From Christmas beetles and voice mail to table tennis and fake breasts, Oliver Roberts lists some of the things we could do without

1. "Cute" pictures of people's babies dressed up like sunflowers or made to look like a bean inside a pod, etc.

2. Christmas beetles flying into your room and banging against the walls half the night then falling into some obscure place you cannot get to with your feeble fingers so you're kept awake by the sound of it scratching around behind the skirting boards.

3. Running out of staples when you've only got one thing left to staple.

4.That drawer in the kitchen that is stuffed so full of cords and chargers and unused napkins from Nando's that it never closes properly.

5. While enjoying a great sandwich, biting your cheek so hard it makes you swear loudly, then spending the next few days sporadically biting down on the swollen bit.

6 Being in economy class and thinking the seat next to you is going to remain empty. Then, just before the doors close, watching as a very fat person waddles all way down the aisle and sits down in it.

7. The cosmetic quest to "stay young".

8. Girls who change their name to William Kentridge.

9. The one supermarket trolley with the wonky wheel. You always get it.

10. Looking up a guesthouse on the Internet and thinking it looks peaceful and lovely only to arrive and discover it's possibly the worst place you've ever seen and has an old tyre swing next to your room that is constantly populated by screaming children.

11. Voicemail. Just send an SMS.

12. Domestic workers practically raising other people's children because the actual parents are "too busy".

13. Shopkeepers not willing to give you change for R20 unless you buy something.

14. Men shaving their chests.

15. Loud, obnoxious cellphone rings.

16. Car guards asking for money after you've been two minutes in a shop, all the while with your car in full view.

17. Being afflicted with an itchy bottom in a public place and having to wait until you get back into your car to scratch it.

18. People who end their name with "Ph.D".

19. People writing books about their heroin addiction.

20. Women bringing their newborn babies to work and walking around with them, then acting surprised at all the attention they're receiving as if that wasn't their intention.

21. Sitting in dreadful traffic on a very hot day and watching as other drivers fly up the emergency lane and push in where the traffic has eased.

22. People who throw litter out of their car windows.

23. Fake breasts.

24. Money collections at work when someone is leaving or retiring and the look you receive from the collector when you say you don't want to give anything.

25. Toast always landing on the buttered side.

26. Getting gravel in your shoe and being unable to shake it loose so you have to stop somewhere and take your shoe off.

27. Men biting their bottom lip when they're dancing.

28. Packing your suitcase for a holiday then remembering you've left something of great importance at the bottom of it, like your passport.

29. Bad apostrophes.

30. Themed weddings and weddings in general.

31. Raising a glass to your mouth, missing it, and spilling the contents all over your shirt.

32. Sitting across from someone at a dinner table who has a large piece of food stuck between their front teeth, and not knowing them well enough to ask them to remove it.

33. Being made to watch those annoying anti-piracy inserts (you can't fast forward past them) at the beginning of a DVD.

34. Going out for the night and being unable to fully enjoy yourself because you think you may have left the stove on.

35 When, after a lovely meal, blocking up the kitchen sink with unwanted rice or macaroni and having to gouge the soggy stuff out with your fingers.

36. People who can't just fluidly mount an escalator, and those who come off an escalator and stop in front of you so you almost trip.

37. People dressing up their pets and taking photographs of them, then putting the photograph up in their cubicle next to you at work so it's the first thing you see every morning.

38. Going to a play or a classical music concert and sitting next to someone who sniffs loudly throughout the entire performance.

39. Being filled with excitement and intrigue when receiving an SMS from an anonymous number, only to open it and see it is a message telling you about a sale happening at a furniture store.

40 That woman a few cubicles away from you at work who wears lots of heavy bracelets that clunk against the desk as she types.

41. Toast crumbs in the butter container.

42. Attending a braai full of boring people, and later being served a dessert made of condensed milk and crushed Tennis biscuits.

43. Sitting in an enclosed space with a stranger who has a severe cold and coughs and sneezes without covering his mouth.

44. Going to somebody's house and being made to play table tennis or snooker when you have no interest in either of these games.

45. Being somewhere beautiful and untouched, like an empty beach or a lake with happy ducks, and noticing there are discarded cigarette butts lying on the ground around you.

46. Going somewhere peaceful to read a book only for a nearby dog to begin yapping soon after you've sat down.

47. People who hoot their horn to make someone open a gate for them and those who toot as they drive away from a friend's house.

48. When you're in deep REM sleep in a hotel room and the alarm goes off because the person who stayed there before you didn't switch it off.

49. When in conversation with someone, noticing that white pockets of coagulated spit are beginning to form in the corner of their mouth and you get so distracted by it you stop listening to what they're saying.

50. Dirty-looking people in airports constantly knocking objects and people with their enormous backpacks.