Pay less: get more – the vagaries of Boots’ pricing

Nick Parkhouse | August 31, 2011 - 12:08 pm

I’ve been into Boots this week to get some photographs developed.  Choosing their 24 hour service, I selected the photos I wanted by using their little touchscreen machine.

Now, there were quite a lot of pictures that I needed and once I was finished, I noted that I’d chosen 119 photos at a total cost of £17.85 (a 6” X 4” photo cost 15p).

It was a bit more than I wanted to pay, so I glanced at the price list to see if there was a cheaper option.  It was then I noticed their ‘super saver’ offer.  This offer boasted a reduced charge of 5p per print if I ordered more 200 photos or more.

I looked at the price list and did a bit of mental arithmetic in my head.  It doesn’t take Carol Vorderman to work out that 200 photos at 5p each costs, er, £10.  I puzzled this for a moment, and then added a further 81 prints to my order (mostly duplicates of existing photos that I’d chosen which I didn’t really want).

Sure enough, when I’d selected 200 photos, my total bill came to £10.  So, I completed my order, took my receipt and will be heading to pick them up later this week.

I’m still utterly perplexed by this pricing policy.

I’d have been happy to pay 5p a photo for my 119 prints.  Hell, I’d have been happy to pay £10 for the 119 prints that I wanted.  But no – to get this price I had to order 81 additional photographs which, frankly, I may as well lob in the bin as soon as I pick them up.

I do understand reducing the ‘per unit’ cost to encourage people to spend more money.  However, shouldn’t the point of such pricing be to increase my total spend, not decrease it?  For example, if I’d been offered the 200 prints for, say, £20, I may well have paid the additional £2.15 to benefit from a better deal.  But, to save £7.85 by ordering 81 additional photos seems utterly bizarre.

66 photos at their price of 15p costs £9.90.  Between 67 and 199 photos costs you somewhere between £10.05 and £29.85.  Then, the cost of 200 photos reduces to £10.  Indeed, 596 photos would actually cost less than 199 photos using this pricing policy.

Anyone explain this to me? Clearly there aren’t huge economies of scale to be had by ordering a larger number of prints.  How can I order nearly 70% more product and reduce my total spend by 44%?

Bonkers.

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The Quandary Of Examples

Nick Parkhouse | August 25, 2011 - 12:37 pm

Providing examples of your work is nothing new in business.

Drive through any housing estate and you’re likely to see signs adjacent to beautifully paved driveways, well appointed extensions and beautifully coiffured lawns by companies proud to show off their work.  And, I suppose that if you were planning to have your loft converted then you might have a peek at your chosen builder’s most recent job to check that rainwater isn’t streaming down the wall of the en-suite.

And, not unreasonably, when I speak to new clients many of them ask me to point them in the direction of websites I have written or ask me to e-mail them examples of my work.  You’ve probably had to do the same thing at some point.

What I am increasingly wary of, however, are clients who, after a meeting or conversation, then provide me with a couple of topics and ask me to write something specifically for them.  The argument is always that they want to be sure I can write the copy they need before they employ my services.

Now, this happened to me a week or two ago and I spent a good part of one morning coming up with some dedicated copy for a client.  This followed a telephone conversation, a meeting and the provision of some links to websites and pieces I had written in the past.

In the misguided assumption that I was imminently to be hired, I duly provided some copy.  Then, two days later, I received a message thanking me but telling me that they ‘were interviewing other people’ and that they would be in touch.

This whole episode has put me off writing any specific examples for clients again.  Should I provide my time for free?  I’m not sure.  If I wanted my car MOT’d, I wouldn’t ask the garage to change the oil filter for me first just so I could double check they did a decent job, would I?

So, what do you do in this situation?  Are you happy to provide sample copy? Or, do you refer clients to work you have previously concluded and ask clients to make their decision based on these examples?  I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below.

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10 Writing Errors That Make You Want To Poke Your Own Eyes Out

Nick Parkhouse | August 3, 2011 - 9:00 am

You don’t have to be a copywriter or author to be annoyed by hideous grammatical and spelling mistakes.  If you’re like me, you can’t help yourself but cringe at horrible written blunders, even when you’re out in town on a Sunday afternoon.

