http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com en-gb kevinbaldwin-writer.com 2012-5-4T00:00:00Z kevinbaldwin-writer.com http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#117676 Its not just about the words you use its about where you position them.Take a look at this label from a bottle of milk I bought this weekDid you read it as Less than fresh semiskimmed Or is it just meI think it stinks. 2012-4-13 14:12:47 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#115573 I found out when reading the Guardian today that the professional body of doctors who carry out breast enlargement procedures is called the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons.Or BAAPS for short. 2012-3-15 20:55:42 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#112869 Its almost two years now since I was first prescribed reading glasses. I think it may be time for me to go back to the opticians and get my eyes tested again.When I saw this headline in todays Guardian I thought it said bum not burn... 2012-2-10 10:38:08 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#111189 ...always check your speling. 2012-1-23 10:12:48 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#111188 Our fiveyearold sons use of English is coming on in leaps and bounds. A couple of weeks ago I overheard him talking to his sister and beginning a sentence with Suffice to say Emily... Hes also described his new winter coat as most accommodating.That said he still makes some funny mistakes. Yesterday he asked for some assistance with one of his Christmas presentsHarry Dad will you help me with my cemetery setMe Cemetery setEmily He means chemistry...Last term he cut his knee in the school playground and reported later that hed had to go to the magical room instead of medical room.He thinks that the words to this years big Maroon 5 hit go Ive got to move my Jagger...And he thinks theres a type of car called a Vulva. Im finding it too funny to correct him. 2011-12-28 09:57:17 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#108757 An exchange with my sevenyearold daughter this weekMe Are you going to wear your new school shoes today EmEmily No I think Ill break into them at the weekend. 2011-11-22 11:05:50 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#108756 A fire station in West Sussex photo from the BBC website. 2011-11-8 11:00:20 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#106511 Ive always found that swearing loudly makes me feel better when something painful happens. Stubbing my toe on the bedpost Norwich conceding a lastminute goal that sort of thing.Now theres scientific proof that this is actually the case.In his entertaining new BBC1 series on language polymath Stephen Fry and actor Brian Blessed undergo an experiment to see if they can stand pain for longer when they swear.This isnt the highestquality footage but its the best I could find on YouTube. The relevant section begins at 325...Frys resistance to pain is increased significantly when he swears though interestingly Blesseds seems to be reduced. Apparently this is because the effect doesnt work for people who swear all the time the power of the swear word is diminished by overuse.A bit of a psser for the foulmouthed but there you go. 2011-10-16 16:17:54 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#106482 Ah I do like a good misheard song lyric or a mondegreen as its sometimes called.Here is an XFactor contestant from last night apparently singing about a jar of farts. Youll have to follow the link Im afraid embedding has been disabled for this clip.Of course there have been lots of these over the years.You come to me on a submarine from the Bee Gees How Deep Is Your Love for example.I remember with particular fondness my Mum believing that the Police hit Roxanne was about rock salmon.And I prefer my younger sisters rendition of the line Its something that I must believe in from John Paul Youngs Love is in the Air she thought he was singing Its something that I must have eaten which I think conveys rather well the sick feeling in the stomach that can be caused by love.My favourite from the last couple of years has to be this one thoughWatch me while I take a leak 057Er no thanks. 2011-10-9 10:14:34 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#102630 Im old enough to remember the days before dyslexia and ADHD when schoolkids were simply thick or naughty. Im not saying I agree with that its just the way it was back then.There seem to be a lot of syndromes and disorders around these days to explain the difficult behaviour of some children though. I heard about a new one to me this week Oppositional Defiant Disorder.This describes an ongoing pattern of disobedient hostile and defiant behaviour toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behaviour. Thanks Wikipedia.Sounds serious. So it might have been better to give the condition a name which didnt get abbreviated to ODD. 2011-9-10 13:49:26 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#102626 Lexicographers at Collins Dictionary have just released a list of words they have deemed to be extinct and which they intend to drop from their smaller dictionaries.In some cases its fair enough there are plenty of words on the list that Id never heard of. Such as succedaneum which apparently means something used as a substitute.Or wittol a man who tolerates his wife being unfaithful. Now largely superseded by mug.But there were a couple of surprises. Aerodrome is on the list. As is charabanc.Unusually I can remember exactly when I first came across the latter. It featured in the Stranglers 1977 hit Peaches in a delicate wistful lyric about a moment of misfortune in a seaside townOh shit there goes the charabanc.Looks like Im going to be stuck here the whole summer.Well what a bummer.And though I dont think Ive ever used the word myself it has cropped up every now and then. Im sure characters on Coronation Street have occasionally spoken of taking the chara to the coast.I dont wa... 2011-8-24 13:21:07 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#99437 Its not long now until our holiday in France so Ive been trying to breathe some life into my dormant French. As part of my preparations Ive been dipping into the rather absorbing Collins Easy Learning French Idioms. Its a compilation of expressions which offer a fresh and different way of looking at life and in some cases death. Well I say fresh for all I know they may be considered hackneyed in France but most of them are new to me. A few of my favourites Revenons 224 nos moutons lit Let us return to our sheep Lets get back to the subject Arriver dans un fauteuil lit To arrive in an armchair To win easily 202tre soupe au lait lit To be milk soup To have a short temper to flare up quickly Se mettre sur son trente et un lit To put oneself on ones 31 To get dressed up to the nines Manger les pissenlits par la racine lit To eat dandelions by the root To push up daisies My wife is sceptical to say the least that my efforts will be of any practical use in France. She thinks... 2011-7-29 22:34:14 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#99427 At the Ledbury Poetry Festival earlier this month poets were invited to name the words and phrases which in their opinion have become annoyingly empty clich233s. The Guardian listed some of their responses which included Thinking outside the box Devastated Awesome Literally and LMAO. Obviously I wasnt asked but the meaningless phrase which has got on my nerves lately is infor a generation. It seems that leading politicians are now incapable of making a statement without working it in somewhere. A few recent examples will suffice to make the point David Cameron on the Budget the most progrowth budget this government this country has seen for a generation. On the drought in East Africa What we are seeing today is the most catastrophic situation in that region for a generation. Nick Clegg on the AV referendum Change in the way we do our politics comes along once in a generation. On the phone hacking scandal I think that we now have a onceinageneration opportunity to really clean u... 2011-7-21 20:27:51 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#96489 This blog is supposed to be about words rather than pictures. But since this is definitely a case of a picture painting a thousand words Im posting it anyway. Its a portrait of me drawn by our fouryearold son Harry this week. General consensus in the house is that its captured my disposition perfectly... Mr Sunshine cest moi. 2011-6-17 16:10:40 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#95333 Apparently the Oxford English Dictionary has included the acronyms OMG LOL TMI BFF and IMHO in its latest update. FFS. 2011-5-20 14:04:47 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#93282 Osama Bin Laden was killed this week and already the conspiracy theories have started. Not just about whether hes really dead since his body was quickly buried at sea and the US government has refused to release photographs of his corpse but about whether this caption on Fox40 News in Sacramento a Fox News affiliate was deliberate or just a typo 2011-5-5 11:19:15 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#93228 Theres an interesting article in the Guardian today about the Urban Dictionary. Ive stumbled across the site now and again but hadnt realised how large it is while the Oxford English Dictionary has around 600000 entries the Urban Dictionary has 5.7million. A lot of the entries are simply made up frequently by youngsters having a laugh frequently at the expense of people they know but there is plenty of cleverness and inventiveness in evidence. Here are some of my favourites on the site Store doeuvres free food samples given out by supermarket staff Treebook a book made of paper a predecessor to the ebook Buysexual someone who derives sexual pleasure from the act of shopping Googleheimers the condition of thinking of something you want to Google then forgetting about it when you get to your computer Shelf esteem confidence derived from a collection of selfhelp books Beardo a weirdo with a beard Theyre enough to give logophiliacs a neologasm. 2011-4-21 22:15:56 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#90605 For ages now my wife has been expressing the view that Fabio Capello cant possibly be able to deal effectively with the national football squad since his English still isnt great. Its only relatively recently well since Englands dismal showing in last years World Cup that the opinion has been more widely expressed. Capello felt obliged to defend himself against the charge again this week and in doing so made the surprising claim that only 100 words were needed to get his messages across to the team. It reminded me of an old football joke The day after signing a new striker from a foreign country the manager assembles the first team on the training ground. He holds up a ball points towards the goal and repeats slowly Ball kick goal. Ball kick goal. Eventually one of the players raises a hand. Gaffer he says actually Goran can speak really good English. This isnt for Gorans benefit replies the boss. Its for the rest of you bloody lot. But does Capellos argument hold water... 2011-3-30 17:42:46 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#90126 Once again proof of the selling power of words. Some time ago I mentioned an ad on eBay for a pair of leather trousers which attracted an extraordinary amount of attention because it was written in a very funny way. A similar thing has just happened again. This ad for a secondhand wetsuit has at the time of writing received over 650000 hits and the winning bid was an astonishing 1638999. In the end the wetsuit came with a large number of extra items provided by companies who heard about the ad and wanted to get involved. Since ads on eBay dont stick around for too long after the auction has closed Ive copied and pasted the main text below. Its a great lesson in how to engage and entertain your audience while talking about your product if I were a creative director at an ad agency Id be trying to get in touch with the author to offer him a job. Read and enjoy... I bought this wetsuit brandnew last year and have worn it a fair bit. When I say fair I reckon about 20 ... 2011-3-24 22:51:42 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#85550 Since I dont have a problem with my hearing my wife may disagree though its actually a failure to listen that annoys her Ive never had occasion to turn on the subtitles when watching TV. However it turns out that Ive been missing out on a constant stream of amusing linguistic slips. This came to light this week when the Guardian ran a piece about a subtitle which appeared on BBC Breakfast. A reporter on a farm told the studio that pigs love to nibble anything that comes into the shed like our wellies but the words on screen said... oh see for yourself Picture BBC A quick search revealed that the writer of the Guardian article Charlie Swinbourne wrote about subtitle slips for the BBC website in November 2008. Youll find some more great examples there such as the players and staff of Arsenal and Man Utd marking the fact that the following day was Remembrance Sunday And while I knew US presidential candidate John McCain was old I... 2011-1-18 10:13:27 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#83192 Its something of a Christmas tradition for TV companies to fill out their festive schedules with repeats usually introduced with the phrase Another chance to enjoy... In the spirit of the season then as well as out of laziness heres another chance to enjoy a blog entry from December 2008... Grimm indeed Seems even Santa is now sourcing his goods from cheap factories in the Far East to keep his costs down. When my daughter Emily went to see him at Hampton Library last week he gave her a Snow White theatre game that had been made in China with rather less attention to quality and detail than the spectacle at the Beijing Olympics. Most of the figures tore and disintegrated when Emily tried to press them out of the flimsy sheets of card and eventually she abandoned all attempts to assemble it. I fared no better when I tried to help but on examining the box to see if there were any useful instructions there werent I did find a beautifully written synopsis of the Snow White tale. ... 2010-12-21 22:32:07 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#80703 Channel Four has just launched an excellent new interactive campaign which involves playing with words. Viewers have the chance to put together station idents by creating sentences from individual words spoken by Channel Four presenters and actors. You go to the website pick the words you want rather like using those small magnetic words you can buy for the fridge door and if youre happy with what youve made you can submit it. The best ones will be shown on TV. Given the number of people who are likely to take part its unlikely that my submissions will make it on air but here are some efforts I put together httptwist.channel4.comvideosvideo4ce65ea4a0b6a httptwist.channel4.comvideosvideo4ce65f4e0e3a1 httptwist.channel4.comvideosvideo4ce6600f679e6 httptwist.channel4.comvideosvideo4ce66242e0360 httptwist.channel4.comvideosvideo4ce6fe3f01868 2010-11-19 11:02:49 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#80702 Regular readers of this blog anyone may recall the failure earlier this year of two Countdown contestants to spot a rude word in one of the letters rounds. Starts with f rhymes with bucked. Now it seems that a round has had to be dropped from a recentlyrecorded show because one of the contestants did find a word that was considered too strong for the afternoon audience. Perhaps the programme makers didnt want to risk getting carpet cleaning bills from old biddies around the country after theyd sprayed out a mouthful of tea in shock. The selection of letters was DTCEIASHF and the contestant in question a student from Cambridge made the word shitface. Its a valid word its in the Oxford English Dictionary. But its a mystery why the student didnt use the d to make the nineletter word shitfaced. What on earth do they do at universities these days Meanwhile... There was a cracking contribution to the letters page of the Guardian yesterday. It was a response to the news that the R... 2010-11-6 10:38:06 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#78970 Once again Im afraid that being short of time means Im going to have to shortchange you with a post consisting of links rather than my own sharplyobserved insights and penetrating analysis ahem. I think theyre pretty good links though. The first is a belter. Heres Euro MP Rachida Dati formerly French Justice Minister committing an unfortunate slip of the tongue when interviewed recently about investment funds ignore the title at the top of the picture What she says here translates as I see some looking for returns of 20 or 25 per cent at a time when fellatio is close to zero. She uses the word fellation instead of inflation inevitably provoking speculation as to what she was thinking about at the time. Next heres polymath and Im proud to say fellow Norwich City fan Stephen Fry talking about language and linguistic pedantry. To be honest I found the animated typography here a little irritating after a while but the clip is still worth watching for Mr Frys own way with wo... 2010-10-20 13:29:41 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#76438 Sometimes one word is enough. The singer George Michael has just been sentenced to eight weeks in prison following an incident when he crashed his car into a branch of Snappy Snaps while under the influence of cannabis. Heres what a bright spark wrote on the wall he hit 2010-9-16 19:55:40 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#75033 Im afraid Ive too much work on at the moment to write a proper blog post so here are links to three other languagerelated items David Mitchell looks at the language used on signs. The phrase polite notice comes in for particular criticism. Charlie Brooker considers the catchy and effective phrases devised by rightwingers to deride their opponents. Or the Loony Left as they would call them. An article from the Wall Street Journal website looks at research which suggests that language profoundly influences the way we see the world. It sounds like a dry read but its actually surprising and fascinating. In fact if youre busy too and only have time to click on one of these three links Id make it this one. Normal posts will I hope be resumed shortly. 2010-9-6 17:04:26 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#74863 Maybe its just me but heres a press statement which I think could have been worded better. The Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt has just announced that he is gay and has separated from his wife. According to his office He decided to come to terms with his homosexuality and explained the position to his family. Wonder if he used diagrams 2010-8-28 22:55:19 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#72981 Weve just got back from an enjoyable weeks holiday in France where I think I coped with the language pretty well overall. Apart from one clanger that is... I was talking to a French friend of my wifes that we visited one day and mentioned that the cottage where we were staying seemed to have a lot of flies. I wanted to say that this was possibly because the owner of the property had a fosse septique that is to say a septic tank. What came out of my mouth unfortunately was fesse septique. I had inadvertently suggested that he had a septic buttock. I didnt notice as many odd or funny shop names as in previous years though I did spot a clothes shop called Jet 7 you have to say it in French to get it and a clothing stall in the market place at Niort called V234tements Moron. Apt as this sounds for me I didnt buy anything there. We had a laugh in the car on the way home though. Approaching the toll barriers on a motorway I said Id make sure to head for the manned booths. Man boob... 2010-8-16 15:50:36 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#71879 Were just back from a couple of days up in Edinburgh which was a very enjoyable and relaxing stay if not a quiet one thanks to the bagpipeplaying buskers on every corner and a similar racket blaring out from most of the gift shops. There are one or two languagerelated snippets to report Close to Edinburgh Castle theres a shop with one of the most cringeworthy names Ive seen for a long time Mind you thats arguably not as bad as something I spotted when my wife dragged me into Harvey Nichols. The top level of the store is called the Forth Floor. Youd think theyd know better. Meanwhile in Debenhams in Princes Street much more to my taste at least as far as the prices are concerned theres a sign on the wall behind the cash registers that reads Please pay her. Maybe not as funnyalarming as the sign with a missing letter I once saw in a Wicklow hotel Baby hanging room but there you go. I was momentarily thrown figuratively not literally by the waitress who took our dinner order... 2010-7-31 22:21:09 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#71874 Sarah Palin the 2008 Republican VicePresidential candidate whose claim to foreign policy experience was that Alaska the state of which she was Governor is close to Russia has been in the news again this week. First she called on Barack and Michelle Obama to refudiate suggestions that the Tea Party movement was racist. Then on Twitter she called on peaceful Muslims to refudiate plans to build an Islamic centre near the site where the World Trade Centre stood in New York. Mockery ensued but she tried to defend her slip in another tweet English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it She is of course correct in saying that our language is always changing and renewing itself and that Shakespeare invented many new words. All the same I cant help feeling that she has overlooked a subtle but crucial difference. Shakespeare wasnt a fcking idiot. 2010-7-20 22:01:24 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#71811 Ive just come across a website which claims to be able to tell you which famous author you resemble in terms of writing style. You enter a sample of your work in the space provided click the button and the website analyses it in an instant before giving you the result. I couldnt resist having a go so I entered a couple of paragraphs from my book Bald and the verdict was that I write like David Foster Wallace. I have to confess that Id never heard of him so I looked him up online. It turns out that he was a novelist and essayist described by the New York Times as a writer of virtuosic talents who can seemingly do anything. His novel Infinite Jest was named by Time magazine as one of its alltime top 100 novels. Sounds good I thought. Ill take that. Then I tried entering this on the website to see what happened Agadoodoodoo push pineapple shake the treeAgadoodoodoo push pineapple grind coffee.To the left to the right jump up and down and to the kneesCome and dance every night si... 2010-7-13 23:15:48 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#71750 One of the trickier jobs Ive had recently has been the devising of a new overall theme for the code of conduct at the school where my wife works. Blimey talk about a tough client... It took rather less time to come up with a theme than it did to convince my wife that it was a halfdecent idea. Eventually though she bought it Give respect get respect. She then had the task of selling it to all the interested parties at her school. And she did a fine job except that on its journey through the approval system the line was given a bit of a tweak before it emerged at the other end. Apparently some teachers thought that the word get suggested an excessive degree of entitlement on the part of the students and proposed gain instead. This they thought conveyed a sense that respect has to be earned over time. I didnt share their view but there was nothing I could do about it. Besides I thought it was possible that I might be in a minority of one. And then our sixyearold daughter Emily ... 2010-7-3 23:02:35 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#69269 Just lately our son Harry aged 3 has developed a sentence structure designed to add emphasis to a particular word or phrase. He simply repeats the key element at the end. For example I want two sausages two. I want to scoot to the playground scoot. ...and of course... Emily did it Emily. It reminds me a bit of the French construction which places a personal pronoun at the start of a sentence for emphasis or clarity Moi jaime cette maison. I like this house Its unspeakably cute when Harry comes out with one of these obviously I may be slightly biased being his dad but its also very catchy very. His mother and I have taken to using the construction ourselves as in Im just going to get the paper now the paper. Youve got a hole in your sock a hole. Lets hope for the sake of everyone around us that we manage to stop doing this when Harry does Harry. 2010-6-14 22:32:51 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#66208 Theres an interview on the BBC website today with former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. In it she talks about the aftermath of the infamous expenses claim she made for two ahem adult films bought by her husband Richard. Apparently he had to literally stay in the house with the curtains drawn for weeks on end. Youd think hed be used to that. 2010-5-20 19:34:58 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#66185 During the brief history of this blog Ive mentioned the demise of a couple of languages Livonian and Bo. Today though Ive learned about a new language which is growing fast Globish. Globish is a highly simplified version of English with a vocabulary of only 1500 words and much looser grammar. Its used by nonnative English speakers to communicate with each other mainly for business purposes. And its been formalised by a nonnative English speaker JeanPaul Nerri232re a former IBM executive from France. It enables business people from say Korea Sweden and Brazil to understand each other very well. Funnily enough though people from Britain Australia and the US cannot participate easily since their English is too subtle and complicated to be understood. Even a word like kitchen would not be understood by Globish speakers they would say the room where you cook food. Similarly siblings would be replaced by the other children of my mother and father. Globish is already so widespread an... 2010-5-9 16:10:00 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#66152 Every day at his preschool our son Harry has to take in an object beginning with the letter of the week. Sometimes its been a bit of a struggle to find something new especially recently when weve had X and Z to contend with so it was quite a relief when we finally completed the alphabet last week. Only to discover that were now starting with A again. Grrr. Today he took in a book called Arnie the Accidental Hero about a timid armadillo. Thatll do I thought. In fact thats quite a good one. Except that when I picked him up one of the helpers informed me that Harry called it an armadildo. Still at least he seems to be doing well with his French. The other day he told me he knew the word for sweets and to prove it he ran around shouting Jaime les bumbums Jaime les bumbums Were so proud. 2010-5-4 11:47:43 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#63930 The General Election campaign is now well under way and the three main parties have been busy trying to get their messages across. On occasions though they havent done it with much subtlety. Each leader has taken to repeating a particular word again and again and again to drive it home. When launching the Labour manifesto Gordon Brown used the word future no less than seventeen times. David Cameron said change thirteen times in a Conservative party political broadcast. And I counted eighteen instances of fair in a Lib Dem broadcast presented by Nick Clegg. Now these words may provide a decent summary of each partys position. Labours future says dont think too much about what weve done in the past. The Tories change says were not them. And fair is the Lib Dems way of suggesting a balanced position in the centre. But to keep repeating these words suggests I think a patronising attitude towards the public which you would think politicians would want to avoid after the expenses s... 2010-4-22 22:57:22 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#61868 Er... fcked if I can see anything. 2010-3-25 15:09:46 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#60083 I spotted this job ad on the Drum website over the weekend. Looks like the successful candidate cant start soon enough... 2010-3-8 16:57:14 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#60080 Our son Harry 3189 is showing a lot of interest in words at the moment so we got the set of plastic letters out yesterday. I spelled out KEVIN and asked him what it said. Umm... I dont know he replied. I pointed to myself to give him a clue. Is it Daddy he asked. No its what you sometimes call me when youre being a bit cheeky. A pause. Ah I know Noodle Doodle 2010-3-2 16:43:41 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#59271 The Labour Party has just unveiled its slogan for the election campaign A future fair for all Last one on the dodgems is a loser Hope I win a goldfish 2010-2-26 09:16:15 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#58762 Apologies for the lack of posts lately Ive been rather busy though with painting more than writing. The kitchen and the front room rather than portraits or abstracts. This should bring us up to date though... I didnt win the Columnist of the Year award which I mentioned a couple of posts ago. You may have guessed as much after all Id have been on here gloating about it before now if I had been victorious. Still I did get a Highly Commended certificate. And the chap who won was apparently a regular columnist for the Independent for fifteen years which suggests that he knows what hes doing. Another language has gone the way of Livonian the language of Bo on the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Another sad linguistic event but I did smile at one of the comments added to the Guardians report Damn Ive just bought the Bo Linguaphone CDs. I learned a year after the event that Birmingham City Council has banned the use of apostrophes on all its signs. ... 2010-2-19 16:59:52 http://www.kevinbaldwin-writer.com/page5.htm#56314 It was reported this week that a longestablished Canadian magazine is changing its name because its emails and newsletters keep getting blocked by Internet spam filters. Its name The Beaver. I wonder whether my favourite ornithology magazine Cocks and Tits Monthly will follow suit. Sorry couldnt resist that. 2010-1-14 23:12:11