This is a follow-up post to 2015's "What's Your Christian Name?". tl;dr "Christian Name" used to be synonymous with "First Name" or "Given Name". The majority of people in the UK are not Christian and, therefore, don't have Christian Names. Yet there are lots of local Government forms which still insist on this archaic phrasing. Here are a few of my "favourites". Local Government First up, councils around the UK. No sex please, we're Scottish Would you like to apply for a sex shop…
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The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. Terry Pratchett The law leaves indelible traces in our language. In the UK, cars have to undergo an annual vehicle safety inspection - known as the MOT. Everyone refers to "getting your MOT done", cars are sold…
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I'd recently given a talk at a conference and was gently basking in the glow of people telling me how fabulous I was, when some entitled prick came up to me and said... Great talk, mate! Really interesting stuff. But... "Oh great!" I thought. "Here it comes..." To play Devil's Advocate for a moment, have you... "No. Stop." I said. And, to my surprise, he did. "The Devil doesn't need any more advocates. Rephrase your question to be more positive." That stopped him in his tracks. Like…
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I am not an economist - so perhaps someone more intellectually equipped than me has already written a better version of this blog post. "I, Pencil" by Leonard E. Read is an influential essay on the nature of free-market capitalism. It correctly points out that the modern world is so complex and interdependent that no one man can know his true place in it. The world is impossible to control, so we should let the market work without interference. I'm not going to argue about the nature of…
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These are the lyrics to my constant earworm: Sometimes my life it feels like fiction Some of the days it's really quite surreal George Harrison - Pisces Fish I occasionally find myself having meetings in the Palace of Westminster with People From The News. I want to talk about what that's like. I'm waiting to go in to an office, quietly rehearsing what answers I'm going to give. Sat over there is a senior politician chatting with their junior (but still recognisable) colleague. The…
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One of my favourite works of art is The Great Bear by Simon Patterson. At first glance, it appears to be a normal London Tube map. But look closer... Cool! But there is something about it which has always bothered me. Each Tube line represents a theme - therefore, a station at the intersection of multiple lines should be represented by someone who matches all of those themes. For example, here's Baron's Court - the intersection of the Explorer line and the Saint line - represented by…
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