It's time.

It's been a good holiday though. Lovely friends and good things to do. I know I'll feel differently about this when I'm 80 but I like how life's flying by at the moment. It's more interesting this way. Bad things are over and done with and good things are always round the corner.

I'm breezy...

Me, my sister and my brother at his wedding:

Put into practise/Put into practice?

I think it's 'c' because I think it means that you take a theory and put it into your practice*. But for some reason (that I can't remember now) I remain unconvinced.

Tell me the answer.

*A little grammar thought to keep you going...if you are choosing between 'c' and 's', you might need to work out whether the word in question is a noun or a verb. Nouns (naming words) = 'c', verbs (doing/being words) = 's':
Noun: Do your piano practice! Why won't you just take my advice? This is my driving licence.
Verb: Just practise the song, now! Why won't you let me advise you? I am licensed to drive.

Did I already do that grammar thought? Oh well, if I did, at least it's in context in this post.

We went to Julie and Andy's and then to my Grandparents'. It was all good. I would post a picture of Julie and Andy's baby but I'm not too sure if it's ok to post pictures of other people's kids...unless they say it is, of course. Although, what about the kid's opinion later on? I don't know. So instead I'll post a picture of Cornwall which is where they live. Here:Now, the other thing was a grammar question. But I've forgotten which one it was. Something about an apostrophe somewhere or some sort of subject-verb agreement or something. I'll have a think.

Is the webbernet resulting in a loss of posterity and status when it comes to texts, images, information, literature...?

Does it matter?

...are always distastrous. Why can't I just get a grip. My whole day would then be so much better.

Well, I haven't posted for quite a while and I thought I'd start up again because I quite like it really.

A lot's happened since March. And nothing has happened. Maybe a lot's just happened to other people and I've been there!

• Paul and Jo got married
• Cec got a job at Dicken's world
• Ol worked very hard
• Strangeday are going to Serbia
• There was Mother's Day, Toby's birthday, Annette's birthday, Sarah's birthday and Father's Day
  
• Annette got into Ridley Hall
• Toby had a 1950s party
• Sarah had a cocktail party
  
• Toby played cricket lots
• Strangeday played some gigs
• I went to the ballet
• I saw Abbey
• Julie and Andy had a baby
  
• Megan and Malcolm had a baby
• Pete and Hayley had a baby
  
• There were Hen Nights, Stag Weekends and Baby Showers
• Imogen had a birthday in a pub
• There was work. Always something happening there.

Probably some other things as well. Here's a picture of Paul and Jo.

I was provoked by something I wrote on Toby's blog to write a post of my own again but I can't remember what...

Oh now I do.

Before you read on, please know that I'm not even beginning to criticise gay people in this post, rather some Christian speakers - happily no one from the church that I am a part of.

I honestly don't know what God's opinion regarding homosexuality is. Some people think they do. Some of them harp on about it without knowing what they're talking about, others have done lots of thinking and research.

Either way, it drives me round the bend when people publicly say things in church meetings that berate the gay community.* Often this comes either in the form of seemingly harmless jokes that we've all got used to or huge statements like, "Let's stand together against homosexuality." Imagine being a gay person visiting the church any time something along those lines was said.

Unless an issue in someone's life (any issue) is brought up with enough tenderness to see that person through the pain of dealing with it, s/he is being failed. Most preachers would make an effort to be tender if they were actually trying to speak into people's lifestyles through their sermons. Homosexuality, though, often seems to be treated as a political issue** (instead of as a personal issue) and fought with the same venom.

People's sexuality is intensely personal and should be broached with the utmost of care. Not joked about or battled against.

*And, for that matter, other religious communities. I think most of what I'm saying applies there as well.

**Another tricky topic: Church meets Politics. A treacle tin of tension.

I did not like January.

It was too busy, miserable weather, I was tired for all of it and (slightly) bad things kept happening.

There were two good things:

• A PERFECT Christmas celebration with my lovely family
• The Strangeday album launch gig

February was an instant improvement.

‘these ones’

• Titles (although it’s often neater to underline titles or put them in italics)
• Speech in real printed novels (bizarrely)
• Sarcasm/irony

• Quoting one or two words only in essays and in life

“these ones”

• Speech when you’re at school/in handwriting/referring to what someone has said in real life
• Quoting longer phrases/sentences (or longer) in essays and in life.

I’m not sure on all these – they’re just conventions that I’ve picked up on the way. Add to the lists if you want.

Also, you need to think about what to do when you want to quote within a quotation. You could use one type round the outer quotation and the other type round the inner quotation. I don’t think I do that, I think I stick to the conventions above but I’m not sure. In this case, I would use whatever way looks clearer for the reader.

The other little tricky issue with quotation marks is whether to put fullstops and other punctuation inside or outside the quotation marks. If the quotation takes up most of the sentence, then people seem to put the punctuation inside:

Lewis also explains that “the average amount of food eaten is in direct proportion to hunger.” 

People seem to put the punctuation on the outside if there are only a few words in the quotation: 

Lewis’s revelations, although rather unexpected, have caused scientists to rethink their theories regarding consumption – a development that has been described as ‘controversial’. 

The rules for speech are more rigid though – there must be a piece of punctuation before every speech mark. Can’t be bothered to explain that one. Just notice it!

Sorry not to have posted a grammar post. I was at a very very boring educational fair during my Friday free period. I hate the word 'fair' in that context. It definitely has the wrong connotations.

This is a very quick grammar thought as I am very very tired.

Active voice vs. passive voice

If you want to make clear who/what is responsible for something, use the active voice. If you want to be more ambiguous or you want to focus on what happened rather than who did it, use the passive voice. There is obviously lots of potential here for manipulation.

