mostly david ephgrave

Clinton Cards recently rebranded themselves to Simply Clintons. In doing so, they made their name more complicated than it was in the first place. Not affiliated to Mick Hucknall. You used to know what they sold. It was there in the title. Now, in an attempt to streamline their corporate identity and clarify their position in the market place, they've dropped the one word that explained what they did and kept the one that didn’t. They’ve created more confusion in exactly the same word-count. That’s not an improvement. If anything, they should have called themselves 'Cards'. That would be simpler . Perhaps they're trying to be more like M&S Simply Food. Maybe they thought Simply Clintons sounded classier. Simply Food works because it’s a subsidiary to Marks and Spencer's main store. That’s not the case with Clintons. Also, who or what is this Clinton? Are they the proprietor? If so, there should be an apostrophe between the N...

There is no quicker way to weaken a jokey statement than using an exclamation mark! See, I told you. For me, exclamation marks are akin to wearing a novelty tie or t-shirt; seldom justified and the 'joke' wears thin almost as soon as it's started. It's not that they don't have their place (if I was trapped down a mineshaft I'd probably use one) - but that place isn't at the end of an amusing sentence.   Doing this usually suggests you’ve lost faith in your own sense of humour, and have tacked on some rogue punctuation last-minute to hammer the point home ; “Look, Mum. I’M BEING FUNNY ”. You might as well have attached an MP3 of a swanee whistle, or a short GIF of you shrugging at the camera. (I know all my computer terminology.) If Michael McIntyre was a punctuation point he’d be an exclamation mark: a big, fat one in Comic Sans.   Sometimes, if I’m writing a text or an email to someone who doesn’t know me very well, then th...