Are You An Annoying Friend On Facebook?

Most of us use Facebook and whilst many of us use it to keep up with others, there are those who use it to irritate the rest of us. Perhaps you can identify yourself and your friends on the list of annoyances that follow.

When I was younger I had an imaginary friend, but nowadays most people have several hundred on social networks. If you have hundreds of Facebook friends, you either aren’t very fussy about the friends you keep or a Facebook slag. Facebook friends are like sock drawers; most people can't be bothered to sort them out and there's a lot of odd ones in there.

We all have a few show-off friends who unnecessarily check themselves in everywhere they go. Important to show you have a social life, right? The only useful purpose in letting people know where you are is to alert nearby friends who may want to join you. I understand the checker-inners when out and about better than the people who check in at home; posting up their home location then at other times moaning about Facebook privacy settings.

Quite similar are the “Look what I'm doing everyone!” brigade. With them you get lots of crass status updates like “Look at what I've bought!”, “Look how well I'm doing!”, “Look what I am eating!”, “Look where I am!” etc.

You probably aren’t too aware of them but everyone has a Facebook stalker. We hear little from them, but they are stealthily processing what is going on like an autistic secret agent. It’s a social network, so do what it says on the tin - be social and network, not watch reclusively from a distance. They’re akin to the little kid in nursery who watches shyly from the sidelines while everyone else joins in the playground games.

Paradoxically, the 'friend collector' will add every single person they ever meet plus some online buddies who they never have and never will. If you are Alan Partridge you can use these numbers to win popularity arguments.

There are growing numbers of attention/sympathy seekers, who crave a 'like' for their status. They are often blatant to the point of “Click 'like' if you think I'm hot”. Shame there is no 'slap' button. The desperate 'like' givers are equally slappable. They think it makes them more endearing when they like their friend's statuses even if the friend is doing something mundane like mowing the lawn.

Perhaps you are the perennial joke-teller who just likes to amuse whilst revealing nothing of your life? Guilty, your honour. A darker-natured joke won't get an official 'like', just a secret giggle, as people don’t want to be associated with anything too edgy.

It's a juvenile trait, and thankfully not too many of my friends do it, but public proclamations of love are particularly pukey and bugbeary. Quite often these soppy outpourings are to fellow house-mates. Have people stopped talking in person? We do not wanna read your slush!

It is usually parental types who publish alarmist warnings, such as Facebook charging, closing down, changing their privacy settings or other scaremongery. Thankfully these are a dying breed as many seem to be slowly learning. www.snopes.com will put you right on these hoaxes if you don't have the gumption to figure it out yourself. When ever I tell people not to be so wide-eyed they inevitably reply, “I thought I would forward it just in case. No harm done.”

Plenty of us have gullible friends who warn that 'if someone called soandso@hotmail.com tries to add you to their contact list - do not accept, he is a paedophile'. They don't realise these are fake, often spiteful alerts. Perhaps the paedo is trying to be friends with you to access the pictures of your children in the bath which you have uploaded into the public domain? Maybe you'll get a virus if you add them. You wouldn't want to “lose everything in your computer”.

The sentimentalists publish statuses like”1 in 3 of us will get cancer. If you know anyone who has been affected by it, please post this as a sign of respect”, “If you support our troops please post this to your profile”, “If you believe child cruelty is terrible, please show your support by reposting” etc. If you really want to show you care, send some money to Macmillan Cancer or Help for Heroes or NSPCC. Posting for show must stop. FULL STOP.

Sponsorship requests from do-gooders have reached saturation point now. I ignore all except the people who have sponsored my do-goodery in the past. I do like to do my bit for Charity though. She has two young kids to support and lap dancing only pays so many bills.

I bet you have been invited to an event on the other side of the world from an old friend who hasn’t bothered to whittle down their guests. Who in London wants an invite to a gig in Australia when trains don't run as late as they should in the capital? No doubt you have been invited to pointless groups by pointless friends too, e.g. 'If I get 1 million 'likes' I will shoot my teacher'.

A friend of mine was once in a very bad way. He lived in a high rise block and was posting some very bleak messages on Facebook. His last one said “I am standing on the roof of my block of flats. I am looking down and feeling like I want to end it all”. What do you say in situations like that? Actions speak louder than words so I gave him a poke.

