Now I don't know much about football...

But I do know that for football fans, forgetting your club's name is about as likely as forgetting your own name.
So I can only conclude that David Cameron only pretended to support Aston Villa. And if he lied about that, well, I draw the obvious conclusion. Many other people will too.
And he can probably wave good bye to any support from Villa and West Ham fans.

Tall tales in the Daily Mail

I heard on BBC Radio 4 that taller people are viewed as more authoritative and as stronger leaders. And they earn more. So, being five foot nothing, I googled smaller people to see if I could find anything positive:

• Daily Mail, 11 May 2014, byline Ben Spencer – shorter men live longer [hooray!]
• Daily Mail, no date listed, byline Beezy Marsh – Why taller people live longer [oh].

Well, I didn't really need to google that to know that the Daily Mail is a bag of shite.

Hands off my PR!

I do PR. That’s my job. I have two post-graduate diplomas in marketing communications and public relations.

I work for a council. I take media calls and employ various tactics to promote services for people who grit roads, fix streetlights, find homes for children in care, look after vulnerable adults, take care of country parks, manage libraries, advise schools, run trading standards, maintain landfill sites and so on.

All of those people are experts in their field and I wouldn’t dream of telling them how to do their jobs. So why do they all want to tell me how to do mine?

I’ll do everyone a deal – I promise not to run your libraries, parks, care homes and schools. So keep your bloody amateur mitts of my press releases, posters, banners, leaflets, web pages, design and social media. You’re rubbish at it. I’m not.

Is everyone moving to Scotland?

Nicola Sturgeon wooed us all in the leaders’ debate, leaving many English, Welsh and Northern Irish people wishing they could vote for the SNP too. Well, by moving to Scotland they could.

No tuition fees, free hospital parking, cheaper houses, gorgeous countryside, stunning wildlife, lighter summer nights, the aurora borealis, delicious whisky and very few tories – you can see the attraction.

Academies and free schools – WTF?

I’ve never really liked the idea of separating children by religion for education purposes – even when for years most religious schools were of the wishy-washy C of E variety. C of E schools are a non-threatening manifestation of the established church (disestablishment is another issue I might address some time).

And now we have free schools, some of which seem to cater mostly to muslim children – depriving them and non-muslim children of mixing with each other. What a shame. Don’t we want children to grow up having friends from all backgrounds if we want a cohesive society?

I don’t like academies either. They’re a manifestation of the Conservatives’ ideology – another way to bash local government.

£3bn is to be cut from the schools’ budget if the Conservatives get in. Yet they have thrown money at academies and free schools. Why don’t they just fairly fund all schools via local authorities? Politicians say they believe in devolution. Their undermining of local councils proves that’s rubbish. 

A terrible pronouncement.

When it came to pronunciation and articulation, the BBC used to be the standard by which all others were judged. Not any more.

We get sicth instead of sixth, haitch instead of aitch (for H). And Cameron instead of git. 

A blog of one’s own.

As a former newspaper journalist, feature writer and sub-editor, and now a public relations person, I have spent most of my life writing. When I haven’t been writing I’ve been reading.

But PR is changing and my job is changing. We write fewer press releases and printed publications. So this is a way to keep on writing, when I feel the urge.

It’s also going to be good to have an outlet for the odd rant, I think.