Pedants' corner

Earlier this year I was shown a business letter, written by an irate plumber, whose unstable capital letters were threatening to take a firm to court for non-payment. In a wild rollercoaster of grammar and spelling, one word in particular stopped us in our tracks. In the event it was the one who was a terrible speller who deciphered what matey was talking about. I've a feeling the rest of us would otherwise still be staring at it now, trying to puzzle it out.

Is it more obvious than I think? Or did you also spend ages staring at it as if it was a Magic Eye puzzle?

"I WILL BE FORCED TO USE PROSIDIA"

( Did you get it? )

(no subject)

BARONESS: [playfully] To fast, to fast! For it is Yom Kippur!

BARONESS'S P.A.: [mumbled question]

BARONESS: No, not to France.

(no subject)

“Passengers—er, customers are advised that there is no service,” the man at Embankment tube station corrected himself. I presume they’re fined if they don’t use the right terminology.

He was telling us that the Northern Line was suspended this evening because of “signalling problems”. Last Friday, too, we found ourselves facing a massively depleted and dangerously overcrowded service on the same line (though I’m sure strictlytrue’s journey was perfectly lovely…), again due to signalling problems at Kennington, Waterloo or Euston, depending on which announcement you believed. The sporadic nature of the service and the multiplicity of the excuses often leads the more suspicious of us to think they’re lying to us.

The thing is, they are. In fact, the trains are too dangerous to operate, as the emergency brakes have a tendency to fail completely. The fifth recent such incident happened yesterday morning. (Last Friday was another one.) Even the most hardened profiteer has to concede this might be worth taking some time out to look at. Now enough drivers are refusing to work these frankly lethal trains—whose radios, let’s not forget, are also dangerously unreliable—that the Northern Line has shut down. So why are we still being told that it’s because of “signalling problems”? Because they’ve been told what to say by their management, who are, as we know, egregious, inadequate, inveterate lying ( honest hard-working men and women with loving families )