Significantly less head pain today but my right eye is refusing to play ball. It stays ‘normal’ for a while and then wanders off and does its own thing. Hmmm. I feel like Mad Eye Moody from Harry Potter. None of the necromancers of Broughton Astley will be safe from me, by jingo.
I spect there’s loads of practitioners of the dark arts round here. It’s just the sort of place. Very respectable, quite suburban, buttoned up.
It’s all a front.
In the witching hour they’re all out sowing their begonias into hex patterns and weaving curses into the net curtains.
That’s how it starts you see.
As Terry Pratchett says, you only have to look at the M25 for evidence of the devil’s work on earth.
Other things invented by the devil to plague us on earth include:
- Chicken Tonight
- Argos
- The metal ring pull lids on Illy Coffee tins (I never fail to take off a chunk of knuckle no matter how careful I am)
- Cling Film
- The all pervasive smell of rotting fish in Morrisons, even when you are nowhere near the fish counter.
- Ants who refuse to know their place in the pecking order.
- Raspberry jam with no seeds in it (What is this about? What?)
- Big hair. (I’m thinking of you here, Charles Worthington)
- Wayne Rooney
- Wet look leather leggings on anyone over five stone.
- Fig Newtons
I could go on. I won’t. My friend Jo would definitely add mushrooms into this list. She refers to them as The Vegetables of Satan. I save that title for sprouts. My daughter would like to add minced beef of any kind, cooked any way. Tallulah is voting for anything which is not pink and sparkly or made of chocolate.
Votes for things that the devil has put on earth just to torture us with in the comments box please.
Rice cakes.
Just – why?
Wendy
I know what you mean, and yet I eat them when they’re around. Even though it’s a bit like eating loft insulation.
Mushrooms are indeed evil.
As is tofu.
I clearly have issues with slimy foodstuffs.
Jo
I am divided on the tofu issue. Had some magnificent tofu in Brum’s chinatown yesterday. Had some tofu that tasted like grouting before that. Not sure.
Okra. Cows have mulitiple stomachs and can’t digest it; clearly, humans should not be messing around with eating it. (Unless it’s deep fried and you are trying to be polite to an old Southern lady-some of whom do the Devil’s work killing people through cookery under cover of elaborate good manners, I’m convinced).
J
Yes. It’s the weird gooey quality that I’m not keen on.
Portuguese millipedes (actually most insects), sweaty-feet-smelling-cheeses, olives, Vegemite, tins with those stupid peel off strips, dreadlocks, blancmange, acetate packaging, squeaky recorders . . . . actually I think I’ll stop now – I can feel my blood pressure rising!
Sharon
Portuguese millipedes sound truly terrible. urgh. And recorders. Almost worse than millipedes.
scorpions, lima beans, anything that comes in one of those hard clear plastic packages that you have to cut open with scissors (many toys fit this bill), cosmetics that turn out to be All Wrong but you can’t find the register receipt to return them and it makes you crazy knowing you’ve wasted money just out of principle, drivers who don’t use their turn indicators which could have saved you some time if you’d known what they were planning to do…argh. (Was I supposed to stick just with foods? )
Ms Caroline
Oh yes! I had forgotten toy packaging. Luckily we don’t have scorpions in Broughton Astley so I’m not too bothered about them, although if I lived near them I suspect they’d make the grade.
No anything at all goes on the list.
Celery. Green peppers. Most people on this planet.
Mrs Jones
I used to feel that way about celery. Now I’m not sure. I can’t eat it raw though.
Oh I couldn’t possibly start a list like this….would be here all night and work myself up into a raging ‘gotta kick something’ mood. Increase the peace..that is what I say…increase the peace.
Libby
I feel much more peaceful when I’ve had a good rant!
tomatoes. Sure, they give good sauce in the end, but have you really considered a whole tomato? That weird feeling skin that contains … what? seeds, slimey innards, and some solidness. Which may or may not be red. It’s just so weird – it’s unfinished fruit! Devil’s handiwork, I tells ya.
Camelama
My ex husband used to feel that way about them too. I’ve always been strangely unmoved by the whole tomato issue.
slugs and snails; tailgaters; people who will not move out of the middle lane on motorways; teenagers …..
Alienne
Proto teenagers too.
Confront John with celery and he will recoil backwards, frantically signing a crucifix in the general direction of the Devil’s Own Vegetable.
So sorry you’re poorly, sweetheart.
For myself: Talk Radio.
HFF
I am with you on talk radio for sure. Hope you’re feeling more the thing yourself now sweetie.xx
Coriander (the fresh variety). Telesales people. Bras. People with bikini bodies.
Homeofficemum
We hates those bikini people. Hates em.
Glad to see that someone else out there likes ‘Good Omens’. Funniest book ever.
Leggings as trousers. Cauliflower. Mambo #5 song. The smell of durian (puke). People texting as they walk and then stopping dead in my path(I so want to bang into them hard). Giant cockroaches.
Karin
So underrated too. Never understood that.
Ketchup is the food of the devil!
I saw someone said Vegemite. I would like to add Marmite.
Cycling shorts
People who get out of the train then stop dead right in the doorway so noone else can get out.
Food moths.
Bev
I think there should be a word to describe any people who stop dead in the path in front of you. A ‘twat’ for example.
Leaf blowers.
People who use leaf blowers.
Em
Is this a recent hatred?
After a a weekend of minor DIY disasters and fruitless shopping expeditions which left me feeling thwarted at every turn, I’ve developed a much longer list of signs of the devil:
-white jeans
-people who write fashion magazines and try to convince the American public that white jeans are a good idea
-the guy in California who predicted the Rapture last weekend and exploited a truly frightening number of vulnerable people into believing him
-cable news in the United States
-the fact that spline comes in different sizes (why, God? this is not a situation where freedom of choice helps the consumer)
-the Houston, Texas airport
-light beer
J
What is spline?
white jeans do not stay white for very long. I am with you.
Vertical blinds. Reality television. Phlegm. Tabloids. Strawberry flavouring (NOT strawberries, obvs.) Men’s coloured shirts with white collars (I once made a boyfriend burn his)
Mine
Yes! Blinds. Yes! I forgot those.
Oh there are many, many things. My list starts with spiders and ends with people who say “ax” instead of “ask”.
Alex
I is wiv ya girlfriend! (joke!)
Choir members who feel compelled to second guess the conductor about EVERYTHING. You’re so clever, start your own freakin’ choir! In the meantime, pipe down so the rest of us can hear what the conductor is saying. Brussel sprouts, parsnips (now THAT’S a vegetable of Satan), apricots, grapefruits, ex-husbands, arrogant know-it-alls and crappy metabolisms that make every food you set eyes on go straight to the hips.
Dawn
Those renegade choristers are just bastards. We just gun em down round here. Oh, and ex husbands!
Re. leaf blowers and blowers who use leaf blowers – well, yes it is. Can you tell? There is nothing like a neighbour firing up an extension of their penis to blow all the crap off their side of the driveway over to our side. Then a slight wind sends it all back and so on and so on…
WHAT IS THE POINT!
Sorry Katy. I didn’t mean to shout when you aren’t feeling well xx
Em
You shout away my love. I know just what you mean. Very inconsiderate. Time to dig a tiger trap methinks.
Local tv news presenters.
Nimble
No court in the land would convict you