One of the unexpected Chr*stm*s presents Chig received from Chigsister ten days ago - unexpected partly because Chig was unaware of its existence - was an amusing little book called 'Eats, Shites & Leaves'. It is, of course, a light-hearted companion volume to the book which Chig was given TWICE twelve months before. (Not that my friends think I'm some kind of anally-retentive, pedantic grammar nerd, oh no.) Subtitled 'Crap English And How To Use It', it complements the original book by Lynne Truss (or the Saviour of the English Language, as I like to call her), rather than parodying it excessively. It gives entertaining and amusing examples of crap English, as used in real life, such as, "Elephants please stay in your car" and "Why not have your children shot for Easter, or have a family portrait taken?"

With this in mind...

Last week, at work, Chig was surprised to receive an e-mail, sent to every single employee across the company, saying that our German parent company is donating a million Euros to the tsunami appeal. I wasn't surprised by the announcement itself, but by the fact that it was in German, and German only! Luckily, my distant memory of German 'A' Level and more recent German Eurovision entries can see me through, but I can't speak for the rest of the UK workforce...

Today then, unsurprisingly, we receive a company-wide e-mail in English from the Big Cheese of the UK bit of the company, explaining what we're going to do from our end. Except that the way they do these things is that he sends it to a few Sous-Cheeses, they send it to their underlings with an added comment or two, then they add something and forward it to their minions, etc., etc. (It's called 'cascading' and it ensures one thing; that several people, somewhere along the line, miss out on important company communications. But I digress.)

So, this e-mail reaches me fourth or fifth hand. The original message is very commendable and strikes just the right tone. However, somewhere along the way, another manager has got hold of it and added the following line. (Only the company name has been removed to protect the guilty.) Prepare to cringe.

"Please forward to your team, [we] are contributing to the disaster."

Textbook. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So, now you know. It was nothing to do with the movement of the Earth's tectonic plates - it was our bloody company that was largely to blame.
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