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(Getranscribeerd door TurboScribe. Upgrade naar Onbeperkt om dit bericht te verwijderen.) They look like regular guys, don't they?

Armour's old sods going about their everyday business.

But far from it.

The 35 to 54 year old age group

is the grumpiest of any in Britain.

You have to speak in terms of the

skinny lads.

If you're not doing yoga, frankly, you're no

one these days.

Cities are just going to be full of

these ancient people because we live too long.

When you've got money, they want to lend

it to you.

Grumpier than their parents, grumpier than their children,

this is the group who thought the world

would become a better place, only to find

that it's all so much worse.

Being caught out all the time, peeing in

bottles.

Somebody's peed in the receiver end, you go,

and you know exactly what they've done.

The stink of those onions, right?

Oh, dear.

Don't mention carrots in Cornish pasties!

It's an average morning in the life of

our grumpy old men.

The weather is average.

They've had an average night's sleep.

And everything's, well, average.

That is until they get out of bed.

From then on, it's all downhill.

It seems there are people out there whose

sole function in life is to piss other

people off.

There are the people who read the news

in their odd sing-song voice, the milkman

who whispers as he clanks the milk on

the doorstep.

There are cheerful weather forecasters, traffic wardens, and

that's not to mention the teenage kids.

This can be a typical day in the

life of a grumpy old man.

Well, not that typical, because he's taking the

day off.

And it gets off to an irritating start,

as if the news in the paper wasn't

bad enough.

I systematically shake the papers.

It's like delousing them.

Shake them onto the floor.

I have never read one of those things

that fall out, and I never will, on

principle.

They go straight in the bin.

I have to say to you guys, they're

never read.

We don't read them, and I'm not alone

in this.

We don't read your leaflets.

After a bad start, our day inevitably gets

worse.

Being a day off, our middle-aged grumpy

needs to think about his expanding waistline, and

is off to the health club.

But not before a fix of caffeine.

He's got a lot of choice.

What used to be Costa the Greek's hardware

shop on the high street is now Costa

Coffee House.

The Cobbler's is now Coffee Republic, and three

shops out of every ten are Starbucks.

The coffee bars of our youth seemed infinitely

simpler places.

Of course, you had a choice even then.

You could have it white, or you could

have it black.

I remember we used to go and have

a cup of coffee, and it was like

30p.

Cup of coffee, sir?

Yes, 30p, thank you very much.

Now what you go in, what do you

do?

You get, um, they say, what would you

like, sir?

I want a cup of coffee.

Oh, we've got a latte, sir.

We've got a full latte, we've got a

macchiato, we've got a macchiato latte, we've got

a cappuccino, we've got a cappuccino macchiato.

No, I just want a cup of coffee.

We have a latte, sir, a latte.

No, I just want a cup of coffee.

You can't get anything standard anymore.

It's this corporate thing.

It's everywhere.

It's like McDonald's, and it's going to taste

the same everywhere you go.

Well, indeed, it does taste the same.

It tastes like shit everywhere you go.

Because it's about six inches of froth, you're

never quite sure when you're going to get

the, you know, superheated coffee burning in it.

So it's really...

They make you speak the language.

They insist that you talk the way that

they want to.

You know, I'll have the medium size.

You mean you want the piccolo grande up

here or whatever it is?

You have to speak in terms of the

skinny latte.

Starbucks make pretty good coffee, that's the truth

of it.

And you can walk down any street and

get a decent cup of coffee in England

now.

That's got to be a boon to progress.

Having said that, I do my fulminating on

a daily basis at the Picasso on the

King's Road.

And you can see me and fellow grumpy

old men fulminating on everything while observing the

girls from the select model agency gliding by

as we descend into decrepitude in Chelsea old

Ruedem.

So the Picasso's main virtue, of course, is

that it isn't Starbucks and doesn't come with

all the crap that comes with a Starbucks.

They're like the, hey, wow, sofas and the

one or two newspapers to give it this

sort of faux literary quality when, in fact,

they're trying to put this not-bad coffee

into these unholdable cups, you know, and selling

mass-produced pan-horaison.

You know, the Frenchness coming in there.

Under the sad delusion that it might make

them more attractive to women or even extend

their useful lives, many of our grumpies are

watching their weight.

They join the procession of middle-aged farts

down to the local gym.

It was so much easier for their dads.

They could avoid being a seven-stone weakling

and having sand kicked in their faces by

simply investing in chest expanders or doing some

push-ups.

Today, it's jogging, stepping, yoga, pilates, Alexander, aerobics,

dance and kickboxing, all under the watchful eye

of a supercilious personal trainer who humiliates you

for 50 pounds an hour.

