Here’s what really drives me crackers
Bushy beards. Tiny ketchup sachets. ‘Miracle’ face creams. They all leave JANET STREET-PORTER steaming
HARDLY a day passes without a spurious new survey which lists our supposedly favourite things. An example of this banality last week was one about what makes us most happy.
Among the feel-good experiences were said to be fresh sheets and popping bubble wrap. Reading this idiotic list made me extremely depressed. You cannot reduce life to a catchphrase or a ranking like a best-buy at Morrison’s.
Experiences which bring us true pleasure are being with loved ones, enjoying warm weather, eating wonderful home-cooked food and just laughing uncontrollably. It’s not rocket science. Surely a far more useful exercise is to list every aspect of modern life that makes us unhappy. Here’s my list of pet hates — which gets longer by the day:
TRENDY MEN WITH BUSHY BEARDS
IS THERE anything less attractive than a man’s chin covered by a thick mat of hair? God forbid you get close enough to snog anyone sprouting a beard that makes them look like a Sixties folk singer or an extra from a remake of Moses.
SECRET FACE-LIFTS
EVERY September, I encounter women whose faces look suspiciously taut, whose saggy chins have vanished and who have managed to eradicate the bags under their eyes. Although they put this good health down to a ‘wonderfully restful holiday’, the truth is they’ve had a face-lift.
NASTY LITTLE SACHETS
THE bane of B&Bs, cafes and hotels. What’s wrong with a pot of jam on the table?
WEATHER DOLLIES
EVERY night these simpering females appear on local TV news bulletins, posing pertly in front of a map of Britain in very high heels, and totally inappropriate cocktail frocks, waving perfectly manicured hands around.
VOUCHERS PAST USE-BY DATES
AS A dedicated bargain-hunter, it causes deep pain to discover at the till that my carefully-collected discount vouchers have expired.
ANYTHING CALLED ‘AN EXPERIENCE’
SHOPPING has become a pastime, like making raffia mats or embroidery, and addicts dignify this mindless activity by talking about the ‘experience’. Everything is an ‘experience’ these days, from a car wash to munching on a burger.
SLUGS, SNAILS, MICE
IS THERE anything more soul-destroying than lovingly nurturing broad beans, peas and lettuces from seed, only to go away for the weekend and return to find they have been destroyed by these vile creatures.
DIETING CELEBRITIES
NOTHING makes me crosser than celebrities’ claims that any weight-loss is due to ‘eating healthily’. Nine times out of ten, they’ve been paid a huge sum of money to plug a diet plan or a food supplement.
CHEFS WHO THINK THEY’RE PICASSO
TOO many chefs fiddle with a decent meal and turn it into something that artist Tracey Emin would be proud of. For example, with chive and parmesan crisps carefully balanced like a propeller surrounded by drips of gravy. Yuk.
PAY-BY-PHONE CAR PARKING
WHAT’S wrong with cash? This drives people crazy — especially older people who find it a big hassle to try to use a phone to pay for 20 minutes in a car park so you can get your shopping in Boots.
QUEUE-JUMPERS AT AIRPORTS
AFTER patiently waiting my turn, I could murder anyone who suddenly appears out of the blue and joins a ‘friend’ in the queue in front on me.
SUPERFOODS
SOLD at a premium price because we are so desperate to extend our lives by a month, that we want to stuff ourselves with goji berries, quinoa, purple sprouting broccoli, pink tomatoes and hideous kale. Funny how mum and dad were so thin and fit, without a single goji berry.
FAKE WORDS
FOR example, air stewards talk of ‘de-planing’ (don’t they mean ‘disembarking’ or ‘getting off’)? Railway stations are described as ‘calling points’. I heard a radio reporter speak about Nigerians ‘jubilating’ after the country’s recent election. Phoney
words started when ordinary people started being called ‘stakeholders’. I blame New Labour.
RE-SEALABLE BAGS OF RICE
WHOEVER invented the ‘re-sealable’ bag for rice, nuts, pasta etc, I want to go around to their house and shout: ‘It doesn’t work!’
JUICERS
THE Devil’s gadgets. If God had meant us to live on green slime, he would have given us gills and no teeth. Part of the enjoyment of food is the textures and fibres. No one is going to reduce my breakfast to slurry in the name of an energy drink.
