Political correctness gone mad

I don't know if it's a peculiarly British thing but I think most of us secretly like being a bit offended or angered. There's a sign on platform 6 at London Bridge that proudly proclaims, "90% of South Eastern Trains run on time!" and when I'm waiting for a train I take a perverse enjoyment in standing in front of it seething, muttering like an enraged Gollum, "90%! 90%! South Eastern have the temerity, the audacity, the gall to say that when I am late at least twice a week!" It's like a pressure valve, or something.

I would, however, hate to turn into the wrong sort of offended. The sort of person who rants into the comment boxes on newspaper websites. The sort of person who, when presented with a harmless, if banal, question on the BBC Have Your Say website, such as, "Are you bracing yourself for the cold weather?", rather than scrolling on by is gripped by rage and feels compelled to give answers such as these:

The worlds most sophisticated weather system exists in Britain.
it's called sticking your head out of the window!
Why are we so obsessed with the weather? It's winter, it's going to be cold and snow. Get over it.
Harry James, Warwick, United Kingdom

To be honest, we may as well throw our bodies out of the window too as we'll never be as enlightened as Harry James. Except maybe this next commenter, both called Harry, separated at birth?

The BBC have been telling me that the planet is getting warmer for years, and now ITV now inform me that the polar bears are dying of heatstroke, so I will be breaking out the deck chairs and tee shirts this weekend.

Why does the British weather, which is exceedingly agreeable and temperate by any measure, animate the British so much ?

Its the weather, not the apocalypse. Get a life.
[Potty_Harry], Coventry, United Kingdom

Before the Harries get too animated, here's Dave to calm it all down:

The weather in this country is NEVER cold in world terms.

How do you think people cope in Canada, Finland or Russia cope? Or what about Central Europe where it is consistently colder than this for three months every single year?

Slow news day, BBC?

Davie Hay

Glad we cleared that up. And finally:

Hello? It's late November; what are people expecting, a heatwave? I wouldn't trust the BBC to tell me what the weather's going to be like anyway. A couple of weeks ago in work, we all had a good laugh at the current weather map on this site, which showed a cloudless sky over the whole of Wales. It was chucking it down outside!

[BrimfulOfAshes], Cardiff

Hello? Can I be your friend Brimful? Please? I bet Comic Relief at your work is hilarious.

I worry when I find myself almost tutting at someone standing on the wrong side of the escalator that I might be turning into someone like this. Is noting spelling mistakes on signs with amusement the start of the slippery slope to writing into supermarkets informing them that it should be "Eight items or fewer" rather than "Eight items or less"? Will my irritation with South Eastern trains grow until it leads me down the dark and sullying path of writing a letter of complaint to The Metro? Do you secretly like being angry or offended? What apparantly trivial things anger or offend you?