I’m going on holiday for the next three weeks and will not be posting anything on Words Dept. until after Christmas and possibly until the New Year. I may, if I can be bothered, post some Twitter updates while in Brazil, which will appear in the little panel on the left.
Until then I wish you, [...]

Just before going to sleep last night I attempted to have a US election-based multimedia experience, which involved taking the laptop to bed (my intentions were pure) and surfing various sites to do with the vote. This, I am led to believe, is the done thing among web-savvy news hunters of the 21st century.
Twitter, in [...]

A minor rumpus is breaking out on Dave Hill’s London blog at the Guardian over claims by Tory Troll (aka Adam Bienkov) that journalist and beloved national treasure Andrew Gilligan has been “sockpuppeting”.
For those unfamiliar with the term, sockpuppeting means creating a “fake online identity” to praise yourself or some other entity with which you are associated, without disclosing the [...]

I may have created the impression the other day that I think Robert Peston is a tosser. This wasn’t my intention at all because, notwithstanding his numerous presentational faux pas, I actually deeply admire his ability to get up the noses of the Daily Mail (”Does this man have too much power?”), various bloggers and, [...]

God love BBC business editor Robert Peston, whose broad range of bizarre vocal ticks brings a light touch to news of even the most dire financial crisis. His willingness to experiment with the boundaries of word and syllable emphasis within a given sentence never ceases to amuse. You sit there waiting for it to die [...]

Jay Rayner, the Observer food critic, is researching a feature on genetically modified food. The reason I know this is that he’s written a post on the Guardian’s Word of Mouth blog asking for pointers. It’s the first time I’ve heard of a national newspaper doing such a thing. Rayner describes it as “a different [...]

This blog, built and written by my own hands with only occasional assistance from my brain, was exactly one year old yesterday. It’s been a rollercoaster ride of pure emotion, I’m sure you’ll agree!
During that time, I have steadily built the readership of the blog from a mere fourteen to a massive fifteen readers, including [...]

Since Simon Cowell rolls his eyes and tuts like a bored suburban housewife following virtually every act that appears on Britain’s Got Talent (which his company, Syco, co-produces), why doesn’t he just piss off and do something else for a living?
Just a thought.
Similarly, am I the only person who finds it faintly disturbing when Cowell [...]

Apparently there was an earthquake last night. No, really. Look at this long list of boring anecdotes (sorry, I meant to say cutting edge media weblog 2.0) if you don’t believe me.
As a seasoned veteran of the infamous Dudley quake of ‘02 (I was living in Birmingham at the time), I knew what it was [...]

As you will no doubt have noticed, this site looks a bit different today. I’ve got me a new super-minimalist theme called Stripped by Upstart Blogger. I’m a fan of minimal, functional design and, since the emphasis round these parts is on words, this theme is perfect because all the other distracting stuff is dumped [...]