Irritations

[Ms Diddles]

Actors on TV eating fish and chips (yes I know, it sounds strange) Fish and chips are one of the greatest meals ever invented and can only be eaten with gusto and enjoyment and I find it really irritating when I see actors eating them on TV. Often it’s the police at night in the incident room. Firstly they tend to use those pointless little wooden forks! What’s wrong with fingers? Fish and chips are best enjoyed using fingers. Next they pick up a chip, a single chip and bite it in half! Why do they have to portray such delicate, tiny-mouthed eating? No one needs to bite a chip in half to eat it…a sausage yes…a chip no! And then they spend about 2 minutes chewing….half a chip! Babies can down a chip faster than that. How delicate is their digestive system? Why don’t they just tip the whole meal into a blender and be done with it! Finally, they eat one chip..spend five minutes talking…then eat another then another five minutes. Worst of all is when they spend 5 minutes talking with a chip in their fingers waving it around and pointing with it! So after half an hour they have eaten around 5 chips and perhaps a tiny mouthful of fish and they have on their desk in front of them a portion of cold fish and chips!

Sacrilege! A disgraceful way to treat such a wonderful meal!!

I had never considered this before Herlock, but now you mention it, I think I know the phenomenon you are talking about.

It's more of an "ick" than an irritation, but I have always found the sight of small children eating sausage rolls seriously disturbing and frankly repugnant!

Something about their greasy little fingers and dribbly pastry encrusted mouths, the horrible pink meat and sounds of mastication make me feel quite nauseous and I need to remove myself immediately from the vicinity.

It's got marginally better since Greggs introduced their vegan sausage roll (so I convince myself that perhaps it's not actually meat they're consuming), but still, just NO!!!

[Ms Diddles]

Professional soccer players who at the slightest bump fall to the ground like a sack of spuds. Then no matter where the bump was they clutch their shin and writhe around as if in mortal agony. Surprisingly, well hardly surprising, when awarded a free kick they leap to their feet. They deserve a red card for bad acting.

Well yes, it's annoying but I always enjoy it when the Italians do this!

[Ms Diddles]

Women who wear sunglasses on top of their heads even when it is the middle of summer and the sun is super bright. Guess it is style over eye protection.

c.d.

Well to be fair c.d, sometimes we stick them on our heads and simply forget that they're there.

We're not used to a sunny climate here in Scotland so we're not so practiced with our use of sunglasses.

[Ms Diddles]

It's like my outdoor shed, I bought a tool shed for the mower, the snowblower, table saw, tools of all kinds, but then I overheard some insidious suggestion that the windows needed a set of curtains......

But isn't that a good thing Wick?

You can have a nap or get stuck into the home brew (or do whatever it is that blokes do in their shed) away from prying eyes.

I'd have thought curtains in a shed would be quite desirable. No?

[Ms Diddles]

Folks wearing crocks with socks in the rain!!!

Yeah, that's pretty grim!

[Wickerman]

....I'd have thought curtains in a shed would be quite desirable. No?

She settled for a couple of floral window boxes, to add a bit of colour.... I hid the shed keys...

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’ll add this recent phenomena of people being insanely picky eaters. What’s wrong with people. I saw a programme a few weeks ago and a couple of people were in an English town/village and they were trying locally sourced/made foods. One was a perfectly normal sausage with something added like mustard or a herb. The person trying it wasn’t a vegetarian or anything like it but as she went to bite it you’d have thought that someone had handed her a turd. How can you be so sensitive to the possibility of a slightly new taste? She chewed the tiniest piece as if she was revolted by it but said that it was actually “ok.”

Kids today are an absolute nightmare. I’m sorry but I put it down to parents having an ‘anything for a quiet life attitude.’ And yes I know I’ll be accused of ‘grumpy old man syndrome’ (I’m not 59 until December) but if more parents simply put their foot down and said ‘you either eat what the rest of the family are having or you don’t eat’ then they would eat it eventually.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And surely there can’t be so many food ‘intolerances’? I’m sure that some people just like to feel special and they aren’t happy unless they can say “yes, I’ve got x so I can’t eat rhinoceros.”

