Now for the next section of the things I would like to see consigned to the Room of Doom created by George Orwell. (I wonder what he’d make of social media and cameras everywhere? Not much, probably).
46. Wastefulness
I’m thinking about excessive packaging on products especially for this (Easter eggs have been notorious for this though I’m glad to say this appears to be improving. Mind, I would welcome it if chocolate could suddenly turn out to have a zero calorific value!). Having said that, I think the image below is (a) accurate and (b) one of the saddest I’ve ever put up on Chandler’s Ford Today.
47. Badly Designed Car Parks – Exits and Entrances and Metal Bars
Now I know I’ve mentioned car parks before but this time it is specifically for those which have awkward exits and entrances, and/or those metal bars which disappear from view as you reverse into a bay. There are so many car parks out there which would have benefited from more thought being given to their design in the first place.
48. Flies
I’ve already consigned wasps to the vault of doom but flies can join them there. While I appreciate flies are a good source of food for so many creatures from birds to spiders, I remember from my secondary school days a poster that was up in my Biology class. It went into graphic detail as to how unhygenic flies were and what they did if they landed on your food etc. It was never great seeing that poster when we had Biology before lunch! (It wasn’t that great when we had Biology just after lunch either!).
49. “Music” coming out of cars very loudly
I’m a big fan of the 1812 Overture, Beethoven’s 5th etc so am not against loud music per se (as long as you’re not waking the neighbours up at some wee hour in the morning with it). However, I often hear what sounds like thud-thud-thud repeated over and over again as what passes for music comes out of someone’s car. I wouldn’t mind if there was a tune but it just seems to be this one beat repeated over and over again. It lacks imagination.
50. Celebrities who are Famous for Being Famous
I don’t really need to justify this one, do I? All I will say is I have never understood the point of this. If someone is famous for writing, great sporting achievements, charity work etc, all of that I do understand. I also can’t see how someone can get to be famous for being famous in the first place. All I know is that it happens and I fervently wish it didn’t.
51. Overpriced clothing for Those of Us with Height Issues
I’ve never worn a mini skirt in my life. I’ve no intention of doing so either but I do know if I changed my mind (don’t worry, I won’t), I’d have problems. Why? A standard mini skirt would reach just below my knees and so isn’t a mini any more! When I buy clothes, I have to think about not the length of the skirt the manufacturer says it is, but where said garment will come to on me! I also have a great deal of sympathy with those who are tall who have issues with clothing but in a different direction (upwards)! I wish clothes manufacturers would realise (a) we’re not all a standard size and (b) even when they do realise, stop charging a small fortune for specialist clothes for the smaller/taller in sizes. It is a rip off.
52. Queue Jumpers
I don’t care if this is in traffic or on the pavement or in a shop but it is wrong and plain rude and tells you more about the person doing it than perhaps they realise. It surprises me a little as if someone queue jumped them, they would almost certainly be indignant about it. So why do it to others then?
53. Made up words
I have no problems at all with the made up words beloved and invented by writers such as Lewis Carroll. You know, especially in his case, it is nonsense and I read it and enjoy it like that. I do have a major issue with words like “functionality”. Ugh! You would just say something is functional or it is not. You could, if you wanted, say a product was useful or not. There is no need for functionality as a word and I hate typing it even for this so the sooner it can be removed from usage, the better.
54. Hatchet jobs for reviews etc
I strongly suspect the reason hatchet reviews are sometimes carried out is that the person writing it is either jealous of whoever/whatever it is they are reviewing or, for reasons best known to themselves, feel a review means being extremely critical. No. A review should tell you something about the book, play, concert or what have you and what the reviewer liked and/or disliked about it.
Say you went to a concert and thought one number was not up to standard but everything else was excellent. Surely you would say that and not write off the whole concert due to one “bad” piece. Books are notorious for attracting hatchet reviews and here I would want to know whether the reviewer is a published author or not. If they are, are they reviewing something which could rival their own work? If not, are they jealous? A good review (even if overall it gives a bad outcome) must be genuinely impartial.
55. People being anti-fake flowers
I like fake flowers. I’ve heard people decry them, they’re not as good as real ones etc. Ahem. Of course they’re not. That’s not the point. I have several fake flowers dotted around the place and, best of all, given I’m a hayfever sufferer, fake flowers give me no problems at all. Of course, you can’t beat real flowers, I love the scent of lilac for example (though it always triggers a bout of sneezing when I decide I really must enjoy their perfume again!), but fake flowers are something that those with allergies can really appreciate.
56. Spam – of all kinds!
I loathe Spam, the tinned meat. I’ve tried it a few times and every time I’ve been ill not long afterwards. There is just something about tinned meat like that which clearly doesn’t agree with me so, naturally, I’m not unbiased here. I also loathe spam of the “filling your inbox with total rubbish” variety and would also like to see that consigned to Room 101. Life is far too short to have to deal with spam.
57. Clock changing
I’ve never really understood the point of changing the clocks twice a year. Why not pick one time and stick to it? Can you really save on daylight? What you gain in the mornings, you do lose in the evenings and vice versa! I find it takes me about a week to get used to the “new” time every spring and autumn. Oh and is it just me but is there always one clock that is always difficult to adjust? There is always one clock you forget to do – in my case it’s the car one.
