Capital offence

Angie J was horrified to see the name of her country's largest city defiled the other week.

You really mustn't welsh on your spelling, Sky Sprots.

It should be a matter of principality.

It's a fig thing

The football team of the Catholic Notre Dame University in Indiana has a nickname: the Fighting Irish.

Unfortunately, last week's game was partially overshadowed by the fact that the 50oz cups of soda, priced at $8, looked like this.

Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown declined to say how the typo occurred or whose fault it was.

'It's an institutional responsibility,' he said. 'We're not going to be blaming individuals.'

Hmm. I wonder if that's what the person responsible was told while he or she was being rollocked to high heaven. Unless, of course, it was a gaffe by Dennis himself.

Anyway, you may well ask whether it's typical Irish stupidity.

Yet they're the ones selling a drink of pop for $8.

Welsh threesome exclusive

Sounds like a typical headline from The Sun, doesn't it?

Well, in the same attention-grabbing way, I've lured you into reading more about, well, three Welsh people. And the King of Pop.

Some would say The Sun is a newspaper. I suppose it all depends on your view of what is or isn't news.

It has a twitter account @TheSunNewspaper (thereby proving, I suppose, that at least it thinks of itself as a newspaper) and another @TheSun_Showbiz (sigh). There are probably others but a) I'm not particularly interested in finding out what they are and b) I wouldn't want to promote them; well, not without some massive payment.

Anyway, both accounts have been busy this last week throwing out news, er, facts, er, useful information, er, well, you decide...

First off, @TheSunNewspaper came out with this message on Sunday.

That's Gareth Bale, surely?

Oh well, it's The Sun and it's 'official confirmation' so it must be true. Who knows? Maybe Christian went too. At least the streets of Madrid may be a little safer.

Then, the next day @TheSun_Showbiz led us to believe that not only is Michael Jackson alive and well, but also that he's married (but only just) to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

So what's the exclusive?

I excluded Michael Douglas from the whole post.

Oh heck. Until now.

Peterborough academia

Do you remember the times I had a bit of a go at Peterborough City College and University Centre Peterborough?

I realise that we've not visited Peterborough for a while and I was wondering how its educational establishments were progressing under the watchful eye of long-suffering Peebo resident Jon C.

Oh, I see. Not very well, apparently.

He tells me that these ads appeared on the Peterborough Telegraph website last week.

I'm wondering whether the College runs a course in English. Its unlikely.

But, if there is such a course, clearly spacesare limited.

And the University (yes, I know, but that's what it calls itself) can't even spell its address.

You have our sympathies, Jon, as I'm afraid your suffering is set to continue.

Words in lieu

I know many of the good people of Cornwall are keen on preserving Kernewek.

But I don't think this word, which I saw repeated all over the window display of Stratton Creber Estate Agents in Looe earlier this year, is a fully-paid-up member of that language.

Given that the word brochure comes from the French word brocher, to stitch, broucher hasn't actually strayed too far from its origins.

And it's not asking too much to make broucher sound like brochure, although trying this in the privacy of my own home made me sound like a Liverpudlian for some strange reason.

At least broucher is a lot easier to decipher than lyfryk.