Now, I don’t profess to be completely right all of the time.  I use too many commas and I daresay I have used ‘inquire’ and ‘enquire’ wrongly more than once.  However, these ten errors are those which I – and many of you – have identified as the ones which make you want to poke your own eyes out.

Whose? Yours or theirs?

A friend of mine posted this photograph to Twitter last week with the caption ‘leaving cake fail!’

Now, I suppose this related to the rather sarcastic tone of the message, however for me (and no doubt many of you reading this) the ‘fail’ could only relate to one thing.

It’s not that there’s a missing question mark at the end of ‘Justin who….’ but rather the ‘sorry your leaving’ at the top.

Man alive.  Your, you’re. Their, there, they’re.  Who’s, whose?  All regular errors and when they occur, it’s like hearing someone scrape their fingernails down a blackboard.

(thanks also to @PenStar_words for this suggestion)

Making nouns out of words that aren’t nouns

Over recent years, the English language appears to be evolving to invent nouns that aren’t actually nouns.

I first encountered this phenomenon on an East Midlands Trains service to London.  Having bought a first class ticket (I know. How bourgeois) the train person came wandering up the aisle with a basket of biscuits and assorted other goodies.  On arriving at my table, she asked me ‘if I’d like any complimentaries?’

What’s a ‘complimentary’?  Yes, I’ll have some complimentary biscuits, but I won’t have a complimentary, ta, as that word clearly doesn’t exist.

I also noticed the other week that people have started sending out ‘invites’ to events.  Again, I was aware I could invite someone to a party, but not that I could send them an invite.  Silly me.  I have been sending invitations all this time.

Do you have any more examples of nouns that aren’t nouns?

Apostrophised plurals

If you have more than one of something, it a) doesn’t indicate a missing letter or b) suggest someone owns it.

In fact, if you’re pluralising something, you don’t need an apostrophe at all.  If in doubt, stick an ‘s’ on the end.  Or, alternatively, why not use a dictionary to look it up?

(thanks to @TheStevenThomas for this one)

Shoulda, woulda, coulda

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda warbled Beverley Knight as she reached the top ten with this hit back in 2002.  At least Bev had the idea to shorten the three phrases into some sort of daft urban slang, rather than calling the song Should Of, Would Of, Could Of which, I imagine, is what most people would call it today.

It’s ‘should have’ and ‘could have’, people.  Or, if you really want, ‘should’ve’ and ‘could’ve’.

(thanks to @TheWordWell)

I AM QUITE SERIOUS

Again, this is a relatively new phenomenon.  As @PenStar_Words says: “What really makes me cringe is when someone’s writing something angry/defensive/righteously indignant and to get the point across, they make it full of spelling, punctuation and grammar errors and in all capitals.”

It can’t be just me that finds that when someone is talking to you online with their CAPS LOCK on it MAKES IT SOUND AS IF THEY ARE YELLING DOWN A MEGAPHONE AT YOU?  Did Caitlin Moran start this with her ‘SCREAM!’ style of Twittering?  Or did someone accidentally write in capitals one day and realised it so upset their readers that capital letters are the new SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF YOUR VOICE?

Either way, yuk. STOP. NOW.

Every now and than

It’s important that you use the right word, as the meanings of some are different than others.  (You know the noise you make when you rub polystyrene pieces against one another?  That.)

It’s different from, not different than.

Similarly, I’ve seen people use ‘then’ instead of ‘than’.  “We had more problems then they did.”  Did you?  Did you really?

Isn’t it funny! Yes! Everything’s funny!

I have lost count of the websites I have helped rewrite where one of the first steps I have taken is to ask the company to remove all the exclamation marks from their copy.

Come and buy our new products! You’ll get a special discount! 10%!

Your website isn’t the script for an episode of Are You Being Served? It’s supposed to be a serious marketing tool promoting your products and services.  If you have something good to say, be bold and say it.  Don’t hide behind an exclamation mark.

