Okay, so some of our legislators think drivers licenses exams should only be given in English instead of being given in the dozen-or so languages presently given.

But whose English?

I had a row with my wife this morning at our flat after I tripped over the pram on the way to the loo to get a nappy and had to put a plaster on a cut on my forehead. I caught the lift down to the garage and started to drive to an appointment with my solicitor but realized as I travelled the motorway that I needed to stop for some petrol at a station next to the High Street flyover. While there I washed the windscreen and popped the bonnet to check the oil and found I was a liter low. Fortunately I had an extra tin of oil in the boot. The car has been sounding pretty noisy lately so I made a note to myself to visit the silencer shop if the queue wasn’t too long after I had visited the solicitor. A lorry almost hit me as I left the station. I was going to refer him to a constable but I didn’t write down the number plate correctly and my pencil had no rubber on it so I could not make a correction before I had to focus on my driving in heavy traffic and was never able to jot down the correct number..

My wife and I are planning on going on holiday soon to the seashore. There is a quaint inn we enjoy staying at. There are no telephones in the rooms because they refuse to indulge in those annoying automated wake-up calls. Instead, the inn sends a staff member around to rap lightly on your room door. They call it “knocking you up.”

What’s that? English English isn’t what you have in mind? Okay. We’ll look at some good old “’Murcan English” in Chapter Three.