About Quot

Quot could be always finding that your corkscrew has the cork from the last bottle it opened still in it, or always jamming your drawers tight shut with that last thing you crammed into them, or always coming across that one dirty sock dropped on the stairs just after you’ve started the washing machine.

It could be one of those odds-on racing certainties which you find repeatedly happens – the waiter in the restaurant always appearing with the food just on the punchline of your best story, the first person you ask for directions in a strange town always being a stranger to it too, or the train ticket-inspector always arriving just as you’ve fallen asleep.

It could be something you’re always doing like snagging your feet on the cables and leads to your electronic equipment, trying to get the shopping out of the car into the house all in one go, calling your lost mobile on your landline to find out where you left it, or – when doing a decorating job round the house – dipping your brush in your mug of tea .

Quot is what you hear yourself saying ‘I’m always doing that‘ or ‘This is always happening to me‘ about. It’s anything you use the word ‘always’ about, and if you find yourself saying ‘everybody’, ‘all’, ‘one’, or their negatives – ‘never’, ‘none‘ or ‘nobody ever…‘ –  particularly in the context of some wild generalisation, you’re probably talking quot.

It could be something everybody has, like that drawer full of instruction manuals for machines which you got rid of years ago, a key ring with far more keys on it than you have doors for or those old cocktail-sticks and raffle tickets you’re always finding in the top pocket of your best suit.

It could be simply something you’re always seeing about the place – the ‘Happy Birthday Sharon’ banner on the motorway bridge, or the sodden child’s glove sitting on a front-garden wall, a poster for a forthcoming event which happened three months ago, the furry rabbit or teddy bear which municipal vehicles seem invariably to have lashed the front radiator.

Or it could be somebody and  their predictable behaviour – the person talking to you in the kitchen who will always be standing across the drawer you want to get into or in front of the microwave door or those people who, when you have a wound or injury, can be relied on to knock and prod you just there where it hurts.

Yes, we are all already too familiar with the teaspoon that’s always left in the washing up water when you throw it away , about cleaning before the cleaner comes, and about devices which work perfectly well in the shop when you’re only there to complain that they haven’t been working anywhere else. If it’s an experience which seems designed to kick you in the teeth we usually put it down to Sod’s Law but Quot has a wider brief and includes some nice things too – like being given the unused time on a parking ticket by somebody just leaving the car park or being invited to jump the supermarket checkout queue by somebody with an overloaded  trolley who’s noticed that you’re only buying a tuna-and-sweetcorn sandwich.

Whoever, whatever, and wherever one is there are things which crop up time and time again – situations, sights, sounds, behaviour patterns, remarks,memes  – even thoughts and feelings – which seem integral to particular sets of circumstances. Pretty well every area of life has its quot element  which is not what it says on the tin and which you won’t find in any brochure yet just seems to go naturally with the territory – be it home, family, work, leisure, shopping, sport, health, driving, computing, dieting, Christmas, or hotel sofas – you name it. In fact, put it here.

This Quotmail website tickles the underbelly of ordinary life to tease out those bits of it which are overlooked in the Authorised Version. It is tasked with collecting your common experiences of life-clichés, sifting through them, commenting and attempting to establish just how prevalent they are. What may not be happening in your life at this particular moment is probably happening to somebody somewhere. You can post a quot or comment which will appear on the site but only with your approval. If it’s a quot the site will test-run it and tell you whether it’s ‘just you’ or is shared by everybody or anybody else. If nobody recognises your observation it could end up in the Rejection Bin ( along with ‘All Pope’s looking the same’  and ‘Wedding Dresses never having anywhere to keep your pens’  ) . The extent to which it is acknowledged as common to general experience is the subject of the Quotpoll, which awards the following coded Quotrating to each posting according to its findings.