Example sentences:

Active: I keep the butter in the fridge.
Passive: The butter is kept in the fridge.

Active: They stole the painting.
Passive: The painting was stolen.

Active: They are repairing the road.
Passive: The road is being repaired.

Active: Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.
Passive: Hamlet was written by Shakespeare.

Active: A dog bit him.
Passive: He was bitten by a dog.

Welcome to Grammar Thought the second.

Here it is.

I've been wondering about this for years and finally got round to asking my Dad last week. When should it be 'due to' and when should it be 'owing to'?

Well, it's simple but perhaps tricky to put into practice.
Due to: adjectival
Owing to: adverbial

So 'due to' is there to describe a noun: if you wanted to describe the weather (noun), you might say, "This weather is due to a depression in the Atlantic."

'Owing to' is there to explain a verb: if you wanted to explain why Spud is limping (verb), you might say, "Spud is limping owing to his bad foot"

There is no logic to this one - they both mean the same thing - but it is a convention.

My friend Jack and I are very cool. We set aside a whole Friday evening for discussing Grammar. And we enjoyed it. To add to the coolness, I said that I would continue to impart the art of grammar to Jack by emailing her a grammar thought-for-the-week every Friday in my free. I honestly can't think why people think teachers are nerds.

Anyway, for the benefit of you all, here is my thought for this week.

Welcome to Grammar Thought for the Week. This week's thought is brought to you by the letters I, M and E.

People often think that they should use 'I' instead of 'me' all the time if they are to be absolutely correct. However, if they stripped the sentence down, it would not make sense to do so:

If I was to invite you out with me, I would say, "Come out with me tonight!" If I was to add Toby in, the sentence would remain the same but with Toby added: "Come out with me and Toby tonight!". There is no logical reason for changing the 'me' to an 'I' (as many people do because they have lost track of the flow of the sentence and they think they're being super-correct* - often, people say things like, "Come out with Toby and I tonight!").

What is correct, however is to keep the 'I' in a sentence where it would have originally been an 'I', e.g. "I will go" becomes, "Toby and I will go", not "Me and Toby will go"

So don't change the pronoun from its original state.

Incidentally, did you notice how 'me' feels more natural going before the other person's name and 'I' would feel positively wrong unless it was after the other person's name?

*There is, of course, no such thing as super-correct when it comes to grammar. When people try to be super-correct, they just reveal their ignorance and/or lack of imagination. E.g. "All persons must check-in," (instead of, "Everyone must check-in," or, "All [specific plural noun, e.g. 'passengers'] must check-in,") equals crap.

By the way, our Friday evening was a lot more soulful than this as it linked grammar to literature and culture. Although I don't think that's going to help me in the cool stakes.

I should blog. I've bought some paint today so I might finish my painting. I've gone back to acrylic because I used to enjoy it setting fast and making ridges. And you don't need linseed oil and white spirit. And the oils were expensive.

I have been neglecting my blog of late because I got fed up of it over the holidays. Sorry to the five people who read it!

Anyway. I have been saying (to myself) recently that everyone needs a Tobes. He is a good one. Just in general. He's a cheerer-upper and a sorter outer.

And then last night he was a good one in more specific terms.

1. He texted me to make sure I came home from work on time
2. When I got home, there was a HUGE bouquet of flowers for me. From my favourite flower shop. I've never had a proper bouquet before, I don't think.
3. We went to have a curry at my favourite Indian restaurant (the New Ash Green one, if you want to know. The naan breads are objects of beauty).
4. Then he gave me an iced Chelsea bun.
5. Then we went to see Borat. Which I did want to see, before you ask. Very funny apart from some disgusting nudity.

Anyway. He is lovely. Despite (some) appearances!

Photos coming soon.

I don't want to blog today.

Is that how you spell it? I don't care enough to check.

Anyway, I was wide awake til about 4 or 5 in the morning last night, presumably because I had drunk a cup of coffee in the morning and a cup of tea in the evening. I normally have no caffeine whatsoever.

It wasn't all bad because I didn't have that horrible tired-but-can't-sleep feeling; I was just wide awake. So I did my work. Quite well, too!

I was wondering if it has such a strong effect because I used to drink a lot of caffeine then went straight to having none. Would that make it worse? I don't know.

Blogger tells me that they have scheduled outage at 2PM PDT. I don't know what any of that means apart from 2pm. I can imagine 'scheduled outage' being something that Toby would make up to use when he's telling me that he's going to be out at a particular time.

I've become a bit addicted to this website which showcases the most beautifully designed websites it can find - 10 for every month since some time in 2005. Look at the archives to find the previous months.

It's not just the flair with which the designs are executed but simple things like the layout. A lot of it's done in flash but I think you could take some of the simpler layout stuff and do it in normal (whatever that is).

Here's a picture of my Dad being a lizard. It was a funny evening:


In a little bit we are going to go and see my Mum and Dad for a cup of tea. And that will be the most eventful thing that has happened all day. Toby has been working on some little designs and I have been finishing The Constant Gardener. Which was good. But in some ways I wish it had a cheesy ending where you get to read about justice being served to all the villains.

Tomorrow, my sister is coming round and we are going to watch the whole of series four of Scrubs. I think. Although I have to do some work, having not done it last week. When I was writing my dissertation, I realised that it was going to come together at the last minute so I should enjoy the times when I wasn't writing, free of guilt. Then I went on a course in June this year where they said that if you're a last minute person, you always will be, so just plan to have time and energy available at the last minute. It's a nice thing to realise. So I'm feeling very un-guilty about having done nice things on holiday so far and I feel much better about actually doing the work itself.