Ok folks, you get to banish your pet hates into Room 101, based on the following categories:
People: who winds you up?
Modern Life: what is it about living today that makes you angry?
Wild card: your chance to lob in any random pet hate.
For me, it’s the following:
People: Fiona Bruce. Arrrggggh! She just winds me up. Jolly hockey sticks and Oxbridge effortlessness.
Modern Life: people who are more interested in their phones than engaging with human beings.
Wildcard: grown men who play computer games. Stop it! Computers ended with Sonic the Hedgehog!
Over to you…
People : Extroverts in the office
Modern life: Bad mobile phone / walking etiquette
Wild card: Hotels who say that they cater for vegetarians at breakfast, and then it turns out they mean eggs, eggs or eggs. So that will be weak coffee and wan toast for you, Sir?
1. People: Know-it- alls and people who are ‘certain’ of , well, anything, really; those who don’t listen.
2. Modern life: Bad manners.
3. Wild card: I dunno, I think I covered everything with the above. Ironing? Hoovering? Oh, lined notebooks. Surely they should all be blank. 😀 Ink pens that leak i.e. all of them, even my beloved Mont Blanc.
I get a ponce award for Mont Blanc. 😀
1. People: Middle-class ponces who spend too much money on ridiculous status-symbol pens; what’s wrong with a Bic, spoilt cow?
Exactly, Ruby. And those kind gentleman at Bic have made a range just to fit your delicate fingers. To use for shopping lists, recipes, cross-stitch patterns, etc. But don’t become over-excited by choosing the pretty colours, else you’ll have the vapours.
https://malamablog.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/bic_forher.jpeg
Oh those pink Bics! So pretty. Matches my pink Moleskine unlined notebook.
But nothing beats the red and white Ladbrokes ones I used to fill in me Da’s betting slips, aged 12. Oh, the Proustian rush.
2. Modern life: the decline of the windowless, smoke-filled, tiny-pen-equipped betting shop, full of under-age urchins spending the child benefit.
No. No no no. Fountain pens are things of great utility and beauty.
Fine and good tools.
Yes if they don’t LEAK! I have a Cross too and it just leaks to buggery. No use at all. Although inky fingers do give you an absent-minded professor air which is quite nice. (But yes, beautiful things and the only pens that can make my writing legible.
Two words: Parker Sonnet
*adds to Christmas list* 🙂
Worth contacting Mont Blanc with that issue – have always found their after sales customer service to be first class .
I like that six-pointed white star thingy on the top of Mont Blanc pens. Nice.
Yebbut, but fountain pens are beautiful things, and I will fess up to owning a Dupont. It’s just a shame they have become over-priced status symbols. When I were a lad, a good fountain pen is what you got as a grown up present, and they didn’t cost an arm and a leg.
Mont Blanc – good to hold but I find some of their designs a bit blingy.
Have you tried Lamy fountain pens, they don’t leak ?
Honestly, I think it’s me. I’ve had two Mont Blancs (actually both presents; not *that* much of a spendthrift), a variety of Cross pens….maybe I’m doing something wrong.
I love them. Medium nib, variety of inks, plain notebook. But I think it’s just me.
But one good thing has come of my mildly whiny post- I am going to get the pens out today and try and fix them, goddamn it. I might even go to the Pen Shop if I have no success. 🙂
So they may yet be saved from Room 101.
If you don’t get any joy…..
http://www.montblanc.com/en-gb/customer-service/get-in-contact.html
Thanks! Might be OK, now….will persevere.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y186/Suzanne219/ac624418-466f-4ef4-a5cb-b79907505d78_zpsr6yve9uu.jpg
They may just need to be cleaned and rinsed of any ink. This has worked for me.
Yeah this is what I did and it has worked….for now. I do have very inky fingers though (again). I’ll see how it goes.
One problem is that I don’t use them very often as I rarely take them out of the house….too precious to lose. So I need to get back into the habit of using them regularly.
Ah, pen porn. 😀
The penis mightier than the sword.
People: just hippies. All the fucking hippies.
Modern life: professional offence-takers. Whatever happened to just ignoring things you don’t like?
Wild card: can I have the hippies again? No? Ok. Tangentially related to the hippies: all that fucking woo about crystals and healing and magic and the “alternative” brigade’s tendency to dismiss science when they wouldn’t know a scientific thought if it hit them in the joss sticks.
You don’t fool me, Rob!
Incidentally I have no problem with hippies in principle. All the laid back love stuff sounds like a nice idea. It’s just that in practice every hippy I’ve ever actually met had a very thin crust of peace and love that entirely failed to mask the fact that he (always he) was a wildly misanthropic, misogynist, passive-aggressive bastard who was deep down incredibly conventional but couldn’t bear to admit it.