If our grumpies want humiliation, they can get

that at home, free of charge from the

kids.

I was a member of a gym for

a while, and I got fed up, you

know, and I thought, this is absurd, I

drive to this gym.

I queue to get in with all these

people, and they all get out of the

car and go inside and run on the

little thing that goes round and round and

round.

In the old days, there was none of

this suggestion.

You had to be out jogging round the

park every morning and down to the gym.

I mean, now there's such a...

If you're not doing yoga, frankly, you're no

-one these days, and I refuse to do

yoga.

I don't want to sit there with my

legs stuck behind my ears and chanting.

I want to be sitting at home on

the settee watching telly.

If I want to do a bit of

exercise, yes, I'll go walking or swimming outdoors.

I mean, what's the point of running indoors

on a running machine?

As sensible people already know, physical exercise is

bad for the health.

Our wiser grumpy is no better than to

risk spraining an ankle or chancing a heart

attack and burdening an already overstretched NHS.

And while supporting the NHS in principle, they'd

rather die in bed of a coronary than

join the drunks in an inner-city A

&E.

And all of this preoccupation with what are

we going to do about the National Health

Service, we want to be palliated for every

ill we've got the minute we've got it,

means that we actually elect governments on what

their policy is going to be towards health.

What we're really electing governments in reaction to

is their policy towards death.

Are they going to make my death painless?

Because the statistics are bold.

You know, 90% of the health resources

expended during the average person's lifetime are in

the last six weeks of life.

That's when the cash counts.

It's not the rest of your life when

you're wandering around, you know, shaving yourself and

sort of wiping your bum.

It's those last crucial six weeks.

Is there going to be enough junk?

Is there going to be enough painkillers to

make sure that I have an easeful exit

from this world?

Bear not vote for him, he's not going

to provide me with enough.

It's a deathocracy.

But if you do have the misfortune to

need treatment before your last weeks of life,

it can all be a bitter and humiliating

experience.

I had to collect all of my own

urine, which if you're going out at night

and playing records at university, you know, at

student unions and things like that, it's a

bit difficult because you have to go into

the loo and wait until there's nobody there

and then, you know, pee into a plastic

container and then put it in your pocket

and come out trying to look...

And then at the end of the day,

you'd have to go to the boot of

the car and mix it all up.

All the pee that you accumulated during the

day, you had these vast urns that you'd

go and fill up like this.

When they were full, then I was supposed

to take it to hospital somewhere out on

the Central Line.

And I always used to have to carry

it in a special bag that I'd bought

just to carry my own piss about, and

I always thought how fantastic it would be

to be mugged.

Some lad rushing off down a darkened tunnel

carrying several gallons of my piss.

Oh, yes, we can laugh about it now,

but it won't be so funny in 20

years.

We all sang, Hope I Die Before I

Get Old, but mostly we didn't.

Far from it.

And now there are too many of us

living far too long a burden to ourselves,

our families and the world around us.

Our life expectancy is already ludicrously long.

Just think it.

And it's ludicrously long in the way things

are weighted demographically.

When we're old, there's going to be thousands

of us wearing denim and listening to dreadful

music on sort of, you know, on Walkmans,

on Zimmermans, we're going to be wandering around,

you know, like Bob Dylan, Zimmerman.

Oh, brilliant, I've coined it.

Anyway, we're going to be wandering around listening

to music.

There are legions of us, there'll be hardly

anybody to look after us.

There'll be rotting bedpans in the corridors of

these vast old people's homes.

Cities are just going to be, you know,

full of these ancient people because we live

too long, because we're fighting to death.

But we digress, back to our average day.

After their little workout, our grumpies may need

some cash.

And there's the thing.

How did banks manage to go in 20

years from being respected institutions with respectable figures

for managers to being so very badly run

and so very widely despised?

Guess they must just have worked hard at

it.

I've had a long and unhappy relationship with

my bank.

Who persistently used to write to me when

I was a pound overdrawn.

And now I'm a multi-millionaire, they still

give me a hard time.

When you've got money, they want to lend

it to you.

They say, we'll lend you some money, would

you like to borrow some?

No, I've got some at the moment, thank

you.

Well, we'd like to lend you some.

Why?

Well, because you know you've got the money

to pay it back.

Yeah, but I really actually need the money

when I haven't got any.

Well, no, we can't lend it to you

then, because you haven't got any means to

pay it back, have you?

All the banks have closed down, you have

to do it by phone.

And I don't really want to be talking

on the phone with someone about my banking

details.

