Seven things that make me grumpy
I have just read about seven things that make me grumpy on rosie scribble's blog It spoke to me. Perhaps I am having one of my grumpy old woman days. So, just so you can see that all is not sweetness and light up here all the time, here are my seven:
- Politicians posturing and turning any question into a way of blaming the other political party instead of entering into a real, unscripted, interesting dicussion .
- Political interviewers doing their own version of posturing, being aggressive and rude and not apparently appreciating that they are at risk of becoming the story not the question. I am fascinated by politics and follow it avidly and would no more not vote than run naked down the street, but you can tell that I have spent a lot of time shouting at the radio over the last few weeks. Will be quite a relief, and not just for me, when the election is over.
- Sexualised clothing for little girls. No, no, no. Just wrong. Leave them alone to be children.
- People who don't answer emails for a week or two. I suppose I should just accept that not everyone checks their emails and tries to respond every day but a lifetime of working where the expected response time was about half an hour has left me with no patience for being given an email address by someone who apparently doesn't really use email. Give my your phone number instead. Grump.
- Being the only woman in a roomful of men who all bond cheerily over football. Doesn't happen as often as it used to now, thankfully!
- Not getting enough sleep. I am hopeless without sleep. I have sometimes wondered if the main reason I found having small babies a bit of a struggle was that I don't manage very well on little sleep, but then, who does? It makes me foggy and forgetful and irritable and just plain cross.
- Big shopping centres, all that excess, all that consumerism, all those people shopping as if it were a religion. I hate everything about it: the cynical manipulativeness of the retailers, the gullibility of the punters, the idea that buying things will make you happy, the sheer wastefulness of a society which is constantly buying new things and throwing things away without regard for the effect of this on mother earth.
I am the only woman in an office full of blokes, and I just let them get on with the football thing. sometimes they pretend to ask me what I think and I just smile. They forget i am there and I get a very interesting insight into the man's world:-)
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing
ditto on the clothes for young girls
martine
ooh, i'm with you on about half of these, for sure. sexualized little girls YES (yes meaning it makes me grumpy); no sleep YES; email ignored, YES.
ReplyDeleteon the other hand, I look at your magnificent header photo and wonder how anyone could be grumpy ever in such a glorious place as that.
Great list! Especially numbers 3 and 6. Agree completely.
ReplyDeleteOnly seven???......I must be descending into grumpy-dome as I could have gone on for another three or four, anyway. I hate to be called MAdame - yikes!
ReplyDeleteOnly 7? I think you're being rather restrained, Elizabeth!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you strongly on 3,4,7, oh and of course the points on politics, and the lack of sleep ....
ReplyDeleteAgree, agree, agree, agree, agree, agree, agree.
ReplyDeleteWith you on shopping centres and te incredible consumption of the UK, it really shocked me when we went back last month. I hate sexy clothes for little girls vile indeed, um I am not a sleeper so nope can not agree with lack of sleep and I am crap at answering emails just too occupied most of the time to get about to it and always presume f peopel do not get back they too probably busy busy busy and will do so in htier own sweet time. Great list..
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on 6 out of 7 of your grumps. The lack of sleep one is irritating but doesn't bother me that much. I'll substitute moaners - those people who find fault with everything and everybody, forever blaming somebody else but not lifting a finger to effect change themselves. I feel an old grump rant coming on!
ReplyDeleteMartine - it is an insight into a man's world. Sounds like you smile and let them get with it approach works just fine!
ReplyDeleteLaurie - well I am not really into being grumpy on a grand scale. I do spend quite a bit of time being annoyingly polyanna-ish and grateful for living here but every now and then I allow myself a quick grump and a stomp.
Rosie - thanks and thanks for the idea.
Pondside - oh I could have gone on and on once I got started. Probably a blessing that the title said seven things!
Rachel - well see above, I could certainly have managed another couple without any difficulty.
Sally - out of the same mould then?
Fran - and I agree with Fran.
Hah - I wonder if the world divides into sleepers and non sleepers? I have always rather enviously thought the non sleepers must achieve far more than I do as I spend so much of my time in bed!
Mountainear - I thought we might be on the same wavelength about much of this. I could easily have included moaners in my list of moans too!
Grumpy is good, grumpy is what I do. Perhaps other people have me on their list of grump inducing items.
ReplyDeleteShopping, people who make me wait (and not just for emails), rain (what am I doing in the UK), men with blippers, shrill women and bombastic men, uncontrolled kids, dogs, self-important people, greediness (mine), sylph-like figures (others'), and yes, before I forget, politicians.
But posturing, jockeying for position, don't most people do that? Even bloggers?
I have re-read this diatribe and I see that it's people who annoy me. Full stop. I really need to re-join the human race some time.
As for #1 and #2: I am avowedly apolitical, because politics makes my blood pressure skyrocket, and makes me want to kill someone. Anyone. So I avoid it at all costs. They're all liars, every single one of them.
ReplyDeleteAs for #3: I couldn't agree with you more. Specifically, pants or shorts with suggestive words emblazoned across the ass cheeks. Nobody needs to be looking at a nine year old's ass.
As for #4: Meh, it's their loss if they miss out on my really great emails. Besides, anyone who says they don't check their email is a politician. I mean, they're lying.
As for #5: I always loved being the only woman in a roomful of men - and getting them to talk about anything I wanted them to. Ha!
As for #6: Yes. Needing the sleep!
As for #7: I have not set foot in a shopping mall in over twenty years. Seriously. I mean it. They are evil and must be stopped.
Well, your grumpiness has brought a smile to my face....sorry. Its like seeing someones house messy, you like them better, well knowing your not the only grumpy one once in a while. And I'd say I agree with most of your grumps and could add a few of my own. bless your grumpiness!
