You know, I’m surprised at our English language. We used to discourage the word but and ain’t wasn’t suitable for some people’s ears. However everyone seems to use the word ’Twitter'like it has existed in the Oxford dictionary since the beginning of time.

I hear it in TV programmes, forums and even in the news, but I nearly choked on my coffee on reading this article on Sky News, where NY Times editor Phil Corbett has banned the word ’Twitter'in articles. Mr. Corbett has taken an Old School approach, after it was used 18 times in articles in the past month, clearly he prefers formal and posh words in his articles, like amused or glycolic peel. He calls the word “inherently silly”and has even told his writers not to use the ’T-word.’

With regards to the ’T-word’, Mr. Corbett says “Some social-media fans may disagree, but outside of ornithological contexts, ’tweet'has not yet achieved the status of standard English. And standard English is what we should use in news articles.”and also adding with regards to such words placed in his articles “Except for special effect, we try to avoid colloquialisms, neologisms and jargon.”

It seems that the humble newspaper article is reaching out to its younger, social-networking fans, Twitter (dare I say it!) is up there with Facebooking (adding someone on Facebook) and Googling (searching something online). I swear by Twitter, Facebook and Google as they dominate my internet life, and I’m really not surprised that they seem to have found their way into the English Language. So what if they are new words and didn’t exist twenty years ago? Neither did the word email and no one has turned up their nose.

I just don’t get the idea of pizza anymore. Sure I love a good slice of pizza, loaded with meat and vegetables, but when is it the right time to eat it?

Its easy to say its a fast food, just dial a number and dinner’s ready, but then you see those adverts that glorify pizza, like Ristorante where there’s a couple who are enjoying it on a date. I have every respect for the food, yet I wouldn’t order a pizza if I was impressing a girl. And this pizza is luxury, instead of ordering a think, sloppy pizza that looks like it had botox injections, you get a slim, crispy pizza with mozzarella and pesto.

This goes back to my article where I declare that I will not drink tea outside my home as it is too special to be enjoyed anytime (Essential Ethics), I’d drink it with respect, yet would I have given the same respect to a slice of pizza? It is a tasty food everyone likes to eat yet people eat it out of cardboard boxes in a sloppy manner dropping toppings and cheese on the floor, not to mention in every messy flat is a flurry of pizza boxes. Pizza was a speciality food from Italy, so how come its become a cheap convenience food? But then this happens with Chinese food, or curries fron India, they are tasty and a pleasure to eat, yet they are ordered because someone can’t be bothered to cook.

After writing this blog, the next time I order a pizza or stare at a mate who is eating pizza I’ll end up remembering that this convenience food is a specialty in another country.

Why is it that some people take their trip to the beach so seriously? I mean, at the end of the day, you have gone there to enjoy yourself. The way some people behave is so stressful that they cannot possibly find their visit very relaxing…

For some folk it would seem that a visit to the coast is one big exhibition. They make such a show of putting on their tanning lotion and spreading themselves out seductively across a designer beach towel. Do they really think that everyone is looking at them? Maybe they are under the illusion that everyone else on the beach came here to watch them parade themselves around; not to have a swim in the ocean or to enjoy the sunshine!

It used to really bug me, seeing these posers at the seaside, but now I just find it amusing. It’s all so silly, isn’t it? Hardly anyone takes a blind bit of notice of anyone else; they are all far too busy enjoying themselves.

And if you decide to go for a stroll around the local shops and arcades then there is another batch of exhibitionists to look out for. But you won’t have much trouble spotting them because they just love to make a spectacle of themselves. Yes, boy-racers! You always see them cruising around at the coast, an elbow out of the window and music loud enough to make their ears bleed. Who do they think they are impressing? Mind you, it is because of these people that I save a lot of money when I have a day at the seaside! Who needs to pay for their entertainment???

]]> http://www.richardgg.co.uk/2010/05/06/oh-i-do-like-to-be-beside-the-seaside/feed/ http://www.richardgg.co.uk/2010/04/15/jacket-abuse/ http://www.richardgg.co.uk/2010/04/15/jacket-abuse/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:25:18 +0000 admin http://www.richardgg.co.uk/?p=2074

The jacket potato–Ah–The pride of all potatoes. With cheese on–Layered in baked-beans…Smothered in–Well, whatever you want really. There are literally hundreds of options. The only limit, as some berk once said and it seems to have infected every person in this world, is your imagination!

