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

This of course brings us to the unsavoury topic of people who use deodorants, perfumes, aftershave, et c, as an ALTERNATIVE to washing and bathing... (even in these enlightened times there's still the odd one around, usually on my morning bus... an olfactory delight in the summer months!)

Listen, guys (and, it has to be said, the odd gal).

Deodorant works better when you're starting with as little as possible to deodorise, ie, on a pre-washed armpit or other potentially antisocial bodily area!

morning buses throw me straight to the odd teenager who sits with his CD player plugged into his ears, listening to music in full blast, sharing with the rest of us his love of techno/house/acid/what have you.

Not just teenagers either... that tinny clinking noise of somebody else's Walkman on a bus or a train is irritating. You'd have thought technology could have generated a set of truly silent headphones by now!

A bit like car drivers who have to wind the windows down and share their choice of "music" with us, usually very loudly. And they never seem to play anything I like....

But you don't understand- what YOU like isn't important, it's what sort of music THEY like that life's all about and you should be grateful for being allowed to share it.

They're normally the same people who drive like lunatics. They should be shot at birth.

maybe it's the 'musicians' that should be eliminated?

Yeah, it's strange how no one how feels compelled to share their musical taste with you actually has any. I must admit I'm guilty of blasting away with the walkman though on the tube, you have to jack the volume out to drown out the background voice - sorry people don't all throw rotten veggies at once .

re.: Cars that boom out music (usually in your quiet street at 8.30am Sunday after you've had a night out). We call them Doof Doof cars. Generally driven by spotty youths who have just lost their P plates and spent 3 months wages on a car stereo.

They only want to share ... we're just a mob of old fogies with no taste, and they're trying to educate us.

On the news last night: those i-pods etc. that pump music directly into the brain at 6 million decibels - well, the deafness will not show up until their 40's and 50's, but it will happen. I suppose that's karma.

My Petty Hate is when a person talks over my head, around me, beside me but never to me, sometimes to the extent that I have to look to see if anyone else is actually there! I think eye contact is important whatever the conversation, whatever the level. Does anyone relate?

Oh, yes. 'She' is not me, not possibly...

What about people reading over your shoulder?

aarrgghh!! i hate that!

Just feel like punching them backwards....

It's got to be those ghastly adverts for nappies, in particular the one with the voice of Joe Pasquale. He should have concentrated acid poured onto his highly-stretched vocal chords.

Or the one featuring the song "I've got the power". Nauseating!

Or those 'Kandoo' wipes. Utterly pointless waste of money. Having said that however, I bet they'd be ace to use whilst having a hangover poo...

What about the Char*in adverts?

yeah... the "Potty Dance" one is THE worst

I agree.
Daddeee, I need more toilut paypeeeer.....
Ugh they torture us so.

Even that bear toilet paper one, vile though it is, can't compare with the even more nauseating Andr3x puppy ads...voiced, I do believe, by Rik Mayall of all people. Mayall, you should know better. Maybe that quad-bike accident a few years back addled his mind and allowed him to accept embarrassing voice-over jobs?

you know another advert that really annoys me is that "Lacoste Touch of Pink" one. AS IF any sane person would go about like a little, floaty, blonde, fairy, doo-dah thingy. it makes want to puke