h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Ugh, yes! And on a similar note when you pass a book/magazine/newspaper to someone and they wet their finger to turn the page.

When people completely ignore you. This happened to me last night. I was about to go to bed and walked into the living room to say goodnight to the 'rents, said that I was off to bedfordshire. They ignored me and carried on talking. Said that a coach was picking me up in half an hour from the top of the road and I had to borrow their suitcase as I forgot to buy one from that man in the market, but they probably wouldn't mind as it's at least 2 months until they go away. Said that I didn't know when I was coming back, so I'd ring from whereever I end up to give them an address where they could send my post to.

The response I got: " What you rabbiting on about?!"

Awww.... poor Footbacon. I'm sure they love you, really.

Ha ha, sounds familiar. I assume that 'rents means parents? My parents still think I'm the person I was twenty years ago - and the strange thing is this way of treating me is enhanced during social situations:


Guest: what distance is the derby run over then?

Parent: I don't know. Is it a mile or something?

Me: It's a mile and half, or a mile and four furlongs.

Parent: Could be!

Me: No, not COULD. IT IS run over a mile and a half. That's a fact.

Parent: You could be right!

Me: I am right.

Parent: Who knows!?

Me:*bangs head against wall*

Ah well, it kept me amused for a few minutes while I went on about it.

Unbecoming and vulgar though it is, why don't you turn round and tell them to shut the f*** up?

...the people chatting in the cinema, I mean...

'coz then you're the one talking, aren't you? And they won't just shut up, they have to answer you. And if you shut up in reply they either carry on, or your partner won't leave it. It never ends.

Here's one that just happened. If you were to ask anyone "Do you clean up the work toilet after yourself and don't leave behind any unpleasantness?", I reckon 100% of people would say yes. So just WHO is it who's the dirty bugger who leaves a "chocolate surprise" clinging stubbornly onto the side of the pan despite there being a loo brush to hand?!

Or the solitary pubic hair/ urine drop on the seat?

> why don't you turn round and tell them to shut the f*** up?

I usually do, but
- sometimes it doesn't help
- sometimes it's just too many of them
- sometimes they're sitting too far away (yes, it bothers me anyway)

I'll NEVER EVER understand it. Especially not _after_ somebody told them they're disturbing.

My wish: live events (cinema included) with headphones!

Although then the chatting would probably just get louder as they'll also wear headphones and still insist on talking anyway.

>>'coz then you're the one talking, aren't you? And they won't just shut up, they have to answer you. And if you shut up in reply they either carry on, or your partner won't leave it. It never ends.<<
Then go and get an usher to ask them to shut up or leave. That's what they're paid for and believe me, ushers enjoy chucking people out. It was the highlight of my job when I worked at a cinema

Sunny with you totally on people natting at concerts - drives me crackers that one. Hello - hear to the band not you.

Ebay moon it isn't just the chocolate surprise either someone missed the bowl and got the seat in a cubicle in a pub I went into once. That was pretty gross . I've heard that happens a lot with urinals but being female I'm not used to seeing it.

I thought of something to post here, but can't remember what it was

But that gave me another petty hate too, forgetting what you were going to say.

"TV-wise: that utterly lame "comedy" My Hero. And the people who find it funny. In fact, any of the so-called "nice" comedies on the Beeb. Keeping up appearances, My Family and so on."

Gods, yes! (up to a point).

You wonder why so many lame identikit comedies appear on TV which all appear to have the same plot: comfy twee middle-class English family living a comfy twee middle -class existence in a naice suburb in a desirable part of Outer London, where Father is having a mid-life crisis of some kind, and one of the standard three children is having a (heavily sanitised)rebellious phase usually involving dressing up as a middle-class producer's idea of a punk or a Goth and speaking a middle-class scriptwriter's impression of current "with-it" teenage slang...

...the reason is that these shows are comissioned by the middle-class BBC/ITV executives who are living twee comfortable middle-class lives in naice suburbs of London, may be going through a mid-life crisis, and see the dismally creaking stereotype as "real life" because it reflects the sort of lives THEY lead...

The classic has to be that excruciatingly twee unfunny thing with Judi Dench in it, and that basset-faced bloke who used to be Wendy Craig's husband in "Butterflies" (the classic comedy of middle-class unspoken English angst?)Can't remember the title, but it's a line out of that song in "Casablanca", in the "play it, Sam" bit,the song's called "you must remember this"

Right, that's a ton of bile out of my system....

The thing is about lame comedies is that they are avoidable whilst a-holes talking in gigs are not. If you don't like a program you don't have to watch it.

I just want to set something straight after my post about Britcoms -
I like _good_ Britcoms. Nighty Night, Smoking Room, Spaced, etc. Mighty Boosh I haven't watched properly yet but may be too strange even for me.

Petty hates: "happy family" Britcoms

"happy family sitcoms"

I've just remembered the name of that dismally unfunny Judi Dench vehicle:- "as Time Goes By". A clasic of the type.

I exclude Wendy Craig's "Butterflies", as in its time that was original and quite sweetly funny: perhaps the parent of all the imitations that have been spawned since?

And "Keeping Up Appearances" has its moments: Hyacinth Bucket's blind spot about her thirty-plus resolutely unmarried son who shares a flat with his best friend is classic. She still remembers him as the slightly fey little boy who needed protecting from the world and can't grasp the fact there may be reasons for his being unmarried and sharing a flat with another man. (I know a woman like this... my mother-in-law, in fact, who blanks out everything that might otherwise tell her my brother-in-law is Not As Other Men, even though his father worked it out a long time ago...)"KUA" is a beautifully subversive go at the "happy family with social aspirtations" genre.

But the rest of them deserve a very big hole to be dug and all extant videos, film, scripts, et c to be dropped into it. A kind of "time capsule" with no definite opening date, let's leave it open-ended, shall we?

Walking into spider webs, and the horrible itchy feeling you have for ages afterwards.