My banning list

Donning my Victor Meldrew beret, I'd thought I'd write that I've been thinking for some time about a list of things I'd like to ban. I will probably update this list as other things occur to me.

- Outdoor patio gas heaters: How on earth can it be possible for these things to exist in this age of environmental awareness and concern about climate change? You're pointing a gas fire straight up into the sky and burning fuel for the sake of it. People in the UK are going to have to realise that you can't expect to sit outside for most of the year because our climate doesn't permit it. Wasting precious fuel on a heater that's for the most part ineffective is, frankly, sickening and disasterous.

- Heat magazine and the like: horrible, horrible, horrible. I can't actually believe that this kind of celeb-obsessed literature sells. Week in week out it's the same tawdry tale of infidelity and weight loss. A developed society can well do without this rubbish.

- Personalised numberplates: an ugly form of self-aggrandisement for the nouveau riche. Personalised numberplates say to me that the owner has money to waste and wants you to know it. I'm not sure if I can think of a better example of why conspicuous consumption is crass.

- Microsoft Windows: when did the computing experience become about trying to fight for control of your computer? A computer should be an appliance device like any other, but Windows is so poorly-written that it's like an old lady walking through a bad part of town in the dark. You know it's going to end in a mugging. Not so with Mac OS.

OK. Rant over (til next time) :-D