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While Mrs. Ottawacker took advantage of Family Day in Ontario to take the plum of our loins sledding (she found her thrill/ on Grasshopper Hill), I beat my head against a wall and tried to make head and tail of the latest section of Indian English to English translation I am doing. It is not going well.

Other forms of English are incredibly difficult for native speakers to change, since everything that is written is usually correct in the, for want of a better word, dialect in which it is formulated. When trying to make it into a standard English, you literally have to change every second word. Tenses take on whole new meanings; conjunctions and adjectives are used in completely different ways; it is bloody difficult.

I'm also editing a text that is, how shall I put it, deathly dull. Business improvement is not a lively subject at the best of times. I have listened to too many podcasts on the themes of Balanced Scorecards and Six Sigma to believe that only people who are alive participate. My job is to make is sound interesting. I suspect I fail abjectly.

But it is a bank holiday - so what am I doing banging my head against a computer screen? The fact that it is -24 outside has something to do with that. 

At least Tui has the right answer. She moved onto the sofa and co-opted a warm knitted blanket (thanks Iwona). None of us had the will to move her.