Knobs and the Genesis of Joe Murray

I keep saying there’s more than a touch of me in Joe Murray. Here’s a little tale to demonstrate what I mean.

I’ve just come back from our local hypermarket, where there’s a travelator to and from the underground car park. If you don’t know what a travelator is, it’s an escalator, but instead of forming steps, it’s flat, like a tilted conveyor belt. When you wheel your trolley onto it, the wheels are locked into the griddle beneath your feet, when you get to the top or bottom, your trolley is naturally pushed off onto level ground.

I was coming down the down travelator (useful, since getting down the up is hell’s teeth, especially with a trolley full of groceries) when I noticed at the bottom four people chatting and blocking access to the up side. Someone complained and they moved… to block the exit of the down side.

Blocking the up is a nuisance. Blocking the down is plain stupid because the trolleys coming down are going to be ejected and they have nowhere to go other than into you.

As I got near the bottom I called out, “Coming through,” for which I received murderous glares, until the trolley ploughed off the belt and they had to move or be mowed down like pins on bowling lane. This caused mutinous grumbles. I’m not known for mincing my words, so I told them how daft it was to block off the exit, more grumbles, and in the end, I declared them “Knobs” in a voice loud enough to be heard in Manchester.

It’s precisely the kind of situation where Joe would have reacted exactly as I did, and that’s where he comes from.

It’s also quite easy to dismiss me (and Joe) as grumpy old men, but what about the sheer idiocy of people, young and old which makes us grumpy? We all do stupid things, and I’m not perfect. I make my share of mistakes, but for most of the time my brain is in gear. I think about what I’m doing. I use my common sense, and as I said to the knobs at the bottom of the travelator, if it had been a level crossing would you stand on the railway line chatting? Obviously not. Then why do they assume the bottom of an escalator, where the people coming down have nowhere else to go, is the ideal place to stand around gossiping?

Call ’em what you like; knobs, dipsticks, brainless dicks, it all amounts to the same thing… the perfect target for my grumbles… and Joe’s.

Catch up on Joe’s latest irritations in The Summer Wedding Murder, currently at #2 in the Amazon UK British Detectives top 100, is available for download from:

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Smashwords (all formats)

Crooked Cat Books (MOBI, EPUB, PDF)

And in paperback from

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