The Grumpy Old Blog

Personally, I think a little, or in fact, a lot of humour is what is needed nowadays. Ok, yes, in the right places and at the right time. For example, be sensible and steer clear of flight or construction humour with 9/11 coming up! Something a little more lighthearted does have the big cheering-up factor, which can be far more engaging. Half the problem nowadays is that so many marketing people are, to quote the vernacular, up their own posteriors. And it's not funny. I've been there myself, and to be honest, didn't like it, because it wasn't me. Health and Safety has replaced common sense. Goodness knows exactly what the current dysfunctional and unnecessary HR has replaced (they certainly don't know themselves). And all marketing people seem to have, for some strange reason known only to no one, gone SEO-mad. And it ain't the least bit humourous! This is despite the fact that so many of them can neither write or speak English correctly, and s...

Not content with having to continually suffer the transformation of English into our second language nationally by the cast of EastEnders, television presenters and other miscellaneous mispronouncers, the assault on grammatical correctness is now being spearheaded by the 'creative' advertising agencies who follow each other like sheep when a 'new' idea comes along.  On the pronunciation front, we have been treated to actor Idris Elba and the £ 7 million Sky campaign where he trumpets "mumfs" (months) and Game of "Frones" (Thrones), amongst his other SAS-style attacks on the English language.  The pressure is kept up by the likes of EastEnders, where they take "phoh-ohs" (photos), "faught" it was a "fret" ('thought' it was a 'threat'), have "free fings" ('three things') they need to do, use "twih-er" ('twitter') and have a "faahzand" ('thousand') p...

I had a wonderful English teacher at school. Mr Blackmore. Nicknamed Moses because he had a very bushy beard, but then pupils were assuming, without any proof, that the original Moses never shaved. He was somewhat height-challenged, but in those days, dressed in his batman gown as teachers always did in the black and white days, he nevertheless commanded the respect that the threat of having the wooden blackboard duster thrown at you was always bound to command. And he also had a very unique attribute that he made Shakespeare enjoyable, giving us teenage schoolboys a laugh each time by accentuating his pronunciation of “Coriolanus”. I shall leave it to your imagination as to which bit he accentuated. I remember he started one class with a statement that was to set me on my path to a life of cynicism. He suddenly announced that “ Nothing acts faster than Anadin, so all you guys must, from now on, take nothing .” I believe – and hope – that Ian Blackmore is now a healthy pensioner...