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

[Intercity110]

The press using outdated footage/photos and only using the ‘express’ (LNER) operator. Use northern & WMR one in a while.

 

[GrahamD83]

Drivers in retail park car parks at weekends. Specifically, the quantity of them, which means that on the rare occasion that I'm in the local retail park with the car it takes ages to get anywhere. Most of the time I walk there; there are hardly any traffic issues then. Why does there have to be a traffic jam only when I'm in the car trying to get out?!*

Can we also ban retail parks that are poorly laid out both for pedestrians and vehicle users (who are by far the largest customers, so should be catered for adequately but frequently aren't)?

*Yes, I'm aware of the self-fulfilling irony...

I would just ban retail parks outright. The depress the life out of me! Put shops back on to the high street where they belong and bring our town centres back to life.

Can we ban any show whose title starts "..The Masked....."

All those people working themselves up into a frenzy over "..who is Fish & Chip cone?..", should go and get a life.

I shouldn't be surprised if we don't get "The Masked Baker", "The Masked Potter", "The Masked Chef" or "The Masked Sewer" soon, as TV producers carry on flogging a dead horse rather than coming up with something original.

I'd ban all TV shows which involve the combination of talent, judging and public votes.

 

[Richard Scott]

I'd ban all TV shows which involve the combination of talent, judging and public votes.

Or lack of talent in many cases?

 

[birchesgreen]

I would just ban retail parks outright. The depress the life out of me! Put shops back on to the high street where they belong and bring our town centres back to life.

No can't have that. it would create 15 minute cities which the right wing are really scared about now. Being able to walk to the shops is SOCIALIST apparently.

 

[Meerkat]

I would ban the office parks first, build homes on them.
Bringing all those workers into the town and city centres would boost the retail and hospitality markets there, and it’s much easier to set up public transport to link all the housing to a central work area than all the housing to multiple work areas.

 

[Gloster]

Foreign websites where the English version only contains a small amount of the information that is to be found on the equivalent native language page. One large commercial business that I looked at recently (not a page for tourists) had boiled down a press release of around twelve hundred words in the original language to around two hundred and fifty in English, with half the tabular technical information omitted. Most sites have reasonable English, but if you are going to put out a press release, it is likely that many of those English-speakers looking at it are sufficiently interested and knowledgeable to want to be given all the information.

However, the opposite is even worse. Many British businesses are appalling, not even putting out a press release even when it directly affects a foreign country, such as selling something to that country. When they do the result is sometimes embarrassing and can look like it was produced by somebody’s fourteen year-old offspring using a pocket dictionary. One example in French was where it was supposed to say that the parts would just touch, ‘kiss’, but used the word ‘baiser’.

I realise that this a somewhat niche grumble.

 

[jfollows]

Emails "allowing" me to opt-out of "Mothers Day" content annoy me - I know there's an underlying real issue for some people but it seems to me that the advertisers are essentially admitting that their adverts are crass and insensitive and want to avoid hassle by "allowing" people to opt out of them.
Obviously I'm not someone who gets upset by the specific content of advertising emails, but if I were I'd like to think that I just wouldn't subscribe to any of them, and having an "opt out" because of one particular type of content seems silly to me. Or that it's just the people who generate these emails trying to protect themselves.

 

[nw1]

Caps Lock.

 

[Steddenm]

Power buttons on laptops on the top right hand row next to the Function Keys and Del key.

 

[Stan63]

Badly dubbed programs or adverts.
There seem to be a lot of films appearing on the streaming platforms which are dubbed into english and I find it very annoying and distracting. The calgon advert is particularly irritating. It's not a new thing though and I could be showing my age by mentioning programs from my youth which were badly dubbed like White Horses, Robinson Crusoe and The Flashing Blade.

Stan

 

[JD2168]

Predictive text on Mobile phones.

 

[jfollows]

Predictive text on Mobile phones.

Related to this, any computer software which changes what you type to what it thinks you should have typed. And, yes, it's usually possible to change, so anyone who makes their software have the default behaviour of doing this.

 

[Gloster]

Related to this, any computer software which changes what you type to what it thinks you should have typed. And, yes, it's usually possible to change, so anyone who makes their software have the default behaviour of doing this.

And predictive text that corrects a perfectly valid word to another, sometimes in another language, and when you type the correct word in again changes it to another option, or maybe just the same one again. Not so long ago I had to type a word in four times to get the correct one.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Indeed. Productive socks isn't always the pest.

 

[nw1]

Seems to be becoming increasingly popular for some unbeknown reason: websites or apps which communicate with a web server (which might take some considerable time, 15 secs or more) and give no visual indication of being "busy". They just appear to hang, but are actually doing something - just not telling the user! And most of these are commercial products developed by large companies so they should know better.

Seems to have been a trend post-Covid but not exactly sure why...

