Where's rougher than Walford? Balham

EastEnders is set in the fictional East London borough of Walford.

Walford is hardly the most affluent place in the world, but sometimes the scriptwriters need the action to take place in an even rougher, more dangerous part of London - and for that they look south.

One current plotline has several scenes set in the South London neighbourhood of Balham. It is portayed as a wasteland of council flats, dark alleys, and menacing gangs:




I lived in Balham for a year not so long ago, and saw more yummy mummies than hoodies. Wikipedia notes: "Property prices have risen as middle class professionals have moved in, causing the district to lose some of the working class feel it had up till the 1990s."

There are plenty of places in South London that make Walford look like Knightsbridge, but Balham isn't one of them.

• Balham.com

• BBC iPlayer: EastEnders 01/03/2010

Goodyear Dunlop restores full shits

Goodyear Dunlop restores full shits, at least according to the latest email newsletter from The Business Desk:


This one was spotted by my colleague Jo.

(Incidentally, I had a bit of a mishap with the last email newsletter I put together - I'll tell you about it when the embarrassment has gone down...)

Layout sub vacancy on our production desk

There's a vacancy for a layout sub on our production desk. The salary's competitive, the work is interesting and varied, and you'll get to be a colleague of mine. But don't let that last point put you off.

(So it's no secret that I work for RBI. The best way to find out about editorial vacancies with us is probably to follow RBIJobs on Twitter.)

Is it always wrong to wear your trousers too high?

I seem to be going through another BBC News phase. Here's something I spotted on the site a little while back:


Is it always wrong to wear your trousers too high? Yes, by definition - the word too means "to a higher degree than is desirable, permissible, or possible" (Concise OED). 'Possible' isn't applicable here but 'desirable' and 'permissible' both could be.

A fairer question would be 'Is it always wrong to wear your trousers high?'.

'Powerful intimate relationship with a co-worker'

From a recent BBC News article called Sex at work: weapon or repression?:


The first par: "Research... shows that 60% of all workers have had a powerful intimate relationship with a co-worker."

The fourth par: "[Kakabadse] realises that it might be hard to believe that six out of 10 colleagues are involved in an intimate relationship"

There's a world of difference between "have had" and "are involved in"!

(I'm also not keen on swapping between "60%" and "six out of 10", but that's a different issue...)

Schumacher to 'quickly surpass' Mansell's age

Gingerous has written in with some interesting comments on a recent BBC Sport article called 'Michael Schumacher targets F1 title with Mercedes team'. Here's the particular par he refers to:

Schumacher is the oldest driver to compete in F1 since Nigel Mansell made a brief comeback in 1994, also at the age of 41 - and the German will quickly surpass the Englishman's age as the year progresses.

And here's what Gingerous has to say:

Two things popped into my head when I read this - firstly, can you quickly surpass an age? Surely we all age at the same rate.

Secondly, technically he won't surpass Nigel Mansell's age since at the time of writing this Nigel Mansell is still alive and with us and currently 56.

Obviously this is just me being pedantic and the article does make sense.

As everyone ages at the same rate, I agree that the word 'quickly' is a bit of a strange choice. Perhaps the writer means 'soon'? And 'as the year progresses' also sounds odd to me. Perhaps it would be better to tell us exactly when Schumacher will become the oldest driver ever to compete in F1.

'Time for cupid to get pratical'

Here's the start of a recent email newsletter from DIY Kyoto:




Whoops.

As part of my job, I sign off a weekly e-newsletter that gets sent out to around 20,000 people. The thought of missing a typo in the headline brings me out in a cold sweat.

(It'll probably happen next week now I've said that.)

'Never reply to unexpected emails'

As part of my job I've recently had to take an online training course on data privacy and security. The section 'Best practices for combating pretexting and phishing attempts' contained this useful piece of advice:




Many of the work-related emails I receive, particularly those from our customers or users, are "unexpected". If I never replied to them, my data would be safe but my job wouldn't...

£10 eye test voucher

When I went shopping in Morrisons recently I was given a "£10 eye test voucher":


That's nice - but I don't know whether the voucher gets me an eye test for £10 or just £10 off an eye test.

Of course, if a Specsavers eye test ordinarily costs £20, then it makes no difference.