Welcome

Hello and welcome from me, the Wordman of Aperton. Why Wordman and why Alperton? Simple, really. My stock in trade is words. That's it. I'll write about anything to do with words - forms, meanings and pronunciations; expressions, idioms and etymologies; good words, bad words, ugly words - any words. In fact, I'll even write about strings of words, sentences, paragraphs, articles, books and languages.

Our words reflect our minds, express our thoughts, define our characters, lift us, amuse us and delight us, defeat us, confuse us and condemn us; we are the very stuff of words (OK, that bit sounds a little too pretentious, but I think I'll keep it in anyway). The scope is limitless - I shall write about anything and everything, because both of those things are words, and words can be anything and everything (am I losing the plot here? Help me!). Well, whatever tosh I come up with, I hope it's amusing, informative and entertaining (bloody hell, I'm beginning to sound like the BBC), but then you, gentle reader, will be the judge of that. Tell me whenever I'm less than amusing, informative and entertaining, and I shall endeavour to remedy it (if you believe that, you'll believe anything).

Big plug: I've published two books about words: The Other Dictionary and Bless the Buccaneer with Barbecued Blood, with more in the pipeline, and I shall be quoting from them from time to time, but you might want to go off and buy them now (thereby furnishing me with loads of filthy lucre). The links are on these websites: www.theotherdictionary.info and www.blessthebuccaneer.com. Alternatively, you could just follow me here for free. Or alternatively alternatively, you could do both.

Oh, one more thing - why Alperton? Because that's where I live, near Wembley Stadium, in north west London, England. It's not the best place to live and it's not the worst, but it's home, and anyway, it sort of works, with me sitting here in my little room, nursing my words before releasing them to fly away into the wide, blue yonder. I hope you can catch them before they fly away for good (though actually that's crap because they'll always be here on this blog).

Read on and enjoy!