Friday 19 June 2009

After You.

I've decided to try an experiment and I think it's quite a revolutionary one. I'm not going to lie to you, I've long run out of ideas for this blog. Complaining constantly is not as easy as it looks. Sure, it's a piece of piss when James Corden has a sketch show on TV but when he's hiding in his flat, crying and defecating on his own reviews, there's not much to complain about. I've even started looking for complaints. I walk the dog every day in the hope that all the idiots will be out and doing their big mental park thing but there must be an idiot AGM on because they all seem to have left. Trains are just dishing out gold, like children getting stuck to businessmen and squealing Freemasons, instead of stinking of dinosaur piss and polluted with mobile phone music. Even two nights ago, I tried to start a fight and it got me nowhere.

A man pushing a bicycle was walking in front of me in Leicester Square. All of a sudden he turned round and the front wheel of his bike hit my leg. "Fucking idiot", I said. He stopped and yelled back. Brilliant! Something to complain about!!! "What did you say?", said the angry cyclist (who couldn't actually ride a bike). This is when I got aggressive. I said "You just hit me with your bike. I have every right to call you a fucking idiot". He then said "Fair enough" and smiled.

The fucking cunt. Doesn't he know I have a grumpy blog to write? Doesn't he know that I need him to be horrible so that I have something to write about? Why did he do this to me? CUNT! I hope he's dead.

Anyway, that's when I came up with my new plan and maybe you'd like to join me in it. From now on I'm going to be the nicest, most overly-polite man you have ever met. I am going to be so well-mannered it's going to border on pig-rude and psychotic. So far, it's been working well and I'm really enjoying it.

I went to Sainsbury's and silenced a man at the till. He said "Hello". HA! First big mistake, you cheery ball-ache, because Nice-Guy Legge is in town. I said "Hello to you". Not "Hello", that's just rude and dismissive. No, I went for happy-happy "Hello to you". In fact, it was such a cheery "Hello to you" that it was actually more like "Hello. To. You". I wanted him to know exactly what I was saying and who it was directed to. He looked nervous. BRILLIANT.

His next question was "Would you like a bag?" and the old me would have said either "yes" or "no" but I'm a lot friendlier these days so my answer was "Do you know what? Normally I'd say yes to that but today I've brought a bag with me so, Thank you, but no". I said all this with a huge smile. He now looked terrified. This made me happy. As he helpfully put my Quorn Burgers in my bag I asked him if he thought that they would be "Tops" (I really said that) for a family barbecue? He mumbled that he didn't know and then, and I have no idea how he did this, he lowered his head and hid his own face in his own face.

I won! I left Sainsbury's feeling great. The till man had been cheery and chatty but I guess I'm just friendlier than him and he couldn't take it. Prick!

The rest of the day yielded similar results. I asked a train employee what time the next train was from London Bridge to Charing Cross and then congratulated him on it running on time. He looked raped. I RAN to open doors for two people (that really freaks people out) and the bus driver who I thanked and said "Lovely bus too, by the way" just seemed relieved that the bus-nutter had got off without causing too much trouble. My favourite piece of good manners came late last night on the train home. I stood up and offered my seat to a man aged about 25. He said it was OK but I insisted. His face was the reddest thing that has ever existed. He looked like an angelic, terrified Satan. Eventually, he offered the seat to a woman in her 50's standing next to him (I'd seen her obviously but I just felt it would be more fun to offer it to him) but that was a fatal mistake because now that the woman was sitting down it meant that he and I were standing next to each other. Perfect for chatting. He made it clear that he didn't really care how lovely the London Eye looked at night and after a while said he had to call his girlfriend. How rude.

That's what you'll come up against when you're a really friendly man like me. Not everyone is as nice as I am, I've discovered. But I still urge you to be as overly pleasant as you can be. Give it a week. If you end up in hospital then I am sorry.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

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