Right.
1. Teenagers - you all have shit dress sense. Seriously. So have I, but I'm 35. You are making me think that I looked that bad when i was a teenager.
2. Ugg boots on girls. "Girls! Short chubby legs? Why not wear boots that make you look shorter AND fatter?!".
3. Ugg boots on 'men'. OHMYFUCKINGGOD.
4. People who queue up in petrol stations waiting for a pump to free up on the same side as their petrol cap.
5. Graham Norton. Obviously
6. People who cough and spit their nasty phlegm on the pavement so that I have to walk over it every fucking day, its everywhere. You dirty fucking scum bags. If I see you do it, I will stab you in the face.
7. Chinese businessmen on buses in Asia. Seriously, just try it. Only redeeming detail- they are easy to elbow in the face accidentally.
8. The Vatican. Beautiful. Stunning. But might as well have the slogan "Looks what we built with our spoils".
9. Inconsiderate people - this means most of you. Seriously, the absolute vast majority of people in the country do not give one second of consideration for other people - its apparent in every facet of life now.
10. Dog shit. Appears to be making a come back.
11a. Anti-congestion charge protesters. Fuck off the lot of you. I hope they make it £20 a mile. Wake up. Driving is not a right just because you bought a car.
11b. The people who whinge about traffic "oh god my journey to work was THE WORST EVER today" and then drive in the next day. Do something about it.
12. People who complain about contracts that they entered into without spending an iota looking at the conditions. Worst offenders - people with contract mobiles.
13. Sky. And their cold calling. NO. I DONT WANT YOUR EXPENSIVE TELLY.
14. Virgin Media. Just..just.. words fail me.
15. BT. Incompetent on a scale unrivalled on earth.
16. Ebay & Paypal. WANKERS.
17. "Ballet" style shoes (yes I know theres a theme) but girls - every man on earth hates you wearing those shoes, we know you like them, but they look shit. And frankly, deeply, deeply unsexy which is why we hate them. You dont need to wear 7 inch heels, but may be a couple of inches plllllllllease!). If you ask if we like them and we say yes - we're lying. We hate them.
18. Porn where the girl really obviously just isnt enjoying it.
19. In direct contraventions to 11a and 11b - petrol prices. But mainly because I dont understand why people arent tearing the fucking country apart in protest.
20. People driving whilst using a mobile. I'm going to start jumping out in front of you - just to scare the shit out of you. (Little trick - if youre driving and you see the driver behind on the phone - wait for their attention and gaze to wander off the road in front and then touch your brake lights - when they look back to the road they react but have no idea how long the brake lights have been on and often slam the brakes on in minor panic. Cracks me up.
21. Men driving BMW's. Frightening. Learn to drive. Buy the highway code - read it.
22. Women driving BMW's. I consider myself a liberal type, but I genuinely think women shouldnt be allowed to drive BMW's.
23. Boy Racers. An open letter to boy racers: "Everyone hates you, your cars are shit".
24. Seatwave.com. Tossers. Semi (il)legal ticket touts.
25. That fat ginger off of ain't it cool news. Cunt.
26. 4x4 drivers. Easy target, but jesus, you dont fucking need it.
27. Leeds Utd. Obviously.
28. Happy scousers.

that'll do for now.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 2 May 2008, 12:08, 11 replies)

A few of the top of my head...
...bear with me.

"I could care less"
This seems to be a common occurrence on message boards populated by Americans.

It's "I COULDN'T CARE LESS".

Saying you could care less implies that your level of care for the given subject is not at its lowest point, and thus you must care about the subject a bit. The point of the phrase is to say the you do not care at all about the given subject, and so you could not care any less about it. It really isn't hard!

Tabloid Newspapers
Their ability to blow everything out of proportion in such a way that it is harmful.

When Northern Rock applied for a loan from the Bank of England the papers plastered it everywhere, and so all the people who held accounts with them panicked and withdrew their funds, leading the bank to an amazing downfall, the government having to bail it all out, and a substantial contribution to the downturn in the economy.

The tabloids failed to mention that a number of banks, including Barclay's had made similar applications for Loans, and that it is a common occurrence in the banking world.

