Love, Love, Love for 10p

On Saturday, I spent 10p and had a fantastic afternoon

I didn't know what I was in for, but I felt like seeing a play and pitched up at the Royal Court in Sloane Square for the matinee. When I reached the ticket desk I was told that they'd sold out of tickets for the afternoon performance. I must have looked suitably downcast, because the Hollister assistant type bloke at the desk looked at me and said, well we do have standing room. "Ok", I said, "how much is that?" "10p" was the firm reply. As I didn't have 10p, only a £5 note (yes, I'm rolling in it), they let me in anyway and told me I could come back in the interval and pay my 10p when they had some change. Such trust and honesty in the heart of SW1. I was ushered to a side window with a nice Chinese lady who was playing the same game as me. We peered over people's heads and had a side-on view of two thirds of the stage. Not bad, because once you've got a hold of the characters, you can guess how they look when they're speaking from the angle of the stage you can't see.

We sneaked onto empty chairs when no-one was looking, only to be hauled up by an officious usherette who whispered that we were not allowed to sit down as the payees of the seats might still turn up. By the third act, I thought I could probably take the risk and sat down anyway.

The play was unbelievably good. Completely transporting as I was carried away on other people's laughter and pain. Especially resonant for everyone who grew up in the 60s and 70s, the relationships are poignant, bittersweet and raw with love, anger, embarrassment and all those feelings that just run  a few millimetres under the surface. The music, the staging, the characters are all tight and true. Two intervals and three hours later, I came out stunned and happy that I'd had a better afternoon than probably anyone else in the UK for just 10p. If anyone else can better that - let me know.

Love, Love, Love is showing at The Royal Court. Tockets from 10p - £28. http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/love-love-love

Waterstones and its apostrophe - catastrophe or just typography?

From www.planetcopywriter.com

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word apostrophe comes from the Greek apostrophes, meaning 'turning away'. An apostrophe symbolises letters that have been 'turned away', or discarded, in order to make a word shorter or easier to pronounce.

Turning away from turning away

Waterstones neé Waterstone's announced its decision on 12 Jan 2012 to turn away from its apostrophe. A decision which could potentially create two apostrophes - as in Waterstone"s, which would complicate the issue and of course, be totally incorrect.

Waterstones want to be a simple text/email friendly brand and I think they're right. No one thinks of this huge national chain of book superstores as dear Mr Tim Waterstone's bookshop that opened in 1982 in the Old Brompton Road. Waterstones is an evolving, innovative, coffee drinking, own kindle producing brand.

There was an instant outcry from John Richards, of the Apostrophe Protection Society. Predictably unhappy with Waterstones, he complained: “You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English.”

Waterstones’ managing director James Daunt said "Waterstones without an apostrophe is, in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling. It also reflects an altogether truer picture of our business today which, while created by one, is now built on the continued contribution of thousands of individual booksellers."

Wise Mr Daunt neatly avoided the whole problem with his other famous brand of bookshops, 'Daunt Books'

McDonald's, Sainsbury's and Levy's stick with their apostrophes. But Harrods and Barclays don't bother. Because most importantly this is a brand. It's a name and people do what they like with their names. The purpose of a brand name is to be memorable.

With the recent growth of Amazon as publishers and booksellers, there is a grave danger that  Waterstones won't last forever. So let them do everything they can to be remembered. It was Mr Daunt who described Amazon "They never struck me as being a sort of business in the consumer's interest. They're a ruthless, money-making devil."

Will children be confused as they learn their grammar? 

Not one bit. It's just a name. Show me a child who is troubled by a missing apostrophe, yet accepts inconsistencies like Spudulike and ToysRUs without a murmur.

According to Wikipedia, water stones are sharpening stones that are used to grind and hone the edges of steel tools and implements. I say butt the two words together and we are sharpening and honing a useful digital brand name.

In the process of change, Waterstones have abandoned their last modernisation of their name's lowercase spelling and reverted to their former font (Baskerville) and capital W. Apparently this is to promote a sense of authority and confidence, so traditionalists gain something.

