Comedic "things you would ban": minor things that irritate you

[island]

People who cite the GDPR as prohibiting something which it does not prohibit.

 

[riceuten]

People who insist you need a Latin GCSE to be able to study Medicine or Law. The local pretend grammar school started teaching this last year, and this was the excuse given.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Mr Whippy "ice-cream". No explanation required.

Why not? Yes, I know it's possibly the ice cream equivalent of an "Aero" bar (i.e. full of air) but there's a lot worse to be had out there, isn't there?!

 

[birchesgreen]

No ice cream should be in this thread sorry, the concept of ice cream being banned is beyond science fiction.

 

[xotGD]

People changing their names when they get married.

Especially those couples who create portmanteau names.

And those that double barrel them. What happens with the next generation? Four surnames after they wed? They'll sound like a firm of solicitors.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Why not? Yes, I know it's possibly the ice cream equivalent of an "Aero" bar (i.e. full of air) but there's a lot worse to be had out there, isn't there?!

Because it doesn't deserve to be called ice-cream. It's sugary gunge that shouldn't be consumed by anything with lungs and a backbone.

 

[scotrail158713]

No ice cream should be in this thread sorry, the concept of ice cream being banned is beyond science fiction.

Does Mr Whippy even qualify as ice cream?

 

[tbtc]

The speech pattern which I (and perhaps others) call "Welsh Emphasis". That is, the tendency of people particularly from West of Offa's Dyke to end any statement with a short clause that re-asserts the first part. For example, rather than saying "I like chocolate" they'll say "I like chocolate, I do"... as if I wasn't convinced by the first clause! It right bugs me, it does...

Yeah, that's an annoying one, that is!

You've reminded me of another peeve - people who say things like "I'm not going to lie" when they're talking about pretty bland/ mainstream/ straightforward things, e.g. "I'm not going to lie, I really like a Mars Bar", as if this was something controversial - I get that it's a bit of a verbal tic, in the way that people say things like "well, basically, obviously, the thing is...", but it seems a really odd thing to say when you're just talking about pretty unremarkable things ("I'm not going to lie, I watched the Olympics last night")

That's another one; news channels announcing anything and everything as "Breaking News", when it used to be reserved for the really big "sit up and pay attention" stories.

My Facebook feed seems full of "breaking" articles from three days ago, it's all a bit silly!

People who don't own Television sets but never b****y shut up about it! See also, people who think "not liking football" is a personality trait.

Yeah, you've reminded me of another one - I don't get why it's so important to tell people that you've never watched Game Of Thrones or whatever - it's not like the days when half the population would watch the same programme on telly - there are so many programmes out there that of course there are some people who've never watched Love Island etc

People who cite the GDPR as prohibiting something which it does not prohibit.

That's a bugbear of mine - people who hide behind restrictions that get a bad name because they are always trotted out as a reason not to do something - e.g. people blame "health and safety" for closing/ removing/ restricting something, when what they really mean is "we don't want to get sued", and the cost of one court claim is the real reason - e.g. you might have something at a station stopping passengers from doing something on the grounds of "health and safety" when really the TOC mean "if one person trips up here then we'll be facing tens of thousands of pounds in lawyers/ compensation, so it's safer just to put up a sign to tell people not to do something"

People do the same with Data Protection (as you say)/ environmental protections and other "red tape", but it's often more about "not wanting to get sued" than anything (the rules aren't stopping you doing it, but the fear of losing money does!)

 

[krus_aragon]

People changing their names when they get married.

Are you including e.g. the wife taking the husband's surname in this, or just where double-barreled surnames are fabricated by both parties?

(When I was engaged, I had a seriously open mind as to whether I would keep my surname per tradition, or not. Turns out my wife really disliked her existing surname, so we stuck to the traditional approach.)

 

[Paul Jones 88]

Dogs on railway carriage seats.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Contrived acronyms (for example ZEBRA as per a thread in the bus and coach section, PUFFIN crossings, almost every Stadler product).
Also, the pedants who will come along and tell me that if one started with the word and tried to make an acronym to fit, then it's a "backronym". See also previous entries about "clever/witty" portmanteaux.
Ebay listings with "LOOK" as part of the title of the listing. How the **** else do you think I'm going to interact with it, you imbecile? Extra idiot points if you've used eye emojis instead of Os, and if you've used more than two Os.

 

[Cowley]

August weather.

 

[py_megapixel]

News articles that just regurgitate Twitter discussions

 

[Strat-tastic]

That's another one; news channels announcing anything and everything as "Breaking News", when it used to be reserved for the really big "sit up and pay attention" stories.

I stopped taking it seriously when Nelson Mandela was in hospital.
BREAKING NEWS.......
Mandela's condition remains unchanged.

 

[riceuten]

Ebay listings with "LOOK" as part of the title of the listing. How the **** else do you think I'm going to interact with it, you imbecile? Extra idiot points if you've used eye emojis instead of Os, and if you've used more than two Os.

Local newspapers who allow advertiser to start ads with AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA so they can be the top listing

 

[Gloster]

Local newspapers who mark stories ‘Exclusive’. All it means is that the story is so unimportant that no other media outlet can be bothered with it. Like so many stories nowadays, it hasn’t been dug out by the endeavours of a journalist, but is just what somebody has ‘phoned in so they can show it to their friends and say, ‘That was me. I put that story in the paper’.

 

[Busaholic]

Does Mr Whippy even qualify as ice cream?

It wouldn't in any other country!