If they had just left things alone it might have panned out a bit better. I don't like the fact that some bored reporter can jump on a non-story, blow it out of proportion, harm the economy and not get any repercussions.

Madeleine McCann
Links in with the above. It is obviously a very sad story, sympathy for her etc, but seriously we really didn't need all that coverage, it obviously didn't help.

In fact I am of the opinion that the coverage could very well have killed her. A kidnapper holding a child which anyone could recognise is going to get rid of that child, probably in small pieces in a shallow grave.

Also some of the reports stated that it was a tragedy as all parent's have left their children alone briefly at some point. NO THEY HAVEN'T. Maddy's parents were irresponsible.

I think someone has mentioned the other children that have gone missing since, but have not got any sort of coverage. Obviously not white and blond enough.

There was a news article yesterday nearly a year after the abduction with the headline "McCanns 'will not give up' search". NO SHIT, who would?

This is not News, it is grief porn.

Microsoft Internet Explorer
I do a lot of html and css coding in my job. Why Microsoft, despite there being clear rules and guidelines from the W3C about how to handle this code, does your browser fail so miserably?

I can write a nice bit of css code that produces a nicely laid out page, which looks all shiny and pretty in every other web browser out there, but when I view it in Internet Explorer it looks like some mental case coded it, all because you failed to make a proper browser.

Unfortunately because you have the market lead because you bundled it with you OS, and because people are lazy and can't bothered to look elsewhere I am forced to make changes to my code to accommodate your 'tard of system.

Proprietary Formats
Blu-ray or HD-DVD? Don't care, just team up, make one universal type of format and stick with it, make money on good affordable hardware and content. You are alienating your buyers when you confuse them like this, and they end up buying neither. Beta-Max, failed, mini-disc, failed, all for similar reasons.

Fanboys
GTAIV is pretty much the same experience on both Xbox360 and PS3, so stop arguing about it you complete arsetards, it is clear you merely consider your console as an extension of your tiny tiny penis.

Crappy Drivers
Unless you have an obvious reason, do 30 in a 30, 40 in a 40, 50 in a 50 etc. The signs are telling you what to do yet still you cannot grasp it. It is not 40 everywhere! Also look up how to use indicators, and how to slow down using the brake so people behind you can tell what you are doing.

'P' Plates
You have just passed your driving test, which says you are competent to drive an auto-mobile on the road. If you are not confident enough that you have to point this out to everybody then you shouldn't have passed. You are just pointing out that you are a crap driver. I'm certainly not going to treat you any differently because you have only just passed. You're officially on my roads now...

Modern Car Engines
If the petrol pump on a morris minor broke, I could refer to a manual, drain the petrol, unscrew the old one with a few spanners, replace with new, refill and away I could go. With modern cars I would have to drain petrol, jack up the vehicle, remove 10 pipes, 5 sensors, half the engine, and part of the suspension, just to get to it.

I don't have all the facilities and tools required to do this, so I have to take it to one of your garages (because you have invented random proprietary tools to remove the parts) and then charge me the price of my house for the privilege.


I sound like quite an angry person after that, but really I'm not. The disturbing thing is, there is probably more...

^{Grumble Grumble}
(stubbledchin, Fri 2 May 2008, 12:07, 4 replies)

This is bad...
But my mum has this habit (I think it's a nervous thing) of making noises before she says anything.

So everything she says comes out like this: 'Uhhmmmmerrrrrr how are you? mmmmmmmmerrrr'

I find it so, so annoying.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Fri 2 May 2008, 12:07, 1 reply)

More sanitary goodness
As I have been reminded by others...

ANY 'feminine hygiene' product. Particularly anything which insinuates we're all dirty and smelly and distinctly unappealing unless we scrub ourselves raw....I mean who came up with a product called 'vagisil'?

Scented tampons. See above. Also, just asking for thrush, isn't it? Nasty nasty nasty. All those years we were told they didn't smell so we wouldn't get paranoid, were they lying?

And what difference does putting a skirt on it make?

Ick.

The only good thing about a period is the happiness of knowing you're not pregnant.
(Beklet is inexplicably angry, Fri 2 May 2008, 12:06, 3 replies)

Dryers that don't work properly
so you have to repeatedly smack your hands against the air outlet like a spaz to get them dry.

