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Malone

I have just returned from a frustrating trip to town. I called at M&S and enquired about the "plant kitchen", expecting to be met with bafflement.. The assistant surprised me by appearing to know what I was talking about. She led me to a fridge and said "This is the Plant Kitchen".

"But where are the plants?" I asked. "There are no plants - it is a range of ready-meals, Spaghetti bolognese is the most popular."

"But that doesn't come from a plant", I protested, although I remember the hoax on Panorama many years ago.

Then on to Tesco for a "breakfast". Very nice but I complained that the mushrooms tasted rather like er...mushrooms.
"What so you expect them to taste like, meat?"
"But the Head of Plants told me they tasted like steak." "If you want plants or steak you have come to the wrong place."
"My mis-steak", I said.

So, the market tomorrow. Ivan does have female assistants, probably the ones you mention. I will let you know.

Has pedantry become overtaken by pun-ditry? (Hear them groan ...)

On acronyms: I worked for a company that had an admin system called EARS - European Admin Resource System, or similar. Wonder why it wasn't the Admin Resource System for Europe? And for a company with its Project Management Information System, ie PMIS, spoken as p-mis, of course!

Years ago I was doing an Everyman crossword. There was a long anagram - UP TO HIS ???? IN IT. The letters I had left were A R S E.....

jigjag

sorry you had a wasted trip to M&S. I tried to give you a hint - obviously not a strong enough one. They are all vegan meals, so the Spag Bol has no meat in it.

malone/grudger

Interesting day today - learnt a lot this morning re Vegan stuff - chased wild geese in the afternoon - then looked into more Vegan stuff (not literally).

Seeing that Tesco have a Head of Plants, and Sainsbury's/Asda a Head of Mushrooms, I contacted Ocado to enquire about new appointments. I got through to the new Head of Leaks, Wanda Wie.

"The company really wanted a Head of Leeks, but recent leaks have made my appointment more important", she told me. "News of our recent tie-up with M&S was leaked to a crossword forum. Our new brand, Markado and slogan "No Can Do" had to be abandoned. We think a Scottish lady is involved, possibly a Non-Executive Director with a great knowledge of M&S. In future, our leaks will be controlled".

I was pleased to hear that.

Chris and Steve

I liked your postings. They reminded me that when I was at school, a mischievous boy handed in an essay which included the line "He couldn't tell his ***e from his elbow", to the very attractive English teacher.

She told him what his punishment would be, but he protested, "Miss, the missing word is "knee". We thought it was very amusing, but the embarrassed teacher increased the punishment unfortunately.

Malone

They are very useful for creating a pastiche of pasta, pastry and pasteurised milk. Pistachio nuts are optional.

It gets my goat when people (nearly always BBC presenters) pronounce homage with no H and so as to rhyme with French fromage. It has always rhymed with West Bromwich, with the H sounded. This is a recent affectation with no authority for it whatever. Check out many a hymn and poem.

One of my pet hates, heard all too frequently on radio and TV, is the construction "it is impossible to underestimate the contribution...." when (I assume) "overestimate" is intended.