Jump to content
House Price Crash Forum

Inconsequential Things That Annoy Me Intensely


Guest

Recommended Posts

0
HOLA441

I'm intrigued... please elaborate.

penguinpolarbear.jpg

PS>>>>>

During the 1982 Falklands war British pilots reported that penguins toppled over backward while gazing at the planes. British navy pilots were then banned from flying low over penguin colonies. It led to a UK government study of the penguin-toppling effect. For seventeen days two helicopters were flown from varying directions and heights over the penguins. The result?

It’s official: penguins do not topple over while gazing at airplanes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 2k
  • Created
  • Last Reply
1
HOLA442
2
HOLA443

Gardens in supposedly faithful period dramas stuffed full of things that clearly come from a later era such as Rhododendrons appearing in Tudor England or herbaceous borders mysteriously transported back from late Victorian Britain to the time of Jane Austen. What is the point of getting the costumes and the houses right in a production but then getting these things wrong. You may as well have Henry VIII driving around in a Ferrari or Mr Darcy taking calls on his mobile phone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3
HOLA444
4
HOLA445

People who stand on the left on London Underground escalators, who then tut and grumble when you ask them to move - despite the hundreds of signs saying "Stand on the right".

People who stand staring vacantly at Oyster Card machines, trying to figure out how they work, as a massive queue builds up behind them

People who walk onto Underground platforms and then stop, looking around aimlessly, so no-one else can get on without shoving them out the way

Basically people should have to go on a training course before being allowed on the Underground. Either that, or I need to calm down a bit!

People in London who think the whole f*cking world use Oyster cards every day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5
HOLA446
6
HOLA447
7
HOLA448
8
HOLA449

People who stand on the left on London Underground escalators, who then tut and grumble when you ask them to move - despite the hundreds of signs saying "Stand on the right".

People who stand staring vacantly at Oyster Card machines, trying to figure out how they work, as a massive queue builds up behind them

People who walk onto Underground platforms and then stop, looking around aimlessly, so no-one else can get on without shoving them out the way

Basically people should have to go on a training course before being allowed on the Underground. Either that, or I need to calm down a bit!

Or even worse, people who stop dead after stepping off an escalator leaving you to do a little dance trying to manoeuvre around them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9
HOLA4410

All the elderly women in my family nailing up spikey Christmas decorations comfortably above their head height, but in the face of everyone over 5'6".

I'm looking forward to Christmas, and also after Christmas when I can stop having to remember to lean backwards whenever I approach a door.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10
HOLA4411
11
HOLA4412
12
HOLA4413
13
HOLA4414
14
HOLA4415
15
HOLA4416

Does Oyster track the holder's movements around London? I expect you will have to log on everytime you use a bus soon, using facebook to login to your Oyster account.

Go on, have a guess...

Met thumbed through Oyster card data up to 22,000 times in 4 years

You can try and use an unregistered PAYG card but London Underground tries all sorts of little wheezes to get you to register it. The appetite to track is clearly manifest.

And if you ever top up an unregistered card with a debit card rather than cash, it's nailed down good and proper.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16
HOLA4417

Whenever the subject of life's little annoyances comes up I like to reflect on the first century stoic philosophy of Epictetus...

When you are about to undertake some action, remind yourself what sort of action it is. If you are going out for a bath, put before your mind what commonly happens at the baths: some people splashing you, some people jostling, others being abusive, and others stealing. So you will undertake this action more securely if you say to yourself, 'I want to have a bath and also to keep my choice in harmony with nature.' And do likewise in everything you undertake. So, if anything gets in your way when you are having your bath, you will be ready to say, 'I wanted not only to have a bath but also to keep my choice in harmony with nature; and I shall not keep it so if I get angry at what happens.' (Handbook 4, trans. Hard)

Whether Epictetus' philosophy can withstand the challenge of a weekend Lidl shop, I'm not sure. I keep trying though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17
HOLA4418

Gardens in supposedly faithful period dramas stuffed full of things that clearly come from a later era such as Rhododendrons appearing in Tudor England or herbaceous borders mysteriously transported back from late Victorian Britain to the time of Jane Austen. What is the point of getting the costumes and the houses right in a production but then getting these things wrong. You may as well have Henry VIII driving around in a Ferrari or Mr Darcy taking calls on his mobile phone.

