As promised, here are as many of my top hates as I could fit on a single page….? (no Lynne, I'm not changing my mind, you can't have two pages. Ed.).

Lynne Mortimer

The menopause files.

As promised, here are as many of my top hates as I could fit on a single page….? (no Lynne, I'm not changing my mind, you can't have two pages. Ed).

All right then, I hate

1. Chewing gum on the pavement. Bring back the public stocks for such antisocial behaviour

2. People who ride their bicycles really fast through the pedestrianised part of the town centre; cyclists who don't stop at pelican crossings, but carry on, weaving around people crossing the road.

3. Patronising people (men) who say “well done” when you manage to do something right despite being female and over 50.

4. Waiting staff in restaurants who ignore your efforts to catch their eye.

5. Tights that sag round the crotch

6. Thighs that sag round the crotch

7. Heavy duty eyebrows. Mine used to be silky and fine now I have the occasional hawser-like hair that grows out over my eye lid. Thick and black, it has to be removed with pliers.

8. Walnut whips that don't have a secret walnut at the bottom of the marshmallowy filling

9. Liver marks on the backs of my hands. I can't get away with calling them freckles any more.

10. Dandruff on my legs.

11. Any appliance that has to have the date re-set when the battery runs out. My alarm clock reverts to 01.01.1996.

12. Politicians that talk to you as if you're stupid.

13. Popular broadcasters who think swearing makes them funnier.

14. People who imagine that they or their task is so important they are entitled to park their cars on double yellow lines.

15. Birthdays

16. Dog poo on pavements. Most owners are very responsible and take it home with them but the few that are not always seem to have dogs that foul the pavement in elephantine quantities.

17. Not having a Sunday postal collection.

18. Unsolicited emails. Do I look as if I'm interested in a Russian blonde who says she is “nice girl. You want good time?”

19. Joints of meat sold with no fat on them.

20. New types of anything that are incompatible with previous models which means you have to buy the whole thing again. (e.g. plug in air fresheners)

21. Limescale in the bottom of my tea cup

22. Default American English spell checks on computers that forever try to replace 's' with 'z' in words that end with 'ise' .

23. Unnecessary changes of pronunciation. When did “Uranus” become Yew-renus?

24. Very fat chips.

25. The person that ripped the brand logo off the back of my little car last week.

26. Litter in the hedgerows

27. Wood pigeons mating on the lawn.

28. Three-quarter length sleeves. They are impossible to keep in place when you put a winter coat on.

29. Buzz words like “transparency”, “accessibility” and “facilitate” and business jargon such as “thinking outside the box”, “singing from the same hymn sheet” and “blue sky thinking”.

30. Baked beans touching your bacon or egg in a full English breakfast

31. Matt finish coffee mugs

32. Multiple face piercings

33. Estuary English as practised by TV presenters who want to disguise the fact they went to public school and have a posh voice.

34. Mega-giant sized toilet rolls in public loos. They are too big to dispense the paper efficiently and you're lucky if you end up with a square inch of tissue. They also spring back so you have to work the roll round to find the end of the paper.

35. Losing pens. I buy them three at a time but they're gone in a fortnight. And just in case you're wondering, they are not stashed under my bosom in random “pencil test”* trials

36. Using ATM machines. I bet I'm not the only one who checks all the windows across the road in case someone has binoculars trained on you, then runs their hands over the machine to check there's no false front or hidden card readers and finally curls their arm round the number pad before tapping in their pin number.

37. Pin numbers. I cannot tell you how many times I have entered my pin number instead of my security code to get into the office.

38. People unwrapping sweets in the theatre - especially when they do it really, really slowly and the rustling goes on intermittently for minutes.

39. The noise of muted maracas that my knees make when I walk downstairs

40. Having three sections in the Phone Book

41. Not remembering people's names. I try really hard, I do. Forget identity cards, I think we should all wear name badges.

42. Hot flushes; cold sweats - all without the aid of a sauna

43. The inevitability that in certain towns and cities there will be nights when hordes of very drunk young women lurch from bar to bar unable to properly walk or stand, wearing little but their “vodka jackets”.

44. Buying clothes. My heart says size 14 my hips say 16.

46. Being called “dear” or “love” by people who don't know me.

47. People saying they feel sorry for my husband. Hang on a minute, I'm the one with the menopause here.

48. Not knowing if it is evolution, climate change or human interference that is the real threat to species (including ours).

49. Being told something is bad for me. It just brings on a craving.

50. Not knowing when to stop.

51… (No, Lynne, stop. I said one page, and I meant it. Ed)

*The pencil test. Place a pencil under your unsupported bosom. If it falls out, congratulations; if it stays put, never mind, at least you've got a spare pencil.