Holograms of dead performers

Obviously coming off the back of the recent Tupac reincarnation, now this craze seems set to revive the likes of Freddie Mercury and Kurt Cobain. This is a matter I feel strongly about, and against, while it seems most are happy for the fad to continue.

First of all, a lot of people have been saying how's it no different to watching a recorded live video, listening to a CD, or a waxwork model. Well, it is in a totally different league. Hologramming (sic) itself isn't really the issue, it is just an extension of a drawing or a model but the problem comes with what you do with this hologram.

My issue is one about probably my favourite art form- the art of live performance. To me, it's one of the most raw, emotional, and real things you can experience- an artist or musician expressing themselves, living in that moment with the audience. A hologram is just a completely different thing, it's lifeless- everything about live performance does not exist within it.

So at this point it still seems very much the same as a past video or something. But trying to make out like this person is real, is just completely disrespectful to the legacy that artist left behind and to the entire art form itself. That person is dead, surely you don't need to be especially spiritual or superstitious to see that trying to bring this person back to life, through no will of their own, and get them to 'perform' as they did when they were alive, is wrong. As a friend put it- you may as well dig up their body and use them as a ventriloquist dummy.
On another note, dead artists had their time. We should be looking to spend our money on new things instead of supporting this disrespect, and at any rate, what is a purely a money-grabbing exercise.

Live performance is a sacred thing, let's keep it alive.

People beeping their horns at their friends

As well as being against the highway code, it's also fucking annoying. It's happened to all of us- you're driving in your car or often walking on the pavement, when some twat beeps his horn (usually the 'cheeky' two pips) at his mate he's just spotted on the pavement. So as a pedestrian, you shit yourself that they're beeping at you, and as a driver you think they genuinely might be beeping to alert danger.

So now, said twat has commanded the attention of pedestrians and motor-users alike as he tries to wave to his mate. At this point let me remind everyone that the receiver of this friendly beep horn never knows what the fuck is going on. They don't know if they were the one being beeped it, and they certainly have no fucking clue who's in the car anyway.

The worst is where a driver drops someone off, and as they leave, they beep their horn. Like seriously, what are you playing at.

Cashiers handing over change with notes then coins

I really don't understand the world sometimes. What is everyone's obsession with making a little basket for my change? If you're one of the few cashiers that gives me my coins then my notes- I applaud you, there is hope left in this bleak world.

The amount of times I've had a total fucking 'mare at the checkout is ridiculous, and solely down to this somehow standard practice. Maybe cashiers have a secret alliance and they just love watching people's coins slide off that note and onto the floor.

Please, hand my coins first. I can then clench the coins and just pinch the notes and will be free to avert any crisis.

Overly organised meetings

In the age of Powerpoint and synergy, c**ts have wriggled out of the woodwork to set goals, agendas and self-assessment criteria for those of us who just want to get it done and go home. I haven't yet entered the world of dangerously unbuttoned pink businessman shirts, and at university I haven't really been in any particularly wank meetings. But I have seen plenty of these going on.

Some people just thrive on letting everyone else know they're having a meeting. They'll go to a busy foyer of a library, sit down with their macbook and organic bottle water, and wax lyrical to fellow try-hards. All to decide whether Caravaggio was bent or not, and what the dress code should be for their next History of Art pretentious get-together.

People holding doors open too long

Holding doors open for people is fine- it's polite and genuinely helpful. But please don't make me feel like I have to awkwardly run-walk because you've held a door open ten metres ahead of me. I am perfectly capable of opening my own door thank you very much.

People just love holding doors open. They love going past the door and having to make a massive outstretched effort to maintain it agape. They love doing that little peek over their shoulder to check you've sped up in an effort to relieve them of their self-inflicted twister-stance. And they love receiving that hurried 'cheers' that you have to give them, or else they'll tell all their friends that you're an ungrateful bastard.

TV audiences clapping along to live performers

Every bloody time isn't it. Audiences love clapping along to any kind of vague musical sound. I guarantee that the next time you watch the Jonathan Ross or Graham Norton show, the audience will be clapping along just slightly out of time. It could be the most extreme tech-metal band, nintendocore, or a man playing Stairway To Heaven on his cheeks, it doesn't matter; the audience will have a go at clapping along. It's probably most annoying when the artist is genuinely good. No-one asked you to clap along, so just sit there and listen to the music. You're not good enough to make the music and you're not even a fan, so desist with your shit input.

Gangster handshake

At some point in the last five years of my life or so, it has become acceptable for non-homies from Compton to do this kind of sideways handshake thing. The handshake itself is fine, it's just that I have no fucking idea when to do it and when to do the 'normal' handshake. So now my life is plagued with awkward meetings of hands, with new people and friends alike; occasionally resulting in a complete finger-fuck and me wishing I'd just never met the bugger in the first place.

"Ooh a handshake, very formal."

Whatever mate, just tell me what you want me to do.

Smart cars parking sideways

This isn't a rant about Smart Cars in general, oh no, that would go on far too long. Instead it is a rant about the insistence of Smart car owners to park their little car the wrong fucking way round to everybody else.

Is there a law against it? Has nobody else pointed out that they just don't fit within the lines when they park like this?

By definition, if the owners think their car is so square and smart for parking, then surely they can fit in exactly the same space parking the correct way round. I've actually seen instances where there is a perfectly big enough space to park like a normal person, but the owner has reversed in like an utter bell end just to park in this way. Stop it now.

Hi-Top shoes

A controversial choice, because everyone seems to have bought a pair in the last two years; and some of them actually look alright. Some, on the other hand, make you look like a retarded astronaut, sent from outer space to tuck in a ridiculous shade of skinny green chinos into this flailing mess of tongue and Topman tragedy.

If you're going to wear shoes, at least do them up properly- that's just basic sense. Also, Velcro is for six-year olds.

Chefs cracking eggs with one hand

In my view, this one of the lamest forms of 'look at what I can do that you can't' out there. Like really Gino, is there any fucking point in cracking it with one hand? Especially when they always have the other hand free anyway. TV chefs were obviously bullied at school for being shite at football, or shagging, or whatever. I guess this is just their way of getting back at us.

Well done chefs, you can cook nicer food than the rest of us, that's rad for you. But don't try to turn it into an extreme sport and be a bigshot at cracking eggs. It's futile and annoying, no-one cares that you posess that skill.