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

Colm. He won't get off my back and doesn't understand the words "Go away." I want to kill him.

*Conveniently turns his ahead the other direction to watch a butterfly.*

Sodding delivery drivers never turning up when they're sodding well sodding supposed to.

*this is the pre-watershed edit of this post!*

Today's petty hate ... following the slowest car in the world around the car park because the old dear in it doesn't want to miss a space.

Meanwhile twenty yards down there is a vast expanse of open, free, unused spaces which eagerly await my car (and hers if she so chooses).

But no, we have to crawl along at 5mph, checking each and every bay to save her walking the extra 12 yards across the car park to the Health Club. Do you spot the irony here?

B B Shorts, There could be something else going on there. Someone did a study that showed that people leaving a spot in the park take much more time fishing in their handbag or fiddling with their keys or doing the seatbelt or whatever, if they can see that someone else is waiting for the spot.

I'm not waiting for her to get out of her parking space, we've both just driven into the carpark. We're at the entrance. I'm following her. I cannot get past her because it's a narrow lane with cars parked either side. As you would expect all the spaces near the entrance are already filled. In the near distance there are many, many, many, many empty spaces that can be used. They'll require the user to walk an extra 15-20yards but they're very easy to park in. No need to worry about whether one might hit cars on either side. No needing to worry too much about straightening up. If you can drive vaguely competently you're parked at the first attempt. No faffing. But no, we've got to drive at 5mph (or possibly less) past all the filled spaces just in case one has been vacated and it's not immediately obvious.

Additional story note ... you'll have to visualise the gym car park. Bays are angled at 45 degrees to allow drivers to pull into them easily. You drive up one side of the carpark, you come back down the other with more bays. When the lady ahead of me finally reached the open spaces, she pulled into one and then drove through to park in the bay on the other side. Fair enough in that you don't HAVE to park facing a particular direction except she now has a 315 degree turn when she comes out of her bay as she's essentially facing the flow of traffic. I wasn't there to witness those shenanigans ... thankfully.

Impatience.

bush

Politics.

Politics is surely a vast hate, not a petty one!

I like bush, but I hate Bush.

Interviews. They scare me. The thought of my impending one is terrifying me.

I see from last night's telly that dark-skinned women are using skin-lighteners - bleach, effectively - with predicably unpleasant results in an effort to make themselves look more attractive. I know several pale-skinned women who deliberately seek out radiation burns to go darker. I saw at least three women on TV sporting stuck-on lips of a shape that clearly doesn't match the rest of their face. s on TV all seem to be standardised to a highly dubious football shape.

It's now the done thing to shave off your eyebrows (you know, the ones that came with your face, and therefore look perfectly at home on it) and replace them with a couple of ridiculously fine black marks that look like they've been created using the Microsoft Draw 'curve' utility with a 1-point line-weight and a high resolution printer.

I really don't understand this. When I find a woman attractive, I am attracted to the woman, not the inanimate accessories. I miss being able to look at someone and just think "she's pretty", rather than "dunno what she really looks like but there's some real talent behind that refurbishment job".

Women are not cars: they cannot simply be upgraded by replacing the factory-fitted components with bits that never featured in the original design.

before the flames start

Actually shaving off eyebrows and replacing them with pencil lines is decades old... it can actually look good if done properly, but as you say most opt for a "Microsoft Draw" style of curve.

Oh yes, and petty hate: when strangers try to talk to you on the bus.

No, shaved eyebrows (or overly plucked eyebrows!) are horrible!

It's all the movie industry's fault. They encourage women to look more artifical, that way, the CGI people don't have to try so hard

Don't run, Dave, it's a good thing you feel like that!

Today's petty hate - the guy in the gym who sat on the machine for five minutes, occasionally using it for about two repetitions before having a rest for two minutes, all at the same resistance or lower than I use. I gave up waiting in the end.

I agree with the "leave nature alone" idea - I look at my wife on a morning, with no make-up, no hairdo, no... well... no anything. And I think she looks beautiful.
I once went out with a lass who looked stunning... until you saw her in the morning.
Something tells me Posh Spice would be unrecogniseable if you saw her during the first two hours of the day.

Anyway...

Pet hate?

Tailgaters.

Oh, and as I sit here in the tea room at work, I am reminded of another - people who won't blow their nose, but just sit and sniff...

Yes, I think Germain Greer gave that as one of her entries on Room 101 (it was maybe something else, but that was one of her petty hates).

I'm totally in agreement with you DaveBlackeye. I can't remember the last time ewif wore make up.