"Up against it": a poor man's excuse

You know, there is little that really upsets me. I don"t like damp hand towels when I am visiting friends. I am not too keen on holding onto hand rails on public transport. I don"t like people with breath like a dog. And I don"t like people who, when you ask them how their working day is going, turn to you with a look of faux-exasperation that borders on constipation, and say 'I"m really up against it'.

Up against what exactly? Why not say, 'I am finding work too difficult for me today as I never really put the work in over the past month'? Or, 'I can"t be arsed but my boss is on my back and is making my life hell'? But instead, some people insist on telling you that they"re "up against it".

I remember once being up against it. "It" was a wall and Susie McAlpine was holding me against it. I was once up against it again when "it" was a police horse called "Spud". I was waiting to get into the game at Preston North End when three police horses came to organise the crowd that had, up until this point, been as calm as a lake in summer. I was sandwiched against a wall between Big Arthur Hutton and Tambo "The Mountain" O"Sullivan. Their shoulders were huge and wedged me against the brick wall. As I stood there, the horse started to reverse and I couldn"t move. I was trapped. Three yards. Two yards. One yard. Then next thing I had a horses arse chalking my nose. Now that was up against.