100% Juice and 100% Twats

Ok so I was a bit hungover this morning.

This was my flatmates fault.

I want to make that clear first.

He has a problem and I just drink with him to make him feel that he's not alone.

On my reluctant way to the train station this morning I thought I should buy a drink of orange juice. For some reason I was running early. This doesn't usually happen, which makes me think that I operate better hungover.

I went into the shop. Looked at the selection of drinks. Remembering it was still morning, and I had to go to work, I ignored the large selection of wines and beers and went for something that looked healthy. Hmmmm.....how about Just Juice! (the exclamation mark is compulsory) Made from 100% oranges! As if that's some kind of impressive claim. It's meant to be, the clues in the fucking name. Anyway, I couldn't find anything else that looked healthy so I bought it....it was 100% of £1.50.

I left the shop and read the label of the bottle of the Juice! as if it was a fine wine. Where had I seen that label and that ugly bottle before. Then it hit me.

A few years ago in the summer, I think while I was still at university, I ended up working in a factory. This factory made all the Del Monte orange juice (including Just Juice!) distributed in the UK. To cut to the point, the job was shit, the people were wankers and I quit after 2 miserable weeks. Also I saw how the orange juice was made. It came to the factory in large barrels. This was apparently the concentrate. It had the appearance of napalm and the stench of stale urine. It also burnt the skin, teeth and eyes of anyone unfortunately to walk within 10 metres of the vile stuff. It was poured into huge vats, and mixed with soapy looking water and large sacks of citric acid. This was then poured into the hideous bottles and sent out to our children to get fat on and burn holes into their mouths with the 100% sugary acid goodness. After two weeks, my job was to pick up bottles that had fallen on the grimy floor and then put them back in the conveyor belt. I did 12 hour shifts, slowly losing my mind.

Obviously times have moved on and we now have highly educated foreigners to abandon their school classes, medical practices and ministerial posts to do these jobs for us. Ah, isn't market capitalism great! I mean it's 100% great!

Anyway, back to this morning. I tried to drink the Juice!.....it was fucking horrible and made me feel worse. Also the bottle said "Just Drink it! Then bin it!" (with a picture of a bin for those thick enough not to get the reference) which is a wonderfully exciting and distracting way of saying, "This bottle is not recyclable".

I walked down the steps to the platform. I was still running early. The train wouldn't arrive for another 5 minutes so I could take my time and.....then I got a tap on my shoulder.

I turned and took my earplugs out. This was probably just a mugging I thought. Apparently they're happening all the time and I've been in London way too long and not been a victim of crime.....'maybe it's going to be one of those stabbing or gun crime things I've read so much about, how exciting!'. Maybe I could get Elton John to play at my funeral.

"Could you hurry up or get out of the way!" a rude and rather ugly woman snapped. I moved aside. Was I really moving that slowly? I think I'd have to describe my motion as ambling or maybe even strolling. Either way I believe that's officially acceptable.

More people push past me and ran to the platform. Had I got the train time wrong. I checked the electronic notice board....nope. I still had 3 minutes to walk the remaining 5 metres to the platform edge. The running people pushed past an old man ahead of me. I turned the corner at the bottom of the platform to see the delightful lady who had bothered me a few seconds before standing on the virtually empty platform. She was reading one of the shit papers handed out free in London. Where was her hurry. She was either dressed for work or a funeral. Where was the hurry?

Anyway. The train arrived. I made sure I got on the same carriage so I could give her evils but she was too engrossed in reading about Kerry Katona's new flap clamps or something.

The train arrived at Finsbury Park. From there it takes another 5 minutes to get into King's Cross, the last station on the route. People barged onto the train. Rushing for the spare seats like a game of musical chairs....only instead of music there was the beeping warning that precedes the closing of the train doors and in place of children there were twats in suits.

Again. Why bother rushing for a seat? It's 5 minutes. Can you not stand for that that long? OK it makes sense if you're old, fat and/or pregnant but these were the same people who spend hours in the gym, sweating and stretching and farting and running.

We pulled into Kings Cross. The doors opened and a flock of suits surrounded me, pushing and sighing and squeeze and all of them 100% pure, straight from concentrate, unrecyclable twats.