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

Gloster

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Only a mild irritation, but something that long ago ceased to be amusing. Those shops that have on their windows a pretend list of their branches: ‘London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Little Bumbling.’
 
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duncanp

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Only a mild irritation, but something that long ago ceased to be amusing. Those shops that have on their windows a pretend list of their branches: ‘London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Little Bumbling.’

Rather like that battered old Robin Reliant in Only Fools and Horses with New York, Paris, Peckham on the side. :D
 

Cowley

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Renewing your car insurance (or basically anything these days) when you’ve got limited time in the evenings and well, just please make it actually work before I throw the phone across the room.
 

gg1

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Renewing your car insurance (or basically anything these days) when you’ve got limited time in the evenings and well, just please make it actually work before I throw the phone across the room.
There's your problem, you're attempting to do it on a phone. Which leads me onto my next annoyance:

Mobile websites or apps which have less functionality that the same company's desktop website, which IME is most of them.
 

Techniquest

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There's your problem, you're attempting to do it on a phone. Which leads me onto my next annoyance:

Mobile websites or apps which have less functionality that the same company's desktop website, which IME is most of them.

Oh yes, I know this problem too well. GWR's mobile pages (especially the booking engine) are a good example, in this day and age it should not be beyond the capability of an IT team to deal with a mobile site!

Something I'd absolutely like to ban right now, before it starts again this year because it drove me daft in 2020:

Anyone, any company, anywhere who goes on about "the Christmas we all need". UGH! That fails completely to take into account all of us who despise Christmas, let alone those who don't mark the occasion. It's one thing I'm very jealous of one of my friends for, as she's Jehovah's Witness. So they don't do anything crazy for Christmas, which is what I'd rather do. If I had my way, I'd use my Christmas Day to take advantage of less fools on the roads and get a good ride going on. Or at the least a really good power-walk!

Quite, I remember manning a checkout at work, must have been a short time before the pandemic kicked in big time. Scanning through someone's newspaper, the front page declaring whatever exactly they were wasting trees for was an occasion "we all need a drink" for. Ugh! No thanks, maybe once upon a time (I think it was something to do with pubs closing early at 10pm, not sure exactly) I would have agreed but that was a long time ago!

Anyone describing something as "we all need it" deserves an enormous boot up the rear. I'd put it differently, but I think most people can use their imaginations ;)

Another item for the list is the seemingly endlessly repeated Cadbury's adverts on YouTube lately. I can't tell you how many times I've seen them (unskippable ads mostly too) and had to endure that woman's voice. Why they need to advertise Dairy Milk Fingers or Dairy Milk I don't know, Caramilk I can understand as it's still quite new, although that doesn't excuse the ad being silly. If it was truly that big a thing in Australia, I'd have not only seen it but tried it when I went in 2019.

Don't start me on the Philadelphia ads about using end slices of bread either. Who on Earth doesn't use them?! Perfect for use in soup, and quite frankly I'll eat them as they are. I have only thrown out bread once this year, a few days after its best before date, and that was purely because it was some Polish sourdough bread which had gone mouldy. The vast majority of pre-packed bread in the supermarkets, it easily lasts for several days after its best before date, and I'll quite happily finish a loaf off 5 or 6 days after it would have been thrown out by many people. Mind you, I minimise my food waste to basically just peelings from fruit and veg. I'd make it into compost, but I have nowhere to do such a thing and I'd have no use for it anyway.

Finally for now, as I'm already on a rampage, non-recyclable plastic. It's nearly 2022, why on Earth is this still a thing? On a related note, people who don't recycle. Ooh that grates on my nerves! The plastic thing, it annoys me so much if something I want to buy is not recyclable I will buy an alternative whenever possible. Sainsburys' Taste The Difference jacket potatoes, I discovered tonight, don't come in recyclable packaging. I am pleased they got rid of the tray they used to use, but I won't be buying those again now.

That feels better!
 

