on the sides of said containers. In particular the one that says "Yes please, we want your....junk mail...".

It's just the idea that there's a business to be made from recycling a paper product that nobody ever wanted in the first place.

Women that walk down the street with their arms folded. What's all that about?

You just did..!

1) Misinterpretation of the English language
Please leave this room/toilet/cubicle/whatever the way you found it.

I came in through the door, and thats probably the way I'm going to leave (unless I decide to jump out of the window).

2) Why? If there is a sign saying 'Wet Paint' or 'Caution Hot' why do people feel the need to check?

... why do I have the uncontrollable urge to push it fast, lift my feet off the ground and career off in a most un-H&S way?

How come when you're doing the washing up, no matter how thoroughly you go about your task, when you swirl your hands though the water at the very end when pulling out the plug to check all is finished, how come when the water is drained there is always one bastard teaspoon left?!

Many shops and offices have double doors. Some have multiple sets of double doors. Why is it that people will back up and form a crowd in order to pass through a single door when they can easily walk past the crowd and go through one of the other doors?

with music on there is always someone walking along in time to the music. If you haven't noticed before check next time you're driving down your local high street.

by the swirling mushroom effect when I pour milk into my tea. It's cosmic man.

Also, that optical effect you get with some car wheels in motion when they start to look like they're going backwards as well as forwards.

Just to clarify, I haven't really been a serious drinker for about 8 years and I haven't had any sort of drugs this millennium.

Oh, and that heat haze thing - especially active in that long shot they do just before the start of a grand prix.

When I started learning Italian I realized that Italians make a different sound than British people when they hurt themselves. Instead of saying 'ow' they say 'ahi'. Which got me thinking... seeing as reaction to pain is involuntary and universal, why does the sound made differ from country to country? Laughter, for example, is the same across the globe (or it is as far as I'm aware). If anyone really clever can shed light on this I'd be very grateful...

If I hit myself on the thumb with a hammer I'm very likely to say "FUCK!" or something like that. Which is, I'm assuming, learned behaviour.

If you want something that's kept behind the counter, as you ask for it, look and nod at a different item behind them. However long the person has worked in the shop, they'll turn and expect to find it where you've nodded, then look at you with deep suspicion when they discover their error.

when going up stairs two at a time i always think i look a little like groucho marx walking.

1) The face that a bunch of lads from the office have when they come back from the pub on a Friday lunchtime, that says "I've just had a half pint of lager! Aren't I a wag?"

2) That funny skip thing people do when they trip in the street to make out they did it on purpose

3) That walk middle aged women do when they step out in front of your car that looks like they're trying to be quick but isn't any faster than normal walking

4) The Jazzy Walk - that half-dancing gait that people at weddings adopt as they make their way to the dance floor for a particularly catchy number

car park that says 'beware pedestrians walking'

Michael McIntyre is going to mine some of the observations in this thread into his own comedic gold.

And why do people break their necks trying to make it onto a tube when the doors are closing? There'll be another one in two minutes!

I find it very, very funny when they are so shocked by the pain that they go red, open their mouths wide, yet remain silent for about half a minute to gather in enough breath to let rip with an ear-piercing WAAA!

I am not a monster.

by the fact that almost invariably, 19 times out of 20, that whenever I go to the office kitchen to pour myself a percolated coffee the bloody thing always has just enough left in it for one - maybe one and a half - cups.

Therefore obliging me out of office etiquette and general good manners to take mine and then go through the rigmarole of washing, refilling and setting in motion the next percolation.

It appears to be a form of destiny for me. Very often as I'm going through all of this someone else will come in and decry, 'Good God! not you doing that again, Andy?! Do you know I don't think I've ever had to refill it'.

I change the times I go off for a cup. I watch people when they go and deduce if they've drained it or not.

No. Each time I'm fucked.

When people repeatedly hammer the button at pedestrian crossings, as if it'll somehow make the lights change quicker.

Usually whilst running down the station stairs, legs move up and down twice as fast but fail to move forward any quicker. Just creates a great clacking noise.

You see and are dying to tell others about, as if you invented them. I even wrote this in my diary once to remind me.

Priaprism

If I'm ever in a shop and an announcement comes over the tannoy I will look up inquisitively, as if I can't work out where the voice is coming from. This is in homage to The Muppet Show. All the muppets would look around when there was an announcement being made, and it always made me smile.

I've always wondered how accents come about. Thinking back to the days of a much smaller population, could local accents have been started by a handful of people? Was the Brummie accent started by one man in the middle ages in a small village? Maybe he just started it for a laugh and wtached with horror or delight as it took off.

Also (almost in relation to the earlier post about vocalising pain in different cultures) does anyone know if people across the globe celebrate victory / success in the same way (e.g putting arms up in the air in an "I've scored a goal" type stylee).

I've pondered these on my own for too long - can anyone help?

