Been here, done that, got the t-shirt

It just so happens that the Old Bat and I have lunched at the Swan three times this month. It's not that we are prone to lunching out frequently, and certainly not at the same pub every time. It's just that first my cousin wanted to go for a pub lunch, then my brother and his wife (and the Swan is the nearest and most convenient "country" pub), and then the usual monthly get-together we attend was held there as well. On the first occasion all three of us opted for gammon, egg and chips and discovered the gammon to be excellent. The second time I chose scampi, which was fine, but this week, on the third visit, I went for the sausage, bacon, egg and chips. I reckon I hit the jackpot. The bacon was done exactly how I like it and the sausages contained real meat and herbs - made by a local butcher and not the mass-produced breadcrumbs that can be bought at any supermarket.

You must forgive my rambling: today's blog is not meant to be about food but about homework. You see, six of us at this week's lunch got to talking about helping children with their homework. By coincidence, the subject had cropped up only a few days earlier when No 1 Son mentioned the difficulty he was having helping his son (No 1 Grandson) with his maths homework. No because 1S couldn't do the arithmetic but because the methodology taught to 1GS was different to that taught to 1S all those years ago. I couldn't help but smile as I recalled having exactly the same difficulty myself. When, at a parents' evening, I had told the maths teacher, he had replied patronisingly, 'We teach new maths nowadays'. 'New maths?' I queried. How can there be new maths? Surely 2 + 2 still makes 4?' My wife had to drag me away before things got overheated.

Anyway, it wasn't maths that was causing a problem for Mrs Chris but her grandson's English homework. She had been asked to help and decided she had better see what was involved before her grandson arrived. He (her grandson) is aged, I think, seven or maybe eight and his homework was to rewrite a number of sentences changing the tense to the future. Luckily, Mrs Chris looked at the top of the page in the text book where she saw the explanation of when to use the word "will" and when "shall". It seems that children these days are being taught that "shall" is used for the first person singular and plural while "will" is used for the second and third persons. For example: I shall go to the park. You will come with me. We shall play football.

Now I had never before heard of this rule - nor had Mrs Chris. She rang somebody she knows who owns a copy of Fowler's Modern Usage (or whatever it's called) and he confirmed that Fowler's says this is one of the different ways - and there are several - of differentiating between "shall" and "will".

I shall remember that - or maybe I will.