Skewered by a series of spelling errors

10:47am Friday 23rd November 2007

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SEVERAL people have drawn my attention to the poster below containing Booth's own exclusive example of spelling. I am ashamed to say I had walked straight past if for the past few days on my way to work without noticing the error.

In fact it has been something of a week for mis-spelling.

Jean Robinson, apparently a regular reader of this column despite living far away in darkest Blackburn, e-mailed me to say: "I note that the most recent chap to be harried by a buzzard in the Howgills knew how to react because he had previously been attacked by skewers' in Iceland (Westmorland Gazette, November 16, page 19).

"In my opinion, people preparing kebabs for barbecues should be more careful to control the sticks to which they attach the food in order to avoid them coming into violent contact with innocent ramblers. A peaceful country like Iceland ought to know this, or did he mean the frozen-food store?

"Do you suppose he meant skuas?" she adds.

Finally, in a classic case of the old saying: People who live in glass houses should not throw stones,' a reader points out my howler in last week's column when I wrote absailing.' "There is no connection with sailing, the word is abseiling' from a German word used by climbers meaning roping off.' Seil meaning rope."

My apologies - I am sure it was something subconscious to do with my own favourite pastime of sailing as a preference to the bizarre urge of others to walk backwards over a precipice clutching a piece of string.

Gangland surprise I SEE that a national conference on gang culture was held in the Lake District a couple of weeks ago. A bit of a surprise that - I did not think we had any here, apart from the relatively harmless internecine strife between the WI and Townswomen's Guild.

Cash point IT IS hardly surprising that the owners of the ATM machine in the Westmorland Shopping Centre make a charge on some people who use it to obtain cash.

A reader sent me this snippet from the Financial Times which claims: "South Lakeland District Council appears to be ahead of John Healey, the local government minister, in showing "ambition and creativity" in revenue-raising. It charges the Nationwide Building Society nearly £1,200 a year in business rates on a free-standing ATM occupying less than 1.5 sq of floor space."