Rather like the grocer's apostrophe, we now have the cook's preposition. Sleepily sitting up in bed after midnight, watching Ainsley Harriot gurning his way through a predictably minstrel-like introduction to his “Meals In Minutes” programme, I found myself nodding off, only to be slapped awake by a series of preposterous phrases:

we're going to cook this off
we're going to cook this down
we're going to cook this out
we're going to fry this off
we're going to season this up
we're going to sieve this through
we're going to flour this over
we're going to fricassee this beyond

(I might have made up the last one.)

More hilarity was caused by a new advert for some kind of personal loan company, which supposedly features vox-popped members of the public but actually uses out of work actors who have undergone hours of grooming to properly extol the virtues of debt-consolidation. One bloke says: “I'm looking forward to a time where I have no financial restrictions whatsoever!” Well, I can't argue with your utopian dream, mate, but my guess is that someone who is setting their sights on owning large swathes of the Western Hemisphere by retirement age probably shouldn't be p!ssing about with “low-cost” loans at the age of 35. You'd already want to be on the Sunday Times' rich list, or something.

“With a little help from loan4me, I'll soon be MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!”