Grammatical collapse? A correspondent from Frimley has pointed out the howler in Thursday's post: 'bored of' rather than 'bored with' - especially humiliating given my current Johnsonian lamentations about declining standards in education due to technology.

And then it occurs to me - is this another manifestation of a French linguistic subconscious declaring itself? Now and again I catch myself using constructions that seem 'infected' by this Other. Thus 'we go now?' - I never used to say this ('let's go' would be the phrase).

'J'en ai marre de' is the typical French way of expressing boredom - you're bored 'of' whatever it is.

The price one pays, perhaps, for inhabiting two languages.