T-junctions where one road has a much higher priority than the other, so if you're stuck on the minor road you can run out of petrol before you get a chance to join the major road.
(The intersection of the A655 and A638 just outside Wakefield is particularly bad for this.)

The continued supremacy of talentless wankers in every corner of popular culture, whether it's film, TV or music.

People with more money than sense or personality, whose popularity is the result of their ostentatiously expensive clothes and haircut.

People who believe common courtesy doesn't apply to them because their mummy or daddy is terribly important. The fact that it's 'common' doesn't make it bad, you over-privileged shitheads.

People (particularly students) who claim to be liberal and yet believe that your opinion only counts if you're part of the white, straight, English upper middle-class elite.

The prolonged death of competence and meritocracy in this benighted nation.

I could go on, but I'm starting to get a headache from banging my head on the desk.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 2 May 2008, 12:06, 1 reply)

Disrespected.
I tell you, the next wigger, who I hear claiming that:

"He disrespected me"

Is going to have the Collins Dictionary, pocket-book edition, jammed up his arse with a bookmark.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 2 May 2008, 12:04, 1 reply)

Repost? It's possibly more relevant to this QOTW...
I suspect I'll be posting quite a lot this week, as I think I contain more anger than a meeting between Marcus Brigstocke and Richard Littlejohn. So if I may crave your indulgence, I'll begin with this pearost, originally from "Bastard Colleagues."
****
Slightly off topic, but must get off chest
Not colleagues as such. One of my duties as a phd student is to be a demonstrator in undergraduate lab sessions. It's not normally too bad and gives me a bit of extra cash to keep me in the pub.

The lab sessions I've been teaching are computer programming. Basically the undergrads work their way through a long exercise sheet to learn C++, and we're on hand to answer their questions.

Just so they've all got a computer and our undivided attention, we reserve a small room next to the main computing room. Of course, when the main room gets busy, undergrads will occasionally try and sneak in, log on to a computer and fanny around on facebook/youtube/amazon/etc. Normally, when we catch them, they leave without a fuss. No problem.

The ones that get my back up are the ones who assume this "I-know-better-than-you" voice and say: "So I've got to leave, even though there's blatantly lots of computers free?"

I know there are computers free. I can see that. That's not the fucking point. If we let all you smart-arse fuckers in here, it would be a free-for-all and we'd never be able to spot the lab students who needed our help*. Don't talk to me like I'm a fucking idiot and get your cuntish, know-it-all, arse for a face out of my fucking lab.

I swear, if I get one more retort like that from one of the little bastards, I will not be held repsonsible for my actions. Nor will I provide any assistance in removing the keyboard from the rectum of the student in question.

Apologies for length and extreme rantiness, but I do feel better for that. Thank you for your patience.

*_{I provide help in theory, at any rate...}

***

Thank you for your patience.
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 2 May 2008, 12:04, Reply)

In no particular order
That particular flavour of Heavy Metal whose fans believe what they're listening is something profound, and not in fact an evolution of teenage-angst: man-angst.

People who swallow loudly.

People who profess to have taken offence - especially during a debate/argument in an attempt to negate the necessity for a cogent rebuttal.

Religion.

Jebus, i didn't realise i'd be able to reel off stuff so quickly.
(CptCoatHanger performed his last back-street abortion on, Fri 2 May 2008, 12:01, Reply)

I should of been disorientated
Grammatical HATES!

Use of the non-word disorientated. It's fucking DISORIENTED. Disorientated is NOT a word. Orientation IS a word, disorientation IS a word, disorientated is NOT a fucking word!!

Since when is OF interchangeable with HAVE? As in, I should of, I could of. I know where it comes from, it's the bastardisation of the abbreviation of have to 've, as in should've, could've, but every fucking where I see should of, could of. Fuck me!
(RichardInSydney would like to know why teh date & time is, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:57, 2 replies)

Things my girlfriend does which annoy me (part 2)
Should point out that I do love her very much but I seem to have opened the flood gates.

