I like the Elton John stuff - but tonight his Buck House live renditions were nowt like.Crap vocals and delivery.

Is that what patronage does for you?
I'm going back to watch the Simpsons and Family Guy.
Long live sycophancy - for Rolf Harris' case.

Shame about the demise of the Queen's English Society
........."The Queen's English Society, which has railed against the misuse and deterioration of the English language, is to fold.

For 40 years the society has championed good English – and hasn't been above the occasional criticism of the Monarch's own standards of speech – but has finally conceded it cannot survive in the era of text speak and Twitter.

Having attempted to identify a role for the society and its magazine Quest "for the next 40 years", chairman Rhea Williams decided it was time to close down.

She announced the demise of the organisation in a terse message to members after the annual meeting, which just 22 people attended.

"Despite the sending out of a request for nominations for chairman, vice-chairman, administrator, web master, and membership secretary no one came forward to fill any role," (BBC News)

God help us if this lot on stage tonight are to be our mentors. Imagine Spenser's Gloriana rapping out this crap.

And there's more
The closure followed a setback this year when the society's plans for an Academy of Contemporary English collapsed. One of the society's biggest achievements was in helping to shape the spelling, punctuation and grammar elements of English in the national curriculum.

Queen's English Society: common complaints

* Missing and wrongly used apostrophes

* Overuse of exclamation marks

* Adjectives used as adverbs

* 'More' used with the comparative. Eg more sweeter

* Incorrect forms of verbs, eg snuck (as in 'snuck in').

* American spell checks

* Failure to start sentences with a capital letter and end them with a full point.

* Misspelling of common words

* Confusion between same-sounding words – their/there licence/license

* Misuse of semicolons

We owed a lot to Prut in this respect. Plus in my case more still to Wilbur.

Or despite a grammar school education - we don't care anymore! In our society, CASH is king.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1952-60

Current location (optional) Nirvana

Terry, could I point out that sentences should end with a full stop. Perhaps you meant, in Prut's words, "a sentence is a complete expression of a thought."

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-61

Current location (optional) Blue Mountains, Australia via Haworth

Time was when Prut and the QES had an ally in the BBC.
Now we are told such things as "Next up we go to John Simpson who is presently in ........". Aaaaaaargh.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

The Jubilee is a celebration of mediocrity.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 55-60

"Defence of the accurate use of words is not mere pedantry. Communication is fragile when those who care little, and understand less, use our vocabulary with indifference we are all losers. We should resist accommodating the arrogance of approximate verbal skills"
From a letter in the "i" today.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 55-60

Is this posted with the BBC commentary on the Jubilee flotilla in mind when the queen was described as easily "pickoutable"?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1952-60

Current location (optional) Nirvana

I thought the BBC coverage of the river pageant was lamentable.
I'll bet the guy who made those 'thrones' for the Queen and Philip to sit on is annoyed, they were never used !

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

It very possibly would have been had I taken the trouble to watch it, Terry!