they were totally off the wall, including some tiny press in Georgia that only publishes poetry. WTF?

Fine, I’m used to always having to do everything my own damned self, since no one ever does anything right – and that’s if you can count on anyone to do it in the first place. But come on. I even had to track down an editor because my manuscript was returned unread, along with a letter stating that said editor no longer worked at said publishing house. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this a clue to find out who took his place in order to then resubmit the material  – and indeed, to submit to the original editor at the new publishing house as well? Apparently that took a bit of common sense and initiative, neither of which my so-called literary agent possessed. No wonder every time I phoned the guy he always sounded as if he’d been asleep… which he probably had been. Ah, well, I suppose it beat the New York agent who had a dog barking incessantly in the background while she tried to convince me over the phone to shell out 500 bucks to her to read my manuscript. Had I done so, I’m sure it would have ended up as one of those “my dog ate my homework” deals.

Undaunted by the blatant hopelessness of my situation, I resumed control of my product and re-embarked upon the quest to find a publisher. I submitted far and wide, to publishers in every corner of the globe. Had there been publishers on Mars, I would have submitted to them too. In fact, I was running out of publishers. Oh, the despair! Finally I put together my last batch of mailings and headed to the post office (which by this time was thriving thanks to my generous patronage). This was it. If it didn’t happen, it wasn’t going to happen – there was no one left.

The next morning my phone rang. It was a publisher, and she wished to speak to me about my fairy tales manuscript. I was asked to come to their San Francisco office for a meeting. Since I lived in Sonoma County at the time, this was fairly easy. Besides which, I always welcomed any chance to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge – I still do, in fact!

And that’s the tale of how Erotic Fairy Tales: A Romp Through the Classics finally saw the light of day. The book has sold so nicely and has been reprinted so many times that Cleis Press decided to publish a second edition – the now renamed In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales. I invited author Tobsha Learner to write a special forward, along with some words of praise on the back cover provided courtesy of author Nancy Madore. The book will be out in autumn 2009 and is already available (HINT HINT!!) for pre-order at the lovely Amazon.com.

So you tell me who was wrong: all those publishers who passed on my book, or me?

Mitzi Szereto hanging wiv some geeks

Random nights out in The Big Smoke…

Right, I know exactly what you’re thinking: drugs, booze, wild parties, The Old Bill, riot gear… Bet you can hear the sirens wailing already as a police van carts me off into the sooty London night. Booked, fingerprinted, tossed in the nick. Oh, the shame of it!

Well, think again.

How about a Turkish kebab with a bunch of tech geeks? Scary stuff, huh? And it gets better. How about a Turkish kebab with a bunch of tech geeks in a Turkish restaurant located across the road from a mosque? You guessed it, Habib – no booze! But what the hey, the meat was Halal and there was little chance of catching swine flu from anything on the menu!

You might well ask how our charming group of geek-kebabites hooked up in the first place. It was random destiny, my dears – “random” being the operative word here. It could be that we were all foreigners to some extent, therefore not confined to the Britishness of needing to have downed pints at the local with someone for a zillion years before venturing out for a curry together. See, I belong to a ton of groups – Facebook groups, Meetup groups – you name it, I belong to it. Ergo this whole mad kebab caper kicked off with a mass email via one of my Meetup groups inquiring if anyone was going to the TechCrunch party in London. I replied that I was, and that kicked off still more mass emails with others RSVP-ing that they were going too.

Anyway, I forgot all about it till the night of the party, when one of the mass messagers recognised me and came over to introduce himself and his mate. Riveting stuff so far, eh? Well, give me a chance! Three nights later I was at some geek networking event in Brick Lane and there they were again, along with some other guy who recognised me from the party – and soon we were all hanging out with our drinks and chatting about cloud computing (yes, I’m serious.). Then yet another character from this geek play entered our arena, and the next thing I knew we were chasing down the street after the elected Pied Piper of our party as he endeavoured via the GPS on his phone to lead us to an Indian kebab house that was so good everyone back in Delhi was raving about it.

