17 May 2020
Some things academia will never learn
WHAT is it about proofreading and editing that academics find so hard to understand? Yet again a university student has requested my help in preparing their thesis for submission. And yet again, and much as I would welcome the work, I have had to say no. There are several reasons for refusal, but the main… Continue Reading
2 May 2020
Cure needed for pandemic’s verbal virus
The lexicographers are working overtime. New words are being coined, reviewed and added to dictionaries worldwide almost daily. It seems there’s nothing like disasters and pandemics to send the spin doctors into a frenzy of creativity as they try to find ways of cloaking and minimising what is actually happening. Plain speaking is avoided at… Continue Reading
29 April 2020
A taut, twisting and tantalising time with the Perfect Wife
For once I can use the phrase “a true page turner” with utter conviction. And happily add the clumsier “unputdownable”. This novel fully merits both descriptions. And though I am not one of those speed readers who can zip through a book in a single session, I was close to achieving that feat on this… Continue Reading
21 April 2020
Interior design – good to look at, not to use
EVERY day I am confronted by a very visible and irritating triple reminder of one of the more regrettable recent errors of my ways. A stark and unavoidable footnote to a rash and impetuous decision. One that was needlessly expensive but which I am condemned to live with unless I spend yet more money. They… Continue Reading
16 April 2020
When a virus spreads, the dictionary swells
9 April 2020
The Perfect Wife weaves a near perfect tale
As one who is forever wary of book cover blurbs, I approached this much-praised offering with even more caution than usual. Look at those blasts from high-status reviewers: Mind-bending, Unputdownable, Masterful. Surely hyperbole gone mad. There are six more pages of them inside, all of them in the same OTT vein. An enormous pinch of… Continue Reading
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17 May 2020
Some things academia will never learn
WHAT is it about proofreading and editing that academics find so hard to understand? Yet again a university student has requested my help in preparing their thesis for submission. And yet again, and much as I would welcome the work, I have had to say no. There are several reasons for refusal, but the main… Continue Reading