[First published in A bit of Bruce]

you you a the he he his but for as can needs needs give paying know work tools craftsman well

Roll up, roll up! Here they are, ladies and gentlemen! Just what you've been waiting for! Twenty lovingly crafted words that'll fit neatly into a readily preconcepted and grammatical sentence. I'll even throw in the necessary punctuation for free: , . ,
Syntax not provided. Capitalisation negotiated as layout. Extra charges apply.

Yes, you see. Because after (as my New Zealand immigration official put it) "going all over the place", I've decided to see if I can do some "writing all over the place" as well. Heck, I'm going to get £150 for one job, so I must be a professional, right?

So there I was. Looking at these submission guidelines for this online magazine, see. And I did a bit of thinking. And I looked at the article length what they was looking for, like. And I looked at the pay what they was offering, you know. And I thinks to myself ... why, I thinks, that's a good three (euro)cents per word, that is. So I thinks, well, if I can come up with twenty good words, like I have just there at the start, well, that's about forty minutes worth of rent on my flat. Innit?

So there they are. Twenty shiny lexical items - not all different, it's true, but then bricks don't look too much different from each other neither, if you get my drift - and they're going to keep my head and DVD collection dry for the best part of an hour, right? That must be a good deal.

Oh hell, I can't keep this up. [Insert actress/bishop joke? - ed.]

The point being, you see, what's a word worth?

As an aside, and for reasons that I won't go into right now, I've also recently become the loving owner of the domain name luv-u-2.com, like what they have on them internets. Unfortunately it's worth next to nothing, what with hyphens and numerals being, apparently, the linguistic equivalent of mould when it comes to virtual real estate. But maybe someone will come along who wants to do it up and make it look nice. You never know.

Aha! Back to the main plot. Location, location, location! It's not the word. It's where the word is that matters. Luv is fine, but its flatmates bring down the neighbourhood.

And while I'm on this internet stuff: why, everybody's at it, ain't they? Everybody's bleedin' writing stuff. Our whole wwworld is swimming with words and sayings and sentences and all sorts. Some of it right shoddy material, too, I can tell you. But it's all there.

Talk about market saturation! Everybody's their own bleedin' columnist these days! And here I am adding to the pile. For free, dammit!!!

But if you can't beat 'em....

Roll up, roll up! Buy all twenty words and I'll knock 50% off your syntax costs. Best deal on the net!!!