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

Ooooh, seconding the misuse of blue badge spaces! I have a specially reserved cold stare for those who park in the disabled spaces outside a fast food restaurant "because they're going to sit in the car and eat their meal"

Or when challenged, give the response "but I'll move if someone comes along...."

I fancy a pad of post-it notes and a nice bright pen to jot down your thoughts is a helpmeet in times of stress. You don't even need to be creative, a simple 'nice parking, @sshole' gets the message across.

make sure you put lid back on pen please

I'll add some support to the misuse of Disabled spaces. I've been known to get my mother to park elsewhere when my dad (who's blue badge it is) isn't in the car despite her assertion that "I've got one in the car so I can use it"

I am not saying i disagree with the blue badge thing but it is not a petty hate. I would say that it is fully justified to be annoying.

I agree.

Please do print those leaflets Dragon! I would like to print ones out that say "Where on the parking space does it say 'disabled drivers or people in a hurry?'"

I hate queue-jumpers as much as I hate the people who allow them to push in and then moan about them afterwards'

Also - I hate people who can't put tops back on toothpaste etc, who can't leave a sink as they found it, and cretins who dump their old junk (tvs, fridges etc)in public places.

Newbie bus drivers that lack plain common sense.

After getting fed up with commuter train problems (too big a hate to be described here) I decided to take a bus instead, and then switch to the tube.

So... there are three lanes in each direction on the motorway.
The outer lane is sometimes 'for buses only' and sometimes not.

As a bus driver, the smartest you can do is use the outer lane in those sections when it's marked 'for buses only' and the middle lane when it's not.

See - the trouble is that the outer lane leads to exits off the motorway - and some of the exits have traffic lights shortly after.

Which means that there will very often be a queue of cars waiting to get off the motorway in the outer lane, in those sections that are not marked 'buses only'.

Experienced bus drivers will switch between outer and middle lane.

A newbie bus driver will stick to the outer lane no matter what.

*rolls eyes*

Not even being bypassed by more experienced bus drivers in the middle lane again and again and again will cause him to change his mind and switch lane (sorry guys, but I've only experienced this 'stubborn mule' behaviour in male drivers but never female drivers so far, after around two years of commuting this way).

Biggest time difference in arrival at work so far caused by this kind of behaviour: 15 minutes...

In Germany, I've never seen a disabled space with a car in it at all - with or without disabled badge. In fact, I once got cross because the last free space in front of the post office was taken up by a disabled person's vehicle. Needless to say the disabled space was free.

The bus stop at Playing Place in Cornwall. It's just of the main road between Falmouth and Truro, on the towards Falmouth side. It is also between 2 roundabouts.

This all means that in the morning the bus into Truro has to go around the first roundabout, all the way around the second, turn off into the bus stop, pull out, go all the way around the first roundabout again, and then around the second to go to Truro.

On the way back in the evening the road is so busy that once in the bus stop, the bus will be waiting for ages to get out. It annoys me a lot

Kids and young, fully able people, who take the disabled space on the bus. Most times they would resentfully make room for me and my double buggy, or a wheelchair. But they won't let LOD (little old dears) sit there most of the time, and then the poor things have to stumble further up the bus, and some of them have the cheek not to let prams or wheelchairs in, either.

Helplines! Most of them could be charged under the trades descriptions act.

A very 'popular' hate is having to listen to endless options on the 'phone. You select the one you want only to find another list of options to choose from, and so it goes on......

Whatever benefit gets passed on to the customer, by using technology instead of people, is easily eaten up by the charges for the increased duration of the calls. We lose again.

My addiction to chocolate is a love-hate thing

Newry

Well i had a bad experience there pounding the streets 'training' to be a cold calling marketing salesman, selling big piles of poo

At least i got see most of the place which seemed quite nice really, even the 'private shop' that we were trying to sell cheap MP3 players to

(I was offered and rejected the job btw)

So what's your reason for disliking the place?

There has to be a reason? I thought this was petty hates?

Getting stuck in traffic there for 45 minutes yesterday when I was in a rush for a ferry made me damn the place in perpetuity I'm afraid. Harsh maybe, but there you go

Another phone one: Phoning large and reknowned furniture retailers and getting five minutes of music at my expense. Hell, if they're not there, why can't they just let it ring or sound the "engaged" tone so it doesn't cost me anything. Actually, as I'm ringing from work and we're a supplier, it's not really my money. But they're not to know whether the caller is a customer or a supplier, are they? I certainly wouldn't buy my furniture from a shop that charges me extra to make a call there.

And sometimes I phone the general number, which should be a switchboard, and get "engaged". How can a switchboard be engaged?

When all the lines are busy? Switchboards don't have unlimited lines you know. Even the biggest most expensive switchboards in the world have a finite number of available lines!