Things That Make Me Want To Eat My Own Head

Heck, it's been a while.  Sorry.  Busy summer and all that.

Anyway, I'm here about the Haribo advert.  Never in the field of my own history have I so much appreciated the licence fee, and freedom from advertising.  I'm not linking to it, because it makes me want to claw my own ears off, but you'll know the one I mean.

If you're thinking, "yeah, I hate that wee girl screaming 'sign the fession!'", then count yourself lucky, for that's not the one I mean.

This one has a family of 4 at a shop in the middle of nowhere, singing the most banal song you can imagine, out of tune, while grinning like banshees and leaping like the lords from a Christmas song.  It's what you'd get if you took a bad X-Factor audition, a sanitary towel advert, and one of those photos of happy families that you get in Christian magazines, blended them, and then added an overdose of hyperstimulant.  The whole, is, inexplicably, much worse than the sum of its hideous parts.

It marginally improves if, after the line that goes "Squidgy squidgy baby!" you yell "Bodyformed for yoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", but only a little bit, so I wouldn't do it in public or anything.

Like I say, Google it if you want to know what it's like to find yourself uncontrollably ripping your ears from your head.  Otherwise, don't.  But in any case, can we all stop buying Haribo until they get this abomination off our screens?  Thanks.

In happier news, I enjoyed this story, although it contains some impolite language, which I ask you to censor by mentally replacing it with the word 'puppy'.

Things That Really Irk Me: Jeopardy!

It's been a while since I've featured anything from my list of things that drive me nuts (you may note that this category has been renamed, in the interests of family-friendliness), and so it is high time to continue the series.

Today's topic: Jeopardy!  Before we go further, I must admit that I've never actually watched a full episode of this, but since it's the format that I loathe, rather than the implementation,  I believe that my concerns remain valid nonetheless.

For those not familiar with the format of the show, it is basically a question-and-answers game with a twist; namely that it's an answers-and-questions game.  In other words, the contestant is given the answer, and have to state the question.

Now, in some hands, this is comic gold: Mock the Week, for instance, do an excellent round based on the same principle.  A sample from last week:
The answer is: 7 years
Suggested questions:
How old is the world, according to Sarah Palin?
How long does it take the idiot in front of you to use the self-checkout?
How many years good luck would you get if you broke Jeremy Clarkson's face?

Excellent stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

But in actual Jeopardy, the answer is more like*:
"The Father of Our Country; he didn't really chop down a cherry tree"
and the question is "Who is George Washington?"

The thing is, if someone said 'Who is George Washington?', you would never answer 'The Father of Our Country; he didn't really chop down a cherry tree', unless you were a pompous twit.  You would say 'He was the first President of America', or 'He was a well-known American', or 'I don't know', depending on your level of knowledge.  Of course, if you were further pressed, with the question 'Did he chop down a cherry tree?', you might reply 'no', or 'yes', or 'I can't say', but the point is that you wouldn't dispense that information simply in response to the question 'Who is George Washington?'.

It is also no more challenging to do it this way round than the other way round.  It's not as if the presenter says 'The Father of Our Country; he didn't really chop down a cherry tree' and then the contestant has to perform a feat of mental gymnastics to turn 'George Washington' into 'Who is George Washington?'.  They might as well make them answer the question while hopping, or looking at the ceiling, or wearing red shoes, for all the difference it makes.

If they want to jazz up the traditional 'question-answer' format, they need to think wider.  For instance, dispense the various parts of the clue one at a time, and for every part that gets dispensed, release a wild boar into the studio, so the quicker the answer, the less chance of a gory death.  Or make them answer while eating marshmallows.  Or while whistling the theme tune to Jonny Briggs.

Or anything, really, that actually makes a measurable difference to how easy it is to answer the question.

* I stole this from Wikipedia, by the way

Things That Really Feck Me Off: Using An Accent For Foreign Words In An Otherwise English Sentence

I was listening to a podcast the other day, as I drove back from my parents' house, where I had been visiting for my birthday, because it was my birthday last week, I don't know if I mentioned it (thanks for the vouchers though.  At this rate I'll have an iPod Touch by the time I'm 40); anyway, the point is, I was listening to a podcast of Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio, except it was Lee Mack presenting because Frank's at the W***d C*p.  They were talking about things that annoy them, like phrases, such as:

'Are you all right?'
'No, I'm half left'

and

'I literally died laughing'

and so on.  So I got to thinking about things that people say that annoy me, and felt that I had to share a particular irritation, in the interests of helping you all not to annoy me.  So here it is.

The thing I find possibly more irritating than anything else in the conversational world is when people who are speaking English come to a foreign word, and say it in a foreign accent.  For instance, someone is talking about their friend 'Cecile'.  Instead of saying 'I met se-sEal for lunch', they insist on saying 'I met se-sEeeeeeeel for lunch'.  Or, for instance, there is a road near me called 'Thiepval Avenue'.  If you're from these parts, you call it 'Theep-ville'.  But some people call it 'Tyepp-vallll', and that annoys me.  Because it's ok to anglicize things, and not have to show how good you are at talking foreign.

