Intolerance is a sin/The annoying people I meet on trains.

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This is not in any way how the train I was on today looked as it trundled through Warrington Central, this is somewhat nicer. I get a lot of trains, and, as often as not, I get the train too early in the morning, a little hungover (oh you devil) and bloody grumpy. Today was an optimum example of this, and my levels of intolerance are poor at the best of times. On the train is one of those places where people's true colours come out, the dark underbellies of respectable folk who would (I'm sure) normally be bloody lovely. Why do people think it's ok to behave this way?

The Seat Hogger - Don't get me wrong, I like a nice double as much as the next person. Infact, I'm rather partial to a table if there's one free (just so you know.) But seriously bitch - move your bag. There are no more seats, except possibly for the sliver of chair next to the obese woman or the space next to the guy who didn't shower. I appreciate that your bag is Mulberry, truly I do, but if you don't move it and let me sit down, I will berry your mull. Think about it.

Mr No-Respect-For-My-Personal-Space - Conversely, we then have the guy who insists on sitting next to you, despite the fact that the whole friggin coach is free. Get away. I want to sprawl, and to pull faces at my reflection in the window, and you are spoiling it. There is a sub-breed of this type, who may be sitting next to you out of necessity, but like... touches you. I can deal with a cordial knee-lean, maybe even the inevitable elbow rub. But this guy is rubbing up against me like a poodle on heat. No. Another point worthy of note is that this charateristic is often comorbid with The Kindle Bitch or Your-Eating-Annoys-Me.

11am Beer Guy - You wouldn't crack open a tinnie after dropping the kids off at school would you? I dunno, mabe you would. I get it, you're on the train, it's almost a holiday. Or it's on expenses. But that does not make it OK to start drinking before noon. Especially if you're on your own.

The Kindle Bitch - You have a Kindle/notebook/i-pad, I'm pleased for you. Now stop shoving it under my nostrils. Worst of all are the people who look like they should be in intensive care they've got so many wires sticking out of them - you cannot listen to your i-pod and bluetooth headset at the same time. You just can't. What really annoys me about these people is how official they try to look. It's like when people first got Blackberrys to 'check their work e-mail'. I know you're reading Dan Brown, your kindle does not make you intellectual. Stop looking down on my Cosmo.

Your-Eating-Annoys-Me  - My intolerance of this type stems largely from the fact that I can never be bothered to make myself a sandwich in advance. Then some guy pulls up infront of me, whips out his uber-baguette and begins to eat it really annoyingly. He spits it everywhere. Or he chews too loud. Or he gets butter on the seat. Actively watching anyone eat is infuriating, on a train there's very little to distract you.

Mrs Lets Be Friendssssss - There are some necessary exchanges - 'Excuse me' for example. 'What's the next stop please?'. But I do not, ever, want to strike up a lengthy conversation about your son's girlfriend and how you just don't think they're ready to get a dog yet and you suggested a hamster as a compromise but she says she's allergic to hamsters but how can she be allergic to hamsters and not dogs. I don't care. Leave me alone.

Are these folk familiar to people other than me, or am I really just a rail-scrooge?!

Things I should know by now #32 - Don't give mormon missionaries an in.

So... OK. I've started walking to and from uni, in an attempt to calm my nerves and get some excercise. Yesterday, I was tootling along quite happily, when I was approached by three men in black suits. My first thought was that I was being recruited for MI5 (naturally), but that turned out not to be the case. In a hurry to avoid conversation (I was on the way to do some work, and seriously not in the mood), I saw they were wearing badges that said 'Jesus', and, taking off my headphones, said hurriedly

"I'm already a Christian guys, baptised and confirmed - good job!"

And attempted to swerve them - it should be noted that this is not a total lie, I was confirmed when I was about 13. Unfortunately, I had not read the whole badge. They were actually Mormons - Elders from the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Oh. And well... it just sort of, snowballed from there. I would like everyone to remember that I was stressed about exams, and I hate being rude to people, and I panicked, OK?

"Awesome!" They all cried, "But we want to tell you about the Mormon message. Do you mind if we start by praying?"
I'd already told them I was a Christian. I couldn't then refuse to pray... could I? So there I was, in the street, being led in Mormon prayer, asking God to open my heart.
Mormon 1: If you could ask God one question, what would it be?

