Monday, February 23, 2004

Movie News

TheMovieSpoiler.com wants to know how The Passion of Christ turns out. He dies in the end - but there's a twist! Hope I haven't spoiled it for you.

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This weekend I received a leaflet through my front door. It was from a self-stlyed Reiki master, known only as Jarman, who offers holistic Swedish massages, crystal attunements, animal healing and tarot readings, all at very reasonable rates (if you were mental and "list setting fire to money" as one of your hobbies).

This swami of all trades lists his qualifications for this licence to print money as "BSc Hon's". With an apostrophe. Honestly. You spent years at head massage university and you end up with a BSc Hon's with far too much punctuation. Jarman, for this crime against the English language, I may be forced to visit you in the near future and demonstrate Belfast Knee Massage, with the help of a cricket bat with a breeze block nailed to it.

And why this sudden conversion to Punctuation Nazi for the man who doesn't know where to put full stops when writing dialogue? I have just finished "Eat Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss. This little treasure should be required reading for anybody before they are allowed to write, blog, e-mail, text or even switch a computer on. It is, naturally, manna from heaven for a sad bastard such as myself, who spends far too much type worrying about the state of other peoples' writing.

sCr1pt K1dd13s and l33t HaXXors take note - there's a whole alphabet out there and a myriad of interesting dots, dashes and punctuation marks designed to help your reader understand you. It's no use complaining to me when your mis-spelled Burger King application form is thrown back in your face. You should have listened in school.

Punctuation snob? Of course. I am deeply in love with Ms Truss and would gladly have her babies.*

* Despite the physical impossiblity of this statement and the handicap of her writing for the Daily Telegraph; but then, these things are sent to challenge us.

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