ReplyDeleteDid you see the Barcelona game at the weekend - Messi just gets better, doesn't he? D'you think Wigan have a chance of stopping Chelsea clinching the title at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Will Rooney be fit for the World Cup?
ReplyDeleteC'mon over to the dark side, Elizabeth. You know you want to. . .
I could have written that list--It echos how I feel too!!
ReplyDeleteI agree on all your points. Funny about the politics thing, I am assuming you are talking of your country, but your points apply to mine---I get so tired of it. I've just seen in a local store advertisement, a little girl that was posing quite suggestivly--just had a thought, we could complain to the store headquarters... doubt if it would do any good, but who knows? And so agree on the huge shopping malls. Spend, spend, spend--so dull, and then we see second hand store full of stuff people no longer want, and storage sheds where one rents space to store their 'stuff'. I think the malls are getting a big hit with the economy being what it is. yep, I have to have my sleep also. I get angry when I get tired--can't stay up late-- 10:30 pm is the latest, and I truly detest New Year's eve. I always pray that my husband doesn't want to go anywhere on New Year's. I've found that the new year makes it here just fine without me ushering it in. From another grumpy lady.
ReplyDeleteHow unfair is that only 7 things that make you grumpy! You hardly get started and you've got to stop!!
ReplyDeleteAgree with you on a lot of your points, particularly consumerism and appropriate clothing for young children.
I'll throw in a couple of extras to wind things up a bit, bad drivers, teenagers and their attitudes and waiting on the phone for any service providers, you know how it goes " press 1 for ..., press 2 for ..." and so on!!!!
Good list - I don't think I would make one - mine would be yards long.
ReplyDeleteWas it me that didn't respond to an e-mail?
(paranoia sets in)
K
xx
Oh, keep going! I've nodded at all of these and it's making me feel much better about myself!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with all your grumps (although I quite like to talk football during the world cup).
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that is guaranteed to put me in a grump is people dropping litter and leaving dog mess. It seems as though they are saying "I don't care about this planet I live on, or the people who live on it".
Feel better now I've got that of my chest!
E hates football - worth marrying for that alone. Oops, I did.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, my ma sent me an e-mail just now which included this,:
"This comes from an obituary of His Honour Gerald Butler.
'When Cherie Blair published her memoirs, he (G.B.) suggested that she should be prevented from sitting as a reorder. "If she wants to tread this path of making money by outrageous comments that is up to her," he said, "but I don't think this is a job for a judge. It shows a complete lack of any kind of decency. It is the kind of conduct which demeans the legal profession. It is altogether disgraceful but nothing less than I would expect from her."
If this was written about you, wouldn't you find some small hole you could crawl away to and die in it? And there she still is, making huge sums. And him. There in all his bright Tango orange coloured tan campaigning for Jackie Smith and saying 'Never might what has happened in the past, let's see what we can do in the future.' What a bloody nerve, and what a pair. And from Gordon Brown's speeches, anyone would think someone else had been in power for the last thirteen years, and the country needed him to rescue us from them."
(back to me)
I don't think she'll be voting Labour.
As for sleep, what's that? not getting enough means we'll die sooner, apparently, acc BBC website. So, less time to grumble in!
See you Friday!
Agree with almost all. I would add 'slouching' - especially in overpaid starlets who are wearing amazing clothes that they haven't had to pay for, yet appear to have as much posture as a jellyfish.
ReplyDeleteI keep yelling 'SIT UP STRAIGHT' at the telly.
They ignore me.
LOL, LOL, LOL!!! And yes, yes, yes yes (seven times yes) - though I know I am guilty of the not answering emails swiftly one (*blush*).
ReplyDeleteFabulous post, EM.
I like the grumpy Elizabeth!!! Her grumps are utterly reasonable, in my book, and quite entertaining. I agree with all of them, so I guess we're related, although I rarely find myself in a room full of men who are bonding over football.
ReplyDeleteDo I owe you an email???? Gad, I do hope not.
Oh, a woman after my own heart on most of these (although have to admit to an uncomfortable moment re 'people who take two weeks to respond to emails'. I grapple daily with my inbox, which I try to keep down to under 50, and put off writing back to friends until I have time to really think and write something from the heart. Sometimes that day takes several weeks to arrive. Now feel ashamed and chastened.
ReplyDeleteWould love to know who you are voting for tomorrow (yes, I too will not be running through the village naked tomorrow morning, my neighbours will be relieved to hear).
We're all basically Grumpy; that's why we love writing.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Emails, busy pople always find time, it's the lazy ones who don't. Sleep? Four hours is more than enough.
I think 8-14 should be next.
Greetings, Cro.
Every grump could be echoed by me , not that they're grumps . They're perfectly reasonable points of view , to which I would add a dislike of people who eat pizza , hamburgers or chips on trains .Oh yes , and of people who hold loud phone conversations ditto .
ReplyDeleteI'm off now to look affronted somewhere else .
Goodness, I hope my little girls stay little girls a little longer than their peers. A friend's child who is 8, wears make up every day and dresses like a sixteen year old. It makes me sad. I agree with your list wholeheartedly.
ReplyDeleteHearing about things like that can start anyones day off GRUMPY.
ReplyDeleteGetting on to the photo , that is so beautiful..
yvonne
Agree with all of them Elizabeth except the email one! I fear I am your worst nightmare - it can take me 6 months to answer an email sometimes! If it were a worky thing, I'd respond, of course, but if it's friends catching up, then I am rather more lax - though I always get round to it eventually. Unforgiveable, I know.
ReplyDelete