For someone who has to watch a lot of television (namely up to two hours of soaps of an evening…) there are certain habits the fellah has that irritate me beyond reason - which is fair enough given he's subjected to the aforementioned soaps.
That aside, the constant running commentary and the amazing knack of flicking through a hundred channels and then settling on the one thing I'd prefer to gnaw on my own eyeballs than watch can be a daily battle.
Sound familiar? That's 'cause we're not alone. SKY decided that the best way of getting people to choose their digital service before the switchover in 99 days time was to chronicle Irish TV Viewers Most Annoying Habits!
"Talking through a programme" ranked among the most irksome habit with 56% of those surveyed, with "Channel surfing" (43%), "Hogging the remote", "Talking on the phone" (both 36%), and "Revealing the ending" (31%) also cited.
Irish males are more guilty of remote hogging and the resulting channel surfing, while Irish females talk more on the phone during a programme. No surprises there.
What's even less surprising is what we're watching. Soaps such as EastEnders and Coronation Street rank the highest, along with Grey's Anatomy and the recently finished Desperate Housewives. Obviously, mostly women are enjoying the latter, while males atypically indulge in Top Gear, The Simpsons and Soccer Saturday…
And then there's the well guilty viewing on behalf of both genders - TOWIE, Tallafornia, Come Dine With Me, Keeping Up With The Kwats, and so on.
There is an upside. We're all still watching The Waltons, Little House on the Pairie and - more worryingly - Murder She Wrote, which speaks volumes about the quality of today's programmes.
So, really, no huge revelations there. But SKY were kind enough to send me a mug and a load of individually boxed chocolates so how could I refuse.