Matt Prior

Petty Gripes, The Guardian calls its series of lighthearted features on elements of modern life that involve minorly annoying things. Things like bands that name themselves after other bands or being irritated by somebody else’s coffee snobbery. You know, little quirks.

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In one recent article, a software update in a writer’s phone meant that his maps app would no longer talk to his car's infotainment system. Automatic software updates duly went down as another petty gripe.

I wish my patience and tolerance could mean that software updates - or software glitches in general, for that matter - could be deemed merely petty gripes.

On the list of gripes I have, automatic updates, apparently for my benefit but which rarely feel it, are right up there in the pantheon of mighty annoyances - along with the worst of them, the ones about which I'm too cross to mention.