life

Scraps #1

mining for gold in the junkpile of my mind

Si Cobb

19 Jul 2025 — 8 min read

This edition of Scraps features: 101 Things I Hate, 13 songs I love and a 4 line poem.

Let’s get into it.

101 Things I Hate

My alarm (1) wakes me at 6AM, I go downstairs and fix coffee. I don’t check social media (2) or the latest commentary around Big Tech’s AI soap opera (3). After coffee, I walk the dog in the wildflower meadow near my house. My diet (4) means I don’t eat breakfast yet. I wheel my bike out of the house, stepping over the rain-soaked remains of a bag of fried chicken someone left on the street instead of throwing it in the trash can that you can literally see from this spot (5).

I’m ready to start my commute (6) but I have to wait whilst someone manoeuvres a spotless urban Range Rover(7) through streets designed for one horse and cart a day. They don’t acknowledge that I waited (8) and, as they pass, I have no choice but to hear the conversation they’re having (9) as it blasts out of their in-car bluetooth speakers. Their assault on my senses continues as they vape (10) which then escapes the open window and I cannot escape breathing their secondhand fruit steam (11).

I’m stuck with Fats Domino ‘Blueberry Hill’ (12) as a soundtrack for the next 3 minutes because Spotify’s algorithm doesn’t really know what rock and roll is (13) and the ‘skip track’ function on my bluetooth headphones has stopped working (14). My hybrid bike is new, the handlebars feel far too wide (15) and I can’t ride hands free yet (16).

After a couple minutes, I move into the crawling morning traffic (17) because someone’s parked in the cycle lane with their hazard lights on (18). I choose to believe they had to stop because it was an emergency rather than they just wanted to nip into the shop to get a copy of the Sun newspaper (19) and a Ginster’s pasty (20) as carried by the person who is exiting the shop as I go by. “Have a nice day you fat fuck!” I yell over my shoulder then feel shame at my near-immediate loss of composure (21).

Someone’s on an eScooter (22) tailgating me (23), making it clear they want to get past. But my handlebars are so wide (24 - yes, again, I really hate them), I can’t make space without either cycling on the pavement (25) or re-entering the traffic. At last we come to some traffic lights where there’s a bit of space. But just as we arrive at the crossing, the lights go red on our chance to cross (26) and so we have to wait for two lots of cars each containing precisely one person (27) to go through.

My phone is ringing, an unnamed number is trying to call me (28), I don’t pick up. They leave a voicemail (29) and I wonder again why my instruction “Hey, don’t leave a voicemail, I don’t listen to them, send a message instead” is always ignored (30). I pull over and listen in case it’s important but it’s just background noise before they hang up (31). “Can’t be that important then” I think and resume the commute.

I’m in town now and things are getting harder. I’m trying not to notice the multiple style violations I am confronted with: adult men in football shirts with a player name on the back (32), shorts as office wear (33), ‘fun’ socks (34), branded underwear visible above the waistband (35), and t-shirts with expensive brand names on (36) that say nothing about the owner other than “I could only afford the t-shirt from this designer”.

Everything I notice from the scroll of digital advertising panels installed on the street (37), I learn against my will. I lose count of the amount of meal deals (38) of ultraprocessed food (39) I am offered in the space of just 200 metres.

Then I think about how Brexit (40) supporters (41) tried to reintroduce imperial measurements (42) as standard along with having to queue at passport gates (43), no longer easily being able to live and work in another country (44) and ‘sovereignty’ as a tangible benefit (45). ‘I bet the person who parked in the cycle lane earlier voted Brexit’, I think before wondering why I hold on to these things and let them poison me (46).

I try and make like Elsa in Frozen and Let It Go. That just makes me wonder how people enjoy musicals (47) and why it’s now obligatory to have a celebrity attached to any creative output (48) in order that it can get an audience.

I’ve arrived at the office and I get in the lift and experience that awkward, mandatory, silence shared by humans in a temporary space (49). As it stops at Every Floor That Isn’t Mine (50), I consider whether the silence is preferable to playing music/ TikTok out loud through your phone speaker (51).

At last it’s my floor, I get out and head to the kitchen. Once again, I resent the hollow promise of free coffee from a coffee machine that can only produce a coffee-adjacent hot brown liquid (52). Instead, I make my compromise choice (53) of a cup of tea.