(QQQQQ) = Everybody
(QQQQ*) = Most People
(QQQ**) = Some People
(QQ***) =  A Few People
(Q****)= Hardly Anybody
(*****)= Just You

A SELECTION OF QUOTS CURRENTLY UNDER INVESTIGATION

• Constantly getting letters from banks,utility companies etc saying they’ve changed your ‘terms and conditions’
• Keeping one’s birthday cards on display for weeks after one’s birthday has come and gone
• When gargling always adding an extraneous musical hum to the otherwise tuneless throaty sounds one is making
• All children having another more easy-going family down the road they would much rather be a member of than their own
• Thinking of something else you meant to do online the moment you turned off the computer
• Doing a job that’s not on your ‘To Do’ list , then writing it in and crossing it out again as ‘Done’
• Losing one’s sense of direction on coming out of an aircraft toilet and having to think which way to turn to get back to one’s seat
• Poster boys in hairstyle photos at the hairdressers bearing no relation to anyone you’ve ever seen in this country this century ( or even on this planet)
• Realising just that second too late that one is entering a house where one is expected to take one’s shoes off
• Menfolk putting on handbrakes on so tight that their womenfolk can’t get them off again , as also  with  taps and wheelnuts
• Forgetting what it was you said you’d Google when you got home as soon as your’e back on the computer
• Writing texts but then forgetting to press ‘Send’
• Being told by the man at the local dump that whatever it is you’re trying to dispose of has to be dumped at some other site further away
• Anyone who gets too old to manage the garden always getting somebody even older to do it for them
• Always instinctively wanting to answer your own mobile when one rings in the film you are watching ( or answering the doorbell during ‘University Challenge’)
• Always squirting the UHT milk all over the place when you peel off the silver foil seal
• There never being any sign of any item you’ve just distinctly heard drop on the floor when you look down
• At roadworks always sneaking in on the end of the tail of single-line traffic long after the light has turned red
• Nobody ever reinstating seat positions, mirror settings, radio stations when getting out of a car somebody else also drives
• Car passengers pressing one foot down hard on floor when they think the driver should be slowing down a bit but isn’t
• Always attempting to get all the shopping out of the car and into the house in one go
• Spare buttons always being sewn into new shirts in the most pain-sensitive places
• Always feeling intimidated by the geeky staff in computer shops because you don’t really know what you want or the even any words to describe it
• Nowhere ever turning out to be anything like how it looks on the map
• Always getting the old battery you’re  taking out mixed up with the identical one you’re supposed to be putting in
• Always finding a bed of shredded paper in chocolate boxes when you’re expecting another layer of chocolates
• When undressing always  trying to get as many clothes off in one batch  as possible
• All words which have to be written in icing-sugar on cakes ( ‘Birthday’  ‘Christmas’ or ‘Anniversary’ ) being long ones
• Prisons, sink estates and inner-city slum areas always having the prettiest names
• Dry cleaners always telling you your particular stains will never come out
• Never having any local money on you for the first tip in any foreign country
• Teenage daughters always leaving their diaries in places where their mothers can’t help but find and read them
• Always clicking on the ‘I Agree’ panel on website ‘Terms and Conditions ‘ boxes without reading them
• Always feeling a moment of distrust on approaching an automatic door that it’s not going to open in time
• Pressing the ‘Next Page’ keypad on an e-reader or Kindle before finishing the page you’re on
• Every local butcher always having an award-winning sausage
• Always  missing a trouser-loop when putting your belt back on after going through airport security
• Every local butcher having an award-winning sausage
• Any list you make always having one item on it twice
• One’s own name suddenly turning funny on you
• Girls always sounding surprised to see each other even though their meet-up was arranged
• Always trying to open up the wrong end of a bin-liner
• Dropping your toll money on the car floor just as you approach the auto-tollgate
• Still using Christmas stamps in July
• Watching television and always thinking “Oh no, are they really going to make me sit through this boring commercial AGAIN?”
• Never being able to get dental floss off your fingers when trying to dispose of it
• Encased strip lights and bowl-lights always being full of dead moths and flies
• Credit cards etc always sticking into their plastic holders on hot sticky days
• All firework displays peaking too early and going on that little bit too long
• Coming home from coffee bars with sugar sachets in your pocket
• Public figures on record as being against honours ,awards and gongs changing their tune the minute they get one
• At public events the public address microphone always being given to some clueless person who likes the sound of their own voice
• Not being able to bring oneself to throw away favourite old clothes and shoes
• Beer drinkers saying they’ll give up if the price goes up in the budget and then changing their minds when they do
• Not being able to park the car with the radio on
• Call Centre advisors having whatever regional accent you find the most difficult to understand
• Honey and treacle jars and pots sticking to the shelf
• Not being able to thread a needle without puckering up your face
• All church bells sounding the same whatever tune they’re playing
• Not having to remember anybody else’s phone number any more – even one’s own ( what with all the passwords etc you do)