planner challenge: 2CCARGH – what really annoys you?

Another week, another planner post! Twas a long week last week so we didn’t give you a reacharound and for that we can only apologise, but I was beetling my hire car around Glasgow and, for the briefest of momenets, Liverpool, and my typing fingers were aching from yanking on an unfamiliar gear-stick. Forgive me.

Of course, Monday means a planner post! You may recall that we have a planner out – you can order it here – and part of that is a weekly challenge to get people talking. So, without delay, let’s turn to #2CCARGH!

I’m afraid we’ve gone for a contentious planner challenge choice this week, partly on the back of the grumpy post last week, partly because I’m currently a swirling vortex of anger but mainly because I love hearing what other people kvetch about. If one’s man’s meat is another man’s poison, then please, fill my hole with as much meat as you can. The smaller annoyances are the best, but if you feel the need to vent, you go for it.

As you can see, we’ve done made a graphic to go with it.

Paul’s annoyance is easy: he sucks air over his teeth whenever someone says ‘going forward’. He has a point: it’s a very rare thing in life to be able to work backwards, unless you’re solving a murder or disassembling a jigsaw to go to a charity shop. Mind regular readers will know that he also has a strop if I say thrice, which is a perfectly cromulent word, but he’s having none of it. It’s just one of those nonsense terms that means nothing to him, like me and ‘forsaking all others’ and ‘that’s a sharing platter’.

My complaint was going to be men who wear Joop because honestly, gentlemen, there’s no excuse to go around smelling like a unicorn fart warmed on a radiator, but that’s a matter of personal taste so I took it back. No, mine speaks to a wider annoyance which is troubling me at the moment: people who have chosen to wear their arseholeness as a badge of honour online. We’ve seen it recently in our facebook group: people being nasty for the sake of it. And it is beyond tiresome, it really is.

You know the people, too, because everyone knows at least one: people who say things like ‘I tell it like it is’ and ‘I don’t sugarcoat things’ and ‘honesty is the best policy’ and ‘if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best’ and other meaningless B&M inspiration-board twaddle. Those dead-behind-the-eyes anuses who delight in knocking people down and being the first to get in with some cruel aside because ‘it needs to be said’.

I genuinely hate it, and I say that as someone who loves a decent aside. I can think of maybe two people I know (and I don’t include myself in that trio) who are witty and quick enough to be able to deliver nuanced sassiness, because that’s exactly what it takes to be that scathing – wit. Wit, after all, is nothing more than an incisive observation humourously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing, and so many people fumble the ball. So many others are just being bitter because they think it’s a personality. It’s not.

I raised that very same point in our group and for the most part, people agreed, which is always a good sign that I’m not shouting into the void, however we did get a couple pointing out that it’s always best to be honest. Free speech and all that. Mmhmm. It’s an old analogy, but think of it like this: you get yourself dressed up all smart and ready to get your end away. A lady, we’ll call her Susan, passes you in the street and tells you that you look like a bag of shite.

Now: she’s entitled to hold that opinion. But does she need to share it? No. That’s the key difference here, and that’s what I truly hate: those who can’t help but be nasty. Being a shit for the sake of it holds no allure.

And ugliness always rises.

On that cheery note, over to you! We’d love to hear what really pisses you off. Do leave a comment on the usual social media guff!

Bit to do before signing off:

  • our slimming cookbook can be ordered online now – full of 100+ slimming recipes, and bloody amazing, with over 2400 5* reviews – even if we do say so ourselves: click here to order
  • our new diet planner is out now and utterly brilliant – you can order it here – thank you to everyone so far for the positive feedback!

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J