1. I've recently discovered, and thoroughly like, Word Magazine. Each issue has a free CD, but that doesn't mean it's all music - there are features on film, TV and books, and I like the general approach they take. Well worth your time and money, and their free weekly podcast is a lot of fun too (have a look for it on iTunes).
2. Speaking of things musical, is it just me, or does Robyn (with that song about - and possibly even titled - 'Every Heartbeat') sound a lot like Kate Bush?
3. And speaking even more of musical things, I note that once again whoever's doing the incidental music for X-Factor appears to be doing so by breaking into my home at night and using my CDs as the source material. Granted, that mainly involves the CDs by Craig Armstrong and Rob Dougan, but still…
4. Had another eye test (post-laser surgery) this morning, and my vision is better than 20-20. Am vaguely disappointed that the improvement hasn't led me to develop X-ray vision and the like, but I guess that's only fair as it wasn't covered by the paperwork.
5. The London Tube strike this week, since you ask, did affect me (and my beloved) a bit, though it could have been worse. One trick which many people seem to miss is that there are boats which run east and west along the Thames, and which you can pay to travel on. Not exactly the vaporetti of Venice, granted, but beats a crowded bus or train. But shh, don't tell anyone I suggested it.
6. I've never had a go on one of the current trend of 'Brain Training' devices, but I'm moderately sceptical; the whole idea of 'brain age' sounds a bit arbitrary to me, and if the idea is to try to get as low an age (that is, a low-number score) as possible, won't that mean that you're looking to emulate an age at which you had fewer pathways connecting the bits of the brain, and therefore are less able to recall items or make connections? I think they've made a boo-boo on the scoring system here. I wouldn't want to get a really 'good' (that is, low) score and then be told that I have the brain agility of someone who toddles around with a nappyful of excreta.
7. I firmly believe that the current elevation of Elton John to 'national treasure' status is a ghastly misjudgement, perhaps brought about by his eyebrow-waggling antics as he sang doggerel at the funeral of the Princess of Wales. I feel he is a man of limited talent, who seem to have released an appalling number of 'best of' albums, and that the way he's currently venerated is an embarrassment. Given this, I'm sure you can imagine that I find this very, very funny indeed.
8. I don't know if you use iTunes v7, but the User Agreement for it (and don't ask how I know this, but it's true) states in section 8 that 'Licensee also agrees that Licensee will not use the Apple Software for … the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, [sic that comma] missiles, or chemical or biological weapons". Maybe I'm just a negative type, but it seems to me that if you're involved in that kind of thing, you're probably not too worried about Apple setting their lawyers on you.
*I've found one, thanks. And she's fab.
Friday, September 07, 2007
A Sudden Veer Into Seriousness. Don't Worry, It Probably Won't Last.
A good friend of mine died recently, and though it wasn't entirely a shock as she'd been ill, it rattled me a bit. You know that feeling, when you get an unpleasant bit of news mid-afternoon and it leaves you feeling slightly out of phase with things for the rest of the day? Well, it was like that (Hmm, typing that reminds me of that line in the 'Sunscreen' song: "The real troubles in life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind the blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday").
Anyway, a memorial service was held (I couldn't attend, which is a pity, as the lady in question led a full and interesting life: a member of one of the first all-female bands, an astrologer, an employee of Her Majesty's Government, tarot card reader, with grown-up children who - if memory serves - were in different countries much of the time doing a variety of intriguing-sounding jobs. Would have been a fittingly lively service, I suspect), though for me it's more often in the little moments that I remember my friend, and feel a pull in my stomach at the thought that she's not around any more.
This morning, I was looking for something in my notebook, and I came across her address; it was there and not in my address book because when she'd been diagnosed she'd decided to leave London and move to a cleaner environment (close to where my parents live, as it turns out), to be in the countryside and eat fruit and vegetables grown close by and without chemicals. A decision, I rather suspect, which added months to her life. But now I find that I have that address in my notebook, her number programmed into my phone, and her e-mail in my list of friends, but she's not there any more.
And it's on those occasions, when I see her name or details, that I realise my friend's gone. And I miss her.
Anyway, a memorial service was held (I couldn't attend, which is a pity, as the lady in question led a full and interesting life: a member of one of the first all-female bands, an astrologer, an employee of Her Majesty's Government, tarot card reader, with grown-up children who - if memory serves - were in different countries much of the time doing a variety of intriguing-sounding jobs. Would have been a fittingly lively service, I suspect), though for me it's more often in the little moments that I remember my friend, and feel a pull in my stomach at the thought that she's not around any more.
This morning, I was looking for something in my notebook, and I came across her address; it was there and not in my address book because when she'd been diagnosed she'd decided to leave London and move to a cleaner environment (close to where my parents live, as it turns out), to be in the countryside and eat fruit and vegetables grown close by and without chemicals. A decision, I rather suspect, which added months to her life. But now I find that I have that address in my notebook, her number programmed into my phone, and her e-mail in my list of friends, but she's not there any more.
