A Question of Vegetarianism

Are vegetarians allowed to eat venus fly traps?

Three Rants

Rant 1: British Airways

I just don't understand how BA have any kind of reputation at all, let alone a half-decent one. Do they not realise that there are other airlines operating? Or have they just become complacent as they have the monopoly on a whole heap of routes?

I've ranted about BA's backstage performance before on Traveller Cliche. I'd never really criticised their in-flight performance, merely noted that they weren't anywhere near as good as Virgin. Or Qantas. Or Air New Zealand. But the quality of the last BA flight I took was laughable: forty minute delay; mediocre meal; no in-flight entertainment. What are you doing? Trying to compete with Ryanair for lack of facilities? At least they have a good in-flight magazine.

Next time I go somewhere BA fly to I'll probably walk instead.

Rant 2: Shoes

Since I've been away shoes seem to have got ridiculously pointy. Does anyone have feet that fit them? Does anyone have a foot-sized pencil sharpener so that I can whittle my feet into a suitable shape? I reckon that if I take enough off the side I could get into a Size 4.

Rant 3: Boarding passes

Why? What purpose do they serve? In a digital, eco-friendly age surely there is a more efficient way of getting people onto a plane than giving everyone a waxy bit of oversized card, I mean at least make it the same size as your pocket.

Air Asia just give you a receipt. Why doesn't the rest of the world? Because they're pointy-shoed idiots. I blame BA.

PHEONIX

The phoenix, hey? Now there's a bird that can spontaneously combust. Which seems pretty weird.

Also weird is the fact that, from what I can make out, it emerged independently in a whole heap of different cultures: Chinese, Greek, Egyptian.

Now I can understand how some mythical creatures came about - dragons, say, are just an amalgam of lots of scary things; unicorns are just the mid point of a horse and a rhino - but a bird that lives forever, pausing briefly every few hundred years to be on fire. That's just weird. I could see how it could crop up spuriously in one culture, but in most of them? Don't understand.

Please can someone explain this to me? Thanks.

Apologies for my terrible language

Why is English so unnecessarily complicated? Really, why?

Recently I've been teaching English to a group of Cambodian kids. This is made especially difficult by the fact that they have no concept of verb tenses. No need for the present perfect continuous for them, just a one word modifier: "[before now] I go market". Nice and simple. We have about eight ways of saying that, and yes, each way is subtly different, but eight ways? is that really necessary.

They don't have any concept of modals either. For those that haven't recently spent an unnecessary amount of time on the internet trying to get these clear in their own mind, these are words like could, would and should. Anyone that can explain the point of the word shall is a better man than me. Turns out that there's not really any rules and most modals are pretty much interchanageable with at least one other in at least one context.

And then there's English spelling. Which everyone knows is ridiculous so there's no need to stomp over old ground.

But well done kids, you got the basics. I appreciate that you're still confused by "should" and the difference between the past continuous and the past perfect continuous. But hey, you can direct someone to the bus station and that's infinitely more useful.

English is stupid. Please accept my apologies for it.