MIRACLE FACE/EYE CREAM
THE impossible dream — turning back time with a pot of gunk. Only a giant pleat pulled together at the back of my neck will get rid of the sagging jowls on my jawline. The cheapest solution is to talk a lot, so the loose flesh keeps moving and it either tightens up or it’s not so obvious.
PAYING BILLS ONLINE
HAVING to remember all the ruddy passwords to log on to your account takes longer than writing an old-fashioned cheque and sticking it in an envelope.
SMALL TALK
I’M USELESS at this, and am infuriated when check-out staff in the supermarket (ordered to do so by their boss) ask how I am. If wanted to talk to them, I’d open the conversation.
TRAD JAZZ
IN MY MIND, this will for ever be ‘dad’ jazz, not helped by the fact Tory grandee Ken Clarke is a huge fan. Modern jazz is fantastic, but I’m afraid the late clarintettist Acker Bilk has a lot to answer for. Trad jazz goes with halitosis, corduroy trousers, a check shirt and a dodgy waistcoat.
YORKSHIRE PUD FLOPS
I AM a decent cook, but I’ve never managed to make a Yorkshire pud that didn’t resemble an old shoe sole. And don’t bother writing in with your tips, I’ve tried them all.
GETTING MY NAME WRONG
DON’T ever call me Janice! In America, I’m routinely called Miss Street or Mrs Porter. Sorry, I managed to marry a doublebarrelled bloke, but that’s my name, so get over it.
ORIGAMI HOTEL TOWELS
IS THIS a substitute for real cleaning — folding the ends of toilet paper into points and sticking the clean towels on the bed, turned into origami swans?
CENTRAL HEATING CONTROLS
WHEN the Devil wanted to create something that would result in regular domestic fury, he devised the control box for programming central heating. Holiday settings, off-peak settings and then copying each day’s setting to the next day … I feel miserable just thinking about it.
COUNTRY PUB LANDLORDS
AS A walker, I know that the more remote the pub, the less likely it will serve anything edible after 2pm. They think they can fob people off with a bag of crisps and a picked onion. Forget the ‘hospitality industry’, it’s more like the hostility industry.
UNNECESSARY INSURANCE
I AM bombarded with leaflets and emails offering special insurance for my gutters, my roof, the central heating, the drains, the pipework, the pet, and my holidays. How did we get through life before the advent of insurance? I have cancelled nearly all the policies after my plumber told me one for the boiler costing me £200 a year was pointless.
MEN AND SHOPPING LISTS
WHAT is it about men and supermarkets? Why do they have to go off-piste? Instead of getting the essentials you’ve carefully written down for them, they buy their own favourites: a nasty can of hot dogs, a huge pot of English mustard and a jumbo bag of crisps.
STEPS AT STATIONS
MAYBE it’s because I make a lot of journeys with a heavy wheelie bag stuffed full of left-overs from the fridge, my computer, some clean clothes and a book. But why do most railway stations have giant flights of steps between platforms and up from the car park?
READY-TO-EAT FRUIT
ANOTHER supermarket scam — you pay way more for this stuff on the basis that it will be deliciously ripe, but they invariably turn to mush in 24 hours.
BABY CHAT
OK, I haven’t had a baby, only four husbands — but I don’t go around flashing photos of them at people. Why should I be interested in someone’s new baby, unless they are directly related to me? Most babies look exactly the same anyway, just giant tadpoles in nappies.
PUBLIC EATING
WE’VE become a nation of scoffers totally unembarrassed about gorging while we walk, dropping chips and spraying crumbs as we chat on our mobile phones. Ugh!
TRAIN ANNOUNCEMENTS
EVERY journey nowadays seems to be blighted by the guard (now called a ‘train manager’!) making endless useless announcements about the next station, the cause of a delay or the availability of a full range of snacks (i.e. just crisps) in the buffet car (now re-named the ‘on-board café’.)
TOILET ROLL TROLLS
THERE’S nothing more annoying than someone who doesn’t replace a toilet roll.
BAD IMPERSONATORS OF ME
ABOUT once a month, a member of the public comes up to me and announces that their teenage daughter does a really good impersonation of me and is thinking of a career on telly. Being confronted by an embarrassed 16-year-old with ginger hair attempting to mimic my accent is not remotely entertaining!