You phone up the manager, and it's one

of a team.

Hi, we're on the premier banking team.

My name is Justin, how can I help

you?

I say, I want to speak to my

bank manager.

Who is your bank manager?

And I say, you tell me.

You know, you're the bank.

What's your account number?

And I say, you've got my name.

Oh, no, it's for security reasons.

I said, what's your bank account number?

I'm not telling you.

That's why I'm not telling you mine then.

So, it's a day off, and you want

to back a horse in the 2.30.

You don't make the call from the house

in case the little lady is listening, so

you look for a call box.

I'm so sorry.

Keep waiting.

How differently we did things in the past.

Using the phone called for a sense of

occasion.

The Teleferic was a neoclassical, black, marmorial thing,

with a grey, cold and distasteful look.

You know, with a metal strauger, I think

it's called, dial, and a braid like plaited

virgin's hair.

And this machine was treated with sort of

reverential awe.

And you take it with great seriousness.

Remember?

You went into one of those splendid red

booths and put four old pennies in the

slot.

If you got through, you pressed button A.

If not, you pressed button B and got

your coins back.

These days, if there's no CCTV nearby, you'd

be lucky to find a call box that

actually works.

All you get is a loud buzzing noise

or a hiss at the other end.

Oh, it doesn't work.

And you try and use your credit card

and it eats your credit card or doesn't

work or chews it up or inevitably somebody's

peed in the receiver end and you know

exactly what they've done.

So let's see if we can place that

bet on the 230.

First, find your little cabin.

Is it a phone booth?

Is it an Internet site or a text

messaging area?

If you've got cash, it takes cards.

If you've got cards, it takes cash.

If you've got both, it isn't working.

Does it take diners club?

Tesco loyalty cards?

And you've got to work all this out

without looking at the instructions in case passers

-by think you're calling a hooker from one

of the hundreds of very curious postcards in

the booth.

I'm very disappointed that there's been this campaign

to remove these cards from...

I know the sex industry is appalling and

it's all Albanian gangsters and I'll probably be

wiped out for just talking about it now,

but I find these cards extraordinarily interesting because

they offer a range of services and I

don't know what they are.

I've got an enormous number of them.

When I die, people will discover this huge

collection of cards liberated from phone boxes and

think that I was a terrible old pervert.

Well, that's not so.

So it's lunchtime.

After getting the shopping, our grumpy deserves a

bite to eat.

Every shop on the high street that isn't

a coffee house is a sandwich shop selling

a lifestyle that's kind to animals or rainforests

or a fast food outlet selling whatever it

is that they sell.

It was all so different in the old

days when we had coffee bars with shiny

jukeboxes and wimpy bars.

As we talk about it, I remember them

being utterly delicious, you know, and maybe they

weren't, but to me they smacked of the

future and fin-tailed Chevrolets and, you know,

not Dunleary.

Give me a wimpy any day over this

American fast food muck.

Wimpy bars came in, I guess, when I

was about 9 or 10, 11 maybe, and

before that I was very much, you know,

a small boy of Britain whose idea of

heaven was double egg and chips.

It was great because the wimpies came out

and that was something that we could go

to as kids, that actually was ours, and

it was really great to note all of

those and then note that the Lion's Tea

Houses were suffering.

That was like a moral victory to us.

I suppose I did go into a wimpy

bar once, but that was enough.

I must have been starving hungry, I must

have been the only place open, but the

stink of those onions fried, oh, dear.

But what had we unwittingly unleashed?

Where once wimpies had displaced the Lion's Corner

House, now it was time for everyone in

the High Street to move over for the

invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Big M was coming.

When McDonald's came to Lee in Lancashire, it

was like this spaceship arriving on the High

Street, you know.

They were like the visitors and we were

like the Earth people and we would look

through the shiny glass that spilled onto our

faces and see this metal at the bottom,

all this red.

We had to go in.

But it was a dupe, we were duped,

you know, and now we're addicted to it

almost.

My poor dad, he said, John, I think

I'll go to Burger King.

He said, I tried Burger King, as if

it was Billie Jean's brother or something, and

he said, and I went in there and

I said, can I have a burger and

chips, please, but no bun, just the meat

burger and some chips.

So they went, no bun?

He went, yes, just the meat burger, please.

And so they took the meat out of

the thing and gave it to him in

this carton.

He said, right, where do I have a

knife and fork?

Could I have a knife and fork?

They said, no, you eat it with your

hands.

So, well, I picked this meat up and

I just eat it.

And they went, yeah, well, normally it's in

the bun.

