I'd like to move it move it

Sometimes, when Mr B is away and I'm feeling lonely, or when I need a little fantasy, I guiltily go to the website that's guaranteed to start me dreaming of the exotic, get me a little excited as I imagine another, more decadent, lifestyle. It offers photo after photo to admire, and tempting descriptions of what's on offer at prices I could never afford.

I do love Rightmove.

What did you think I was talking about?

I tell myself I'm tracking the house prices and gauging which local buyers might be most desperate to sell at the point we want to buy. And that is true - I'm ever practical. But we won't be moving any time soon, what with me being shakily self-employed and all. So what is it that's so compelling in particular about looking at house particulars?

Isn't it obvious? Well, let's choose two things.

Aspiration
This one near me has a floorplan that would cover most of my street, slightly incongruous decor, 1.4 acres and, apparently, a horse thrown into the deal. This one has (count 'em) 11 bedrooms, 7 acres and an indoor swimming pool. You can do any random search in any town and come up with examples of beautiful houses in stunning settings that one day, maybe, if you obey the capitalist imperative or win the lottery, might be yours. It's a dream, at least until you visit someone new (as I did last week) whose utility room is the size of my kitchen and their kitchen is the size of my ground floor. And next door's too. And then you wonder why you don't have that. And you conveniently forget that you haven't spent two years, as they did, living in a caravan while a barn was painstakingly converted around them. But the final result is something to aspire to. One day, you say, it will all be mine.

Descriptions
Some estate agents are straight-down-the-line - pure descriptions with no frills (although unnecessarily updating their content every couple of days - well, unnecessary if you take optimising search results out of the equation). But there are only so many ways you can describe a fitted bathroom so others let their poetic side come to the fore. Take this description of an unexceptional overpriced bungalow: "A beech tree stands sentry to welcome you in to this house in the country, a new life can begin. The land folds around you so fertile and rich, to grow your own food and enjoy this fine pitch. Standing though centuries, built between wars, High Trees is just ready and waiting to be yours." I would do a little editing on the contradictory prose if I didn't suspect it's tongue-in-cheek. This is clearly targeting the "up from London" market of vulnerable, redundant and repetent bankers taking their payouts to fund a rural idyll for a couple of years until they can't bear the Starbucks withdrawal symptoms and go back to Highgate. One estate agent in a town I know well takes the personal touch a little too far by always including an "Our view " paragraph in its descriptions. Of course, this is always a gushing view, never a "over-decorated, damp problem" view, while still not avoiding thorny questions likely to be asked by discerning buyers. Choice (unedited) examples: "It doesn't have a swimming pool or tennis court ... nothing like that... but it has got something much more important than all those things...Location". Also try: "Describing this magnificent property as simply four bedroom detached is belittling it beyond measure." It's unsophisticated stuff but it easy to warm to the enthusiasm of the writer - I'm not one for passion but I can see why she stands out from the crowd. Marketing copywriters have a lot to learn from estate agents.

Having said all that, I actually go straight for the floorplan and the photos, which I suppose is odd for a words person. But houses, like relationships, are an emotional investment, selected and rejected on the smallest whim. We saw 22 houses before seeing the one we bought. Almost all were bigger, newer, didn't back onto a car park - but we saw it and we loved it and we bought it. Of course, we're paying the price now - both literally as its value has dropped back down to what we bought it for, despite years of renovation, and metaphorically as it gets smaller every day. I am currently typing at a tiny uncomfortable desk beside Mr B's in our bedroom, wishing for a study. See what I mean about aspiration? I don't really want an 11 bedroom house - too much cleaning - but I'd settle for an extra room.

And a kitchen the size of a sports hall.

Getting down with da kids

Monkeyrina was three last week. Bex kindly wished me a happy third labour day and indeed it seems that, as with the actual birth, children's birthdays cost mothers all the stress and expense, with only the reward of a happy little girl with a chocolatey mouth. And that, it cannot be denied, is a fine reward.