As we ventured further and further away from the relative safety of Brick Lane and I became hungrier and hungrier, I began to wonder if the place truly existed. Had I stumbled upon (no pun intended) the geek version of the Manson Family? Was I going to be murdered and dismembered in a Muslim neighbourhood near Aldgate? If so, I could only hope it would be done under strict Halal guidelines. Suddenly I recalled a conversation I’d had earlier that evening with someone who stated that these people (as in tech geeks) shouldn’t be let out on their own. Indeed, the words rang ominously in my ears…

When at last we reached the holy grail, I breathed a sigh of relief. Aside from the fact that I would live to see another day (not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse), it had already gone past 10pm; I’d have eaten pretty much anything by then. Alas, the divine scent of our Mecca was so packed with people waiting for tables that we were told it would be at least an hour’s wait. I stared desperately at the sweets counter, having an hour earlier embarked upon a mad dash to my favourite (past tense) Bengali sweet shop on Brick Lane, only to find the shutters closed. I was NOT happy. It was clear we would have to take our patronage elsewhere.

And that’s how we ended up at the Turkish kebab place across the road from the mosque.

Was it worth it? Yes. However, I think the excitement of being in the company of so many geeks proved too overwhelming for me (I don’t get out much), because I got a bit carried away when, halfway through my ground lamb kebab, I took a bite of an innocuous-looking object on my plate, which turned out to be a chili. The nice young gentleman seated beside me appeared to be on the verge of ringing the fire brigade, but I persevered and downed a hearty gulp of my yogurt drink, attempting to put out the flames. I tell you, I never realised those Turks could be so sneaky!

We’re now planning to make this a regular gig. Furthermore, we might even allow newcomers to join our ranks, providing they can prove their worthiness. It’s been suggested that an initiation ceremony involving the chili should be used to separate the men from the boys. Hmm…. I wonder what Amnesty International would have to say about that?

Some of you may have heard about the recent fracas concerning online retailer Amazon.com. What happened is this: a whole slew of books had their sales rankings removed – books which apparently fell into a certain category, the likes of which have puzzled pretty much everyone. Amazon initially seemed to be targeting titles deemed to contain “adult content”, especially anything in the “erotica” genre. This then ended up being extended to gay and lesbian literature and even feminist works. Now we’re not talking only about those books with covers that would make your average raincoat and black-socks-wearing perv blush with embarrassment, but some very high-profile books as well, including non-fiction historical studies and works containing no sexually explicit content whatsoever.

Considering that many of my books classified as “erotica” are far less explicit than the average Jilly Cooper or Jackie Collins novel (see my blog post about mislabelling), this sounded like hypocrisy in action. So too, was the fact that titles containing nude photographs of women (and not the most highbrow either), along with memoirs penned by porn stars were still respectably ranked on Amazon. So I went and had a look and found that a number of my titles had been de-ranked. What makes this especially amusing (or not, depending on how you look at it) is the fact that Stephen Fry‘s autobiography was also de-ranked, along with classic works of literature such as D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and a biography of Oscar Wilde. Rather than be upset by it as my fellow writers were, I felt flattered to be in such lofty company as Mssrs. Lawrence, Wilde and Fry.

Since I live in a cave (metaphorically), I had no idea this cull was even going on until I began to see mention of it in Facebook and Twitter updates. A petition had been started and was being passed along the grapevine (helped by me once I knew of the situation). Finally Amazon sat up and took notice, though they blamed everything on a “glitch”. (Sounds just like Facebook’s favourite excuse!) Now I’m not going to say the good folks at Amazon were telling porkers – glitches in systems are common enough, and something intended to perform one function can often end up taking over and creating havoc, much like the Hal 2000 computer from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So why did this happen? Well, in some frothing-at-the-mouth Bible-Belting attempt to protect the delicate book-buying public from material that might be deemed to be of an “adult” nature, Amazon took it upon themselves to enact this de-ranking policy, which didn’t remove books from the site, but removed their sales rankings, thereby driving them, shall we say, underground. It also removed these books from search results. Perhaps I’m not the only one who lives in a cave, because surely any member of the public (regardless of age) can locate the most extreme, sick and disgusting forms of pornography online at the click of a mouse. So who exactly was being protected by this policy? Your guess is as good as mine as well as all the others who objected to this arbitrary silliness on the part of Amazon.