Techniquest

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My missus refuses to eat them, i am happy to take one for the team

Why does she refuse to eat them? It makes no sense to me, I've eaten my end slices for longer than I care to remember, certainly a long time before I became committed to being the most environmentally friendly person I can possibly be.
 

birchesgreen

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Why does she refuse to eat them? It makes no sense to me, I've eaten my end slices for longer than I care to remember, certainly a long time before I became committed to being the most environmentally friendly person I can possibly be.
No idea, i think its the best part of the loaf!
 

DelW

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Renewing your car insurance (or basically anything these days) when you’ve got limited time in the evenings and well, just please make it actually work before I throw the phone across the room.
Call centres which, from when they open in the morning until they close in the evening, are always "experiencing an unusually high volume of calls". NOOO! If it's happening all day and every day, it's not unusual! Upgrade your systems or take on more staff if you want my business.

I ditched an insurer (years ago, in pre internet days) because they'd only allow me to renew by phone, "for my convenience". It took at least half an hour to get through to them, whereas I could have filled in a payment slip and written a cheque in under five minutes.
 

birchesgreen

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Call centres which, from when they open in the morning until they close in the evening, are always "experiencing an unusually high volume of calls". NOOO! If it's happening all day and every day, it's not unusual! Upgrade your systems or take on more staff if you want my business.
Yes but don't forget your call is important to them :lol:
 

Cowley

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Call centres which, from when they open in the morning until they close in the evening, are always "experiencing an unusually high volume of calls". NOOO! If it's happening all day and every day, it's not unusual! Upgrade your systems or take on more staff if you want my business.

I ditched an insurer (years ago, in pre internet days) because they'd only allow me to renew by phone, "for my convenience". It took at least half an hour to get through to them, whereas I could have filled in a payment slip and written a cheque in under five minutes.

I got it sorted in the end but then had to go out for a spur of the moment curry with Mrs C as therapy. ;)
 

S&CLER

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Why do hotel room staff feel a need to tuck the top sheet tightly under the mattress when making the bed? It's maddening. How can anyone sleep without the top sheet being free at the sides and end?
 

AM9

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Why do hotel room staff feel a need to tuck the top sheet tightly under the mattress when making the bed? It's maddening. How can anyone sleep without the top sheet being free at the sides and end?
How about folding the first sheet on the toilet roll to make a point.

Cadburys Dairy Milk should be banned, or at least returned to something vaguely edible. Kraft claimed not to have changed the ingredients but something is definitely different from the CDM I remember from even just a decade ago. Unpleasant claggy sludge. Give me Lindt, Milka or Tony's Chocolonely any day of the week.
There's the ultimate British compromise between White and dark chocolate: Caramac.
 
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GusB

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Rather like that battered old Robin Reliant in Only Fools and Horses with New York, Paris, Peckham on the side. :D
Sorry, but that makes me wince. Apart from the fact that the Trotters had a Reliant Regal, it irritates me intensely when people say "Robin Reliant". Fiesta Ford, Corsa Vauxhall and Clio Renault would all sound a bit daft if said that way round, so I don't know why people constantly get the poor Robin's name round the wrong way! :)

Call centres which, from when they open in the morning until they close in the evening, are always "experiencing an unusually high volume of calls". NOOO! If it's happening all day and every day, it's not unusual! Upgrade your systems or take on more staff if you want my business.

I ditched an insurer (years ago, in pre internet days) because they'd only allow me to renew by phone, "for my convenience". It took at least half an hour to get through to them, whereas I could have filled in a payment slip and written a cheque in under five minutes.
Don't get me started. I'm starting to find that many companies are now closing their call centres at 6pm (temporarily because of Covid, of course) but since things started to get back to some sort of normality, the opening hours haven't been extended again. "Please use our live chat, it's quick and convenient" - oh no, it bloody well isn't. I was trying to talk to my electricity supplier and it took 15 minutes between replies from them. I assume they're dealing with more than one case at a time.

Oh, wait - it's supposed to be light-hearted. Oops! :D
 

SteveM70

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There's the ultimate British compromise between White and dark chocolate: Caramac

One of my friends used to work at Macintosh’s in Norwich. He married one of his colleagues, who first came to his attention when she drank a pint of melted Caramac down in one :lol::s
 

Cowley

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Oh god this one. The modern equivalent of “Computer says no.”

