Tony Groves. The man without a Blog.

Tony Groves
For some unknown reason, I didn’t have so much as a bite to eat yesterday. As some will know, in preparation for food shortages and hard times, I have a cupboard stuffed full with grub, yet not a crumb passed my lips.

Unhealthily, dear rea...der, I also spent the entire day on Facebook - an addiction that isn’t good for any of us, I’m sure you would agree? For hour after hour, I read any number of articles and blogs and watched enough videos to make my eyes square and then, once I had soaked up a world of horror, cruelty and injustice, I made the mistake of opening a can of Kronenburg. That might not have been such a bad thing, except that I then made the same mistake a further six times.

Thus, belly empty, with insufficient blood in my alcohol-stream and with my brain full of terrible images, in the space of two hours, I went from howling at the moon, to snarling at the moon - and anyone else who accidentally stumbled into my path. I know my reputation for ranting goes before me and I think it may have become obvious by now that I don’t suffer fools and woolly thinking gladly, but yesterday I went from generally accusing the world of being thick, blind and stupid, to pointing out to random individuals what utter and complete fools they are.

Now, I write in a somewhat aggressive manner at the best of times (who just said bloody understatement?), but still like to think that, reading between the lines, people can still see a large degree of acid humour in amongst the general vitriol. Yesterday, however, I was tipping over from wrathful sarcastic ranting, into jaw-clenching rage and if I’m honest, direct personal insults.

Now that is not the way either to win friends or influence people. You are not going to bring anyone around to your world view by calling them a traitorous dopey prick. No sir. That is guaranteed to slam their shutters down and entrench them further in their own position (no matter how wrong or very occasionally right it is). I’m not like that in the real world and it troubles me. Although equally as passionate in my beliefs, I am much more reasonable and far less dismissive. I don’t think that is simply because in the real world the danger of a swift knuckle sandwich to the nose keeps my temper in check, but the medium of computer ranting certainly unleashes a different side to me.

I recently heard a psychologist on the radio describing what he termed “e-mail tourettes”. He said this is a syndrome, recently discovered, which appears to affect very many people. He said that it manifests itself when we open an e-mail message that annoys us for some reason and before we know what we are doing, we have furiously bashed out an angry reply and hit send, only to then come to our senses and thoroughly regret our hasty action and improvident words. It is as if a separate part of our brain takes over, only relinquishing control back to good Dr Jekyl the very moment evil Mr Hide has gleefully punched SEND, wreaked his mischief and buggered off again, leaving us to deal with the consequences.

Whether this explains how I sometimes become swept away on a tide of anger on this unreal application, or whether it is a straw of an excuse I am clutching at to explain my OTT explosions, I can’t be sure, but I recognised the head-doc’s description all too well and think I am indeed an e-mail tourettes sufferer (bollocks, shit, whore). It’s either that, or my Scottish and Romany grandfather’s genes are kicking in - the former, by all accounts, being a cantankerous, violent old bleeder and alcoholic, the latter being a fighting mad Irish Gypsy and also an alcoholic. I was bred from really good stock, as you can see, when it comes to being too fond of the barmaid’s apron and having a vicious temper, at least.

In my case, particularly when the demon drink is involved, the regret and leaden weight in the pit of the stomach, generally only hit me the following morning. It’s pretty much the same dose of horrors you get after a drunken party, when you can’t remember what you got up to, but have this dreadful feeling you did something so outrageous, you will never be able to show your face in polite society again and you just want to crawl under the bed and stay their until death comes calling to put you out of your guilt-ridden misery.

So, in the interests of balance and regaining some perspective and my sense of humour (while also allowing my blood pressure to drop below the stroke-red-alert levels that raised my doctor‘s eyebrows almost to his hairline the other day), I think I am going to take a Facebook holiday for a day or two. Likely, I will still pop by for a posting or two, but I am staying away from the main wall and all its worrying and horrific tales of man’s vileness and inhumanity, instead sticking to comedy videos and brain-numbing pointless games. I need a little calmness and a more peaceful mind, to both recharge my batteries and refill my empty tolerance tank. In this effort, I may even go for a walk in the park and when no one is watching, hug a tree or two and sniff some last gasp autumn flowers.

The Pope, however, can still go and fuck himself…