Was listening, absent-mindedly, to a programme about the history of Capitalism (my life. One long laugh-riot.)

It was good, but because I’m a bit think, most of it I can’t recall - apart from the word seems to have been coined (lol) by the French to describe the British, around 1820; and a rather excitable economic journalist arguing only capitalism makes people wealthy (as opposed to Socialism.)

But what did stick was that right at the very end, the presenter, on observing whether creatives ever viewed what they did as primarily money-making exercises quoted Lennon & McCartney, which the gist of was (when the pop-duo were embarking on the next song-writing round)

‘Right, let’s write a swimming pool’.

It could have been the opening paragraph for the whole programme. I’d not heard the line before and I certainly won’t forget it - and as a immediate means of demonstrating how people can grasp what capitalism is, and how deeply, deeply ingrained in our daily lives; well I get it. 

But what was surprising was that this should have come at the end - as any journalist worth their salt would point out, ‘where’s the nut graph?’ Which, for those wot don’t know, is short for "nutshell paragraph" - the one that captures the context of the story "in a nutshell".

Nice eh?

And while we’re on the subject of the lexicon of inky-fingered hacks, finishing the headline with a question? 

Betteridge's law right there. 

"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." as claimed by Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist. 

So two things. 

If you know the answer - an it’s a ‘no’ but you’d rather not say (or simply love to stir the pot of speculation) - pop a ‘?’ after it. 

And never forget your nut graphs.