Diary of a Grumpy Old Git Read Online Free Page B

young people have with travelling, anyway? When I was young, a holiday meant sitting on a pebbly beach with your parents in the pouring rain with nothing but your seething
resentment to keep you warm. Now it means playing the bongos and ‘finding yourself’.

     
    I can’t help noticing that these kids who find themselves always seem to find that they like sitting on warm beaches and living off their parents’ money. Must be such a revelation
for them.

     
    On my way home tonight, a woman handed me an invite to an open night at the local gym. I have no intention of ever signing up to one of those places again. Last time it took me so long to cancel
my direct debit that the four trips I made must have cost about £200 each. But this was a free offer, so I thought I might as well go.
    I rushed back home, stuffed my jogging trousers and T-shirt into a bag and ran out. The offer was only valid until eight, so I had to take a shortcut through the council estate. There were some
frightening teenagers on bikes outside the underpass, so I had to forge an alternative route through the estate’s maze of pathways.
    I had to leapfrog over three randomly placed pedestrian barriers, sprint past a loose pit bull terrier and dodge several abandoned shopping trolleys to escape the estate, but I managed to get to
the gym just before eight. I dashed into the changing rooms, threw my stuff on and hurried down a corridor into a bright room full of exercise machines.
    A man wearing a polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms came over to me. ‘Hi, I’m Jay,’ he said. ‘I’m here to talk you through the facilities. Do you know which ones
you’d like to try first?’
    I had to wait to catch my breath.
    ‘Yeah,’ I said eventually. ‘Do you have a café?’

W EDNESDAY 30 TH J ANUARY
    It’s the end of January now. Time to reflect on how my resolution to be more positive is going.
    Not very well, really. A little better than that year I vowed to give up drinking and then remembered about my ‘beers of the world’ gift pack. But overall, I wouldn’t say
I’ve managed to be positive for an entire month.
    Does it matter, though? After all, if the Greeks and Romans had sat around grinning all day, would they have bothered inventing civilization? Maybe negative thinking is the driving force behind
all culture. By demonizing pessimism, we’re forcing ourselves into irreversible decline.
    Would Isaac Newton have discovered gravity without negative thinking? Would Leonardo Da Vinci ever have drawn a woman with a wonky smile and inspired a crap airport novel without negative
thinking? And would Dave Cross ever have won a bronze award for business-to-business copywriting without negative thinking?

     
    I forgot about that award. Maybe I should bring it in tomorrow when I’m pleading with Josh. If it doesn’t impress him, I could always club him to death with it.

T HURSDAY 31 TH J ANUARY
    You know what? I don’t mind being a grumpy old git. When you look at the modern world, with its coffee franchises, reality shows, banks, social networks, cyclists and funky bosses, the
only rational responses are grumpiness, depression and madness. And I’m pretty sure I’ve chosen the best option.
    I don’t need pills, padded cells or art therapy workshops to get me through it all. I just settle back for a good old-fashioned rant at the idiocy of the modern world and I’m fine
again.

     
    A woman from my electricity provider called up while I was writing that last entry and asked how happy I was with their service on a scale of one to ten. I told her I was
chronically dissatisfied with everything, so it would have to be a one. But I told her that as I found dissatisfaction comforting, it would also have to be a ten. She said she’d put me down
as a ten and hung up. I’ve never had a cold caller hang up on me before. That’s a new one.

F RIDAY 1 ST F EBRUARY
    That was weird. I came in on the early train again and watched from my desk as