So I’d like to modify “hippies in general” to “all the hippies I’ve ever met”.
The Afterword does Room 101? Yes, about 65% of the time – but it’s usually pretty entertaining.
People: Jellyheads. Those that take pride in their ignorance. ‘I don’t care. I’m not reading that. I’m not listening to this. It’s boring. Etc’. No, it’s not boring. You are simply a lazy spoilt arsehole.
Modern life: Jargon and the Service Culture. ‘Your station manager is Jamie Bollockfeatures. We are committed to passionately writing drivel like this and then ultimately doing fuck all when you need us to.’
Wild card: Oh, I dunno. At the moment that woman with the terrible diction on The One Show.
Cyclists.
Motorists.
Scots Nationalists.
Scots Unionists.
Homeopaths.
All the idealogues and zealots (and hippie-haters).
Litter, people not giving a shit.
The homogeneity of everything.
Cor, get her. Back in the knife drawer, you.
Sven’s being more than usually arch and bitter these days. I think he should share what’s on his mind. Not here, though.
Only joshing. Are there any hippies anymore? Ageing ones maybe.
People- Bono. Obviously.
Modern Life – “Trigger Warnings.” Honestly if you are so delicate a flower that you need to be warned in advance that some rapes occur in the work of Ovid then really you should not expect the rest of society to arrange itself around you, you pathetic wretch. Neil Gaiman, who I formerly quite liked, has seriously lost points with me for calling his latest collection that.
Wild Card- Films. I used to like films. Now they are all three hours long and about either robots hitting each other or fucking superheroes. This is indicative of a larger trend which bothers me me which is basically “grown ups not growing up.” If you are in your thirties, and you watch superhero films and play computer games then I will not like you.
Thinking about it this is all related to my “trigger warning” grumble isn’t it?
‘Fucking superheroes’? Hell, I missed that one!
Try Watchmen. Albeit only a brief scene.
Tell me more about these films with robots fucking superheroes.
No. You know quite enough already.
People doing things for my own good.
Telephones taking photographs and playing games and pretend radios
Me when I thought I knew it all
People: The smugly, devoutly, boringly orthodox.
Modern Life: The banality of it all, particilarly the orthodoxy.
Wild Card: The snipers at the back of the class who goad the haters into unloading negativity onto those they dislike; being bullies by proxy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBM_MIT9EOM
Bus drivers who don’t wait for people to sit down before pulling away from the bus stop;
Taxi drivers who use their horns instead of knocking on the door;
People who moan at the council about the streets being full of litter, not stopping to think that it is people who drop litter, not the council;
A room full of drama teachers listening to Björk;
Grown men with replica shirts worn over their jumpers, who stand up and stretch out their arms when the opposing team fail to hit the target;
An assortment of scriptwriters, novelists and playwrights who own Agas but don’t know how to use them;
A musical equipment reviewer responsible for an article titled “Microphone of the Month”;
A woman who described herself as “A little bit Bridget, a little bit Ally, a little bit Sex And The City” and chose to call her baby boy Fred as a childishly rebellious attempt at a clever reaction to those who might have expected her to call him Julian or Rupert. Bit of advice: call him Rupert, it fits, and besides it’s a good name. Don’t be calling him Fred or Archie, with all its cheeky but lovable working class scamp connotations, unless you really do have plans for him to spend his life in William Hill’s waiting for them to weigh in at Newton Abbot.
Also being held is a whole wall full of teenagers spitting needlessly;
An amateur thug in camouflage trousers whose Japanese fighting dog had run amok on a Swindon council estate;
A man from the record company who said that George Michael continues to challenge social taboos through his music;
Lisa Riley;
Continuity announcers introducing comedy shows;
A pub band who get uppity when everyone goes to the bar during a song they’ve written themselves;
A group of football fans referred to as Commodores, as in once, twice, three times a season, who feed sugar lumps to police horses at Cup Finals;
An artist who said his next album would be more “song-based”;
A man who informs people that he gets up at six am every morning and seemed to want a medal;
People who say they speak as they find and are somehow proud of it;
Journalists who try to spell an interviewee’s laugh;
An organisation who declared an awareness week for awareness weeks;
And a council worker who dropped litter.
That just about covers it
Your original three will do for me, Hamlet, only I was going to say Madonna under the heading ‘people’.
However, I’ve changed that to ‘anyone who isn’t a hippy’. They’re the ones not to trust (see ‘Tony Blair’).
Up!
People: People who show-off on the internet: Emotional afternoon at Amelia’s piano recital followed by a meal out with the hubby! #bliss”
Modern Life: Similar to Bob’s, but not identical. If you take offence at something and challenge it, fair enough. But why the modern trend of trying to absolutely RUIN somebody’s life because they said something ‘wrong’ on the internet?
