What To Do When Someone Reads Out Bits Of Their Book/Newspaper To You

It’s a universally annoying thing when someone you’re sitting quietly with, reading papers or books, starts chuckling and attempting to read snippets out to you. You have no idea of the context of what they’re reading out – they’re just reading out random sentences at you which they think are totally hilarious. We’ve all been the initiator and the victim of this awkward moment. Somehow you forget how utterly painful it is to be on the receiving end of it and happily inflict it on someone else another time. Stop it. And in the meantime, here’s what to do when you find yourself the victim:

1. Don’t attempt to ignore the reader. You’ll get more irritated if you try to keep reading your own thing. Put your book down, and give their recitation your full attention. It will be over more quickly this way.
2. Chuckle politely at first. When the person starts faltering and reading it out badly or for too long, seize your moment and say, “Sounds like I need to read this in full later, can you fold down/mark the page for me?” This will stop their flow; all they want is to share the thing with you.
3. Commit this moment to your emotional memory. Hopefully your cringe gland will kick in and stop you doing this to anyone ever again. 

Flickr: Roubicek

This week's dilemmas, debates and questions of taste

"Nom"

Not acceptable.

Nigel Slater on TV

Very awkward when he lowers his eyes and quietly, solemnly eats whatever he's made.

Will Self wanting to 'transform' Trafalgar Square with cafes and ethnic food stalls

Too obvious. Isn't it time the middle class makeover had a makeover?

Whether to interject when you hear someone offering the wrong information, eg time, train destination

You must. But start with a flurry of apologies.

Elocution

We've been saying (very clearly) for a while that it matters.

Someone else going round a supermarket at exactly the same pace as you, in the same aisles

Annoying.

Eight years until squeezed middle recover to pre-recession income?

Depressing.

Henk Potts from Barclays Wealth

Great name, peculiar voice.

The Radio Times 'commando photograph' apology

Hilariously coy.

Yoghurt as a dinner party dessert

Not really acceptable. Even Rachel's.

The Friday Question: having a wee while on the phone; acceptable among close friends, or disgusting?

Have you ever been talking to someone on the phone, and then heard in the background the sound of running water? Or rather, a sound like running water, a sound that could be a tap, but could also be – and there is no nice way to say this, really – the person to whom you are talking having a wee. Have you? I heard it the other day, and was rather discomforted because the person was in no way a close friend. With a close friend, I might have said, “Oi, are you having a pee?” and made a joke of it (it wouldn’t really have bothered me that much anyway) but with a mere acquaintance I was left with a faintly weird image.

A quick office poll suggests we fall into three camps on this issue; those who find it appalling when anyone does it, those who don’t mind good pals doing it, and then a microscopic minority who don’t care. On the whole, it’s probably not terribly middle-class, and we advise readers not to do it.

How To Be Middle-Class: resenting the friend who drops in

There are few things more distressing to a middle-class person than a friend who drops in. You’re happily relaxing on a Saturday afternoon in your shabby home clothes, the house a mess. And then the phone rings. “I’ve been shopping really near you and as I’m so close I thought I’d drop in for a cuppa – are you at home?”

Yes, you’re at home, and you do want to see them – just not right now, when it hasn’t been planned. Because you now have 10 minutes to sort yourself out and tidy up. And you feel you’ve got to offer some sort of cake with their cup of tea. Essentially what happens is that in these 10 minutes you attempt to engineer the quality of social gathering you’d have created if you’d had a day or two to prepare. Meanwhile, the oblivious friend saunters over to your house, only to say “you needn’t have gone to any trouble”.

You know that 1950 song ‘If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake’? The middle-class experience, in fact, is ‘If I Knew You Were Comin' I’d’ve Gone Out’.

Flickr: Claire L. Evans

You’re not the only jock in town; the rise and rise of the annoying regional expat

Tonight being Burns Night, we thought it apt to ask an important question; why do all Scots and Northerners in London assume that everyone else is a sassenach? There are nearly 8 million people in the capital, so it’s statistically unlikely that you are the only Scot/Manc/Geordie/Yorkshireman in town. There’s probably even someone who went to your primary school. Some of the most vocal champions of their region have in fact lived ‘Down South’ for decades, longer than in the place they feel so nationalistic about. Several even run leading London magazines.

Personally, I’ve lived half my life in either the north of England or Scotland, half in London. I’ve clung on to the best bits (dandelion & burdock, the Smiths, shortbread) and run away from the worst (rain, The Hogmanay Show, collective national chip on shoulder). So stop acting like you are some sort of exotic expat, stop banging on about Tunnock’s Tea Cakes, or how it’s impossible to get decent chips or the ‘proper’ name for what you know everyone calls a crumpet. Just shut up and eat your pie and mash – you probably don’t even like haggis anyway.
 
Top 10 most annoying regional expats (in order of vocalness):

1. Lowland Scots
2. North Yorkshire
3. Mancs/Lancs
4. Irish (both)
5. West Yorkshire
6. Scousers
7. Geordies
8. Welsh
9. Derby/Notts/Staffs
10. Highland Scots