Waking Up To The Smell

Soon David Mitchell and Robert Webb will release their book, inventively titled "This Mitchell and Webb Book". I suppose the lack of thought put into the title suggests a quiet humour and the fact that they don't want to gloss over any of their thoughts about various subjects in order to please certain people - nicely refreshing.

Anyways, I've read some of the extracts from the book, including Mitchell's view on coffee. Surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with much of what he says. I'm surprised because I never thought I'd ever have much in common with the slightly odd, chipmunk-like comedian but apparently we share very similar views on one of the world's favourite hot beverages.

British people are very partial to a nice cup of tea (or a brew as I now like to call it in a tongue-in-cheek attempt to make myself seem more common than I really am) - in the past year I have moved slowly and steadily from loving a nice cup of fairly strong coffee to wanting nothing more than a fairly strong mug of tea. Not decaffeinated, as I used to drink my coffee though. Maybe it is the presence of this caffeine that makes me, like Mitchell, think that a coffee is highly unsatisfying. Maybe it's the way that coffee is made in cafes that makes it seem like tea's pretentious and snooty second-cousin. Does anyone else think that adding even the tiniest bit of extra milk to coffee gives it a slightly silt-like texture that sticks to the sides of your mouth?

Now, I still like a cappuccino when I'm out and about but I've never been into lattes or mochas or any of those syrup toppings you can get. I've had a frappuccino out of curiosity - from Starbucks no less, something that I feel highly guilty about to this day. It was disappointing to say the least - ice with cold coffee on the top and although it was refreshing on a warm day during the walk back to work, it was hardly worth the money I paid for it. I have also tried a mocha before but I found that it was the slightly insipid and tedious version of a voluptuous hot chocolate - that's hot chocolate made with water; if I compared the mocha to a full-fat milk hot choc then the mocha would be the resume who is put straight in the bin when applying for a top job. Yes, I found it that terrible.

I don't understand the concept of being coffee-literate either. In this way I would never make a good PA. People who require a PA tend to like complicated coffees, something along the lines of a double triple decaf-caff mocha semi-skim latte with 1/3 cream and almond syrup, whipped on top and a dash of chocolate sprinkles. I know people adjust to the needs of their boss but I couldn't do it - I would spend half an hour writing it down and another half hour ordering it while trying to fend off the questions about what else I would like. By which time I would be fired. And thrown out of the premises.

Yes, like Mitchell I would just like a nice brew. It's simple, satisfying and unpretentious. I don't want to smell the coffee.

PS. Sorry for all of the problems with the spacing on blogger lately - there's nothing I can do but wait for a reply from the Blogger people and hope for the best since I've tried everything else! Hope this doesn't affect your ability to read the articles - I know how annoying it is reading unspaced text!

So In Relation...

So after posting a couple of days ago about closing down libraries I had a conversation with some colleagues about the state of reading in this country right now.

I think we all agreed that less and less people are reading, even if it's just a few pages a night like me - most worryingly, this seems to be true of children and teenagers and aren't they the people who need to be reading the most? It does, after all, extend their vocabulary and their overall general knowledge.

I wouldn't exactly say that I'm a book aficionado but I do know a fair bit and I have spent a large number of years studying literature - from this you generally get a good feel of how things should and should not be written (although really the basics of writing should be drilled in during sessions in school - I can't stand bad grammar and spelling).

Since one of my associates teaches English, they know what is and isn't acceptable in the world of teaching. So now we have a parallel - as TV, games console and computer ownership goes up, the number of books being sold and read is going down. Add to this a second parallel - as the number of books being read is going down, the number of kids who can't read, write and communicate properly is going up. And it's going to be difficult to solve since if these kids don't want to read, which is generally the case after they hit the age of 12, literacy skills will be in free fall and we'll have a whole country of illiterates!

(Well, maybe that was an exaggeration but you get the drift....)

My associate pointed out that children don't even have to be reading Shakespeare or Wordsworth to generally increase their reading and writing standard - even works of science fiction, fantasy and crime thrillers will help them because they all have one thing in common - a wide vocabulary and generally impeccable grammar (I say impeccable because, while most books have very few mistakes, I consider the rotten Oxford Comma to be awful and unnecessary!). I would highly recommend people like Terry Pratchett for people who can't stand more realistic concepts - even he involves the politics of the day and the state of our world into his hilarious Discworld novels.