Wildcard: ‘Doing’ tv shows. “I’ve just done Breaking Bad”.
People who use Mobile Phones in shops and restaurants in complete ignorance of anyone else around them. (a) are you really that important, and (b) why do I (or anyone else) want to hear about your latest failed relationship, or what you did on holiday
Modern Life: is rubbish (unless you know the secret solution (it’s called ignorance and tolerance))
Wildcard:
The increasing occurrence of Intolerances and Allergies. Either no-one ate dirt when they were a kid, or the phrase Intolerant really means “I don’t particularly like that food”.
Yes, there are some genuine cases about, but not that many surely?
I know a woman who drinks like a fish, smokes, is overweight thanks to a diet of takeaways, Red Bull and chocolate, and does zero exercise. She recently said “I’ve been feeling a bit rubbish recently. I think I might have a wheat allergy”.
Maybe she sobered up for a while?
I have wondered about the intolerance thing. In the past if you had a build up of gas you would just belch or fart, problem solved. Now it is a condition.
Nowadays you can’t just tell someone to man up either, it goes down badly.
Thankfully not in all quarters.
I referee Women’s rugby (among other types). Was amused to find one lady player, clearly annoyed at the perceived wimpiness of an opposing player who was lying there crying after a particularly robust tackle, shouting in her ear “just man the fuck up will you? It’s a contact sport”.
‘Either no-one ate dirt when they were a kid, or the phrase Intolerant really means “I don’t particularly like that food”.’
Or maybe it just means that the food industry and been throwing so much junk and chemicals into eg mass produced baked goods that people have been becoming increasingly ill through them and have no way of knowing exactly what it is that causes them problems, intolerance, so they have to assume that it’s something they can see on the ingredients like ‘wheat’ instead of hidden things like industrial chemicals that the manufacturers use to clean the machinery and call ‘added calcium!’ …
People – all those ‘famous’ for being famous/infamous – Katie Hopkins for example
Modern Life – ‘reality’ TV – bring back the test card ffs.
Wildcard – People who allow their freaking dogs to crap on the pavement outside my front door – probably the same cockwits who litter the streets – but if not they can go down the hole as well. The bloke at work with the least idea of personal space and the worst halitosis. At week five of the school holidays, my kids. They’re driving their parents insane. Can I go on or is it the end of the show?
People – All right wing bastards, religious fanatics and fuckin` boy bands, X fuckin` factor and that bastard Cameron and his army of smarmy toffs oh and Putin and that Yankee bastard with the wig, oh and anybody who disagrees with my choices. Oh and you bastards who are giving hippies grief – Fuck Off.
Modern Life – I can handle modern life but those idiots at concerts with their iPods, iPhones and constant gab fuck off into group one.
Wild Card – Liverpool F.C.`s fans – you are not special, you do not deserve a top 4 football team, the reast of the football Premier/Championship and Leagues 1&2 come before you. So stop being sad embittered bastards.
I would like to add that I love the City Of Liverpool, it`s culture and people, especially the music produced by it`s citizens. It will never be surpassed.
People – anti-intellectuals. Anybody who thinks that because you’ve cracked a book once in a while “you think you’re better than me”.
Modern Life – overuse (and misuse) of words like ‘iconic’. It’s not a catch-all word for ‘famous’ or ‘well-known’, you morons…
Wild Card – Dirge-y acoustic covers of pop and/or rock songs. Bonus time in Hell for those that are also country-tinged…
Dirgey acoustic country-tinged covers? My heaven
I almost forgot – there’s a special extra-toasty section for bearded hipsters and their ironic ukulele cover versions…
Oh dear god, where to start?
Anyone of them fuckers who believe homeopathy is a science, natural wines are actually natural or that Sufjan Stevens doesn’t deserve a massive slapping.
Every one of them fuckers who look at their phones or tablets or whatever poxy device is trendy today when they should be listening to my distilled but obviously massively significant insights on Modern Life
Sufjan Stevens – why??
People: Basically arrogant, opinionated, intolerant and self-centred individuals (for some reason I seem to attract them?).
Modern Life: Xbox, play station etc and about 90% of social media (I blame my age)
Random choice: Marzipan – the taste of the devils smegma (I’m using artistic license on this one, but I bet I’m right)
People – It’s a cliche, but people on public transport with noise-leaking headphones. I mean, seriously? You’ve been completeky oblivious to *all* the commenets everyone has ever made about how f***ing infuriating that is?
Modern life – excessively low speed limits. I get that doing 40mph in a built up area is dangerous. How about going after the tiny-cocks who do that? How does making us all drive at 50mph on a 3 lane motorway make anybody safer?
