» Dani’s Diary
Dani is cheered by the election of Barack Obama but annoyed by bad driving
I am excited today. The odd thing is that I am excited about things of a political nature. That has never happened. This morning as I write we found out that Barack Obama is to be the new president of America. I am happy about this. To be perfectly honest I didn’t think it was going to happen – but for the first time since Christmas I woke up happy. I am not really into politics at the best of times but this election really got me going – as it did many other people I know. One person I know would turn any conversation regarding the election onto a subject slightly closer to her heart. That is the ‘Americanisation’ of us. Mainly the Americanisation of our language.
And to a certain extent it is true. We are fast becoming a nation where our teenagers’ every other word is ‘like’. And, like, I like, don’t really, like, like it when, like, people say ‘like’, like, every other, like, word, like.
But as we all know, this is not a column in which I complain on behalf of others, this is a column in which I complain about things that really irritate me. And although the fact that we now say stuff that (like, totally) doesn’t sound British, it is not necessarily one of my biggest pet peevs!
“I like, don’t really, like, like it when, like, people say ‘like’, like, every other, word, like”
My pet peevs are as follows:
• Drivers who don’t signal when turning corners.
• All the massive 4x4s owned by the parents of the students at a certain posh school.
• People who ask “How are you” but don’t actually want to know.
• People who think it is okay to make you step into a busy road instead of moving their pram one iota to one side.
• People who randomly stop walking in the middle of the street causing you to bash into the back of them and then have the cheek to huff at you.
• People who huff.
• The people who don’t notice that there is one queue for the two cashpoints and heads to stand behind the person at the cashpoint furthest from the queue.
• People who don’t say thank you when you hold the door open for them.
• Girls who wear so much make-up they look permanently orange.
• When jeans ride down at the back when you sit down.
• People who mumble or mumblers.
• Ticking clocks.
• Lifts that talk too much.
• People who do not cover their mouth when they cough.
It’s terrible but that is probably only a fraction of the things. You can see now why I am so grumpy all the time. All that stuff I said the other week about making the days go past stress-free without looking at the clock is all rubbish.
The only thing I have been excited about in the past year has been seeing French and Saunders live and Barack Obama winning the election. Obama is not actually president until 20 January 2009 and so I will still be holding my breath. You never know, a ballot box may go missing!
