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things that make you go GGRRRRR!!

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  • Grrr, don't mention Sky to me, Miss TT.  We watch (or rather, watched) 'Lost' courtesy of my boyfriend's ntl cable service, now taken over by Virgin, who can't agree fees with Sky for their channels, so at midnight last Wednesday my BF's Sky channels went blank and I lost my weekly fix of Sawyer/Josh Holloway.  Arrrgggghhh.  I may have found an alternative supplier in the shape of a friend's sister, who puts it on DVD for her - fingers crossed.  Actually, it's Virgin who are to blame rather than Sky - they wouldn't agree to an extra 3p a day per customer for the Sky channels.  3p a day! - I'd pay £3,000 for a day with Sawyer...bad, bad boy that he is.  Mmmm, can't help wondering if my BF put Virgin up to this, to stop my drooling.
  • We got free Sky something or another for a month. It's just finished, so no more WWE!
  • I think we should ask your b/f, Hippo!

    Meanwhile, losing documents I've agonised over writing/editing well - merely because suddenly some gremlin (as was spoken of under the Printer thread) decides to break down.  This has happened with mouse, internet server and when I've been saving away as I go along but get all enthusiastic over a page of type and lose just that one.  Grrrrr....
  • I have had AOL for six years now ( last one with broadband), and have always been very happy with them.
  • Agree about restaurant language, Betsie, especially 'pan fried' - what else can you fry in besides a pan?
  • Yes Kateyanne, AOL were fine with me for 6 years but they couldn't offer the same deal on phone and t.v. as Sky.  Changed 3 months back so it was odd that they then hijacked my line but it can happen whether you've previously been with them or not apparently.  I bet they all do it!
  • Sallyannie: pan frying is quite distinct from deep frying (which these days is generally done in a large machine, not a pan at all). So it does make sense to distinguish the two.

    Things that make me go GRRRR: seeing the "Who's in April's magazines?" thread appear when we're only a couple of days into March and I've only just started reading March's WN/WM.
  • Sorry, Amboline!
  • I get more frustrated when my postman doesn't deliver my copy of WM! (I live on an Island and the post service isn't the best!)
  • i get REALLY annoyed with my beloved father when he decides to wind me up first thing in the morning when i have just got out of bed and havent even had my morning cup of tea!!

    o and also people without an ounce of respect, tolerance or politeness in their bodies.
  • The weather lady on BBC News TV spoke about wall-to-wall sunshine - that really annoys me!
  • I have no political loyalties but I know what I think is right and wrong. Therefore, I get annoyed at the Times and Guardian when they insist on calling ETA terrorists, 'separatists'. I have written to both papers but only the Guardian has replied defending their vocabulary. I know you can't argue that they are not a separatist organisation and that their region has been badly treated in the past, but equally I don't thnk you can ignore the 800+ deaths in the last 30 years. Much of the killing has been indiscriminate.
  • Kateyanne, I saw Take That on Dancing on ice, and yes, they were brilliant! Do you think Robbie will sing with them again one day? (sorry I answered your comment so late)
  • We found ourselves in the middle of an ETA rally a couple of years ago, and decided it would be prudent to go for lunch.
  • Highlights of a recent conversation:
    PARTNER: So has your weight gain bottomed out?
    ME: Would you mind re-phrasing that?
  • Being asked whether I am Miss or Mrs. As I said to my gynaecologist,I don't consider myself either. The nurse looked at me as though I was awkward. Ms is an ugly-looking/sounding word. I was tempted to opt for Dame - Ava Gardner style, not Judi Dench.

    I also prickle when I hear the phrase 'my other half.'
  • Sorry to say this but 'my partner', that gets to me.
    (sincerely no offence intended to anyone)
    It's often the way it's said, in a superior manner, as if the word husband,or  wife etc is a dirty word.
    Of course it's likely that I've just had that experience of that tone too often and it's got to me.
    I think it probably is the way someone says it, not neccesarily the phrase itself.
  • Was it me who jogged your memory? What word should I use?
  • In your case it is fine Jay.
    (I probably have puritan instincts about some things deep down.)
    But I have met some couples who make the words 'my partner' sound so insincere, it's a useful description of their relationship for that moment. They totally undermine genuine loving partnerships, whatever the genders.
  • When you tell someone you're going on holiday, and they reply: "Going anywhere nice?". Do you really think I'd pick somewhere that wasn't nice?

