The British Broadcasting Corporation, that stalwart upholder of all things British (albeit maybe a little too leftwing at the moment even if not actually flying The red Flag) is intent it seems as everybody else in business and governance in mutilating the English language. It has advertised three jobs as: ‘a category manager’, ‘a content release co-ordinator’ and ‘a release manager, core services’ to which I can only say what on earth do they mean? The Guardian is usually full of job adverts like this. Nobody can speak plain English anymore, leastwise not those in a position where they feel insecure and need to show their education and intelligence by inventing gobbledygook. ‘You don’t know what I mean? Oh, dear! And I always thought you had a little more intelligence than that. Tut tut.’ So what job description would the BBC dredge up for someone who really makes a fabulous balls up? Some years ago a member of staff I believe wiped the tape of a very special one-off star-studded opera production thereby losing it for good. I remember doing a TV commercial once, I think it was for ‘Three Nuns’ tobacco and it was being shot a few miles out of town at some sports field. There we all were, shivering at seven in the morning only to find someone had forgotten to bring the film. There’s an old joke about shooting the blowing up of the bridge in ‘Bridge On The River Kwai.’ Because it could only happen once, David Lean the director used three cameras all in different positions. On action the bridge was duly blown up and he rushed to his first camera and said, ‘Did you get it? Did you get it? And the camera operator said, ‘Sorry, Mister Lean, I didn’t know it but the clapper-loader hadn’t done his job properly and the film jammed’ So Lean rushed off to his second camera. ‘Did get it? Did you get it?’ ‘Sorry Mister Lean just as we were about to shoot the camera tipped right over in the mud.’ So he rushed off to his third camera. ‘Did you get it? Did you get it?’ And the operator with a big smile and a thumbs up said. ‘Ready when you are, Mister Lean.’ Okay, so it didn’t really happen but what reminded me of it is that the Beeb, or the production company concerned, has just produced ‘Room At The Top’ and would have broadcast it if the lawyers…wait for it… hadn’t suddenly found out that nobody had thought to apply for the rights and came down like wolves on the fold. Now that is a momentous balls up. Give it a job description. It was probably the release manager- core services wot ought to have dun it and, having failed so to do, the release co-ordinator had to abort the release.

Evidently an empty shelf at a Tesco store displays a card that reads ‘Availability problem.’ What happened to good old-fashioned ‘Out of Stock’? It’s like the Chief Constable of North Wales who referred to a motor horn as ‘an audible warning instrument.’ You’ve just got to laugh, hey? Soon there won’t be any policemen at all, they will be forever addressed as ‘crime prevention officers.’ That’s as good as rat catchers being called ‘rodent operatives.’ Hey ho, what a merry old carry on! Quote – It’s a mad mad world, my masters – unquote. In modern PC parlance replace ‘mad’ with ‘mentally challenged.’