We have listed our phobias, good reading, I am more into pet hates, I suppose my main one is the person who fills up the car in a 4 pump petrol station, enters shop and then proceeds to wander around doing (usually her-sorry gals) shopping, leaving frustrated petrol punters, gnashing their teeth and playing a drum solo on the dash due to the inability to get anywhere near the said pumps. Closely following the above is what I suppose is now classed as old hat, where they originated from, I do not know, at one time I was tempted to list all the ones I heard and put them in a book freely availible in meeting rooms. Everyone has heard them, admit if you use them!!, talking about the "Put it on the Back Burner" aaaaggggghh fad Attending a Buster Keaton (meeting) last week and this guy, face set like stone, chairing it, came out with the latest, OK people-lets cut to the chase, Cynical auld git that I am replies "Bring on the empty horses", quality lead ballon time for the Buff, humourless gits. Finally when did the word absolutely came into so much prominence, it seems to be the stock answer to any question, bah.

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2000

Answers

Ooh - where to begin Buff! Right, on an ascending scale:

Packaging! (shrink wrapped things, milk cartons, packets of biscuits that go stale because you can re-wrap them properly)

Eurosport! Complete with adverts in the middle of a motorcyle race, tennis match etc.

Gas men, telephone repair men etc., who can`t tell you what time they will be arriving and assume you can sit around all day waiting for them!

People who don`t clean up after their dogs!

Bad Manners!

and joint top of the list:

Cruelty to children, especially by their parents. I can`t imagine anything worse than being truly afraid of your parents. Not to have that basic security must be like having the ground turn to water under your feet. AND

Cruelty to animals. Can`t discuss that further - it makes my blood boil too much!

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2000

1) The sort of male who, after a female has left the room, feels free to turn to you and discuss her physical appearance.

2) Snobbery.

3) Britrock: bland warmed-up left overs, ridden by nostalgia and sentimentality.

4) British Tabloid Journalism.

5) Sunderland AFC.

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2000

Absolutely Buff!! WRT to the petrol station, that is really the fault of the owners/designers. They (usually) insist that you pay befre moving the car. So, if you also want to buy some other goodies, then the car just has to stay parked (but make sure its locked!).

As for (ab)use of the English language, the one thing above all else that our American colleagues (sorry Ciara) have done which p*ss*s me off more than anything else is the word "leverage". Nowt wrong as a noun but as a bliddy verb.......arrggghhhh! They do it many times (let's "solution" this - yuk) but leverage is the first I came across and the one I shall detest to the grave.

Mind if I take a raincheck on the rest of this??

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2000

Just about any form of corporate speak makes me insane. One of the biggest offenders being "proactive". What's worse is when I find myself using these awful words! *ptuh*

Florida drivers who do not understand the left lane on a highway is the FAST lane. i.e. at least do the speed limit if not 5-10 mph faster! Argh! They were everywhere during my trip.

People who don't use turn signals or turn them on after they've already begun their turn, or who leave them running for miles and miles.

Stadiums not allowing you to carry in plastic water bottles on hot days(claiming people might throw them) inspite of the fact that they sell the very same plastic water bottles inside! Just admit you don't let them in cause you want the sales! sheesh.

I'll stop there, I could go on for days. ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2000

My biggest pet hate has to be people, mainly news reporters who say...."it is almost exactly a years ago......

It is either almost or it is exact.....IT CAN NOT be both.......B@ST@RDS

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2000

well thats better out than in.........

sorry about the font change there people.

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2000

being interupted in mid-conversation

condescension (for those of you who don't know what this means I'll explain in very simple terms some other time, when you prbably haven't had quite so much to drink)

hypocrisy (this is often a difficult one, when a great love like your kids or NUFC need defended when they have doen something not quite right)

Microsoft Outlook not realising I meant to click to close a particular document rather than the whole program

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2000

An implacable loathing of the advertising 'industry'.

