Room 101

The time has come. I have thought long and hard about what would enter my Room 101. Rather than my phobias, worst nightmares, extreme fears etc - I am talkin' pet peeves. Not serious stuff that should be obliterated from the world (guns, nits and paedos) but more like stuff that, should it jump off the face of the earth - I would smile that bit brighter. the problem was condensing the list because my god there are a fair few things that get my goat.

Good reader people, you can judge - do these things make into room 101 - gone forever more?

No1. Snow.
 

Now I know it looks purdey and kids love the white fluffy stuff because you can roll around in it and build snowmen, and sledge and all that fun malarkey - but in reality it means simply that you are trapped. Unless you live in London. So I will amend this peeve - to snow anywhere outside the M25 in England. Snow is bearable in London - because you can still get everywhere pretty much, no matter how much of the white stuff falls. I lived in London for 13 or so years and never really remember it snowing. (Apart from once, when I was out one night with a mate drinking fine beer - and on route home managed to get the tube to Baker Street - whereupon I was told that no tubes were running any more, anywhere. So I shuffled out onto the street hoping to find a cab - but all cabs were full and anyway the traffic snaked the whole way up the street in a constipated chain. There was nothing else for it - I had to walk, past Baker St, into St John's Wood, through Swiss cottage - to lovely West Hampstead - home. Along the route I made friends with an Aussie lawyer who was having an affair with 3 men - clearly he was busy, a Japanese business lady, two randoms and a drunk. As we passed St Johns Wood - folk were handing out plastic cups of tea. It was like the war effort - all terribly civilised. By the time I got to my road, I felt like I'd been in a made for TV movie - we promised to be friends forever, and never spoke again).

Meanwhile, 4 years in Hertfordshire it seems to snow badly every winter causing me great amounts of stress. I've written off a car when my Protestant work ethic made me attempt to drive to work through 7 inches of danger - so trying to organise child care and get to work when the roads are like an ice rink sends me over the edge. Literally. Everyone races to the supermarkets and stocks up as if the Apocalypse is coming - and you practically have to sell your children for a pint of milk. 'You can't do anything except freeze your ass off and eat bad food - 'to keep your energy up.' Your heating bills go through the roof. Everyone stays indoors and rattles around the house going stir crazy.

Begone soft white killer - you plague my winters and have no place being here. Go and play in the alps where you belong.
 

No.2 Any kind of romantic declaration on facebook status updates.

Vomit inducing, sphincter clenching tripe that couples spew to one another is NOT romantic. Such messages aren't even intended as love notes to the people on the receiving end. No - it is where self publicists wang on about how great their other half is - merely to have everyone look at them and think how romantic and fabulous they are. If you love someone - tell them. Face to face. Don't purge on facebook for all to see what a winsome, charming character you are - you aren't. You are a sad narcissist who uses a social media site to express sentiment. Get a life.
 

No. 3 Wasps and cockroaches.

They have no purpose in the universe but to sting and terrify. I am sure a cockroach I saw in Thailand was holding a gun. The world would be a better place without them both.

 

 

No. 4 Selfish drivers.

By that I mean anyone coming along my street at around 8:30 am. Picture the scene - cars parked on the left and right - so only one car can drive along, in one direction. So you see that there is a car on route already. So you wait. You know they'll wave and thank you - and they do. The forty cars that have jumped on their tail and are taking the freakin' piss out of your patient nature - do not. I simmer with rage as these people flagrantly abuse the code of waiting because I hit the obstacle second. So I wait for the person who has rightfully got right of way - and they all just race behind him - and act like they were there all along. DRIVES ME MAD. Sometimes if they begin towards me I push the pedal down and race towards them - like Kevin Bacon in Footloose - in that digger truck thing - and I think 'bring it on your muthafuckers.... I get so mad. My daughter has taken to shouting sporadically in the back seat 'come on PEOPLE!' so I must rant a lot when driving. There is an etiquette and I abhor those who wilfully ignore it. I feel they should be banned from driving forever more.
 

No. 5 Top Gear

It is a car, it has wheels, it is expensive... so what? I just do not get how 3 over the hill men in bad shirts blethering on about cars is in any way exciting. Most of all - how is Jeremy Clarkson in any way attractive to watch on screen? If he were a female presenter he would have been put out to pasture long ago, what with being over a 'certain age' (as tragically happens to brilliant female presenters)  and also the fact he looks like his face is melting off. He also talks like a Royal and finds himself hilarious. He was so far up Tom Cruise's backside when the short one ventured on the show it was a wonder he hasn't converted to Scientology and disappeared to some temple in LA LA land. The hamster one looks like he has had an electric shock and the other one in the worst ever shirts appears to be stoned, from another era or has wandered onto the set and somehow is still there, years later. Dull, blokey in an unoriginal manner (not in a jolly caper like the wonderful ENTOURAGE) and so pleased with itself - it makes me feel quite violent. Plus the fact that Husband has it on at every moment possible, also adds to my hatred. Sling them all into the depths and show Sex and the City re- runs instead.