By popular demand

By popular demand, and in response to considerable public pressure (well, one or two people at least) the rant is back!!

“The View on the Street” is extremely gratified to know that it has been missed. Its return may be on a somewhat less regular basis than before and rather erratic due to other pressures on time and frankly, there’s only so much creativity to go round. There certainly isn’t any shortage of topics to write about since the world does not appear to have become any saner in 2013 and in many cases has deteriorated significantly in sanity terms as well as in many other ways.

So what to choose as the first topic after a good rest?

Well there is the controversial stuff such as the civil war in Syria and the UK government’s dithering on what do to, if anything. There are the usual topics of immigration, the incompetence and inadequacies of the public transport system, the economic situation and politics.

There is also my ongoing battle with my weight and my aging body’s increasing propensity to regress to its teenage years in terms of spots, moods and odd sleeping habits.

There are the positive topics of ambition, plans for the future, happy events and celebrations such as Christmas (soon to be upon us, rather scarily) and birthdays (all too frequent and coming round ever more quickly with each year that passes), engrossing hobbies and activities we have engaged in (endless viewing of ‘Pointless’ [the best TV quiz programme EVER], concerts and exhibitions as well as a new hobby of home brewing which has seen the recent bottling of 40 bottles of Victorian ale and 13 bottles of home-made Pinot Grigio, and pretty passable Pinot Grigio at that).

There are the let downs and the arguments, gossip about others and just general observations on life as we know it.

Perhaps it’s best not to plan what to write in advance but just do so as the mood and activities of life take me. I think one of the things which has appealed about TVOTS is that it is not only superbly written, eloquent and articulate (my own opinion, not what I have been told but goes without saying, of course!!) but that it has been spontaneous and current, without a pattern and not predictable apart from the fact that it is quite frequently, of course, just a cathartic rant. One of the reasons I slowed it down before was because I didn’t want it to become formulaic, planned or too repetitive, so this time it may only be once or twice a week or maybe even less frequent if nothing significant has happened.

But it’s back. It never went away but was just sleeping, gathering its strength and refortifying for the coming few months. It will sit alongside other activities which will, I am convinced, bring me fame and fortune or at least one of those fickle companions if not both. It will be frank, fearless and controversial. It will say things you disagree with and which many think but few will have the courage to voice, or make assertions which make you think “Silly cow, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about”.

But you’ll notice it. Definitely!

Well, can't you just tell I'm back?

Can’t you just tell that I’m back from my holidays!

Not only is it October (which means that the shops are full of Christmas cards, baubles, tinsel and crackers but nothing that is remotely useful in the meantime), but it’s p*****g down with dull grey skies. The train was late this morning and therefore missed its ‘slot’ all the way up the line and got stuck at every red signal between Oxted and Victoria, and I waited 25 minutes for a circle line tube which was, apparently, running a ‘good service’.  

To top it all off, we have no phone nor internet due to a major fault at BT’s end (along with most of Bletchingley and Godstone, so I understand) so I can’t check my bank account to see how much I have overspent on my holidays and The Hubby cannot complete an important job application form which must be done by Wednesday and submitted on line. The BT fault reporting line says the problem is not likely to be fixed until Wednesday 3^rd, which means in more ways than one we are totally f****d! So I’m writing this at work!

I could turn this into a rant, which might at least make me feel better, but mostly it would serve no purpose other than bore you all rigid. But I must say there’s nothing like a good rant from time to time as I’m sure you’ll agree. To be honest, there doesn’t even have to be anyone there to listen or to reply to me, just getting it all out of the system is incredibly cathartic.

I have in the past made the mistake of having the rant without also dealing with the issue calmly and reasonably. It’s an approach which has got me nowhere and lost me a few friends. So now, I tend to rant on here and be reason personified (well, for a while) to resolve it or get what I want. But I still think there is a definite place for the rant, and that it’s very important.

I could never be one of those repressed people that don’t show their feelings at all. I mean, surely we all need an outlet? I always get the feeling that that sort of person must go home and punch through the living room door in frustration, don’t you? Either that or they kick the cat or something!  If they don’t what do they do to calm down and sleep at nights? There’s no way that I could go to bed and sleep (even though emotion and frustration makes you exhausted) if I hadn’t managed to get it out of my system somehow.

Some people, of course, turn to counselling and good luck to them if it works for them. It never has for me, and every counsellor I have ever come across (I saw a couple of them when my first marriage broke down) has been a sanctimonious, patronising w****r (gosh, there’s a lot of swearing in today’s blog! Must mean I feel strongly). And many people I know (but not all) who have seen counsellors certainly don’t seem to have derived any benefit from it, but then perhaps I have a biased and slightly jaundiced view of them (the counsellors, not the friends!)

Anyway, got to knuckle down now for a few weeks until I go away again (the benefit of having your own place abroad is you can go often and cheaply!). Knowing my luck it’ll chuck it down the whole time and there will be a major rail failure at least once a week. Hey ho…..