My wife and I were sitting in front of the telly a few days ago, watching the day’s Tour de France highlights; fairly intently in my case, but with half an eye on the telly in my wife’s case while also writing up some party invitations. She asks, “How do you spell Nibali?”. I spell …
When you’re offered a “continental breakfast”, what do you think of? One online definition gives “a hotel breakfast that may include sliced bread with butter/jam/honey, cheese, meat, croissants, pastries, rolls, fruit juice and various hot beverages.” From personal experience, I’d say you’d be lucky to get as much as that – a cynic on a …
What two things save the multilingual programmer’s life? The first is obvious – bacon, of course. Computer geeks have an almost mystical reverence for the stuff. Most of the code you run when you turn on your computer every day was at some point fuelled by bacon during, or just after, an epic late-nighter. In …
So Michael Gove has apparently been using his new position as Justice Secretary to dash off memos to civil servants about the use of English, has he? The BBC has chosen to comment in particular on his exhortation to avoid the use of “impact” as a verb; for example, “But how will these policies impact …
We reported a while ago about the recent change in DVLA rules regarding UK driving licences (it involves having to get a special code if you’re planning to hire a car) and how it could catch the unwary when renting a vehicle abroad. Well, today’s the big day when the new service is rolled out …