Wild card – Glasgow City Council 24 hour bus lanes. Which are so subtly marked that it’s clear their sole purpose is to raise raise cash, not actually to change driving behaviours. Because obviously, being in one at 8.30pm on a fairly clear road is a major threat to all living creatures in the vicinity. [Full disclosure: I may have had a penalty notice from them in the last few days].
Looking at these, and their travel-related theme, I guess I’m maybe a misanthrope whose major problems in life arise when I am forced to share the same space as others.
Far too many irritants to mention. Let’s just settle for Keith Lemon and Russell Brand to represent the general shiteness of modern life.
I get the feeling that every time that Leigh Francis walks in front of an audience he’s thinking “what a bunch of ****s,They’ll buy any old crap”
People – I seem to attract people that are always wise after the event as in “I wouldn’t have made that, choice, I would have made the choice that we all now know is/was correct” – Them Fuckers. Twats.
Modern life – Social media – excepting this site natch.
Wild card – Mobile phones – I hate them – especially my own.
People: Men, its always men, who sit on public transport with their legs spread wide open taking up 2 seats in a “I’m a man I can sit like this, because this is how men sit”. Put your legs together and let the person next to you sit comfortably.
Modern Life: Rudeness. Hate it. If you are being served in a restaurant, or a shop or somewhere else you are interacting with someone else., put your phone away, and engage with that person. The good thing in US Post Offices (well, really only the good thing about the USPS…that’s for another day), is a sign that says that the staff will not serve you if you are on the phone.
Wildcard: Robbie Savage (I don’t think I need to justify this choice)
People – who say ‘can I get?’ – no you fucking can’t, that’s the job of the person serving you
Modern life – comment above reminded me about speed limits – the centre of Bristol is now 20mph – my car won’t freewheel that slowly up Park Street.
Wildcard – restaurants and poncy pubs – serve your food on plates. I don’t want to eat out of a miniature bucket, or off the blade of a shovel or from a tatty old roof tile, I want a plate. Likewise KFS, don’t give me fucking chopsticks or expect me to use my fingers. We’ve moved on from the stone age, I think/hope
People: Every single religious leader on the planet. Vile deceptive charlatans, peddling medieval superstitious claptrap to the gullible masses, whilst at the same time getting tax breaks.
Modern life: ‘Artisan’, ‘Curated’ and other terms for overpriced food served very un-hygienicly in a used bed pan by some twonk with a huge bear full of dirt.
Wildcard: The UK’s housing policy. A national scandal.
A huge bear full of dirt’ – unhygienic grizzlies as waiter buddies, is this another new Shoreditch thing? 😉
“A huge bear full of dirt” – I’ll be laughing at that one until Monday.
Steady on HP, I don’t think he came here to be insulated.
People – Clarkson. Look, I’m sat at the bus stop, it’s rather late and I know it’s a bit obvious but I do have a point.
Modern life- intolerance.
Wild card – cheese, obviously.
People: I find it almost impossible to avoid getting in a bad mood if I have to talk to a district nurse.
This profession seems to attract a type of person that is my absolute opposite and knows how to press all my negative buttons. Like the OPs Fiona Bruce, they are all very jolly hockey sticks, plus they are obnoxious know-it-alls, don’t listen to anything you say and speak to you in a very patronizing way. These days I simply refuse whenever my doctor suggests that I meet with a member of this profession, not even to check my blood pressure (especially not for that – my blood pressure would go through the roof if I had to encounter a district nurse when I have it checked!)
Modern life: Those light bulbs that you have to turn on five minutes in advance if you want to be able to see anything. Expensive, claims to last for years but never does, and you’re always terrified of breaking one because you’ve read some article that said you have to vacate the room and decontaminate it for hours if that happened (well, something like that…)
Wild card: Negativity. 🙂
@locust: junk those lightbulbs and get LEDs – they light up instantly.
Ah, but when I’m in the shop I can never remember which ones are the rubbish ones, and I always manage to get it wrong!
Ignore all the curly ones, for a start!
People: shameless bullshit artists, special mention for Tony Abbott (the most unprepossessing, arrogant and politically inept politician I have ever come across) and estate agents (WTF is ‘lifestyle living’?).
Modern life: Right-wing tabloids, following the shining example of Rupert Murdoch (special mention for the Daily Mail), which have lowered the tone of political and moral discourse to the point where nothing makes sense any more. And politicians who have stumbled along in their wake. (Cf. ‘People’.)
Wild card: Brush turkeys. Aussies will know what I mean.
After some thought I have decided to change my wild card from mobile phones to Reality TV
I absolutely loathe it.
People: Ooh! People who’d rather kick a horse to death than go to the moon. Or whatever it was.
Modern life: No more Wodehouse novels. Why?
Wild card: This spot on my stomach – do you think it’s cancer? It’s too red to be a mole.
It looks like it could be Chilli sauce. Did you have fish cakes last night?
