eye for information

"The impingement of my motive is very unfair" - Immigration Minister Phil Woolas interviewed by Ed Stourton on the Today programme

I assume our Phil actually meant 'impugnment' - though I am not sure there is such a word in normal usage, and if there is, it should be strangled at birth. So, by substituting 'inge' for 'ugn', he made himself look just a tiny weeny bit ignorant. Oh, and his minor failing to explain how the UK government can limit our population to 70 million as he stated, when every single citizen of the EU has the right of abode here - that was a bit of a giveaway as well.

A wordle is a graphical representation of the word frequency in a text. I created a couple for this blog - and to my surprise, I seem to be a sex-obsessed boozer! The first one was grey - but I enjoyed the "grape nipples" combination. The second one is prettier. (Click to read the whole text.)

Create your own at http://wordle.net.

"Yep, good old Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay have been the Posh and Becks of grape varieties for a generation, and while upstarts like Malbec and Viognier may come and go, it's the 'Goldenballs of grapes' that get the column inches." - from Tesco Magazine, September, discussing wine grape varieties - Cabernet Sauvignon in particular.

I read this several times and still don't really get what they are on about. I suspect some well-educated wine writer decided he or she needed to get down to the level of the common people, and this mish-mash is what resulted. 'Mangled metaphor of the week' is hereby awarded. I'd hardly call Viognier an upstart either - it was apparently known to the Romans! And Malbec is a traditional component of red Bordeaux wines. But why compromise exciting (?) copy in the interests of accuracy?