1. The feeling of exasperation engendered by the realisation that the remote control unit is further away from where you are sitting than the device which you wish to control.

2. The minor, irrational feeling of panic which occurs between depression and release of the "send" button in MS Outlook.

3. The action of attempting to fit crumpled banknotes obtained via a supermarket's cashback facility into one's wallet or purse.

4. The delay in exiting a computer program caused by a failure to read the program's questions carefully enough to know whether "Yes",  "No", “OK or “Cancel” means "Go Away."

5. Of a commercial organisation, to diversify into a market manifestly inconsistent with the company’s name. e.g. British Gas selling electricity.

6. To behave in a brusque or abrupt manner in an electrical shop, in the mistaken belief that this will discourage the staff from trying to sell you £25 worth of extended warranty with your £15 toaster.

7. The moderate discomfort occasioned by applying a fingertip to the circular arrangement of little plastic teeth which hold a CD in its case.

8. When telephoning a large corporation, the short pause which tells you that your (limited) enjoyment of the lo-fi light music is about to be interrupted by a snotty-voiced recorded woman informing you that your call is important to them, but not important enough to be answered right away, or possibly ever.

9. Of American style catering enterprises, to offer such a bewildering variety of options that it is impossible for the customer to get what they want.  e.g. Starbucks’ refusal to serve an ordinary cup of coffee.

10. Ready prepared meals which claim to serve two people despite containing less than half a mouthful of food.  Their target market is tragic bachelors who don’t want the supermarket staff knowing that they haven’t got a girlfriend.

11. The mixture of dried milkshake, Big Mac sauce and squashed fries adorning a pavement which tells you that you are less than three hundred yards from a McDonalds during the latter part of the summer holidays.

12. The action of reversing towards the right hand side of a petrol pump in a car with a driver’s-side fuel filler cap, thereby inspiring vivid gestures from other drivers who were patiently queuing for a space on the left hand side of the pump.

13. The irrational feeling of shame inspired by accidentally producing the wrong loyalty card in a supermarket.

14. A person who replies to an e-mailed anecdote with a link to snopes.com explaining that the story: i) has been around for years and ii) is untrue.  Also used to describe an adult who takes pleasure in informing small children that there is no Santa Claus.

15. Unsure whether to accept a Scottish banknote as change.

16. The feminine of parking.  Abandoning a motor vehicle in a convenient position which is out of the way of others rather than proving something which can’t quite be defined by manoeuvring the car into a space so small that everybody has to get out through the sunroof. 

17. The wounded look on the face of a techno-freak mobile phone owner who has just realised that someone else in the room has the same ringtone.

18. The “Bridge to engine room: give me warp factor 9” noise made by a 40X CD-ROM drive trying to figure out what you’ve just put in it.

19. An acronym that everybody insists on repeating the last word of.  See PIN number, ATM machine or LCD Display.

20. The subtle vibration which indicates that you are using a mouse whose rollers haven’t been cleaned recently.

21. A person who derives satisfaction from removing food from the microwave before it finishes the last beep.

22. A person who fraudulently claims to be able to tell the difference between before and after pushing the degauss button on a computer monitor.

23. To accidentally iron a formal shirt with the sleeves inside out, resulting in ridiculous concave creases which just won’t go away.

24. (Of a small child) to discover by experimentation that a shatterproof ruler isn’t.  Also applicable to adults who have just determined the precise limits of their Significant Other’s patience. 

25. Frenzied arm waving resulting from a moment of inspiration coinciding with mechanical pencil failure.

26. The faintly alarming Boink noise made by a central heating radiator on the first chilly day in Autumn.

27. The glance of embarrassed defiance bestowed on someone who is legitimately using a disabled parking space by the person illegally parked in the space next door.

28. The state of a cheap book, after repeated and drastic efforts to persuade the thing to lie open flat have resulted in the pages coming loose from the binding.

29. The moment, halfway through the cycle of an automatic carwash, of absolute conviction that the machine is about to cause permanent damage to your car, resulting in an almost uncontrollable urge to drive out right away.  Giving in to this urge will cause permanent damage to your car.

30. Guilty awareness that the hinges on one’s spectacles should have been tightened months ago.

31. Uncomfortable atmosphere generated in a telephone conversation, caused by the other party waiting for a segment of conversation predictable enough to allow him to change the handset to his other ear without missing something important.

32. The life-cycle of a Bic biro, which may be summarised as: pristine; pocket clip broken; cap mangled; cap missing; end chewed; end cap missing; end splintered; dead.  Pioneering work by students of Sigmud Freud indicates that anyone who can prolong this cycle to more than three months is essentially anal-retentive.

33. Prolonged inspection of a lawn from inside a house, intended to persuade oneself that it doesn’t really need cutting for another week.

34. The act of replacing a burnt match back in the box.  Hence a cabinet reshuffle resulting in a job for a politician who has retired once already.

35. To look oneself up on the internet.  An entirely new form of self abuse for the digital age.

36. The process by which people spend most of a day humming a song they don’t like, merely because it was on the radio when their alarm-clock went off.

37. Unsatisfying for no apparent reason - like the last mug of instant coffee from a jar.

38. The as yet unexplained property of the universe which means that a person who has accidentally scrolled across to cell XA 54329 while attempting to click-and-drag in Microsoft Excel is highly likely to do the same thing again on their second attempt.

[editor's note: the last column in Excel is IV. In fairness Nigel spotted this schoolboy error to his unutterable mortification. The original is shown here to demonstrate the beauty of hyperbole and in order to maintain the  purity of this original piece]

39. A product which has outgrown its brand name.  See Lemsip (now available in blackcurrant.)

40. The substance which accumulates in office stationery cupboards.  As of 2003, the composition is approximately 15% dot-matrix printer ribbons, 40% green biros, 10% 720KB floppy disks, 30% inextricably tangled rubber bands, and 5% bulldog clips.

If your brain isn't addled already, then try blinman.com for size