Ordinary speak and write language

Sam Leith reports on  bonkers books including Fish Who Answer The Telephone; Lady Loverley’s Chatter; The History of the Concrete Roofing-Tile and Correctly English in Hundred Days, published in 1934:

This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wishes to served for the foreign firm. It divided nearly 190 pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language.

Joe Hildebrand tries to help the Australian Labor Party. Someone has to. This may sound familiar:

What we are seeing here is a government run by a political class, a team of professional politicians whose life experience is limited almost entirely to working for either the party or a trade union. [. . .] Again, there is nothing wrong with these jobs but they do not expose you to the full spectrum of political views. Indeed, in all of these positions anyone you encounter who disagrees with you is likely to be the enemy you’re fighting in the court or the parliament. This mindset still permeates today, and so the humble swinging voter who’s had enough is seen not as a disenchanted citizen who needs to be wooed back to Labor but either a dirty Lib or a victim of right-wing manipulation.

 Tom Service provides a guide to the music of Elliott Carter, still with us at 103:

If there are any composers writing more profoundly joyful, or youthful, music than the American Elliott Carter, I’ve yet to discover them. He’s the closest any of us will probably ever experience to new music’s Haydn.