    I usually tell them I did 'nice' last year, and the year before, so I'm going somewhere horrible.
  • Here are a couple more that make me want to chop off my left ear...

    When you telling someone something, and they say: "Tell me about it...".
    WHAT DO YOU THINK I'm DOING?

    Oh, this is a classic...
    When someone asks: "So, have you lived here all your life?".
    I usually reply: "I don't know yet!".
  • ME: "Would you like a cup of tea?"
    THEM: "Only if you're having one."
  • I get annoyed and feel patronised when the weather presenter stands outside in the freezing cold to tell us it's snowing (or whatever it's doing).  I can understand words like snow, rain, frost if they're told to me from indoors and the presentr is not dressed in hat, coat, gloves, umbrella, wellies... that is so patronising.
  • And they have a great big cheesy grin on their face too.
  • This one isn't my GRRRR, but a friend's. He hates it when people ask (what he thinks of as silly) questions such as, "What does the paper say about...?" He always snaps back, "It doesn't say anything - it's paper."

    I think it's funny the way he is so literal about everything.  :)
  • Absolutely Betsie

    Why do the reporters have to be standing where the news 'has happened?'  Often you can't hear what they are saying because of the noise.

    Ancient Mariner
  • Sorry but I do use 'my other half' as, sickeningly, we are very much 'one', as it were.  If this makes you retch, my apologies :o)
  • 'my other half' is okay with me, I do even use it myself.
  • I'm beginning to think we have enough here for another series of Grumpy Old Women/Men!  It's great, hee hee hee.  One of the only other progs we ever watch - we don't feel so alone with it then.

    TP.  SO what: about calling your other half just that?  It's good to me... Anyone with a problem with it, ha, you know what I'm going to say, it's their flipping problem :O) 
  • I'm not keen on 'significant other', though (sorry, Armistead).
  • Oooh that gets to me too Jay. Makes them sound insignificent instead, like an after-thought.
    Perhaps I am turning into a grumpy old woman!
  • Who do you know, Jay, who really calls their partner a "significant other"??  Strike them from the address book immediately to save your sanity!

    I mean, what a palaver over the one you love....
  • What about the reporters who ask daft questions such as, 'so,how did you feel when your saw your partner disappearing over the storm lashed cliff?'
  • I'm waiting for the day when one of these poor interviewees snaps and socks the interviewer in the jaw for asking such a bl***dy stupid question at a time like that.
  • What a grumpy lot of Talkbackers we are!
  • i love that my little grrr! has inspired such an outpouring of grumbles and moaning! keep it up...

    my new grrrr is those horrible people who say "cheer up, love, it might never happen!" i was having a bad day last week (was in training, had some personal stuff going on) and this idiot in my training group- who, given what he looks like, shouldn't be commenting on anyone else's face- said that to me. before that i was just on the verge of being ok, and was instantly sent into a fury.
    i'm very straight with people, and i've got a quick temper, both of which, when combined, have often got me into trouble.
    so i got into a very heated debate with him about the does and don'ts of dealing with others in social situations, especially with those you have only known for 3 days and have spoken barely half a dozen words to during that time. what it all boiled down to was that that particular comment is horribly presumptuous, and that, as my mother always said to me, if he can't say something nice then he should learn to keep his big mouth shut. i think i came off like a bit of a banshee, but i couldn't contol myself.
    the only other time this has been said to me was by some random builder on the street when i was 18, about 2 days after my mum told me she had breast cancer. i don't think that fool knew what hit him, and i'm sure will've thought twice before saying that again! oooh! i love a good rant!
  • Oh I feel your pain S.A. I get told to "smile" in the most inappropriate circumstances. One of my friends said that they had seen me on the bus the other night and I wasn't smiling. Oh pleeeeease; I'd done a 12 hour day at work, was hungry and the bus was almost busting at the seams! Why, oh why would I smile?! GGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRR indeed! Ha-ha.
  • i know, and the smile that you give to placate them is usually the most fake, ghastly smile possible and makes you look like a right mad loon. i'd rather give them the finger and tell them where to stick it. but then i can be quite nasty if you get me in a bad mood. it's something i'm working on! hahaha!
  • Auntie: yes, that "cheer up, it might never happen" is an awful thing to say, because the chances are that for the person you say it to, "it" already HAS happened. And I *hate* people telling me to smile - or being taken aback when they ask me how I am and I give them the REAL answer, as opposed to the genteel one.

