Who's it For?

Find-A-Line is for ...

Journalists and headline and caption writers who want to sell a story.

Advertisers who want to sell a product.

Competition entrants who want to win a prize.

Writers who want a neat turn of phrase.

Comedians who want a play on words for a punchline.

They all want to grab the audience and make them take notice, think or laugh.

Find-A-Line is your own tool box of phrases to open when inspiration runs dry and you feel yourself tempted to use another well worn cliché.

With Find-A-Line the book at your side, you'll be able to Find-A-Line that best suits your need, or one which will kick start your creativity in another direction.

This volume represents years of work: gathering the most interesting lines and phrases that have been used in news and advertising, on tv and radio, in newspapers and magazines and in every day speech, into a single source book.

Some lines have been buried in the middle of otherwise staid articles, others have been headlines that have grabbed my attention. Some are, or have been adapted from, slogans and catch phrases. I have kept my ear open for new and clever lines heard everywhere from the radio station to the railway station. And I've consulted more than one thesaurus and dictionary.

The lines are phrases that you can use in headlines, as teasers, as top lines in news stories, and as pay-offs. You could use them if you are a comic to give you an idea for a punchline, or if you are a 'comper' and want a great line for 'a complete this sentence in no more than ten extra words...' entry.

Some of them are puns, many of them rather clever ones: about footwear: 'a woman's right to shoes', about summer shirts: 'the right to bare arms'

Others are rhymes: 'noise annoys', 'a sex swap op'.

Some are alliterative, such as this entry under cancer, 'moles, melanomas and malignancies', or the 'great, the good and the gruesome'.

While some more are just cool phrases, such as the line 'roll up, roll up' to preface a story on wallpaper, or the suggested phrase about murder squad detectives who 'stay at the scene until they find something or are convinced there's nothing to be found'. Or the description of The Archers radio programme as the 'village people'.

Others are handy opposites: 'city slickers or city slackers', 'needy or greedy', or 'the best in the world - or out of this world?'

And there's a further collection of phrases simply linked with certain subjects, 'doctor's bedside manner' under health, or 'red carpet treatment' under the entry for fame, or describing a hotel 'as like something out of Fawlty Towers'.

Contact Peter