Opportunity Knocks: a rant.

It's jolly useful to have signs by the sides of the roads marking the boundaries of places.

It's an added bonus if, as in England, there are places called Weston-under-Lizard, Limpley Stoke, Marsh Gibbon, and, most deliciously of all, I think, Wishmore Bottom.

It does no harm if these signs add a little extra information: Buggleswick: Home of Surgical Stockings, for instance, or Chantley: Historic Town destroyed by Hairy the Woadsman.

However, the signs around my home county which proclaim:

 HERTFORDSHIRE: A COUNTY OF OPPORTUNITY

are merely embarrassing. A county of opportunity? Opportunity for what? Unemployment, famine and murder? 

Does my home county offer career-development courses for zombies? Or bareback giraffe racing?

Who can tell?

What people can tell, though, is that the members of the County Council who were responsible for putting up those signs have much, much more money than sense.

Ah well. At least they're giving fair warning to every single person who enters the county.

Word To Use Today: opportunity. This word comes from the Latin opportūnus, which means coming to harbour.

In Australia and New Zealand an opportunity shop, or op shop, is one selling second-hand goods on behalf of charitity.