    For those of you who get really annoyed by "partner", "significant other", "other half" et al.: my pet hate is the word "hubby". I think it's one of the most ghastly, lazy distortions of the English language. It's also one of those words that seems intrinsically associated with the red-top tabloids. I know quite a few ladies on Talkback use the word to refer to their husbands, and I don't intend any offence to any of you - I know you all have more class than to read those sorts of trashy rags. But I'm sorry, I still hate the word! I mean, I'd never dream of calling my wife "wifey", so why should "hubby" be acceptable English?!?!
  • all the weird little new "words" seem to bother me actually. things like chav- meaning common, metrosexual- meaning a man who actually washes and takes care of his appearance(although to be fair, any man who spends longer on his hair than i do would be written off for me!) they all sound like spelling mistakes that are being passed as ok by some trashy rag newspaper. 
  • all the weird little new "words" seem to bother me actually. things like chav- meaning common, metrosexual- meaning a man who actually washes and takes care of his appearance(although to be fair, any man who spends longer on his hair than i do would be written off for me!) they all sound like spelling mistakes that are being passed as ok by some trashy rag newspaper. 
  • whoops! sorry! didn't think that'd gone through!! stupid work internet time!!
  • So many words spoken on TV seem to irritate, particularly lazy pronunciation, such as 'shtudent' for student, 'restauranteur' for restaurateur, 'nucelar' for nuclear, etc.  Also, 'like' at the end of every sentence and completely unnecessary swearing, especially by comedians. 
  • The cheer-up-love-it-might-never-happen line has been thrown in my direction more than once, and the funny thing is, who on earth goes around with a big grin on their face just to please passers-by?  Absolutely nobody.  You smile when you see or hear something funny, not when you've just walked out of a shop.

    My usual answer to that remark is a stony faced glare, rather than say something I might regret (as swearing is frowned upon here, I won't say it, but let's just say the second word would be 'you').
  • My mother is one of those people who thinks there is something wrong with you if you don't have a smile plastered on your face every time you see her. She's also an incessant talker which makes it difficult to get a word in and then she turns around and says, "You're very quiet - anything wrong?" Grrrrr. (No, I will speak when I have something worthwhile to say and only if you pause for a breath long enough to listen.) But I never say that of course.
  • People phoning through to the answerphone and not leaving a message.  Some of my friends tell me they find it difficult to know what to say but it still winds me up!
  • hello summernight , yes I think he may sing with them again but do they need to now? They are performing and singing better than ever.
  • I agree, MDD. Especially when you've busted a gut trying to get to the phone and it stops ringing just when you get there. (For some reason, our old phone would only ring four times before switching over to the answering machine. "I'm here!" I'd cried to thin air.)
  • I had to set my answer machine to pick up after 9 rings, otherwise I would be half way across the room when it picked up after 4. I can even get from the downstairs bathroom to the phone in 8 rings-usually.
    I just hate it when people put the phone down after three rings. We do not all sit glued to our phones waiting for a call!!!!
  • More a S*d's/Murphy's Law ...

    On Monday, I pressed ‘print’, and the computer told me one of the cartridges had run out of ink. I found four spare cartridges. Every colour except the one I needed.
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