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So I heard the other day that there are now no offences in the United Kingdom that can result in capital punishment. Not even treason. So, you can wander about slagging off the royal family as much as you like—hey, the tabloids do. In view of this, I’ve decided to write my own list of things that ought to become arrestable offences. Not capital…well, probably not. 1. Misusing apostrophes. Come on. What’s the apostrophe done to you? Has it wronged you in some way? Why do you insist on being so wantonly cruel to it? It’s a sensitive little soul who should only exist in certain climates, and using it whenever you have a plural—as some idiot’s do—is cruel and unusual punishment. But take it out of words where it ought to belong—your an idiot if you do—and it’ll wither and die. And then you’ll have the death of an innocent punctuation mark on your conscience. 2. Driving at 40mph regardless of the speed limit. Especially on single-carriageways. On a 50 road or a 30 road, why do you do it? Why? Then when you hit a 40 zone, you slow down to 30… 3. Letting your phone ring in the cinema. Letting it ring in the theatre is a hanging offence. 4. Insisting on music on MySpace. Actually, so many things about MySpace, up to and including those Spaces that are full of flashing, sparkling doohickeys that mean the page takes forever to load and is so ugly it's blinding. But most of all, the fact that even though I’ve checked the option for music NOT to play, it still does. No. No. It’s late at night, everyone else in my house is asleep, my dad has to get up at 5.30, and I click on your page only to be serenaded by the Googoo Dolls! Why would you do that to my poor daddy, why? 5. Telling people what dress size ‘real women’ do and do not wear. Last time I checked, I was a real woman. I have all the girlie bits and I’m reasonably sure I’m not holographic. Declaring that real women don’t wear a size 8 or 2 or whatever (and remember that different countries have different sizing charts) is very unfair to those people who work hard to be thin (and it is bloody hard work!). And bear in mind that many slender women have very rich husbands. Or top ten albums. Or multi-million-dollar films. Interviews on prime-time TV. Huge platforms for declaring their literary likes and dislikes. Think about it… 6. Txtspk. It has a place: in a text message. Actually, since virtually all phones have predictive text now, it doesn’t have much of a place there. It doesn’t belong in emails or message boards. It makes you look like an illiterate teenager. And heavens, people, can we at least get it right? My poor abused friend Apostrophe is glad he’s not included in the usual array of txtspk, but he’s very insulted that people still can’t tell the difference between ur and yr. 7. Big Brother. Big Brother contestants. People who watch Big Brother on TV. People who watch the 24hr Big Brother channel and stare at people sleeping. Newspaper coverage of Big Brother. Big Brother adverts on TV. Big Brother’s Little Brother. Big Brother fans who’ve never heard of 1984. Big Brother fans who believe it’s not engineered by the production company and all just happens. The Big Brother production company. You should all be put in a big cell until the summer is over and proper programming comes back on TV. 8. Campaigning for Charles to abscond and allow Wills to inherit the throne. For the love of God, people, it’s the monarchy, not America’s Next Top Model. The prettiest one doesn’t win. 9. Wearing lip liner darker than your lipstick. This should be self-explanatory, but let me add that I've never once met a nice person who does this. 10. Using the phrase ‘I’m only speaking my mind’. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard this phrase used except in defence of statements that were made with the sole intention of irritating or hurting other people. This is closely followed by the ‘right to free speech’ defence, which ought to come with the proviso ‘but not if you’re talking bollocks’. 11. Wearing smock dresses. Unless you actually are pregnant. Not since the 1630s has their been such a ludicrous fashion for emulating pregnancy. Is it some sort of subtle evolutionary code? By wearing clothes that make you look as if you are expecting a baby, are you subconsciously broadcasting your fertility to potentially suitable mates? Or are you just trying to hide your spare tyre? 12. Talking loudly on a mobile phone in an enclosed space. Yes, I mean you, the woman sitting behind me in the departures lounge in Atlanta airport last year, calling everyone you’d ever met to tell them you were flying to London. It’s a good job you weren’t sitting near me on the plane or I’d have been forced to improvise a murder weapon from my plastic fork, three earrings and a set of headphones. Thus banning them from air travel from now on. And I don’t think we want to ban headphones, do we? 13. Allowing your children to run around restaurants, shops, public transport, or anywhere, really, without either apologising or attempting to control them. It’s not cute. It’s not allowing them to express their natural exuberance. It’s rude, inconsiderate and ought to be arrestable. Control your children. I control my dog, even though she thinks its fun to leap up at people and chew their fingers off. And if you give me that smug ‘look, I managed to reproduce and you didn’t, haha’ look while your little darling is spilling fizzy drink on my shoes, I’ll set my demon dog on you. |
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