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

The saying; "He/she wouldn't say 'boo' to a goose!"

Who the hell says boo to geese anyway?? I mean are there armies of stupid people hiding out in the undergrowth waiting for poor, unsuspecting geese to walk past on their way to the pond and leap out and yell 'BOO!!!!'?

I mean, "Stop chewing on my butt!" or "Oi ya little leave my sandwiches alone!" These are sensible things to say to waterfowl, but why Boo! and why to geese?

This really annoys me and I am really hacked off now!

Will

Please calm down, it's only an expression denoting someone who is too timid to even argue with this farmyard fowl. I do take your point though, having myself been set upon in the ankle department by said species while conducting my family around a country theme park. I would therefore say that anyone preparing to inflict sudden spontanious ejaculations towards this webbed creature, think again.

Being stuck behind indecisive motorists at mini roundabouts. Lifes too short.

"OOh, I could go but that car 20 yards away on the right has right of way"
"Oooh, I could go but I'll let the car on the left go first"
"erm, the mini roundabout is empty, but I'll stop and think about it anyway. Oh look here comes a car."

I agree - geese are vicious bleepers so actually saying to boo one would take great courage/stupidity (delete as applicable). One of my mum's friends owned them (they were useful in trimming the side of the big pond she had)and once her and my mum and two other mates of theirs were cowering in the car because the geese had surrounded it. I think it was my mum's friend's husband's idea to have them because she hated them. Swans can get pretty nasty too.

Geese smell, too.

Toilet paper dispensers- god, they annoy me! Either empty or stock, or you have to shove two fingers in to catch the damn paper and pull it down, just for it to tear before you even get an inch of it.

On the subject of annoying sayings I hate the phrases "off the hook" and "end of" which have been used by certain Big Brother contestants this year although the fact that the people concered are deeply unpleasant in themselves may have some bearing on this.

To replay to Elly it annoys me that often loos in a public place will not have loo roll in some of the cubiles and you have to make a prat of yourself asking someone in the next cubicle to pass some to you.

And what about the drops on the seat? And the smell? and the fact that there's always a queue in the Ladies' toilet?
Public toilets are one big annoyance.

Petty hate: People calling desserts "pudding"!

Also lists of things you're supposed to do: "20 Things To Do Before You Die", and such.

Oh, you're so right about 'pudding'. How's fruit salad a pudding, for example.
Another thing is all the english nicknames: Posh and Becks, Jacko, Brolly, Lecci (or Leghi, if you live in Liverpool), and so on. I hate them.

As someone who was brought up using 'pudding' as a catch-all term I have to defend the practice... going onto the reverse however: how is Spotted Dick a dessert? I never hear people complaining about that.

The name spotted dick is just vile, in my opinion...
And peeled orange isn't dessert either!

The most bizzarely named desserts are the 'knickerbockerglory' and the 'Brown Derby'. Yes I know they are ice creams, the whole world knows they are ice creams, but if you ignore what you know and just listen to the names they sound camp, vaguely sexual and totally unpleasant. If you really didnt know what is was, would you really ever want a brown derby? and what the hell made someone call something a knickerbockerglory?

If I forgot all I know about ice cream I'd think a brown derby was a hat... because it is.

In the case of knickerbocker glory it tastes delicious so I don't care. Let's face all desert names sound slightly naff and some main courses - "Toad in the hole" doesn't exactly sound appertising.

To 'Equestrian Statue'. I do apologise but that one really gets me riled. And geese are mean.


As far as the 'things to eat after the main course' debate, Ihave to agree, who thought spotted dick was a good name for anything to put in your mouth? As a pudding/dessert I love it, despite the nausea I feel from its name. I've taken to calling in Doggy Spit, since dog saliva is cleaner than most other things including, I'd imagine, a spotted dick.

The world is a very strange place, and knickerbockerglories rule. Not that I like them but make them so they look like they do in the pictures you see on the menu! I have no idea why I told you all that but I did, so there you go!

Will

I had no knowledge of Brown Derby before, and it sounds like a race horse name to me, definitely not dessert!

"Brown Derby" does have Canal Street overtones to it, now I come to consider it... Graham Norton or Julian Clary could possibly make a classic single-entendre out of the phrase!

Another thing that irritates.

In my local bus station at Stockport, pasenger seating is few and far between. It comes in banks of three metal seats, with arm-rests, bolted firmly into the concrete.

This is a totally trivial thing, but somebody plonking themself into the middle seat makes you feel really uncomfortable about taking either of the outer seats, as you feel in some subtle kind of way as if they're intruding on your personal space and that you are intruding on theirs, without the sanitary cordon of a spare vacant seat in between..

and the way the seats are designesd leaves no other option.

Is this so totally trivial it doesn't deserve a mention here?

Any hate deserves mentioning here.
And speaking of buses- in the area where I live most buses have no space for prams, which is irritating in itself, but what's worse is that old ladies always sit in the seats on the few buses that DO accomodate prams, and then look at me all bewildered when I want to put my baby's pram in the designated space.