News and Creativity and Songwriting
I replied to an email from a newsreader:
You wrote: I wish I was creative like you.
Do you have a book of grammar and style for writers or newsreaders?
A BBC presenter once told me the difference between the last newspaper edition (no more published) and the past newspaper edition (yesterday's).
Are you newsreading on BBC radio - ideal for those who have attractive voices but lost their last tie in the tumbler drier in Notting Hill. Or are you on ITV (illiterate TV?).
If you are regional, here's how to get ahead of all the others. Be capable of becoming an editor in charge of bulletins written by others.
I would say: I wish I were.
If I were you.
Yesterday I was, past tense.
If I were - indicates a future possible event which hasn't yet happened and probably never will. Or does future possible only follow 'if'?
No.
I wish I were.
I admit that I wish I were creative sounds as awkward as I wish I was.
'I wish I was' sounds right to you because you sing 'I wish I was in Dixie'. So you might think that is good grammar.
But - 'it ain't necessarily so'. ROFL.

(He replied that radio stations had style books.)

Here cometh the begging letter. ROFL. Please send me the titles of house style books if they are available to the public. (I think that, although I am not gainfully employed by the BBC, or anybody else, I consider myself in the media, and I am not a very private person but extremely outspoken and may therefore be classified as public.)
If you ever see a house style guide being chucked out because the cover is torn (tear it a bit more, accidentally spill coffee on it) or a new one has been issued, pick the old one off the shelf or out of the bin and save it for me.
(Or send it to me in a brown envelope for disguise so that the postman thinks I'm getting pornography. It always boosts morale to have others thinking you are having a much more exciting sex life than is possible mid-morning in remote suburbs on a wet Wednesday.)
Alternatively, just email the title to me so I can order off the net.
I'm sure I can charge it as a business expense if I become an overnight success in ten years time.
Your devoted correspondent, keen keyboard player, and midnight songwriter.