I was walking through Leicester Square tube station when a voice over the tannoy announced, 'Please be advised, there are professional beggars operating at this station.'
I love the language.

Advised? OK. I'm advised. Professional beggars - as opposed to what exactly? Amateurs? "Me? A pro? You're joking. Nah, it's just a bit of fun. Gets me out of the house of a weekend, doesn't it? Otherwise I'd have to take the wife down B&Q" Operating? Really? It makes them sound like surgeons; maybe even MI5.

There was something about this announcement that pissed me off. I'm sure there are some people who beg on London's streets who bus in every day from a comfortable Cheam semi. I'm sure some of them are charlatans, some of them illegal, blah blah blah. But I still don't want their life and, if I make the adult decision to give them my own cash, I'm sure I can deal with the consequences. This might be the moment to start whining about the 'nanny state'. But that's another phrase I despise. When did we start speaking only in catch-phrases? I don't trust this new language in which meaning is indefinite and emotional, a trigger response, manipulative and manipulated.

In other news, the Book Slam podcast has been nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award. Yay! Or not yay ... I don't really know what it means. KP and BTung are chuffed so I guess I can be chuffed too. That said, I feel a bit like someone who's family pooch has won Best of Breed at Crufts. I mean, Rover's still Rover.

In other other news, I've finished my novel. The Darkness went to the The Darkest for a couple of weeks and I just dang well done did it. Feel the usual mixture of relief and anticlimax ... please God that those who need to like it, like it. Being a scruff bag, I was once offered 20p for a cup of tea by a kindly grandmother. I doffed my proverbial and said, 'thanks very much, ma'am.' The last thing I want to do now is turn pro. It's inadvisable.