Assoles who turn 'w' into 'rr' - 'droRRing' instead of'draWing'.

'I' when it should be 'me', 'me' when it should be 'I'.

And 100% on Buffs's side re buzz words.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Aahh yes Screach. The Americanization of our language.

The old catch phrase: "There is no noun that we can not verb".

Oh and Buff, I agree absolutely ;-))

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

people driving in the middle lane of the motorway at 65-70 when theres no one in sight for miles . Inverse racialism , and mobile phones on trains .. ' hi im just on the train ' these people have nowt else better to do with their lives .

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

People saying kilometres with a short 'o' sound. They don't do it for kilograms, millimetres, centimetres etc, so why kilometres?!?!? It's even acceptable in the dictionary now through common usage....doesn't make it right. That and the inability to pronounce David Coulthard's name properly. It's pronounced exactly how it's written, why did they change it in the first place?!?!?

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

In the bar:
Warm bottles in the cooler, do they keep forgetting how many they sell on a weekly basis & barmaids who argue about what you asked for, despite walking away before you've finished order. Blokes who think it's alright to jump the queue by getting their mate at the front to get their 7 pints of guiness for them. People who piss on the walls/floor/wash basin/toilet seat.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

People who have no respect for your property/possessions and get shirty when you ask them to take care with them. They always say something like ... 'I wouldn't mind if you did it with my things'...clearly missing the point that people like that never have possessions etc you'd want to go near

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

1) Linguistic Giddy use of exclamation marks. The "you're"/"your" thing. People saying things like "Currently, at the present moment in time, I have in my possesion..." (ie. "I now have"). 2) Other Rudeness and blaming the wrong people (eg. tube cleaners when the underground is f....d)

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Margaret Thatcher. Already booked the coach to go and dance on her grave. Possibly the only valid reason for believing in old-style heaven and hell --- you just know she's going straight down.

Apostrophes. Simple rule but why do people get it wrong? In particular people who add an apostrophe into a plural; potato's anyone?

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

I hate being in a taxi when the other people I'm with talk and act as if the driver doesn't exist. I find it embarrassing.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Mind you, taxi drivers who thrust their banal conversation on you can be just as bad.

I like the middle ground on this one. Silent respect.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Oh yes....Thank you Dunx!!

I'd been following this thread but not thought I had any hates to add...being the mellow normal person that I am ;))however.......

Maggie....DEFINTIELY want to dance on her grave, I used to dream about assassinating her when I was a kid (I am NOT joking!)....I saw so many lives destroyed by what she did to coal mining in the region, I know all the reasons/excuses for it and am not prepared to get into a debate about it, I just want her dead....

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Sorry Dougal!!

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Book me a seat on the coach Dunx!

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Geordies who attempt to hide their accents and lamentably fail.
Weather forecasters- all of them.
Nicholas Witchell - just want to slap him hard.


-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

True
The funniest one along those lines is 'ganning'.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

The mayor of South Shields asking king George V's wife 'And how's his majesty keeping ?' and then telling George to 'Mind the clarts your majesty'.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Why would any Geordie want to hide his/her accent. It's what sets us apart from the rest of the them, something to be proud of. Having travelled some I can't think of anything which makes me prouder than for someone (a stranger) to ask me what part of Newcastle I am from. Brilliant. Pet hates, people that write checks in grocery stores for tiny sums of money, and it always happens in my line, always without fail. People that walk really slowly, coz they always do it in front of me, drives me nuts. Although one redeeming feature of the human race is that you do come across a nice person every now and again. I was in my local store on Sunday looking for a nice bottle of wine for dinner and this old man comes up to me with a bottle of wine and asks me if I had tried this one, he shows me a bottle of wine. I said I hadn't and he gives me a recommendation, just a nice gesture. I then go and pay for it and get stuck behind some twat writing a check for like seven dollars. Give me strength.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Aye, those bloody people that lurch out of shop doorways in front of you with that 'out of my way this is my space' attitude and then stop dead as they try to get their bearings. Inevitably there will be at least 4 of them, they will be overweight and they will insist on walking line abreast. When I had to negotiate Canterbury High Street twice daily, knee deep in tourists all walking infuriatingly slowly in a weaving pattern, I seriously considered carrying a weed strimmer and slicing through the tendons of anyone who dawdled in front of me. It was like swimming; really hard work getting from A to B. Oddly enough this effect was markedly lessened at weekends when wearing a Toon shirt seemed to have much the same effect as Moses on large bodies of saltwater.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Softie; you're dead right. Folk who stand at the bottom of escalators figuring out what they're going to do next. I've taken to carrying a cattle prod whenever I'm forced to go to the Metro Centre.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