As our house is the size of most people's garden sheds, we hired the local community centre for a nominal amount and took all our junk over there for the party. When I was three, parties were regimental affairs, with party games at set times whose winners tended to be the kids who my mother felt deserved it the most. These days, kids' parties are at playbarns, where they can climb and swing and slide and scream until the food is served and they continue to climb and swing and slide and scream at the table. Monkeyrina's party was a cross between the two - we had a small bouncy castle (which took an hour to inflate with a lilo pump) and Mr B threw caution to the wind by upgrading to Spotify Premium so that we could play nursery rhymes offline from his laptop (anyone remember CDs?). I filled paper plates with junk food that was eagerly devoured by children and parents alike (even those who claimed to spurn cocktail sausages) and the remains of which now sit temptingly in the kitchen as yet another reason to boot me off to the gym. Anna, my ever-generous sort-of-step-mother-in-law, who told me she sometimes reads this blog (hello!), created her usual artistic triumph of a birthday cake, along with a full set of spectacular cupcakes, and in the end I didn't need all five of the bottles of cider I'd bought to self-medicate with afterwards.

I didn't know much about children before Monkeyrina came along. I still don't know much about children but I do know that people make allowances for your behaviour. Here are some snapshots of things I'd love to do but, for mysterious and disappointing social reasons, could never get away with at 35.

• Monkeyrina running round and round the long kids' table before the guests arrived, giggling uncontrollably.
• Kids jumping and twisting to catch glimmering bubbles.
• One little boy refusing to sit at the table to eat with the others, because, his mother said, he was afraid of the adults.
• One girl refusing to leave the food table until every cake had been eaten. Um, that was, in fact, my daughter. Family resemblance, anyone?
• Continously turning around and shaking random limbs all about and then wandering off to play with balloons during the Hokey Cokey.
• All the kids locating the duck whistles in their party bags and gravely honking away when their parents tried to take them home.
• Pretending to be tired at the end of the party just to get a hug.

Grown up parties are fine - sometimes you want to get a little tipsy on alcopops and argue about government policy with someone you don't know quite well enough to say what you really think - but children's parties are so much freer. Kids really can shake it all about and the photos on Facebook the next day will be captioned "Aaah!" rather than "Aaargh!"

Children learn from us and we learn from them. I hope that, as well as contributing to their educational development and nagging them into submission, they learn that sometimes - given the right circumstances - it's OK to do you really want to do.

Relax - don't do it

As I get older, I've come to accept that I'm good at some things and bad at some things and absolutely, hopelessly awful at others. I'm no good at pool, for example - if you tried to lose against me, you would win (and thus lose). My attempt at a Scottish accent is terrible - not a great problem in Norfolk but it would have been useful to sound like a local when I lived in Stirling and the SNP cornered me pre-election. Drawing recognisable pictures of, well, anything, is also beyond me: Monkeyrina leans over the paper, shakes her head sorrowfully and tells me they're "not very good". But the thing I'm worst at of all is relaxing.

I've realised that, while they're lying on the massage couch, other people close their eyes and dream. They don't want to ask their beauty therapists questions about their typical customers or how they can possibly bear to touch strangers' bodies. The last time I had a pamper day, I noticed that my therapist was left-handed and it took all my self-control not to ask her whether she had to learn all the treatments in reverse. (I'm left handed too - it means that guitar playing and crochet are included in the "bad at" category - or really in the "never tried it because it's easier for right handers so why make work for myself when there are books to be read instead?" category).

