Missing Apostrophes
There has been a lot of talk lately about missing apostrophes. One guy in Royal Tunbridge Wells has gone as far as painting them in where he lives. It provokes this piece in the Telegraph, from the wonderfully named Harry de Quetteville.
But leaving punctuation out of road signs is not new. Look at this one from Ipswich, which has been there for some years.
St. George’s Street, Ipswich
This sign is actually a lot newer than the one at the other end of the road, which was one of the old-fashioned cast ones.
My father was always hot on punctuation. But then he was a printer and was always having arguments with customers about it. Although not specifically punctuation, the thing that really got his goat was when to use the plural form of verbs.
So which is correct.
The Chairman and the Board of Directors request your pleasure at the opening of their new factory.
Or.
The Chairman and the Board of Directors requests your pleasure at the opening of their new factory.
You can argue that in the first, there are more than one of them, so it’s request, but in the second they are a single entity, so it’s request.
Do we have a pedant out there, who can tell me what is correct?
In addition I am a stickler for layout. Nothing annoys me more than when I get a document or read a web page, which is poorly laid out. My father was the same.
There is no excuse for bad design.
Afghanistan
I have two views on Afghanistan; we should stay and we should come home.
It’s difficult and I think that whatever we do, the number of casualties we are suffering in the country, can’t be sustained for ever. Although rightly, we focus on the number of dead, there is also a real problem in the number who are injured. Wikipedia gives a lot of details.
One telling figure in the article is that between January 2006 and June 2009, we have had to medically evacuate 2,192 personel from Afghanistan for medical reasons. That’s an average of just over 70 a month. Almost three times as many troops have been admitted to UK Field Hospitals for reasons of disease or non-battle injuries, than for those caused in battle.
Can we sustain those losses? And how long before everybody in the UK knows someone who has been killed or injured?
Whether politicians like it or not, we are getting to the point where we have to negotiate our way out of Afghanistan.
A Small Note on a Grim History
I had to pick up a friend from the ferry at Harwich after football and whilst waiting I noticed the following.
Kindertransport Plaque at Harwich
We mustn’t forget what happened. Especially, with all the troubles around the world.
I have no religion, but my family is a potent mix of Jew and Huguenot. They all came to Britain because of oppression.
Can anybody say that refugees in the past have not enriched our country and it’s culture?
Changing Face of Ipswich
I took these two pictures in Ipswich on Saturday.
Civic Drive, Ipswich - 1
Civic Drive, Ipswich - 2
These two views fit together. In the first one, you see the old Crown Court and the space where the Civic Tower used to be and in the second, you see the AXA offices that have been reskinned and turned into something respectable and a good working environment.
All of these buildings were built at the same time, but why did they pull down the Civic Tower, rather than refurbish like the AXA offices? Was it because it was built to a much lower standard?
At my party yesterday, a surveyor said that civic and NHS buildings are now designed without air-conditioning to save money. Is this short-sighted? I suspect so and in twenty years time, we’ll be upgrading them to make them a decent working environment.
As a postscript to this, I went into Debenhams to try to find something. The air-conditioning had failed, but even with the lights turned down, it was oppressive.
No Posts Today
Busy! And it’s my birthday!
I Couldn’t be a Catholic Priest
This is from this week’s Popbitch.
In August 1994, the Catholic church decreed that you couldn’t be a priest if you were an alcoholic or had coeliac disease (allergic to wheat).
But then I like women too much! And I don’t believe in god.
I have a feeling that the guy who said that is now Pope.
I have discussed this with several devout Catholics and they don’t agree! Wasn’t according to the Bible, Jesus welcoming of all and sundry? Even tax collectors.
Completing a Widowhood Survey
Yesterday I completed the survey for Lizzie Evans at Liverpool University.
It was fairly painless and therapeutic. So please do the survey!
Rabbits
Cuddly! Aren’t they? No! Delicious? Yes!
There is a report that they do a lot of damage to crops. As someone who keeps horses they are a nightmare, as what would happen if a horse at speed puts their foot in a rabbit hole and turns over. They don’t do too much damage to my crops as I don’t really have any, but muntjak do eat all my young trees.
The report says that nunbers are increasing and blames the government for removing rules that allow you to complain about your neighbours, who don’t keep rabbits down. And as those neighbours are often nebulous government agencies like highways or large corporations like the railways, it is not easy to complain without a big stick.
That may be the case in some areas, but I’m in the middle of nowhere and all then rabbits round here are either mine or my neighbours.
Rabbit numbers are increasing, but they really haven’t got to pest levels yet. But as they say rabbits breed like well – rabbits!
Could though one of the causes of the increase in rabbits be the ban on hunting?
But you say that you didn’t hunt rabbits with hounds! No, but you hunted foxes and whereas before the hunting ban, you saw lots of foxes round here, now they are very rare indeed. I don’t even smell them like I used to in the gateways, where they marked their territories.
So it’s not rocket science to see that if you have less foxes, you might well have more rabbits.
But why are the foxes declining? The only reason I can think, is that whereas some years ago, if they saw a fox, farmers and gamekeepers would leave him for the hunt, now they make sure he doesn’t get away.
Obviously, it needs a proper study, than just my personal observations.
Another reason for the increase is that years ago, country kids often used to go rabbiting, bring them home and skin them for the pot. I don’t know whether it’s still legal, but parents don’t let their fourteen-year-olds take out the 4-10 these days!
And talking of the pot! Rabbits are delicious and good for you!
So let’s make the farmers problem, someone else’s opportunity. We just need to buy them in the butchers or the supermarket. I’ll get some today in Waitrose for supper tonight.
How Did They Do That?
On Saturday evening, I ordered a copy of the Dorling Kindersley guide to Brussels from Amazon. The time on the confirming e-mail is 20:15 and I had another one on Sunday at 14:45 to say the book had been dispatched.
It arrived with the post this morning. At least Newmarket is not on strike.
I thought too, that the Royal Mail didn’t accept letters and parcels on Sunday. They obviously do for Amazon.
Diphthongs
My father was a printer and he was a great believer in dipthongs. In letterpress type they are actually double characters, so they have a nice heavy feel.
So in the last post on Coventry Cathedral, I have spelt mediaeval with an extra “a”.