[Pcdunn]

Yeah, that's pretty grim!

When I was growing up in Southern California, usually only old men wore socks with their sandals. (That has become a stereotype for retirees in Flordia, too.)

My dad used to say when driving, "Watch out for the old man in the hat!" I think because older men were more likely to wear fedoras in the car, and might not be good drivers. So getting stuck in traffic behind one could be slow-- or dangerous.

[Tani]

And surely there can’t be so many food ‘intolerances’? I’m sure that some people just like to feel special and they aren’t happy unless they can say “yes, I’ve got x so I can’t eat rhinoceros.”

I have a caffeine intolerance (the only intolerance I have) and it makes life so difficult. If I want coke I have to buy a large bottle because I've never seen decaf in small bottles, and if in a can only in a large pack etc. I can't always trust that I'm being served the decaf coffee I ask for. Caffeine is in many medications and other products naturally such as chocolate. I'm limited by which sodas I can buy etc. It's certainly nothing to brag about, given I once entered a psychotic state owing to overdosing. I just buy my decaf and get on with life. It's usually easy to find decaf tea and coffee in shops, but when it comes to medications such as painkillers, that's not as easy.

It sucks but life goes on

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have a caffeine intolerance (the only intolerance I have) and it makes life so difficult. If I want coke I have to buy a large bottle because I've never seen decaf in small bottles, and if in a can only in a large pack etc. I can't always trust that I'm being served the decaf coffee I ask for. Caffeine is in many medications and other products naturally such as chocolate. I'm limited by which sodas I can buy etc. It's certainly nothing to brag about, given I once entered a psychotic state owing to overdosing. I just buy my decaf and get on with life. It's usually easy to find decaf tea and coffee in shops, but when it comes to medications such as painkillers, that's not as easy.

It sucks but life goes on

That’s rough Tani. I wasn’t suggesting that intolerances aren’t all genuine though btw.

[Tani]

That’s rough Tani. I wasn’t suggesting that intolerances aren’t all genuine though btw.

This is true, but I find many are just put ons for some kind of vague attention. It's like the people who choose not to eat gluten for whatever reason, when those with actual gluten intolerances become taken less and less seriously. It's very annoying and makes people with actual allergies and intolerances be pushed away as posers too. It's usually dairy and gluten, for some reason. I guess no-one wants to fake a caffeine intolerance, that's too hard to keep up

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’d like to add the entire fashion industry. How have we as a human race fallen for this glaring con? We have an industry full of people who not only make millions from clothes but they have also managed to arrange things so that a short time after a customer has spent a large chunk of cash on clothes the customer is told that these clothes should no longer be worn as they are now unfashionable. So that person must go out and spend more money on new, more fashionable clothes which in turn will be fit only for the charity shops in a few weeks time. It’s a brilliantly simple but unbeatable scam. Everyone is a winner…if you are in the fashion industry in any way of course. Customers addicted to fashion are permanently drained of cash.

And what pointless stupidities fashion has given us:


Barking mad clothes at fashion shows that a sartorially challenged clown wouldn’t wear.

The comedy hairstyles we see today amongst the young which look more like topiary.

Hats worn the wrong way round (why?)

Trousers hanging down so far that the person wearing them can’t walk normally.

Jogging bottoms with one trouser leg rolled up.

Walking around with a sweater tied around the shoulders.

Stupid, threatening face-coverings.

A hat and a hood at the same time.


I’m sure that if some pop star walked out dressed in an ill-fitting suit covered in custard with a bucket for a hat you’d get an army of halfwits doing likewise.

[c.d.]

Hats worn the wrong way round (why?)

Yeah, wearing a baseball cap backwards is pretty much the norm here in the U.S among the 15-30 (or even older) male crowd. The why of it is beyond me as I think it makes you look like a complete idiot.

The best sartorial advice I ever read on this phenomenon said "no male over ten years of age should ever wear their cap backwards unless they are playing baseball and they are the catcher."

c.d.

[Herlock Sholmes]

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