View from the Potting Shed

A new restaurant has opened in St Andrews on College Street. I think it does Indian and fish food. Not “fish food”, like food that you give to fish, I mean seafood. You know what I mean …

I just hope that their food is better than their grasp of punctuation, as the sign outside reads:

OPEN-7 DAY’S

What’s with the apostrophe?! “Days” is plural not possessive!

And the dash before the seven? Does that mean: open minus seven days? What does that even mean? A restaurant for time-travellers?

The Apostrophe Protection Society should be informed.

Actually, thinking about it maybe the sign should just be corrected.

Amongst the fine haul of presents that I received at Christmas from friends and family I received these magnetic fridge dominoes from my brother Eddie and his wife Rebecca.

I have quite a collection of fun magnetic toys now, including Fridge Chess, a dress-up Homer Simpson and no fewer than three sets of Magentic Poetry (Christian, Romantic and Standard) and so Fridge Dominoes is a welcome addition to the side of our fridge. (The chess and Homer are currently at home on my filing cabinet in the study.)

However, a closer look at the packaging reveals something quite disturbing. And it’s not that the pretty young lady appears to be high on some kind of illicit substance. It’s that

1. The photographer who set up this ‘natural-looking’ scene clearly doesn’t know the rules for dominoes. Look closely at the dominoes on the fridge, from the left: 5+3, 0+5, 5+1, 1+3, 3+4, 4+1, 1+1, 1+6, 6+3, 3+2, 2+6, 6+0, 4+6, 6+6, 6+5. There are two places (marked in bold type) where the sequence is clearly wrong. You can’t place a three next to a zero, or a zero next to a four!! What were they thinking?!
2. The mad-looking lady playing the game also doesn’t seem to know how to play, as she is placing her 2+2 tile in the middle of the sequence. What kind of made-up rules is she playing in all the world?!

A little more attention to detail would have made this a more professional-looking product. Frankly I’m disappointed, and if you’d like to join me in complaining to Fridge Play then you can contact them via their website at www.fridgeplay.com or write to them at

Fridgeplay Inc.
88 Black Falcoln Avenue
Suite 238
Boston, MA 02210-2425
USA

Pedants of the World Unite!