Clearly, I am too tightly wound, or have too strong a sense of self-preservation, to fall asleep in public, and in any case, that would require my mind to be still for a moment. During a recent facial (at the pamper day - I don't want to suggest that my life is one long spa experience), my thoughts went like this:

"She's putting something on my face. It's cold. She's wiping my face with something soft and cold. Is it a dead mouse? Should I shut my eyes? There's a bulb gone in that ceiling light. Eyes open or closed? She might stick her finger in my eye if it's open, so closed. No more broken ceiling lights. What is she wiping on me? Could be anything. It's been years since I've had a facial. Probably Debbie's hen weekend in 1999. My mum was there. What was my mum doing at Debbie's hen weekend? Don't know. Wasn't it in Wales? What was my Mum doing in Wales? That facial had a massage too. I wonder if I'll get one now. Massages are usually good. That one at that hotel that time, with work. Oh no, I had a St Tropez then, not a massage. The therapist said she'd treated someone out of that girl band, what was it, All Saints, and she was the only person she'd ever come across with no cellulite. I always think of that. Whatever happened to All Saints? When were they famous, mid-90s, I was at uni. What were they called? Shaznay was one, Shaznay Lewis. How do I remember that? You don't get many Shaznays. Appleton. Nicole Appleton and her sister, now what was her name? And the other one. Didn't Nicole Appleton marry a Gallagher brother? I expect they're all married to other people now. Oh. Itchy nose. Oooh, itchy nose! Shall I scratch it? No, can't do that. Oooh, itchy itchy! Maybe she'll massage it away. If she does any massage with that dead mouse."

From what other people say, their thoughts in the same situation are more like this:

"Mmm. Nice. Zzzzz."

So what does relax me? Reading a book, surfing the net, chatting to friends... hmm, there's a pattern there. My mind just doesn't like resting - lying on a sun-bright Seychelles beach and snoozing the day away is great in its way (so I imagine - the chances of it actually happening are even more remote than the Seychelles) but isn't very constructive. I have to be realistic about myself: I like to think. I like to reflect. I like to get things done. And then I can... relax.

How I got myself branded

No, I've not undermined my mini-rant in my last post and got a tattoo - I have a new logo and it is beautiful. It is so close to what I wanted that it's as if it's always been there and has simply been delivered, swaddled and sleeping peacefully, by the branding stork. Which is odd because at the start of the process, I had no idea of what it should look like - I work with words, not pictures. I just knew what it should represent.

In the beginning
The process of designing your own brand is rather strange. Although I was branding WordFire Communications (the company), and not Julia Sandford-Cooke (the person), it still represents Julia Sandford-Cooke because I am the company. I could, of course, saved myself a heap of money and designed it myself. But then I would have lost a heap of money because potential clients would have taken one look at my primitive Wordart (probably in Arial with some smoke-like wiggles emanating from FIRE) and gone off to find a communications specialist who could present themselves professionally.

The agony of choice
So I spoke to some designers I know (I know a lot of designers) and one or two that I didn't. It soon became clear that it's cringingly awkward to engage someone with whom you have previously had a non-work relationship to perform this rather personal job for you. What if I didn't like what a friend produced? Would I have to be polite and put up with a brand ID I hated for the next 10 years, or would I be direct (as I normally am) and find I no longer had that friend?

Airing my briefs
I've written a lot of briefs in my time, and I know how I like to be briefed - in detail, with all expectations made clear, but with enough flexibility to allow creativity. My brief was 5 pages long, which, admittedly, is likely to send any recipient running for cover, but I thought it was important to include:

• What I wanted (logo, letterheads, business cards but not web design)
• What WordFire does
• Who my potential clients are
• More about me
• My brand challenges (issues that might prevent me from getting across what WordFire Communications can offer customers)
• Words I associate with my brand (professional, quirky, creative and so on)
• Logos I like
• Required formats for the final files.

Quote... unquote
In the end, I got three quotes: one from a newly established local designer who I sourced via Twitter, one from a friend who works with Mr B and one from an agency I'd used and respected in my old job. All three of them said they were pleased to get a decent brief for a change, so they didn't run for cover after all. All three quoted at least 50% more than I'd budgeted for. But the agency was the cheapest and also offered the best value (6 logo options, 4 sets of changes and a full stationery package). There was also the advantage of a pre-existing working relationship without the difficulties of a personal relationship. Turning down my friend and the keen young local designer was the worst part of the entire process but they were both very nice about it. At least to my face.

