Uptight (Everything's Uptight)


My capacity to be annoyed by things that don’t matter knows no bounds.

Tonight's biggest overreaction was my apparent inability to hold back my disdain for one of team captains on Only Connect for his smug self-important expression; I’m not a violent man, but his conceited, self-serving countenance made me very punchy. Labouring under the misapprehension that boasting he’d “been on a lot of game shows” would impress us didn’t help, nor did his stupid beard that resembled an otter’s pelt.

As far as I’m concerned, there are too many people on the planet who think they’re the centre of the universe (to mix my space-based metaphors) and who have been given audience frequently enough to feel we should drop everything to hear them speak. I’m well aware of how hypercritical that sounds as I inadvertently pretty much paraphrased the manifesto of the Society for People with an Inbuilt Superiority Complex (a club comprising James Blunt, Brian Cox and me).

Perhaps I should learn to exercise more patience, as half the time, it’s the smallest, seemingly innocuous actions that get under my skin; that, or I should renounce the trappings of modern life and become a hermit; just don’t expect me to get on with the chap in the cave next-door to me.

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