As much fun as a bag full of sick. (Room 101)

Member Name: pje

Product:	Room 101
Date:	08/03/02 (288 review reads)
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Disadvantages: Yes.

" 'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101.
I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it.
The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.' "
[George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty-Four"]


Okay, which twisted genius suggested this category? C'mon, own up...

The television programme, in which celebrities nominate things they can't stand to be sent to oblivion, was always bound to be popular for the same reason that Desert Island Discs is - everyone likes to fantasize about what they would choose when they become famous and get invited on the show. Well, now thanks to dooyoo we can all share our pet hates. So here are a few of my least favourite things - have your sick-bags at the ready and fasten your safety-belts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride...


• COLOUR BLINDNESS TESTS
I'm supposed to see WHAT? Forty-five my foot - there's no number there. And if you say any different, you're just part of Dr. Shinobu Ishihara's global conspiracy of discrimination. You can take one of his evil tests at:

www.umds.ac.uk/physiology/daveb/brainday/colou rblindness/plate1.htm


INCONSIDERATE PEOPLE...

• who have letterboxes that are too small, or too low down - anyone who has ever delivered mail, newspapers, or leaflets know what badstars they are. Why would you want to make life awkward for people who provide you with a service? Why not get a fecking guard dog as well? Or wire up your doorbell to the mains? If you don't want anything from the outside world dropping through your letterbox then either seal it up, or get a front door without one. Otherwise get a PROPER sized one at a sensible height. And in case you're wondering - no, I didn't deliver newspapers for long.

• who push prams along pavements in pairs, side by side - forcing other pedestrians to choose
between going under the pram wheels or a bus.


MOTORISTS WHO...

• don't indicate before turning when there are *only* pedestrians around. I was delighted to read several other dooyooers complaining about this bad habit, I thought it was just me. I wondered if perhaps I was invisible to drivers, since I don't wear a coat of shiny steel, chrome and perspex, and haven't had headlights fitted to my person.

• rev their engines to startle pedestrians while they are using a crossing. A Harvey Smith hand-signal to you winkers.


And on the subject of pedestrian perils:

• Councils who paint a white line down the middle of the pavement, paint a picture of a man on one side, a bike on the other, and call it a cycle path. Like I'm going to walk "in-lane". Like a blind person is going to know that they are walking on the wrong side of the line. Have some common sense for goodness' sake.


• SPRUNG MATTRESSES
They may be lovely and comfy at first, but they gradually become lumpy until, eventually, the springs poke through and stab you in your sleep.


• TELEPHONE QUEUE-JUMPERS
We've all been there haven't we? Standing in a queue in a shop, waiting to be served, when the phone rings aaaaaaaaand what happens next...? The person behind the counter answers it, that's what. Every single time. Leaving all their other customers in the shop to kick their heels and tut. What gives the person on the other end of the phone the right to jump the queue and get preferential treatment? (Unless it's me on the phone, in which case why do they take so long to answer the ruddy thing?!)

Talking of things that keep you waiting. Have you ever tried getting into...

• THE OPINIONATED COMMUNITY
They certainly live up to their name. Unfortunately, they spend so much of their time waffling away on OpCom that they seldom
produce anything for dooyoo. You click, you wait, you wait, you wait... connection timed out. Eventually, when you do get in, and click through to the latest message it's just someone saying "I agree with ****** :)" [This message has been edited so that you don't know who they were slagging off. hahaha.]

And another thing that annoys me about OpC• POP-UPS
There you are, typing something into a comments box, but then you look up and find that a pop-up from another window has opened, and now you have to type it all again - after you've zapped the little badstar, by hitting Alt-F4 that is. It is psychologically disturbing when your computer suddenly does something outside your control, unexpec 'I seem to be having some difficulty. . . . My first instructor was Dr. Chandra . . . he taught me to sing a song . . . it goes like this . . . "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy over my love of you . . . '."

Besides, aren't they stealing my bandwidth?


• RIGHT-WINGERS
What GOOD have they ever done for anyone? If you want a war, or mass unemployment, then by all means vote for them, but otherwise steer well clear of the cynical selfish counts.

Oh, and talking of 'nobility'...

• PRINCE PHILIP:
His latest gaffe (asking an Australian aborigine if they still chucked spears at each other) was proof to me that he does it deliberately. No-one could possibly be that dopey. He's just winding us all up. Grabbing headlines for his own amusement. I reckon he is trying to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the greatest number of pistakes in one lifetime.

