(6)Â I Don’t know where to start with this one.
Sometimes I thank the Lord that we live in enlightened times. There was a time where a woman whose education gave her ideas above her station and who told her family she was going to marry for love might find herself attacked by her father, brother and cousin. Her family would proceed to strangle her, slit her throat and then stab her 18 times while her mother watched and her 3 and 4 year old nieces were sprayed in her blood.
Fortunately that was long in the past, by which I mean April 2005 and far far away, by which I mean a different suburb of the City in which I live.
(7) Vandals
Mrs Denbigh has not been the same since her husband died last year. It was a mercy as he had long been ill but she misses him dreadfully. She spends the long days, whenever she can, in the garden teasing another season out of her shrubs and weeding the flower beds. I sometimes wonder how someone so frail can be so indefatigable. Perhaps her days are boring. Come to think of it she could probably do with livening up. That’s why I’m sure she was delighted when you lot came and painted “FRUGZÂ – DA CREW” on her garden wall … again. And how thoughtful of you to kick her garden gate down too. That’ll give her something to do; something to occupy the dead hours of the day. I’m sure that’s why I saw her weeping with gratitude.
(8) Bread and Butter Pudding
“You’re not leaving the table till you eat that, Sunshine.” Fine – so all I have to do is sit her and not eat and I get weeks off school.
(9) People who confuse tactlessness for honesty
“Everyone thinks she’s a boring cow. They won’t say anything so I told her straight out in front of everyone; she’s a boring cow and we don’t want her having lunch with us. That’s just me. I’m honest. I don’t care what people think.”
You are not honest – you’re a bully. Furthermore, you do care what people think. Like most people whose own opinion of themselves is so high you cannot bear to be contradicted. When did people start expecting to be admired for humiliating people?
(10) Having people moving behind me as I eat
My Dad was a bit “handy” and it has left me nervous about things happening behind me. There’s a variation where P comes up behind me as I am working (I have my desk facing out of a window and my back to the door. I know she’s there and I find myself getting tense. She’ll lean over, say hello and kiss me and I will be sat with my sinews creaking and hands tightly clenched.
 **EDIT**
 (11) Things that go beep
Some time ago product designers decided that no product was really complete unless it beeped. They chose a pitch which, depsite years of walkman abuse, I can hear from three floors away. I will be sat cheerfully typing out my important inner musings for the benefit of my loyal readership (ahem) when the microwave, a sports watch, the toaster, the answering machine, a badly set up alarm clock, the telephone’s battery indicator or the cat will start beep beep beep sodding beeping. P’s hearing is the opposite of mine. She simply can’t hear this noise. I will thump down to the kitchen to find her in the midst of a cacophonous cloud of beeping absent-mindedly turning the page of “What Husband” magazine and humming to herself. How can she bear it?
(12) Men who bully their kids, shag the golf club barmaid, run off and try to arrange their finacial affairs so as to leave their family scraping food from dustbins
Hi Dad
The barmaid was called, entertainingly, Mrs Bang.
(13) Eamonn Holmes
(14)Â People who walk out on arguments
There is an all too frequent failure on behalf of my family, friends and acquaintances instantly to appreciate that I am ALWAYS RIGHT. However, out of a charitable instinct to correct them I am prepared to keep arguing about matters until I die, they die, the Sun dies or they accept I’m correct, whichever comes first. Some of them have demonstrated a lamentable tendency to walk away after 5 or 6 hours muttering “whatever”. That drives me completely batshit crazy. I have lost countless friends in the fits of anger that follow – usually because they vaporize. This is why I stay away from matters political on this blog. If I didn’t someone might point out a logical flaw or a questionable assumption and then one flame apocalypse later I would be back to talking to myself again.
**ANOTHER EDIT**
(15) People who ignore queuing etiquette
I cannot put it better than the Banana did
(16) Pre-teen Fashion Advertising
Whilst we were away, a friend came to stay with us bringing her two kids and her lunatic dog. The elder kid was an 8 year old girl. She arrived carrying a comic produced for pre-teen girls with a cover exclaiming “Give your Bezza a new look with our friends’ makeover”. It promised make-up and hair tips and had pages of pin-ups of “Hunks!!!!”.
I know I’m old fashioned but in my day 8 year old girls simply spent all day every day trying to nag their parents into buying them a pony. Now they want to be super-models and many companies spend their time selling them products and trying to get them to be concerned about how they look.
When the little girl’s mother handed her some parachute pants she complained “Mum! No! These make me look fat!”. I nearly cried.
(17) Poor Manipulators
I don’t mind being skilfully manipulated – principally because when it’s done properly I don’t really notice. What getteth ye goate for me is those people who are convinced they have a dazzling charm and who turn it on at the drop of the hat and for no useful purpose. This happened to me recently in a sushi bar. A woman wanted me to pass her the soy sauce. All she had to do was ask but she appeared to feel I needed to be seduced into it
“Dahling could you pass me the soy sauce. That would be so sweet of you.”
“Of course, here you go”
“That would be wonderful. Thank you so much [bats eylashes]. Silly me I just can’t manage without it. You are so kind”
“Look I have already given it to you could you just back off now as this is embarrassing for everyone and the chef has knives”.
I get the same from some clients. They want a bit of free advice and they jump through hoops to try and slip it into the conversation. They then feel so clever but had they just asked outright we would both have been spared the squirming embarassment.
(18) Racists and Sexists
(19) Receiving Praise
I cannot really explain this one. Whenever I get thanked for speaking at a conference, or praised in court or my mother likes a drawing, or P has been blown away by how great a lover I am (actually not so much the last one), I go rigid with embarassment. I simply cannot abide it. When I was in school plays I would enjoy the acting but decline the curtain call.
(20) Myself
Don’t get me started on this one.