Recently the BBC asked readers of its online news section ‘Magazine to tell them which bits of management and office-speak got on their nerves most.  Here are twenty of the worst offending phrases:

1. 1.”My favourite which I hear from the managers at the bank I work for is let’s touch base about that offline. I think it means have a private chat but I am still not sure.”
   Gemma, Wolverhampton, England

2.”My employers (top half of FTSE 100) recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase brain storm because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really.”
Anonymous, England

3.”The one phrase that inspires a rage in me is from the get-go.”
Andy, Herts

4.”I am a financial journalist and am on a mission to remove words and phrases such as 360-degree thinking from existence.”
Richard, London

5.”I worked in PR for many years and often heard the most ludicrous phrases uttered by CEOs and marketing managers. One of the best was, we’d better not let the grass grow too long on this one. To this day it still echoes in my ears and I giggle to myself whenever I think about it. I can’t help but think insecure business people use such phrases to cover up their inability for proper articulation.”
Leon Reilly, Ealing, London

6-7.”The business phrase I find most irritating is close of play, which is only slightly worse than actioning something.”
Ellie, London

8.”I once had a boss who said, ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it, so you have to step up to the plate and face the music.’ It was in that moment I knew I had to resign before somebody got badly hurt by a pencil.”
Tim, Durban

9.”Working for an American corporation, this year’s favourite word seems to be granularity, meaning detail. As in ‘down to that level of granularity’.”
Chris Daniel, Anaco, Venezuela

10.”The latest that’s stuck in my head is we are still optimistic things will feed through the sales and delivery pipeline (ie: we actually haven’t sold anything to anyone yet but maybe we will one day).”
Alexander, Southampton

11.”Need to get all my ducks in a row now - before the five-year-olds wake up.”
Mark Dixon, Bridgend

12-13.”The business-speak that I abhor is pre-prepare and forward planning. Is there any other kind of preparedness or planning?”
Edward Creswick, Exeter

14.”I work in one of those humble call centres for a bank. Apparently, what we’re doing at the moment is sprinkling our magic along the way. It’s a call centre, not Hogwarts.”
Caroline Garlick, Ayrshire

15.”You can add challenge to the list. Problems are no longer considered problems, they have morphed into challenges.”
Irene MacIntyre, Courtenay, B

16.”Have you ever heard the term loop back which means go back to an associate and deal with them?”
Scott Reed, Lakeland, Florida, US

17.”Until recently I had to suffer working for a manager who used phrases such as the idiotic I’ve got you in my radar in her speech, letters and e-mails.
Stephen Gradwick, Liverpool

18.”And looking under the bonnet.”
Eve Russell, Edinburgh 

19.”The health service in Wales is filled with managers who use this type of language as a substitute for original thought. At meetings we play health-speak bingo; counting the key words lightens the tedium of meetings - including, most recently, my door is open on this issue. What does that mean?”
Edwin Pottle, Llandudno 

20.”In my work environment it’s all cascading at the moment. What they really mean is to communicate or disseminate information, usually downwards. What they don’t seem to appreciate is that it sounds like we’re being wee’d on. Which we usually are.”
LMD, London 
 
20 not enough? Click here to read the full 50 most irritating pieces of management-speak,

After a night out everyone stayed at mine. Bored the next morning, my mate Dave (everyone has a mate called Dave) and I decided to dress up as terrorists and creep upstairs to scare our friend who wasn’t up yet…or so we thought.

Great news!  The psychiatric illness* that affects 10% of us is now curable!  Yes folks, with help, gay people can be “turned around”!  Well, that is, according to Northern Ireland Assembly Member, Iris Robinson.  This fantastic piece of open-minded brilliance was aired this morning on BBC Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan show.

During the interview, Robinson, who is chair of the Stormont Health committee spoke of her talented psychiatrist friend.

“I have a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is that he tries to help homosexuals - trying to turn away from what they are engaged in,” she said.

So it really is that easy then!  On a serious note, is this not a worrying statement from the woman married to Northern Ireland’s newly appointed First Minister?  Imagine Mrs. Gordon Brown coming out with such utter tosh, that is the equivalent. 

Although she went on to condemn acts of violence against the gay community, Robinson added that she had the right to defend her religious beliefs. 

*In a statement, the Royal College of Psychiatrists said that homosexuality was not a psychiatric disorder.

“Doris and May found a new use for the African water pumps”

How often have you went to a children’s playground and got stuck in the slide or realised that the motorbike-on-a-spring now requires a chiropractor to help you get back on your feet after that first initial lunge backwards - when it hits you, that your hulking frame won’t be “springing” back up again. And still, we all wish we could gallivant in a park without feeling like a giant, and that people wouldn’t notice when we try to have a sneaky go on the equipment whilst maintaining we’re playing with a younger sibling.

The future looked bleak up until yesterday, when the Pensioners’ Playground was revealed in Manchester, England.

The BBC reports:

The Older People’s Play Area on the Dam Head Estate in Blackley, is kitted out with equipment to strengthen hips, tone legs and train the upper body.It was set up by the local residents’ association, who were inspired by a similar playground in Germany.

And the olds are loving it too!

“I’d recommend anyone to come and have a go, after all you’re never too old to play,” Joan Fitzgerald, 76.

“This is BEEZER!!”

Belfast needs one of these.