58. Nuisance Phone Calls – sales etc
Since going on to the Telephone Preference Service, the number of these calls has greatly reduced, thankfully. There had been a point when not a day seemed to go by without at least one of these calls coming in and almost always just as I’d sat down to dinner. You do get fed up with that! I do sometimes get calls and mostly when I tell people I’m on the TPS they apologise and hang up. The ones that just slam the phone down on me? Well not only can you go to Room 101 as well, but I think you should go into a special section where you’re inundated with unwanted phone calls too and see how you like it. Harsh but fair I think!
59. Slugs and Snails
Again, I know they have their uses as food for birds but I suspect most gardeners wouldn’t be sorry to see the back of slugs and snails. I’m not fazed by the slime but it is the link with lungworm, which can be fatal to dogs, that does concern me. For the sake of all owners of inquisitive pets, slugs and snails being consigned to Room 101 would remove that worry.
And another animal one to finish this section on…
60. Rats
Rats are smart, intelligent creatures. Maybe this is the real reason most people hate them! It is ironic it is not rats themselves that carry disease but the fleas they have do. Bubonic plague was brought over that way. But the real problem is that rats reproduce so quickly that even with all of their natural predators around, keeping rat numbers down is an issue. The thought of being overrun by rats is a nightmare. Putting all rats into Room 101 would at least be humane. (Maybe they could tackle the flies and wasps in there!).
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
53 Made up words. Yes, some are horrid and add nothing to the language. I have made up a few myself but take pride in a small controversy where I succeeded in getting the word ‘precise’ accepted as a verb in medical publications. I wanted to retain what was best in the concept of brain death but avoid the confusions in the USA’s Uniform Declaration of Death Act, and move towards a concept of brainstem death which was both philosophically and clinically superior. Hence I precised the concept and criteria for brain death.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Brain-Ethics-Professor-David/dp/0709941846
Some made up words make sense, David. For example the word “website” is a useful addition to the language. What I have no time for are made up words that contribute nothing useful or are grammatically unnecessary. Functionality is an abomination in my view!
Totally agree. And some languages have to move fast to keep up with new words. When Television became popular the Welsh word which was offered was Tele Wele, which was quickly dropped in favour of teledu.
However, the word ‘teledu’ in Malay, I believe, refers to a stink badger having brownish-black fur with a white stripe along the top of the head and back, native to Sumatra, Java, and Borneo.
Any noun can be verbized but it doesn’t make for pretty literacy.
As for new words, I learned about ‘ping meals’ recently. Those plastic-wrapped meals you put in the microwave until it goes ‘ping’. The object should go to room 101 but the name is rather neat.
I was not aware that any noun could be verbalized, Mike. I had such a problem with getting that one word accepted in medical publications, and justified it by pointing out that conceptual accuracy in an intensive care unit was more important than pretty literacy. Anyhow, put down cheerfully accepted. I don’t have much in the way of writing skills.
I don’t know if is this is one of those urban myths but the Welsh for microwave oven has been reported as being “popty ping”! I hope it IS true, sounds wonderful and is very descriptive.
He he. Wish it was. The official word is meicrodon, which is ugly to my Welsh ears. The problem is that as new things appear the newsreaders in Cardiff have to come up with a new word, which frequently has to be abandoned.
Been involved in a lot of brain death decisions without being aware of the verb ‘precise’. Do you think I may have got it wrong? The verbized thing wasn’t meant as a put-down, maybe just as a challenge.
I used to interpret EEGs. They are not strictly necessary for brain death diagnosis but they gave comfort to the relatives and a little extra confidence to the doctors.
BTW an applicant for medical school was asked if he thought his A-level in Ancient Greek would help him to be a better doctor. He said it guaranteed at least he would never spell diarrhoea wrong.
The EEG was never a reliable indicator of brain death. After many head injuries a patient might walk out of hospital 48 hours after a so called flat EEG. Its popularity in the public image of death was due partly to Hollywood and partly to the US fascination with technology. It is important to demonstrate that brainstem death, irreversible loss of the capacity for consciousness and irreversible loss of the ability to breathe, can be diagnosed by means of neurological tests providing that exclusions and preconditions are met before the tests are applied. There should be no need to hoodwink relatives into thinking that the EEG provided confirming evidence. Even the Harvard Committee in the late 1960’s maintained that the EEG should not be mandatory. Using precise as a verb enabled me to retain the concept of brain death, misunderstood in the USA’s UDDA where it called for evidence of irreversible loss of all brain functions including the brainstem, thus requiring tests for every part of the brain whilst needlessly referring to one part. I was able to insist that criteria and tests for irreversible loss of brainstem function actually met the UDDA requirements, as this precised their criteria.
‘The time has been
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end. But now they rise again…’ Macbeth.
The brain death issue and role of the EEG is long and complicated, so I won’t add to it. Here is an excellent guide written by my friend and mentor, Dr Christopher Pallis, with whom I worked on the subject for over 15 years. I would love to do an article on this remarkable genius, who wrote medical texts, novels, political and philosophical books and delved into many political intrigues.The secret of his multiple identities and nationalities was known only to his closest friends.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1546517/pdf/bmjcred00537-0040.pdf