Assembly Line

Trying to imagine the crowd in its underwear, as the age-old trick has it, complicates matters by several orders of magnitude, I discovered, when addressing 160 children last Friday. “Know your audience” would have been better advice. Instead, adult themed jokes fell on the young ears of disturbingly Y-front clad small boys as I spoke at a school assembly.

“A funny thing happened on the way to school gym hall today,” I started.

The Words and the Bees

When it comes to dating it’s not like I’m spoilt for choice. When presented with options however I somehow manage to spoil them for myself, finding flaws and faults that ultimately put me off. You know the thing, she’s got kids, she wants kids, she is a kid…

These are, I suppose, legitimate concerns. The latest however do test the boundaries of fairness. Should I be put off by someone’s misuse of English grammar?

It’s a common mistake, I suppose – to write “should of” instead of “should have.” It’s not like she slept with my brother. (Although my not having a brother kind of works in her favour.)

Then there’s the apostrophe. I imagine that would get between us, and probably in the wrong places.

And what of the semi-colon – the most underused of punctuation marks, so undermined by the comma? You can’t just whack it in when you feel like it. It has feelings.

But, San, you can’t date a semi-colon. You’re right, full stop.