I can't help making a few political comments although this is a personal/business blog.
This week we had some stupendous nonsense when Lady Vadera suggested that she thought that things might not be as bad with the Economy as the rest of us seem to think.
Apparently she needed to apologise for saying that because it was an insensitive thing to say. Apparently she is not allowed even to think what she said.
My questions:
Democracy and free speech?
Why suddenly do we now learn that Vadera is very powerful and Mr Brown needs to be careful?
Why tell us that years ago Vadera met Tory Sarah Hogg with a view to working with her but didn't?
The stupid tree dwellers are back!
Speaking of stupid, I see William Hague is moving back up the Tory Party. Clever and focused, the foetus as he is known, Hague utters more crass nonsense even than George Osborne and David Cameron combined.
Now Heathrow! So there will be a third runway and a sixth terminal at LHR. I hear everyone ranting at the environmental aspects of this project. All badly informed comment I think.
Today on Radio 4 had a clever aviation chappie on the programme yesterday who pointed out that fuel consumption in aviation has been falling at 2% a year for many years already, carbon fibre bodies are coming in that will save a lot more and new engine types are becoming available that will save a further 10%.
Even the uselessly combative interviewer John Humphrys was flattened by this news and meekly moved on.
It's fine to be green but it's better to be properly informed. I am making NO judgement on the merits of the LHR project here, by the way.
DW
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2 comments:
It must be noted that Hague the younger is a fan of good honest "hard working" Yorshire curry.
By the way why are we all suddenly "hard working" or even "going forward". Personally I would blush saying "going forward".
Hope you are well
You're moving into the same territory as me young man! I monitor the word "about" more and more: just listen to see how the correct preposition has been shoved aside in favour of about.
Hard working? Hadn't spotted that one but will now doubtless be haunted by it.
"Right now" gets on my nerves in the extreme. "Going forward" really is a nonsense and seems to be the favourite of financial types.
Then there's "box office" and "movie". In the UK we NEVER, NEVER, NEVER had any box offices: a box office is something American and they were, effectively, huts at the front of the cinema.
Movies: rather like sidewalk and boardwalk ... typical naive American inventions. Fine in America and praise the Lord that not many people use sidewalk in the UK instead of footpath or even know what the boardwalk is.
One of my latest betes noir is lawmakers. Even in the Financial Times last week, they wrote about lawmakers at Westminster instead of MPs. MPs are much more than lawmakers and if someone wants to call their Parliamentarians by the name of lawmaker, let them. I won't.
The Chairman of RBS used that childish phrase on the Today programme this morning, "fess up". I may well be writing to him later as his bank is a customer of mine!!
I am also meeting more and more Brits who talk about freeways rather than motorways.
Now, we all like to use the cutting phrase and the odd malapropism and sometimes a word we think we have made up ourselves. What you have identified is the 12 year old's habit or desire to speak like and possibly be someone else. We don't need that so let's all grow up and let our language develop naturally not out of American radio, television and cinema.
By the way, I want to find a way of getting the work "printie" into the Oxford English Dictionary. What's a printie? It's the printed version of a book or magazine or newspaper ...
DW
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