In terms of wacky ideas for a story, what’s your verdict on these?

Henry Merriweather falls in love with a playing card; Dan and Evelyn cannot shuffle off this mortal coil until they finish the card game they began on their wedding night in 1928.  Lady Farrimond plays cards with a stranger and forfeits her most treasured possession.

Two brothers cannot agree even on the rules of a simple game like noughts and crosses; rioting has become a national sport with fixtures, policing, and the whole media circus; even Scrabble has become a dangerous game when the tiles spell out MURDER.

Breaking the Rules, a short story anthology edited by Alex Davis, is replete with such unlikely scenarios convincingly portrayed on the page.  Published by Derby-based (very) small press Boo Books, this collection of thirteen stories buzzes with quirky creativity and eloquent prose.  Unlike the editor, I’m not a particular fan of games, but I found myself entertained by the stories and in awe of the depth and breadth of creativity on show.

Of course not, but Mid Devon district council has apparently decided to remove them from their street signs because some people are confused about how to use them.  Lucy Mangan regards this response as symptomatic of a political short termism that refuses to address the underlying causes. I also wonder if the attack on correct grammar – as if it’s somehow elitist (and elitist meaning bad when it’s about knowledge but not when it’s about “earning” as much in an hour as others do in a year) to know your its from your it’s – partly stems from the repressed grief of little boys who started school too young.  At some level, reading and writing is always going to be hateful if it’s forced upon you at four or five before you are ready rather than at six or seven as, for example, in Hungary and Spain.

Because this is no mere plea for flexibility, it is an attack.  Even as we roll our eyes, we tolerate – don’t we?  – the misspelt signs outside the
greengrocer’s and celebrate the fact that we still have a greengrocer’s and the proprietor can calculate the bill in their head.  But public institutions are
different.  They need to follow the rules.  The rules of grammar are there to make things easier for everyone.  Yes even for those who don’t know how to work them.

At the beginning of each new term, I stand up with the rest of the choir and listen intently as the pianist plays the  introductory bars of the music.  I
watch the conductor but I don’t dare open my mouth when he gives us the signal to sing.  I follow the dots on the page as best I can as the rest of them go through the first trial run.  I know the very basics of the grammar
of music, but not nearly enough to join in until I’ve got at least the ghost of
the tune in my head.

Sometimes, looking at a mass of squiggles I thought I’d mastered the week before, I think it would be easier if none of us could read music, then we’d all be the same boat.  I wouldn’t feel so stupid.  But then there wouldn’t be anyone to explain what that little cap over  that note means, and we wouldn’t be able to sing such complex music, or so much of it, because we’d have to learn it all by heart.

I wonder if those who are frustrated by grammar could be supported to recognise its value the way I appreciate my musical scores.  I’ve still a bit more practice to put in before the concert, but I’ll be taking my place along with the other sopranos, tuned into the music with everything I’ve got.  These are my favourite parts of the programme:

You can listen and follow the music to Locus iste (of course we sing it better).  Or dance along to John Rutter’s  Gloria.

Got to dash: I'm off to a rehearsal.