Last night I took myself off to the (very last) Stockport CIDS get together.

I’m ashamed to say in my nearly 5 years of living in the shadows of the impressive viaduct I’ve never attended a local meeting of creatives. I’m involved in the vibrant Manchester creative scene but poor Stockport always seems to play second fiddle, despite having an impressive array of museums, creative industries and cracking businesses.

But it looks as though things are changing. Last night the stage (well Stockport Art Gallery) was given over to Stockport College and Thoughtful Ideas agency, and their Thoughtful six project.

This is seriously different - it’s not work experience, it’s not crappy placements where you get shoved in the corner, filing and making cups of tea.

Thoughtful have relocated for the next few months to Stockport College, and effectively taken on six new employees in the shape of six students who will help them run the company. Really. They’ve already been involved in creating work and delivering pitches. And not to any old companies - organisations like the Tate Liverpool and Howies.

I’m often approached by graduates looking for writing jobs, and much like in the design industry they are often creatively brilliant but lack the ’soft’ skills needed in business. The concept of deadlines, answering a phone, putting on a smart shirt, pitching, responsiveness, just pass them by. And as a small business I often don’t have time to teach them, much as I wish I could. So it is really inspiring to see the worlds of education and creativity coming closer together.  The end result of the project (apart from the amazing experience the students get to put on their CV) will be a guide to the creative industries.

The most impressive part of last night? The Thoughtful guys seem to be learning as much from the students as they are teaching.

After coming across this corker on Gumtree, a fellow writer blogged about this gem. Let’s hope one of those 290 views helps them find it.

The thing that makes comedians distinctive is the language they use - check out Ginger and Black. Musical storytellers indeed.

When you tell people you write for a living there is an expectation that you’ll a. know every word in the dictionary b. have read every book ever published. I’m working on it but there are lots of words and lots and lots of books. But I do know if I ever decide to pretend I’ve absorbed every word of some obscure 16th century poet, I’ll be in good company.

I’m such a big scaredy cat when it comes to my personal writing. I’m quite happy to put my ‘professional’ writing into the world for all to see, and immune to criticism when it comes my way. It’s quite a different matter when I comes to words I’ve penned just for me. I’m finally facing up to my fears - ok, I’m starting with six sentences, but it’s a start…

Does your website answer these five questions?

1. This is what I’ve got
2. This is what it can do for you
3. This is why you should get it from me
4. This is why you should believe me
5. This is how you can get it

If there’s someone on your Chrimbo pressie list who hasn’t got anything against their name yet (i.e. everyone, if you’re as organised as me), you might want to consider an old favourite that’s back in the top slot after two decades in the wilderness.

Apparently the game that’s all about words, Scrabble, is once again the nation’s favourite board game.

And the irony is that it’s all being accredited to Scrabulous, the online version of the game that took Facebook by storm - and caused more than a storm in a teacup over at toy-makers Mattel and Hasbro, who ordered Facebook in no uncertain terms to remove the online game designed by Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, which they did earlier this year.

Some say its proof that the old-fashioned favourites are still the best… others that it’s proof of the contemporary power of “social meeja” when it comes to setting trends that affect not only the virtual world, but the “real” one too.

As for me, after reading a few articles about the topic, it’s made me really, really want to play Scrabble while 13,000ft up in the air…

I love it when new words are invented and last night I had the pleasure of picking up a corking new phrase, ’sweded’. I was watching, Be Kind Rewind (which was an interesting expression I’d forgotten with the demise of VHS). Sweded is (according to Urban Dictionary), “The summarized recreation of popular pop-culture films using limited budgets and a camcorder. The process is called sweding. Upon completion the film has been Sweded.” I’d highly recommend this cute and quirky film, watch out for other ‘interesting’ uses of language.

There are some words and phrases that just grind on me. Researchers at Oxford University have complied a list of the top 10 most irritating expressions, including a few of my pet hates. No 5, With all due respect - which means you’re about to tell me something which is incredibly disrespectful and this is your attempt at an arse covering exercise. Also worthwhile reading are the responses from Daily Telegraph readers.

Sitting, wistfully dreaming of becoming a writer? In case you missed it The Guardian recently had an excellent series on how to write - on everything from comedy writing to script writing.