 

[bspahh]

Seems to be becoming increasingly popular for some unbeknown reason: websites or apps which communicate with a web server (which might take some considerable time, 15 secs or more) and give no visual indication of being "busy". They just appear to hang, but are actually doing something - just not telling the user! And most of these are commercial products developed by large companies so they should know better.

Seems to have been a trend post-Covid but not exactly sure why...

Its to give time for an auction for who will buy adverts based on your profile.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Astonishing number of cars, and a few vans, driving around with defective lights, of one sort or another, seen on Greater Manchester / North Cheshire roads yesterday evening.

Typically it's headlights or brake lights that are non-functioning, sometimes headlights AND front side lights, more occasionally it's indicators flashing too quickly or licence plate bulbs that are out.

Maybe 1 in 20 with some readily apparent lighting defect.

Wonder whether this is just a North West thing, or something that occurs all across the country?

Also, don't drivers ever routinely check, from time to time, whether their vehicle's lights are all working, any more?

 

[gabrielhj07]

Wonder whether this is just a North West thing, or something that occurs all across the country?

Similar scenes down south, although maybe not quite as common.

Something I do see every day is cars that have their numberplates conveniently obscured by mud.

 

[Meerkat]

Similar scenes down south, although maybe not quite as common.

Something I do see every day is cars that have their numberplates conveniently obscured by mud.

I got stopped by the plod and made to clean my number plate!
Need to make sure everything else (and you) is ‘clean’, as it gives a suspicious/bored copper an excuse to stop you, and presumably to prosecute you if you fail the attitude test.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Need to make sure everything else (and you) is ‘clean’, as it gives a suspicious/bored copper an excuse to stop you...

Don't think Plod ever needs an actual reason to stop you, but probably better if they do go pick on someone else.

 

[Meerkat]

Don't think Plod ever needs an actual reason to stop you, but probably better if they do go pick on someone else.

Pretty sure they need a reason to stop you. ie if they want to do random breathtests they set up a speed trap and pull everyone even 1mph over the limit.
It’s all fun and games until your driver blows red! We were in the car giving it the “oooooooooooh……oh…..how do we get home now? Fortunately he just hadn’t blown hard enough.

 

[D821]

They can stop you to see your driver's license, so it's not difficult for them.

 

[Gloster]

“Do you know that one of your rear lights is flickering a bit, sir? Now you’re stopped, can we breathalyse you, search your car, search you, etc.”

 

[Bletchleyite]

“Do you know that one of your rear lights is flickering a bit, sir? Now you’re stopped, can we breathalyse you, search your car, search you, etc.”

Unsurprisingly it's very common for a car with one thing wrong to have lots of other things wrong, often more serious, so this makes a lot of sense.

Should one want to break a big law, it's very sensible to be 100% on small laws. Not that I'd advocate that of course.

 

[Meerkat]

They can stop you to see your driver's license, so it's not difficult for them.

You sure? They always seem to give a 'proper' reason from anecdotal evidence.
I have been stopped three times for three different reasons and they never asked for any documentation (which would have been more plausible than the 'driving erratically' when they were clearly just doing random breath tests at kicking out time).
A neighbour got tugged because the in car ANPR flagged up that his insurance/licence/tax weren't all registered to the same address.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I have been stopped three times for three different reasons and they never asked for any documentation...

Could be they'd just checked centrally whether you had insurance / MOT/ car tax / a full licence, and wanted to check face-to-face / up close whether you appeared to be intoxicated, or under the influence of drugs, etc.

 

[D821]

You sure? They always seem to give a 'proper' reason from anecdotal evidence.
I have been stopped three times for three different reasons and they never asked for any documentation (which would have been more plausible than the 'driving erratically' when they were clearly just doing random breath tests at kicking out time).
A neighbour got tugged because the in car ANPR flagged up that his insurance/licence/tax weren't all registered to the same address.

My dad was in the police and I remember him saying this to me. This was probably about 25 years ago, but I doubt they've changed the law since.

 

[Intercity110]

We’re getting a bit off topic here ,so to put us back on track: I’d ban these obviously Inappropriate ads but just age appropriate to get on a child’s game (the strip the character ones) in other worlds, I’d tighten the ASA’s regulations

 

[61653 HTAFC]

We’re getting a bit off topic here ,so to put us back on track: I’d ban these obviously Inappropriate ads but just age appropriate to get on a child’s game (the strip the character ones) in other worlds, I’d tighten the ASA’s regulations

I'd just ban daft mobile games entirely, especially ones like you describe which I suspect are mostly intended for gaining access to the data on one's device via app permissions.

 

[32475]

I’m sure it’s been mentioned before but: anyone who refers to a locomotive as a train. One of my many missions in life is to ensure my children and grandchildren can differentiate correctly.
Even the BBC put out a news article today, referring to 4472 as a train.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr