English language is weird

I mean, the English as used in England.

A Telegraph headline: Police refuse to say if shooting victim Anthony Grainger was armed. This was a suspected robber. Anywhere else - including ,astonishingly, Finland, Sweden etc - the headline would speak about "suspected robber", not "shooting victim".

The victimisation culture of serious criminals is really out of hand in Britain.

The police won't say if the man was armed. That is hardly surprising. Whatever the police says, if there is a tiniest error or debatable detail, it will be used against the officers in question and in justification for just about anything (including, but not limited to, arranging a riot, burning down a section of London, or emptying an electronics store of big screen TV's.

A nomination

Every once in a while, you learn some funny things about the English. Like this one: members of the parliament cannot resign. Actually, in the history, MPs were sometimes elected against their will - presumably there were some occupational hazards and anyway it was financially not such an attractive job as nowadays.

OK, so when an MP has disgraced himself in the expenses scandal, how do the English get rid of him? They appoint him to the job of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham. This is a ceremonial position of profit. An MP accepting an office of profit under the Crown must give up his or her seat. An MP applies for the office to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who usually then signs a warrant appointing the now former MP. And thus the MP has effectively resigned.

Ingenious.