Hipsters and hellhounds

Shopping in Hackney is always an interesting experience. By interesting, I mean sometimes amusing and often ball-achingly frustrating.

I live in one of the best cities in the world for shopping. I ought to be at Borough and Broadway markets buying fresh asparagus, venison burgers and stinky French cheese. But, I'm lazy and poor. So I go to my Tesco Express.

In the aisles, the twentysomething E8 hipsters mope foppishly about, baskets full of organic hummus and CheeseStrings. (It's fucking ironic, yeah? Like, it's not REAL food, yeah?) Maybe a can of cider or two. Hipsters don't really eat anyway, skinny jeans are unforgiving and it's important to have the slightly rickety demeanour of a Victorian orphan round here.

I once nipped in for a quick vaguely hungover shop (paper, bacon, Diet Coke) and got to the checkout only to question how drunk I'd been the night before. There stood three art-studenty looking types, two in full animal outfits (I think zebra and bear) and a guy sporting shiny leggings so tight I could tell he shaved his gentleman's area. They had big messy hair and were probably called Poppy, Giles and Jinty. They tried to buy three single cans of Kronenbourg (OMFG, I'm like sooooo drunk from last night, ya? Let's get beer for breakfast, it'll be, like, MENTAL!) then had an intense debate about which fucking pack of chewing gum to purchase. I gripped my basket tightly and restrained myself from swinging it violently in their direction.

Mingling with the big specs and deckshoes is normally an eastender or two, their slavering, big-bollocked Staffy-cross guarding the door while they yell across the shop.

"'ere! Maureen! Put that fackin' real butter dahn, I ain't fackin' made o' money. Pick me up a Sun yeah? And forty Sovereign."

I actually quite like the people in there, it's always entertaining. What drives me mad about Tesco is the product selection. What I LOVE is that I can't buy ground black pepper but I can buy four different varieties of chickpea flour and coconut milk. And I most certainly can get mugged off by paying over a quid for a teeny butternut squash. Oh, and I might be a working-class northerner living in Hackney, but SOMETIMES I JUST WANT SOME FRESH HERBS, DAMNIT.

So, while I commercially and morally disagree with Tesco's aggressive land-buying and marketing techniques, I'll just keep moaning and still patronising them because I can't be arsed with Borough Market today, and they once forgot to scan my bottle of wine resulting in FREE BOOZE. In your face, THE MAN!

Dear Twitter...

 This blog post comes from a conversation with a fellow Twitter user @CyrilCacoethes, who's quite amusing if you like mostly rude inanity. I requested he expand on a story he told me about a deer that spat IN his mouth, and he did me a special blog post and everything. I was then pondering my next post, and he suggested a Twitter complaint letter.

I love a good complain. So here it is.


Dear Twitter,

Hi. You're mostly pretty fun and amusing, and even educational from time to time. (How else would I know what Jedward are doing when they give their carers the slip and gain internet access? IT'S IMPORTANT.) However, there are a few things, just little things, that frankly, get right on my tits.


 Celebs being shit at Twitter. I know they all get told by their agents to get involved in social media (or, as I was once corrected by a date, "a real-time information network" - fuck off), but just because they *do* it, doesn't make them good at it. I get driven potty by celebs who retweet their OWN #FollowFridays - to their EXISTING followers. In order to see that tweet, they already follow you! It's more pointless than Fearne Cotton, you flangewombles.

Overuse of exclamation marks. I've said this before in relation to general communication. But please, for the love of GOD, stop it. Adding seventeen exclamations to a statement like "Going shopping!!!!!!!!" doesn't make it more interesting or informative. It just makes you appear to have the mentality of an American seven year-old.

Pedants. Now I'm not against pedantry persay. Detail is important. But don't criticise someone's use of language, if you type tweets in text speak. Because it just makes you look like a twat, not me. I don't really understand having a go at someone on Twitter because you don't like what they write. Just unfollow. Or, if you are compelled to have a pop, make sure your own ramblings are immaculately spelled and all language is correctly used. Then fair enough.

Moral highground bandwagons. Twitter is highly entertaining on big news days, as everyone wades in with an opinion, mostly from people who don't actually understand the issues or stories. However, the same faux outrage and topical 'jokes' can get a bit wearing.

Anyway, that's it. If you could find a way to remove boring and stupid people from the service, that would be splendid. For the most part, I like conversing with entertaining people, watching celeb feuds kick off, the incessant punning and the endless videos of kittens riding tortoises.

Ok, thanks. Bye.