Starting work
So the agency sent me their logo options. All 13 of them - they couldn't decide which to leave out. Of these, about three were along the lines I was thinking of, but only one stood out as a good fit. This is in no way a criticism of the agency - quite the opposite as they demonstrated their creativity - but it does show how much personal preference influences design choices.

Adding a little colour
We went backwards and forwards for a while, tweaking the typeface and the visuals, trying a few minor changes and then changing them back. The draft logo was in black and white so the agency asked me what colour palette I wanted to use. I didn't know. My underdeveloped visual imagination suggested, well, fire of course: red, yellow, orange. They also happen to be the colours that either don't print properly or can't be seen by 10% of the population. So I went over to trusty Colour Lovers, which is a fine place to visit even if you're not designing a logo. People who are good at that sort of thing compile palettes and patterns, so those of us who are not blessed in such skills can see what's trendy and what's attractive. After a happy browse, Ocean Five caught my eye - bright, engaging, kinda retro and, most importantly, popular among the site users. I sent over a link to this and a couple of others and suddenly there was my logo, fully formed and confident, on a files for business cards, comp slips, letter headings and alone an proud. Even better, with or without a strapline that has somehow came along for the ride.

Oh, you want to see it, do you? Wait a minute. First I want to reflect on what I've learned from branding myself.

1. Designers like clear briefs. OK, so I knew that already. But they really do produce good work on clear briefs. I know from hard experience that vague briefs are of no use to client or supplier.
2. Would I have got a different result from a different designer? Of course, but this one seems so right that, ironically, it's hard not to assume that every designer would have come up with it. The agency, by the way, was Zuluspice. Branding isn't even something they market but maybe they should.
3. When I posted the logo on Facebook, an unprecedented 15 people "liked" it. That's a good sign.
4. Was the cost and time worth it? Undoubtedly. Take a look (this is the slogan version):

Related PS: I went to the bank today wearing my "cute ninja" T-shirt and gym hoody, which I like to pretend makes me look young, hip 'n' trendy (three things I was never very good at being). The snooty lady behind the counter was mighty surprised when I told her that the business advisor had asked for some of my business cards and that here was a bundle for her to give to clients. Funny how quickly people jump to conclusions. Let's hope they jump to some positive conclusions about my new brand.

It's all uphill from here

It's been a while. Well, a week. That's a long long while in the virtual world. It's not that I've not been inspired - I've just been busy. Does being busy limit inspirational opportunities or is it in fact one long inspirational experience? I suppose it depends on what you're doing. At this moment, I appear to be having a fancily named "opthalmic migraine", which shimmers prettily before my left eye and at least makes a change from my regular "brain crusher migraine". Did it appear because I was busy? Or because I went to Body Combat for the first time and my poor body is subtly complaining about all this strange exercise business that I'm suddenly forcing it to do?

I don't want your sympathy; I just want to find a way of linking all this to Things I've Noticed About the Gym.

1. Some people might go the gym for fitness and health. But most people go to be thin and/or muscled. My worst suspicions are true: young men really do stand in front of the mirror admiring their own biceps; women (young and not so young) really do think skinny looks good. It doesn't.
2. Another suspicion fulfilled: everyone compares themselves with everyone else. They pretend they don't. But they do. An example. Yesterday, a particularly scrawny elderly woman was chatting flirtatiously with the man beside me. He said something like, "You can't hurt me - you're the smallest person in this room." The woman glanced over at me. "She's smaller than me," she said. The man looked me up and down. "Well, she's shorter than you," he said.
3. Once people get past their obligatory 4 week induction programme, they just go on the cross-trainer or treadmill for half an hour and leave. They don't even do a hill setting. Why not just go for a jog in the fresh air if you're not going to use the more challenging (and interesting) equipment?
4. Mr B and I are the only adults in town without tattoos. Possibly the only adults in the country. Which seems strange, considering that tattoos are, without exception, horrifically ugly mutiliations of beautful natural skin. Several gym-peers (male and female) have fabulous figures that have been completely ruined by an indelible pattern that they inexplicably show off via skimpy clothing. In the words of Monkeyrina, why? Why? Why?
5. The personal trainers are a certain personality type. In my previous weekly visits, I'd thought them cliquey, judgemental, intimidating. My class instructor didn't speak to me at all for a year until I joined the gym and started going more often. Now she chats whenever we meet. But it takes one to know one and I know that people often think me judgemental and intimidating. There's another word for it: shy. You need to have something in common with people to avoid the sort of dorky conversations full of misunderstandings in which I excel. Knowledge is power - or, at least, confidence.
6. Breakfast TV subtitles are a rich source of amusing typos. In the past week, I've seen "Maria Callous", "Andrea Cor", and "performing with my banned" (I'm still mentally filling in the blank for that one).
7. There's nothing worth watching on the main channels at 9 o'clock in the morning - movie news on BBC1, CBeebies on BBC2 (I get enough of that at home) and Lorraine Kelly on ITV1. Unless she's interviewing Rufus Wainwright - then I extend my virtual hill climb.

