You can buy a fair amount of Nando’s for £35.

‘Baby I’m Gonna Heave You’. Chapeau.

Fantastic, Ged and Edwardian!

Great Robert Plant anecdote, Ged. I met Robert Plant very early one Sunday morning in the middle of Worcester in 1991 or 1992 after I was kicked out of someone’s bed. Student days. I said, “Morning Mr. Plant,” and he replied, “Alright mate.” Anyway I return to their albums occassionally, especially Physical Graffiti.

Here’s the Led Zepp XI

Whole Lotta Glove
Rock and Roll (umpires review)
Since I’ve been Gloving you
Babe I’m gonna Heave you
Over the bails and far away
All my Glove
Misty Mountain Long Hop
Bats Off (to Roy Harper). . Who had his own XI by the way
The Slog Remains the Same
Black Slog
The Bat of Evermore

When I’m not letting down the team and the language but most of all letting down myself through carelessness…I tend to go with the Economist Style Guide as the bible for this sort of thing. It has 10 rules for apostrophes:

1 With singular words and names that end in s: use the normal possessive ending ’s:
boss’s St James’s
caucus’s Jones’s
Delors’s Shanks’s

2 After plurals that do not end in s also use ’s: children’s,
Frenchmen’s, media’s.

3 Use the ending s’ on plurals that end in s:
Danes’ bosses’ Joneses’…

4 …and plural names that take a singular verb:
Barclays’ Stewarts & Lloyds’
Reuters’ Salomon Brothers’

5 Some plural nouns, although singular in other respects,
such as the United States, the United Nations, the
Philippines, have a plural possessive apostrophe:
Who will be the United States’ next president?

6 Lloyd’s (the insurance market): try to avoid using as a
possessive; it poses an insoluble problem.

7 Achilles heel: the vulnerable part of the hero of the Trojan
war.

8 Decades: do not put apostrophes into decades: the 1990s.

9 Phrases like two weeks’ time, four days’ march, six months’
leave, also need apostrophes.

10 People:
people’s = of (the) people
peoples’ = of peoples

We have a whole lotta love for several Led Zep tracks, but ironically not especially the one we’ve just name checked.

Clearly Darren Steven’s is wrong, but what is right? Darren Stevens’? Darren Stevens’s? It’s definitely St. James’s Palace in writing and St. James-es Palace in speech, but saying Stevens-es seems wrong. And for words ending –er it seems even more wrong – Bolton Wanderers-es striker? And since St. James’s Palace is often shortened to St. James’s, what about something belonging to them. St James’s’s front door?

One of you must have a style guide that gives the definitive answer to this.

Four hours? Pfft. Try five and a half without stopping.

Not a fan, but if YOU are a fan, Ameya, you should enjoy my sole Zep anecdote:

http://ianlouisharris.com/1981/03/11/robert-plants-secret-gig-room-14-university-of-keele-students-union-uksu-11-march-1981/

It is unquestionably the most popular (i.e. most often hit) page on Ogblog to date. It gets a hit or two most days even though I posted it some years ago now.

OMG I committed a grocer’s apostrophe. Apology’s.

I blame the four hour drive back from Manchester yesterday and the dodgy company I kept at times while I was up there, e.g. journalist’s.