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

PH Boats in paintings. Not all boats, but quite a few of them. Why aren't people sick of seeing them by now? Also, by extension, quite a few harbour scenes.
Not sure if I hate the faux-naïve style which you see so often in such scenes; on the one hand, it's surely been done to death, but on the other, it's quite nice that there is at least some freedom to be silly.

PH: People who don't flush public toilets.

This is especially prevalent in the gents in pubs. People use the cubicle rather than the urinals, and then don't flush it. I can etbthem off not putting the lid down, but can't excuse not flushing.

>>can't excuse not flushing.

Saves a hell of a lot of water though.

Using the urinals would save the water, and remain hygienic.

The worst combination is not flushing and *putting* the lid down, though. I can live without the lovely surprise of lifting a toilet lid to find the remnants of eight pishes and three turds.

Perhaps some men seem to prefer the cubicle so nobody can see their weeing tackle. Or perhaps they feel that they can only get close enough in a cubicle.

PP.

I absolutely *hate* urinals. All they do is take away valuable space from the proper, full-use toilets.

Always flush, though.

People being disgusting in public toilets is something that does really get me.

It's not even just the mess and the bad hygiene - it's the attitude of "Meh, who cares - someone else will come along after me and clean up."

My pet hate this week, is dog owners who won't pick up their dogs mess, the pavements in our village are covered with dog crap?

Smudger.

Yes, it's terrible. Also the habit some people have of throwing the doggie bags into trees. What sort of world do they want to live in?

PH - People who confuse Suffragettes with Suffragists, and attribute Suffragist achievements to the Suffragettes.

I've started doing an online history course, but people are using the terms incorrectly, which is annoying

At most 60% of British men (those who with sufficient income/property) had the vote during the Great War – wealthy women and the poorest men got the vote at the same time in the 1918 Representation of the Peoples Act.

Suffragettes (members of 'The Women's Social and Political Union') wanted votes for Wealthy Women (those who met certain property/income criterion), it was the Suffragists who wanted Universal Suffrage - Votes for all Women. This was why the left-wing Sylvia Pankhurst left the Suffragette movement founded by her mother and sister, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, to become a Suffragist.
The Suffragettes were a militant organisation that was very good at getting publicity and taking credit for the Suffragists' achievements.
Votes for Women was definitely class-based. Suffragette Campaigns stating 'Votes For Women' meant 'Votes for the right sort of Women', with 'the right sort of' at the time being so obvious in a class divided society it went without saying, but is forgotten about now.

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Yes, BB, that is annoying.

Most people don't realise there were two groups campaigning for women's suffrage. They know about the Suffragettes because they got all the publicity. During the War, the Suffragettes agreed to put their militant activities on hold so that resources weren't diverted from the war effort. That left the Suffragists free to campaign quietly for several years. Women got the vote, but not because of the Suffragettes.

Now I never knew that

How interesting. I don't think I've even heard of the Suffragists before, never mind knowing the distinction.

Deb

Here's a bit of a generalisation:

Suffragists tended to work quietly behind the scenes. A common tactic was to invite an MP and his wife round for tea and engage them in polite conversation.

Suffragettes tended to hold marches, throw bricks through windows and chain themselves to things, making for much more dramatic headlines in newspapers.

My old history professor had a theory that the Suffragette movement delayed women getting the vote by up to 6 years as their tactics put off many of the gains that the Suffragists had made. It was only when the Suffragettes were side-lined out of the way and kept busy doing other things during the war that the Suffragists could finally achieve something. I can't remember many of the details now, but examples included things like a Parliamentary candidates who spoke in favour of universal suffrage who was expected to win his constituency with a clear majority. When the Suffragettes heard about this they decided to support his campaign by visiting the area in droves and throw bricks through windows and chain themselves to things, which overnight ruled out the candidates' chances of being elected dropping like a stone.
Their intention was to prove that a lot of women wanted the vote, but instead proved that a few women wanted the vote badly enough to be a nuisance and break the law, convincing people that giving window-breaking women the vote would cause anarchy.

I'm not saying that the theory is true, but it does make you think.

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PH today. There is a train strike. The whys and wherefores are actually irrelevant (save to say that it's unnecessary and it's more about a union powergrab than anything else).

The last one was, I think in November, before that October. So fairly regular and annoying but it's 2 days. Some trains are running and the Deutsche Bahn are doing their best to inform people ( the Deutsche Bahn and their inability to communicate are WAY beyond a petty hate of mine but that's just by the way)

So cue a billion tweets about how Unions and strikes should be banned and so on.

I don't have the energy to explain just how mental that idea is in a country where the press was full of zero hours contracts and welfare top-ups to people on low wages (yes, it happens in Germany to) while politicians are trumpeting about how we've never had it so good (well, actually not that, because Germans have definitely had it a lot better, but you get my drift)

re Votes For Women.

We can criticise the Sufragettes from here, and maybe they were right, maybe they were wrong. But. As with other campaigns that fall on deaf ears until it is escalated way beyond what people find comfortable: it did get people talking, and it did give people something to think about. (tbh I feel like throwing myself under a horse sometimes when I consider just how far we still have to go...)

Re women's rights. Talking about this with my mother the other week, she said her mother would not recognise the changes that have been made in society. The very fact that married women can work without having aspersions cast upon their character would be one of the most obvious.

(not to say the journey is complete or that real issues don't remain)

I imagine it is one of those things we'll never know. If a Suffragist had a quiet word with an MP and convinced them to quietly provide his support, that's quite a significant gain that doesn't leave a trace historians can follow.
On the other hand, if a Suffragette threw a brick through a window and was reported in newspapers, that generates a lot of publicity historians can look at, but did it really help women gain the vote?

To an extent, having Universal Suffrage is what matters, not whether we have to thank Team A or Team B. 90% of the time I shrug my shoulders and don't want to be pedantic. But it is annoying that I'm trying to read about the Great War only to keep wading through people who write about Suffragettes without actually knowing what the Suffragettes were.

Talking of train strikes, a related Petty Hate is railway engineering works. Following last year when they had engineering works in Portsmouth when they hosted the Great South Run and all the roads were closed, this weekend the lines into Southampton are closed when I'm trying to get to the Southampton Half Marathon and all the roads are closed.

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