In the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge, here, in no particular order, are my current irritants:
• Paddy Ashdown
• Lady (Shami) Chakrabarti of Kennington
• First Minister Nicola Sturrrgeon
• Brussels grands fromages Michel Barnier, Guy Verhofstadt and Monsieur Tipsy Jean-Claude Juncker
• Three out of five Newsnight discussions
• Dance judge Len Goodman (those teeth are whistling again, Len)
• Donald Trump’s hand gestures
• Sir Philip Green
• Lady Green and that dog of hers
• Nicky Morgan
• Business Secretary Greg Clark, the cabinet’s fruity-voiced answer to Clifford the Listerine dragon
• Benedict Cumberbatch
• Caitlin Moran
• The National Secular Society
• Ukip braggart Raheem Kassam
• Diane Abbott, particularly when she closes her eyes while speaking
• Advertising man Sir Martin ‘£43 million a year’ Sorrell
• Anti-press windbag Evan Harris
• Mumsnet
• Hugh Grant
• Labour chief whip Nick Brown
• Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood
• Telly scientist Prof Brian Cox
• Gary Lineker
• James Purnell, the former Labour culture secretary who now poses as a non-partisan BBC radio boss
• Emily Thornberry QC MP
• Political aide Rohan Silva, who ‘became too big for No. 10’ — now a ‘techpreneur’
• Cara Delevingne and her eyebrows
• Sir Richard Branson
• Politician manqué Mark Carney
• You probably won’t have heard of her and I wish I never had — Scots Nat MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh
• Complete and utter lawyer Charlie Falconer
• BBC greenhouse gasbag Roger Harrabin
• Susie Orbach
• Sir Elton John and David Furnish
• Know-all Stephen Hawking
• Dog-throttling Europhile Michael Heseltine
• The Institute for Government
• Nick Clegg
• Jamie Oliver
• Sandi Toksvig
• Jimmy Carr’s laugh
• The Archers Omnibus theme tune
• Owen Smith MP
• Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders
• The RSPCA
• Eagle twins Angela and Maria
• Soon-to-depart US ambassador Matthew Barzun
• Editorial columns in the Church Times
• Jonathan Ross
• Simon bloody Schama
• Civil Service shop steward Lord (Gus) O’Donnell
• Facebook’s British boss Lady Mendelsohn, who gave a wonderfully bad speech at the CBI conference
• Brian May
• ‘Train managers’, ‘next station stops’ and ‘arriving into’
• Roland Rudd
• Architect Richard Rogers
• Gender-bending on stage
• Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy
• Lady Hale, particularly when she dresses up in her Supreme Court robes and that squashed hat
• ‘Evidence-based’
• Celery
• Boaty McBoatface
• Screeny McScreenface on Robert Peston’s Sunday ITV show
• Rolls-Royce boss Warren East
• The words ‘“Thought for the Day” is presented by John Bell of the Iona Community’
• David Baddiel’s beardlet
• Banksy
• The University access czar, Prof Les Ebdon
• Tim Farron
• Alex Salmond
• Self-regarding Heidi Allen MP
• HRH Duchess of York
• Gaz and Leccy
• Dominic Grieve
• Mariella Frostbite
• Peter Bone MP’s references to ‘Mrs Bone’
• Sir Anish Kapoor, that minor talent chosen as one of the ‘British cultural icons’ for the new passport
• Nepotiste Victoria Coren Mitchell
• Philip Hammond MP
• Russia apologist Sir Edward Leigh MP
• People who pop Strepsils out of their foil packets during plays
• Post-match interviews with football managers
• Janet Street-Porter CBE
• Andrew Tyrie’s daily pronouncements as chairman of the Treasury select committee
• Dame Helen Ghosh of the National Trust
• Statistics bore Jonathan Portes
• Alan Milburn and his Social Mobility Commission
• Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation
• Squeaker Bercow
• Sir Keir Starmer QC MP
• Sir John Major
• Zzzzzzadie Smith