Browsing Wikipedia, I came across two special hotels that might demonstrate a difference between two potentially confusing adjectives.

• The Rose Rotana, Dubai
• 72 storeys
• 333 meters high
• The entire building is to be used exclusively as a hotel. It is scheduled to open later this year and will be the tallest hotel in the world.

• International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong
• 118 storeys
• 484 meters high
• When completed, a hotel will occupy the top 15 floors of the tower. This will be the highest hotel in the world.

Hmmm … this is starting to look like a page from a course book.

Burcu Akyol sent me some drawings from one of her classes. She asked her students to draw a man with a baby gorilla talking to a policeman in the street. Students were then asked to consider what was happening and create dialogs. This is a preparation stage for an activity from my new book (that’s it there on the right →)

The activity is called, “The Baby Gorilla Joke” and in a lame attempt to ecourage book sales, I should refuse to say what the joke is. But that wouldn’t be fair. You can see it here.

I’ve used this activity quite a few times and one thing I’ve learned is how difficult baby gorillas are to draw. I think these artists did a great job. What are their names Burcu?

I have a very friendly postman in Barcelona (actually I should say “I had a very friendly postman” since I have recently moved away from the city). Anyway, for 4 years, he delivered bills, bank statements, junk mail and every now and again, a letter or two. Although we were never on first-name terms, our meetings in the corridor were always very cordial.

One day I saw my friendly postman in the street. He was walking away from my front door and I asked him:

“¿Has podido entrar?” (”Did you manage to get in?”)

[Cultural note: In order to get through front doors and have access to buzones (see below), postmen in Barcelona are completely dependent on intercoms and people being at home at delivery time.]

He told me that someone had let him in and so I asked him:

“¿Algo para mi?” (”Anything for me?)

This was intended as a piece of small talk but my postman wanted to give me an answer. He had to think about it for a moment. He looked down at the ground and scratched his forehead. I was just about to tell him that it wasn’t important when he looked up and said:

“¿Coca?” (Cocaine?)

I assumed that I had misheard him but he repeated:

“¿Coca?“

I laughed and passed this off as a joke. Then I left him and went back to my flat. Of course, I checked my buzón to see if it contained any drugs but it didn’t. So I had to conclude that my postman was letting me know that he would be able to supply me with cocaine in case I ever found myself in need. What other possible explanation could there be? Obviously, the ball was in my court as he never mentioned his offer to me again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Well all right then, I’ll tell you what the other possible explanation was:

It came a couple of weeks later in the form of a letter which was dropped into my buzón which reminded me that my flat’s previous occupant was called Señor Coca.

I am tempted to say that this was clearly a case of mistaken identity. But the conspiracy theorist in me continues to believe that the whole thing is a cover up: In an attempt to create new business for his cocaine sideline, my shrewd postman is strategically planting these bogus “Señor Coca” letters into people buzones all over the city.

I sometimes wonder how many other individuals across Barcelona live under the false belief that their flats were previously occupied by someone under the name of Coca. And I wonder how many times my postman has fallen back on this ‘innocent misunderstanding’ whenever his blatant attempts to sell drugs have not gone according to plan. Ingenious!

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Oxford University Press event in Cardiff last week where I was presenting a few ideas from my new book: Images. I shared the session with two other writers from the series - Hans Mols and Ken Wilson.

Me (’Creative ideas using images’)

Hans Mols (’Creative ideas for teaching grammar to young learners’)

Ken Wilson (’Creative ideas using drama and improvisation’)

Series editor Alan Maley presented the session

Adrian Tennant takes the mic during a question and answers slot

A soirée to celebrate Alan’s stepping down as series editor followed. Here Alan cuts the cake.

Who would have thought that Ken would end up with the piece of cake with Alan’s head on it? The irony! I tried to persuade him not to eat it but he was like a ravenous animal.

A headline from the Guardian reads: Rubber banned: Keep Britain Tidy wages war on Royal Mail elastic bands (read article here).

The exploitation of homophones for play-on-word newspaper headlines is common practice. In this case, one of the words is a regular -ed past participle (banned) and that makes it extra clever. Here are other examples of similar headlines that you may (but probably won’t) remember:

Guessed room
“I always had a feeling that there was a hidden secret chamber somewhere in our house,” claims woman.

Band substances
A report of rising drug use among musicians

Board out their minds
A report that young people just aren’t enjoying chess these days

Passed perfect
Football pundit Andy Gray’s 10 all-time greatest midfielders

Mist calls
London sees the worst recorded fog in history. Disoriented pedestrians are forced to make use of GPS features in mobile phones to find their way home.

Bard!
Shakespeare is denied entry into a local pub due to alleged bad behaviour.

Toad away
A story about a giant frog that had to be removed by the council after it refused to move itself from a busy street.

Can anyone think of any more?

I have an article in the current Guardian Weekly which looks at websites that allow learners to work with words (read it here). It mentions the following sites:

• Wordle: I’ve written about this site before (see here, here and here)
• Wordia: I’ll be posting a full article about this recently-launched video dictionary on teflclips in the next few weeks.
• Wordie: This site allows learners to create their own word lists. ‘Adjectives with two syllables that end in -y‘ is the example wordlist that is mentioned (see it here).