"I'm not buying a flat from someone who can't spell Portobello Road"

One of Chard London Estate Agents managers received an e mail today from a buyer looking at flats for sale in Notting Hill who was bemused to have received an e mail from a competitor agency with numerous typos - including a catastrophic mis-spelling in the description of one of the area's most famous streets - Portobello.

Any business operating in London and the UK today will recognise the problem. Two decades of progressive education means that many people under 35 have never been taught to spell or use even basic grammar - and if there's one thing in estate agency guaranteed to lose friends and alienate clients - it's being unable to even spell the name of the street when you've been entrusted to realise the full value of their half million pound property.

As mentioned in previous posts on this blog, Chard employs a copywriter to ensure, insofar as is possible, that descriptions for our properties for sale and to let in London are literate, descriptive and intuitive.

It's a shame that basic literacy skills have been overlooked by the education establishment, limiting the career opportunities of otherwise very capable people.

And it's Portobello. Not Portabello.