All depends on the wording...

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, may well quit the job and return to his native Canada it seems.  This is at least partly because of the criticism he has received over his "doom-laden" predictions in the run-up to the referendum as to what might happen if we voted to leave. Predictions which. according to one daily paper have been "repeatedly proven wrong".  Mind you, later in the same paper's report. it says that many of his gloomy predictions "are yet to materialise". Not quite the same thing?

Karma?

Ten years ago I posted about the Art Gallery in Walsall, which I consider one of the ugliest buildings around these parts.  Well now, as a result of the Council withdrawing, or at best severely restricting its funding, it seems it may have to close.  The contents certainly must be preserved, but I, for one, will shed no tears if the building disappears from view - although the most likely outcome of course is that it will simply be sold on and remain as the eyesore it is.

Ironic or what?

It appears that if Hillary Clinton becomes President of the United States, Bill Clinton, her husband, will take the title of First Gentleman.

Who he??

Remember Leveson?  Possibly not - it's been a few years now since the Lord Justice of that name was appointed as chairman of an inquiry into the behaviour of the press. His report suggested that newspapers should either sign up to a government controlled code of conduct or suffer heavily in costs if they are taken to court as a result of what they publish.  It seems to me that costs are indeed the fundamental problem here - the court costs in a defamation case can be so huge that they become a major determining factor in deciding whether to sue or whether to defend. I have always thought that in such cases the rule should be that each side bears thier own costs, whatever the outcome.  This puts each side in control of their own financial position and prevents one side being able to blackmail the other with the threat of an enormous bill of costs.  It seems to me that the only losers would be the lawyers - and I'm all for that!

Wadja say - part two.

As a follow up to yesterday's post, a misheard word or phrase is called a mondegreen. It most commonly occurs with song lyrics, but has its origin in the misheard line of a poem - the actual line was "...and laid him on the green" which was misheard, as a young girl, by the American writer Sylvia Wright as "...and Lady Mondegreen", and she coined the word mondegreen to describe such mistakes, there being, as she saw it, no suitable word in existence.  The word is now accepted by most of the major dictionaries.

Wadja say??

I think I've mentioned before that I have another string to my bow, internet-wise, in that I make piano arrangements of popular songs of the past and post them online (bottom link on the left).  Well I'm presently working on "The poor people of Paris" which, as a title, has a rather strange history.  It started life as a French song "La goualante de pauvre Jean" - the ballade of poor John - but when an American songwriter came to give it English lyrics, he misheard "pauvre Jean" as "pauvre gens" (poor people) and that's how it came to be "The poor people of Paris".

R.I.P.

Jimmy Perry.  When would-be writers ask for advice, the most common thing they are told is "write about what you know".  Well it certainly worked for Jimmy Perry. who used his experiences in the Home Guard, in the Army in Burma, and as a red-coat at Butlin's to come up with three of the most loved, most successful sit-coms ever - Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Hi-De-Hi.  And from what you can gather from those who knew him, he was a thoroughly nice bloke.  Once again, thanks to the nostalgia channels, his genius lives on.

Anything you can do...

In the 1950s an Italian tractor manufacturer went to Modena to talk to Enzio Ferrari, head of the famous car company.  He explained that he had owned several Ferraris, and although in general he found them attractive cars, he thought their clutches were sub-standard and he found the company's after-sales service left much to be desired. Ferrari, who was well-known as a proud man with a short temper, refused to listen to him and had him effectively thrown out.  So the tractor manufacturer decided to expand and start making cars himself.  And his name?  Ferruccio Lamborghini.

Ha ha.

Here's a wicked little one liner -
  - What do you get if you cross the Atlantic with the Titanic?
  - About half-way

What's in a name?

Back in the Middle Ages, in what is now referred to as the Caribbean, there was a island called San Juan, the capital of which was the town of Puerto Rico.  But in the middle of the 16th century, a map maker confused the name of the island with the name of its capital. and his mistake has never been corrected, so today we have the island of Puerto Rico with its capital San Juan.