Right

1. Ringing me at 3 in the morning pissed off her face and claiming it shows she cares - when I do it, nuff said...

2. Insisting on collecting every money-off coupon, corporate voucher etc. despite the fact she earns more than me.

3. Refuses to take the tube and just gets buses everywhere doubling journey times.

4. Going to the gym every morning, because of 3) I wake up a good hour before I need to.

5. Knowing my diary/appointments better than I do, even if she's not going.

6. Repeatedly stating that she would choose the cat over me if it came to it (to be fair I'd say the same, it's very cute).

7. Deliberately getting me plastered before i met her parents for the first time.

8. Even though she always redoes any housework I do because it doesn't meet her exacting standards, she'll still get annoyed if i point this out as a reason why I shouldn't do any.

9. Still not knowing how long a football match is (or that they tend to happen at the weekend) despite how long we've been going out.

10. Following on from 9, not understanding why I'd want to watch any sporting event which doesn't feature the team I support.

11. Making me get up before half 10 at weekends even/especially if i have a raging hangover.

12. She doesn't get hangovers.


And breathe... realise this all probably makes me look like a massive twat/typical male but it's good to vent.
(Milo Minderbinder, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:56, 3 replies)

Would you like to taste the wine?
I realise that if this is the apex of my problem mountain I shouldn't exactly be marching to Downing Street, but this is my pet peeve.

When you select a bottle of wine in a restaurant (second cheapest please), the waiter invites you to taste it before your glass is filled. The reason for this is to ensure the wine is not "corked" ie reacted with the cork, and gone bad. By taking a sip of the wine you can instantly tell whether or not it is safe to proceed. It either tastes like vinegar, or the crappy bottle of wine on which you've just spunked £12.95.

It is, therefore, unnecessary to:

Hold the glass up to the light;
Swish the wine round and round in the glass;
Sniff it;
Suck it through your teeth;
Make a face like you are concentrating;
Leave a moment of suspense before saying "mmm yes thats very nice, thanks".

That is all.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:56, 8 replies)

Arrrrrrrgggghhhhhhhh
When someone phones you and says "Hi, it's me..."

Of course it's you...who the fuck else is it going to be? Jesus? Superman? Albus chuffin' Dumbledore?

If it's the person who's name has flashed up on twatting phone screen then I already know it's you, don't I? If you're borrowing said persons phone then TELL ME WHO YOU THE FUCK YOU ARE WHEN I ANSWER.

"It's me" doesn't help. Not. At. All.

Don't get me started on the fucking Lionel Richie song...
(Holy Cremola Foam Batman will be back on, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:55, 2 replies)

bogs
Cubicles that aren’t completely sealed of. Pisses me of when you’re sitting on a bog having a crap and not only can you hear the farts and plops of everyone else, but people can also hear yours. which means you then have to either run out without washing your hands, or wait until the other person has left until you can leave to save yourself the embarrassment of the other person knowing you are shitting in public. Although they are as well but it still embarrasses the crap out of me.
(conzo21, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:51, 2 replies)

Big Girls Blouse has reminded me
I'm usually pretty laid back, but this one thing is guaranteed to get my bowels in an uproar every time.

Adverts for sanitary protection. Why, oh why? Ladies know their personal preference, we do not need to have these products advertised on TV. Womens magazines, fair enough. But not on the telly FFS.

oooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooo Body Form...
(Sweary Jr used to sing that at the age of 2 every time he saw a packet.)

Always Ultra with flexi-wings.

And what the fuck is "efficapt" or however you spell it?

One of them has an imaginary zip to "lock in" your minge refuse - I don't want to risk catching my pubes in any zip, imaginary or otherwise!

AND, I think it might be Always, has recently added the caption "Have a happy period" to their adverts. Illustrated with some pretty young bint demonstrating the epitomé of a care-free menstral experience. Like most women, when I'm up on blocks I could cheerfully gouge out my uterus with a plastic teaspoon. The very last thing most of us with bleeding blits are is cunting "happy".

Fucking GRRRRRRRR!!
( Tourette's ( . )( . ) has a monkey hair in her fried egg, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:47, 9 replies)

gf's annoying habit
..of not closing the car door - ever.. just leaving it half-closed where it could immediately swing open & decapitate a small child..
(sdrawkcab, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:45, Reply)

Grammar!
I'm almost immune to the usual your/you're, they're/there/their and similar common errors, partly owing to long term exposure and partly because my ire is widely shared.