Now I know a lot of people diss Amazon and this hasn’t exactly helped the situation. They’ve become the company people love to hate (much like Starbucks). Surprisingly, a lot of authors have joined the hate bandwagon too, which I find surprising, especially since the odds are hugely stacked against authors’ books being sold at all, to say nothing of actually being stocked! If this makes me politically incorrect, so be it, but frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. I LOVE Amazon – and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Amazon is not the love that dare not speak its name. They have all my books listed for sale and if they are out of stock, they’ll reorder them. They also allow buyers to pre-order titles that haven’t even been published yet. (I suggest you hurry over to Amazon and do so for the upcoming re-release of my bestselling story collection In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales!) Now how many brick-and-mortar booksellers can even be bothered to do this when they can’t even be bothered to re-order a book that’s already been published?

Most of the big chains are in bed with major publishing houses (I won’t mention names, but two biggies here in the UK are definitely enjoying a gay old romp in the sheets with some heavy players in the publishing world). Why do you think the same stale books by the same stale authors are in every bookshop? God forbid if you want to be a Looky Lou and peruse the shelves to see what else might be worth a read – you’re pretty much stuck with Delia Smith‘s cookery books, David Beckham‘s words of wisdom, Katie and Peter‘s lives as happily married chavs, and Paris Hilton‘s riveting life story (or has it been published yet?). Of course you can’t exactly peruse the bookshelves at Amazon as you might a regular bookshop, but when a regular bookshop offers you a very limited variety of the vast variety of books and authors out there, you’re getting a raw deal anyway.

So stop your whingeing. Amazon behaved stupidly (how many of you can say that you never have), and they did something about it (how many of you can say that you have), so let’s all be friends again. As writers we can’t afford to thumb our noses at vendors who sell our product. And as readers/consumers we deserve the greatest variety of books offered at the very best price. Amazon has revolutionised the way books are sold. Fine, so they screwed up, but they listened to the public and they responded by rectifying the problem. I bet you can’t say the same for your local or national government or your utility company or your bank. And I bet you can’t say the same for your lover/partner/spouse either!

Have you ever wanted to get out of something so badly, yet no matter what excuse you came up with it always sounded completely lame? Well, fret no more. Here’s the perfect one-size-fits-all excuse guaranteed to get you out of anything!

Mind you, proving it might be a more difficult matter. But hey, first thing’s first, right?

A mate of mine stopped by the other day, and I was telling him about how I really didn’t want to do something I’d committed to several months ago – something which, if I bailed on, would not make me look too great. Now bear in mind that I’m the sort of person who always keeps her word and doesn’t break promises or renig on obligations. I’d like to think I have integrity in my dealings with people, and integrity is something we don’t see enough of in these selfish ME ME ME IT’S ALL ABOUT ME times in which we live. But I was feeling really depressed about having to go through with this particular thing, so I jokingly in conversation came up with a potential excuse to get out of it.

No sooner had I spoken than I realised that I’d actually given birth to this excuse a few days earlier at the gym, when I ran into one of the lads who works there; he’d promised me we’d go out on the town for a night of clubbing. (Apparently the town in which I reside has a club that’s supposedly so brilliant people commute here from all over London just to go to it. Not sure I quite buy that grand description, judging from some of the creatures I’ve seen queued up outside.) Anyway, I never heard back from him about our big clubbing night and figured oh, just another talker. You know the sort – they totally love you when they see you and “oh, we really must go out and party!” – then you never hear from them.

I didn’t see him for two weeks after our initial plan and figured he’d either gone off on holiday or been fired. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The minute he saw me he began to gush about how he’d been in hospital for the last two weeks with complications resulting from a misdiagnosed case of mumps – said complications being a near-fatal case of encephalitis. So I jokingly retorted that I’d heard all sorts of excuses to get out of something, but being dead would’ve been the best one yet.

