My tweets

• 07:35 @jonk i am afraid of people who smile and yet have the most sinister frown while smiling. One of the brothers at my HS was like that...evil! #
• 09:24 @helenroper it should be OK. worry will just make it worse. And just think, the Practitioner's exam will be getting closer... #
• 13:27 @helenroper i disagreed with a lot of it but the secret is to park your experience until 1 second after the exam is over, then pick it up. #
• 13:31 @nakedboy it's 57 here in London; it's warmer than miami... #
• 13:38 @nakedboy it's one of the few days in the year on which that will happen, i'm sure. it's normally cold and damp here even in high summer... #
• 15:12 @rhys_isterix not if I don't click on the link I'm not being driven mad... #
• 15:43 air ambulance just took off from the middle of Elephant and Castle North Roundabout. It's a "Virgin" air ambulance. Branson has it all... #
• 15:46 @jmspool i believe in heaven before i die too...oddly enough, it's a Katz's Deli Pastrami on Rye too. We Xtians add a Celray soda to that. #
• 21:46 @jonk what does the climbing gym smell like? Hot sweaty men dripping on the floor? and the problem with that is what, exactly?? #
• 21:52 @jonk hm...sounds like elementary school. children when i was a child took a bath once a week, so "sweaty and chalky" means Grammar School! #
• 22:11 @jonk I _love_ children, properly cooked. #
• 22:13 been snooping around justin.tv . it is like the drinks machine on the Heart of Gold. Produces something not entirely quite like TV. #
• 22:23 @jallen285 nah, st patrick's day is a much bigger deal in the US than it is in ireland. anyway, some of them are protestants and wear orange #
• 23:28 @nakedboy both, separately. gin before dinner, sangria with dinner. #
• 23:28 night-night tweeters mine. be good and if you can't be good, be careful. #

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Today's pet peeve

Actually, it's a long-standing peeve, but I've not bothered to blog about it.

Until now.

I am constantly reading newpapers and hearing TV and radio news reporters say that "So-and-so was found on the floor" when so-and-so was actually found on the ground.

To me, except for the specialised usages of "sea floor" and "valley floor" or "crater floor", the word "floor" implies that it is the surface of an area inside a building upon which you walk. The word "ground" means any surface outside a building on which you walk.

So someone found lying senseless outside a building would be said to be found "lying on the ground".

However, the newspapers and other media insist on saying that they were found "lying on the floor".

Am I old-fashioned? Should I be applying to take on Safire's column in the New York Times? Has a "floor" become any surface, inside or outside, upon which you may walk?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Today's anti-terrorist picture

You may have seen some of the truly odious billboards that the police have scattered around the United Kingdom encouraging people to rat on their neighbours if, for example, you aren't familiar with what they're putting in their bins. Or you don't like the fact that all the men in the house next door wear beards and go to the mosque on Friday. Or they keep to themselves so they must be terrorists. Or something.

I was wondering when someone would put up a site allowing you to put your own slogan on the billboard—and now someone has.

Here's my take.