Thoughts on reading the newspaper

Actually, I wasn't so much reading the local freebie yesterday as glancing at the advertising wrap-around.  There, with two photos, one six months before, the other six months after (according to the captions), was a young lady who was quoted as saying, "I'm getting married in six months and i need a brilliant smile".  I was so enraged that I n early smacked the dog over the head with my bowl of muesli.

"No!" I shouted, "you don't NEED a brilliant smile; you would like to have one."

You probably guessed by now that I am on one of my favourite hobbyhorses; the sloppy use of the English language.  I know, I really shouldn't get so worked up about such a little thing as the use of "need" in place of "would like".  but I'm afraid it's just a red rag to a bull as far as I am concerned.

The English language is considered by many to be the richest language in the world.  We have more words to describe a gradation of emotion than any other language, so why do professional copywriters (and a host of others to whom words are a way of making a living) use only the top and tail of that list: love, and hate.  What's wrong with all the words in between, such as like, dislike, abhor, adore and all the others?

My second thought is not a rant, merely a "wonder why".  It concerns the crash of the German plane that, it transpires, was the result of the co-pilot suffering from depression and committing suicide, at the same time killing all the passengers and the rest of the crew.

Why have the European authorities not adopted the American rule that if the pilot or co-pilot leaves the cockpit, another member of the crew moves in so that there is never just one person in the cockpit at any one time?

And why did nobody notice that the co-pilot was ill?