The exterminator company that is used by my apartment building's management company. Today I specially took a day off work to be here and have my apartment sprayed, I had an appointment from the exterminator and everything. They never showed, and when I called the exterminator company to complain, I was told that they were in the building and would be here shortly. They never showed. I have e-mailed the building management company to complain, but nothing is going to get back the day I lost today.
Small against other annoyances, but: people who wait until they're at the head of the express lane before they ask for help locating a product.
I left my small basket, but now I have to go to Safeway. Grrr.
It's amazing the number of Mercedes-Benzes and Lexuses (Lexae?) that apparently don't come with them.
Lexi, surely? 2nd declension?
TICTH the Skoda driver who followed me back from Curbar Edge; any closer and he'd have been in the boot. Especially when I committed the Three Great Sins - Obeying The Speed Limit, Driving At A Speed Whereby I Could Stop In The Space I Could See To Be Clear and Waiting For A Safe Space Before Overtaking Cyclists. All guaranteed to annoy idiots following.
Indeed. The bigger and pushier the car, the smaller the willy.
As regards tailgating, the best thing to do is NOT to increase your own speed (which might result in you exceeding the speed limit), but to gently decrease your speed, if necessary changing down a gear.
People Who Talk During Performances - why do they think a play needs a running commentary? Do they think they are inaudible? or do they just see the theatre as an extension of their sitting room? Either way, grrrrrrrr
People Who Talk During Performances - why do they think a play needs a running commentary? Do they think they are inaudible? or do they just see the theatre as an extension of their sitting room? Either way, grrrrrrrr
Mrs. S, fuming
The world is on telly and nobody but them actually exists. Or they literally cannot refrain from uttering every thought that comes into their heads. Or both. Try telling them to shut up and then you can spend the rest of the evening listening to them complain about how rude and selfish you are.
I find people who go to the opera and talk through the instrumental-only portions particularly annoying. It's as though they don't think it's really a part of the performance unless there's singing.
People who talk through any performance are infuriating. I didn't pay to hear their boring comments while someone is pouring out their heart and soul in performance <grrrrr>
Genuinely I think some of them have no idea how audible and hence annoying they are! I went to an amazing performance (masked, mime) by Trestle Theatre, back in the days when they did mask/mime, and the kid behind me was explaining it all to his girlfriend - till I turned round and hissed 'This is mime - it does not require a voice-over!' He was really apologetic about upsetting me.
Last night's old dears, on the other hand, ignored my patented version of Paddington's Hard Stare...
Mrs. S, old, crotchety, not putting up with it any more
Indeed. The bigger and pushier the car, the smaller the willy.
As regards tailgating, the best thing to do is NOT to increase your own speed (which might result in you exceeding the speed limit), but to gently decrease your speed, if necessary changing down a gear.
The Idiot Tailgater will quickly get the message.
IJ
I had to replace my dashcam because it wasn't up to the job, leaving me with a spare - which I have attached to the rear window. I have experienced less tailgating since! They are not to know that it is signalling to me that it isn't recording because it has filled the card and forgotten it is supposed to overwrite stuff.
Way back in the sixties my brother made a Beach Buggy (yes, during the winter, in London) and added a switch to the brake lights so that he could flash them on, without touching the brakes.
It's amazing the number of Mercedes-Benzes and Lexuses (Lexae?) that apparently don't come with them.
My Mercedes has indicators and I use them.
But there seem to be people who think that the selling price of their vehicle will be improved if the indicators still have their factory-fitted lamps; the same people know that all other road users have ESP and can divine that they are going to turn, and which way.
Cyclists. Cyclists on country lanes riding three abreast. Cyclists riding on the wrong side of the road. Cyclists suddenly turning in front of us (without signalling, of course) from a turning lane.
Oh, forgot to add, the cyclist riding down the road instead of the cycle lane.
MMM
This is entirely legal and, given what many cycling facilities are like (this one even encourages cyclists onto the wrong side of the road), often entirely reasonable.
