Thank you for deciding to take a look at this, the first blog post of King’s English. My name is David King, hence the business name. And if I had a cheesy tag line, it would probably be “King’s English – too good not to use!”

Some people advise that you shouldn’t ‘welcome’ visitors to websites and blogs, so I’m not going to do that here. Which doesn’t mean you’re not welcome – you are. Now if that isn’t having your cake and eating it, or as the proverb ought to be, eating your cake yet still having it . . .

Well, that was thirty seconds of your life you won’t see again. So what’ll this all be about, and why should you bother coming back? I hope, in the best Reithian tradition, to inform, educate and entertain. This by the way, had he been founding the BBC in the 1990s, Reith would have been obliged to call his ‘mission statement’, and such terms may well be finding themselves in the crosshairs of the King’s English blog.

I spent seven years of my young life as a fairly indolent member of the 4th Epping Scout troop, which taught me a great deal about all sorts of things, not all of which Lord Baden Powell might have anticipated or approved of, but I did learn that if you plug away for long enough at something, you might eventually succeed. And although I’ve subsequently failed for the most part to follow this advice, I hope that freelancing and blogging is also governed by this almost Euclidian principle.

Here, I’m not required to be objective (though I’ll always try to be fair) and will record my sundry observations and outpourings upon the English language, and almost certainly other things besides. Most of what King’s English does is precise and concise, governed by other criteria, but here I can play a little and be discursive, uncovering and investigating interesting objects along the way. Much as Barney, my late Labrador, used to do, except that unlike him, I won’t dig out anything putrid or fecal. And then eat it in front of you. Thankfully though, he’d never have wanted to share it anyway.

The voice will be mine, and you’ll draw your own conclusions about its merits. I will often be serious, though I hope never pompous; I’m sure you’ll all be quick to tell me if ever I am. You might detect irony, or even an attempt at humour. At times I may resemble John Cleese’s frustrated headmaster from Clockwise, famously thrashing the bonnet of his broken down car with the branch of a tree. There’ll be the occasional poem too. I’ll no doubt opine on the imminent extinction of our language’s nuances by Silicon Valley web-speak, our general indifference to this, and the continuing (definitely not ‘ongoing’) linguistic debasement evident even in Parliament and at the BBC; for as somebody said in Measure for Measure, “If gold rust, what shall iron do?” (That question, now I think of it, is a good single line summary of the whole play.)

You might be thinking, if you’re still with me, “Another grumpy old git banging on about the decline of the language! Why doesn’t he just write to the Telegraph and spare the rest of us?” Well, firstly I was also a grumpy young git back in the day, and secondly it’s a very long time since I have read the Telegraph, although the old Daily Telegraph with its intriguing gothic masthead was the newspaper of my childhood. I liked the look, the smell and the feel of it, and it was ideal for the bottom of the hamster cage; I can’t say though that I ever really read it, and I don’t expect the hamster did either. And I’m definitely no Conservative, even if often conservative in outlook.

Well, I seem to have included a confession, as all good diaries should, and one I hadn’t planned to make at that. Perhaps then time to sign off. Please come back when you see the alerts and posts. I’ll try my best not to bore you, or detain you for too long. You’ll be welcome – Scouts’ Honour.