Keep Calm and Don't Lose Hope

An email reaches us with a worrying thought:

10 years ago Bob Hope died

5 years ago Johnny Cash died

A couple of months ago Steve Jobs died

A few weeks ago Jimmy Saville died

Now we have no Hope, no Cash, no Jobs and nobody left to fix it.

Let’s hope nothing happens to Ed Balls.

iBooks need Proof Reading

Keith's latest passion is his iPad2. (I suspect he likes to pretend he is Jean-Luc Picard.)

However, his growing library of iBooks has been marred a little by his copy of American Assassin, by Vince Flynn. Great story, apparently, but riddled with typo's.

If there is one thing we harp on about in our Proof Reading course, it is not to rely on spell checker. But that is clearly what has happened. Spaces keep creeping into words, splitting them into real words, just the wrong ones. Keith's favourite was "again" which became "ag a in". Ag, I believe, is the chemical symbol for silver, which had nothing to do with the plot.

Then, in a scene set on a rooftop in Beirut - don't ask me why - two characters are talking and, clearly without any editor actually reading any of this, one of them is suddenly called by a different name for a couple of sentences.

Steve Jobs, with his legendary mania for detail, must be spinning in his grave.

And finally...

Keith & Maureen Henshall live in the Cotswolds, where some of the residents are pretty well-heeled. (Unlike, they tell us, Keith & Maureen.)

However, they heard the following delightful cameo from one Cotswolds resident, holding forth on the importance of social responsibility:

"I don't care how small one's garden is," he opined, "one should always set aside a couple of acres for woodland."

Mustn't that be a wonderful existence?