Please learn to use the apostrophe - we're not all greengrocers!!

The famous apostrophe - there are some very simple guidelines; please follow them to make yourself look less like a knobhead:

In English, plurals do not require apostrophes. Nor do verbs in the third person singular (he/she/it).

Apostrophes are used in two instances:

1. Possessives in singular and plural (Jean's book, for our members' convenience)

2. Shortening of auxiliary verbs (like he's and we're, it'll or we've, etc...)

The use of the apostrophe is very important in writing, for the reasons below:

This sign implies there is only room for one guest. When we want to say "of the only guest", we write guest's, but when we mean "of all the guests", we write guests'. Furthermore, why is every word here capitalised? We're not German!

Wrong again. Some plural words do not end in "s", like men, women, children. In this case, it is already evident there is more than one. We don't need to put the apostrophe afterwards like ordinary plurals, so we can write men's, women's, children's. What is the singular of men's, women's, children's? Answer at the bottom.

 

 Above, a supermarket forgets it's is short for it is, and below the other way round:

It's very simple:

his + its = of him + of it

he's + it's = he is + it is.

Funny people know the rule when they use the feminine she's and her...

This is why the apostrophe is important in writing:

 The symbol of everything wrong with the British attitude to their own language, the greengrocer:

Finally, this abomination:

Let us end with this simple lesson on spelling and pronunciation:

The sign above is wrong. Firstly, the word "bench" ends in a sound like "garage", "church", "wish", "stage", so we need to pronounce an extra sound "ɪ" before the plural, meaning these words might need an extra letter: "churches", "wishes", and therefore "benches". The same is true of he/she/it plus verbs of this kind: I fish ==> he fishes; I reach ==> he reaches.

And here, I rest my case:

 

...I guess this guy hates almost everyone - he didn't listen to his English teacher either...

The answer to the question what is the singular of men's, women's, children's? Man's, woman's and child's of course, but you knew that... right?

Bereft of any ideas, politics gets nasty

There is a general rule of thumb in politics - when things are OK, politicians can afford to be nice to their rivals and opposite numbers. Even their enemies. When things are bad, politicians are bloody awful people to be around. And this past month has seen a couple of really awful bad-mouthers in the US GOP swinging verbal punches at each other. It is not pretty. I am not sure if the US is a democracy any more. They spend vast amounts of money on year-long election campaigns, money that could alleviate the poverty in inner-city areas of the north and storm-battered villages in the south. There is the saying that anyone can be elected president in the US. But I would add, "...as long as you've got some friends who are billionaires and you have spent 20 years proving you can lick hide."

Added to this, in the last few weeks, there has been a slow build-up of tension between France and the UK (read: Sarkozy and Cameron). It seems the French president is using French patriotism and Brit-bashing to try and win the election. It is not working, as he keeps getting his facts wrong, which the French press so deftly points out. "The UK has no industry any more," he says. "Well, actually," say the press, "they have a larger industrial base than France." But Sarko's message is clear - he is appealing to his supporters. Both of them.

I think point-scoring, lying and exaggerating to get your own way should be outlawed. I think politicians should be made to say things as they are. I regularly watch political interviews and cannot understand why politicians so blatantly dress things up, try to make a positive out of what is clearly a negative and hide true statistics, relying on the data given to them by their researcher, who is paid to warp the reality of the situation. Politics needs Someone Who Tells It Like It Is. But that is not so easy any more. And there is a reason for it.

We have all been told to follow the crowd. No deviating from the path, no imagination, no inspiration. Just do your job. Politicians see it the same too now, I am sure. Unless you're at the very top, in which case you can just do what you please for the term until a few months before the next election. But even then, European politicians gather in huge groups, trying to decide what crisis to conjure up next and what country to sell to Asia next.

What we all need is a figure to step forward and say, "I have a vision, I think it's a good solution, now let's debate it." But we have such nasty-minded political figures around at the moment:
Alex Salmond, digging up all kinds of skeletons for his one-man campaign to break up the United Kingdom, dredging all the muck he can find.
David Cameron, the banker-in-chief, whose vision for Britain is one where we all look after ourselves and to hell with our neighbours and friends.
Ed Miliband, who prefer jokes at the expense of his rivals rather than any true substance.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the point-scoring, penis-size-measuring buffoon whose time in the political world is coming to an end.
Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, who cannot keep their debates civilised enough to have a proper Republican candidate contest.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who is trying to drum up more support in her country by waving a finger at the Falklands and saying it's hers.
Any Mediterranean politician who has been twenty minutes in a room with Angela Merkel, and comes out saying "we're so hard done-by" because they spent all their money in the 90s, lived off credit in the 2000s and now they're broke and looking for a scapegoat.
Nigel Farage, who does nothing except blow his nose over the very institutions that pay his wages.
Viktor Orban, who is ruining his country's reputation by removing democratic pillars and filling them with his friends.
I could go on, but I won't.

Well, they can all go to hell in a handcart.

Would some straight-talking visionaries please stand up? You're needed in parliaments, senates and cabinets the world over!