Alex's Weekly Blog - 19th September

I wrote about stress recently, and feel quite zen this week, apart from the fact I'm writing this column right up against the deadline.I don't know where the weeks are going, and Christmas is now less than 100 days away, whilst the nights are drawing in faster than I can eat a bag of Haribo Tangfastics.

A new list of things that really inconvenience us piqued my interest this week. It's compiled by a gas boiler company, so I'm fairly certain they were hoping 'my boiler breaking down' would make the number one position. However, as the Boaty McBoatface episode demonstrated, people don't always vote in the way you expect them to.

I thought we count down the Top Ten, in the spirit of my new Retro Countdown feature which I'm doing on Tameside Radio weekday mornings at 10am. It's a fairly shameless plug, but if you fancy hearing some songs you've not heard on the radio for ages, give it a whirl. So far, my favourite year has been 1989, although I'm a little alarmed that the likes of Blackbox Ride On Time and Tina Turner The Best are 35 years ago. I may need to reassess my showbiz age!
 

At number 10, we have 'holding a door open and someone not saying thank you'. Absolutely. Unforgiveable behaviour. Similarly, if you are driving on that narrow bit of the Lydgate cobbles, and let someone through, the least they can do is lift a finger off the steering wheel to acknowledge your kindness. Motorists not saying thank you really gets my goat, almost as much as middle lane hoggers on the M60, pootling along at 48 mph.

In at number 9, 'struggling to find the end of a roll of sticky tape'. I'm afraid I am pretty hopeless at this. More embarrassingly, I recently tried to remove a scratch from the bodywork of my wife's car using Zoflora, and not only did it fail to clean up the bodywork, but it's actually stripped a bit of the paint off the vehiclel that even the top programme at the car wash can't fix. Epic fail.

Number 7 is a tie between 'staining your favourite clothing' and 'leaving something in a pocket of clothes in the wash'. I can confirm paper fivers can survive a light cycle in the machine in a jeans pocket, but wouldn't recommend you check this theory. However, train tickets definitely don't. Luckily, in these modern times of Google wallets, I rarely have much in my pockets over than my keys.

Number 4 is a threeway tie. 'Boiler breaking down', 'public transport not turning up on time or at all' and 'rain beginning just after washing has been hung on the line'. All annoying, admittedly, but I was pleased to receive £2.25 compensation from Northern last week after they cancelled one of my trains. It bought almost a third of a burrito at Stalybridge Street Fest.

Number 3 is 'Wi-Fi cutting out'. This happened on holiday in Staithes in 2022, and was amazing. No signal meant no notifications. I went a stage further this year and left my phone switched off at home. Can recommend.

Number 2 is 'needing the toilet but not finding a public loo'. Worse for me is locating one and there being no liquid soap or sanitiser. Or watching people walking straight out of public toilets without making any attempt to wash their hands. Have they learned nothing from the last four and a half years? My mate Matt carries a little bottle of hand sanitiser round with him to use in places like pubs and restaurants, and I've started doing the same. There's no excuse not to be clean. Public loos are grim, but vanishingly rare in many areas largely as a result of local council funding cutbacks, so this seems a legitimate gripe.

And at number 1, 'people pushing in on a queue'. We do love joining a queue in this country, and in the spirit of fairness, we quite like waiting a while. I can't argue with this being at the top, but let me know if there are any the survey compilers have missed! I would add people who listen to music on public transport without headphones, or even worse, have conversations on speakerphone. You're not on the Apprentice. Stop it! Also, people who chew their food loudly, and folk who check their phone in the cinema, or worse take their shoes off & put their feet on the seats. No!