Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Earlier in the week I had a row about whether "Without prejudice" works as a legal opt-out. It appears my opposing force was not the only one hoping to find a way out of anything. Read the small print in this post by Ryan [you may need to copy and paste it].

One has to admire the sheer effort it took to put all that together. Although he forgot all important "This item may contain nuts", the all American "This knife may be sharp in places" and the all oppressive "This is not a toy".

The row wasn't really about whether correspondence could be quoted in court, but whether the phrase gave the writer carte blanche. It was much more to do with the tone of the letter than the initial phrase. I think the row only cropped out because I was asked to check over the letter, and sent it back so it plotted the movements of a crack team of sheepdogs herding up the stray punctuation. Odd commas in some parts of an address but not in others is annoying. But using an ellipsis is worse, especially when the poor typing breaks the punctuation's back, and spreads it over two lines, so there's an abandoned full stop on a line of its own, and colon drunkenly sprawled at the feet of the last word.

As for the rest of Ryan's post, I've only heard of the Pet Shop Boys, so can't really comment (although I have to agree wetsuits can be flattering, just not on me).

Anyhoo,