Selfie sticks. If at all possible, I try to mouth 'wanker' within earshot of the user. It's a public service.

People that wont Shut the F Up about how much money they have.

Time to move on Paul

Insurance companies that offer a good deal to switch to them, then bump the premium right up the next year, hoping you won't notice. When I found a genuinely cheaper quote and went back, the existing insurer beat it, undercutting their previous renewal quote quite substantially.

Slinger, I had a similar but not as vicious thing happen with our energy supplier. I got round it initially with a phone call, and then by submitting meter readings voluntarily every month to keep their largely automated computer system happy. So far so good, but December and January are bad months for this late Victorian house, so we'll see...

Another one and none of my business really - I can't bear to see potentially still-good things chucked away, hence my restoration of a Dual 1214 deck smashed up in transit - arm and rest destroyed, but underneath the mech was fine if over-greased by a former user.

Back to cars. Our neighbour has three sons in their early twenties. Two of them had oldish cars to start tootling around in, one a W reg (I think) Astra and the other a 51 Vectra. The Astra was well knackered mechanically and the last time I heard it being wheezed onto their drive it was sounding quite sick - bodywork wasn't bad but the thing had been through a good life I suspect. The Vectra was a 52 reg example and in pretty good bodily condition - it still looked smart on the road although at the end I don't think it could start. Late last year, a local salvage firm turned up with a truck and un-ceremoniously crushed the rooflines as the 'crane' heaved them onto the back of the hi-side flat-bed stacking them up and taking them away for scrapping. I know not the mechanical condition of these two cars but maybe major engine issues 'wrote them off' and I appreciate neither vehicle were the things instant classics are made of as so many are probably still around.

This morning, their Rover 75 estate, 52 plates and again in pretty smart condition given a good valeting and having been outside their house for a few weeks unused, was loaded up on top of a pile of other cars by the same scrap dealers, crushing the roof in the process and taken away to the scrap dealers in the sky...

My bad I'm sure, but I felt devastated, especially as my own car is older than the Rover... Maybe these things will be parted out before the crusher and maybe the mechanical condition of all three vehicles made for an uneconomic repair, but I suspect the Rover could have been a classic in time as the thing rarely carried pasengers let alone rubbish and mess in the estate-boot area. We're hanging on to the '51' Focus as sonny-jim might need it as his first car, but it only seems like yesterday that popular cars (Mini to Jaguar and Ford and Vauxhall equivalents) used to be well stone-chipped at three years old and in holes at several years old. To get ten years out of a popular-brand 'tin box' was fantastic back in the 70's i remember. Now it seems you have still good looking fifteen to twenty year old cars being scrapped for mechanical rather than bodily reasons

Apologies all - rant over...

It's only that this Rover 75 was the top 'Connoisseur' model too

I have to admit that the days of checking oil and water etc. are very few and far between although I do try to keep on top of tyre pressures. Our elderly Focus can go between servicing with next to nothing needed and I have only been caught out once when the water pump developed a leak and the thing nearly overheated when I was starting out to drive to NVA with some stuff. I limped home and the job was done a couple of days later. I've tried to be more diligent since... Apparently, to do just an oil change on many modern cars, entails removing cover plates under the engine bay I'm told just to get at the oil drain plug...

Those people who do 35/40 through a 60 limit, holding everyone up and then carry on at the same speed through a 30.... they should be flogged at the very least 

The wife been out with her friend to one if these people that tell your future etc.. Im fuming with her.Wasting our money on that shit & the fact she has actually fallen for it is grinding my bones.

Speaker on the House Telephone. Drives me nuts when i can hear the other person shes talking to