An Ignorant Fop

I quote from wikipedia on a FOP............ "A modern-day fop may also be a reference to a foolish person who is overly concerned about his clothing and incapable of engaging in intellectual conversations, activities or thoughts."..................................And that about sums up the guy have been working with for the most part of a year.

I'm not going to mention the year, it will probably be different form the date of this post.
This has frustrated me for a year. There is 70% of him which is genuinely a nice chap, friendly,concerned,helpful, and kind, and it's a shame I don't write about that part of hi,m, but it's boring, it's not interesting to his final 30% which is mysterious,vague,annoying,manic,pathetic,ignorant,bigoted,foolish,immature and soul destroying.

Let me describe him, he comes from the countryside, he appears to be a very very camp man, as camp as Christmas, a metrosexual look about him, which is perfectly fine, I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just describing my thoughts on his appearance.
He's 46 years old but wears clothes that teenagers would wear, childish baseball hats cocked to the side.
Designer shirts £130 for a plain blue shirt and so on. He eats nothing to keep himself trim, likes to stay slim by starving himself, never eats in front of people. He is balding very badly on top but is desperate to cling on to the last strands. To do this he has got his hair cut as sort as possible at the sides, then used gel to place the strands on top of his head in place, there's so much gel that this is not a good look, you can clearly see through his gelled strands onto his shiny scalp, the way you can see skin through the hairs on a hairy belly, know what I mean? pointless in other words!! But he's so vain, he's clinging on to everything he can to stay looking young. He's orange from the sunbed, orange that's turning to leather brown 70's luggage / car seat / leather jacket kind of skin. He uses moisturiser, that's no crime I understand, but you're guessing he's not the type to work as a hod carrier on a building site. He gets his eyebrows plucked / threaded at a beauty salon. Again....not a crime, but not a man you'd imagine working as a mechanic. He also gets his nails manicured....not a crime at all, I know you can do ALL these things and still be straight, but surely there's moment after the sunbed, after the hair gel, after the moisturiser, the manicure and eyebrow threading when you sit there and think......'SHIT....MAYBE I'M GAY!!!!'

There's also a part of his personality that's violent without real obvious reasons. He is so random sometimes in his outbursts, that leaves me wondering who he is, what's ticking inside his head. For example one time I was just mentioning the police, how they sometimes stop you to do random checks on your car and so on. The fop (I will refer to him as THE FOP..SEE WIKI REFERENCE ABOVE) the fop said to me 'I fucking hate the police!! Every fucking one of them should be dead, every one of them. Fucking hate them, fucking burn their houses down, hope they fucking all die, no time for the fucking police at all, die you fucking bastards!'.......In which I replied to the fop.....'My god, that was slightly aggressive, why do you hate the police so much?' and the fop replied (in his VAGUE MANNER in which he will do from time to time).....'I just DO! I just hate the bastards, fucking hang the lot of them!' I will never ever know why the fop was so angry towards the police. I could only guess it was because the fop was a bit of a boy racer, probably been racing round the streets in his shitty golf or astra or corsa all those years up until now, probably had a few tickets and speeding fines. In fact I think he did have some fines and went on a speed awareness course. SO maybe that's why he didn't like the police. This got me worried, because it actually proved that the fop was in fact a complete idiot of the road. Someone who had been stopped for speeding (potentially harming himself and others including children) so I am GLAD THE POLICE CAUGHT HIM. I have nothing against the police really, I get nervous and paranoid in their presence like everyone else but I dont mind them. They have a nightmare job, and a mountain of legislation and paperwork so cannot get on with the job as much as they would like, you get the occassional areshole on a power trip of course but I have no problem with them. BUT THE FOP, well it seemed he was an idiot. I'd overhear him talking about slow drivers who were in front of him when he's driving, he says 'I just overtake, put my foot down and go round them!' I said 'What?? on a single laned road? Like a high street?' the fop says 'YEAH!! FUCK THEM, if they want to slow me down, fuck em, ill go round them!!' I thought to myself 'this guy is an aresehole of the highest order, a wanker. He's one of those wankers we ALL hate, the one who revvs the car and overtakes us....POTENTIALLY CAUSING AN ACCIDENT OF DEATH!! Yes, that's the thing, he could overtake and hit someone walking through parked cars, maybe a child. What an arsehole!!

What else?

