Annoyance, the top ten:
10. Women who shriek: most annoying of all are the orange spray-tanned variety with nylon hair and cheap shoes they cannot walk in who've drunk too much alcopop. Luckily, I choose not to frequent many establishments which attract such wildlife, but occasionally one makes a mistake, is seduced by a stylish-looking facade only to discover the interior (and its clientele) are well below par on the scale of elegance.
9. Children who repeatedly ignore their parents when told to "stop that" and, equally, parents who cannot dole out sufficient discipline to keep their offspring under control in public. Most irritating of all are those parents who think that taking their children to a restaurant is the same as taking them to a theme park and allowing them to run amok. I usually find a handbag, strategically placed in the path of a child running at breakneck speed amongst the tables puts a swift end to such thoroughly undesirable behaviour.
8. Married men who attempt anything stronger than mild flirtation with strangers. Despicable behaviour in any language.
7. Explicit swearing in public. The preserve of tabloid-readers and pensioners who think the rules of etiquette no longer apply to them. Both types are very much mistaken. However, explicit swearing in the privacy of one's own home or the home of very dear friends who also enjoy the colourful English language in all its forms should be throughly enjoyed and encouraged.
6. Reality television: about as realistic as the tans, tits, twits and tantrums which go to make up this wholly unpleasant genre.
5. Gardening. as in "doing your own". Gardening was what well-muscled sixth-formers working through their summer holidays was invented for.
4. Processed food. Foul and the sole reason for the invention of Ritalin.
3. Wind: gales, stiff breezes, blustery days and howling nights. Elnette is good, but not that good.
2. People who speak in cliches. You know, at the end of the day, between you and me, basically, you know what I'm saying? Lazy, ill-read bastards.
1. Top ten lists: the preserve of lazy, ill-read writers.
And, on that note (another cliche, for which I apologise), I'm off to peruse the bookshelves for something high-brow and proliferated with words of more than three syllables.