1. It always pisses me off when they make announcements over the tannoy on the lines of 'we regret that current licencing laws mean we cannot sell you alcohol after 11 p.m.'. There seems to be a certain implicit contempt for the law here in saying 'we regret that current laws...' i.e. this is the current law, but we will sweep away anything that gets in the way of our pursuit of commerce, the way we did the Sunday trading laws, bwhaaaah haaah, your puny government will not stand in our way [fx:cackles insanely].
I mean, why not say 'we regret that current drug laws prevent us selling crack cocaine with the baked beans', or 'we regret that current murder laws prevent us selling contract killings with the travel insurance and mobile phone top-ups'?
2. One of the major supermarkets, which had better remain nameless now I have accused them of wanting to sell drugs and contract killings, has introduced video screens in the aisles which play annoying anodyne in-house commercials. It is almost enough to make me change to one which doesn't do this. Most annoying, the jingle obviously resembled the All Things Considered theme closely enough that I found myself humming it (and anyone who is familiar with the program and its theme will know that this is NOT something you want to happen).
Which reminds me, I was rereading bits of Interface by Stephen Bury (alias of Neal Stephenson and his uncle). A character in it does not like NPR which, in Stephenonesque style, is renamed RNA (Radio North America). Since Stephenson characters are either characters who spout things Stephenson believes or obvious straw-men/women and this character appears to be the former I assume that Stephenson does not like NPR. Apart from it being a bête noire of People Who Have Issues With 'Liberals', I wonder why?
