Chicken unaffected.

No, it's convention. It's like telling someone they're not going to make a brilliant impression as an undertaker if they keep wearing their Elmo tie to work.

It's not the way people generally write, and certainly isn't how formal text is written. The ampersand is usually reserved/recommended for specific, named joinings - Hall & Oates, Smith & Wesson, <third example that escapes me at the moment>. It's not a general purpose drop-in replacement for the word "and."

As for it being "abuse," well... you may not have noticed, but my original post wasn't entirely serious.

As is the word "as," apparently.

What's that got to do with anything?

Aww, so close, but you accidentally a word.

What makes you think it'll ever be over?

Here's a sports analogy, if you need one.

(the radio version was better but I couldn't find it)

Gah. Ampersand abuse is right up there with grocers' apostrophes. Burn the witch!

A minor consitutional note, but David Cameron isn't a head of state. Queen Elizabeth is, but she doesn't have a passport, as they're issued in her name, and in any case she can just flash a tenner at passport control as ID, or just say "I'm the bloody queen, mate" and be done with it.

Possibly because it's the operative word of a quote.

"Huh?"

"Your druids. They'll have to wait outside."

Why not a set of increasingly difficult pop-up challenges, each more fiendish than the last?

Then it doubles as street entertainment and a prime-time TV show!

Thus giving anyone passing by a free demo of what will and won't happen if they decided to give it a try.

Maybe if law enforcement types didn't keep banging on about how useful encryption is for terrorists, fewer terrorists would actually hear about it in the first place.

House=basement
big=full of metal pipes
kitchen=corner with the hotplate