And he picked it up and he goes,

oh, I think I won't bother, thank you

very much.

I like the idea that the Americans are,

like, suing, you know, some of the big

food chains for making them fat.

It's his day off, and he feels like

spending some time in idle contemplation or reading

the paper.

But he gets that nagging feeling that there's

something else he should be doing.

He's chatting away amiably to the wife.

He senses something's on her mind, lurking in

the background, and he can't quite relax.

There are a couple of subtle hints about

the kitchen looking dowdy.

The crockery's all faded and cracked, and we

need a new frame for that picture of

Freddie's graduation.

Finally, he demands to know what she's on

about, and the truth is even worse than

he'd feared.

Ikea?

Jeez, that I...

OK, OK.

Ikea is the world's most irritating shop, right?

The most important thing to remember with Ikea

is just don't go anywhere near it at

a weekend or a bank holiday, you know,

just don't, because you get swept along.

Even if you see something you like, you're

swept along with the whole crowds of people,

and you see the thing you want to

look at and you can't because you're just

pulled past it by the general mob of

people heading to the checkout or whatever.

They certainly save money on the instructions, don't

they?

Figure A, attach retaining toggle C to pivot

joint D.

Right.

Have you ever put together anything from Ikea?

Have you ever been to Ikea?

Oh, God, yes.

Dear God.

Yes, I think it's probably still in its...

partly in its package.

It's impossible, isn't it?

It's impossible.

Flat pack.

It's that terrible...

It strikes terror into your heart, doesn't it?

It comes in a handy flat pack.

Dear God.

Which you'll spend four days trying to assemble.

And then give up.

You know, every time my wife said, we're

going to Ikea, I just sort of, you

know...

I'm not like that, but I would suddenly

become extremely ill with some, you know, ailment,

so I didn't have to go.

Oh!

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was there recently.

I was there recently at Ikea, yeah.

I was there, yeah.

I was there.

Oh, it was terrible.

I mean, I had to go to a

counsellor afterwards for post-traumatic Swedish furniture hypermarket

syndrome.

And I really, frankly, haven't recovered yet.

I mean, it's still very, very dark.

You know, when I look inside myself, I

see an enormous jumble of units that I'm

completely unable to assemble, or even adequately buy.

I mean, when I look into my soul,

it's just an endless, endless road to Croydon,

along which are burnt-out cars and families

tearing and disembowelling each other by the roadside.

It's just...

I don't want to talk about it.

And if all this harassment brings on a

migraine or an attack of the vapours, there's

no such thing as popping out to the

shops for an aspirin.

Where once you'd stop briefly in the high

street while you just popped the chemist or

the newsagent, nowadays you just go round and

round and round and round looking for a

space, trying to decipher the signs for residence

parking, permit parking, buy a ticket, pay at

metre, take out an extra mortgage for a

ten-minute stop.

And that's just the official restrictions.

I'm sick of being clamped.

I'm sick of four quid an hour.

I'm sick of, you know, being a good

citizen and going to one of the NCPs

and scraping my roof and, like, you know,

the corners which are impossible to take without

banging the sides of your thing.

And then, you know, and then it's 14

quid for the privilege of a three-hour

stay.

You do see some quite posh-looking cars

scratched as a result of people's, you know,

inability to negotiate the tiny areas.

You know, and that can warm the cockles

of your heart a bit.

And it's always just about this time in

the afternoon that the cravings start.

Smoking used to be a harmless activity that

provided social companionship.

These days, smokers are herded outside to their

pavement isolation wards whatever the weather to avoid

all those smug bastards in the health police.

Now, when I was a child, smoking didn't

give you cancer or make you ill.

When I was very young, there was no

such suggestion in my dad, who dutifully puffed

away throughout his life.

And then we learned it's bad for you,

apparently, smoking, and they want to ban it

everywhere.

Well, all right, it's bad for you.

I've had to take that on board and

no doubt at some point I will give

up, just as I've given up drinking, alas,

because that made me too grumpy.

But smoking, it's annoying that you really are

a pariah.

You'd be better off having a gun than

a cigarette in America, certainly.

And the fact that, like, now this pub

advertises smoking allowed throughout, well, big deal.

That's what I would expect from a pub,

smoking allowed throughout.

I don't want to be hedged into a

corner with some other bloke wheezing away.

I know two wrongs don't make a right,

but I'm going to try it anyway and

say that if I'll stop smoking and you

give me your car keys then I'll throw

them into the lake, because it's the car

that is destroying the planet and our health

more than passive smoking.

