Now *this* is a true curmudgeon

With every week that passes, my list of pet hates grows longer. "Your call is important to us"; silicone implants; "thank you for not smoking"; Charles Clarke; cold callers; Ann Widdecombe; "celebrity" anything; health and safety; Yasmin Alibhai-Brown; "am I alone in thinking?"; work; the Australian interrogative inflection at the end of a statement; human rights; "for my sins"; James Blunt; "web page not found"; the Arts Council; "you're welcome"; David Blunkett; "perfectly good old-fashioned English word"; the Commission for Racial Equality; Dale Winton; media studies; "prestigious"; Patricia Hewitt; peanut butter; "so I was, like, 'whaddayamean?' "; oversized jeans that expose their wearers' underpants; the Animal Liberation Front; "in a very real sense"; teenagers who never hang up their towels after a bath; Hillary Clinton; very fat people who walk, very slowly, three abreast, along the narrowest pavements; happy-clappies; opening credits that keep flashing up on the screen, 20 minutes after the start of the film; silly surveys, claiming that the average Briton believes that middle age begins at 49 and ends at 65…