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

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Gloster

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One that I may have mentioned in some form before: adverts that pop up on YouTube with music that is totally inappropriate for the video. I have just had the worst one yet: immediately after Maria Callas had come to the end of One Fine Day, up came an advert with loud electronic rap-style music.
 
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Peter C

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I would ban Snapchat (social media platform) notifications. I've kept the app because I have friends who use it, but the incessant push notifications of just absolute drivel it gives me are ridiculous. I've just had one for 'The Diary of a CEO' podcast about aliens or some !£$*&. But there we go.

-Peter
 
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Gloster

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Black Friday. I know that it has been around in the US for forty or more years, being tied in with the fact that Thanksgiving is over, but we have only had it here for ten or fifteen years. It seems to have originated in this country with American based retailers wanting to make more money by pushing their ‘traditions’ onto us (like pumpkins*) in order to show that we all believe in the same thing. Worse, it is now spread over the best part of a week, supposedly in order to avoid causing a crush or chaos. So in order not to miss out millions of gullible idiots spend money that they haven’t got on things they don’t want.

* - No, thank you: I don’t.
 
Trainguy34

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Ive only got to the 20th, the work radio or the Christmas party always gets me. I gave up this year, still haven't heard it but not worth not listening to it.
 
bearhugger

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Peter C said:
I would ban Snapchat (social media platform) notifications. I've kept the app because I have friends who use it, but the incessant push notifications of just absolute drivel it gives me are ridiculous. I've just had one for 'The Diary of a CEO' podcast about aliens or some !£$*&. But there we go.

-Peter
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Have you considered blocking notifications for that app? Some apps let you choose what apps you want to see or block, IE see notifications from friends but block other types of notifications.
I find it irritating sometimes that you get "Because you listened to abcd here's wxyz on Spotify occasionally but the BBC Sounds app is worse.
 
Peter C

Peter C

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bearhugger said:
Have you considered blocking notifications for that app? Some apps let you choose what apps you want to see or block, IE see notifications from friends but block other types of notifications.
I find it irritating sometimes that you get "Because you listened to abcd here's wxyz on Spotify occasionally but the BBC Sounds app is worse.
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Yes I looked into that - unfortunately it was 'all or nothing' in terms of blocking them which doesn't do what I need. BBC Sounds and iPlayer are terrible for unnecessary notifications as well, I agree!

-Peter
 
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Gloster

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One that I see all too often and even in places (BBC, The Daily Telegraph, etc.) that should know better: the use of the word battleship to describe just about any naval vessel larger than a patrol boat. A battleship is, or really was, a specific type of large warship with heavy guns and lots of armour. One might understand them confusing battleships and battlecruisers (the navy effectively did that at Jutland), but not with frigates and minesweepers.

For that matter, there is the frequent misuse of ship and boat. A ship is a large vessel, while a boat is much smaller: a ship can carry a boat, but not vice-versa. Glen Sannox is a ship…add your own comment to that.
 
Tetragon213

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Gloster said:
One that I see all too often and even in places (BBC, The Daily Telegraph, etc.) that should know better: the use of the word battleship to describe just about any naval vessel larger than a patrol boat. A battleship is, or really was, a specific type of large warship with heavy guns and lots of armour. One might understand them confusing battleships and battlecruisers (the navy effectively did that at Jutland), but not with frigates and minesweepers.

For that matter, there is the frequent misuse of ship and boat. A ship is a large vessel, while a boat is much smaller: a ship can carry a boat, but not vice-versa. Glen Sannox is a ship…add your own comment to that.
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If you really want to blur the lines, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are ready for you. So too, to an extent, is The Mighty Hood, which is considered by some to be the prototypical Fast Battleship, despite what her track record would tell you!
 
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Only slightly comedic, but one of the idiocies of modern life. Going into the local town on Friday the bus was caught in a jam in the the last quarter of a mile: considering that it was a Friday just before Christmas it wasn’t too bad and we were progressing. One woman asked if she could get off early as it would save the walk back to the gym; she did not appear to be late or in a hurry. You are going to the gym for exercise, but you want to avoid a bit of useful but not too strenuous exercise outside of the gym.

The same may be said of someone I used to know who would make a special seven mile journey in London, sometimes in the rush-hour, to go to a gym where they only did some relatively modest exercises. Would they walk the quarter-mile to the shops: I should co-co.
 
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Gloster said:
Only slightly comedic, but one of the idiocies of modern life. Going into the local town on Friday the bus was caught in a jam in the the last quarter of a mile: considering that it was a Friday just before Christmas it wasn’t too bad and we were progressing. One woman asked if she could get off early as it would save the walk back to the gym; she did not appear to be late or in a hurry. You are going to the gym for exercise, but you want to avoid a bit of useful but not too strenuous exercise outside of the gym.

