The Pet Hates Blog

BMW drivers. Seriously. I spend 900 hours on the road each year, and it's consistently the case. BMW drivers do not stay in the slow lane for long. I've lost count of the amount of times I've been indicating to turn off onto a slip road, and been cut up by a BMW driver who has just crossed three lanes of traffic to pull in at their junction at the last minute. There is also nothing more infuriating than being flashed out of the fast lane, with nowhere else to go and then being smugly sneered at when passed.

Tipping. Another thing that really winds me up is service industry staff 'abroad' (I don't need to say where) demanding tips for doing absolutely nothing. Whenever I travel, I always flick to the section marked 'gratuities' in the Lonely Planet, with a sense of dread. Not least because tipping is the hardest thing to expense for and I do so really resent paying for bad service out of my own pocket. In turn, I actually get a perverted sense of satisfaction when giving a good tip where it's least expected but most deserved. I tried tipping in Japan once and received an offended look in response along with a furiously shaking head. Why can't everywhere be like that? So you poured me a drink, amounting to four seconds of work. Here's some of my hard earned cash for your efforts. Spend it on a smile.

Loud ringtones in the workplace. For a while, every mobile phone I bought, the first thing I'd do would be to excitedly change my ringtone to something cool, and invariably loud. Now I'm the worst hypocrite for noise abuse and general tomfoolery in the office, but owners of phones with loud ringtones, especially those which start off quietly, then grow in volume to become outrageously rampant beepage, should be dealt with swiftly and severely.

Applications on Facebook. I will admit that I found poking people fun for about the first two times, thinking it was all very Monty Python; wink, wink, and all that. Then I started to get uncomfortable when random school friends I've deliberately not spoken to for 15 years started to pop up and virtually assault me. Then I'm subjected to allsorts of bullying from zombies, vampires, and monster hugs from men. Eventually I found out how to turn it off, great. But it gets worse. When I find someone I actually want to catch up with and click on their profile to post them a friendly 'hello' on their wall, I find that I have to scroll down past the eight re-posts from Youtube, the SuperWall, the really, really Top Friends list, the normal friends list, the eighteen applications they've installed and animated wallpaper running like the kind of flashing lights they have warnings about in game manuals - only to find I really can't be arsed to contact them for being a virtual twat and never speak to them again because of it.

Overzealous Traffic Wardens.One of the features on BBC breakfast news yesterday was about the lack of parking in town centres and the negative effect this was having on local businesses. Apparently the out of town supermarkets are making a killing because of it. I can understand this - I've tried parking in Chiswick and it's just not possible; anyone who owns a business there must be going bananas. Even the local Sainbury's has started imposing £50 fines for people who stay over the two-hour time limit. And so, it was with a sense of outright terror that I got into my car with my wife and headed up to town to the All Star Lanes in Baywater - far further into London, and in a stupidly expensive area. I drove because the *normally* swift and direct trains from our local station involved nearly double the journey and one change, and I just couldn't be arsed with it.I rather enjoyed catching up with friends I hadn't seen for a while over a game of bowling and a American diner-style meal afterwards. I had an excellent time in fact. Because I was driving though, we left relatively early, and I'm thankful for that as I sit here writing this, looking out at my snow-covered garden, my head magically free from mangled brokeness. As suspected, it took a very long time to find a free space as the entire area was covered in residents-only parking. We couldn't believe our luck when we found a marked bay near to some roadworks, about 20-mins walk from the bowling alley. Now I'm usually painfully careful when picking a space - anyone who's ever been down to M&S in Richmond at lunchtime with me will testify to this. But we were desperate and it was early evening on a Saturday. We could barely hide our glee when we saw that the meter didn't charge after 13.30. We should come to London more, we said. What I didn't notice, though, was the flimsy A4 sheet attached to a nearby lampost, inside the roadworks, raised seven feet in the air and FACING THE BLOODY ROAD that said "this area and the six spaces around it are not to be parked in. Of course I only noticed this when I was standing, cold and tired and ready to get into my warm car and go home, when I found a ticket strapped to my windscreen. So it was there, at 11pm on the 5th April, 2008, I got my first ever parking ticket. I'm sure many of my colleagues who live in London, most of them in their BMWs, will be smugly reading this, tutting, fully aware of the secret rules about avoiding unobstructed free spaces, with no bollards, and no indication on the parking meter itself, near such roadworks. What a dick, they're thinking, he should really have known.I write this, with a heavy heart, knowing that I'm risking certain ridicule from such savvy folk, as a warning to any fellow non-London residents that if you are stupid enough to drive in the area and do find a free space, bring a large telescope, or perhaps hack into a nearby satellite to help spot any warnings.

The Aftershave Men in Pub Toilets.Exit cubicle right. Make bee-line for the sink. I can almost feel the metal of the tap on my fingers, but can't tear my eyes away from the tin with only pound coins on it. I cast a quick glance at the door and work out my chances of making it there in time after I've washed my hands. On the shelf, the world's largest collection of eau de toilette, there to disguise the smell of the real odour de toilette. Out of the corner of my eye, I spy the man already leaving the stool, I need to make a split decision. Will it be enough to rush to the tap and douse my hands in cold water before throwing myself through the door, bullet-time-style? WILL IT BE ENOUGH TO KILL THE GERMS???? I might get a kebab later and can't have mucky hands on my conscience. He's reaching for the towel. He's already got the soap. "Hey buddy, how you been?" Surely I don't know this bloke. He doesn't look familiar, but he sounds like he knows me. My escape route is now blocked by random pissed man. I make eye contact and curse myself for doing so. The eyes, look into the eyes, not around the eyes. I'm doomed.