I've just given up cigarettes, and I've given

up cigarettes largely so that I can live

longer to watch more football.

One of the things that I regret most

about the prospect is that I might die.

I'm not absolutely convinced yet.

But should I, it'll be because I won't

know.

The thing that will really piss me off

is that I won't know next year's Champions

League winner.

That's what really...

So football doesn't make me grumpy.

Football makes my heart sing.

And sometimes I look to football as the

only place left where I can absolutely feel,

you know, happy and at peace.

Watching all those lads running around brings on

more hunger pangs, so it's back off home.

Time was when your dinner was called your

tea and might be a plate of pie

and chips or a nice chop from the

butchers.

Mum, Dad and the kids all sitting down

at the table looking forward to an evening's

entertainment.

Crossroads on the telly or snakes and ladders.

These days, no-one cooks at home anymore

and eating out has all but replaced organised

religion.

I mean, this current government, the government of

Tony Blair, was actually founded as a project

in a poncy restaurant in Islington.

And it's really a poncy restaurant culture.

And what that's about is cultural laziness and

decadence.

If I eat ciabatta, I am, you know,

versed in Italian culture.

No, you're not.

You've never sat through the films of Fellini

properly.

You haven't read Boccaccio as to Cameron.

You've just eaten something, and therefore you think

you have a right to prognosticate on it.

And really, the whole kind of restaurant food

fetishism is really a pretty disgusting and decadent

spectacle.

Most people cannot see what good food is

and what rubbish food is, what sort of

poncy food is.

That gets me really cross.

It's all poncy rubbish, you know, like pan

-fried chicken or something.

Well, what the hell else are you going

to fry something in than a pan?

Are you going to fry it in your

hand?

Our fruit has to look right.

It doesn't really matter what it tastes like.

Well, I don't mind a bruised peach or

a slightly straggly potato if they've got a

lot of taste to them.

Well, you know, we...

Now, I think people worry too much about

a bit of dirt and grime.

Children now, I mean, they're falling ill because

they don't eat turds when they're young.

Sorry, Arthur, just run that one past us

again.

Children now, I mean, they're falling ill because

they don't eat turds when they're young or

something.

Doctor told me.

I'm a Cornishman, and I just get so

annoyed...

Oh, no, I'm going to be locked up.

The men in white coats are standing by,

as I say.

You go to Jumbo Cornish Pasty, which is

about that big, filled with mincemeat and carrots.

You don't have carrots in Cornish pasties.

You don't have mincemeat.

It's got to be skirt.

Ask your butcher.

In fact, my girlfriend once wound me up.

I was in a pub, went to the

toilet, and she was talking to this bloke.

She said, if you want to wind Rory

up, just mention carrots in Cornish pasties.

Innocently, I came back from the lavatory, and

this guy said to me, you're a Cornishman,

aren't you, Rory?

I said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He said, you like Cornish pasties?

I said, oh, I love Cornish pasties.

I'm the world's leading expert.

I said, I like it.

I don't think people put enough carrots in

Cornish pasties.

I said, what?

Don't mention carrots in Cornish pasties!

And everyone started laughing.

It's just that food is shit waiting to

happen.

I mean, you know, anybody who enjoys food

too much has got a problem, any more

than anybody who enjoys carpet tiling too much.

So, it's nearing the end of our grumpiest

day off.

He's done some exercise, done some shopping, put

together some self-assembly furniture.

Well, failed to put it together, actually.

And at last, it's time to relax.

Then he's reminded that it's Ingrid's birthday, and,

God help him, they've hired a disco.

I went to a wedding at the weekend,

and my wife said, come and have a

bop, John.

I thought, the idea, I want to get

up and have a bop.

I think people over 40, as I am

now, should be legally banned from doing any

form of dance.

I think the Puritans had it right here,

actually.

Any form of public display by old people

of jigging about should be banned.

Behind closed doors with the curtains drawn may

be acceptable, but the idea that I should

be allowed to jig my arms up and

down and move around in an awkward and

embarrassing manner horrifies me.

I think at these weddings and parties, there

could perhaps be a dance floor for the

people under 35, and the rest of us

could have an indoor allotment where we could

do a little light gardening or something.

It's an important lesson.

The dangers of dancing for grumpy old men

can scarcely be overstated.

You might twist an ankle or spill your

beer, where still, you'll be caught by your

nephew's video camera, turning red and throwing your

limbs about and be a laughing stock for

years to come.

Worse even than that, you could look as

much of a prat as these guys.

Let this be a lesson to us all.

Next week, we root out the guilty, politicians,

the royal family, and bloody awful television.