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Triple X

Posted by BG! on February 19th 2018 in A bit of a rant, Driveway-blocking feckwits and piss-poor parkers

This morning our driveway and our neighbour's driveway were both blocked by this:

After about five minutes of me obviously waiting to get out, the driver moved it out of the way. I told him that I'd be back soon and would need to get back onto our driveway.

Ten minutes later I returned to find that he'd put it back in exactly the same place, so I couldn't get back in.

Five minutes later, after some verbal encouragement, he moved it again. By that time my Mum's car had turned up. I pulled onto the drive and my Mum's car followed me in.

Then the van was put back in exactly the same place yet again, thus blocking in both cars.

More verbal encouragement ensued. The van stayed there for another twenty minutes.

He's gone now. Maybe he's gone to look up some of the words I used as verbal encouragement.

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Noun-to-verb tolerance

Posted by BG! on February 18th 2018 in Lost in translation, On the box

Tags: Inner Stickler, Olympics, SPAG

I'm learning to live with The Beeb's fervent uptake of sport-verbs derived from sport-nouns. During previous Olympic Games broadcasts I used to baulk at "medalling"*, but during the current PyeongChang (IOC) / Pyeong Chang (BBC iPlayer) / Pyeongchang (BBC websites) broadcasts I've begrudgingly accepted not only "medalling" but also "podiuming"* as tolerable, even though they are both ugly words which I'd never use except in angst. After all, do we hill-walkers not use the words "summiting"* and "backpacking"* without fear of reproach?

But I draw the line at absolute bollocks such as "Whoppertron!"*, another word foisted on the world by those whose skis seem to outnumber their I.Q.. As far as I can determine, the word was introduced to the Beeb's audience by a pundit at the Sochi games. Today it was Ilia Burov's third round Aerials display that invoked it.

And as for the Beeb's curling pundit who was of the opinion that the Mixed Doubles is "a young man's sport", or something similar, well, she should be ashamed of herself. I had to leave the room to rant alone.

The world's finest winter athletes deserve better.

Anyway, I'm off to the kitchen to do some "kettling"* and "chairing"* while "laptopping"*. Luckily, we don't have a dog.

* correct spelling/punctuation unverifiable

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Skills shortage

Posted by BG! on February 12th 2018 in A bit of a rant, Driveway-blocking feckwits and piss-poor parkers

Successive governments have told us that Britain needs to admit hordes of skilled migrant workers to do the jobs for which we have insufficient home-grown talent.

Clearly we don't train enough native parcel-posting parking-pricks, so we have to import people whose grasp of the English language, manners and road-courtesy leaves much to be desired. That grasp seems to be restricted to the words "I moving, yes?", mumbled in what sounds like a Carpathian accent, and delivered with a free scowl and no contrition. Apparently the skill of noticing huge vacant parking spaces to the left and to the right isn't mandatory: