“Word Perfect” is a book by Susie Dent published recently here in the UK. Unfortunately the initial print-run was based on an early version of the text and was full of typographical errors. As you can read in this piece from the Guardian (“Susie Dent ‘gutted’ after new book Word Perfect printed with host of… Continue reading Word of the week: WordPerfect
Are you familiar with the song “Patches” by Clarence Carter? If not there’s a link later in this paragraph for you to follow, but before you do let me issue a “Mascara Warning”, even if you don’t wear mascara. “Patches” is right up there with “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro as a song that is likely… Continue reading “Patches”
In two earlier pieces this month I have mentioned members of my family remembering things differently from how I remember them. My brother has no memory of watching the 1987 movie “Black Widow”, which starred Debra Winger and Theresa Russell and featured the line “I can’t believe you’re buying this”. My father put down the… Continue reading Pepsi, Coke and faulty memories
How do you spell words like minimize, maximize and theorize? Do you spell them with a “z” or with an “s” (minimise, maximise, theorise)? I’m a “z” man, not an “s” man, and have been for over 30 years. Back in the 1980s someone in publishing explained to me that “z” was closer to the… Continue reading “-ize” and “-ization” or “-ise” and “-isation”
In the last two months I have written about serifs, in this piece about “Stig of the Dump” and this piece about readability. Perhaps I should have clarified what a serif is and what it does. Webopedia, here, describes it as a “small decorative line added as embellishment to the basic form of a character”… Continue reading More about serifs
Last month, in this piece about “Stig of the Dump” and typefaces, I mentioned how, many years ago, I used to deliver training courses on desktop publishing applications. I enjoyed teaching people the differences between typefaces, “beyond the basics of why body text is usually set in a serif, rather than sans serif, font”. [If… Continue reading More about typefaces, serifs and readability
[There are over 1600 words in this article.] In many small ways I am all about efficiency and productivity. On journeys that I make regularly on the London Underground I always know the best place to stand (or sit, if it’s not rush-hour) to ensure that you are ideally positioned for the exit or any… Continue reading Small gains for many or big gains for a few
My current commute takes me to central London every weekday, either to St James’s Park or to Westminster in London Underground’s Zone 1. Our local station is where Zone 2 meets Zone 3. During peak times (7am-10am and 4pm- 7pm) the one-way fare is £2.90. Off-peak the fare is £2.40. My preferred working hours are… Continue reading A guaranteed way to save money
Earlier this year I wrote this piece about how much I dislike Questionnaires. Since then I have been meaning to tell the following story. Back in the 1990s I was a frequent visitor to software companies and software trade fairs. The big three companies for the work that I did back then were Lotus, WordPerfect… Continue reading More on Questionnaires
I have just started reading “Shakespeare’s Local” by Pete Brown. It’s about the George, a pub near London Bridge that can trace its history back 600 years. It’s more about beer and London history than about Shakespeare, but it seemed appropriate to start reading a book with Shakespeare in its title as we approach the… Continue reading Backing up
The Compartments 