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Your support makes all the difference.Welcome to dressdown Friday, our survey of some of the noteworthy - if not important - goings-on of the past week.
My first thought is that the makers of Ronseal (or rather their advertising agency) have a lot to answer for, as they are responsible for introducing into common discourse a truly horrible phrase, one that makes me shudder whenever I hear it. You know what it is, you will have heard contestants on The Apprentice say it, and you may even have used it yourself. Nevertheless, I expected more from the man in charge of building London's Olympic Park. He was being interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme and, explaining why the project was on time and on budget, said this: "The British construction industry did what it says on the tin." Let's ignore the mangled metaphor for a moment, because, in my experience, the tin that the British construction industry comes in says: late, over-budget, unreliable, and I'm sorry I didn't turn up yesterday but my mother-in-law was taken ill. There should be a pressure group, like the Campaign for Plain English, to draw attention to these awful, over-used phrases. "Going forward" and "we are where we are" (sometimes used in conjunction) are two other examples. (Talking of bad English, I was on a plane in America recently, and the stewardess informed us that "we would be in the air momentarily". "Excuse me," I said, "do you think it's possible for us to be in the air a little longer?") On the subject of being brought to earth, I was interested to read that John Yates (pictured) - the policeman who resigned over the Met's handling of the phone-hacking affair - was given a send-off by his colleagues of unprecedented warmth and respect. I'm not wholly surprised. I hold a very unfashionable view that, in this farrago, Yates is more victim than villain. I am happy to explain my reasons at a later date if you'd like. And finally, the week's least surprising news: anthropologists at Oxford University have conclusive proof that people from the North have bigger brains than their Southern counterparts. Apparently, it's to do with the weather: the effect of peering through all that Northern mist and gloom exercises the brain, and, like any muscle, it bulks up. So a huge thank you to the scientists. We always knew we were brainier. We just didn't know why. Ta-ra!
Simon Kelner is Editor-in-Chief of The Independent, The Independent on Sunday and i
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