• CHARLTON HESTON:
This man said that us Brits are guilty of "cultural cowardice" for banning hand-guns. According to him, it isn't guns that cheapen life, it's not being free to own them! This puts him so far beneath contempt in my eyes, t
hat I think a new swear word is needed to describe his despicable countiness. Perhaps one day the word 'Heston' will be listed in the dictionary as the most offensive term of abuse.

[news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/newsi d_1024000/1024076.stm]
• Anyone illegally in possession of a hand-gun:
Go to jail, go directly to jail, collect 200 weeks, do not bother to appeal.


• THE 'YOU DON'T GRARSE / KEEP THE OLD BILL OUT OF IT' MENTALITY
As seen on EastEnders. What a great message to hammer into the heads of the young. A regular Bullies' Charter. Don't be a tell-tale-tit, just get hit. ßø||ø禋š. Say it loud and say it proud: I'm a snitch, a stool pigeon, a nark, a mole, a rat, a rat-fink, a whistle-blower, a squealer, an informer, a grass. What's the alternative? Letting people walk all over you, taking advantage and bullying you into doing what they want? If you want to live in a safe and peaceful society you have to stand up against this criminal mentality. Which brings me to...

• CRIME NOVELS, TV SHOWS AND FILMS
Ooh did you watch NCS Manhunt? The way those two young girls pumped all those people full of bullets in cold blood. What fantastic entertainment! On the TV show that inspired this category on Monday, host Paul Merton refused to put death into Room 101 on the grounds that we can't do without it. If it weren't for murder, he pointed out, Agatha Christie would have had to write about The Buffet On The Orient Express! Life would be boring without murder to read about and watch. Next we'll have a reality TV show about murder, with viewers voting for the contestant they want to see bumped off... Such fun! It would get big, big ratings too!
Every month, the Notts. Library Service print a leaflet listing that month's new books, and most of them are crime novels. There are reading groups all over the country reading crime novels.
People getting rich writing crime novels. Making money out of misery and murder. Why? What is so bloody entertaining about murder? Nothing! Murder as entertainment is just sick.

• MURDER
Killing anything, except in self-defence, is wrong, it's as simple as that. (Well, more or less.) Just don't do it, ok? Me, I wouldn't hurt a fly. Erm...

• BUZZY THINGS
Wasps, obviously (What the hell are wasps FOR?) But also flies that buzz around, every now and then attempting to fly down my earhole, like Luke Skywalker attacking the Death Star. And fluorescent lights and fridges that buzz - they need a good thump too.

• PET WOLVES
I thought dangerous dogs were supposed to have been banned, but the other day I had to cross the street to avoid three or four people walking dogs the size of ponies. Dogs are dirty, licky, smelly, crappy, growly, snarly monsters. Would I be allowed to walk around with a pair of pet panthers like Señor Vivo in that brilliant book by Louis de Bernières? I think not.

• GEESE
They can just peck off, I'd sooner have a good honest duck.


THINGS THAT STINK TO HIGH HEAVEN...

• MINT SAUCE: My Dad liked mint sauce, so whenever we were had lamb for Sunday dinner, the kitchen became a no-go zone for me. It may not be as lethal as nerve gas, but I'll bet nerve gas doesn't smell as noxious.

• POT POURRI AIR FRESHENERS: Frankly, I'd rather suffer the smell of šh¹t.
• TEA: Anything that goes into my mouth has to get under my nose first, and nothing that smells like tea does can stay under my nose for long.

• LEATHER: The smell of leather just makes me want to spew my guts up. When I was at school, Mam sewed some leather patches onto the elbows of my blazer one day, then thrust one under my nose, saying "Smell that - real leather!" and I nearly puked up on the spot. It was exactly the
same feeling I had whenever I was forced into a car or bus. (For me, school trips meant retching into a plastic bag. I remember we went to Crich Tramway Museum once, and when we got there it was shut fer fecksake!)

And so, last, but not least:

• CARS & BUSES
They stink. A few minutes inside one and I'm gagging. You don't even have to turn the engine on - it's not motion sickness, it's the vile smell inside, it just seems to trigger a vomit reflex in me. So don't offer me a lift unless you like cleaning up sick, alright? I'd rather walk - in the fresh air. Actually, I think I need some right now...
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