There are times I feel like reaching out and strangling people with an evil grin on my head. I spied with my little eye today a story in the local newspaper which ran thusly:

Beaumaris residents want to set up a working group to help resolve the skate park debate in their suburb.

More then 90 people held a meeting at the Beaumaris Community Centre to discuss suitable sites for the junior skate ramp.

At this point I blew a gasket.

I'm used to seeing that fucking malapropism on the internet message boards I frequent but to see it in the local newspaper was more than with what my sensibilities could cope.

To make matters worse, there was no by-line. There are no names to whom I can attribute this crime against the language, no identifiable personage against whom I can wreak my terrible revenge for the commission of this atrocity.

It seems no matter how often and in what circumstance I rage and bawl, there is an ever increasing number of fucking bastards intent on getting THEN and THAN confused.

How many times must it be said? These two words are not interchangable. They aren't now and they never will be. If I were the editor of that paper, I would fine the fucker who authored that filth a week's pay. It's inexcusable and if given the authority to ensure it never happened in any publication of mine, I would enforce it ruthlessly. In fact, just to make absolutely certain no other moron made the same mistake, I would summarily dismiss any employee named Ruth just to emphasise how ruthless I would be.

STOP DOING THIS. IT'S EVIL. IT'S UGLY and IT STINKS!