It's not an idiom, it's correct. 'Turning' is perfectly OK as a gerund. 'ing' appears in three places in Engish - as a gerund, as a progressive tense - both of which involve adding 'ing' to a verb, and as a noun-forming modifier for which I cannot find the correct terminology. The latter case involves adding 'ling' to a non-verb to produce a commonly-diminutive noun. Examples include underling, sapling, darling, sidling (which produced the verb sidle as a back formation). It used to be side-ling - i.e. someone who stands at your side as opposed to a subordinate under-ling. But of course given a variety of words ending in 'ing' it isn't always apparent that some were fromed from the 'ling'-route rather than the verbal 'ing'-route. The 'l' is a useful indicator, but not 100% reliable.

That was very interesting, and no sarcasm is intended although it's hard to prove that without the use of tone of voice or facial expression.

Well, it's gone like clockwork so far - all bar the phone line (again) so I may not be able to post much for a bit. Keys arrived, then a van of stuff (including a sofa) which was brought up the stairs by two burly Mancunians. Then a couple of car loads of stuff, followed by a bed, which was brought up the stairs by a burly Edinburgher and further assembled by him. Which was just as well, cos it would have taken us about five hours and we'd have done a really rubbish job of it too. Boxes of stuff still arriving in dribs and drabs, and we're slowly finding places to put all their contents. Nothing's yet come off in our hand or fallen off the wall or ceiling. The heating and shower works, the loo flushes... so pretty smooth so far I would say. I have, however, discovered muscles I never knew I had. Living on the top floor of a tenement block must be good for you, surely.

Oh, and we can't find the stopcock...

[rab] Good luck an' all in your new home. The loo *might* flush, but just check it. My mother discovered the loo in her new bungalow flushes with water from the hot water system. (Have I mentioned this before?)

(pen) Doesn't this tend to vapourise the ordures, the very thing one tries to avoid?

[Rosie] Quite. Bob the plumber is coming round to fix it.

We don't seem to have any team games on the go at the moment. Anyone up for a - let's say a three way split, he says, trying to second-guess the likely number of players. Puce - Green - Chartreuse are I believe the traditional colours for such a split.

I read the other day that "miniature" (and the "mini-" prefix) comes from "minium", Latin for red. This refers to the small red lettering on a miniature portrait or similar. I'm going to look this up now, just to check. Incidentally, that doesn't pardon 6 quiz teams of staff from our local primary school being unable to spell "minuscule", despite the fact that it was on my son's spelling list 2 years ago (aged 8). Not one team got "manoeuvre" right, either.

OK, I've looked it up, and: Yes, miniature does derive from miniare (to colour red), from minium (red lead). Mini- is listed, however, as deriving from miniature and minimum, from minimus (least).
I think I need to do more research to ease my troubled mind.

WHAT? None of them could spell 'minuscule' or 'manoeuvre'? There a load of idiot's.

Have we ever played 'Shipping Crescent, To The Ends of The Earth', with a winning move, Dogger? Faster play during good visibility, obviously, and headwinds take the LV equivalent down a notch. And watch out for those South East Iceland loops. Shipping areas here.

[Rosie] I think you mean 'lode'.

[Rosie] Indeed, not one team got those words correct. They did marginally better with "accommodation", "Massachusetts" and "knowledgeable". However, I think only 1 team got "diarrhoea" right. I've done much harder spelling rounds in the past; admittedly that was for quiz addicts, and once was deliberately written to prevent a certain team winning, because I knew they would play their joker on a spelling round. I put in words like "eschscholtzia", "waqf" etc. just to screw them up :-)

(SM) I do. Your right.

[Rosie] Write, shurely?

(Chalky) Surely, surely?

A mnemonic a teacher at school taught us several years ago:
Dashing In A Rush, Running Hard, Or Early Accident.
You'll never forget how to spell diarrhoea again!

'Diarrhoea': S-K-W-I-T-S That's my mum's mneonic, bless her.

My own Mum's prim version was "Air raid backwards". The opposite was "knobs". It was all "po". (SM) Yes, but what do S-K-W-I-T-S stand for? The SHITS, by the way, is a section of the band of the Irish Guards who call themselves the Society of Harmonious Irish Tunesmiths. This is true.

[Simons] I always thought it was "squits." That's how they spell it in Theme Hospital, too, so it must be right.

[Darren] That's what I thought too. But my mum does tend to take the path less travelled by, when it comes to spelling.

I defnatley have "squits" sometimes have "the trots" but mostly have diarrhoea

[Lib] You really need to see a doctor as soon as possible.

No mention yet of Montezuma's Revenge, The Bombay Trots or Delhi Belly?

Wow! rab's new flat is Edinburgh airport!

[Darren] No, it's been raining as heavily up there as down south. Never mind a raincoat, yesterday afternoon I wished I'd brought a bucket and spade to work.

I'm getting bored of saying this now. I have more free time than I know what to do with, but instead of doing something useful with it, like learn Russian, I'm going to play MC until I vomit. Hoorah!

OOOOPS. Sorry.

I can say 'Here is my passport' in russian.
... and 'How are your parents' in portuguese.
I'd do well if I was dropped in the middle of Europe wouldn't I?

Following on from the Eight Words Game, did anyone watch the '50 Greatest Comedy Sketches' programme a few days ago, and did it seem to anyone else that the funniest sketches were all 30 or 40 years old (Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, Monty Python etc.)? I don't know who the public were that voted, but they didn't ask ME.

[Knobbly] Are you saying that the older sketches didn't deserve their place there, or not?

Not at all - I'm saying that the older sketches were the funniest ones in it and that I don't think much of Little Britain, which won.