It's all a strange artifical world that presumably wasn't required 200 years ago when our ancestors worked in the fields all day. It's not a world I'm comfortable in - physically or emotionally. I like reading books and complaining about how the BBC website has started hyphenating adverbs. But it's a world that builds strength - and inspiration - of a kind. Where does life leave you if you never leave your comfort zone?

Why my daughter should be a lawyer

Dr Seuss, now there's some inspiration for the cynical. Unless you're trying to read "Green Eggs and Ham" to an almost-three-year-old without going insane.

Me: "I am Sam... Sam I am."
Monkeyrina (pointing at the other character.) What's his name?
Me: He doesn't have a name.
Her: Why not?
Me: It's not important to the story.
Her: Why not?
Me: Well, it doesn't really come up. I call him Grumpy Grouch.
Her: Why?
Me: Because he's grumpy.
Her: Why is he grumpy?
Me: Let's read it and find out? "That Sam-I-am. That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"
Her: Why not?
Me: Because he's annoying. He keeps trying to make him eat green eggs and ham.
Her: Why?
Me: Because Sam-I-am thinks it's something nice to eat, and wants the Grumpy Grouch to eat it too.
Her: Why?
Me: Because when you eat something yummy, you want to share it with people. Let's get on with the story, shall we? "Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like-"
Her: Is that his fat tummy?
Me: He's not very fat. He's more furry.
Her: Why? Is he an animal?
Me: No, well, not really. He's just a pretend person.
Her: Why is he furry if he's a person?
Me: (regretting mentioning the fur): It's his clothes. He's wearing a furry suit.
Her: Why is he wearing a furry suit?
Me: Come on, now. We've only read 3 pages and there are lots more to go.
Her: What's that in the ham?
Me: It's a fork to eat it with.
Her: Why?
Me: So they can eat the green eggs and ham. "I do not like green eggs and-"
Her: Why's it in the ham?
Me: (slightly hysterical) So it doesn't fall out. They're moving around a lot and they don't want to lose it. "Would you like them here or there? I would not like them here or there. I would not like them-"
Her: "ANYWHERE! I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-aAm."
Me: (relieved): "Would you like them in a house? Would you like them with a mouse?"
Her: 'Mouse' and 'house' are very similar, aren't they?
Me: (impressed she knows the word 'similar'): Yes, they rhyme.
Her: Why? Why do they mime?
Me: They rhyme. They sound nice together.
Her: Why?
Me: (glancing at my watch): Because rhymes do. "I do not like them in a house, I do not like them-"
Her: Why's he furry?
Me: I told you. He's wearing a furry suit. Come on, now. "-with a mouse. I do not-"
Her: It looks like 'The Cat in the Hat', doesn't it, mummy?
Me: Yes. It's by the same person. Dr Seuss.
Her: Why is it by Dr Who?
Me: Not Dr Who. Dr Seuss. Those words sound similar too, don't they? (Desperately skipping several lines) "Would you eat them in a box?"
Her: Why's the box hanging in a tree?
Me: (Starting to giggle hysterically) Because it is! Because it is! Because that's what's in the picture!
Her: Why are you laughing, mummy?
Me: Because you won't let me read the book!
Her: Why won't I?
Me: Because you keep asking why!
Her: (with a smirk): Why?