I dreamt a dream

As a wise man once said, “steer clear of incorrect verb forms that have snuck into the language.”

Whether they are entirely incorrect is open to debate (lots are more commonly used in American English) but I don’t much care for them.  I still think Susan Boyle should have dreamt a dream, not dreamed one.  Have I spelled her name right, or spelt it right?

Sometimes, they get even more bizarre.  I have seen the past participle of ‘bring’ as ‘bought’ and the past participle of ‘light’ as ‘lighted’.

Mind you, I have had arguments with people about the past participle of ‘earn’.  People often assume that it follows the same pattern as ‘learn/learnt’, although I have to say I don’t consider ‘earnt’ a word (and neither does my spellchecker).

Checking it, it’s apparently ‘non-standard’ rather than incorrect.  Still, I don’t like it.

Commerical mistakes

If you Google the word ‘commerical’ you get about 69,700,000 results.  Need I say more?

(thanks to @yourmindandwe for that one)

‘Fresh’ and ‘new’

Billy Connolly once performed a routine where he poked fun at people that make quotation marks with their fingers when speaking.  We’ve all done it; normally, in my experience, for the word we use following the adjective ‘so-called’.

Well, this trend seems to have crossed over into written language.  It’s not uncommon now to see people describing their products and services as ‘brilliant’ and ‘cheap’.  You don’t have to put these adjectives in quotation marks – we do know what they mean.

Still. Perhaps I’m just being ‘picky’.

_______________________________________

So, come on then.  What are your pet writing/grammar hates?  Are there any from the above list particularly bug you, or are there other mistakes that make you die inside….?  Please let me know in the comments below (and please do correct the ironic mistakes I am bound to have made in a post about written errors…)

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Is Twitter Too Big?

Nick Parkhouse | July 18, 2011 - 12:24 pm

Have you ever had your Twitter feed throttled by the sheer volume of tweets being posted on a particular topic?

Well, it seems that a new Twitter record has been set this week. The social networking service has confirmed that the Women’s World Cup Final has become the most tweeted event in the site’s five year history.

The Guardian reports that ‘the dramatic end to the women’s final, as Japan equalised with three minutes of extra-time remaining and went on to win on penalties, produced a record 7,196 tweets per second (TPS).’

Shortly after, a new second place record was set for ‘tweets per second’ as the Copa America quarter final between Brazil and Paraguay – again resulting in a surprise defeat for the favourites – resulted in 7,166 TPS.
The previous record was set on New Year’s Eve in Japan in 2010 which hit 6,939 TPS at its peak. The 2011 Super Bowl saw 4,064 TPS while the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge saw 3,966 TPS at its peak.

Keeping up with your Twitter feed is increasingly a struggle

With a couple of hundred people in my ‘following’ list on Twitter, there’s no denying that my enjoyment of major events has been enhanced over recent months by the additional comment in my Twitter feed. Tweets about the Royal Wedding, the Eurovision Song Contest and the recent News of the World scandal have all made me chuckle as they have popped up in my timeline.

However, despite having a regular cull of people I follow (come on – we all do it!) I still find myself following more and more people as time goes on. Friends, copywriting colleagues, celebrities, sportspeople, local businesses, Nottingham listings/guides/tourism and musicians are all amongst the people I follow, and I’m broadly interested in all they have to say.

With 600,000 new users signing up to Twitter daily, has it already reached the stage where trying to keep tabs of what is going on is too difficult and sharing large events through a hashtag is pointless? At its peak the Women’s World Cup Final was producing over 400,000 tweets a minute. I don’t know about you, but with just a couple of hundred people in my feed I’m already starting to struggle to keep up as it is.

Is it time for Twitter to develop to make it easy to manage our feed? And, are the growing numbers of people sharing their thoughts about major world events (or football matches) contributing to a shared sense of global community? Or, are we at the stage where the volume of tweets is simply too high for Twitter to be valuable anymore?

Join the conversation – I’d love to hear your thoughts below.

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Elision decision

Nick Parkhouse | May 12, 2011 - 1:46 pm

A couple of weeks ago, I was working on a short piece on behalf of a fellow copywriter and good friend of mine.  I’d been asked to provide a basic introduction to VAT that was going in a newsletter for an accountancy firm.

So, I did some research and came up with a piece that we both agreed perfectly suited their requirements.

Before sending it to the client, however, I got this note from my colleague.  “Just what I was looking for.  I’ve taken out as many brackets as I can to help it flow and I have included a few more elisions.”

Now, I appreciate I’m reasonably new to this industry but I had never heard the term ‘elision’ before.  So, I headed online for a definition.

Elision: From the Latin elisio meaning “a striking out.” The omission of a vowel or silent consonant at the beginning or in the middle of a word (example: you’ve for you have or ne’er for never), or the omission of a vowel, consonant, or syllable in the pronunciation of a word or phrase. In orthography, the omission is indicated by an apostrophe.

So, can’t, shan’t, you’ve, we’ll, it’s – all elisions (and some are contractions, but I’m not going to start trying to get to the bottom of which is which here).

Ease of reading vs word count

Any student who has handed in essays or dissertations will know that avoiding elisions is the oldest trick in the book.  And, when writing pieces with a specified word count it’s easy to use “we will” rather than “we’ll”.  It’s twice as many words for your efforts, obviously.

However, I had never really considered before that contracted versions of phrases might actually be easier to read.  In the piece I had provided, subtle changes such as using “it’s a tax…” and “if you’re a VAT registered business…” had replaced my original text.

Which is best?

As with any sort of copywriting, the tone is often determined by the target audience, the client’s requirements and countless other different factors.  However, having never considered the notion copy which uses “you’re”, “we’ll”, “don’t” and “it’s” is easier to read and more personal, I now wonder whether that should be the norm rather than the exception.

What’s your approach?  Do you automatically use elisions in your work, or only when the job demands them?  lease let me know what you think in the comments below.  I’d be really grateful for your advice and input.

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The Man With The Midas Touch

Nick Parkhouse | January 31, 2011 - 10:07 pm

Before Christmas, I read this excellent blog post by fellow copywriter Mike Fleming. In it, Mike talks about how interesting his work had become in 2010, and how he had become ‘lucky enough to work on projects that encompass my actual interests and pursuits’.

I’m certainly not at that stage and, I suspect, many of us will never be as fortunate as Mike. However, that’s not to say that every day of work is filled with boring, awful grind and no fun.

One of my earliest jobs – which continues today – was to write a series of researched, informed articles about the music of James Bond. At the time I imagine I felt much like I imagine Mike does now. Being paid? To write about James Bond? It seemed almost too good to be true.

I am now fifteen soundtracks into the job. Fifteen superb film scores that I have immersed myself in, listened to dozens of times, researched and analysed. Like any kid of my age, I was brought up with James Bond and I’ve always been a massive fan of both Fleming’s books and the twenty two 007 films. I also was familiar with the theme songs, but listening to the full orchestral soundtracks has been an absolute joy. Rich, powerful and beautiful; the soundtracks are far, far more than the theme songs we all know and love.

Of course, the world was saddened this weekend by the sudden death of John Barry; a man who will forever be intrinsically linked with the iconic Bond music. Barry scored eleven James Bond films (as well as countless other motion pictures and TV series) and created, in my humble opinion, some of the most spectacularly brilliant movie music of all time. Diamonds are Forever is Steven Spielberg’s favourite movie theme. Born Free won two Oscars. And, We Have All The Time In The World is, apparently, the UK’s third favourite wedding song.

A couple of weeks ago, after interviewing one of my all time favourite singer/songwriters, I remarked on Twitter that I was three fifths of the way to interviewing my musical heroes. Whilst I may still get the opportunity to speak with Steve Winwood, the chance of an interview with Barry is now gone.

Genius is a word that is used far too frequently in this day and age, but that’s precisely what Barry was. I hope that in years to come his output will come to be seen as the ‘classical’ music of his generation – perhaps not the theme to The Persuaders (!) but certainly some of his beautiful work on Dances with Wolves, Out of Africa and the Bond series.

