These people deserve to be first against the wall

“When I am king you will be first against the wall,” intones Thom Yorke of Radiohead in Paranoid Android.

Well, when I’m president and queen of the universe as well as boss of everyone, I will propose that the following people be put up against a wall and shot at dawn for egregious, inconsiderate and otherwise intolerable behaviour.

Most of you probably have a list of your own. This is mine:

1. Motorists who chuck cigarette butts out of their cars. And smokers who chuck their butts wherever to they feel like it. This is my pet hate of all pet hates. Why do smokers regard the world as their personal ashtray? Why is this level of incontinence regarded as socially acceptable? I’ve attended dinner parties where the smokers happily chucked their butts off the balcony into a neighbour’s garden below. I’ve stood on the top of a mountain beside a road passable only by 4x4s and watched a travel companion chuck his cigarette onto the ground without giving a shit. People who do this must be eliminated from society.

Ditto for:

2. Motorists who don’t indicate to turn left at traffic circles. Off with their heads.

3. Motorists who travel with kids not strapped in. There are no words, except for ones ruder than those that appear in this post.

4. People who congregate in front of escalators and lifts in order to have a fat chat, blocking access for everyone else.

5. People who heat up fish in microwaves in open plan offices.

6. Dead Sea cosmetics sales people in malls. I run screaming whenever I see one approaching me.

7. People who hoik up phlegm in public. And people who dig vigorously in their ears with their little fingers. And sniffers. Heaven spare me from the sniffers.

8. People who use the words “totes” and “amazeballs” in proximity to one another, especially on Twitter. Remember this: “complete” is a word often found in proximity to “wanker”.

9. Loud, annoying laughers who sound like mating jackass penguins. And people who pronounce “year” as “yer” and “right” as “raat”. No mercy for them.

10. Drunks who want to strike up conversations when you’re sober.

11. Mouth kissers, the worst of the awkward huggers.

12. And finally, though this list is by no means exhaustive, people who use my name repeatedly, as if they’re trying to sell me a used car. I know my own name. I’m not confused as to whether you’re speaking to me or someone else. If I sense you’re trying to soft-soap me, I hate you immediately and for all eternity without the possibility of redemption.

No clemency, no commuted sentences or extenuating circumstances for any of them. As Thom Yorke sings, “The dust and the screaming (Come on rain down)/ The yuppies networking (On me)/ The panic, the vomit (From a great height)/God loves his children, yeah”. Or something like that.