Its a campbell de morgan spot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_hemangioma
Kee-ripes! That’s a relief. The things you learn here – cuh!
(Many thanks – although I resent the “Senile angiomas” inference).
Person: Diane Abbot MP. The phoniest of phonies. Politicians are, in general, pretty averse to giving straight answers but with her it’s a way of life. And in such a condescending voice too.
Modern Life: The agencification of 21st century employment. They are parasites. Even worse than estate agents.
Wildcard: Men (it’s always men) who balance on the pedals of their bikes while waiting for traffic lights to change. It’s just showing off of the very worst kind and motorists should have the right to “pop a cap into them” on sight.
Dianne Abbot MP – totally agree. The woman’s as phoney as they come. An advert for the dangers positive discrimination.
Agencification etc – totally agree. Though tbf the workers have taken back ownership of the process these days with linkedin etc
Balancing on pedals at traffic lights – totally ag …. hang on, that’s me you’re describing there! I can balance motionless for twenty minutes, take a small nap even. No one’s gonna pop a cap in my ass mother!
It’s more than showing off, though. When I’m in the middle lane I could take my hands off the steering wheel of my car and it would travel straight for quite a distance without correction. I don’t do this because it’s f*cking stupid and it’s f*cking dangerous. I would say that should be a good enough reason not to do something in traffic just because you can..
sorry maybe I’m missing something here. What’s ‘fuckin stupid’ and ‘fucking dangerous’ about standing motionless on my pedals at the traffic lights?
You sound like one of those car drivers who bawl people like me out in your car expecting no comeback from a cyclist and then shit yourself and drive off when I tell you to pull over to take it up.
Sorry, are you comparing trackstanding on a bicycle at traffic lights to driving down the street in a ton of metal with your hands off the wheel? Because that’s how it reads, but surely you’re not that stupid?
People – the greedy and mean-spirited.
Modern life – tattoos and long beards.
Wild card – FIFA and all who sail in it
The 20mph zones in Camden and Islington seem to be just set up ad revenue grabbers as well. Note to council, if you want me to go at 20mph then put the sign in a sensible spot (behind a tree is not a sensible position!) I’m then quite happy to go at that speed ( well I’m not really but if we all follow speed limits, the roads would be a much nicer place). If the speed limit is set for safety reasons, letting us all know what it is would surely make the road safer.
Ooops!! That was supposed to be a response to Douglas about bus lanes in Glasgow… why do reports sometimes work in the right place and sometimes not?
People: parents who don’t see the need to teach their children basic politeness, or gently point out to them that they are only one of 7 billion humans and not in fact the messiah.
Modern life: all the nasty, vicious unregulated corners of the Internet. Bin the lot and start again. The Internet is a miraculous idea, but it has been soiled beyond belief.
Wildcard: tailgaters. It says 50 mph mate, I have been caught twice and I need my driving licence. Back the f*** off. For some reason – in my experience – 50% of cases involve the letters B,M and W.
That wont be me tailgating you – got rid of the Beemer – it was too slow
re your ‘modern life’ assessment, has it ever crossed your mind that you, yes you, may – in some people’s minds – very much contribute to the unpleasantness of internet life?
Just a thought …
Not claiming the moral high ground Niscum, old chap. I am sure I have said and done things online that people might construe as unpleasant. We are all wading about in the cess pool together, aren’t we? If I have been overtly unpleasant to your good self, or any of the other fine contributors to this blog, then let me apologise now. I can get on my high horse, be self righteous, frankly be a bit of a passive aggressive prick, so – yeah – it had crossed my mind.
fair play. We all contribute in our own small way …
People: People who take offence, defend their right to take offence and yet feel free to offend others. Them, and those who support their victimhood.
Modern Life: Litter- those who litter, and those who leave litter outside their front door because it has nothing to do with them.
Smartphones: We don’t need to be connected all the time and maybe people will learn to engage with each other again face to face.
People: It’s behaviours rather then people, isn’t it? No one’s all bad. I’ll go with people who have to opportunity to travel beyond their safety zone but never do. What do they know of England, who only England know?
Modern life: The belief that all opinions are equally valid. They’re just not. Some are reasoned, researched, tested, reappraised and peer-reviewed. Some are worn like hats, bought off the peg and thrown away when they’re no longer fashionable. We’re too tolerant of ignorance and posturing, and it shouldn’t be considered impolite or unpleasant to tackle loud stupidity.
Wildcard: Social media as validation that we’re alive. Why actually be in the moment when you can film it, upload it and boast about it? Put. The fucking. Camera. Down.
Someone’s lack of wanderlust is an oddly personal thing to be irritated about, isn’t it? “I had a nightmare journey home love.” “Oh dear, why?” “Overheard some fella on the bus saying he was holidaying in the UK this year.”
