"Time" - Song by Pink Floyd

I like the lyrics to the song "Time" by Pink Floyd:


Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long
There is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time has come, the song is over
Thought Idd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

PS: The picture is "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali.

Challenging stuff !!

Puneetha writes:
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Hello uncle,

I just wanted to know if the following can be written either way or it should be written in a particular way. Please let me know the reason. We have to rearrange the given words to form meaningful sentences.
For eg.
1.It guards you/no harm/ring/with its/will be done/as/protective.
No harm will be done as it guards you with its protective ring.
OR
As it protects you with its protective ring, no harm will be done.

Vijay's reply -- Both the sentences look grammatically correct, the first one sounds more smooth and is preferable, but there does not seem to be anything wrong with the second one.


2. apart/also/there are/from hot deserts/cold deserts.
There are also cold deserts apart from hot deserts.
OR
Apart from hot deserts,there are also cold deserts.

Vijay's reply: The second one sounds much more smooth: "Apart from hot deserts, there are also cold deserts". The first one "There are cold deserts also, apart from hot deserts" looks grammatically correct but awkward



3. Cricketers/greatest/world/the/in/Kapil Dev/one/of/the/is
One of the greatest cricketers in the world is Kapil Dev.
OR
Kapil Dev is one of the greatest cricketers in the world.

Vijay's reply -- Both look grammatically correct


I didn't find one option much better than the above in the other exercises. Either the questions were set by a not very competent person, or I am not as good at English as I thought!

"Dear Diary" ?

From Puneetha:
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when we are writing a letter we will specify "dear ..."
is it required when we are writing a diary?

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My answer:

Hi Punitha,
I have seen the usage "Dear Dairy" many times, so it may be the customary way of writing a diary.
But I welcome more knowledgeable answers from others.