You get where I’m going with this?

I bet in all the years you’ve been concocting bogus lame-ass excuses you never once thought of that one. (Have I become obsessed with this theme due to a certain anthology of mine?) Hey, just think of all the boring and unpleasant things you can get out of:

- I won’t be able to turn in my term paper. I’m dead.

- I can’t make it into the office today. I’m dead.

- I won’t be able to attend your dinner party. I’m dead.

- I can’t see you tonight. I’m dead.

- I won’t be able to marry you. I’m dead.

- I can’t buy you an anniversary gift. I’m dead.

- I won’t be able to finish this blog post. I’m ……………………….

Here’s a little theme music to help inspire you: http://www.youtube.com

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Spring is on our doorstep, flowers are bursting into bloom, the sun is shining (at least some of the time); those heavy winter coats can finally be put away. A long holiday weekend is on the horizon – the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, which starts on Good Friday and runs through Bank Holiday Monday. Plenty to do, lots of places to go. A perfect time for some Erotic Travel Tales, if you’ve a mind to book a trip out of town.

Well, just try to bloody get anywhere!

The sadistic stooges who run the public transportation system here in Great Britain (and, more specifically, its overcrowded capital London) prefer to hold many of us hostage in our homes rather than allow us to actually go anywhere and maybe, just maybe, derive a few minutes of enjoyment from this bleak joke we call “Life”. Oh, they may not wear balaclavas, but they’re as mean and unscrupulous as any band of hostage-takers you’re ever likely to encounter. Who needs the IRA or Al Kaida when we have these railway charmers in our midst? Foolish little me for making plans for Good Friday for what sounded like a fun night out in Brick Lane consisting of several live bands plus some rather interesting-sounding beer. Easter Sunday held the promise of a cracking good Sunday roast lunch at a city pub with a bunch of American expats, no doubt followed by still more pubs and invariably a discussion of British immigration policies and teeth.

And I was really looking forward to it too.

Well baby, it ain’t gonna happen. Why? Because this weekend is going to be chock full of engineering work on the rail lines, including those of the London Underground. Weekends are usually fraught with this sort of thing at various locations throughout Greater London and beyond, but when it comes to bank holiday weekends, they really get out the big guns. Now it isn’t completely impossible to get where I need to go, but when the routing takes on all the proportions of a clandestine attack on a major world leader, it’s time to call it a day. Both events I’d planned to attend take place in the city, near London Liverpool Street station – generally an easy commute by train, 35 minutes or so. Not this weekend, however. The trains from where I live will not be running past a certain point, meaning I cannot get to either Liverpool Street station or Stratford East London (where I could catch the tube). If I were to even attempt such a journey, I’d end up on some convoluted acid-trip of a route which would take more than two hours one way for what should only be a half hour. And let’s not even talk about whether I’d be able to make it home at night.

Fine, I’m resourceful; I figured I’d be creative and find another way that, although inconvenient, would not be quite as inconvenient as what the National Rail website was proposing I do: I’d get off the train at Romford and change to the Romford to Upminster line, then catch the District line tube from there into the city and directly to Aldgate East – perfect and right where I needed to be! Not the most convenient or ideal routing, but do-able. Well, the District line at Upminster also isn’t running, thereby cutting off yet another large sector of the population from the city. I wasn’t beaten yet though. The C2C train goes from Upminster into the city – so I could still get that train from Romford to Upminster, then catch the C2C and get off at West Ham, where I’d catch the District line to Aldgate East. Hey, not so fast, madam! The Romford to Upminster line isn’t running at all, and what should normally be a short hop on this particular line would now take nearly two hours via, of all places, Southend (no wonder the National Rail website had an ad for the local Holiday Inn posted right above the train routes). And this time frame doesn’t even factor in the other legs of the journey.

