A few days ago, one erudite Charioteer gently tweaked the tail of another, by querying her use of less, where prescriptively she should have used fewer.
Well, we all know the rules, don’t we?
Fewer for countable nouns, and less for non-countable nouns.
Well actually – no.
And to compound the problem, non-countable nouns are themselves something of a movable feast. Continue reading “Less or fewer? What a mass!”
As I am rarely in the doctor’s or the MP’s surgeries, filled as they are with viruses and mendacity it is libraries that give me cause for concern. For years I bought (well hired, to be exact) into the library deal without any inkling of worry. I would present my card and chosen books to be stamped and I would return them within a certain date. This, for any aliens reading out there, is what libraries do. Continue reading “Contagious”
Two Charioteers have questioned me about advertisements appearing on The Chariot.
WordPress reserve the right to place adverts on free blogs, but ever since we began we have noticed that –
If you are still seeing adverts after you have logged in, please let me know so that I can ask for clarification from WordPress. We have no control over which adverts are displayed, or whether or not they appear.
Please will you cease deleting your posts within a few hours of publishing them. Of course you have every right to do so, but it is most disconcerting to go to re-read an interesting comment, or to have another squiz at your excellent photographs, only to find that yesterday’s post has disappeared without trace.
It also has the effect of removing your gravatar from the “Authors’ Archives”, and of leaving a large number of enormous image files orphaned within the media store.
I have changed the way in which slideshows are displayed in order to accommodate captions with two lines of text, which both Boadicea and Bravo have needed for their latest posts.
The modifications to the CSS sheets (don’t worry about it) have been tested in Chrome and Explorer 9, and everything works as it should in those two browsers. I’ve also tested the alterations in SeaMonkey, which uses much of the same Mozilla code as Firefox, so all should be well there too.
But if something seems to be wrong with slideshows in your browser, I’d appreciate your comment with the details.
Thanks. 😀
You may find this interesting – but probably you won’t, so don’t click on … Continue reading “Technical chatter”
If like me your latest Firefox upgrade doesn’t allow the buffering of youtube videos here’s what you do… Continue reading “Firefox and Youtube”
Please do not read further unless you are both computer literate, and interested. 😀 Continue reading “A note for Soutie – and possibly others”
… and an article is immediately withdrawn from The Australian, and a cringing apology published.
Strangely, however, follow-up articles in other papers have (apparently) published the text that raised Juliar’s ire. As a quotation, which they can (apparently) get away with.
When a Prime Minister threatens to sue a journalist for defamation, Boadicea and I usually reckon it’s tantamount to an admission of guilt – but this time we could be wrong. What is undeniable is that this spat has spotlighted a grubby episode in Juliar’s earlier life; one that was in the public domain but played down, at the time, to such an extent that many of us had never heard of it. Even if today’s accusation is completely false, it’s a reminder of the sort of crim that she used to knock around with.
The sleaze within some Unions and the ALP (Australian Labor Party) which has recently been revealed, makes me wonder just how corrupt Labor is. Starting with Kev’s political assassination, we’ve seen WikiLeaks dob in Senator Mark Arbib as the Americans’ spy, we’ve seen Juliar unashamedly reverse her promise on the Carbon Tax and MP Craig Thomson finally exposed for spending many thousands of dollars of HSU (Health Services Union) money on booze and prostitutes (admittedly a grand old Australian tradition) and now Juliar’s youthful indiscretions are coming back to haunt her.
What a barrel-load of corrupt bastards! I can yet foresee the AFP (the Feds) being summoned to arrest the entire chamber, and the Governor-General forced to order a second dismissal. But her (the G-G’s) daughter is married to Bill Shorten, an ex-Union boss and Labor power-broker who currently holds the position of Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation. No chance!
For a different slant on the brouhaha, try this article in Crikey.
L. Wattage and the late Mrs. Wattage wed barely two years before, left the UK for a life in Canada. We stayed ten years, it seemed longer than that at the time (a single Canadian winter seems to last almost a lifetime). Some recent work reminiscences have led me back to the slender dusty records of those distant days.
When I’m unwell I try to brave it out. My antibodies have done a good job in keeping serious illnesses away from me and Ken Norton anti-virus will punch any pathogen that dares to intrude. Lately, however, there’s been a pain in my shoulder that’s hampered my sleep. This ache would probably be a sports injury or so I thought. Continue reading “First signs of deterioration”
Boadicea's Chariot 
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