Coasting

Kevin Maguire must have been desperate to fill his New Statesman diary this week. And don't you just hate it when bloggers and columnists resort to any old rubbish to hint at productivity. It is lazy and suggests they are merely coasting rather than saying anything remotely useful.

He bemoans the fact that none of the party conferences this autumn are being held by the seaside. Er, shurely shome mishtake? (Thank's to Private Eye for the last sentence - always nice to attribute things where possible).

True, the Tories are in Birmingham which is as far away from the coast as you can be and the Lib Dems are in Liverpool, which is a port ON A RIVER and so can not in any way be described as a coastal City. But Labour are holding their annual jamboree in Manchester. Last time I looked, Manchester had a ship canal, and ships sail on the sea, which kind of hints that it's on the coast.

I wonder if Mr Maguire ever got a Geography 'O' Level or whether like me he missed the lesson where the difference between a river and the sea was discussed.

PS: Yeah, I do know that Manchester is not really on the coast but it is more or less on the coast, innit? :) And "more or less" is accurate enough for my type of journalism as it is a useful device when trying to make out I am right about something even though I have been proved to be wrong. You can breezily peddle all manner of half truths as fact with such caveats.

PPS: Thought I would use yoofspeke, innit, and emoticons even though I am not 14.