Looks like I’m not going anywhere. This reminds me of those deadly virus movies where they isolate whole segments of the population so they don’t spread the disease and infect others. Seems like a hell of a lot of people from the Eastern edge of the capital out past the M25 will be stuck at home this Easter weekend – or not going anywhere near London anyway.

I find it interesting that many third-world countries manage to maintain, upgrade, and expand their rail systems without causing serious disruption to its residents, so why can’t Great Britain? As for our European neighbours, I can’t imagine the French, Spaniards, Greeks or Russians putting up with this crap. There would be rioting in the streets, politicians would be hung from the branches of trees and publicly neutered with a dull knife. Over here in Blighty they only seem to get the fighting spirit when their football team has lost – or, for that matter, won. Sure people may moan a bit, but then they go have a cup of tea, and the rail fares continue to spiral upwards for what has become an increasingly eroded level of service.

But don’t worry, be happy! The Olympics are coming to London, and those of us who live east of the city will be made to suffer even more than we already do just so the tourists who come here to spend their money can enjoy a state-of-the-art British public transportation system (now if that isn’t an oxymoron I don’t know what is) – with nice places to wait out of the cold and wind (been to the train platforms at Stratford lately? Perfect for catching pneumonia!), and nice shiny trains that aren’t reeking with the stench of greasy chips, or littered with the gnawed-over remnants of fast food, empty beer bottles and ripped-open condom packets (I don’t even want to think about where the contents of said packets have ended up).

I don’t know about you, but I wish to make a complaint! http://www.youtube.com

If you’re a regular Facebook user (yup, I’m on about those guys again!), no doubt you’ve come across the endless barrage of quizzes aimed at pumping up your ego and making you appear to be a far better and far more superior human being than you actually are. Frankly, I’ve had about enough of these nauseating boosts for the ego. Just think, if we had this many wonderful, giving, loving, saintly, selfless people living in this world, it would truly be paradise – and we wouldn’t be in the big fat mess we’re in.

But we all know that we don’t, and it isn’t.

Let’s get real. The developers of these ego-stroking quizzes need to start making these apps more representative of modern-day society, rather than this barf-bag orgy of vomit we’ve been seeing all over the place. I say develop quizzes for REAL people, the people we meet every day, the people we work with, the people we drive on the freeways and motorways with, the people we ride on the subways and buses with, the people we live with or live next door to, the people we give our hearts to and take to our beds to love with.

I’m sure you’re going to accuse me of being a pessimist. Well, I prefer to say I’m a realist. I mean, there’s only so many times you can get kicked in the crotch before you finally wake up and smell the latte.

So here are some examples of the kinds of quizzes I believe more accurately portray the world in which we live (and they’re automatically copyrighted by having been published here, so developers – keep your geeky little hands off!):

♦ Which Kind of Nasty Sociopathic Neighbour Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Jealous Vicious Trouble-Making Best Friend Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Scumbag Cheating Husband/Wife/Boyfriend/Girlfriend Are You?

♦ Which Kind of I-Make-Everybody-Sick Soccer Mom Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Meddling Parent/Inlaw/Relative Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Skanky Trailer-Park Trash Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Lager-Lout Football Hooligan Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Sticky-Fingered Shoplifter Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Deadbeat Insurance Defrauder Are You?

♦ Which Kind of I’m-Too-Lazy-To-Get-Off-My-Fat-Ass Welfare Cheat Are You?

We can also extend this to those employed in specific professions:

♦ Which Kind of Shyster Pad-My-Clients’-Bills Lawyer Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Incompetent Never-Once-Cracked-Open-Gray’s-Anatomy Surgeon Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Crooked Raiding-The-Public-Coffers Politician Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Scamming Madoff-Loving Investment Consultant Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Embezzling Empty-My-Clients’-Pockets Accountant Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Thieving Overpaid/Over-Bonused Banker Are You?

And lastly, for those who hail from, shall we say, the more fringe elements of society:

♦ Which Kind of Fanatical Political Terrorist Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Psychopathic Serial Killer Are You?

♦ Which Kind of Dimwitted Facebook Application Developer Are You?
(Oops………………….)

Please feel free to add more!