My advice to government: use a toddler to interrogate suspects. They'd be broken in less than 10 minutes.

It's the winning that counts

Exercise and I have never seen eye-to-eye. Actually, I don't see eye-to-eye with very much at all, because 1) I'm 4 foot 11 (150cm, metric fans) and 2) I can only use one eye at a time. And those are two reasons why I'm not a sporty type. I can't play racquet sports, as it's a distinct advantage to have depth perception. I'm not keen on team games because I'll get crushed in the scrum and can't get very far very quickly on my miniature legs.

There are plenty of other reasons why I'm not a sporty type: lack of time, too academic and, here's the clincher, I can't be bothered. Not when there are books to read and blogs to write and the web to explore. Not when I see so little of my husband and daughter. Not when it's raining or cold or hot or windy. It's not that I'm lazy - it's just that there are better things to do.

And then there's the legacy of horror from school. I'm sure these days there are no winners or losers, teams are chosen randomly and all participants are praised equally. I'm sure it's not at all as it was 20 years ago, when PE teachers had their favourite team captains and ignored the less physically gifted, except to shout how useless you were across a wind-blown hockey pitch and then make you take a communal shower (we often showered wearing our full sports kit rather than strip off and display our pubescent bodies to our peers). My friends and I were clever but not cool, so we were chosen last for teams and had no reason to be motivated other than for the opportunity for the four of us to wear our matching "disco" socks to our Wednesday PE lesson as some sort of anti-sports solidarity movement. It got a bit better as we got older, when the PE teachers left us pretty much to ourselves so that they could concentrate on the ones who had been nurtured, so we would pretend to play table tennis and sneak off to do our homework early (yes, I really was that studious). 

None of which helped to build any sort of interest in, or appreciation for, physical exercise. My family, by contrast, were all pretty sporty, but that was something they did - it didn't apply to me.

But then, for reasons I can't quite recall, in the third year of university I discovered jogging. I would get up at 7 each morning, do a lap or two of Christ Church Meadow, shower, breakfast and be at the library for opening time (yes, I really was that studious; talk about a mispent youth). It was fabulous. I was fit, I was energised and I could pack away an extra biscuit or two without it going on my hips. For a year or so, I revised my view of physical exercise, if not PE, and embraced it.

And then I started work, abruptly ran out of leisure time and, for the past 15 years, have sporadically done a little yoga, a little dancing, gone for the occasional very slow run. It was OK. I could have been a little fitter, a little thinner, but I was hardly stationary and obese.

But when you (one, I, we) enter our 30s, a switch flicks somewhere inside us. Suddenly that pint, that cake, that delicious greasy pile of fish and chips start to haunt you. They linger, ghostlike at first but increasingly tangibly, until one day you look in the mirror and see a flabby body that isn't as young as it used to be. And ahead of you stretches a tedious lifetime of the cursed PE.

When I see people with good figures, male or female, my first thought is, "Lucky them". My second thought is, "They've cheated. I bet they have to do lots of exercise to look like that." And then I glare at them for a while, or maybe eat a piece of cake to make myself feel better.

About 18 months ago, I took my extra tummy and me down to the gym for a class or two. I did some step aerobics but co-ordination is not my storng point and I couldn't get the hang of staying upright. As it turned out, the class that I've been going to ever since is the class that, given a long list of options and a slight knowledge of my personality, you (and I) would have put on the bottom of that list. It involves lifting weights to music and is called BodyPump. It is fantastic - definitely one for the checklist of inspirational things that I haven't got round to compiling for this site. To paraphrase Kate Bush, I love it and I hate it too. I now look like this - Wonderwoman with a barbell. 