Arriving at my desk, I notice the ambient temperature is too high (54) and the overhead lighting (55) is too harsh. I have to ‘hot desk’ (56) which basically means I lose 10 minutes at each end of the day to set up and takedown (57).

I cast myself as the protagonist in the fairy tale of the Princess and the Pea and pretend that environmental compatibility is not important because I need a job for the money to eat food and live in a house (58).

I’ve spent 30 years working in tech which means these days I have to constantly check my posture (59) and take regular breaks that involve performing unnatural ostentatious stretches (60) in a place that is not designed for privacy (61).

As part of that, in order to see the screen I have to take off my absolute favourite glasses (62) and replace them with an ugly occupational pair (63) that I’m too cheap to upgrade (64).

I filter out the emails from sales people that imply we were already having a conversation when in fact we’ve never spoken (65) and immediately forget a new rule around how we might consume food in the building (66). Once these have been eliminated, there are, in fact, no valuable emails at all (67).

Instead all the action is on Microsoft Teams (68). An excellent place to hide or put people on hold indefinitely by simply not answering their messages (69). Through Teams, the day is parcelled into 30 or 60 minute call blocks (70).

“You’re not special,” I tell myself, then use the phrase “it is what it is.” (71).

Someone uses the microwave to heat up a fish lunch (72) and there’s a fire drill (73). Anyway, work passes.

Hometime means it’s time to get back on the bike and I have to unthread the lock from the secure fastening then rethread it to my bike so it doesn’t get in the way. This takes precious seconds from actually being on the way home (74). On the way, I pass several pubs and bars. I'd like a beer but these days apparently just looking at a beer gives me a beer belly (75).

Once home, I need to prepare food (76). Before I can do that, I have to clean away the previous food-making debris (77). Why is so much of being an adult preparing food then cleaning away after? (78).

I’ve forgotten to get anything out of the freezer (79) so I think about ordering a curry then remember again that I’m on a diet (80 - third reference, I know, but…). I default to my usual stir fry recipe and make a mental note to explore other weekday dishes. A note that I will not remember making until the next time the only option is the One Stir Fry Recipe (81).

I leave the house to get the missing ingredients for the stir fry from the Tesco Express outlet at the end of the road even though I just had my weekly groceries delivered by Tesco (82). The delivery was barely two bags of goods for a bill of over 100 quid (83) and there wasn’t even any alcohol in it.

I cook and sit down in front of the TV with my food. I’ve already watched this week’s episode of Game Changer so I don’t have that to look forward to (84). I wonder why TV networks stopped making sitcoms any more (85). Everything I can watch with my food is unscripted reality (86), celebrity-based (87) or current affairs (88). I don’t pay for streaming services (89) because ‘must-watch TV’ (90) is a contradiction. My only exception is Game Changer on my Dropout subscription, which I love.

Instead, I put my fork in my left hand and scroll my phone with my right. There’s a LinkedIn post “off to new adventures” (91), a “7 ChatGPT prompts you aren’t using” listicle (92) and an ad that wants me to believe 20something women in Russia are just pining away waiting for me to call them (93). I also hit ‘unsubscribe from these emails’ on a bunch of emails I would swear blind I had already unsubscribed from (94).

I finish my food but I have to unstack the dishwasher before I can put anything else in (95). I wonder why Big Tech developed AI that can do all the fun creative stuff but is doing nothing to save us from domestic drudgery (96). I can’t quite get everything in so I have to hand wash a couple of items (97).

This has taken 20 minutes which I think should extend bedtime with no sleep penalty attached. The clock which was so reluctant to count the work hours (98) has raced indecently through the 4 hours I had to myself (99).

I climb the stairs to find that Past Me washed the bedding but left it in a pile on the bed so I have to make up the bed before I can get in (100). I resist closing my eyes for as long as possible because the moment I do, the next thing I know, the whole thing starts over again (101).

Author’s note: I wrote this as a tribute to John Waters piece “Hatchet Piece (101 Things I Hate)”. It’s only available in his book, “Crackpot: the obsessions of John Waters”. It’s a piece that’s stayed with me not least because he shares my dislike of the Beatles. I know what I like…

It’s Only Rock and Roll

I said in “Heartbreak Crashed My Operating System!” that Spotify’s algo bothers me as its definition of rock and roll was faulty and I’d provide my definition of rock and roll.

Here it is.