Little bit of spleen venting

OK, I give in. I'm grumpy. I can't help it, it's the cold. It makes me overindulge in carbohydrates and House box sets, and means I have to keep apologising to my poor family for irrational outbursts and overreaction to imagined outrages and slights.

Hugh Laurie, lifting my spirits

But things that have annoyed me this week include:

• A cyclist wearing all black and sporting only the tiniest of lights pedalling up the dual carriageway, despite the existence of a cycle path.
• A £12 late payment charge on a credit card bill that I paid ahead of time in cash, but that mysteriously took five days to make it through to Mastercard. A stern phone call rectified this one, but still…
• Getting stuck behind idiots in Asda who seem to think that a trip to the supermarket constitutes an outing. Get out of my way! And while we’re on the subject of stupid shoppers, if your children can walk they shouldn’t be sitting in the trolley. I’m not talking about toddlers who need to be tethered to stop them running amok; I mean those lazy specimens in school uniform who sit in the body of the trolley itself, putting their filthy shoes where the next poor customer will place food.
• Returning to my car to find that I had been sandwiched between one car with its wheels well over the line into my space and a 4x4 parked so close to me that I practically had to make myself two-dimensional to squeeze into my seat. Big car, small genitalia, I’m thinking.
• And those drivers I’ve met on the road who put their fog lights on when it goes cold. No: FOG lights. The clue’s in the name.
• And finding a note in my hallway telling me that a courier had tried to deliver a parcel but had taken it away again. Why? I was in! Did he bother to ring the bell? No! Did he knock on the door? Well, if he did he must have been wearing woolly mittens because I didn’t hear him and there’s nothing wrong with my ears.
• And Whitney Houston is dead. Why is this making me cross? Not because I'm a fan, far from it; but because it’s such a waste.  
• And did I mention that I hate the cold?

 Normal cheerful service will be resumed shortly.