I don't actually get annoyed by game requests any more, as I have blocked them all. So I won't know if any of my friends have worked out how profitable it is growing weed on Farmville and selling it on in Mafia Wars. If kids actually learnt anything from games, we would see more of this kind of industriousness on Junior Apprentice instead of kiddies playing Doctors and Nurses.

Once you reach a certain age, people around you will start getting pregnant. You will know about this when their profile picture changes to an ultrasound scan, then every subsequent status will be about being up the spout. You may be lucky enough to be friend requested by a foetus when the mother sets up an account for it.

Everyone over a certain age (13 in England) has a proud parent friend, the sort of middle-aged bore who only ever talks about their kids and their achievements. It may be their first steps, a good grade, doing well in the school play or endless gormless photos. Posts like “My little girl laughed at the television today” are so pointless. All kids do - it's their only form of entertainment since you sit on Facebook all day!

The confessional Facebooker reveals too much information about themselves. “What does it mean if you have blood emanating from your rectum?” asked a naïve Polish friend from school. It means you are too ignorant to work Google! Have you got piles or did you pass out while someone smashed in your back door?

The tedious types will insist on telling you absolutely everything they do in the day, but they rarely do anything worth mentioning. John Smith just made a cup of tea. John Smith just made some toast with butter mmmmmm. John Smith is going for a dump. I only want to hear INTERESTING UPDATES. I do not care that your right big toe hurts when you squeeze it.

Dana Hanna took updating to a new extreme when he updated his Twitter and Facebook status whilst he was taking his marriage vows. He handed his phone over to his wife to update hers mid-vow too. I just hope that man was pushing the right buttons on the first night of his honeymoon.

If you have full-blown fights on Facebook walls, it is time to admit to your underclassedness. More so if doing it in wretched text speak. Why clog up our newsfeeds by airing your Burberry laundry in public? In a similar vein are the irritants who ignite a Facebook face-off with a snidey status, indirectly referring to the subject with the intention of winding them up.

Perhaps you are a town-crier? When there is a big news story, you have to get onto Facebook or Twitter and tell everyone first. You are the social network version of the Daily Mail, who pressed the publish button as soon as the judge mentioned “guilty” in the Amanda Knox trial, not realising it was for slander and not murder which she was subsequently cleared. The 'Fastest Finger First' haste to get the pre-prepared story out was to get the paper to the top of the listings.

It is juvenile and puerile, but quite amusing when someone gets fraped (Facebook-raped) and you read posts like “Just found out I have herpes. Ladies get yourself tested.” or “What a shit day. Trod in shit and whilst cleaning it off flicked some into my mouth and eye.” Poor Chris didn't get fraped so much as fangbanged in this extreme example.

What about the stupid f*ckers who asterisk out letters? Do you think your friends can't do crosswords? We are old enough to know these words now (3, 6, 4).

People used to write things like “I am bored.com” but now we have a better, even more pretentious way to express it via hashtags on Facebook. #Doesnotworkonfacebookyoutwat

Mucking about with your relationship status is ideal for bored users who haven’t got anything or anyone else to fiddle with. Perhaps your best friend can become your grandmother for hilarious effect or you can do the jokey relationship with a friend of the same sex. The fun is endless. I thought a friend of mine was a lesbian for a year because of that! Completely ruined the mental imagery when I found out the truth.

Facebook Timeline seems to be annoying everybody at the moment. How do Facebook manage to piss so many off with every development? Timeline reminds everyone how attractive they used to be, how fat they are now and how their friends have aged. The 'People You May Know' section is almost entirely made up of people you know but don't like enough to want to be friends.

Do you have people who say goodnight to Facebook or to everyone on their list as their last status of the day? It's perfect for when you die in the night. I just hope my last status is an epic joke to live on forever.

I have the occasional friend who likes wittering away to people that are not on Facebook, and quite often not even alive! It might be to a dead grandparent or a child too young to have Facebook. It's not unusual for it to be the sympathy post on the wall of someone who has just died. Ideal time to poke a dead person actually. I'm not exactly sure what the time frame etiquette is on deleting a dead person from your contact list, but I guess at least they won't fall into the category of annoying Facebook friend any more.

You may have discovered you are a Facebook friend with plenty of annoyances. Don't worry though, you aren't beyond absolution. The first step in your redemption is posting this story onto your wall...

Who Wants To Live Forever?