Erm.... well, actually, I dont really believe in a God, at least not the Judeo-Christian one, and I don't have any particular questions for him anyway, but shit, its too late now. I lied as little as possible:
Me: I think I'd ask why its so hard to have faith at times."
Its times like this I wish I wasn't quite so good at bullshitting, I sounded so goddam genuine.
Mormon 2: Aw yeh, awesome question. Hey Elder Yin, do you know a good passage for that?
Mormon 3: I sure do Elder Peters, lets check out Benjamin 5!
I'm not exagerating, they really did speak like that. So there we were, reading from the Book of Mormon, and I was being given a potted history of the religion. Have you seen the South Park episode? Yeh, its basically that.

Joseph Smith didn't know which Church he ought to join, so he went into the woods to pray, and God told him to start his own Church. Its ok though, theres proof - Smith found some Gold Plates in the woods, inscribed with the words of God. Those gold plates had been buried by the Native Americans, hundreds of years before when Jesus appeared to them. No-one knows what happened to the gold plates...

So I'm smiling and nodding like a tool, and the next thing I know, they're inviting me to Church with them. At this point, we'd been talking for at least twenty minutes, and I'd been so positive, I didn't want to upset them, so I said I would 'pray on it'. Sounds good, right?

Mormon 1: Awesome! Would you read the Book of Mormon, so God can show you his message?
Me: (thinking, yess, I can just take the book and walk away) Oh yes, I'd be really interested!
Mormon 2: I've handed out all mine - Elder Yin?
Mormon 3: All mine are gone too - except this Chinese translation!
*Mormon laughter*
Mormon 1: Hey I know, why dont we drop one off for you?
Me: Yeh, sure, that sounds good.

This my friends, is when I made the real rookie error. I gave them my goddam real address. And why you ask? BECAUSE I DIDNT WANT TO LIE TO THEM. This is ridiculous, because I'd already lied in telling them I went to Church every week, and that I didn't have a mobile right now (half lie). There is no logic in this. But, in my panic stricken, revision riddled brain, it made sense at the time. I sensed that they were preparing to let me leave...

Mormon 2: Hey Rio, will you lead us in prayer to close?
Me: Sure. (fuck fuck fuck)

So there I am, praying out loud in the street, to a circle of suit clad mormon revision ruiners.

Bad times. I got home and gave the fellow Club Heartbreakers strict instructions, that if any men in suits were to knock for me, they were to say I was out and just take the book. I am a bad, bad, cowardly person, and I'm sorry. This plan was going fine, and I thought I had escaped, until today when I stepped into the corridor to hear Ricki saying
"Sorry, she's out!"

It was too late. I was stood, in the hallway, coffee and garibaldi in hand, they had all seen me.
Mormons: Rio!!

They gave me the Book of Mormon, and made me promise to text them to let them know if I was coming to Church on Sunday. This I will do, but I will probably say that its because I'm not ready yet.

I am a bad, bad person. Please, if you ever find yourself in this situation, just say you're not interested.  Say you're in a rush, sorry. Say you dont speak English. Do not lie, and find yourself snowballing towards an unavoidable conversion.

Things I should know by now #214 - The world is mad.

In protest against cuts to education funds, students from the University of Liverpool stormed... oh wait, the Liverpool student guild. Isn't that... er... isn't the guild's job to support students? Oh. The guild is on the student's side right? So erm, they were attacking the one building in the city thats there purely there for their use and support? But... that makes no sense. No Rio. No it does not.

Sarah Palin - "We've got to stand with our North Korean allies!"

...but Sarah? Is North Korea not the problem? Has North Korea not ALWAYS been the problem?... oh. Slip of the tongue. No no, sure, its ok, we all do it. Its not like its a point of political tension. It's not like you're trying to make yourself out to be credible in time for the 2012 elections or anything...

Its ok, theres alway the Sydney Jones to fall back on. The good old SJ, library to the arts and humanities of one of Britains oldest universities. Plethora of knowledge and reasoning, beckoning to the minds of Generation Y with open arms and fair trade coffee.

No.

Today, I was kept out of the library by the police. The law physically stood in the way of my learning! Now, I think the police did a brilliant job today, and I'm sure it was for everyone's safety blah blah blah, but it was just so bizzarre!!

"But Officer!! I want to learn!! I have a 2000 word essay to hand in tomorrow! And it actually COUNTS!"

"DO YOU WANT TO SPEND TONIGHT IN THE CLANGER?!?!?!?"

"..... I guess spark notes will do..."



Things I should know by now #92

No-one likes being called a crackhead.

So... right. Saturday was my birthday (thankyou to everyone who wished me a happy day and came to my party by the way, it was lovely of you!). A blog will probably follow in dedication, as soon as James sorts his life out and uploads the photos (HINT). Anyway...

So its your 19th birthday, your pretty drunk, everyones having a good time. By eleven, you've smashed full bottles of beer, you've vomcanoed (note to self, dont drink merlot at parties), you've even attempted to smoke a cigarette the wrong way round - asin, lit end to the mouth - and given yourself  very unsexy blister, because in your drunken stupour, your thirteen again, and you kinda do believe that smoking will make you look cool. It doesn't by the way kids. Speshly not when you do it wrong...

At this stage, everyone is being dead nice to you cos its your birthday and not minding that your a bit of a mess. Special mention goes to Pru for insisting on holding my hair back during the chunder, thats true friendship. Then, without warning, the next door neightbours turn up. Or perhaps, one of your drunken Irish friends invited them from over the wall...

No-one minds, and they seem pretty nice. Now... you must remember that everything at this point is rather blurry for me. All I remember is being outside, and over hearing someone say the girl was a crack addict. And, because I was somewhat inebriated, instead of just thinking "Oh no!" as I normally would, I thought "Oh no! Poor girl, I should HELP HER!"

Rule one guys. Dont ever offer addiction help to someone until you're sure they have an addiction.

So into the kitchen I went, feeling Mother Teresa incarnate, and interupted the lovely conversation that was taking place.
"Right, dont take this in the wrong way," (SEE?? polite, friendly...) "But are you a crack addict?"

Safe to say they left son after, and we are not friends with our neighbours anymore...

This is the only photo I have so far. It is indicative of state.

Things I should know by now #184

No Rio, you do not have a Sat-Nav in your head. Know where you are going, BEFORE setting off.

This post is basically by way of an apology, to my wonderful and magnificent friend Vicky, who came on a literal exodus with me the other day. The reason for this epic journey was the afore mentioned faux fur gillet, which I had set my heart upon, and was obsessing over like a fat kid eats cake. My house to Wavertree - that should take about fifteen minutes strolling. I'd browsed google maps. I'd made estimations. It was all good.

An hour and a half later, we'd been to Childwall and back (for those of you not familiar with the districts of Merseyside, lets just say it was a fucking long way), and asked directions from lots of helpful scousers, including one heavily moustached woman. I think allowances can be made for not paying attention to directions in these situations. We still had not found the source of said gillet. Things could have gotten very nasty. It is at this point, I would like to made a very serious dedication to my Friend with a capital F Victoria, for not murdering me. It would have been entirely acceptable,  had dragged her halfway across the North West, on foot, and all she had to show for it was a Netto lettuce (we did find Netto. Its scandinavian for value).

There isnt a hilarious twist in the tale, we just did find the shop eventually, and I got the gillet. I'm just making the point that I no-one should ever take directions from me. Some of you will remember the time I drove to Liverpool, and ended up in Nottingham. Other tales include the time I actually did try to drive to Nottingham, with the vague notion that 'we would find the house when we got there'. It genuinely didn't occur to me that an address might be useful.

The moral of the story is, plan your goddam route.

Whilst were here, lets just talk fur. The above is obviously faux, which I'm not sure anyone coud object to except possibly on grounds of tackiness, but thats alright. Now, speaking as a vegitarian and general person in favour of animals, I do think fur is pretty damn wrong. Killing another creature, whatever it may be, to look fashionable ain't cool. To be honest, I think most people agree on that nowadays. But, what about vintage furs? At my mums house, there are two beautiful fur coats of my grandmas, and I cant decide whether it would be acceptable to wear them or not. I never have done, but I feel like perhaps its ok because I didnt buy them new? I didnt buy them at all in fact. But does that make it ok to wear them?I dunno. Im leaning towards not, but thoughts would be appreciated!!