People who pay in pubs with effing credit/debits cards....just to slow down the already tortoise related bar staff even more....

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

God, I remember Canterbury High street from when I lived there. Full of frogs - all with hair sprayed luminous green - taking over all the pavements. You used to just push them out of the way. Seems rude now, but it was understandable at the time

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

People who get off escalators and then stop are the worst. Everybody else just piles into them as there is nowhere else to go.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

My current, number one, pet hate is this great fat sow who gets on the Metro every morning. She's one of this army of f*ckwits for whom hundreds of prominently placed 'No Smoking' signs simply aren't good enough to stop her blowing clouds of noxious smoke all over you. She has a face like a bulldog licking p*ss off a nettle and scowls at everyone, clearly feeling that carrying around 8 extra stone is due to her glands playing up and not cake-retention at all. She compounds her crimes by then sitting across two seats with her great, fat arse and coughs revoltingly all the way into SJP. The thought of placing her hand over her mouth is obviously too much to hope for as it would necessitate her lifting the pendulous, great folds of lard hanging from her arms to do so. Instead, she opens her mouth wide, sticks out a bent, yellow tongue and hacks great phlegmy coughs up without the slightest consideration for anyone else.

I vary my travel times to avoid her and everything, but there she is, waddling onto the platform every morning. I've got a horrible feeling that she has mistaken my looks of horror for lust and waits until I get to the station before heaving herself through the front door, her struggling heart hammering that little bit faster through the layers of cholsterol, as she races to return the gaze of that man who keeps staring at her in the mornings. Eeeecgh!!!

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Don't remind me Beardo: hair spray, silly string and whoopee cushions. They even brought in a by-law to stop them selling the silly string as it was everywhere. Them and Crusties....dozens of them!

My flatmate came out with one of the single, funniest, spur of the moment things I've ever heard. A crusty (who drank in our local - cheeky bastard!) asked us if we had any spare change, at which David said: "Change is as good as a rest, and you're getting quite enough rest as it is already!" Ha ha ha ha!

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Dog shit on pavements/beach/grass etc.. It's one of the reasons I will never again live in Newcastle/North Tyneside!

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

That woman sounds horrid, Softie, but your description's got me just about on the floor in hysterics!

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Middle aged women in Japan/Really Bad drivers (Japanese especially)/People who complain about nothing/Agree with Geordie as to dog shit/To a certain extent Japan. Oh God you've got me started now!

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Hey Softie, your being stalked! Sounds like a nice lass mind.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Softie,

Try carrying a bag of "Home Pride" with you tomorrow, wink at her seductively and then tell us all what happens....

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

People who go up/down one floor in lifts instead of using the stairs. Makes me want to stab them.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

This thread is really showing us up for what we are :)) a bunch of frustrated psychopaths ;))

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

When you get nicked and the police put the handcuffs on too tight, that really pisses me off no end. And then the bastards act like you've done something wrong

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000

Ahh Syme I've got to agree with you there....I've been handcuffed more than once in my life but have NEVER been charged with ANYTHING.....should be the other way round cos I've even managed to get battered off the old bill a few times!! once for protesting that they'd only lifted me cos I was black and they were all right wing facists....

I was VERY VERY drunk at the time...

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2000