Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth is back. Mondays at 11.00pm, Tuesdays at 4.30pm. The competition we're running this series is called 'There Ought To Be A Name For It' and it's about coming up with word for some aspect of everyday life that doesn't have a word to describe it. So, for example, we don't have a word for those little bits of plastic that you get when you buy a shirt or a jumper, the ones you have to snip off or it'll end up sticking in your neck. Someone suggested it should be called a 'teg'. John Lloyd who wrote 'The Meaning of Liff' with Douglas Adams (author of 'The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and is the person who devised 'QI' with Stephen Fry) suggested 'to birtle', meaning making something worse when you're trying to improve something. Anyway, if you fancy entering, make your way to the Word of Mouth website on the www.bbc.co.uk website and over to you. In the meantime, we're talking about rude words, words for and about diamonds ('Blood Diamonds' is doing very well at the box office at the mo) and words to think of for the centenary of the Boy Scouts movement. Dib dib dib and all that - though actually it's dyb, dyb, dyb...for a very good reason.

By the way, I found out that old Baden-Powell got some of the ideas for the Boy Scouts from a childhood hero of mine, Ernest Thompson Seton, who wrote wonderful animal stories. There was (and still is) some friction over whether BP 'borrowed' Seton's ideas without crediting him or whether it was all jolly cordial. Anyway, one tiny little detail from the story I found quite amusing: exactly 100 years ago, BP and Seton met up in London at the Savoy Hotel. Next time I go past the Savoy (probably on my way to Charing Cross Station and a school in Kent) I'll think of BP and ESP sitting in the Savoy saying, 'I invented it', 'No, I did', 'No, you didn't', 'Oh yes I did'...

You can find an interesting write-up here.