I want to add a footnote to the obstetric history of last week’s newborn word omnishambles. But before I forget, I noticed an advertisement on the side of a bus recently which asked: ‘Fed up with buffering?’ I did, by chance, know what the bus meant: buffering is the juddering standstill that internet video can come to. The buffer is, I think, a bit of memory dedicated to sucking up data before displaying it for you. The dictionaries have not caught up with this word yet, but it may prove short-lived, if the problem is resolved.
Now, omnishambles. It’s always a little suspicious (like having ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’ tattooed on your knuckles) to know off by heart sections of dialogue from television programmes (the parrot sketch, ‘four candles’) or Withnail and I. It suggests too many solitary evenings with boxed sets.
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