And another thing…
GOT A COMPLAINT? Good. Then make it. After all, no-one wants to be treated like a doormat. The ability to complain is a fundamental human right. But if you do complain, either…
Author: Steve Caplin
He who hesitates
HE WHO HESITATES IS LOST, we’re told. (The quotation is actually a misquote from Joseph Addison’s 1712 play Cato, in which he says “The woman that deliberates is lost.”) It doesn’t mean that…
Don’t misquote me
YOU’LL OFTEN HEAR PEOPLE talking about Shooting themselves in the foot, or Gilding the lily, or proclaiming that Money is the root of all evil. These quotes are either wrong, or used incorrectly….
Poetry and prose
LIKE EVERY OTHER SCHOOLBOY and girl in the country, I was taught that poetry should be pronounced ploddingly, with a pause at the end of each line, making sure you hammer…
How to get to sleep
IT’S A COMMON PROBLEM: you lie awake at night trying to get to sleep, trying to free your mind, but the harder you try, the more elusive sleep becomes. Here’s…
Polite notice
WE’RE ALL USED TO SEEING so-called ‘polite notices’ – which aren’t polite at all, of course; the word is there simply so that, at a glance, we misread the as…
Damned lies and statistics
WHAT’S THE MOST DANGEROUS SPORT? By which I mean, which sport has the most fatalities during play? It’s not motor racing, or hang gliding, or extreme ironing, or potholing, or even mountaineering….
Happy Birthday
IF THERE’S ONE TUNE every pianist needs to be able to play, it’s Happy Birthday. The problem is, everyone sings in a different key, so where should you start? In my…
We need zombies
EVERY GENERATION needs its baddies. In the 1940s and 50s, it was Red Indians. In the 60s, it was Nazis. In the 70s and 80s, it was aliens. And in the…
Be arsed
YOU’RE SITTING THERE on a Saturday evening with nothing to do. A friend phones and asks if you’d like to go to for a drink. You think… oh, I really…