That’s possibly a slight over-literal interpretation of the point I was trying to make
That’s right, Chiz. If Jim was a more nuanced character he’d of read your between-the-lines message to him to
fuck offsee the world.I got too depressed by post 4 to get any further.
People – Nosey people. If I want to tell you what I’m doing or what I’ve done then I will. If you ask me, I’ll probably tell you but, just because you need to tell the world what you had for breakfast, doesn’t mean we all want everyone to know what we’re doing.
Modern life – I struggle with this one. I like modern life. Technology means that things just get better and better all the time. The only thing I can think of is that, although we have the technology, we can’t buy irradiated fruit and veg in this country so stuff goes off. Annoying.
Wildcard – Hats. I hate wearing a hat. I don’t really know why.
Re: your wildcard. Men who wear hats indoors*. Particularly solo musical performers who come on stage wearing hats. A definite hint I’ve come to the wrong gig.
* And quite a lot of ’em outdoors, if I’m honest…
People: wilfully ignorant, self-publicising contrarians, eg Donald Trump, Katie Hopkins
Modern life: the death of politeness – I accept that cap-doffing deference had to go, but surely we’ve now thrown the baby out with the bathwater
Wildcard: People with disabled blue badges who take this as a licence to park absolutely fucking anywhere, regardless of whether it’s obstructive, inconvenient etc to others.
I would say that cap doffing is arcane ( often) unearned reverence and nothing to do with politeness. I think that the real problem is that, ad the planet gets more and more full, we actually need to be more polite. If we had just stayed at the same level, it would be a problem so any dip ( and I’m sure there has been a dip) has consequences. It’s possible that the percentage of impolite people has remained the same but there are just so many more of them.
People — who deal in absolutes and black and whites and refuse to see that there are two sides to every story.
Modern life — tattoos. Especially the sort of person who tattoos his son’s name on his neck and is a conspicuously shit father. Like getting the tattoo means ‘job done’.
Wildcard — camp (the over-proliferation on TV sort, rather than the tents sort)
No, there are not two sides to everything. People are entitled to opinions; that doesn’t mean that their opinions have to be respected or listened to.
Yeah, I’m getting a tattoo. I recently naturalized, and I’m getting a saltire and/or the US flag.
While I’m here:
People – generally, those who make me either say or think “Oh, FFS”. Idiots, extroverts who won’t leave me alone, George Clancy, evangelical Christians…the list is long.
Modern Life – email. I miss writing letters with my fountain pen.
Wild Card – professional soccer players. I’m sure there are good guys out there, and we’ve discussed them before. But how they tend to conduct themselves on the field?
Yes, but how will you know you don’t intend to respect the other side’s opinion unless you first listen to it? And anyway, whatever you decide, you can’t simply wish the opposing opinion out of existence.
Listen, about the Walking Dead thing. I have been worrying about that and I do feel I might have put you on the spot unfairly. Sorry, sweetie.
“i’d like to discuss Intelligent Design with you and why the fossil record is falsifi…”
“No. Go away right now. That idea is so cretinous I don’t need to hear any more.”
Poppy, whatever the opposite of Room 101 is, you should be in it.
Get a room.
*Ahem* I believe that Room 101 is currently available.
Blush!
People: Opinionists. (Clarkson/Morgan/Hopkins etc. ad nauseum to fade) Oh, and people being offended by what these people say. And me for being annoyed by people being offended by what they say.
Modern Life: Phone zombies. The tech is fine, all Star Trekky ‘n’ that but there’s a time & place and it’s not all the and every.
Wild Card: Reality TV. Would you please go away and make some shit up please? I can look out the window and see real life thanks.
People:
NIMBY’s. If you don’t like noise don’t come to live next to a pub in the middle of the city.
Modern Life:
24hrs a day newscycle. Every newsitem should have a 48 hours cooling period. If it is still true then put in on the tv/internet. Most likely it is not as it seemed.
Wild Card: Chewing gum. You look awful chewing like a cow, your breath is not fresh, it stinks of polar bear farts. Don’t throw it on the bleeding street.
People:Most politicians.
Modern Life: Talkers at concerts, and those who need to take photos and videos, 99.9% of which will never be looked at or watched.
Wild Card: Sorry but those who complain about speed limits, getting tickets etc. You don’t have to get there so fast! Slow down take the extra 5 or 10 minutes.
People: Middle aged people who say all TV, films and modern music are shit because they only scrape the surface. No TV isn’t all reality shows and cookery programmes. No films aren’t all Hollywood blockbusters and rom-coms. No music isn’t all digital with no compression or weedy acoustic guitar. The same people who broadly assume because they read books or like tasteful folk music that others are some how judging them. They’re not. It is all in your head. Now bog off to Croperdy.
