My anger has never been this bad

[Carnation]

It's a feeling that isn't uncommon Lencoboy.

[Lencoboy]

For some strange reason this morning I seem to have an irrational hatred of the actor Ricky Tomlinson, most notable for playing Bobby Grant in Brookside and was also one of 'The Royle Family' later on.

He has always seemed extremely volatile, chauvinistic and perpetually angry, both in his acting character roles and IRL, as in the latter case he's always had militant tendencies and was infamously one of the 'Shrewsbury Two' back in the 70s where he and his fellow 'partner-in-crime' were both arrested and charged with public order offences.

I was by chance watching a couple of old Brookie episodes from early 1984 on YouTube last night and as the character Bobby Grant, the way he seemed to treat his family was well and truly appalling at times. One scene in particular that made my blood boil was where Damon had been suspended from school for various 'misdemeanours' (including being 'fitted up' by one of his fellow female classmates with a rude Valentine's card to one of his (female) teachers that the girl falsely signed in Damon's name) and the Grant family were having a massive row during dinner over it which lead to various other niggles coming out about things like the general state of the country back then concerning pertinent issues like the recession and resulting unemployment epidemic of the time, Sheila's indignation about Bobby being lazy, constantly pubbing it and not lifting a finger with housework while he was out of work at the time and she was out cleaning other people's homes as a partnership business with one of the other female residents of the Close, and Bobby boasting to be 'man of the house', whether working or not.

The row in said scene got so nasty that Bobby ordered the whole family to leave their meals, sent both Damon and Karen upstairs so that he and Sheila could continue their epic dust-up in the kitchen behind closed doors with Damon speculating to Karen in the bedroom upstairs about the possibility of their parents ending up getting divorced (which did eventually happen 4 years later in 1988).

God, that was the main scene that made me really mad, the thought of an entire family inhumanely being ordered to leave their food by the 'man of the house' which was like 'collective punishment' for the entire family. I'm so glad I never had that 'little Hitler' of a man as a dad in spite of the fact that my own parents were no strangers to epic rowing and screaming on occasions but almost never as extremely and inhumanely as Bobby and Sheila Grant. And yes I know it's actually fiction but it seemed so realistic and true-to-life in many respects. But most ironically Bobby never seemed to give Damon the belt, which was still fairly common for many dads of that ilk around that time.

I keep having irrational fantasies about challenging Ricky Tomlinson to a dust-up in real life by saying provocative things like 'to hell with the miners' strike', 'to hell with your poxy beloved trade unions', etc, so he'd then probably lamp me one and put me in hospital, and then brag to the courts that I 'deserved it' for pushing him to it!

Today I'm having irrational thoughts about challenging the authority of the staff at my day centre, provoking the manager there to cane me and also provoking the police and the local youth in Burton on Trent to brutalise me.

I'm also having irrational fantasies about the windows of the Jobcentre Plus in both Burton and Tamworth being smashed, like in the 1982 TV film 'Made In Britain'. Not that I have any actual intention of doing it personally though.

What happened to the 'stick it to the man' youth attitudes of previous decades?

[Lencoboy]

I also recall being triggered by the Adrian Mole TV drama series' a few years back when I watched them on YouTube (both 'The Secret Diary' and 'The Growing Pains').

In 'The Secret Diary', I was especially disturbed by the scene where Adrian's dad was trying to make a phone call but the phone had been cut off because Adrian had hidden the phone bill under his mattress (which Adrian's mom incidentally found while changing his bed, along with a porn mag) because Adrian secretly made phone calls to his girlfriend Pandora in Tunisia while she was on holiday there with her parents, and Adrian's dad went totally berserk, acting like Adrian had committed the most heinous crime against humanity and screamed something like 'Get in there, you stupid little sod'! Adrian replied 'Why'? and his dad screamed even louder 'BECAUSE I'M GONNA THRASH YOU THAT'S WHY'! and Adrian's dad then sounded like he was pathetically about to break down and cry, plus I think he may have looked like he was about to take his belt off to thrash Adrian to within an inch of his life.

'The Growing Pains' was extremely poignant in parts, especially where Adrian was struggling to cope both at home and school, especially following the birth of his baby sister Rosie (who was born illegitimately as a result of Adrian's mom's affair with the family's former neighbour Mr. Lucas), which eventually led to Adrian running away to the north of England with his family's pet dog to escape the torment of his chaotic home and school life, and ended up sleeping rough on the streets of cities like Leeds and Manchester.

I mean, my own family and school life could be quite chaotic and tumultuous at times when I was a kid but thankfully never as terrible as that of Adrian Mole's, even though like Brookside and Grange Hill, was/is only fictional TV drama, but still reflecting the general zeitgeist of Britain for many during the early-mid 80s period.

Ditto for the police procedural drama series 'Juliet Bravo' (1980-85) which often seemed to tell of the struggles many faced in the north of England during that same era, and is also quite harrowing to watch at times.