Any price advertised with the word 'only' in front. The price is invariably up in the stratosphere. Round my way there's a greengrocer that has price tags on everything with the word 'only' in front followed by !!! A dirty trick they play sometimes too is to price in lbs rather than kilos, so bananas look competitive with the supermarket at 78p, until you realise that's per lb.

 

[xotGD]

Are you including e.g. the wife taking the husband's surname in this

Absolutely.

Gets very confusing at work when you get an email from someone you've never heard of, and it turns out to be the same person who emailed you a couple of weeks earlier under a different name.

 

[Westcountryman]

A dirty trick they play sometimes too is to price in lbs rather than kilos, so bananas look competitive with the supermarket at 78p, until you realise that's per lb.

This is not only a dirty trick, it is actually illegal.

'Selling things only by the pound is illegal. Even large supermarket chains sometimes break these rules - as selling things by the pound make things seem cheaper than they are, because customers are used to seeing the price per Kg'

 

[Bevan Price]

People who let their pet cats wander into other peoples' gardens, stalking birds and/or leaving their poo.

 

[tbtc]

People who use a statistic and then use the breakdown within a particular area to try to make it sound even more impressive. I appreciate that this sounds like bit of a dry/niche moan, so let me give you an example:

"Protesters said that 60% of British supported the plan, including 80% of people in Scotland" << which means that, if average support in Britain was 60%, and the Scots had above average support then surely there are places where support was *below* average... but these kind of reports tend to first show the average figure and then quote a subsection that was above average (which only means that there are also places that are below average)

Once you start noticing it, it's surprising how often statistics are reported like this, e.g. "house prices rose by 5% in the UK last year, with the London increases reaching 10%" (i.e. a lot of places must have therefore had increases of below 5%, but that's not newsworthy, so you only focus on the fact that some things were above average and ignore the fact that this obviously means that some were below average)

Yeah, it's niche, but it bugs me the way that stats are reported like this - of course there are going to be some places above average and some below average, but by quoting only the national average and then one outlier, you skew the way that things are reported

 

[ABB125]

Inspired by trying (and failing) to find the radio unlock code for a Ford Transit, I'd like to add two more items:

• Car radios which need a code to unlock them. What utter **** came up with that idea? What's even the point of it? Literally the stupidest invention ever.
• Websites which claim to offers service for free, but then don't. For example, things like "freeradiocodes.com".

You have no idea how infuriating this combination is!

 

[Bald Rick]

People who let their pet cats wander into other peoples' gardens, stalking birds and/or leaving their poo.

I don’t think cat ‘owners’ have any say in the matter!

People who use a statistic and then use the breakdown within a particular area to try to make it sound even more impressive.

I think it’s absolutley disgraceful that 50% of all children achieve below average exam results.

 

[birchesgreen]

I don’t think cat ‘owners’ have any say in the matter!

They do, they don't have to let them out. My neighbour doesn't let their cat out.

 

[Meerkat]

Car radios which need a code to unlock them. What utter **** came up with that idea? What's even the point of it? Literally the stupidest invention ever.

Greatly reduces the point of nicking them

 

[Bald Rick]

They do, they don't have to let them out. My neighbour doesn't let their cat out.

We rarely ‘let’ our cat out. Doesn’t stop him.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

People who let their pet cats wander into other peoples' gardens, stalking birds and/or leaving their poo.

Anyone who has a cat will understand that it isn't a case of them "letting" the cat do so... the cat chooses to go there and there's very little the cat's owner human servant can do to stop them!

What you can do as the owner of the garden, is put orange or lemon peel near to where the cat enters. Cats usually aren't fans of the smell and will give the area a wide berth.

 

[Cowley]

What you can do as the owner of the garden, is put orange or lemon peel near to where the cat enters. Cats usually aren't fans of the smell and will give the area a wide berth.

Or a dog of course. Unfortunately they also produce a similar byproduct though…

 

[Meerkat]

Anyone who has a cat will understand that it isn't a case of them "letting" the cat do so... the cat chooses to go there and there's very little the cat's owner human servant can do to stop them!

What you can do as the owner of the garden, is put orange or lemon peel near to where the cat enters. Cats usually aren't fans of the smell and will give the area a wide berth.

Keep the cat indoors then, or just don’t keep cats.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

People who use a statistic and then use the breakdown within a particular area to try to make it sound even more impressive. I appreciate that this sounds like bit of a dry/niche moan, so let me give you an example:

"Protesters said that 60% of British supported the plan, including 80% of people in Scotland" << which means that, if average support in Britain was 60%, and the Scots had above average support then surely there are places where support was *below* average... but these kind of reports tend to first show the average figure and then quote a subsection that was above average (which only means that there are also places that are below average)

Once you start noticing it, it's surprising how often statistics are reported like this, e.g. "house prices rose by 5% in the UK last year, with the London increases reaching 10%" (i.e. a lot of places must have therefore had increases of below 5%, but that's not newsworthy, so you only focus on the fact that some things were above average and ignore the fact that this obviously means that some were below average)

Yeah, it's niche, but it bugs me the way that stats are reported like this - of course there are going to be some places above average and some below average, but by quoting only the national average and then one outlier, you skew the way that things are reported

That happens with life expectancy figures, both from history and from other parts of the world. If someone says something like "I'm 35, if I was a Roman soldier I'd be considered an old man" I have the urge to point out that no, they wouldn't. The difference, both between now and then or between Western Europe and Afghanistan, was premature deaths being more common due to disease, starvation, lack of medical science, and critically a much higher infant mortality rate. That's why the average lifespan in certain countries is so low- you won't get to 45 and drop dead of old age if you're otherwise healthy.