I don't know what the term is in your part of the world, but if you search for 'fly-tipping' (the UK term) in Wikipedia, the page to which you get redirected is entitled 'illegal dumping'.
TICTH potential employers who don't have the manners to tell you your interview was unsuccessful, and you find out over two months later when the posting disappears from their web-site, having been listed as "in the selection process" (as opposed to "filled") for eight weeks.
Especially as they told you at the interview that they'd let you know the following week.
Shubenacadie, this was a dedicated path separated from the road by a kerb, on the correct side of the road. Other cyclists were using it but this one was clearly too important.
Shubenacadie, this was a dedicated path separated from the road by a kerb, on the correct side of the road. Other cyclists were using it but this one was clearly too important.
MMM
There are plenty of such lanes I won't use. If it requires giving way at every side road or dumps the rider in a difficult situation at the next main junction, for example, I stick to the main carriageway. It's safer and way faster. Much cycle infrastructure is provided for less confident cyclists and is unsuitable for fast confident riders.
When the cycling infrastructure is designed to benefit cyclists I use it. When it's designed to benefit motorists too important to slow down for thirty seconds, sod 'em, I don't use it.
About 10% of UK cycle infrastructure is in the first category. At best.
So you don't mind holding others up, so long as you don't have to get held up by giving way at side roads. Yep, 'sod 'em' seems to cover it.
This was in the context of going through a small town, after driving through windy country lanes, where (as per my other post), we'd had cyclists - and I mean perhaps -what? Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five groups, sometimes of eight or ten, frequently riding three abreast, sometimes on the wrong side of the road, frequently moving out suddenly without signalling and once turning in front of us, without signalling, from a turning lane, on a roundabout.
This wasn't an organised run or anything, just a normal Sunday morning, like we get every Sunday trying to go to church (although we were going further than our usual route). It's much worse when there's a run, it is not unknown for people not to be able to get out of the house because the road is closed.
I admit that I'm probably jaundiced by trying to walk around London and have the temerity to be expect to be able to cross the road without cyclists breaking the lights, or cycling on the wrong side of the road.
How long do you get held up? Ten seconds? Twenty? A minute? Sure, I'll double my journey time, have my tyres cut to shreds by all the shit that gets swept onto cycle lanes and risk being taken out by turning traffic at side roads to save you that indignity.
Or get a bike yourself. Then you might actually get the first clue what you're talking about.
Additional - you speak of being jaundiced, but What I will not do is be bullied off the roads by motorists who think that they have a superior right to the roads. I spend hours in car and bike being held up - nearly always by motor traffic. Yet get cast as the villain. In the last month I've been called a cunt, a fucker and a scag by people in cars, had water thrown at me, regularly close passed by arrogant tossers for cycling, but I do not and will not give in to bullies with an engine and a superiority complex.
Well, yes - and I've witnessed unoffending cyclists being treated as KarlLB describes. Shame and Double-shame on those who behave in such ways...
...but, alas, some cyclists do seem to treat the Rules Of The Road with contempt (especially in the matter of ignoring traffic lights). In this area, some of the cycle lanes seem unnecessarily complicated in layout (maybe just a few yards long, but still elaborately signed and marked), so I can quite understand cyclists perhaps obeying the spirit rather than the letter!
I Am Not A Cyclist*, but I do try to look out for those who are, and to give them room to manoeuvre. If I happen to come up behind a group of cyclists (not unknown on a Sunday morning), I hold back behind them until either they or I have to turn off, or until, of course, it becomes safe to overtake them.
IJ
*I did think of buying a bike a year or so ago, when I wasn't able to drive, but I live at the bottom of a Very Steep Hill.
The other group treated with contempt by cyclists are pedestrians. I'm fed up of nearly being flattened by cyclists who haven't noticed that they are in a city centre, not a velodrome. To hell with them - preferably on a treadmill to which they are eternally chained.
The connection which springs to mind with immediately previous posts is the treatment of cycle lanes, footpaths and indeterminate spaces as spaces for cycling in whatever way the cyclist chooses.