I know I have a kind of self-conscious face when taking shopping out of the trolley and putting it on the conveyor belt. I'm sure no else notices but I know I do it and I want to laugh out loud.

Also French clocks don't go tick-tock, they go tock-tick, according to French people. And their dogs don't go woof and cats don't go miaow, I hear.

Suspect these aren't the things that amuse, so much as bemuse me...

1) Shop keepers that say (as you reach the front of the queue, and their till), "Can I help?"

Cue: sarcastic response.

2) People who drag those air steward-style micro-suitcases around behind them in busy streets (and especially tube stations), but have no comprehension of their subsequent, overall vehicle length, thus ensuring you'll trip over the bloomin' thing.

Every weekend for decades now, every single goalkeeper at the beginning of every single football match the world over - from a crunch Penistone derby in the Dinglethwaite's Puddings & Pies Millstone Grit League (Group B) to a crucial San Siro showdown - has performed exactly the same action. Tutting "Bloody groundsmen," he scuffs his studs firmly and repeatedly over the centre of the six-yard line. "There," he says to himself with satisfaction. "Now I don’t have to look over my shoulder all the time to check where the middle of my goal is."

And every Monday morning, every single groundsman after every single football match the world over performs exactly the same corresponding action. Tutting "Bloody goalkeepers," he carefully paints over the scuff marks in the centre of the six-yard lines. "There," he says to himself with satisfaction. "Now it'll look the way it's supposed to look at the toss-up next weekend."

...to check for forgeries and when they then give you a note in your change and you do the same action - look at you very perplexed and sometimes annoyed.

The sexy automatic lift voice that says "going down". Say no more...

SatNav, that gets increasingly furstrated when it says "recalculating" because you disobeyed it.

I am sure this one has been heard before but it is nevertheless a rule. If the hoover fails to pick up, say, a piece of string, I will re-hoover it again and again rather than bend down and pick it up.

When a person slips or trips when walking, the automatic impulse to turn around, tut, and look accusingly at the (usually imaginary) bit of dirt etc. that caused the slip or trip.

realising that you have had thousands of witty observations that would perfectly fit the subject, but suddenly being unable to recall any of them.

in major department stores

And feels the need to make one of their hands into a phone shape, holding their thumb next to their ear and their pinky finger next to their mouth as if without this visual aid I would have trouble understanding what a phone conversation looks like.

When Kaddy Lee Preston (KLP to her fans) does the weather on Meridian, I can NEVER remember the weather forecast even one minute later.

(I love this thread)

Workers with overly pompous stock phrases such as the train ticket inspector - "please have your travel documents ready for inspection", as if we needed a passport and a customs declaration to go from Kent into Sussex, and his other "thank you for choosing Southeastern Trains" as if we had any choice. Also the "trolley jockey" on the same train who says "any hot or cold beverages as I pass through the train ladies and gents".

of an Uncle Wheaty thread that brings out the best in the Word family. From corporate bollocks to people getting words wrong they are guaranteed Hot Topics (we'll overlook cats and dogs;o)), keep em coming UW.

you get in restaurants when there's a huge crash of falling crockery from the kitchens. Someone could be lying in there in a pool of soup and every one of the diners breaks off eating and chatting to go "yayyyyy!"

Also, my complete inability, at the age of 45, to form comprehensible sentences in the presence of certain women half my age.

with a hand gesture and a 'ssss-oop' sound, in homage to early Star Trek...

And in the height of my Doom-playing days, I would walk around corridors making 'zzzzzmmmmmm' noises everytime I turned 90 degrees.

I sometimes think I spend my whole life having a secret laugh with myself at things no-one else finds funny. I sometimes try and share these with my wife, but she's not amused.

- Maybe a regional thing, but in my neck of the woods people feel compelled to say "Thank you driver!" when they step off a bus. Cracks me up, just because it seems to be unique to bus drivers. There's no equivalent "Thank you shop-keeper!" or "Thank you postman!" etc.

- Every time I hear the song "Wild Horses" I hear it as "Wild Horseys". I have no idea why and it makes me laugh.

Ranking up there with triboluminescence (see borsuk's post above) as a Scientific Marvel of Everyday Life is the phenomenon you'll observe if you look at a digital clock display while using an electric toothbrush.

The way they react - raised eyebrow, tiny grin, sad face - while their co-presenter is reading his/her bit.

See also The One Show.

in a rather tall office block. I've noticed that whenever anyone gets into the lift they always say "hello" to everyone already in the lift. And when people leave the lift, they wish everyone "goodbye". Coming from the UK where everyone ignores each other, this charming custom really makes me smile.

....who ride on the pavement upto the crossing, press the button, walk across then promptly get on it again when safely on the path on the other side.

have done for a very long time, and yet even now, EVERY TIME I put out a CD by a certain American artist I suspect is much beloved of people here, I say to myself "Tom Waits for no man", and have a little inner chuckle, despite a) it not being that funny, and b) having done it about 5423 times.

