They include students, cyclists, e-cigs, roibos and that frightful woman who does Any Answers on Radio 4.
Things I am going to ban when, by popular acclaim, I am elected your Dictator for Life in 2016.
1. Onions where the brown skin doesn’t come off easily. You know the ones: where the papery outer layer clings so tightly that you have to pick it off laboriously with a sharp knife and it takes forever. I hate these onions so much. I’m pretty sure they’re all foreign, though I may be mistaken.
2. Slimline tonic water. (See also: Diet Coke; semi-skimmed milk) ‘Oh? Is it really? Sorry about that. I think it’s all we’ve got.’
‘Aspartame? Oh, is that not good?’
‘Not sure I can tell the difference, to be honest.’
‘Don’t blame me. I don’t get any say in the shopping. She buys it because she thinks I’ll lose weight.’
Look: if you’re going to make me a gin and tonic, make it properly: ice, high-end gin, boutique tonic, lemon not lime; or not at all.
3. I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. (See also: all reality TV; everything on boxed set.) I’m sure I’ve said it before, but seriously: it is such a huge waste of life. The other day, I actually found myself cogitating over why a man called Brian — of whose existence I had been blissfully unaware until the show started — had been booted off so shockingly early. I had a brain, once, which studied stuff like Gawain and the Green Knight and the Dream of the Rood. But then, if you believe the urban myth about all your cells replacing themselves every seven years, we’re talking four incarnations ago.
4. E-cigarettes. Cowards! Take your cancer and your shivering-outside-on-the-pavement social stigma like a man.
5. People who don’t go foxhunting. Hateful, hateful people.
Read the rest in the Spectator.