My grandad once said to me “Don’t grow old. It's a pain in the arse.” That advice has stuck in my head and I've practised the “live fast, die young” mentality accordingly ever since (although admittedly I have only successfully fulfilled half of that at the time of writing).

The thought of being surrounded by other dribbling old folks staring vacantly into space just does not appeal to me. However I do quite like the idea of moving doolally residents' bookmarks back a couple of chapters every day. Hopefully I will have an evil beneficiary to finish me off with a pillow when I get decrepit anyway.

It is estimated that 1 in 6 of us will live to be a centenarian. Woody Allen once said, “we can all live to be a hundred if we give up the things that make us want to live to be a hundred”. While I have my quoting boots on, Dennis Wolfberg quipped that “There's one advantage to being 102. There's no peer pressure.” (What do you do when one of your friends tells you not to give into peer pressure though?). We might look back on that quote when we are all in our hundreds and laugh one day. He won't though as he died at less than half that age.

Medicine is advanced enough that we can do what we want when we are young and take a pill to correct many of the problems when we are older. My dad has a pillbox that would make Charlie Sheen envious. Quite often oldies have their medication categorised into a massive 7 x 4 compartmental pillbox - breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime pills. It is good fun moving the laxative 'morning' pill alongside the 'bedtime' sleeping pill. Not such good fun clearing that up though as they are not natural bedfellows.

The UK population will be galloping up towards an overstretched 100 million in 50 years. Who knows how many millions will be in need of a care home then? The numbers may be alarmist but perhaps they don't take into account that many are not financially prepared for a lengthy old age. Stress caused by poverty, combined with a poorer and cheaper diet will account for many. A massive war or killer epidemic would certainly be a boon in thinning numbers, creating more Zimmer parking spaces.

Many care homes will be privately funded but the government will have to chip in heavily too. People will be taxed more and have less money stashed under their soiled mattress for their old age. There is no doubt that the retirement age will gradually increase and be in the 70s by the time many of us are allowed to retire. This means many more of us will die while we are still at work. Anything to make the day more interesting.

It is estimated the world's first person to live until 150 is already alive, although chances are they are probably not English. Considering that only one person has ever lived to 120, that's quite a progression but we do potentially have 149 years and 364 days to find out.

We are relatively early in the technological age, and advancement in stem cell therapy, genetic engineering, advanced bionics, nanotechnology and rejuvenation therapy will mean the boundaries of human existence could be pushed well beyond 150 years, just hopefully not heads in a jar like in Futurama. Old folk's homes are gonna be chocka. How will we cope? Bunk beds don’t seem feasible and there are only so many angry Nigerian nurses to go around.

Life expectancies of well into the hundreds may be pretty commonplace by the second half of the century. When so many are living so long, it is going to be expensive retiring half way through your life. Slow and steady wins the race but is the prize of a tortoise-like age worth having? I'm going to stick my neck out and say no.

It's going to be a pretty depressing existence to live-slow-die-old especially if surrounded by other like-minded grumpy individuals who haven't budgeted for their longevity. Assisted killing will be legal by then so people will be able to purchase 'speedy boarding' to check in with their maker. Euthanasia is not a continent I have visited but I'm sure Saga would do great deals there.

It would be a radical move but a cap on living until 100 could be very beneficial to a country's finances. Using a cricketing analogy it would be a bit like reaching your maiden century, waving your bat to the pavilion and being bowled next ball. I'm not sure of the best way to put old people down but I probably wouldn't put Jeremy Clarkson in charge. Can't have them being executed in front of their families.

So how will life be when we are old and knackered? We currently have a cosy impression of pensioners - carpet slippers, dressing gowns, crocheted blankets over their laps in a rocking chair. But many of those images are bound to die out way before we will. I wonder whether the comfy slacks and cardigan of today will be replaced by hoodie and jeans hanging off the arse? Aptly enough, the latter is a style which they stole from old people.

Internet rooms aren't particularly heaving hubs of action in OAP homes. Perhaps in the future when our hearing is gone we will be chatting online to the person in the next chair. That's assuming our eyes aren’t shot and the RSI from 90 years of texting and typing hasn’t crippled our fingers.

The telegram for century-makers from the Queen may well have stopped before she reaches her landmark. It's doubtful she would send herself a birthday card though. She has been known to send herself Valentine's cards, but Prince Philip isn't the jealous type anyway.