I have been lucky enough to be on the BBC twice today to talk about Barry and his music. Indeed, the local station clipped up my comments and used them on their hourly news when reporting Barry’s death. These appearances and the writing of the Bond articles have barely felt like work. If that’s how Mike feels every day, that’s a goal worth striving for.

You can read my articles on the James Bond soundtracks here.

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The Mary Poppins Guide to Copywriting

Nick Parkhouse | January 12, 2011 - 12:08 pm

For forty five years, children and adults alike have been spellbound by the story of the world’s favourite nanny, Mary Poppins.  While the main purpose of her flying visit (pun intended) was to repair the fractured relationship between Jane and Michael Banks and their uptight, stuffy father, the supernanny also taught the children important lessons about priorities, how to behave and, of course, the basics of copywriting.

Well, I can’t be sure the last bit is exactly what P.L. Travers or Walt Disney intended, but, you have to admit, Poppins was something of a copywriting guru.

A Spoonful Of Sugar

For every task that must be done, there is an element of fun.  It’s not a song about cleaning up the nursery; it is one of the basic rules of copywriting.  You have to give the reader a personal benefit.

A spoonful of sugar in itself doesn’t sound all that appealing.  Even if it were described as an ‘award winning spoonful of sugar from a company that’s been in business 35 years’ it still doesn’t really offer you anything of any value.

However, a spoonful of sugar that will help you by making your medicine go down?  Now you’re talking.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

If you say it loud enough, you’ll always sound precocious.  Wise words, indeed.  Copywriting isn’t a game of ‘spot how clever you are’ – it is a game of making people understand what you are saying.

You might know that your product is a great tasting beverage; to others it’s merely a drink.  You might want to purchase or acquire something; most of us just buy it.  And, you might be offering customers the very best ‘flexible, reusable storage solution’ but a four year old will tell you that it is just a cardboard box.

If you are writing a University essay or something for the Financial Times, then let your vocabulary run riot.  If not, the sound of ii will be something quite atrocious.

Stay Awake/I Love to Laugh

Copy is not designed as a cure for insomnia.    It is supposed to engage readers; to make them interested and excited about your product or service.  Too many websites contain long, boring descriptions of product features that are neither customer focused or in the slightest bit interesting.

Make your copy snappy, personal, amiable and, in some cases, funny.  The more you laugh, the more you fill with glee; the more the glee, the more we’re a merrier we.

A British Bank

…is run with precision (well, at least it was in 1910, perhaps not so much today).  A British home, requires nothing less.  And, of course, a copywriting agency also requires accuracy and precision.

Tradition, discipline, and rules must be the tools, without them – disorder! Catastrophe! Anarchy! In short, we have a ghastly mess!

Make sure that you double and triple check all your work before letting a client see it.  Proof read and spell check it – and even get a colleague to have a look over it to pick up on any errors that you might have missed.  If a client finds a mistake in your work, your integrity is instantly damaged as they will immediately wonder what other blunders they haven’t spotted.

So, follow all of Poppins’ rules and both you and your clients will be happy.  They will improve their web traffic and sales, and you will be free to, oh, I don’t know – go fly a kite?  Feed the birds, maybe…?

……………………………………………

Nick Parkhouse is a professional writer. If you need web copy, articles, books or press releases, get in touch with Nick now at info@nickparkhouse.com

Nick’s first book, 101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s, is also now available through Author House, Amazon and Waterstones.

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The Top 10 Words Of 2010

Nick Parkhouse | November 30, 2010 - 2:26 pm

What are the defining words of 2010?

The Oxford University Press comes up with a ‘word of the year’ every year.  Expanded in recent years to include short phrases, ‘Big Society’ was last week announced as the word of 2010, following in the footsteps of ‘jegging’ ‘bovvered’, ‘staycation’ and ‘credit crunch’ as recent winners.

So, what ten words best describe 2010?  Here’s my list.

1. Austerity

If there was one watchword for 2010, this was it.  In economic terms, ‘austerity’ is where a government reduces its spending or increases its revenue to cut a budget deficit.  However, in more general terms, ‘austerity’ refers to a ‘period of self-denial’ and that is more telling a definition of a term that has affected millions of us this year.