Well, actually, I don't, and I'm very surprised she looks like that either, lifting pathetic 1.25s, by the look of it - you'll never get decent biceps that way. Mine are looking pretty good under the flab. But you need to do a lot more than an hour's intensive weightlifting every week to get truly fit and toned. So now, at last, I've cheated too - I've joined the gym itself and will, from now on, be found most mornings running up imaginary hills while watching Jeremy Kyle berate truculant layabouts via subtitles on the big screen.

And my point is? There are several - take your pick. The glib one is that you have to put effort into anything for it to pay off. The stern one is that you have to get over your childhood hangups once you're old enough to make your own decisions. The realistic one is that it's hard to do what needs to be done, but do it anyway. And the inspiration for the cynical? Try something new. You never know, you might find you enjoy heaving a good proportion of your own body weight around on a stick to cover versions of beat-heavy hits. And even if you don't enjoy it, try things until you do: it means you can fit a few more slices of cake into your accommodating body.

The limits of communication

My phone rings. I don't recognise the number. It might be a potential client so I answer.
"Hello, Julia Sandford-Cooke."

"Is that Stuart?" asks a man.

"No," I say. "I think you've got the wrong number."

"Is Stuart there?" asks the man.

"I don't know any Stuarts," I say, "You must have the wrong number."

Slight pause. "Is Richenda around?"

"You have the wrong number."

Slight pause. "Is this 078XXXXXX?"

"No," I say, "You've definitely got the wrong number. Try again."

Slight pause. "I must have the wrong number. Sorry."

We hang up.

No matter how many times you tell them, some people just have to work it out for themselves.

It's not just me...

You might say this is a lazy post, and I might agree with you, but David Mitchell says it so well. Although technically he's not just talking about standards of spelling.

Getting possessive about proofreading

So I was at a party last weekend - and please don't get distracted by your amazement at such an unusual way for me to spend my leisure time - where I knew nobody except the hosts. A woman was telling her friends about how, when shopping, her daughter had picked out a slab of chocolate with the iced message "Worlds best brother" on it. Naturally, the woman asked the shop assistant to add the missing apostrophe but this being Thorntons, which, like Barclays, has decided that ugly possessive punctuation clutters the brand, her request was met with incomprehension. The woman sensibly left without the chocolate. So far so unsurprising. But then... "Of course it needs an apostrophe," her friend responded, "Otherwise it's as if he's the whole world's brother." The first woman (who turned out to be a copywriter) paused and blinked. "It's a possessive apostrophe," she said. "Oh yes," agreed woman three, "It's the same as putting an apostrophe in "its". That really winds me up. The rule is simple. You should never do it." The first woman paused and blinked again, and I considered wading in to back her up but, being British and never having met these people before, well, to my shame, I didn't. Fortunately the conversation turned to misspellings (or possibly mispellings), to general relief.

When I tell people what I do, they tend to nod and agree that proofreading is very important and that correct spelling and punctuation and removing typos is essential for a professional reputation. But they never seem to think it applies to them. It's other people, those uneducated masses, who get it wrong. If you're in the know, you can proofread your own work. Well, yes, up to a point. My knowledge of grammar and spelling and punctuation is accurate enough to know when to break the rules and when the rules are fluid (editors like nothing better than to endlessly debate the relative merits of different style manuals - that's one reason I don't get invited to many parties). But I'm not ashamed to admit - because it's obvious - that I don't always pick up all the errors in my terrible typing. Sometimes it's late, sometimes I'm busy, usually I'm just plain lazy. I know how it is, how there always seems to be something better to do. But proofreading your own work is only the first level of defence. The second level is to find someone who will look at it objectively; being free from creative baggage, I have no difficulty in correcting other people's work. A fresh eye - a fresh perspective - will tidy and polish the text, and replace it gleaming on the mantlepiece of public opinion. Even if the public isn't all that sure what that opinion ought to be.

To shamelessly overload on the metaphors, adding an extra squeeze of icing is so much easier, and so much cheaper, than melting it all down and starting again.