Room 101 - what really gets to me (Room 101)

Member Name: petite_poupette

Product:	Room 101
Date:	17/06/09 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Another 5 things to read about

Disadvantages: May be a little on the personal side

What would I put into Room 101? Well here are my top 5 pet hates:

***Ryanair***

Yes, I know you can get cheap flights, and I have benefitted from these a number of times, but now with all the extra charges, enough is enough.

The £1 toilet cost (which is proposed is one step too far):

Just imagine the scenario - you're on board and your 3 year old child throws up missing the sick bag. You want to go to the toilet because not only do you think you might be sick from the smell, but also because you want to clean your child up. You can't root through your bag for your purse as your hands are covered in sick. Plus as you're only allowed one piece of hand luggage your purse is in the same bag as your clothes which is not stored in the overhead lockers above your head, but over those of someone else as everyone is flying with hand luggage to try and avoid the cost of paying for hold luggage. You make your way to the toilet with your now screaming child, getting evil looks from the other passengers, to get told "oh no, I'm sorry, you can't use the toilet, you don't have £1". And then the tannoy voice comes on to try and encourage you to buy a scratch card and the food trolley runs you over. Really makes you want to fly Ryanair.

You land in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night to be faced with a shed for an airport and no way of getting anywhere, and you're now covered in dried up sick. Your child is peacefully asleep and you are told that to get the Ryanair bus to town you had to have bought a ticket on board, which you couldn't do because you couldn't get to your bag to get your purse because your hands were covered in sick and you didn't have the £1 to clean up to use the toilet.

***People on the tube network***

I know London is a tourist city and therefore inevitably you will get tourists who don't know where they're going, but it's not only tourists who do this.

Now, I'm not sure how many of you know Holborn station, but it's the interchange between the central and piccadilly lines, and often gets so busy during rush hour that access to the station is shut. There's a big square area which you have to cross to connect between the two lines, and this is also the same square area where the escalators into and out of the station go to/from. As a result there are always lots of people in the square. But what would really help, would be if people didn't loiter in the middle of it and moved to whatever line they wanted to use or left the station altogether.

Another tube related pet hate are people who try and board before you have had the chance to get off. The tube platform is busy and you know that the tube that arrives will be packed. Therefore, surely logic would say - let the people get off first and then there'll possibly be room for me. But oh no, a lot of people are of the view that if they try and cram themselves onto the tube while others are trying to get off, it'll work better. It doesn't. It holds everyone up. It annoys the people who are trying to get off and can't. And it also annoys the people who want to get on but can't as you've just shoved yourself right in the middle. Don't do it.

And lastly, when you get to the top or bottom of the escalators, or to the entrance or exit, don't just stop there. During rush hour, this can cause a number of people to crash into the back of you. Whatever you do, please move to one side to do it. If you're saying goodbye to a friend and you both have suitcases, standing at the bottom of the escalator in a busy station is not the way to go about it.

***Security stickers on travel guide library books***

When I go on holiday or even when I'm planning where to go, I tend to go to my local library and borrow a guide book or two on the place in question to get some sort of idea what there is to do, where is a good neighbourhood to stay etc.

My library is one where you check in and check out books yourself by placing the book on a counter which can read the encoded label in the book. And this is where the problem lies. These labels are often stuck on the inside back cover of a book. Normally, this is fine. But with travel guides, there is often a map on this page and by sticking the label there means no one can see the map.

If I borrow a travel guide, I also tend to use the maps in the guide as a reference point as to where places are. Time and time again now, the map has been partly covered by the label (which is not removable) hindering the map useless. Why can't the label be stuck in a different place in the book? It astonishes me that the people who stick these labels on clearly have no brain if they don't realise that the map is there to be used and can't use their initiative and stick the label somewhere else.

It's a simple enough request in my view. So please, have a think if you have any influence over this about where those labels get stuck.

***Park and Ride***

Overall, park and ride is a good concept. It reduces traffic in busy town centres. But what gets me about park and ride is the way that you pay for it. Generally, you park your car for free and only pay to use the bus. It's also designed to encourage car sharing.

But, at many park and ride sites you pay per person to board the bus and not per vehicle. This therefore means that the same number of car trips will still be generated as before except that they will drive to the park and ride site instead of the town centre. This to me isn't promoting green travel or being particularly environmentally friendly.

What park and ride should involve is a cost per vehicle. That way people would also be encouraged to car share to the park and ride site. The fee per vehicle would be fixed and then if you drive on your own you pay the same as if the vehicle had four people. This was how the system operated in Winchester (although I'm not sure that is the case anymore). In some cases the cost of four adult tickets on the bus is more expensive than parking in the town centre itself.

Park and ride is a popular concept in many cities, but for me it's not really achieving what it set out to do. There is no less traffic on the roads, and for some people using the park and ride requires a diversion to get there in the first place.

***People who think it's ok to judge you because you're thin***

This is probably more of a personal gripe, but I can't stand people who think it's ok to judge me to my face because I'm thin. They seem to think that it's fine for them to ask me why I'm thin, to make comments that clearly I don't eat enough, and in some cases to even ask if I'm anorexic or bulimic.

I would like to say that I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, and often snack in between. I don't watch the calories that I eat. I don't eat small portions or only salad leaves. Yes, there is some food that I don't like (namely cheese, mayonnaise, baked beans) and I can be a fussy but I do eat. My friends know that I eat and they also know that I might change a dish in a restaurant, but it's better that I do that than leave half of it because I don't like one of the ingredients.

I am thin, and people seem to think it's ok to tell me this to my face, at the same time implying that it's wrong. How many people would go up to someone fat and tell them the same thing? There is a pressure on people to be thin and magazine covers often victimise celebrities when they are too thin, calling them skeletal, but then also have a go at them, the minute they put some weight on. It's a no win situation, but please can people just understand that I am thin and that's all there is to it.

Being thin isn't as wonderful as many people think it is. As well as the comments about my size, it's sometimes hard to find clothes to fit, or when they do, they just hang on me. I must be one of the few people who goes shopping and looks for clothes that will make them appear bigger than they are (but at the same time without drowning in the clothes themselves). I'm not ill, it's just the way I am.

But what hurt more than anything was my now ex boyfriend telling me that he wasn't sure he could go out with me anymore because he felt that my arms were too thin. He knew what size they were when he met me. I would never have implied that I thought he needed to lose weight (he thought that about himself). The public may continue to judge me and reach their own conclusions, but it's times like that I want my friends and family to be supportive and know that being thin is just part of being me.

Summary: My top 5 pet hates