My name is Sab Will and I was born in Scotland, grew up in England and have lived across the English Channel, in and around Paris for half my life, give or take stints in Australia, Greece and shorter scattered sojourns in places probably best left where I found them.

Unsurprisingly, the French don’t call that long strip of water between our two countries the English Channel, but they don’t pettishly refer to it as the French one either. They go for a less provokative term: La Manche, which means ‘the sleeve’, so there’s that. But anyway, what am I, after all this blather? Your guess is as good as mine, and you’re welcome to it.

I’ve always loved words and the games you can play with them.

As a child, my parents would invariably find me curled up in a chair with either oversized headphones on listening to music or my nose stuck in an Enid Blyton book, for my postcolonial sins. Not having a TV until the age of 10 was probably a good thing, although it didn’t feel like it at the time.

These days, to be brief, I write a daily Paris Photo Chronicle, including frequent poems, and I also pretend to teach English and even run writing and photography masterclasses online and week-long retreats in Paris, which is a cool place to do it. And now this!

I consider myself much more of an enthusiast than any sort of expert. I don’t really believe in ‘experts’, but that’s just me. I’m more of a ‘rules are made to be broken’ kinda guy, although even I have my limits. Like our trans-Atlantic cosins – just kidding – cousins removing perfectly inoffensive letters such as ‘u’ from words like colour, neighbour and labour. Not to mention the incessent zedification of all our cherished –isations.

Really, what is our civilization – damn! – civilisation coming to? And so what if you do pronounce the ‘s’ like a ‘z’ (that’s zed, not zee, Jeezzz)? There are principles at stake here. It’s just that there are so many more of them (North Americans) than there are us poor Brits left. Oh well, we’ve still got the Queen and Paddington and Harry Potter, I suppose, but for how long?

One of my favourite things is collecting striking examples of just how crazy or curious this language of ours is. I share them here at Hotch Potch completely randomly and freely for your delectation! Make sure to visit our community over at the Facebook Hotch Potch Group and join in the fun!

P.S. I do other things too, such as take photos of Paris and create strange conceptual abstract art called Infinity² puzzle paintings. I coach people to be as creative as they’d love to be and I listen to a hell of a lot of music (and write about it too), also writing random articles on creativity, productivity, life, the universe and everything, and not forgetting the bizarre side of life.

Another passion is creating original memes with my photos on various topics. I juggle (just don’t ask me the ratio of air-to-floor time the balls get), and bong a musical drum (again, don’t ask me if the word ‘musical’ still applies once I start bonging) and on it goes.

If you’re interested, you’ll see, and hopefully get some good ideas and motivation of your own into the bargain. I appreciate you taking the time to read this – it makes it all worthwhile – thank you, and Happy Hotching!