I don't get that wound up on a day to day level, but last week I stayed in an expensive boutique hotel that fancied itself rotten, and everything seemed designed to annoy.

They have a fine metal bead curtain over the TV, which you have to tuck out of the way as best you can, then halfway through the film it falls down, so you have to get out of bed and while you're tucking one side back up the other side falls down and hits you on the arse.

The sugar is served on sticks, so rather than spooning the exact amount into your drink you have to guess and/or perform a series of tasting experiments. And when I ordered tea in my room, it arrived without milk or sugar(despite my specifying both) and it took two goes to get it right. By which time my tea was cold.

I'm used to those notes on hotel bathrobes that suggest they understand your being overwhelmed by covetousness at such an exquisite object, but please, don't lower yourself to steal it, you can buy it, but here there were notes on every fucking thing, including their ugly hotel umbrellas. I did write on the back that I would rather die of pneumonia than be seen with such a hideous object, and had anyway brought my own dinky umbrella, but I tore it up on second thoughts.

Oh yeh, the room bar, just one wine glass, but a pack of condoms placed prominently next to it. How thoughtful.

I could go on, but basically, give me an old fashioned five star every time.

MsD wrote:
... give me an old fashioned five star every time.

"Treat Me Like A Lady..."

Well, yeh, and I know moaning about boutique hotels is terribly bourgeois, but it's like they went out of their way to be irritating and the one place I don't expect to be irritated is in an expensive hotel.

If given the choice, go for the old fashioned established places, hip hotels just don't have their shit together.

I think you're reading a little more into Wyatt's post than was intended! [sound warning]

Oh, I thought he meant Treat Her Like a Lady, not the Temptations' finest, but it's alright. I am not familiar with the Five Star pop record.

Oh I get it .. Five Star. Ha.

Finding unflattened boxes in the cardboard recycling. Come on, it doesn't take much, once you've stuck your pizza or your Linda in on gas mark 5, to open up the flaps and dismantle the packaging before casting it into the green tub. Because otherwise, whoever ends up emptying the recycling, and let's face it, it's usually the same person, has to dismantle all the boxes, yes, which means the whole process takes much longer than it should, doesn't it. Whereas just a little consideration would go a long way in alleviating that extra work. Wouldn't it.

Don't get me started on the recycling bins situation where I live...

Our cat is so goddamn huge that it often sounds like one of the kids is up out of bed walking around upstairs. Or, in the night, it sounds like an intruder, so I sit up all heart-beaty and there's him gallumping down the hallway looking for a joint of beef or small child to eat.

Mumpo wrote:
your Linda in on gas mark 5
I'm reasonably certain there are laws against that around these parts.

Pies, which only have a crust on the top, thinking that the dish is enough for the sides and the bottom. As far as I am concerned, that is not a pie. A cobbler, maybe. Possibly even a casserole or a hotpot. But not a pie!

That air bubble they inject into toothpaste tubes. You'll go to squeeze your paste onto the brush and the tube will just fart.

Our cat is so goddamn huge that it often sounds like one of the kids is up out of bed walking around upstairs. Or, in the night, it sounds like an intruder, so I sit up all heart-beaty and there's him gallumping down the hallway looking for a joint of beef or small child to eat.

My wife's grandma had a cat that was so grotesquely fat she looked like she'd been inflated with a tire pump. We'd be in bed in the second-floor guest room and alerted of her entrance by the labored breathing from having just climbed the stairs, this gasping wheezing thing making its way across the floor. Then a pause as you waited for the momentous leap up onto the bed which you reckoned nearly brought on a stroke.

Then she got some disease and dropped all the weight, so one time we visited and there was an emaciated looking cat of the exact same color and stripe and gormless visage. Then she kicked the bucket not long after that.

• Paying to use a public lavatory and having to use electric hand-dryers instead of paper towels.

• People who say "What?" and then answer your question.

• Continuity announcers who try too hard. (So, most of them.)

• The way cold cuts, bacon, et. al. are packaged. How are you supposed to re-seal the meat you don't need?

• The use of more than one consecutive exclamation mark.

• Supermarkets that "unit price" two different types of the same commodity differently (e.g., A is 23.2p per 100g and B is 46.7p per 250g pack).

• Someone from British Telecom ringing me up again and attempting to convince me that their sales call is a not a sales call but a "service call".

• The Today Programme "reviewing the papers" every twenty minutes or so but giving the weather forecast only once an hour.

• The radio in my car offering a medium wave frequency but unable to pick up a single station.

Yup, I'm in a fucking bad mood all right ...

The Exploding Vole wrote:
• People who say "What?" and then answer your question.

...when you've already begun asking it for a second time.

I had afriend who went slightly deaf for a while due to earwax and got into this habit, infuriatingly, even after he could hear properly again. It drove me up the wall.

When you're merrily munching away on your food - a sandwich perhaps - and for some inexplicable reason you bite the inside of your mouth. Of course it hurts but it doesn't make you angry. However for the next week, on at least 20 separate occasions, you'll re-bite the inside of your mouth, and that will make you angry.

Also, spacial awareness. It's been touched on before but my specific gripe relates to women (and only women) with shopping trolleys. If you just passed the butter counter and want to go back for a tub of marge then do so by all means, but not if it means walking backwards while pulling your trolley one-handed so it arcs away from you and blocks the entire aisle.

Why the fuck would you allow a cat into your bedroom?

Anyroad...

Weather. Not actually the weather, but weather news, forecasts, whatever. All the time. For ages. On any news programme or channel or whatever.

It irks me somewhat.

How can you have one consecutive exclamation mark??!!?

TonTon wrote:
Anyroad...

Weather. Not actually the weather, but weather news, forecasts, whatever. All the time. For ages. On any news programme or channel or whatever.

It irks me somewhat.
Ambiguous weather forecasts that leave you with no more idea of what the near future holds, weatherwise, than before.
"A chance of rain, with possible sunny spells and maybe some windy spells."
That's not really any help is it.
Also the BBC filling the nation with panic by issuing flood warnings when there's a bit of rain due, or hurricane alerts for wind. They've done this ever since Michael Fish dismissed talk of a hurricane back in 1987 and it just smacks of corporate arse-covering.

Rain that comes in "pulses" or "spits and spots."

Weather people who give an emotional forecast - don't bloody sympathise with me because it's raining, just give me the facts, Jack, just the facts.