With the advent of the UK Chip and PIN programme, I am variously interested, puzzled and irked at how I am requested to input my number. It appears to be policy in my local Sainsbury’s for checkout operatives to ask, “Do you know your PIN number at all?”
1. The N in PIN stands for number - so I am being asked if I know my Personal Identification Number number. That doesn’t make much sense.
2. Do I know it at all? It is surely only of use if I know it in its entirety.

There are other acronym-word redundancies that annoy me. ‘ATM machine’ is a common one. ‘NCP car park’ is another, although this is probably acceptable as NCP is a company name.

Tony Blair introduced me to another last night. On ‘Ask Tony Blair with Jonathan Dimbleby’ he talked about “WMD weapons.”
I hadn’t heard that phrase before and he probably doesn’t normally use it; he just seemed really weary after the shock and awe of the audience’s questions on Iraq.