This could be more Hellish than All Saintsish but TICTH the utter morons who have been caught on camera setting more fires alight in the area of Winter Hill where wildfires are burning. Why the f--- would anyone want to do that?!
One of our local printers who refuses to use the correct hymn book when producing orders of service for weddings and funerals, despite our (a) having told him numerous times which one we use, and (b) provided him with a free copy.
Why does it matter? Well, as yesterday's funeral showed, it is unnerving if the mourners are trying to sing Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather
while the choir - thoughtfully not provided with service sheets - sang from the hymn book He who would valiant be
’gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy
follow the Master.
In fact yesterday's effort was particularly good - they even got the name of the church wrong, the time of the service was incorrect, and it listed the wrong hospital department for donations ...
Our wedding Order of Service omitted the word "Benediction." When my mother handed in the order that the North East Man and I had written out, the printer and my mother agreed that there shouldn't be any "Catholic-sounding" words in a Protestant Order of Service and so they deleted it. (I suspect it was mostly my mother as I can't believe the printer cared.)
We didn't find out till they were back from the printer and it was a done deal.
(Where's the head-against-the-wall emoticon when you need it?)
I hope that the funeral family TheOrganist refers to above will suitably penalise that egregious printer by simply not paying...or, if it's too late for that, by alerting the local newspaper to the complete co*k-up.
That's all very well, BF, as long as he doesn't print the paper as well ...
We had a similar cock-up at a funeral this afternoon - one of the hymns was from the "old" book (which we don't use, sadly), and D. set it up for the choir. It wasn't until we were waiting to go in that someone noticed that the words of the last verse were different on the service order. At least at that point we were singing in unison, so we only needed the words.
I suppose with so many versions on the Interweb, that sort of thing is bound to happen sometimes.
Comments
I left my small basket, but now I have to go to Safeway. Grrr.
Ahh-men, GI. (How much effort does it really take to use a turn signal?)
IJ
Lexi, surely? 2nd declension?
TICTH the Skoda driver who followed me back from Curbar Edge; any closer and he'd have been in the boot. Especially when I committed the Three Great Sins - Obeying The Speed Limit, Driving At A Speed Whereby I Could Stop In The Space I Could See To Be Clear and Waiting For A Safe Space Before Overtaking Cyclists. All guaranteed to annoy idiots following.
Audis are worse. Well, driven by bigger knobs. With, one traditionally suspects, small knobs.
As regards tailgating, the best thing to do is NOT to increase your own speed (which might result in you exceeding the speed limit), but to gently decrease your speed, if necessary changing down a gear.
The Idiot Tailgater will quickly get the message.
IJ
Mrs. S, fuming
Willies or turn signals?
Oh I would think both.
The world is on telly and nobody but them actually exists. Or they literally cannot refrain from uttering every thought that comes into their heads. Or both. Try telling them to shut up and then you can spend the rest of the evening listening to them complain about how rude and selfish you are.
Genuinely I think some of them have no idea how audible and hence annoying they are! I went to an amazing performance (masked, mime) by Trestle Theatre, back in the days when they did mask/mime, and the kid behind me was explaining it all to his girlfriend - till I turned round and hissed 'This is mime - it does not require a voice-over!' He was really apologetic about upsetting me.
Last night's old dears, on the other hand, ignored my patented version of Paddington's Hard Stare...
Mrs. S, old, crotchety, not putting up with it any more
I had to replace my dashcam because it wasn't up to the job, leaving me with a spare - which I have attached to the rear window. I have experienced less tailgating since! They are not to know that it is signalling to me that it isn't recording because it has filled the card and forgotten it is supposed to overwrite stuff.
My Mercedes has indicators and I use them.
But there seem to be people who think that the selling price of their vehicle will be improved if the indicators still have their factory-fitted lamps; the same people know that all other road users have ESP and can divine that they are going to turn, and which way.
MMM
MMM
I guess they're worried that their graves might be cold before they get to them...
IJ
The two morons (and assaulters) in paragraph 2 of this story:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44674112
Over the lack of bloody plastic bags, or needing to pay for them. We are truly savages.
