The Grumpy Old Blog

  I appreciate that with age comes the almost inalienable right to become a grumpy old git who flies off the handle when normality from his childhood transforms into an unnecessary modern-day evil. With last night's 1% Club having run on my second screen while I was graphicising, I am astounded at the number of contestants who "were out" when it came to very simple questions about English and wording. People seem clueless. If this is how they are with questions designed allegedly to "show how their brain works", the future's neither bright nor orange! It's bleak. I cannot understand the term "pre-order", which to me means "ordering before you order", which is total horseshit. Will the soshul influenzas be telling us soon that breaking wind is a "pre-sh*t"? All "pre-order" is, is an effort to disguise the fact that brands want to grab your money into their bank accounts as far ahead of you receiving the goods as the...

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...

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...

I was looking through the Guardian this morning and noticed a position being advertised that I thought I'd take a closer look at. The first sentence, when clicking the link to apply was: "If you are registered, please log in and we will pre-fill this form for you." What is the current fixation with the prefix "pre" . It is everywhere, turning perfectly reasonable statements into total and utter gibberish! I would have thought that for one of our major quality newspapers, instead of "please log in and we will pre-fill this form for you" it would have been much more sensible to have something along the lines of "please log in and your details will be automatically filled in for you". It is the rip-off Britain merchants who have embraced this particular prefix with a vengeance. They have nonsensically slapped it in front of the word " order " so that the moment an overpriced games console, war game for that console, phone,...