The following posts have no fixed theme or style, but I hope you enjoy reading them!

Saturday 28 March 2009

Advice #34

God knows EVERYTHING
So when you find something that seems impossible and don't know the answer or even how to find out the answer, then
Ask God

"Who knows?"

Because God knows who knows

And if you ask nicely he might just put you onto the person who knows the answer to your question

PS Often a person is good to ask, but it can be hard to find the right person without God's help. Don't ask God directly for the answer to your question, that would be simple and we know that God is not simple. Just ask him "who knows?"

Monday 23 March 2009

Grumpy

I am grumpy because I have spent 45 minutes defrosting dinner in the microwave and it's not defrosted. And I am doing a sudoku and I'm stuck. It's funny what gets you down sometimes. I guess I'm just tired, but it's soooo annoying!!

Tuesday 17 March 2009

My soul resides in your watery fiords fyords fiiords Inlets

-Adrian Mole

Whenever I am typing and get stuck spelling a difficult word like 'recommend', I always go to googlefight.com. Not only do you get to watch stick men fighting, but it also tells you which way of spelling it is more accepted, by which version is on the internet the most times. After all, the way that most people spell it is probably right (unless it's a horrible american spelling - being British I'd prefer to spell things the British way). My most recent one was queuing/queueing. I prefer queueing. Many words have the magic e that I learned about in primary school. An e turns bit into bite, because it is magic and lengthens the sound of the i. Likewise with cap/cape, pet/pete, sit/site, rot/rote, crud/crude, (one example for every vowel). The magic e gets dropped when you add -ing onto a verb. Although not magic, the same happens for words like meddle and paddle - the e disappears to produce meddling and paddling.

I think ue is a sound in itself and is different to other words that end in e, so it should be allowed a different spelling rule for adding an -ing. The group include words like glue, sue and queue. If you type them into Google, gluing is suggested as a better alternative to glueing, suing is suggested for sueing, but both queuing and queueing seem to be acceptable. The same is true on the Blogger spell-check On finding that out, I turned to googlefight! The results are in:

gluing = 434,000 search results
glueing = 70,100

suing = 1,300,000
sueing = 48,600

queuing = 790,000
queueing = 386,000


I hate to say it, but the versions without the e seem to win. Those with the e seem to be widely accepted, as both appear in most dictionaries, but they are not as common. A cause or a consequence of this is that Microsoft Word tries to correct the versions with an e.

I like to think I am right, and the world is being skewed by Microsoft pushing its weight around. And I will therefore continue to add my e to these interesting words as I have always done. After all, as this website points out, queueing is the only word in the English language with five vowels in a row. Awesome. We need to keep that!

UPDATE:
I have some more words for you to consider: value, subdue, pursue, imbue, ensue, construe, continue, cue
There are lots of them! If the rule is inconsistent, I'll be frustrated

Sunday 15 March 2009

Kelis hates you so much right now

Morten Gamst Pedersen! Or she would if she had seen you play football yesterday. A lot of sports fans dislike football because, unlike in other sports, the players earn a fortune and the game is dominated by people arguing with the referee or trying to get him to give a foul when they don't deserve it.

Diving is cheating, and referees have the power to book players who dive. It is rarely done, however. Most referees do not do it at all, and those that do give the benefit of the doubt more often than not. Take a look at this dive yesterday - the most obvious and cynical dive I have ever seen (apart from a few by Cristiano Ronaldo perhaps)



It's clear that he didn't get touched and it also didn't look like a man who had fallen over accidentally either. When he got up, he was shouting at the referee to give a penalty. No penalty was given, but neither was Pedersen punished. That gives the signal that it is okay to do. He lost nothing by trying to get a penalty that way. He'll do it again, because although it didn't work this time, it might do next time. Morten Pedersen should be sent off and suspended, because it gives football a bad name and makes refereeing harder to do. When a defender prevents a near-certain goal with a foul, it is an automatic red card. When a striker wins a penalty by diving, that is the same thing. It can change the scoreline by foul play and he should be sent off.

I don't care whether the referee has seen it at the time or not, but the FA should go back to these incidents and suspend people who dive. I always say that a red card should be given to someone who is such a bad player that they are not fit to stand on the field of play. Perhaps they are doing such dangerous tackles that the referee is concerned someone will get hurt, or perhaps they should such contempt for the rules that they need to be told "if you're not going to play properly, then you're not allowed to play at all".

On the other hand, if someone mistimes a tackle, it's a free kick, but it was only a mistake, so the player should be allowed to continue playing. The player is hardly unfit to play, he just make a mistake. Yet week after week, innocuous tackles are punished by cards, but unsporting behaviour is allowed to continue.

While we are on the subject, appealing to referees should be a bookable offence. Even if the player was fouled, making it look worse than it really was, or appealing to the referee muddies the waters. This behaviour is turning enough people away from football so it needs to be more actively addressed. Any foul should be punished by a free kick, but any unsporting behaviour at all should result in a player being punished by suspension or a warning that they will be suspended if it continues.

Monday 9 March 2009

Rochdale Chronicle Article

Maybe She Wasn't Born With It

If we weren't already convinced, new research has shown the full extent of differences between the sexes. The research, carried out by the Institute for Failed Marriages, lists the reasons for divorce as given by both sides of the relationship. The Institute claim that the survey is more reliable than previous surveys, because it was carried out late at night in pubs, where people are more truthful.

A top ten list has been released, and amongst the usual ones such as infidelity, (number one in both lists), there are a few surprises. Notable at number 4 is "discovered she wasn't born with it and it was in fact just Maybelline", interestingly only one position behind "deteriorating looks" in the men's chart. Women's reasons are just as shallow, with "Forgotten Birthday/Anniversary" coming in at number 3 and "Money Issues" at five.

If you have been told by a partner that they "don't want a partner right now" you can think again, with it reaching just 9 in the men's chart and not at all in the women's. Finally, some food for thought, with news that "Bad sex" was at number 4 in the chart for women, but only number 10 for men. Maybe some things should stay confidential, eh, lads??!!!

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Advice #33

Don't pull a face like a baboon's bottom. If the wind changes, you'll stay like that!