Other peopleÂ’s anger is an amusing thing, provided you are not the focus of it. When the rage pours out over some trivial issue it is, on the surface at least, even more entertaining..
I was in Chiswick doing a shop for provisions for my Christmas poker night and was waiting at a pelican crossing for the green man to show. An old fella started to cross the road, just as the traffic lights changed to allow the cars in front of us to move. His badly timed amble meant that the cars in the queue were delayed by maybe five or six seconds, but the driver at the front of the queue did not take this inconvenience as an excuse to run over a pensioner and he waited until the codger was out of his way. The man in the car behind him, however, was not so imperturbable. He beeped his horn impetuously and then as he finally was allowed to get on his way after this intolerable one tenth of a minute delay he passed by, with a look of complete incredulous fury on his face. He was a man of around about sixty himself and had you seen a photo of his contorted features at this point you might have guessed that his entire family had been senselessly killed in a terrorist attack, rather than this slight provocation. Although I was unable to hear him, he was clearly venting his indignation by shouting swear words at the oblivious pedestrian. I am no lip-reader, but the exaggerated animation of the slighted man’s rant meant it was perfectly obvious what he was shouting out in his sound proof cocoon, “You fucking idiot!” he was decrying, “You fucking stupid bastard!”. The tirade continued as the car disappeared out of sight and for all I know continued onwards to Barnes or Richmond or beyond.
It wasn’t only the disproportionate level of this response to a minor inconvenience that was amusing, it was also that fact that this unvented spleen was coming from the mouth of a man who looked like a bank manager, rather than some young, shaven headed van driver, which prejudice might more readily expect - not an entirely unfair prejudice I would argue – just the other day I saw such a man calling a young female cyclist he had nearly knocked off her bike (entirely through his own incompetence I should add), “a fucking cunt”. Chivalry is not dead.
Of course truth be told in cases like this, the minor incident is just a catalyst that has released some pent up wrath that was no doubt created by something entirely unfunny and unpleasant. Anger surely comes from impotence and one can only imagine what horrors might make a man become so immediately incensed. For a man to be this wound up there must be some dark and awful hollowness and pain in his life. But to the casual observer all that was apparent was a sweary old man getting upset over nothing and so I laughed like a drain.
And this incident might go some way to illustrating what all comedy is essentially about.
In other news, I had been prevaricating on getting a plumber out to fix my toilet, which was lucky, as my proper man friend Dave came round to play poker and he fixed the thing in three seconds flat. He turned the little screw thing, just as I had attempted to do and for him this worked. The difference was that he turned the screw thing in the opposite direction. I had not thought of that. That is what makes him a proper man and me a clueless, hopeless idiot. He deprived some millionaire plumber of another easy eighty quid though, which hopefully will make any millionaire plumbers reading this feel pretty angry! ItÂ’s a victory for the useless, for once!
The saga is probably not over though, as I think I need to get the brickwork painted with damp proof paint or something. IÂ’ll try and get round to it before 2010. I am nothing if not a idiot.
Also the KitKat is gone from my fridge. I have not eaten it, but managed to give it away to my skinny friend Nadia, who could do with the extra 265 calories. This means I have to start going back to the gym again, although one of my poker buddies left a half full box of Maltesers in my house, but IÂ’ve put them in a cupboard that I rarely open, so that I canÂ’t get the benefit of refusing to eat them quite so often.
