Top irritants

A more clever way of using "research" to promote your product: Lactofree, a milk drink fro those suffering from lactose intolerance, commissioned a survey about what irritates Britons. Lactose failed to make it to the top ten, but I'm glad to see that James Blunt *gag* is officially the most irritating person on earth.

Cold callers top the list. Yesterday, yet another telemarketer called me to offer mobile phone upgrades and discounts on my contract etc. etc. I told her to call me back in the office hours. If she does, I tell her again to call me back on office hours. Et cetera. The only time I was left alone by these people for several weeks was when I actually asked them to call me back. I was planning to upgrade my phone and wanted to hear more about the deal, but couldn't talk at that time, and wanted to check the details of my current contract. So I asked the person to call me back next Monday. He never did.

In Britain, queues are sacred, and queue-jumping is the worst thing you can do. At least now that plotting against the throne is exclusively done by the members of the royal family themselves.

Traffic features high with three places in the top ten (four if you count queue-jumping). Caravans are universally loathed, and the summer holiday months have boosted their ratings. I've always seen traffic wardens as tragicomical figures, but that's probably because I don't own a car and have never got a parking ticket. People who tailgate are usually men with white vans, and as my recent driving experience was driving various white vans (I was moving house), I was doing the tailgating myself and can't really understand the small-minded slow-driving caravan-towing people in their Ford Fiestas who must have voted for this.

Ex-smokers? Surely they are the irritated ones, not the irritating ones. Ex-smokers are the people with perma-frown and no nails who make teethmarks on desks and doorframes, but I can't really see them as being annoying. It's the not-yet-ex-smokers who are annoying. Like the one who lives somewhere in our new apartment block. For a non-smoker, there's nothing as annoying and irritating as someone polluting your air and smellifying your home with cigarette smoke. It can really wind you up, and perhaps that's what this refers to - the ambulance and the police arrived too late and the irritating b***ard is now an ex-smoker.

Two people from Big Brother are also on the list. Does this mean that there are people out there who'd enjoy watching the show but whose experience is now ruined because two of the housemates are annoying? What a worrying thought.

(blasted Blogger, can't upload the top-10 list as a pic... will try again later.)