Annoying sayings like: “Pin Number” and “Safe Haven”. Click on the skull for more ranting and raving on this:

Songs with naff lyrics. Click on this skull for my list.

Sultanas and currants. I just don't like the taste of these horrid little squelchy chewy things.

People who park in disabled car park spaces without an orange (or now blue) badge.

People who drop litter.

Computer buzzwords such as leverage, synergy and adding value.

Buying shoes and trousers. It's almost impossible to tell if they fit properly. You only find out a few days later after you've worn them for a while. I'm thinking of stopping wearing them as a sign of protest.

Paper towels that are put upside down in the dispenser.

Americans pronouncing nuclear “nucelar”. OK so three syllables might be a bit tricky for you guys, but just try a little harder, huh?

Americans pronouncing aluminium “aluminum”, I think they spell it that way too. Yes I realise the original has 5 whole syllables in it, but some of us can manage it without any problems!

Punchline-only jokes. This is the kind of thing you hear on soap operas or sitcoms. The writers obviously can’t be bothered to find a real joke, so the scene starts at the end of a “joke”, which goes something along the lines of “and so the barman said ‘I haven’t even got any haddock!’” - at which point all the actors burst into extremely fake hysterical laughter.

The “sponsored by Cadbury’s Caramel”, or whatever choccie bar isn’t selling very well that week, that they put on the start of Coronation Street. The program cannot possibly be sponsored by a chocolate bar. Chocolate bars don’t negotiate advertising deals; it’s the company, Cadbury’s that is doing the sponsoring!

Vending machines that say “Have a nice day”. It’s bad enough hearing that kind of insincerity from people, let alone from a bloody machine!

Vending machines like the one at work which refuses to give a refund after it tells you that the drink you want is sold out (with no prior warning). It forces you to have something you don't like. I don't know what it does if all the drinks are sold out and you put money into it - laughs loudly, probably!

Computer programs that don't do what they are meant to do. This always seems to happen when you’re in a rush. It’s something straight forward, and should take just a couple of minutes. But no, it decides that it knows better and starts doing something totally ridiculous. Microsoft Word is a good one for this. Like putting an extra blank page at the end of a supposedly one page document, and no matter how hard you try it’s impossible to get rid of the extra page without mangling the good page.

Queues! The mind numbing tedious wait as you stand there bored out of your skull, as time slows down in order to make every second last a lifetime.

That bit in Madonna's version of American Pie where that bloke does a voiceover. Eurgk! It makes me cringe. It wasn't too bad a remake on the whole, but that bit was a big mistake in my mind.

Cars parked with their hazard lights flashing. Especially when they are parked in between other cars and all you can see is the one light flashing as you approach them. It looks like they are trying to pull out, as you can't see the other side of the car, so you slow down for them, just to find there's no one in the damn car.

The floaters you find in public toilets. Yuck. It's bad enough when you make your own, and spend ages trying to poke them around the bend, but I'm not going to do that for someone else!

Sprouts. Vile, horrid, bitter tasting foul things. Why do they taste so bad? And why do we have to keep eating them? Why does my wife keep sneaking them into otherwise delicious meals?

Cutting the grass. It all seems so futile. The stuff only goes and grows again. It's just a never ending slog to keep it down to a reasonable height. Why can't someone invent some grass that only grows to a height of half an inch? Save us all loads of hassle!

Pretentious car adverts. The ones where you don't even realise that it is a car advert until the end. And usually I can't even remember what the advert was for anyway after it has finished, so it obviously doesn't work. They're just so over the top these days it's ridiculous. It's just a car, you guys! A lump of metal that you use to get yourself from one place to another! It's not the answer to life, the universe and everything!

People who walk together in a group and take up the whole width of the pavement. I have to risk my life stepping out in the road to get past the buggers. And they usually dawdle along at the pace of a crippled snail on valium, blissfully unaware that other people might want to use the pavement too.

Tradition. It just annoys me the way people carry on doing things "because it's traditional". Yes, well some of those things are just bloody stupid! So pack it in!

The slogan for Raid - "Kills bugs dead". What other ways are there to kill bugs? Kills bugs slightly dead? Kills bugs mostly dead? Kills bugs fatally injured, in extreme pain, barely conscious and dying slowly over the next three hours?

Horse racing. This is even more boring that cricket (and that's a tough one to beat!). Whenever I catch this on the TV while flicking channels I'm overwhelmed with despair at the dreary monotonous commentating and the sheer pointlessness of watching a bunch of horses going round and round a bit of grass then stopping. Formula one racing is bad enough, but at least there's the occasional crash to wake you up.

Packets of instant mashed potato. Just the packets, mind you. I love instant mashed potato. It's just those packets it comes in with the little strip of perforated cardboard that you're supposed to pull in order to get it open. It doesn't work! It never works! Never ever ever! You get about a third of the way then the strip breaks. So you pull the bit that's left, and that breaks, and the next bit and so on and so on. You'd have thought that the manufacturers would have noticed by now.

Leaving remote controls in stupid places. I'm always doing this. I'll be watching the TV, then wander into the kitchen to get a drink, or wander into the other room to look for something and I'll have the remote control in my hand. When I get back I no longer have the remote. I then have to spend several hours searching the house from top to bottom to figure out where on earth I left it. They ought to make remotes so they give you an electric shock if you try to take them out of the room with the TV in.

DIY. I hate it. I try to avoid it whenever I can. It never works properly. There's always, always a problem. The things don't fit. The walls aren't vertical, the floors aren't flat, the pieces of wood you buy are bent, you haven't got any screws that are long enough, you can't drill there because the beam gets in the way, they don't sell wood in that width. I keep telling my wife that everything will take ten times longer than she thinks it will, but she never listens. "It'll only take 10 minutes to put up a curtain track" she confidently assures me. Three hours later she can't understand where all the time has gone. Take a tip from me. Just let your house fall down around your ears, then get a new one - it's a lot less stressful, and probably cheaper in the long run!

The flat round toffees in Quality Street. What sadist designed those things? Firstly there's no chocolate on them, which is a big no-no in my book. Secondly they have a tendency to pull your fillings out. Thirdly, and this is the bit that I hate the most, is that there's always a bit of silver paper that is stuck into the toffee. So you either have to spend ages picking and poking at it, getting little bits of toffee stuck under your finger nails, or you risk getting that horrible zinging sensation when the silver paper hits your fillings as you're chewing the toffee. My advice, buy Roses instead, they don't have any of those nasty little buggers in!

None existent footnotes. This is where you see something like. "Send off now, for your free^* banana". You spend ages searching the rest of the leaflet trying to find out what the hell the asterisk is for and there's no explanation. It drives me mad, now, just thinking about it!

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Last updated: 18 May 2002 00:23