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

Posh and Becks

The computer crashing in a spectacular blue screen of death and taking my rather extensive h2g2 post with it.


It never ends... *beats head on desk generating an appealling rhythmic thumping...*

Groups of leaflet distributors who make it impossible to get into a building without having to dodge round them

I think I'll take a cattle prod or flamethrower with me next time I go into such a building

Tourists on the street looking at maps who not only block the pavement but the doorway of the building you want to enter.

Groups of students are good at that.

Ah, the top of a staircase, what an excellent place for a chat.

Ah yes - people who stop still when they get off the escalator in a department store, reading the board to see if they're on the right floor. Can't they take a step to the side as soon as they get off?

Websites who email your password to you in plain text

TC - to be fair, some stores are dumb enough to put their signage in a place that tempts people to stop.
However, escalators are really just one example of a wider phenomenon - many people leave stores and then stop dead outside the door (rather than taking a couple of quick steps sideways to be out of the way) to work out where they want to go next, or to peer in their handbag as if the contents have somehow miraculously changed just because they are outside. I understand that something similar even happens when people are evacuating an obviously burning building

I think some people must work through their mental program one step at a time, and when 'step off excalator/stairs' or 'walk through door' is completed, they are at rather a loss.

Also, with some people, being in the way somehow doesn't enter into their heads any more than it does for groups of people who walk N abreast on an N-person wide pavement while yabbering on to each other, and who seem to get offended when a single person coming in the opposite direction doesn't somehow manage to shrink to zero width when their paths meet.