Small Things That Irritate I

A radio advert - which I will not give the company the satisfaction of free advertising by naming the perpetrators - has been annoying me for a few days and I've just realised why.

Said advert for an airline encouraging you to go on city breaks features a tourist guide listing off activities at a frenetic speed, as if the actor was being paid by the word and had only a minute to earn as much as she could in some low-budget gameshow finale where success was achieved by recounting sightseeing cliches. The thrust of the advert was that at least the flight to the place would be relaxing, even if while you were in anonymous holiday destination your feet would not touch the ground and your eyelids would never close.

All reasonable, except in the case that among the features listed in order were an aqueduct (large structure built for carrying water to population centres without an adequate natural source of fresh water) and a boat on a river (adequate natural source of fresh water). Suddenly the advert's paper-thin facade came crashing down. Do they know nothing? If they don't know that you would not have an aqueduct where you have a river, how can they be trusted on anything? Do their planes even fly? What's the meaning of this madness? Was noone checking? Do they even make checks before take-off? We put our lives in the hands of people who don't know that you will not have an aqueduct to supply water to a city with a river? Are we insane?!

I am wisely making this the first of a theme series as I suspect it's one where I will find ample material to post future blogs about.