Just spotted this in an email:

Top film composer Michael Price (credits on Hot Fuzz, Children of Men and this summer's Wild Child) will join a group of six disabled and six non-disabled people in the first multi-ability team ever to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. This landmark climb is in aid of the charity Enham and is being filmed for an independent cinema release.

Michael will create a score for the film as he climbs the mountain with the group. He’ll be running world-class digital media products from Avid on a laptop, including Sibelius 5, Pro Tools and M-Audio hardware. What's more, he'll be posting his progress on a daily blog for you to follow!

Michael will also be inviting students to write and email him short pieces of music for the opening and closing of the team’s regular video podcasts – which they will produce and publish while on the mountain using Avid Media Composer.

I bet most of the r3ok composers just sit comfortably at their desks writing music - what wimps!

Have you heard children's TV presenters recently? "Gonna" and various other nasty things are just about universal

And perhaps I should point out that she's one of my bright, high ability Year 2s...at least I can understand what she's written.

Not with you leading the good fight, BBM.   

I was once questioned in a murder investigation, I'd disappeared the night they found a body in a garden across the road... 

Well, I'd only 'disappeared' to my folks house for the weekend, so they found me easy and my story was good, and I was 'eliminated from enquiries' I suppose, but I did wonder afterwards what the detective thought of my answers.

Bbm's right, John: 'sch' in British English usually signifies an 'sk' sound, but the standard English pronunciation of the first syllable of 'schedule' is 'shed', as in the Chelsea supporters, which is how I always remember it: there may be a 'ch', but it's 'shed'. It's not the only 'sch' word that goes 'sh' either: although 'schism' is an 'sk' word, 'schist' (a geological term) uses an 'sh' pronunciation, too.

 Since 'schedule' is a word that has virtually universal currency in business and transport, however, the 'sk' version is likely to predominate in the long run. British English is now seen as a specialised enclave, whereas American English has become the de facto standard. It's worth remembering, though, that sometimes what we think of as Americanisms are actually the original English version, preserving an older British pronunciation (example: 'lieutenant', which Americans pronounce as it was spoken in Shakespeare's time, which makes perfect sense considering its French derivation). ('E' + 'u' making an 'ef' sound is a weird aberration: I can't think off-hand of another case where the same combination of letters makes a similar sound in English, although in modern Greek they make an 'ev' sound).

I dislike the creeping Americanisation of English, too, but I'm quite illogical about it. I cheerfully use "OK", because that's been part of our language for so long, but hate "skedule" and "guys". I cringe every time I see "program" or "favorite", but I'm quite sure those two will become standard soon.

I suppose seeing another country's language invading one's own is a little like seeing another country invading one's own (though obviously less dangerous!). It seems to remove some of our individuality. Before anyone tells me, I am well aware that other languages have been part of English since time immemorial - in fact English is a total mixture - and that without them we would have a much less rich language.  I just can't quite see that Americanisms have an enriching effect.