The same thing works looking at a PC display while crunching a bag of crisps!

Pedestrians crossing the road who, having clocked the oncoming traffic, blithely turn their backs to it and proceed on their slow diagonal shuffle towards death or glory. Because if they can't see you hurtling toward them, they will be magically protected from harm. Their evident trust in the vigilance and care of drivers is quite touching.

you could compose a brilliant Half Man Half Biscuit song out of the contents of this thread.

This is a relatively new phenomena, but one which raises itself from slumber along country lanes with the first Sunday's nod to Spring-like good weather: multiples of cyclists who fan out across your side of the road, ignoring - and thus holding up - all cars behind them.

One cyclist is never so brave, but anything over that seems to release some kind of hormone. Normally it's easily spotted amongst the more middle-aged manly Sunday cyclists (in full gear) amongst the population. However, I chanced behind two women on Sunday morning, and the one on the outside simply ignored me behind, and carried on moving in parallel, and chatting with, her friend. After about 100 yards, I eventually bibbed my horn, and the look she cut me over her shoulder was quite loathsome.

This never used to happen, and seems to have grown in popularity over the last decade or so; seems to be something to do with the laws of personal space, which, when multiplied by the amount of cyclists present diminishes the rights of car drivers.

(Yet, if I'd have clipped any of them on the way past in my car, they'd kick up merry hell). Sorry to sound like a grumpy git, but it's rather mindless, and gets my goat (so to speak).

Also... the disappearance of lights on urban/suburban cyclists once it gets dark. Apparently, it's now us car drivers' responsibility to spot and avoid cyclists, instead of bike users being responsible by making themselves seen. Equally, the disappearance of police officers on the beat to catch said bleeders and jot their particulars down in a little black book. Grrrrr!

... on the side, but my mind always reads it as 'Shoplifters'.

on joining and lengthening a queue for a petrol pump which is on the same side as their fuel cap, whilst the other pumps remain free. For God's sake people, they stretch to either side these days.

does the convention of standing on one side of an escalator in order to allow people to walk up or down on the other side, cease to exist/become a social norm anywhere north of Cockfosters? I was up in Birmingham the other week and had to ask politely for a woman, standing on the left hand side of the ascending escalator, to move to one side so I could get past. If looks could kill, I'd have been six feet under in as many seconds. However, I've yet to decode exactly what that dagger-delt stare was intended to say. Was it, "Southern fairy go south" or was it more an expression of her exasperation; "We'll be there in a second, can't you wait?" If it was the latter, I have to ask just how difficult was it for her to move herself one step to the right?

On reflection, you'd probably get the same reaction anywhere if you tried to pass someone on a flight of regular, non-magical stairs. The general consensus, as I see it, is that anyone asking you to move while you are sweating, panting and generally dying on the ill-advised climb out of Covent Garden station is, quite frankly, a bastard.

Perhaps escalator rage is just an extension of this - going upwards is an activity which cannot be multitasked with any other activity. Perhaps I've thought about this too much.

J. x

When there a load of clocks on display in a shop, none of them tell the right time. This is, I think, to save the clock shop an enormous amount of hassle. But then a part of me thinks "if these clocks are so great, how come they're all wrong?"

... birthday, but one of the first things he wanted me to do was to pick up his pot of hairstyling product.

I did this, he chuckled and said "I've wanted to see Matt hold matt hold mud for ages".

He's 31...

Whenever someone asks "Will you sponsor me for this run? It's for Breast Cancer."
I want to say: "Sorry no; I think breast cancer's a bad thing."

I don't of course, because I'm not a complete arsehole. But it does make me smile inside.

At the top of the page here recently. The prominent 'W' at the start of the Word logo combines with this, and his look of grim determination, in my mixed-up mind and makes me snigger like a kid.

advertising Psychic Fairs? If your psychic you'd know anyway. Waste of money.

No, I think I'll just guess.

every time they mention the ex Defence Minister on the radio I bellow "HOOOOOOON"

whenever monkfish is mentioned (more than you'd expect !), it's impossible to not do the Moonnnkkkfissshhhhhhhhhhhhhh shout from the fast show.Hardly anyone recognises what i'm doing. Maybe i'm just crap at it, but i think the fast show id slowly being forgotten.

My 4 year old daughter has a friend called Jessica. Every time her name is mentioned, I say it loudly in the style of Frank Spencer (Jessica was his baby daughter in the show). Life's a riot in my house, I can tell you.

Which proclaimed 'Slow Children on Horseback.' In my mind's eye I keep seeing some not very bright kids sitting facing backwards on the saddle.

I love plums. And whenever I'm buying them, a little Geordie voice goes "Plums are smart! Plums are smart!" in my head.

Anyone else have this? And why?

...they often say over the PA:

'Would the in-store cleaner please go to aisle 3 for a spillage...'

and I always wonder why they don't let him use the toilet like everyone

else.