Do you have problems with English spelling? Do you, like me, constantly need to use your spellchecker? Well, here’s a solution to save everyone time and energy:

Let’s make English a phonetic language, and lose the ‘loser letters’!

But what exactly are the ‘loser letters’? These are letters which aren’t actually needed at all. For example, some sounds can easily be made by other letters in the alphabet. Take the letter ‘c’, for instance. This can either sound like ‘k’ as in ‘cat’, or ‘s’ as in ‘central’. So why not do away with ‘c’ and simply spell those words ‘kat’ and ‘sentral’ instead! As for the ‘ch’ sound, we could just put a little hat over the ‘h’ to show how it should be pronounced, to make sure people say ‘chair’ and not ‘hair’, or ‘chip’ and not ‘hip’, and so on.

In the same way, the letter ‘q’ (often written ‘qu’) could be replaced by ‘kw’, with words then spelled as ‘kween’, ‘kwik’ and ‘kwarter’. The letter ‘x’ would become ‘ks’, as in ‘aks’ and ‘eksternal’, whilst the ‘ph’ form would disappear altogether, to be replaced with ‘f’ – giving us ‘telefone’, ‘fantom’, and ‘dolfin’.

Other redundant letters include the silent ones that do nothing, and those annoying double consonants. (I mean, really! Who would miss the extra one?) If we scrapped all of these, we could have new, easy spellings for everyday words like ‘liv’, ‘helo’, ‘buter’, and ‘thru’, not to mention many, many more! Now, tell me honestly – wouldn’t that be great?

There are other ways we could simplify spelling, too. Every time that ‘y’ sounds like the vowel ‘i’, it should be written that way – as in ‘fisiks’, ‘glori’, and ‘simpathi’. But when ‘i’ rhymes with ‘why’ it should be written to look that way, don’t you agree? (Examples: ‘gyant’ and ‘bypolar’.)

And why stop there?

Think of all the different ways we write the sound we hear in the word ‘meet’: ‘ee’, ‘ie’, ‘ei’, ‘ea’! Well, for goodness’ sake, why don’t we just pick one and stick with it? Life would be so simple! We would write ‘eet’, ‘beleev’, ‘seet’, and so on, without even thinking about it – surely a no-brainer!

So I say to all my fans, if you feel the same as I do and you really want to ditch the spellchecker, then join with me here and now, and change the way we write English forever –

Let’s lose the ‘loser letters’, re-invent the written language, and start a spelling revolution!

Hello, fans! Well, here I am again, coming back from the local store with a huge great basketful of groceries, puffing and panting my way home up a never-ending hill. I mean, really! Who in their right mind would think of designing a road home that went UPHILL?

Surely logic tells us that we have the most energy when we first set out on our walk, not when we’re heading back home. If we go up the hill at the start of our journey, while we’re fresh, we’ll still have plenty of energy to cover more ground, meaning we can challenge ourselves with longer walks. Given that our return journey will be back down the same hill, we can go further afield because we know we can get home again with little effort, even when we’re tired. That way we can get more exercise and stay healthy, which the government wants us to do. So wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect councils to take this into account? Shouldn’t they have laws to ensure that all roads home go downhill? Well, fat chance of that! To this day, all across the country they continue building roads home on dizzying upward slopes!

And there really is no excuse in this case. Someone gave planning permission for that store to be built in a valley, knowing full well that wherever they live, its customers would always have to struggle uphill to get their groceries to their front door.

Well, this has really got my goat!

But instead of just complaining, you’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve at last decided to do something about it, and for this purpose I’m going to need your help. I’m asking you to please join me in sending a strong message to the councils concerned. Let’s vote with our feet and show them what we, the public, think of their inconsiderate practices:

From now on, let’s BOYCOTT all these uphill roads till they’re forced to put things right!

We all do it twice a year, and I’m frankly fed up with it! We move our clocks backwards and forwards as if we’re controlling time itself, but of course we are not.

Why do we do it then? Is it so we can have the benefit of an extra hour of darkness when we come home from work? I mean, just consider this. It’s now dark by 5.30 instead of 6.30, and by mid December it will be completely dark by 4.30 pm! We all need the lights on when we get up in the winter, so why pay for an extra hour of lighting at the end of the day as well? The whole thing makes me hopping mad!

Last year I forgot what date it was, and I didn’t move my clock back. Then I couldn’t understand why no one turned up to any of the events on my calendar. Had all of these functions really been cancelled at such short notice? It took me two weeks to realise what had happened, and by then I’d missed six important meetings!

So you who have decreed that we must change our clocks biannually, whoever you are – I’m calling on you right now to take the following common sense action with immediate effect:

Reverse this switch back to Greenwich Mean Time, and keep Britain on Daylight Saving Time all year round!

…or else I shall appeal to whoever’s in charge of Earth’s orbit round the Sun.