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

That's because it is not, and incredibly unprofessional to boot when you're on air. Jeez.

PH: a university course here, that I love, is being cancelled, in favour of more "practical" courses. But History of Art was fun. Excuse me while I go swear up a storm.

Is "fun" really a valid reason for maintaing a course?

in answer to malabarista: yes

PH: folks on television, when referring to an (alleged) male criminal, call them "gentleman."

"after the shooting, the gentleman was seen running into the dark."

~*~Is "fun" really a valid reason for maintaing a course?~*~

Absolutely. "Fun" is the only reason you need for anything. (Except for felony crimes I suppose.)

I don't often buy pre-sliced bread, but when I do, I ALWAYS find that the slices are JUST too wide to fit into my toaster without bending slightly.

AND, I have a tendancy to make pickles every now and then. Being ever so slightly prone to OCD (is it only me that thinks that this TLA should be in alphabetical order?), I like to have matching jars. Why are empty jars always more expensive than jars bought with jam / pickle / whatever in them?

PP

I'm on a roll this morning......

The ridiculous use of the word 'across'.

As in a radio presenter introducing a reporter by saying 'over to our reporter Michelle Mumbles who is across this story'.

Meaningless. Irritating. Stupid.

PP

Closing internal doors.

I know it probably depends upon your upbringing, the type of house you lived/live in, insulation levels and so on. I was brought up in a drafty flat with heating in only one room, so closing doors was the norm. Now, however, regardless of the house I live in (and I have moved a fair bit over the years), it really annoys me to have to open and close doors as I travel around the house.

I love being able to breeze around the house unhindered. Doors are only ever closed here, temporarily to keep noise out if I'm studying or cooking smoke/smells in the kitchen.

Now, however we have a new and we are keeping her out of certain rooms for various reasons. She also has to stay indoors for a few weeks until insurance, vaccinations and homing instinct kick in. Which leaves the wife and I in the extremely annoying situation of having to constantly open and close doors a hundred times a day every time we go anywhere in/out of the house

My son fitted an automatic door closing spring thing on his bedroom door after the cat had weed in his bed. We replaced all the doors upstairs recently, so we've got this left over now ... if you're interested?

I think the door open/closed thing is more a matter of character. I hate the feeling of being closed in (no, I've never been to prison) and leave doors open everywhere. Even the front door and back door.

Everyone else in the family yells at me for leaving them open.

My husband because he reckons it puts up the cost of heating the place (the stairwell doesn't need to be heated) and my sons because - dunno. Youngest screams at me, yells, and runs over and slams it shut. He has it really bad. So it's not upbringing - at least, not by me.

As a housewife, I am forever moving from room to room with washing baskets, vacuum cleaners and other things that need both hands to carry. I leave doors open and lights on so that I can move around easier. I hate having to re-open doors and re-light lights with elbows, bottom, etc., especially when I left them open myself because I knew I'd be coming through them again with my hands full.

Imagining TC turning lights on with her bottom......

Anyway, another thing.

Packing pre-packed stuff in stupid amounts. 5 screws? 7 slices of ham? All makes no sense. Screws in 7s are particularly daft.

PP

Yes, Mala, not only that but it actually educates us, too, and the lecturer is a genius; it’s the one lecture I looked forward to all my time here.

PP... you can’t be across anything, apart from the road or the country... can you?

PH: the amount of sodding packaging I have sitting on my bed. Ugh.

PH: the world of 'business' as portrayed last night in The Apprentice.

There task involved taking any old luxury product and making a flamboyant business plan around it. One team were postulating grand flagship outlets in major cities, to flog their shaving kit. Call me an old romantic, but I like to imagine new ventures are product-lead, built around innovative design and original concepts. But what we were shown is probably closer to the truth; just the same old crap, endlessly repackaged and sold in a different way.

Oh the futility.

Oh yeah, think you've got it spot-on TC. I've come up against the 'were you born in a stable?' obsessive door-closing brigade. Never understood their point of view I must say. The only reasons I can think of for obsessively keeping doors closed are; smoke/cooking smell retention (I reopen kitchen door after the opened kitchen door has cleared the offending odours or smoke), or heat retention reasons. As many houses are now centrally heated with all rooms equally heated, that doesn't make sense to me. Also in the summer when heating is not on; again another non-issue for me.

Door-closers are the devils work (but thanks for the offer anyway) I lived in a rented flat with them on every door a few years ago. The number of times I popped into a room for something and turned around to find a closed door in my face... Sorry, but I want/expect a door to remain in the position I leave it in! I believe that landlords are encouraged to fit these infernal devices (I took them all off the doors in that flat, only reattaching them when we moved out) for fire safety reasons. Sounds like bollocks to me though.

Don't get me started on the Apprentice. Bloody hate that show

Current PH is those parents that think the sun shines out of their kid's arse. Nothing wrong with being a proud parent, but the conversations I hear in the playground between parents sound like pissing contests. It doesn't matter if little Tarquin doesn't want to play violin or Mercedes does extra studying instead of going out to play - just let them be children!

One final point on closing doors; It's worth mentioning that if you live in any kind of attached house (flat, terraced, etc) then the constant daily bangs and thuds from closing doors can be very anti-social. Sounds like that can travel a long way through walls; that was another thing that drove me mad in a former house. The sound all day long of kids running up and down stairs and slamming doors.

>>Don't get me started on the Apprentice. Bloody hate that show

I admit to schadenfreude when watching these awful, self-aggrandising dolts fail spectacularly to live up to their own hype.

If I wasn't already fed up with the jubilee in it's own right, the irritating marketing of anything that moves by adding a flag or the word 'jubilee' in front of it would certainly be grating in their own right.

I dropped into a well known supermarket today for a little bit of shopping and was assaulted by nonsense.

Union flags on packets of biscuits? Why?

And on the way out I walked past their cafe. A double whammy there. Jubilee Coronation Chicken.

I would make an appointment at my GP's because I think I may be becoming terminally grumpy.

But I can't because of the bludding hateful telephone menu system they have instead of a receptionist.

PP

..."if you have called a wrong number please choose #341"?

Buying CDs on ebay described as V Good condition, just to open the package and have the jewel case fall to bits in my hands. Cover falls off, central CD claws all over the place.

Lucky I keep a stock of replacement cases.

PP

Makes me cringe - those who try to scrub their tyres bald by using their power steering when not moving - for goodness' sake, creeps, creep.

One thing makes me scream and bang the table at work - to an extent that can only be compared to winnoch's passionate outcries against door-closers: The newer versions of Adobe Acrobat which make you use the mouse for the search function. I was so used to going "Ctrl-F-thingI'mlookingfor" But now you have to go Ctrl-F, hands off keyboard, find mouse, fiddle cursor into ridiculously tiny search bar in a counter-intuitive place on the screen, fingers off mouse and back on to keyboard and then type "thingI'mlookingfor".

I've probably said it before. But I amaze myself at my explosive anger at this one bit of mal-programming. Otherwise I am a completely placid person.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr