How to Dump Your Apostrophe

I know the Pitstop belongs to Moptop and that therefore, as a sign of possession, my blog should be entitled Moptop's Pitstop.

However, in losing this one, single, not-all-that-significant apostrophe (and, on my honour, I promise not to lose any more), I have also lost an ampersand, hash, zero, thirty-nine, semi-colon which - you must admit - is a mouthful in anyone's language. (Note how I kept my promise there).

The language that insists on using ampersand, hash, zero, thirty-nine, semi-colon instead of a perfectly simple apostrophe is, I believe, called HTML and a lot of fuss and nonsense it is too. On other bloggers' blogs, it wrote my blog title as MOPTOP & # 0 3 9 ; s Pitstop (only a bit more squashed).

Now, I am not known for my tidy, fastidious nature but you must admit that inserting arbitrary symbols, numbers and a semi-colon is taking things too far. If HTML can manage a semi-colon, then why not an apostrophe? It's almost the same. In fact, an apostrophe's even less bother as it doesn't have a dot.

I expect that if I had a semi-colon in my blog title - for example, Moptop; a mop with a top - or even a colon - Moptop: a mop with a top - HTML would have to further complicate matters by writing ampersand, hash, squiggly line, bracket, bracket, zero, ten, sixty-six (and all that), apostrophe - just to be awkward.

So, having clarified the situation, you can see the loss of this one apostrophe (a measly one at that) will not lead to the collapse of civilisation, the Internet or life as we know it. Though Lynne Truss might get a bit miffed.

Being Bad

Why does being bad feel so good?

At school being bad at hockey was liberating. (I once let in a goal because I was chatting to a defender about how much I hated the games teacher, but the goal was disallowed because it "had been hit from too far away" - ie. the opposite goal post). Being bad at maths meant I could torment the maths teacher. ("I'm sorry, Sir, but I just don't believe in negative numbers.")

Being bad at filing awarded me great satisfaction in a Commercial Estate Agents. I doubt whether they ever found the details for 76, Hillcrest Rise. Ha!

Occasionally - children, please note the occasionally - going to bed without brushing my teeth feels O! so rebellious.

Bad language - swearing. What can possibly be bad about swearing when it's so bloody satisfying?

Misusing apostrophes deliberately - to annoy the pedantic old crows amongst your friends - blissful.

Creating fake personas on social networking and blogging sites - not that I'd ever do anything quite as bad as that, you understand - must be too, too delicious ...

I realise that I am only scraping the surface of Badness. I must try harder; affairs, bank heists, forgeries of Great Works of Art, graffiti (witty, of course), fiddling my expenses.

But of course, the ideal career beckons ...