A great response to Waterstones' decision to let the apostrophe go came from Waterstones of Oxford Street, whose Twitter account posted the photo below accompanied by a series of tweets about the apostrophe’s last day at work with the company.

Meanwhile, the successful fashion store which calls itself Apostrophe doesn't even have the punctuation mark in its title, so they add one on sideways.

Now that's what I call brand personality.

Do you go for a Merry or a Happy Christmas greeting? Get it right for 2012

From http://www.planetcopywriter.com/

2011 Christmas heralded a new season of attacks on the English language in my household. But who is right?

I can be one of the greatest language rule breakers when I choose. Yet even I struggle to embrace the new strain of Christmas sofa slump-chat that has emerged from my teenagers' happy obsession with programmes like 'Friends' and 'Two and a Half Men'. For Hark! We have heralded the birth of a whole new style of Anglo-US Yuletide greetings.                                           
                                                                                                                                  
Squeaks of "What are we doing on Christmas?" found me churlishly grunting "Don't you mean - what are you we doing for Christmas Day?". Yells of "Where are you going for New Year?" made me bark back "It's called New Year's Eve over here". And "Leave a cookie out for Santa" produced a jolly retort of "He's called Father Christmas in this country and he likes biscuits".

Now I love nothing better than a dreamy all American viewing of 'White Christmas' or 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas' or  'It's A Wonderful Life'. Yet a desire for a place for everything and everything in its place, leads me to cling onto our fine English traditions of Christmas greeting.

The next battle in this wordy war of family festive feeling, is whether we should write our cards with a 'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Christmas'. The general feeling in my house was that it should be 'Merry Christmas' leading to 'Happy New Year' to strike the difference.

A little research revealed that in the UK, 'Merry' is traditionally used in association with Christmas to mean jovial or cheerful. In fact, the word Christmas comes from Cristes mæsse - or Christ's Mass, which brings us to the hoary subject of religion. Should you ignore the whole religious message and just go for that bland compromise of 'Happy Holidays!'

Then there's the 'X Factor' in 'Xmas' - very useful for texting and writing at speed. The word 'Xmas', where 'X' replaces the word Christ' from Christmas, dates back to the early days of Christianity, when the Greek letter 'X' was the first letter in Christ (Χριστος).

I always used to think 'Xmas' was a bit of a cut-price Asda greeting. But now I know it's from early Greek, I shall use it with the richness of spirit it deserves. So back to that old chestnut, the word 'Merry', actually comes from 'myrige', originally meaning 'pleasant, and agreeable" rather than joyous, as in the phrase "Merry month of May".

Although Christmas has been observed since the 4th century AD, the first known usage of any Christmas greeting dates back to 1565, when it appeared in The Hereford Municipal Manuscript: "And thus I comytt you to God, who send you a mery Christmas."

My savvy tenagers opt for the phrase "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" as a great 'two for one' bargain offer that incorporates both greetings.

Apparently this message goes back to an informal letter written by an English admiral in 1699. The same phrase was contained in the sixteenth century secular English carol, 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' and the very first commercial Christmas card, produced in England in 1843.

However, the real reason behind your careful choice of greeting, simply comes down to  your relationship with alcohol. Probably because of the attempts made by the strict Methodist Victorian middle-classes to separate the wholesome celebration of the Christmas season from common lower-class public insobriety and anti-social behaviour. This was a time where 'merry' was understood to mean 'tipsy' or 'drunk'.

The final line written in 1823 in American poet Clement Moore's poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas', read "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night," was changed in later editions to the more sober salutation, 'Happy Christmas to all'.

Indeed, our own Queen Elizabeth II is said to prefer 'Happy Christmas' for this very reason.

So, if you're offering a friend or neighbour a festive tipple, maybe that's when you should go for a full on boozy 'Merry Christmas', but if it's to your local police station or head teacher, better stick to a safe and steady 'Happy Christmas'.