People in dramas set decades ago saying things they just wouldn't have, e.g. someone upper-crusty saying, 'It looks LIKE she's not coming,' instead of AS IF. Drives me mad. Not to mention a minor aristo in some period drama saying, '...if she fell pregnant...' instead of '...if she were to have a child/baby...'

Don't know whether the writers are just clueless (probably, a degree in English doesn't guarantee anything nowadays) or patronisingly think they have to dumb down in order for the poor little proles to understand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18
HOLA4419

People in dramas set decades ago saying things they just wouldn't have, e.g. someone upper-crusty saying, 'It looks LIKE she's not coming,' instead of AS IF. Drives me mad. Not to mention a minor aristo in some period drama saying, '...if she fell pregnant...' instead of '...if she were to have a child/baby...'

Don't know whether the writers are just clueless (probably, a degree in English doesn't guarantee anything nowadays) or patronisingly think they have to dumb down in order for the poor little proles to understand.

Aaagh.

You have touched on another of my pet hates.

These modernisations are possibly excusable in Tudor period drama when people had vocabulary and manners of speech that modern people might not understand but this should not apply to productions supposedly set in the 20th century. There has been a real spate of these recently with all the dramas set around the Great War where many characters use words and terms that did not come into usage until the Second World War . It is as if the writers who grew up on films about the latter conflict could not be ars*d to research the former properly so just assumed that the words and phrases used in one could be applied to the other . Needless to say Downton Abbey is a top scorer in that area though to be fair it is just a high class period soap designed to be about as realistic as Harry Potter.

http://sappingattention.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/making-downton-more-traditional.html

My real bugbear is dramatisations of novels from the past where the original author has often given the character appropriate lines to speak but the screenplay writer can not resist the attempt to 'improve' them by adding jarring modern phrases.

I assume they think we are all stupid and that any old crap will do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19
HOLA4420
20
HOLA4421
21
HOLA4422
22
HOLA4423

Aaagh.

You have touched on another of my pet hates.

These modernisations are possibly excusable in Tudor period drama when people had vocabulary and manners of speech that modern people might not understand but this should not apply to productions supposedly set in the 20th century. There has been a real spate of these recently with all the dramas set around the Great War where many characters use words and terms that did not come into usage until the Second World War . It is as if the writers who grew up on films about the latter conflict could not be ars*d to research the former properly so just assumed that the words and phrases used in one could be applied to the other . Needless to say Downton Abbey is a top scorer in that area though to be fair it is just a high class period soap designed to be about as realistic as Harry Potter.

http://sappingattention.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/making-downton-more-traditional.html

My real bugbear is dramatisations of novels from the past where the original author has often given the character appropriate lines to speak but the screenplay writer can not resist the attempt to 'improve' them by adding jarring modern phrases.

I assume they think we are all stupid and that any old crap will do.

A 1929 film version of The Taming of the Shrew (which has the writing credit: "By William Shakespeare, with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor"), opens one scene with:

PETRUCHIO: "Howdy Kate."

KATE: "Katherine to you, mug."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23
HOLA4424

People in dramas set decades ago saying things they just wouldn't have, e.g. someone upper-crusty saying, 'It looks LIKE she's not coming,' instead of AS IF. Drives me mad. Not to mention a minor aristo in some period drama saying, '...if she fell pregnant...' instead of '...if she were to have a child/baby...'

Don't know whether the writers are just clueless (probably, a degree in English doesn't guarantee anything nowadays) or patronisingly think they have to dumb down in order for the poor little proles to understand.

Oh, and another one: The guy in Back to the Future in the 1950s drives a DeLorean. They weren't made until the 1980's FFS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24
HOLA4425

penguinpolarbear.jpg

PS>>>>>

During the 1982 Falklands war British pilots reported that penguins toppled over backward while gazing at the planes. British navy pilots were then banned from flying low over penguin colonies. It led to a UK government study of the penguin-toppling effect. For seventeen days two helicopters were flown from varying directions and heights over the penguins. The result?

Its official: penguins do not topple over while gazing at airplanes.

The Falklands are in the southern hemisphere as per my op

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.




×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information