Friday 15 July 2016

On Posh Places and Influence.

There are a number of regular visitors to this blog whose identity is a mystery to me because they never declare themselves. I’m intrigued by them all, but the one which stands out at the moment is a fairly new one from Astoria, New York. Now, correct me if I’m wrong dear American cousins, but isn’t Astoria, New York a bit posh?

You see, I don’t understand why a posh person would be attracted to my blog. It’s not exactly a posh blog, is it? So now I have an image of a scullery maid or something, languishing on the lower decks of a 20-bedroom mansion, who has spent many years saving up enough little silver dimes to buy herself a computer and now takes succour from reading a non-posh blog written by some presumed kindred spirit in a far off land. That’s a bit tear-jerking. It is.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to construct a ditty based on Astoria, but all I’ve come up with so far is that it rhymes with Gloria and euphoria. That’s a bit sad, too. I think the ditty gene must be switched off at the moment. (I gather that genes can switch themselves off and on. I heard it in a documentary once, about scientists being wrong for a change.)

*  *  *

On a more optimistic note, I finally got around to sending the BBC an email yesterday pointing out what a crappy standard of English their journalists are foisting on us lately. I gave an example of a headline from one of the BBC Sports pages, and you know what? The item is still there today, and they’ve changed the headline in accordance with my criticism.

Yo! Influence at last.

(I’m secretly planning to take over the world, you see, and getting the BBC to replace ‘less’ with ‘fewer’ is just the first step.)

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