This is entirely legal and, given what many cycling facilities are like (this one even encourages cyclists onto the wrong side of the road), often entirely reasonable.
I don't know what the term is in your part of the world, but if you search for 'fly-tipping' (the UK term) in Wikipedia, the page to which you get redirected is entitled 'illegal dumping'.
TICTH potential employers who don't have the manners to tell you your interview was unsuccessful, and you find out over two months later when the posting disappears from their web-site, having been listed as "in the selection process" (as opposed to "filled") for eight weeks.
Especially as they told you at the interview that they'd let you know the following week.
Shubenacadie, this was a dedicated path separated from the road by a kerb, on the correct side of the road. Other cyclists were using it but this one was clearly too important.
MMM
IJ
There are plenty of such lanes I won't use. If it requires giving way at every side road or dumps the rider in a difficult situation at the next main junction, for example, I stick to the main carriageway. It's safer and way faster. Much cycle infrastructure is provided for less confident cyclists and is unsuitable for fast confident riders.
When the cycling infrastructure is designed to benefit cyclists I use it. When it's designed to benefit motorists too important to slow down for thirty seconds, sod 'em, I don't use it.
About 10% of UK cycle infrastructure is in the first category. At best.
This was in the context of going through a small town, after driving through windy country lanes, where (as per my other post), we'd had cyclists - and I mean perhaps -what? Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five groups, sometimes of eight or ten, frequently riding three abreast, sometimes on the wrong side of the road, frequently moving out suddenly without signalling and once turning in front of us, without signalling, from a turning lane, on a roundabout.
This wasn't an organised run or anything, just a normal Sunday morning, like we get every Sunday trying to go to church (although we were going further than our usual route). It's much worse when there's a run, it is not unknown for people not to be able to get out of the house because the road is closed.
I admit that I'm probably jaundiced by trying to walk around London and have the temerity to be expect to be able to cross the road without cyclists breaking the lights, or cycling on the wrong side of the road.
MMM
Or get a bike yourself. Then you might actually get the first clue what you're talking about.
...but, alas, some cyclists do seem to treat the Rules Of The Road with contempt (especially in the matter of ignoring traffic lights). In this area, some of the cycle lanes seem unnecessarily complicated in layout (maybe just a few yards long, but still elaborately signed and marked), so I can quite understand cyclists perhaps obeying the spirit rather than the letter!
I Am Not A Cyclist*, but I do try to look out for those who are, and to give them room to manoeuvre. If I happen to come up behind a group of cyclists (not unknown on a Sunday morning), I hold back behind them until either they or I have to turn off, or until, of course, it becomes safe to overtake them.
IJ
*I did think of buying a bike a year or so ago, when I wasn't able to drive, but I live at the bottom of a Very Steep Hill.
The connection which springs to mind with immediately previous posts is the treatment of cycle lanes, footpaths and indeterminate spaces as spaces for cycling in whatever way the cyclist chooses.
Why, of all the plants on this planet, do they have to eat LILIES! Why not dandelions, or nettles, or any of the weeds that abound?
And more to the point, why do they have to eat MY LILIES?!
Mrs. S, livid
And the tastiest.
A pox on them. The beetles that is; not your lilies.
Why does it matter? Well, as yesterday's funeral showed, it is unnerving if the mourners are trying to sing
Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather
while the choir - thoughtfully not provided with service sheets - sang from the hymn book
He who would valiant be
’gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy
follow the Master.
In fact yesterday's effort was particularly good - they even got the name of the church wrong, the time of the service was incorrect, and it listed the wrong hospital department for donations ...
We didn't find out till they were back from the printer and it was a done deal.
(Where's the head-against-the-wall emoticon when you need it?)
IJ
We had a similar cock-up at a funeral this afternoon - one of the hymns was from the "old" book (which we don't use, sadly), and D. set it up for the choir. It wasn't until we were waiting to go in that someone noticed that the words of the last verse were different on the service order. At least at that point we were singing in unison, so we only needed the words.
I suppose with so many versions on the Interweb, that sort of thing is bound to happen sometimes.