But, sadly, I have to confess: I am going off them. Why? Because this once magnificent and untouchable English meal is being butchered, that’s why. It’s the rogue potato street traders, of course. They are the people responsible for making a mockery of this once fine, prestigious dish. Just like the bum bag is called the fannie pack in the US and laughed about everywhere else, the baked potato is being laughed out of town!

I’m not having a go at everyone, just nearly everyone. Of course, there are restaurants and cafes that do a wonderful baked potato. But there are also those who abuse the humble potato: they buy cheap ones and dress them up as though they are most excellent. These are the people in burger van type set-ups. They are selling low-grade baked potato to the masses and turning a once thriving industry on its head!

Why am I so het up about it? I guess just because I have always loved baked potatoes and I can’t stand to sit here and have this insult thrown in my face. And it is an insult, but what can I do? There is little I can do, other than warn you, the reader, not to go to these shoddy baked potato suppliers. Don’t do it people, you’ll regret it I assure you!

So it’s lucky for everyone, aspiring businessmen or not, that Enigin are here to save the day, and in style for that matter. At the aforementioned link you’ll find out exactly what I’m saying.

That’s right, a business community designed especially to help us all. Enigin have a complete one all built up and it can help you regardless of your category. It has posts on a wide variety of issues, including the aforementioned: how to get traffic on Youtube. How good is that exactly? Well, seeing as practically everyone on earth needs to use Youtube at some point in their business life, It’s really good. Proper non-fancy language explains to you just how to do it, and how to do it so it actually works.

I hate bumping in to people I don’t want to see; it’s on par in fear terms with the thought of Cosmetic eyelid surgery … Yeah, It really puts a downer on my day and I’m sure you get that. You know how it is, you’re walking down the road minding your own business (or more specifically the path / side-walk, as you have no right to be minding your own business if you’re daft enough to walk down the actual road) and then you hear someone cry out “Hey!” and you stop in your tracks. Oh no, not again, it’s him / her, you think. How come they keep catching me?! It’s almost as if they appear out of nowhere–

Now, until an hour ago I had no idea how they did it. I just assumed that they did it by tracking me somehow, the way that someone in the wild tracks an animal that’s trying to remain evasive. But apparently they don’t do that (usually, but if the person following you looks strange then they very well could be). Nope. They recognize you by your ‘gate’, according to my sources. In other words, they recognize you by the way you walk–

And it makes sense. These people clearly have too much time on their hands, so it’s no wonder they have honed their ability to recognize your walk from 3000 metres–

Which brings us to the conclusion of this stunning tale: I am changing the way I walk. Yes, I am altering my ‘gate’. Now let’s see them get at me! They don’t stand a chance!

Ah, that great word. That word symbolic of time spent at school doing things that one should not, at the back of the class-room, engrossed in full concentration on the task in hand. The doodle: king of art in all text-books. The doodle: the thing which can make even the dullest of lessons just about bearable! (I said just about: they weren’t always; especially if your pen ran out right at the start of doodling and you had to listen to the tutor talking about the economics of luxury bathroom accessories –)

What happened to doodling? It was so much more than a craze, it was once, truly, a lifestyle: the reason for living, the reason for going to school and fighting through another day. I remember the day I went from doodling nineteen, twenty times a day, to doodling first three times per day, to once. Then not at all. And the terrible thing is that I didn’t miss it for some time. By the time I did miss it I was already in deep with being an adult. It seemed as though my doodling days were well and truly numbered–

Until Jane. She would sit opposite me in the office and she sparked my doodling mind again! Jane was amazing! I mean really amazing: she had doodling down pat. Not only could she do a better doodle than I could ever do while answering customer service enquiries on a whole load of complicated legal issues, but she could be disciplined, able to hide the doodles when the boss walked by. And it was Jane who was to be the catalyst for my new venture in to doodling. It began one lunch-time and it hasn’t stopped since. That’s the way I intend it to stay for as long as I live.