The Centenarian Clerk at Buckingham Place may develop printing cramp as more and more people reach their centenary. A little known fact is once 105 is reached, an extra telegram is sent every birthday, although less than ten percent of centenerarians reach 105. It will be interesting to see when and if they change the congratulatory telegram to an e-card, Facebook message or Tweet. A telegram for today’s youngsters is a very outdated sentiment. STOP.

I used to work for an alternative telecoms company and when customers hadn’t used the service for a few months they would be sent a marketing letter saying “We miss you and we want you back!”. Funnily, from the point of view of this anecdote (not so much from the point of view of his wife), this letter inevitably went to an old fella who had died. His hysterical wife rang up, wanting to know how we could be so heartless in our Lazarushian invitation.

The oldest living person is 115 years old now although it is common for the record to swap around a couple of times a year as they keep dying off. It seems no one wants the title. Emma Tillman in 2007 held the title of oldest living person for just 4 days before the pressure finally got to her. Perhaps she partied a bit too hard in celebration.

In Ireland, centenarians not only receive a letter from the president but €2540 'Centenarian Bounty'. Perhaps the government hedges their bets when people are edging into their late nineties and nip down to Paddy Power to get some crappy odds on the nonagenarian ticking over into a centenarian.

The generosity of the Irish government probably won't last too much longer as the country already gives money away like a paedo does sweeties. Ireland currently pays over thrice what is paid to the unemployed in England. When the Icelandic volcanic eruption in 2010 disrupted air travel, benefit claimants nosedived as the out-of-towners were unable to get back into Ireland to bleed it dry. This served as a huge wake-up call to the country but everyone had already fecked off cos the country was already on it's arse.

Alec Holden is a man who deserves a mention with regard to a longevity bet. In 1997, when he was 90 years old he was offered odds of 250-1 by dopey bookmakers William Hill that he would reach 100. He claimed £25000 in 2007 and probably the job of the odds compiler who massively miscalculated the odds. The true odds would have been closer to 5/1. An unbelievably perky Mr. Holden was quoted as saying, "I've been very careful about what I've been doing in recent months. If I saw any hooded groups from William Hill standing in the street, I avoided them." and even claimed that the Queen delivered his telegram personally on a bicycle. I am surprised his heart survived the journey home with 25k stuffed into his pants.

According to the Department for Work and Pensions, I have a 13.6% chance of reaching 100, whilst someone born today would be twice as likely to blow out 100 candles (or die trying). As a natural born worrier I am sure I will not make it. I know the stress of reaching 92 and knowing that my odds of waking up the next day are the same as my odds of not waking up will certainly cause me not to wake up sooner rather than later. So I am quite happy to disappear anonymously in the night sometime. Or a blaze of glory if the opportunity arises. Whatever.

Boy Selecta!

One of my friends in America is pregnant for the fourth time. She has just been for her 20-week scan and was looking forward to knowing the sex of her next baby. However the hospital refused to tell her, saying they no longer did so as people could sue if they were wrong. My initial thought was “Stupid Americans! Why don't they just get the parents to sign a waiver? Surely waiving isn't too much exercise for them!”

Hospitals in Luton (amongst others in the UK) have also undertaken a non-disclosure policy but their reasoning is slightly more clandestine. In a heavily Asian area, the sex of the child is the cause of many terminations. Asian families are keener to have male progeny and an ultrasound showing no winkie would often lead to an abortion. Birthing pools are becoming increasingly popular for Asian families. It leads to a more relaxed delivery for the mother and is convenient if a girl pops out.

So-called 'gendercide' (when parents abort according to the sex of the child) is on the increase with a rapidly growing population of Asians in the UK. To many it seems the lack of a Y chromosome is viewed as a genetic defect. There's the old joke about the Indian guy going to the hospital for the scan with his wife saying “I can't wait to find out what we are having - a boy or an abortion!”

Gendercide is relatively uncommon with Caucasian British parents but a massive problem amongst the Chinese and Indian cultures, as well as others like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, South Korea. It is estimated that an astonishing 100 million girls have gone missing from Asian countries in recent times. That's over half the population of Pakistan and there's a lot of those fuckers!