From the Government’s economic policy to falling retail sales, a reluctance to spend money has defined 2010.

2. Like

It happened this week.  My six year old, for the first time, inserted a completely unnecessary ‘like’ into a sentence.  “I was, like, ‘stop it!’”.

‘Like’ is everywhere (and, not just as one of a set of binary choices you have to respond to the gazillion things you read on Facebook every year).  Its superfluous use in conversation is getting worse and, like, amazing.  It seems to have replaced a plethora of other great and less vanilla words/terms such as ‘admire’, ‘respect’, ‘fancy’ and ‘was amused by’.

“I like him.”  What exactly does that mean? Do you enjoy his music? Are you inspired by him?  Do you fancy him?  Do you respect his views on capital punishment?

The campaign starts here.  ‘Like’ has to go.

3. Coalition

Plenty of democratic, progressive and successful countries have been governed by coalitions.  New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden and Canada have long managed perfectly successfully with governments made up from more than one political party.

However, 2010 was the year that the UK got a coalition.  The way it was reported, you’d have thought the world was going to end (and, to be fair, it still might).  Whatever your political views on the surprising constituent parts of the ruling elite, 2010 was the year that the ‘government’ became the ‘coalition government’.

4. Twitter

2010 was the year that Twitter firmly landed in the mainstream.  Far from being a personal network for the world’s Justin Bieber fans, Twitter not only made the news but also helped create the news.

2010 was the year that news stories became generated by tweets (Stephen Fry throwing a strop and leaving, for example), the news started including tweets in its analysis (not a good sign, clearly) and Twitter itself became the centre of a major court ruling affecting freedom of speech and terrorism.

The new MySpace, or something more enduring?

5. Bigot

Arguably the defining moment of the 2010 General Election, Gordon Brown’s ‘bigot’ gaffe was one of the highest profile political cock-ups in recent memory.

Whilst the word might be associated with Brown for the foreseeable future, the fact that I played the PM in a spoof video of the event (as a video competition entry) means I have heard the word ‘bigot’ hundreds upon hundreds of times in the last few months….

6. Cuts

It’s all we have heard since the government were elected.  The books were worse than expected, so we all have to shoulder cuts.  Hundreds and thousands of millions of pounds worth of cuts.

Expect it to be the word of 2011.  And 2012.  And 2013….

7. Puffle

OK, so this is a bit of a personal one.  However, if you have a child aged between six and ten, you will probably know what I mean.

Club Penguin is the Disney Corporation’s World of Warcraft for kids.  Fiendishly addictive, colourful and fun (and magnificently parodied in Chris Morris’ Four Lions) the online game has been a staple in our household most of this year.

And puffles? Furry coloured pets of the penguins.  Get with the program.

8. Vuvuzela

If you’re a football fan, you probably spent most of June and July sitting at home with the noise of a swarm of angry bees emanating from your television.  The advent of the vuvuzela – the musical instrument of choice for this summer’s World Cup – was seen as either a magical part of incorporating local culture into the World Cup or the second most annoying thing at the tournament (Adrian Chiles, before you ask.)

My favourite vuvuzela story involved standing in a large pedestrian queue to get into the Glastonbury festival.  A guy in front of me had a vuvuzela attached to his rucksack and I complimented him on bringing the topical instrument to a Somerset field.

“That’s not my real vuvuzela,” he admitted.  “That’s my travel vuvuzela….”

9. Heroes

There’s no such thing as a role model, a talented sportsperson or a soldier any more.  There are only ‘heroes’.  Quite when this unnecessary hyperbole became acceptable – our forces do a brilliant job abroad but are by no means all ‘heroes’ in the traditional sense of the word – I am not sure.  However, it’s tough to ignore this omnipresent term – it’s even the name of the current UK number One single.

10. En-ger-land

Why do we do it to ourselves?  Every four years, we get completely carried away when an International Football Tournament comes around and we go into a major competition with the belief that this time, we might just win it.  It’s a bit like people that get married half a dozen times – the triumph of hope over expectation and previous experience.