Oh yes there's the bigotry in him. One day I'm at work with him, and in the room there is ME, a guy from Zimbabwe now residing in Britain as a British citizen and another guy from Iraq who is now a British citizen...and THE FOP.We start talking about the death of Drummer Lee Rigby who was knocked down by a car and hacked to death on the streets of London in broad daylight.
Obviously this is a dreadful crime that shocked the country.
The fop says to everyone 'fucking terrible that murder!' we agree of course, then the fop goes into a rant 'Fucking hacking our soldiers in the streets Tom, fucking bastards should send them ALL back to their country!' (FOR YOUR INFORMATION..Michael Adebolajo & Michael Adebowale were two black British born citizens)


Here's how the conversation or RANT went.
Fop - 'No they're not from here Tom.'
Tom - 'They were born here'
Fop - 'Well they should go back where they're from'
Tom - 'What? London? Hackney?'
fop - 'No!! Where they're from!!'
Tom - 'England?'
fop - 'you KNOW what I mean! Send em on a boat and send the fuckers back! Coming over HERE killing our soldiers Tom!'
Tom - 'They never came over here, they were born here.'
fop - 'fucking killing our soldiers Tom, coming over here.'
Tom - 'They were born here, they have the same rights, they're British men, who killed a British soldier.'
fop - 'fuck off, they're not British.'
Tom - 'None of us are really British, you DO know that everyone is really from Ireland? (JOKING) Everyone can trace their heritage back to the emerald isle!!'
Fop - 'coming over here, killing our soldiers Tom! They're not from here, they should go back to where their ancestors came from!'
Tom - 'I see, all of them?'
fop - 'the fucking lot of them! coming over here killing our fucking soldiers!'

The fop has a habit of repeating himself over and over by the way, really annoying.

fop - 'Tom, they're not British, they haven't even got ENGLISH NAMES!'

(AT THIS MOMENT, THE TWO MEN WE ARE WORKING WITH FROM ZIMBABWE AND IRAQ TURN AROUND)
...and I'm thinking to myself 'God you ignorant bastard, how can you not see the guys BEHIND YOU, are from other countries and don't have English names either, you stupid arsehole, you're offending them, and everyone else in this room.'
I couldnt' believe my ears, I have seen clips of the EDL on television and youtube and knew they were thick ignorant uneducated twats, and here I was face to face with something very similar indeed. I was terrified of what might happen.

Anengoni (ZIMBABWE) - 'Hey, come on now, stop this'
tom - 'come on now you're offending Anengoni!'
fop - 'I'm not on about anengoni, I'm on about them lot down London, send the fuckers back home!'
Tom - 'send them back to England yes?'
fop - 'send the fuckers back Tom, have'nt even got English names!'
Tom - 'Neither has Anengoni and Mourad but they're both British citizens!!'
fop - 'I'm not on about Mourad and Anengoni!! I'm on about them lot down London, haven't even got English names, send the fuckers back! coming over here, killing our soldiers!!'

I was getting nowhere with this guy. He wasn't listening to anyone, he saw red, a mist came down over his eyes, there was no way you could rationalise with him. There was no way you could debate with him about the war, and the morality of it all, his brain couldn't make that kind of open minded leap, he had a closed view on the world. For example, there must be accounts in Iraq and Afghanistan where innocent families have died as a result of accidental shootings / bombings etc and regarded as collateral damage, for those families, they would immediately see the British & Americans as enemies surely. But no one talks about them in the news. To many in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would indeed be the British who came to their country killing people, if you know what I mean? It's a grey area, and there's no way I could have that debate with the fop..

Another thing he does is, ask endless questions. He is bored at work, totally bored, and you know what? So am I !!
So in order for his day to pass quickly, he asks everyone questions, in fact he is very nosey and will sometimes ask personal questions, and we are all so stupid, we tell him everything. He will keep asking and asking relentless questions. Sometimes I can;t stand this, because I dont think he's interested really, he is only doing this to pass the time. Well if he asks the questions and I'm doing the thinking and answering.......that makes my day drag and drag, just to entertain him. It annoys the hell out of me.
The thing is, I know NOTHING about him. If you ask him about his home life, he will reveal only a little information, and it may not be the truth. He is very vague about his life, and in fact he will say to you 'It's personal' which makes me angry because he has been asking everyone around him very personal questions.
He would get phone calls at work three times a day, he would have to stop what he was doing and take the phone calls. They were always from the same woman, Claire, and if you stood near him when he was on the phone you couldn't hear one word he said, you could just make out a mumbled yes or no, nothing else, he just listened on the phone. I always imagined the woman caller Claire....screaming down the phone at him all the time, and the fop just nodding his head mumbling 'yes' or 'no' . Now all of that is fine, that's his right to privacy, I have no right to try and listen in, the part that angers me is that had I taken a phone call at work....the fop would be in my face with a million relentless questions, 'you alright Tom? Everything alright Tom? Sure Tom? who was that Tom? wanna talk Tom? Sure you're ok Tom? You alright mate? alright Tom? Everything ok Tom? you alright Tom?' and on and on he would go, that's what annoys me about this idiot. I don't want to know his business, because it's NONE of my business, I just want to know why he wants to know mine so much.
I always think generally as humans, we are social animals and conversations usually involve a sharing of information, an exchange of information. With the fop, the conversation was always one way, he asks the questions not you, you answer, he knows everything about you, you know nothing about him.

I hate that, and I don't trust people like that.

At this time of writing I'm going to start a new job in a few weeks time, and I cannot wait to get away from the fop. He is one of the many reasons I'm leaving my current job, he makes my day there a torturous experience., along with my boss who talks to me like a piece of shit.