However, I would appreciate it if the population at large would learn the correct usage of a reflexive pronoun.

'Myself' is the most common example:
Brian* and myself have discussed this.
Speak to Brian or myself if you don't understand.

It's a reflexive pronoun. You shouldn't use it except when the referring the object of the sentence back to the subject, when the object is the subject, or for emphasis. It's not a replacement for 'I' or 'me' and using it makes you sound like a self important ass who doesn't understand the language, not the debonair, self-deprecating charmer you obviously think you are.

*seethes*

Apologies for the excessive bile surrounding simple word use and a great deal of hoping that I haven't screwed up any of the grammar in this post, because that would make me look like a (bigger) tit.

*Brian is a fictional construct and should not be construed as a personal attack. Come to think of it, I don't think I know anyone by that name at all.
(ThomsonsPier consumes, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:44, 6 replies)

My pet Peeves, the cat.
Peeves the cat was my best friend, I'd bought him shortly after my daughter was born, and he quickly became a much-loved member of the family.

He stuck by me through thick and thin, and, when my marriage fell apart, he was my closest companion for a very long time.
He would pad about on my lap, and purr softly while I stroked his chin. Peeves loved to play with just about anything, from his clockwork mouse to his catnip filled fish-on-a-string.

I loved that cat, I was so upset when he was accidentally killed by one of my goats that I cried for months.

Of course, this is 100% bollocks, I hate cats with a passion, and my pet peeve is people who talk about and act as though their cats are human.

It's a ball of fur and bones for fucks sake, get over it! It's only with you for affection and food, the rest of the time it's out hunting birds with it's mates.
As I've said before, I would love to eat cat.
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:43, Reply)

Toilet Roll
My fiancee is guilty of this, and it causes pre-marital disharmony on a regular basis.
Toilet rool should be put on the holder in the "over" position, not the "under" position.

It drives me mental in a hugely disproportionate way. The words "bat-shit crazy" come to mind.

Over:


Under:


Even looking at the "under" picture is making me angry.

Look how poorly optimised those images are. All pixelly and rubbish. Yay.
(Rotten_Cointreau is a proper scientician, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:42, 22 replies)

urinals..
annoying splashback.. the uncomfortable knowledge that someone else has their nob out next to you..
(sdrawkcab, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:39, 1 reply)

Rudeness.
Rudeness really gets my goat. Not the tits and fannies and fucking swearing stuff – no, that’s fine. Just general ignorance and ill manners.

Women – when I hold a door open for you, it is NOT a sub-conscious attempt on my part to (a) emasculate you, or, (b) get into your knickers. No, I’m merely being polite. I do the same for other blokes. All I expect in return would be an acknowledgement. A thank you would be good, but if my devilish good looks have got you tongue-tied and rendered you unable to speak, a coy smile and eye contact works just as well… (maybe not from the blokes – a curt nod is acceptable). Please don’t look at me as if I’m some piece of shit that is only interested in one thing. Politeness and good manners cost nothing you know, and despite what the Daily Mail might tell you, they are still in abundance in some corners of society.

On a similar note, I was in a pub a few months ago watching a match. It was a lunchtime kick-off, so the pub was quite full of families having a bite to eat, which inevitably meant that there was the obligatory push chair (or stroller, if you prefer). By the time the match kicked off, I had found myself wedged into an alcove with little space to move. After about 10 minutes, yummy mummy decides it’s time for her and little Tarquin to depart, and gamely tries to make her way through the crowd with said infant strapped safely into its mode of transport.

Being the gallant, devilishly handsome chap that I am, I noticed that she was having a bit of a struggle as there was a stool in the way. Despite being wedged in a bit, I managed to lift the stool up and over my head (whilst everyone else ignored the poor woman’s struggles), thus allowing her to get through.

Did I get a smile? A thank you? An acknowledgement of any kind at all?

Did I cock. I did catch the woman saying to her spawn, “Come on, lets get away from the nasty noisy people”, though.

I should have dropped the fucking stool on her head.


