we don't ape the UK in *all* respects

Compare and contrast: In the UK, there's a flap over CDs with personal information gone missing in the mail. In Ireland, the mail got shredded.

if I were king...

Actually, not king, but editor: if an article makes some reference to its own length (case in point: Bill Drummond's No Music Day piece[1]), I would discount that from the actual article length and chastise the author accordingly (and possibly even edit it out of the finished piece). Same goes for any filler paragraphs describing the writing process of said article, unless of course the article is actually about the writing process. I really don't care that it's hard to write about subject X, that's why you're a writing producer and I'm a writing consumer.

[1] Yes, I realise this is a blog, not an article. Don't care. I'm being curmudgeonly, I can make up the rules.

while I'm at it

From the previously-cited Drummond piece, I find an example of something I've found both increasingly prevalent and increasingly annoying: the Spurious Comma.

I do not want to spend every November, for the rest of my life, trying to breathe new life into a concept, that should have been left alone years ago.

Please tell me why there is a comma after "concept" in the above sentence. Arguably the rest of 'em should go, too, but that one is the biggest offender. This, as I say, appears to be gaining in popularity: the placement of a comma where not only is there no need for one, but the insertion of which messes up the flow of the sentence. Where do people learn this stuff? Is it the same school where they teach misuse of apostrophes?

uncanny

I remarked to someone a while ago that every time I hear a new Sugababes song, I pretty much immediately write it off as something I don't like, and subsequently find myself with the song stuck in my head anyway. Their latest release features their new lineup, which is now down to one original member, and I saw bits of the video on one of the TVs at the gym, and as usual thought, "this is finally the Sugababes song that I won't like", and on top of that I really don't think much of the new addition to the band. Pfft. I have had it with these guys.

Sure enough, a day later I found myself humming the song around the house despite having only heard part of it once. What sort of crack are these people making their songs out of?

made-up words

Just now on TV I see some guy captioned as being from the "Irish Association of Suicidology". I am appalled to discover this is actually a real word.