I feel a need to post a link here to David Crystal's Blog.

I find all of his work absolutely fascinating and very enjoyable to read, so when I found his blog I practically started at the beginning and read every past entry from 2006 to the present. I thoroughly recommend it!

Thanks Stanley. I've been subscribd to that blog for a while but never got round to linking it here. I've seen Crystal speak too and he was every bit as interesting in the flesh as he is on the page.

Ah, I am immensley jealous! I'd love to hear him speak in person, and I rather hope I manage it between now and the end of my English Language course in 2012. He's an utter genius!

His real genius lies in taking complex ideas and making them accessible without in any way dumbing them down. There are many people who are able to popularise things but few have this skill of doing it without oversimplifying.

Of course when I saw him he was presenting to an audience that consisted mainly of language teachers or lingustics students so we were all predisposed to like him. Nevertheless I found him as engaging a speaker as he as a writer.