I have noticed that nowadays there is always a dramatic pause after This…. As in This… is the ten o’clock news. Or even on the underground or the bus where a computerized voice tells you that This… is Gloucester road ot This… is Oildrum Avenue.

My pledge is never to pause after this but to just run it on, as though I were uttering a bland bit of unshouting sentence that has no claims to grandeur. It may well be that greater dramatic force will gather around less portentous phrasing.

I have other rhetorical aims too. Never to say: the thing is… I shall, however, endeavour to start some sentences with: the thing isn’t... and see where that lands me. The other term I am actively trying to avoid at the present time is: the gay community or the teaching community. The word community is only ever used in a positive way. When did you last here the term the Klu-Klux clan community. I, of course, have no criticism of the invisible and probably fictional bonds that bind all teachers and gays together. However, words like community do, I believe, smuggle all kinds of nonsense through. Like any other words, their should have their visas checked.

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