Oh, what to do? I believe we're in a conundrum....

Go Philip! Go Philip!

Philip Pullman, aka the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, spoke out this week about the closure of the library in the school he used to go to - basically he said it was a disgrace.

The reason for the closure? Technology. Flamin' technology again (and yes I'm aware of the irony of me writing about "flamin' technology" given that I'm using it to express my view here). They're going to replace the library with some technology that means you can have books digitally or something.

Here's a positive - perhaps the kids might treat these digital books a bit like their mobiles or iPods. With some respect. I don't know about anyone else but everyone seemed to hate books when I was at school and would do anything to get out of reading them. At least this might spark some more interest in literature.

But what really ticks me off about this is that in many schools libraries are being scrapped because they are seen as "not an essential part of the curriculum or the way the school is run". Er, isn't English a core subject? Don't you, you know, have to get a good grade in English to get anywhere in life? Books suddenly not part of English any more? Have I suddenly become old fashioned and no longer know what English entails?

NO!!!! I haven't. In fact, I'm pretty sure that, apart from the titles of the books studied in schools today, the basic curriculum of English revolves around reading and writing. 2 of the legendary 3 Rs (the other one is 'Rithmetic as in Arithmetic as in Maths - but that's the least important of the 3 Rs).

What are all the librarians going to do? They'll be jobless! It's another catastrophe! Can you see where I'm going here? You can't shut the libraries down because, surprise surprise, it would be an atrocity. I like the feel of a solid book, and I hate to think about this since it could signal the very beginning of the end for the physical book. I can't fathom why anyone would want to read a book from a little digital machine - they're probably going to give you the eyes of an 80 year old at 25 and lock-arm from using them (since you'll be straining your eyes to see the words and holding your arm up constantly to look at the screen. Oh, so add iPod finger to that as well seeing as how you'll be tapping furiously at a little button to turn the pages....)

Who needs a mechanical book? I'd be so annoyed. I don't care if I end up with a really scrappy copy, I'll never change from good old paper and so what if I'm old fashioned!? I agree with Mr. Pullman!

Eats, Shoots and Leaves: Resurrection Of The Stickler

In reading through Lynne Truss's book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" (a no-nonsense guide to punctuation that is often pretty funny and sometimes throws some weird facts at you) it dawned on me that I am a "stickler".

A stickler is someone who goes around and gasps at the shoddy use of punctuation, and in my case this is particularly true of the apostrophe. There are many times when I want to have a heart attacks because I see signs like "CD's for sale" or "50% off hose's" (and I know this is a bit of an odd example).

To add to the issue this afternoon when in a shop I saw the line "... and all the bands I'm yet to discover" instead of the fully grammatical "...and all the bands I've yet to discover". Tsk tsk, this is awfully sloppy and is setting a bad example. I would blame texting but to be perfectly honest I text people far more than a call them; I'd be a hypocrite to say that this wonderful function is causing the death of English grammar.

But like Lynne says, all of the sticklers need to unite and fight the wave of sloppy grammarians who think it's okay to be shoddy with words - they are effectively killing our language. Where would we be, after all, without apostrophes and commas? They help us understand the true meanings of sentences and are necessary to be fully understood. You wouldn't want to read a book and think that it's about a completely different subject to that which the author intended would you?

Gather the following items and join me in the grammar wars: stickers, banners, balaclavas, megaphones, spray cans, and a gun (to shoot people who still won't get the message or maybe even to turn on yourself if the situation gets too awful which is how I feel sometimes).

Oh, what's the use? I even corrected the grammar of my friend the other day and she was surprised and shocked that I'd be so picky about where she put her comma: "But it's grammatically incorrect for what you're trying to say!" I squealed. "So? Stop nit-picking!" She protested. Am I the only stickler in this part of the world!?

For those of you who don't understand the panda, I'll explain: The idea is based around a joke about a dictionary entry about the panda. Instead of typing "eats shoots and leaves" which suggests the panda's eating habits, the compiler of the dictionary wrote "eats, shoots and leaves" which suggests that pandas eat in a restaurant, shoot everyone dead and then leaves without a care in the world. Awful joke, but it makes a valid point!