It doesn’t take much to cause members of the Ancient Order for the Preservation of Proper English (AOPPE) to fly off the handle. A misplaced modifier, a literal, verb confusion, homophonic confusion (a pear of undies) or noun-verbing will do it every time. There are old phrases akin to ‘fly off the handle’ (to lose one’s temper), in Tony Maniaty’s memoir of a half-Greek kid growing up in 1950s Brisbane. Maniaty employs sayings of the day…
Good afternoon, It appears that my posts are not being sent to people who signed up with their WordPress account. Bear with me while I figure out what’s going on. As you can see, I’m still posting every Friday. It would be helpful if you see this message to let me know as I deactivated some plugins to see if it fixed the issue. BW
Nothing better demonstrates the irrelevancy of Facebook’s news ban than this tweet from elder statesman Everald Compton. “My friends in Parliament tell me that meeting between #CraigKelly and #Barnaby was to create new #conservative party with Barnaby as leader. They will be joined by Christensen and Canavan and sit on the cross benches. #Morrison will lead minority government. Happy Days.” Compton, who many would know through his long-running blog, Everald at Large, posted the 45-word…
By Laurel Wilson Dad didn’t talk much about his war experiences, but he did mention that he had been a dispatch rider at one stage – roaring through the English countryside at night on an Indian motorbike without lights. Fortunately for him (and us, his unborn children), he soon decided that riding dispatch was not a healthy occupation. Perhaps his tales of riding that big thumping motorbike sounded exciting. Perhaps it was because several of…