Modern Life: Moronic comments on IMBD. The sort of dick who says, “Well that’s an hour and a half of my life I’m not getting back.” as if they’re the first person to coin this phrase. Or nitwits who say, “You just don’t get it”. Yes, I ‘did’ get Napoleon Dynamite, I just didn’t like it.
Wild Card: The encroaching grim realisation that by not being active on social media, one is gradually becoming invisible. Certain friends have transpired to be quite fair-weather since the advent of Facebook., Twitter and texting. I complained to one recently that I never see him anymore and he basically said because I’m not on fucking Facebook. I might as well have died.
It’s a daft phrase that. I know it means “I’ve just wasted 90 minutes watching a bad film”, but even if the film is the best thing you’ve ever seen, you’re still not getting the time back.
Love it. I can’t wait to point that out the next time someone says it.
People: arse-lickers, brown-nosers. sheep. Badge of propriety wearers.
Modern life: gadget weather obsessives.
Wildcard: Thieves. I’m with ISIS on this one – public amputations and branding seems the way forward.
I don’t like thieves either. My brother has run a catering company for thirty years and the amount of thieving bastards he’s had on his staff is really shocking. Even long term employees and friends have taken advantage of his good nature and ripped him off. That’s not including the constant break ins he’s suffered. I hate them for what they’ve done but I’m not sure I’d want to cut off their hands and brand them.
Maybe a public Chinese burn and have their flatscreen telly and mobile run over by a steamroller.
People: who having never met you before or at least hardly know you at all call you ‘my friend’. Usually when they’re demonstrating their dislike/superiority towards you.
Modern life: when, generally orchestrated by the media, the concept of fear is a major motivating factor. ‘Don’t do it cos you might die’ is a con. Whether or not you do it, you’ll die, so do it, have some fun, then die.
Wild card: Aussie TV thinking a Room 101 show, 15 years after its pinnacle, is a cutting edge idea for a show. Hosted by a so called comedian who’s so resolutely unfunny he must know where the bodies are buried and featuring 3rd division celeb guests with almost nothing to say.
Faithful to the original then.
Your comment about “my friend”: the Glasgow equivalent is that, if a local male ever refers to you as “pal”, you know it’s time to make yourself scarce: he’s not being friendly …
Dog owners who assume your dislike of their pet is down to a fear of being eaten. “He won’t bite!”
“Well good. But that’s not the reason I’m a pulling a face and backing into a corner. It’s because I don’t want him jumping up at me. I’m all weird and fussy that way.”
Well, the original host was Nick Hancock who I think was underrated and since then theres been Paul Merton and Frank Skinner. The Australian guy rates far below any of that 3.
Whatever happened to Nick Hancock? He was all over the TV in the nineties like a rash but his ubiquity just disappeared (along with Tony Slattery’s and The Lighthouse Family).
Everyone realised he was a twat?
I read somewhere that he’d gone and got a proper job as an accountant or something.
Let us not forget Judith Chalmers.
If you want an idea of the quality of Nick Hancock’s skills in this programme, watch the one with Peter Cook. This was the programme the BBC, in its infinite wisdom and taste, chose to broadcast on the day of the great man’s death as its immediate “tribute” to him. Cue 30 minutes of Nick talking over Peter, hogging the limelight, trying to show off his (hugely lesser) comedy skills, and generally being an interrupting prat. Embarrassing and insulting.
People. Anyone who doesn’t say thank you, hold doors open, let people out at road junctions and happily accepts getting served at a bar before someone else whose been there longer.
Modern Life. The news media. It’s sense of self importance grows diametrically to it’s increasing lack of insight and accuracy.
Wild Card. Anyone that’s a cunt that isn’t included in my first two selections.
Regarding the rude people, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. They might just be preoccupied, or remember their manners too late.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt is very commendable. And probably fair in some cases. Preoccupied people are not included in my first group.
Ooooh…people that don’t “give way” at the bar and make out they didn’t see you. That’s up there, that really is. But what annoys me just as much is a crap bar person taking ages and then saying “right – who’s next?”. They should *know*.
At a crowded bar, there is nothing more comforting than the barman giving you a nod as if to say “I’ve seen you” as he’s pulling a pint and knowing who is next.
Come to think of it, @leedsboy, whatever happened to the basic concept of queuing? (I won’t call it an “art”, because a child of 3 can grasp the concept). You see this at bus stops: when one turns up it’s a scrum. I’ve even been at a stop first, with one other person turning up a few minutes later, and when the bus arrived the other person calmly walked in front of me and on to the bus first.
I know this is very much a first world problem, but still, I mean, come on!
