American football

When Dominique de Villepin, the French Prime Minister, gave Harold Pinter the Legion D'Honneur this week he praised Pinter's poem, American Football.

If you read the poem you see that Pinter too uses the American form, ass. But that, I'm sure, is quite deliberate.

The power of commas

Work has been a little slow this afternoon. I'm reminded of that Oscar Wilde quote: "I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."

A site warning of the dangers (and benefits) of misplaced commas.

A site with some quotes about writing.

My favourite is the one by Burton Rasco: "A writer is working when he's staring out of the window."