*EDIT* Re: the nasty noisy pub. You were in a pub, for Christ's sake, that was advertising the fact that it was showing a live Newcastle match. At lunchtime. What did you fucking expect you bloody half wit? Cries of "Oh, jolly good show, what? Spiffing pass old boy", rather than "Shoot, you fucking waste of stripes, SHOOT"!
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 2 May 2008, 11:39, 7 replies)

Things my girlfriend does which annoy me (part 1?)
Why oh why do you feel the need to call me for a chat when you're quite clearly in the middle of doing something else. Whether this be washing up, watching TV, in the middle of a conversation with someone else!!!

How hard is it to wait 5 mins, finish what you're doing and then call rather than constantly interrupt our conversation to load the dishwasher or talk to your housemates?!!

Once I just hung up and it literally took her 10 minutes to realise.

Of course the one time she will ring me and give me her undivided attention is when I'm watching footy, down the pub, and/or both!


(My mum does this as well, Freud would've had a field day).
(Milo Minderbinder, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:36, 1 reply)

sorry for this being a tad big.
Road use:
1) You have indicators. Use them. The effort required is minimal and the end result is fewer accidents and less annoyed people driving cars.
2) Speed limits are there for a reason. If you're in a 30 zone, do up to 30. If you're in a 40 zone, do up to 40. The limits aren't just there to stop you driving off the road, they are there so that other road users can have a reasonable chance of guessing what you're going to be doing with your vehicle. They let people pull out of turnings with the knowledge that anyone coming around the corner will have time to see them and brake in time, for example. The only (personal) exception to this is if you're on a national speed limit dual carriageway or motorway go ahead and speed a bit, but don't complain if someone in your lane is doing 70, don't insist you can do 90 in driving rain in the middle of the night safely, and have a tiny fucking amount of consideration for other road users when it comes to, for example, sliproads. And use your fucking indicators to change lanes.
3) If there are roadworks and one lane is closing and there is an obvious queue of traffic, don't move into the soon-to-end lane and speed all the way to the front and expect to be let in. You cunt.
4) Cyclists, if there's a cycle lane please use it. If there isn’t, I promise I’ll do my best not to needlessly endanger your life as long as you’re wearing a helmet and, if appropriate, using lights.
4)a) the cycle lane is one bike wide. If you need to chat, shout, don’t ride side-by side and stick out into the road.
5) I firmly believe this one should be law: If a car driver who is driving legally hits and kills a cyclist at night, and the cyclist has neither lights nor a helmet, not only has no crime been committed, but the dead cyclist's estate/relatives must pay for repairs to the car.
6) Don't overtake on blind corners/hills. I don't care if your car can go that fast, I don't care if YOU think it's a "calculated risk". You're risking my life and the life of anyone coming the other way too, and that's not a risk you're entitled to take. If you’re so risky, fuck off to a race track, or just plough your car into a fucking bridge (while nobody’s on it).
7) THAT’S AN AMBULANCE. Get out the fucking way. Now.
8) re: other emergency services vehicles: see 7) and adapt as necessary.
9) Read the rules of the road again. Go on. Read the bit about how roundabouts work and what lane to be in. Use it if you’re not sure about a particular roundabout. They actually work.
9) If you drive a route regularly, learn how the specific roundabouts/junctions work. Using the wrong lane every day for a year makes me wonder if you should be permitted to drive at all. Or go out without a keeper.
10) A queue of traffic with you in the middle is not, in fact, waiting for you to beep your horn. If you can’t see why you’re stopped then you’ve got no reason to beep.
11) petrol station forecourts have a sign that says “don’t smoke, turn off engine, turn off lights, don’t use your phone.” You are not exempt from this rule (even if several of them are a teeeeeny bit over-paranoid, don’t fucking smoke you foolish monkey).
12) Motorbikes take up space. If you’re riding your bike down the side of a row of cars and some traffic comes the other way, find somewhere to pull in. If you can’t, then you shouldn’t have been overtaking, should you? Now fuck off.