The same may be said of someone I used to know who would make a special seven mile journey in London, sometimes in the rush-hour, to go to a gym where they only did some relatively modest exercises. Would they walk the quarter-mile to the shops: I should co-co.
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Particularly odd when you consider that it's best to warm up before more strenuous exercise and one way to do this is to walk fast on a treadmill.

There's the old joke about using the 'really good machines' down the gym - selling carbonated sugary drinks and snacks with plenty of sugar and salt content. The one I use has them, presumably that's where the profit lies.
 
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I'm highly unmusical; and have spent many decades strongly disliking pop music, ever since first encountering the phenomenon in childhood -- so my opinions on any such, are perhaps to be discounted. However -- A Christmas song which makes me cringe; and inclined to nominate it as the worst such, of all time: is Paul McCartney's "We're All Having Wonderful Christmas Time". Essentially, my quarrel with this one concerns the words; which strike me as inane beyond description.
 
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Richard Scott

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Mcr Warrior said:
Not sure about that. Cliff Richard's "Mistletoe and Wine" effort in 1988 was fairly dire. More clanger than banger!
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Not even close, in my opinion. Mariah Carey one of the most overrated singers of all time and her rendition of "All I Wsnt for Christmas" is her worst; in my opinion, anyway!
 
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Merle Haggard

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Mcr Warrior said:
Not sure about that. Cliff Richard's "Mistletoe and Wine" effort in 1988 was fairly dire. More clanger than banger!
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That's not the only Christmas or religious song that Mr Richards has made. I.m.o. it's hard to choose which is the worst.

Calthrop said:
I'm highly unmusical; and have spent many decades strongly disliking pop music, ever since first encountering the phenomenon in childhood -- so my opinions on any such, are perhaps to be discounted. However -- A Christmas song which makes me cringe; and inclined to nominate it as the worst such, of all time: is Paul McCartney's "We're All Having Wonderful Christmas Time". Essentially, my quarrel with this one concerns the words; which strike me as inane beyond description.
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I.m.o. "Having a Wonderful Christmas Time' has the classic McCartney 'let's see how many times I can repeat the title line without adding anything much to the story'; other examples are available...

My two favourite Christmas songs are Dylan's 'Must be Santa!' and The Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping'. Both have lyrics with a meaning if you listen carefully - the advantage of viewing them on You-tube is that you can not only read the lyrics but also read the comments on them, made by people with interesting insights.
 
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side effect said:
I'd ban londoners supporting Liverpool and Man Utd. Infact support your local team.
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Liverpool(and MU specifically) would be just two local teams if they had to rely on gate takings. Their global merchandising is where they really make their money. Anyway what's wrong with Londoners' cash?
 
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Being “urged not to travel” because it’s likely to be busy. Tell me it’s likely to be busy, yes, but stop trying to get me feeling guilty if I do travel then. Just stop it!

By the way, I’m talking about the RAC and others talking about roads here. But I guess it could be applied to trains as well.
 
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Another one for the ‘more mad than comedic’ section.

I have just received my final gas bill for my old house, which has taken British Gas over a year to calculate. I owe them £0.01.

If they still had the old shops I would go in and pay with a 2p. coin…and ask for change.
 
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Gloster said:
Another one for the ‘more mad than comedic’ section.

I have just received my final gas bill for my old house, which has taken British Gas over a year to calculate. I owe them £0.01.

If they still had the old shops I would go in and pay with a 2p. coin…and ask for change.
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I do a self-assessment tax return, and for 2023-24 I owe them £2. Really? I have set up payment on the last possible day, and am amused by the "helpful" reminders I keep getting from them to remember to pay on time and to set up a payment plan if I want. I'm going to be getting them to change my tax code in 2025 so I really don't want the underpayment to be added to next year's tax, that'd just be another reason for them to screw things up again.

I once had a 2p gas bill sent to me at my US address (with something like 59p postage), and I deliberately didn't pay it in the hope they'd send me a red bill for 2p, but sadly they saw sense and just added it to my next quarterly bill.

I’m ‘with’ British Gas and their billing system is inept. I have to remind them to send me a bill after 4 months, then they send me the next bill automatically after 2 months. They hit on the wheeze of removing details of how to pay by bank transfer from their bills; after complaints they appear to have put it back, I asked them for the details and then they complained that I hadn’t paid when I had. No worse than the others I suspect, UK utilities are pretty much all the same. Fortunately BG’s smart meter works well, except that their billing people can’t see the meter readings and I refuse to troll down to the garage to read them manually, kind of defeats the object, doesn’t it?
 
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westv

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One thing I would ban is the media's obsession with trying to claim people say "I do" when it comes to weddings. Everybody knows it's "I will".
 
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