Peter Crouch; English Language Why You Confuse Me So; Bloody Acoustic Singer Slash Songwriters

Peter Crouch. Not only does he have the misfortune of looking like a gawkier Gareth from the Office, but when he does score goals, he chooses to celebrate them with robot dancing. Here's hoping for lots of goals from him at the World Cup; perhaps he breakdances and does headspins when he gets a hat-trick. Poor misshapen freakboy.

---

A woman behind me on the bus answered her phone (her ringtone was Chewbacca roaring) and then said, in a loud foreign mocking of the English language, 'I'm in the bus'. Now, leaving aside for the moment the calls to have her deported (and to a country she's not even from, that's how deported she'd be), why do we say 'on' rather than 'in'? We say 'on' when talking about public transport, but 'in' when talking about cars. Why? Five seconds on Google has failed to answer this question.

---

At an acoustic night I was at yesterday, there was a guy up on stage, and in keeping with the general tone of today's post, he was From Overseas. He did an entertaining romp through Ace of Spaces, and then announced that he was doing one of his own songs. His girlfriend jiggled excitedly in her seat, chain-smoking. This song, he said, is about my ex-girlfriend. She, he said, had such a moody face in the mornings. A moody face like you haven't seen. She was, and he shrugged and paused here to suggest that mere words couldn't begin to describe how moody her face was in the mornings, very moody in the mornings. Then, with only a bit of further ado, he launched into a lacklustre acoustic number where he complained about her moody face. Including lines like 'you've got such a moody face'. I wanted to take him to one side and say, look, you've got guitar skills and a nice singing voice. But can I introduce you to a little thing I like to call 'metaphor'. It will allow you to say that things are other things, by which you can compare them and draw out analogies. Er, analogies? That's where - oh, forget it. The rich world of imagery and imagination might be a little too much to embark on all at once. Oh, and Squealingly Excited Girlfriend? You do realise that when he's broken up with you, he's going to be singing songs on stage called things like My Ex-Girlfriend Smoked Too Much and Also Had a Moody Face Like That Other Girlfriend To Whom I Referred in an Earlier Song (Not That I Said As Much To Her at the Time, Oh No - Do I Look Stupid?).