I’m sorry doodling, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I promise I’ll never stop, I’ll never let you down.

I am feeling strange. And for very good reason. It begins like this: this morning I went to get the bus to work. Getting the bus to work, as anyone who hasn’t got the bus in many, many years will know, is a horrendous experience similar to the thought of dinner with Hitler, or a metrosexual skin care party. Not only do you have to deal with all the deranged people that you must share breathing space with, but you have to pay a hell of a lot for the privilege. But anyway, that wasn’t why it was a total nightmare. No, the reason why it was a total disastrous nightmare—only equaled by my first attempt at sexual intercourse back in the eighteenth century—was because I came across a very strange couple at the bus-stop. Very strange indeed–

Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly open-minded individual. But my sixty years on this earth were apparently nowhere near enough. No, what happened was this: I arrived at the bus-stop to find a man standing with a chain around his neck, and a woman next to him holding a chain connected to the man’s neck. Yes, two humans playing at being owner and dog. This was not what I expected to see at 8:15a.m.

I could have taken it had the man and woman been dressed in the terrible style of the gothic, but alas the reality was far more disturbing: they were wearing suits, you see. As I approached they said good-morning to me, and then I stood there paralyzed by shock and wondering what I should do.

Throughout my life I have been known as someone who is, and this annoys me to type it, ‘a bit fussy’. It’s rubbish, of course. I am not ‘a bit fussy’! It’s extremely simple and non-confusing: I am actually just an average man who wants things done a certain way. What’s wrong with that? I ask you. Nothing! Nothing at all! A man without his preferences is little more than just legs and arms and torso and head (which is fine if you just want to walk about aimlessly in circles, but of little use if you want to live a thinking / breathing / interesting life). The preferences are what make a man or a woman, in my opinion, and one of my preferences is that things should not be almost burnt.

I don’t have a problem, you see, with things (like toast) which are clearly burnt and proud to be burnt; I don’t even have a problem with things that are accidentally burnt or even burnt in a hurry and cause further problems. But I DO have a problem with things which are ALMOST BURNT and look edible: that stage before which tricks you into eating the whatever it is, and then, in your mouth, hits you where it hurts and turns your face inside out, meaning you not only have to pretend to like it but actually sometimes hurt your face. The result of this is that you spend the rest of the day distrusting everything you eat / see / hear–imagining that it is almost and not quite what it should be. Almost burnt things are the devil incarnate dear reader! They should be eradicated from existence at once. By allowing people to think that this is OK we are infecting further generations with this horrid, nasty, stinking attitude to life.

I was doing some stuff online a few weeks ago and I came across a homepage covering Micrografting. Now I should point out that this is something I have never even ponder before this moment, but upon more exploration, I can’t help but want to try it, and no, not because I am fussy about my appearance…

Ot goes like this: “Hello”, I say, “my name is Roger”. Notice how I said Roger in a normal and easy to understand way. Fine, wasn’t it? Now comes the turn of the guy I am introducing myself to. “Hello”, he says, “my name is DANiel”.

“DANiel?” I reply, for no reason other than being baffled and wanting to make my being baffled pretty obvious so as to rub it in his face that he had started the baffling, and by golly I was finishing it!

“Yes”, he says, all pleased with himself.

“Oh”, I say, “how most excellent”.

Now, I could cope with one person putting the first half of their name in CAPITAL LETTERS, but why does everyone have to do it? Worse some do the following: second most annoyingly (Rupert) and first most annoyingly, DEREK.

For some time I thought it was just me being over-sensitive. Then, one day on the tube ride home I witnessed a conversation between two newly meeting people which was made entirely in underlined and bolded words. That tipped me over the edge, and I ended up leaving the train half an hour early, made to walk home with nightmares of future italicized names and terrible parties where Happy Birthday was sung entirely in point 10 Monotype Corsiva–

Before I go, I am trying to think of something for my mother for her Birthday. When I was on the phone with her the other day she said that she would like a new set of running watches . Does anyone know of a good place to get them, or for that matter, what the hell they are?