Room 101 - Ian Harding
Everyone has pet hates or things that annoy us that if we could stop the world from doing or having we would live a much happier existence – they are often purely selfish but they can make our days get off on the wrong foot. Ian Harding spills all on what winds him up good and proper!
I understand that if I think about it these sore points for me from another person’s perspective will play an important role in making the world go round but frankly if I was King of the World they’d be high up on my priority list!
1. Health and Safety Regulations
This one annoys me because so often it’s just so unnecessary and it leeches the life out of activities that should be fun. For example you want to take a group of people out for a walk: that’ll be a health and safety/risk assessment form. Or you fancy taking a group abseiling? That’ll be six forms, 17 stamps, 24 parents and an almighty headache for your trouble. Abseiling for example – is it dangerous? Of course it’s dangerous; that’s why we like it! Or how about all those health and safety notices that are cropping up in every building or on the side of cups of coffee (which reads caution: hot!!)?
Health and safety annoys me as this last example demonstrates because it assumes I am stupid! I know coffee is hot. If I am on a building site I know not to wear flip-flops.
However as already stated the side-effect of health and safety that annoys me the most is what it does to children. It doesn’t allow them the permission to explore, to make mistakes, to get that cool scar on their elbow which will make a great story when they are older. Children surrounded by health and safety regulations become timid, fearful adults who refuse to try anything on the grounds that it’s not safe. I’d rather get the scar.
2. American Spellings
Got to confess to a vested interest here: I’m an English teacher by training. Therefore this one hits me where it hurts the most. I walk down the street and cannot fail to see the influence of America. Don’t get me wrong I’ve got nothing against Americans: they just can’t spell!!
The walk down the street is one of agony. There’s the carpet shop proclaiming it has ‘lots of different colors to choose from’; then there’s the ice cream parlour which declares it has ‘every flavor you could wish for’; this is followed by some health-food shop extolling the virtues of some natural plant oil as ‘nature’s defense’ (on the plus side at least they used an apostrophe – don’t even get me started!). You get the general picture. And this doesn’t even include: realize, specialize (these should all end in ‘ise’) or all those awful advertising slogans borrowed from the States: eazee (for easy), kleen (clean), pleeze (argghh!). All I ask is that our language is left alone and children actually grow up knowing what the correct spelling is. Is this too much to ask? I don’t think so.
3. Sky +
Let me begin by saying that my annoyance with this has nothing to do with what Sky + is. It’s fantastic. A way to record TV whilst you’re so you can watch it later without having to mess about with a DVD recorder/VCR? Show me the way! My problem put simply is the price. It’s too much. The equipment isn’t that technologically advanced; neither is the concept. So why is it so expensive? It’s not fair. It should be free. End of.
4. Wallets
Is it just me or are all men’s wallets just rubbish? I have been looking for the perfect wallet now for – and this is no word of a lie – 10 years. Reason… because the design hasn’t altered. Essentially it’s a piece of leather that folds in the middle, with slots for your cards (usually too small or too large so your cards risk falling out!?) and an envelope for the notes.
You see it’s the coins that are the issue. They will fit in but then the wallet become unwieldy and uncomfortable. It won’t fit in your pocket either. And trust me a wallet that’s got coins in it eats through jean pockets faster than a pack of piranhas on a feeding frenzy!
The design needs a rethink because the only alternative I’ve ever seen is Joey’s man-bag from Friends and it wasn’t good then and it still isn’t now! Men should not be forced into putting the fact that their future wife has a hand-bag on the list of must-haves. It’s embarrassing and wrong!
5. CD’s
In The Wrong Cases
So you’re looking to change the CD over. You fancy a bit of something relaxing, maybe a bit of Norah Jones playing gently in the background. You open the CD case to find a Killers CD in there. It’s not a problem. The two have probably got mixed up the last time someone played them. Opening the Killers CD album however only confronts you with Coldplay’s X and Y.
Fifteen minutes later, and with the whole floor covered in CDs you finally emerge with the Norah Jones CD you were looking for in the first place. Exhausted from your efforts and certainly no longer chilled out, you decide there’s no point in playing the album anyway.
When you contrast that with the simplicity of pulling out a CD album which contains the correct CD and I think it’s clear where common sense lies. Just put it back!
6. Uncreative Designs
This one annoys me because someone has been paid to do a good job and clearly hasn’t thought it through. Because of this you get a product that promises much but fails to deliver. Example? Cars. Watch any car advert these days and you’d think that as well as buying a car you were also buying the rights to escape, create your own destiny and explore the planet on roads which are a driver’s dream.
Yet get into a car and we see some poor design. Cup holders? Place these above the stereo so you can’t actually get to the buttons. So it’s either a Starbucks or the radio – you can’t have both. Or the introduction of a socket for the Ipod (great idea by the way) but with nowhere for the Ipod to rest.
Cars aren’t the only place we see poor design. It’s in hundreds of everyday household objects: TVs which only work if you have the remote; instructions for how to load the CD which come on the CD; chairs which don’t support your back; vacuums that don’t vacuum.
7. No win, No Fee
I call this no win, no fee or an excuse for the lawyers to get paid even more than they already do.
The most annoying aspect of this is that it seems like it’s doing us a favour. But it isn’t. It just encourages people to make claims which they otherwise wouldn’t have made on the mistaken premise that they are doing no harm. This is just naïve. Insurance companies are not stupid. If they have more money coming out of the pot guess how they’re going to recoup it? They’re going to increase the price of insurance. The cost will be passed on.
Therefore when we make a claim actually we’re paying for it ourselves. Now how ridiculous is that? In the bin it goes!
Well this has been an insight into 7 things that really bug me. I’m off now to redesign a man’s wallet. I’ve decided it’s the only way I can free men the world over from the horror of the man-bag!
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