As many as 12 million female girls from the expected population disappeared in India in the noughties. Naughty naughty indeed. Up to 20% of female foetuses over there are aborted, but shockingly many are dumped or drowned.

The Herodian cull of the innocents in the womb is a 'relatively' new revival of an old plague. It is only since the advent of ultrasound that people have been able to banish the disappointment of nature in the womb. Ultrasounds and subsequent abortions for sex selection have been banned since the mid 90s in India and China but are rarely enforced so are about as useful as a cloakroom attendant in Newcastle.

Infanticide, disposing of the evidence after birth, was a tolerated crime in these countries in the past and is still prevalent now although modern technology has lessened the need for this heinous deed.

In the highly patriarchal India, the cost of a wedding and dowry is about £25000. Typically, incompetent call centre workers with fake English names earn about 10% of that. It is effectively like taking on a mortgage for each girl. No wonder so many are prepossessed.

Chinese families have an incentive to have a son as their one-child policy would mean their family name dying out if they have a girl. Not entirely sure if that applies to pandas though - that would certainly be a boo-boo.

By 2020 there will be a surplus of 60 million Indian and Chinese males, outnumbering women by 20%. Contextually that's the entire population of the UK pottering around looking for someone to make them a cup of tea. 2020 sounds far from perfect.

The Chinese city of Lianyungang has the highest birth ratio in the world with 163 boys to 100 girls. Imagine how hard it is to pull there!

With so few females on the shelf, women are obviously in high demand and there aren't enough to go around as Indian and Chinese girls aren't as slaggy as English girls. Mail-order brides have to be shipped in from other countries to negate the shortfall. No wonder so many Indian men come over here to “steal our women”. Dating websites are finding themselves homes to many desperate Indian men scouring for a chance of happiness. Not too long ago, a well-known dating website claimed they had too many women. I bet they don't in India or China.

You may think that the absence of a few women would liven the dating game up and force the guys to raise their game. It actually creates a detrimental effect with a surplus of unmarried, violent young men. In China these men are called “bare branches”, an ever-increasing dangerous subculture blamed for many problems. These offshoots have no one to shoot off in and seem more interested in shooting others instead.

Sex selection is proving to be a contraceptive against overpopulation. If left to nature, it wouldn't be that unusual for a family to have 3 or 4 costly girls before popping out a boy. If gendercide wasn't possible there could be hundreds of millions of extra people on this planet already, with more to come from their offspring – in fact we would be looking at an additional world population of 2-3%.

It does make you think to the future. Imagine what will happen when science makes it possible to decide on the sex of your child? Women could become a rare breed indeed. Alternatively, think how interesting the world would be if the reverse was true and there were 150 women to 100 men? And imagine the outrage from liberal groups if science makes it possible to predict a homosexual from their genes rather than growing up being influenced by Glee.

Well, I'd like to keep the women and I'd like to keep the gays. But which is better? There's only one way to find out – bitch fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggghhtttttt! Go on, the girls!

Women's Toiletries - Fact or Phallusy?

Have you noticed how women's toiletries are becoming increasingly phallic? Is it purely psychological or functional doubling-up? Why take two bottles in the shower? I just like to Gush and Go!

I have recently started observing more and more bullet-shaped fanny-rammers in the bathrooms of female friends. They do seem to fit well in a lady's hand, although I do find two hands preferable.

There is no doubt that sex sells. It is much less embarrassing to purchase a tall tin of dicky deodorant than a 12-inch diesel-powered 5-gear vibrator.

Looking at a can of Sure deodorant it made me think it could easily serve as an internal freshener (Boxfresh!) if it went off suddenly. It's not just me that has that problem I know.

There is a certain degree of irony behind an anti-perspirant making a woman wetter. They claim it stops you getting hot and sticky? Sure! The only way Sure could become more phallic is if they stuck a couple of cheesy bollocks at the bottom.

I decided to do some research into how 'widespread' the shapeliness was. On the Boots website when you navigate to women's deodorants you can now sort products by 'meatiest'.

Umberto Giannini seems to be the squatter's shampoo of choice. A good workout with one of these babies will certainly leave you well-conditioned. It hasn't quite got the bell-ended bang of a Sure but the sleek bullet-shape ensures it's the gift that never stops ogiving.

Even Palmolive does Soft and Genital. The name cleverly has phallic undertones – Jasmine and Cock Milk.

Other deodorants are available...