People: managerialists and their minions sabotaging the workplace, lying bastard business and political types, people who can’t enjoy their pleasures without making cnuts of themselves, leftie ex-student leftie drones (Laurie Penny, Owen Jones), and Spandau Ballet. Obviously.
modern life: bureaucracy, unscrupulous business practices normalised, monetising everything, creeping fascism and seeping intelligence, cold-callers on the phone, junk mail, fraud mail, Daily Mail.
wildcard: people who don’t clear the snow off any public paving outside their house. the smell of pubs now, and philistines.
I very much agree with all of those. When I worked for a large bank I wasn’t so much shocked by the greed – it’s a bank- but the waste and the naked aggression of the greed.
Workplace behaviour was awful because each tiny department of, say, 8 people was “led” by someone whose job it was to make sure the team was doing their jobs and measuring their performance. In reality, the team and manager found ways to report that they had made x number of client contacts in a day, when they really hadn’t done so. Or at least hadn’t done it in the spirit of the job. If you question this, you are informed that this is how it’s done in the real world.
The sales manager reports to a regional manager and they also operate in a similarly corrupt way. Before you know it you have a sales “force” of two dozen equally useless people vying with each other for promotion, bonuses and prestige – without ever speaking to an actual customer.
What annoys me is that I still see these managers who have the creativity, vision and personality of a standard lamp walking around town as if they are important and productive. How do they sleep?
Nick Hancock – I believe he became an estate agent.
No what you mean about Fiona Bruce – however I imagine her as a dominatrix and my view changes. Often said to my wife that I can imagine Ms Bruce in knee length leather boots, a whip in hand doling out all sorts of punishments.
Anyway:
Bruce Forsyth – detest the bloke. A complete knob.
Mobile phones – what happened to the art of conversation with the people in your company – go into a restaurant and see how many people are on the phone that should be talking to the people they are sharing a meal with.
Mourning for celebrities. Cilla Black has a number 1 album this week – she never had one when she was alive. It makes me vomit.
I can help you with Fiona. When she was doing Antiques Roadshow at Cirencester, my lad got a couple of days work as a runner and one of his duties was fetching for La Bruce.
He said she was extremely pleasant but my attention was fixed when he told me one of his duties was to take her leather skirt to the dry cleaners in town as she’d spilt something on it. My thoughts were impure!!
“I can help you with Fiona”?
What are you getting at Mr Driver? Sounds very dodgy.
The Antique Pimp Show?
Don’t tell Channel 5. Will be commissioned by the end of the week!
Death has always been a good career move.
People; Patrick Kielty, How he’s got away with it for so long constantly amazes me. Richard Littlejohn, but that’s a gimme!
Modern life; Being a ‘customer’ on a train. I’m a passenger FFS!! In fact all modern titles. Train manager=guard.
Sales executive= salesman, Customer assistant= salesman, Dealer Principal = salesman (with a bigger car)
Walking into an Apple store and the salesman calls you buddy!! I’m sir, until we’ve had a drink or two together.
Wild card; The celebrity culture. This obsession with selfies and those fucking sticks. The price of a pint, nearly £4 now.
Hey Mr Driver, we differ on the buddy business. I can’t fucking stand anyone calling me sir. I absolutely hate it. A salesman doing it the first time he has ever spoken to me is even worse – it sounds like they are sucking up to which of course is actually what they are doing. I don’t suck up to anyone and don’t expect them to suck up to me. Buddy or mate is just fine.
Best to remember that in Britain ‘Sir’ is usually intended as an insult. There may be some people who can use it sincerely but they’re rare.
I remember when I moved from Glasgow to North Wales in 1979, just before my twelfth birthday, and was so astounded that my new found schoolfriends addressed teachers as Sir and Miss that I nearly fell off my uncomfortable wooden chair. I honestly thought that had gone out with mortar boards. Not that Scots kids called the teachers Buddy, you understand; it was always Mrs Lacking-Personal-Hygiene or Mr Tawse-Weilding-Psychopath (at least to their faces).
I still loathe being ‘sirred’ in shops.
I’m with you Steve. I cringe if I’m addressed as Sir.
Addendum to wild card: AW Lovely Room. Bah, humbug, but I hate fluffy huggy squeezy. Give me bitter acerbity every time.
Just saying.
Now you’re talking.
“(Hey) Buddy” – in shops. My name is Mr Celebration, you little pipsqueak!
And another one – people that talk to the elderly like they’re toddlers.
People: Social media users whose technique is indistinguishable from trolling – those Twitter users who poke their target audience with a stick, repeatedly, then run crying to mummy when someone reacts (which was what they wanted in the first place). They are disingenuous to the core.
Modern life: You only get off the merry-go-round if you’re rich or dead.
Wild card: The pathetic lack of seagulls in London. Magpies is about as muscular as it gets round my way these days, crows are seldom seen, seagulls never. We need more birdlife that can scare the shit out of toddlers.