This year was, arguably, even worse.  Eng-er-land were the third favourites (the THIRD FAVOURITES!) to win the 2010 World Cup which made our spectacular fall from grace even harder to bear.  We scored two goals (Matthew Upson finishing as England’s joint top goalscorer tells its own tale), failed to beat either the USA or Algeria and went out a round earlier than everyone’s worst case scenario.

England’s rugby league team were once again largely hopeless and our rugby union team (the Australia results excepted) were also pretty dreadful for most of 2010 (anyone who watched the Calcutta Cup match will recall it was arguably the worst international rugby match of all time).  It was, yet again, another terrible year for Eng-er-land’s sports teams, and only a good performance down under in the Ashes can truly rescue our sporting pride.

__________________________

So, there are my top 10 words of 2010.  Any that you agree or disagree with?  What words would you put on the list?

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Twitter Joke Trial Book Auction

Nick Parkhouse | November 25, 2010 - 11:59 am

Twitter Joke Trial auction

Come on then, folks. Let’s help Paul Chambers quash his preposterous conviction. If you didn’t know, the case is on its way to the High Court and many people are trying to raise cash to help Paul with his legal challenge.

So, to help the trial fund, I’ll auction a signed, dedicated copy of my book, 101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s.

You can find out what the book is all about here.

It actually does make a great Christmas pressie for anyone who likes their 80s pop music. And, I’ll write whatever message you like in order that it’s personalised for you.

If you’d like to bid, please leave a comment below with what you’re prepared to pay. Highest bid by 5pm on Friday 3rd December will win, and I will donate all the proceeds to the Twitter Joke Trial fund.

Happy bidding!

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Green Eggs and Ham

Nick Parkhouse | November 15, 2010 - 4:39 pm

Every time my six year old daughter comes for the weekend or holidays, we read a bedtime story. She gets to choose from her bookcases full of stories but, more often than not, she’ll pick one of our 15 or so Dr Seuss books.

It’s not surprising that she eschews lots of other books in favour of Dr Seuss. They are colourful, fun, entertaining and fantastical. I have a soft spot for If I Ran The Circus and Oh! The Thinks You Can Think whilst her favourites are the oddball Wacky Wednesday, the superb Dr Seuss’ Sleep Book and the bizarre I Wish That I Had Duck Feet.

To be fair, they are all brilliant (with the possible exception of Oh, The Places You’ll Go which appears to have been written during a serious bout of depression. Unlike his other jaunty, nonsensical rhyming genius, Oh, The Places You’ll Go is super dark.)

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

Ahem.

Anyway, to the point of this post. In no way chosen to mark its fiftieth birthday, Saturday night’s choice was the 1960 Green Eggs and Ham. You know the one:

That Sam-I-am. That Sam-I-am. I do not like that Sam-I-am.
Do you like green eggs and ham?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham.

I must have read this book a dozen times or more. Previously, I always assumed that the book was about Sam-I-am’s attempt to make the other character eat his green eggs and his ham. However, I noticed on Saturday that this is not actually the case….

Look at the picture carefully. The story isn’t about ‘green eggs’ and ‘ham’ at all. It is actually about ‘green eggs’ and ‘green ham’.

Frankly, the hue of the ham isn’t central to the development of the story (without giving too much away, the character eventually gives in, tries the green eggs and ham, and discovers that he likes them after all, Sam-I-am.)

What got me thinking was how you could structure the title of the story to more accurately describe the fare on offer. And, despite some serious musing on the matter, I can’t work out how you would do it. Calling the book Green Eggs and Green Ham is more accurate, but it completely destroys the way the whole book scans. Then, I got thinking about parenthesis and punctuation. Is it Green Eggs, and Ham? Green, Eggs and Ham? Green Eggs (and Ham)? Green (Eggs and Ham)?

And, ultimately, I couldn’t work it out. So, what’s the answer? Fifty years on, how should Dr Seuss have titled the book in order to help a 37 year old understand that his ham was as green as his eggs?

Join the conversation now – leave your suggestions below…

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