Right so you must have heard that some American geniuses at Mattel have gone and changed Scrabble rules and I have SO much shit to spew on this that I am going to have to enumerate my points, because otherwise I will be chucking my unpleasant sarcastic slime all over the place.

#1 So, obviously someone figured the rules weren’t working well enough for the world’s most popular word game, never mind that Scrabble rules haven’t changed since 1948.

#2 FYI, Scrabble means ‘to grope frantically’, which makes it a truly timeless game, in every sense

#3 So why change the rules now? It’s called the Itchy Backside Syndrome.

#4 I imagine this stunning idea to be the brainchild of some Mattel marketing exec that was suitably embarrassed by his 12-year old who indignantly snapped, ‘OMG! He is a singer and no, his name is not spelled A-C-O-R-N.’ Oh to be old and sadly un-withit. Oh the iShame.

#5 Incidentally, I am certain it was a man because women just do not go fiddling about with stuff that requires no fiddling. Moreover, mums just tell their kids to shut up if they go OMG on them; then they refer to a dictionary. And, as humanity and its pet squirrel knows, real men don’t do dictionaries. Or maps.

#6 If you still want to play Scrabble and enjoy it do not attempt it with young people anymore. They will get away with ‘Facebooking’, ‘Beyonce’ and ‘Tweetdeck’, which incidentally, is not where say, a bunch of canaries, would hang out on a cruise ship.

#7 Ah Americans. They have demonstrated yet again that even if it ain’t broke, you should still fix it… I’m having a weapons-of-mass-destruction déjà vu right now.

This whole thing smacks of geek-turned-cool kid at school. Mattel, I do see where you’re coming from. You want young people to think you’re cool enough for them to like you and play with you, just like you used to be cool enough for their parents. And their parents’ parents. Which is like, never going to be cool no matter how many rules you change. But that is another rant. For now, thank you, for bridging the f*cking generation gap & introducing a legion of vocabulary-challenged morons into the fray of the world’s favourite word game.

Pseud Freud’s Slip: ‘Mattel is also considering allowing players to spell words backwards and upwards on the board and place words unconnected to other pieces.’ Welcome also, dyslexics. I give up. I’m going online.