Extremism and bigotry, some specifics:
1) Feminists who are following the ideals of equality are doing something important for society, breaking down pointless barriers and helping everyone live together fairly. People who call themselves ‘feminists’ but are really entirely, rabidly, pro-female and anti-male are bigoted extremists who need to find themselves a different name and are of no help to anyone or anything.
Ref: users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html
2) Religion is a tricky one. I don’t follow a religion or believe in a god, and regard all of them as pretty much delusional fantasies built around increasingly out-of-date codes of conduct. Their time, for me, is past. The same good effects that religion has could be obtained by a system of education and ethical principles without the mumbo-jumbo. The problem is that I realise, if I genuinely believed in god, I mean really and truly, and I thought he wanted me to blow up a bunch of folks, I’d do it. It’s god, for fuck’s sake. You can’t second-guess God.
3) Racism: Get over it. Seriously. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of perfectly rational reasons to hate and despise people, both in groups and individually. Inherited physical characteristics aren’t one of them.
4) Football: If you’re really, honestly willing to hurt someone, be honest about it. You don’t need the excuse of their belonging to a different supporter’s club. If you genuinely want to hurt people BECAUSE they support a different team then you’re a fucking idiot.

Grammar and spelling:
1) If English isn’t your first language, make an effort and it’ll be noticed.
2) If English is your first language, make an effort, it’ll be noticed.
3) Everyone makes mistakes. Me more than most. Typos are forgivable, not a death sentence.
4) If you don’t bother making the effort to use a minimal level of spelling and punctuation and try and arrange your sentences correctly then don’t expect to be understood. If you can’t be bothered to try and communicate clearly I have no choice but to assume you’re saying something unimportant.
5) If you struggle with this on a regular basis, there are a few simple sets of rules to learn that can hugely improve the readability of your writing:
- It’s, its
- You’re, your
- There, Their, They’re
- Than, Then
if you make the effort to nail those then a large proportion of the pedantic internet will stop having a go at you and maybe pay attention to what you’re writing.
6) The above are not here just because I’m a pedant, but because language is a tool for communicating, and the better we can all use it the better we can convey our opinions.
7) Lolcats are exempt from the above. I don’t know why, I should hate them but I don’t.

Class:
1) You’re working class. You have pride in your roots. Well done. It doesn’t excuse you being a total fucking wanker.
2) You’re middle class, but you’re aware of it and you make an effort not to discriminate by class. Well done. It doesn’t excuse you being a total fucking wanker.
3) You’re upper class. You’re proud of your heritage and you’re used to being around the successful and wealthy. Well done. It doesn’t excuse you being a total fucking wanker.
4) Nobody worth talking to cares how much money your family makes, how close you are to royalty or anything. Unless you’re on a genealogy course, be yourself and ignore the heritage.

Patriotism (specifically Americans and English):
I’m glad you love your country, you should do. It has many fine points and many lofty ideals are upheld by it on a daily basis. If one of your fellow countrymen disagrees with a political/military stance which your country has adopted then he/she is not being unpatriotic. Both nations have, among their most famous historical figures, people who overturned regimes and made massive changes to their way of life because they believed an injustice was being perpetrated.
Patriotism should be love of your country coupled with a desire to see it be the best it can be, not a blind submission to the status quo.

Americans in Britain
1) How fucking loud do you need to be?
2) I don’t care how much bigger/better/faster things are in Texas. There’s a church in Cornmarket Street in Oxford that’s 5 times the age of your country.
3) No, I can’t find you some marijuana. Especially not when you bellow the question at me at Blessed volume in the middle of a busy street, you unbearable neo-colonial fuckwit.

Generalisations:
You may have noticed that many of my rants make sweeping generalisations about entire classes, groups and nationalities of people. I hate when people do this without an awareness that they’re doing it. I know some nice Americans, I’ve got religious friends, I’ve even met a BMW driver who’s not a cunt when he drives, but the transgressors in these groups are sufficiently representative (based on my personal life experience) that I feel justified in not individually adding caveats to each observation. Sorry.
( Mockingbird Practitioner of SCIENCE, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:35, 14 replies)

Greed, lies and wilful ignorance
'Stupid man' adverts. Yes, maybe women make the larger percentage of purchasing decisions, but that's no reason for every Y-chromosome possessor in advertland to act/react like he's the recipient of a major lobotomy and/or drug overdose.