“I’m sorry about the delay sir. Our entire system went down this afternoon…”

Right. Get a piece of paper, scrunch it into a little ball, stuff it up your nose and sing the (insert country of your choice) Tongan National anthem because that’s about as useful as you’re being to me right now.

(and breathe)

So your system has ‘gone down’ every time I’ve actually tried to phone you over the past ten years then has it?
I must be particularly unlucky I guess..?
 
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ABB125

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I thought that the band of polythene across the toilet seat did that.
I've never come across that in a hotel. Though admittedly the poshest hotel I've stayed in is a Holiday Inn, so I may have not yet been to an establishment where such a practice is common!
 

61653 HTAFC

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There's the ultimate British compromise between White and dark chocolate: Caramac.
That's not what Caramac is though. The clue is in the name, it's basically caramel-flavoured, barely-chocolate.

It is however quite tasty, so isn't covered by the White Chocolate Banning Act 2021.
Sorry, but that makes me wince. Apart from the fact that the Trotters had a Reliant Regal, it irritates me intensely when people say "Robin Reliant". Fiesta Ford, Corsa Vauxhall and Clio Renault would all sound a bit daft if said that way round, so I don't know why people constantly get the poor Robin's name round the wrong way! :)
Yes! I wish for all people to be permitted to slap anyone who says "Robin Reliant" with a wet rubber glove!
 

Calthrop

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Yes! I wish for all people to be permitted to slap anyone who says "Robin Reliant" with a wet rubber glove!

So it's the other way round? -- I never knew that. Incidentally: does anyone ever use the word "reliant" in any other context, than this of the car type name? I find that the Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines it as "having reliance (on)" -- so, not the same as "reliable": for which, in the little thought I'd ever given the matter, I'd imagined it to be a seldom-used synonym.
 
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GusB

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So it's the other way round? -- I never knew that. Incidentally: does anyone ever use the word "reliant" in any other context, than this of the car type name? I find that the Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines it as "having reliance (on)" -- so, not the same as "reliable": for which, in the little thought I'd ever given the matter, I'd imagined it to be a seldom-used synonym.
It's a rather defunct example, but the former Associated Equipment Company (AEC), probably more well-known for the "RT" London bus and its "RM - Routemaster" successor, had a model called the Reliance which was in production for several years until the late 1970s.

Reliant came up with a few different designs, none of which would appear to make a decent product "family". There was the Regal / Robin Rialto / Robin three-wheel design, the Kitten (a four-wheeled Robin, ish) and the Scimitar; the latter was a car that I remember quite from my late 70s/early 80s childhood and I still think it looks fab. They also ended up taking on the Metrocab from MCW for a short time. Anyhow, this is probably all stuff that deserves a thread of its own.
 

dgl

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I've never come across that in a hotel. Though admittedly the poshest hotel I've stayed in is a Holiday Inn, so I may have not yet been to an establishment where such a practice is common!
We do it on the caravan site I work at and have done for a good few years, even had ones for the beds at one point but that was an ultimate faff.
 

Techniquest

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We do it on the caravan site I work at and have done for a good few years, even had ones for the beds at one point but that was an ultimate faff.

I can only imagine the faff attaching the one for a bed must have been, even on the small beds caravans usually have!

I don't remember for sure, but I think the likes of Haven certainly used to put those bands on the toilet seat. I've not stayed at such a place for years so I can't comment now, but even back then I didn't really see the need for such a thing. It should be obvious if a place has been cleaned from both the smell and the appearance of it.

That said, the amount of dust and out of date coffee packets I found behind a piece of furniture in my room at a hotel in the centre of Salisbury back in July, well that gave away how much attention the hotel had paid to its cleaning. I found a USB plug, a teaspoon and a number of Nescafe packets, as well as a couple of teabag packets, behind said furniture! The rest of the room was spotless, don't get me wrong, but that really put me off staying there again. The plug certainly didn't stay there, a case of finders keepers :lol:
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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On this website, there is one particular pop-up item that really annoys me when I am on the "Quizzes and Games" forum ......

"You must wait at least one seconds before performing this action"

The word "seconds" should say "second" when qualifying the word "one" and the comment itself is nit-picking to the power of "n".
 

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