Stitch

I was struck, watching television the other evening, by the potential for confusion between the word sewer meaning someone who sews and the word sewer meaning a receptacle for sewage: an example of heteronyms, they tell me, being words that look the same but sound different and, importantly, have different meanings. Presumably you can usually deduce the intended meaning from the context. Thus, the television programme I was watching was all about stitching and tailoring and, not to put too fine a point on it, sewing, and didn't feature any sewage that I could see, or even more than the usual scattering of litter. So, on reflection, there was very little chance of confusion. But still, it is important to be alert to these things.

The other memorable highlight of the programme was the enormous level of skill shown by the dressmakers, which only served to haul into stark contrast my own inability in this field. Not that I have much of a yearning to make my own shirts from scratch, but it would be useful to be able to fix items of clothing that are past their best, which sadly aptly describes most of my wardrobe. Perhaps if I started by darning socks, I would one day get to the stage of designing and constructing my own garments. But men's clothes are generally quite intricate and complicated designs: even socks are a somewhat awkward shape, though I can't see why you couldn't just glue together some general cloth into a vague tube-like shape, ideally open at one end, which you could drag on to an available foot. But anything beyond that seems too great a challenge.