As an example, consider the sentence 'This summer I will go to Paris'.  If you say 'This summer I will go to Pareee', unless you are joking, you will sound like a tube.  Thus, by extension, we can see that it is ridiculous to foreignize other words, and my point is proven.

Things That Feck Me Off: #2, The Whole Cold/Flu Tolerance Thing

What with all this noise about swine flu, it seems that every time someone sneezes at the moment is an excuse for someone to back off, waving their hands in an exaggerated way, making pig noises. Hilarious. Gets funnier every time you see it, too.

Anyway, I was talking to Alex the other week about pain thresholds, and how we* despise people who claim to have a really really high pain threshold and look at you like you're a wimp when you cry because you fell over (for instance). You know the sort of people I mean. They boast about never taking tablets, and how they make it into work despite the crushing pain in their head/back/stomach/whatever. Whereas when I get sick and have a day off, this makes me a pathetic work-shy waste of space. What never seems to occur to these people is that maybe I am, in fact, more sick than them. That maybe their headache is not that bad, and that if they had a headache that was as bad as my headache, they'd be curled up under a desk, eyes shut, wimpering for an epidural. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying we have no way of knowing. When I got my wisdom tooth out, it fecking hurt, and I DO NOT want to listen to people who breezed through it without anasthetic - maybe you are braver and stronger and a more worthy person than me, or MAYBE my teeth have deeper roots. WE CANNOT TELL.

Likewise, people who, when I say 'I've been feeling fairly down lately' (meaning: I have spent approximately 80% of my time sobbing into my pillow and the remaining 20% trying to talk myself out of a complex plan which terminates with a leap off the nearest tall building) say 'Oh, I'm so depressed too, I have so much work to do and I don't think I'll get it done for the weekend'. 'No', I want to say, 'You are not depressed, you are merely regreting your self-inflicted disorganisation'.

Which brings us to another thing I wanted to mention: colds and flu. More specifically, the difference between the two, and, on a topical note, swine flu**. Here's the thing: flu is not just a heavy cold. Trust me. It is a different thing entirely. The fact that they have some symptoms in common does not make them the same thing. For the mathematically inclined, sniffing does not imply flu.

If you come into work with the flu, and I take a week off with the flu, it does not mean you are a better person than me. It means you didn't have flu and I did. If you take part in a triathlon with your flu, and I stay in bed impering for several days with mine, it does not mean you are a hardier soul than I am. It means you didn't have flu and I did. Just because you could go scuba-diving when you had your flu, and I took to bed with a box of lemsips, a forest of tissues and a deep wish to never see daylight again, does not make you a better person.

Please stop pretending it does.

Thank you.


* Technically, I can't remember whether Alex actually went so far as to despise such people. I know I do, though.

** Incidentally, I am due to catch flu this year. I had flu in 1989 and I had flu in 1999, so it's about due.

Things That Really Feck Me Off: #1, Hiccups

To the outside world, I am a placid and tranquil person, who does not get unduly upset over those minor irritants that drive the more manic to drink and drugs.

But this is all a front. Inside, I am a seething mass of anger, ready to explode at the merest provocation and eat the offending parties if they don't move fast. I just hide it well.

Anyway, I thought I would introduce you to some of the things which could potentially provoke such a reaction, just so you know.

Number one on my list: hiccups. Hiccups in general, but more specifically, people who laugh at me when I have hiccups. Some time ago, we charted 'discomfort' vs 'sympathy' for a range of afflictions; had hiccups been added to this chart, they would have been moderate-high on discomfort, and negative for sympathy, because, and I have no idea why this should be, hiccups make people laugh at you.

The first problem with hiccups is that they are really quite sore. You forget this, when you don't have them. They hurt, albeit only a little bit, but repeatedly, and seemingly without end. It's not even the kind of pain that is included in such pithy witicisms as 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', because hiccups are of no discernable benefit whatsoever. Where pain in the knee, for instance, alerts you to the problem in your knee, hiccups are a sign of nothing except that your body has given up and turned against you.

The second problem is that this makes people laugh at you. Hiccups are funny, as long as they are inhabiting someone else. They also happen over and over and over, so people laugh over and over and over. But you can never sound properly angry when you have hiccups: any threat issued while hiccuping just makes the whole thing even funnier for spectators.

Thirdly, and finally, hiccups strike without warning. It's like that norovirus thing, where the first you know about it is when last night's dinner lands on your lap. Hiccups are no respecter of situations, and can strike in the most solemn of business meetings, funerals or solicitor interviews.

And this is why I hate hiccups.