What Is The Plural of a Plural?
Most surnames are singular, like Smith, Brown or Cameron, so if you’re say going to supper with friends with this name, you might say you’re going to the Smiths.
But what do you do, if your friends have a name that s already plural? I have friends with such a name of French origin that in French would be plural.
So what do you call them collectively?
Rangers Launch Fans Fighting Fund
It has been reported on the BBC, that Rangers have launched a Fans Fighting fund.
I thought, that was what they did anyway!
At least they’ll go down fighting!
THe land of the free – unless you’re female
Janice turner is on form in The Times today, with an article, which has the headline above.
It is summed up by this early paragraph.
How bizarre it is to watch the United States — the upbeat, future-focused wellspring of all things exciting and new — tear itself apart over contraception. America, capital of the global porn industry, teen pregnancy gold medallist, progenitor of Madonna and Gaga, having its presidential election defined by the morality of birth control.
Apparently, the United States is making it much harder for women to get contraception and has gone totally against people planning their family. Especially if you’re poor.
Even countries as Catholic as Ireland and Italy have seen that contraception is one of those things that creates a better society.
So does the United States want to create a worse country for its poor?
Obviously, they need a lot of male children to fight their wars and female ones to care for the injured.
High Speed Diesel Trains to the Rescue
The trains out of Paddington are some of the most overcrowded in the UK. So First Great Western are doing the sensible thing and adding an extra coach to their High Speed Diesel Trains. Currently, their trains have a two power car plus eight coach formation, whereas those on the East Coast are two plus nine.
So they have found a source of redundant buffet cars and these are being re-manufactured and fitted with seats, as reported here on the BBC.
Some reports are a bit sniffy about this approach and have called it rather stopgap.
But I would say it is a tribute to the design of the High Speed Diesel Train, that has always been capable of sandwiching any number of coaches up to nine between the two diesel power cars.
What puzzles me, is why wasn’t this simple idea, carried out sooner. But then those in the Department for Transport didn’t want anything to get in their way of their trips to Japan to clear the way for Hitachi.
Long after those civil servants have retired, High Speed Diesel Trains and their Mk III coaches will still be running.
Crossrail’s Tunnelling Site on the Limmo Peninsular
If you take the Docklands Light Railway from Poplar to Canning Town, the train takes a wide loop just after East India station. The enclosed area is the Limmo Peninsular and it sits in a loop of the River Lea as it travels towards the River Thames. In the distance there is an enclosure with several large cranes surrounded by blue fencing.
The Crossrail Site on the Limmo Peninsular
I would assume that this is tunnelling site for Crossrail. The picture was taken from the platform at Canning Town station.
A couple of days after I took the picture, I went back again and took a picture of the site from a train on the Docklands Light Railway going to Beckton.
The Crossrail Site at Limmo from the DLR
I also took another showing an impressive set of Portacabins.
Portakabins Galore!
You can just see the Crossrail logo on the buildings.
The Anonymous Widower 