Indian call centre operatives pretending to have English names. Your accent is so thick I can barely understand you, but respect is due, because I can't speak a word of Hindu, Punjabi or Urdu, so you've got me beat there, pal! You're doing a shit job, for probably shit wages, and I don't like to be rude to you. But why the fuck do you have to pretend that your name is Steve, or Sarah? I can pronounce Sanjeev, or Seema, it's not a problem. This is the U.K. - we have all kinds of people here, and we can pronounce non-European names. It's not going to make me want to buy your product anyway, but just don't start the phone call with a blatant lie.

Anyone with wilful ignorance of the amazing world/universe we inhabit. Especially those who think that either science-fiction is stupid, or that liking it has somehow rendered me completely clueless. I have a picture of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/) as my desktop backdrop at work. Whenever I get frustrated because I can't get the code to do what I want, or I'm having rounding errors in the 5th decimal place that are screwing up fund/unit calculations, I just call it up, and gaze at 10,000 galaxies for a few seconds, to get a bit of perspective on the situation. When a co-worker asked me what the image was, I tried to explain that it was a picture of a tiny, tiny slice of the night sky.
"So are they stars?"
"No, they're galaxies."
"Are they like stars?"
".........well, they're made of stars...."
"Well, I've never seen anything like that in the sky!"
"...no.... you wouldn't, really..."
"So it's not real then? You've just grabbed that off some Star Trekkie website! You must think I'm stupid!"

Almost as bad was the one who saw the photo of Neptune taken by the Voyager probe, which is another of my 'perspective' pictures. It's just a couple of crescents - Neptune and Triton, but this photo was taken looking back towards Neptune. Here's this tiny spacecraft, still taking pictures and sending signals, as the probe left the solar system and headed out into deep space.
"What's that - abstract art or something?"
"No, it's Neptune and Triton, taken by Voyager as it was leaving the solar system."
Moment of puzzled silence as he looks at me, waiting for the leg-pull. When it doesn't come, he responds, quite slowly and carefully, like he's about to shatter my dreams:
"It's a TV show. It's not real."
"No, it's real, I got it off the NASA website."
"Yeah, but NASA went to the moon. Voyager's just a TV show.

Sometimes I just have to say "Go away now, please." because otherwise I'm going to hit someone, or they're going to see me cry.
(Leo Sasquatch hates being the grown-up, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:35, 3 replies)

I don't think I'm racist ....
and I don't think I'm homophobic but I fucking hate Gok Wan and can't imagine how anyone could think differently.
( Ramsay Tupper, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:33, 5 replies)

Inappropriate cubicle etiquette
I can't stand it when people use the middle of three cubicles in the toilet. Freaks.

The last thing I want to do is listen to someone dropping his kids off. Or struggle with a urinary infection. And I sure as fuck don't want to smell the curry and 8 lagers he had the night before.

Worse still I don't want that dirty fecker listening to MY ablutions. Rolling out a good turd can be a pleasurable experience - I like to enjoy it without an audience.

It's almost as if these freaks get off on the whole "toilet experience". It's not a pleasant thought to consider someone jerking off to your toilet concert. Dirty, dirty, dirty.

If all the cubicles are free go to one of the fecking end ones you toilet lurking freak!

P.S. I have such a person in my office. I know who he is. The dirty fecker.
(Mean Mad Mutski, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:33, Reply)

2)
Size 0.

do men find women with a ribcage you could use as a toast rack attractive? of course we fucking don't, or there would be package sex holidays to famine regions. You could get enough of your fill to last a lifetime and what would it cost? A bag of rice.

fuck the media, fuck "general opinion", its a load of old shoite, being a neurotic half starved stick insect is about as erotic as genocide, get some food inside you, get some curves and be yourself.
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:30, 1 reply)

the letter "H"
And all the people who pronounce it "haitch"

Look it up in the fucking dictionary. It's AITCH.

*foams*
(happylittletulip helpless and delicious, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:29, 4 replies)

Anyone who likes Jeremy Kyle.
Or Jeremy Kyle himself. The exploiting bully-for-ratings bastard that he is.

How this cunt gets away with bullying chavs for a living is beyond me. Hang about, that sounds good, I'm meant to be complaining about him.

Smug, argues points with a moronic audience and essentially victimizes some mentally defenceless person on stage is not my idea of morning entertainment on telly. Bring back re-runs of Buck Rogers instead.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 2 May 2008, 11:29, 3 replies)