And it's on those occasions, when I see her name or details, that I realise my friend's gone. And I miss her.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Stop Right There, Thank You Very Much
As I've probably mentioned before, I'm looking at soaps (or, if you prefer, 'continuing drama series') with a writerly eye nowadays - looking for plot developments, characterisation tricks, and the like. In watching Emmerdale and EastEnders, though, merely from a viewer's perspective, I've noticed that there are a couple of storylines which have dragged on rather too long - or at least, too long for my interest level (if you watch the shows, you might have guessed the ones I'm talking about, but if not, they are the King Murder plotline, and the whole Bradley-Stacey-Max thing).
As I say, I feel they've gone on longer than is interesting (the King murder has been running since the start of the year, I think, and I think the 'love triangle' has been going on for much the same time), though others may disagree. But it set me to thinking about the extent to which TV shows can run stories before they become uninteresting. Friends, for example, had a lot of favourable audience reaction (not to mention ratings success) with the whole Ross-and-Rachel will-they-won't-they thing, but I think most people would admit that they exhausted that goodwill by the time the series ended. The X-Files, similarly, kept going long after the 'conspiracy' aspects of it had ceased to engage the audience (by which I mean catching either interest or ratings). Because I could guess what was going to happen when Daphne and Niles got together in Frasier, and thought it was the wrong direction for the show to go, I bailed out at that stage, and I think other people have told me I was wise to do so.
Other programmes come to mind, too - Moonlighting and Cheers both had the will-they-or-won't-they romance storyline, as did Lois and Clark (though for me they dealt with the loss of that plotline well, immediately introducing another, utterly logical, element when Clark proposed to Lois: her answer, if memory serves, was "Who's asking - Clark or Superman?", which kicked off a different plotline). According to rumour, my favourite TV series of all time, Twin Peaks, was not intended to reveal who killed Laura Palmer; that was to be the hook which drew the audience in, with David Lynch apparently not intending for the killer to be revealed at all. The revelation of the killer, even the most rabid fan (and by that I mean me) would cheerfully admit, wasn't necessarily followed by the immediate replacement of a similarly compelling storyline (I think co-creator Mark Frost has conceded this).
I'm not pretending I have any kind of answer or conclusion on this, though I remember Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy and Firefly), in relation to keeping the audience interested, said something like 'I need to give [the fans] what they need, not what they want', and he does seem willing to kill off popular characters (even, famously, ones shown in the title sequence) to keep things from getting stale. And thinking about it, Alan Moore, comic writer, magus and possibly possessor of one of the finest creative minds on the planet, says (in the documentary 'The Mindscape Of Alan Moore'*) that the creator shouldn't give the audience what they want, because they don't KNOW what they want - if they did, they wouldn't be in the audience, they'd be a creator. Good points both, I think. Maybe the best route is to respond to audience feedback only insofar as it doesn't involve milking a plotline or playing to the gallery?
Of course, many of the above notions are frankly staggeringly subjective, and tricky to define. Anyone have any more defined measurements of such things? Please post them in the comments if you do...
*I say this with conviction, as I watched the sequence in question just last night.
As I say, I feel they've gone on longer than is interesting (the King murder has been running since the start of the year, I think, and I think the 'love triangle' has been going on for much the same time), though others may disagree. But it set me to thinking about the extent to which TV shows can run stories before they become uninteresting. Friends, for example, had a lot of favourable audience reaction (not to mention ratings success) with the whole Ross-and-Rachel will-they-won't-they thing, but I think most people would admit that they exhausted that goodwill by the time the series ended. The X-Files, similarly, kept going long after the 'conspiracy' aspects of it had ceased to engage the audience (by which I mean catching either interest or ratings). Because I could guess what was going to happen when Daphne and Niles got together in Frasier, and thought it was the wrong direction for the show to go, I bailed out at that stage, and I think other people have told me I was wise to do so.
Other programmes come to mind, too - Moonlighting and Cheers both had the will-they-or-won't-they romance storyline, as did Lois and Clark (though for me they dealt with the loss of that plotline well, immediately introducing another, utterly logical, element when Clark proposed to Lois: her answer, if memory serves, was "Who's asking - Clark or Superman?", which kicked off a different plotline). According to rumour, my favourite TV series of all time, Twin Peaks, was not intended to reveal who killed Laura Palmer; that was to be the hook which drew the audience in, with David Lynch apparently not intending for the killer to be revealed at all. The revelation of the killer, even the most rabid fan (and by that I mean me) would cheerfully admit, wasn't necessarily followed by the immediate replacement of a similarly compelling storyline (I think co-creator Mark Frost has conceded this).
I'm not pretending I have any kind of answer or conclusion on this, though I remember Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy and Firefly), in relation to keeping the audience interested, said something like 'I need to give [the fans] what they need, not what they want', and he does seem willing to kill off popular characters (even, famously, ones shown in the title sequence) to keep things from getting stale. And thinking about it, Alan Moore, comic writer, magus and possibly possessor of one of the finest creative minds on the planet, says (in the documentary 'The Mindscape Of Alan Moore'*) that the creator shouldn't give the audience what they want, because they don't KNOW what they want - if they did, they wouldn't be in the audience, they'd be a creator. Good points both, I think. Maybe the best route is to respond to audience feedback only insofar as it doesn't involve milking a plotline or playing to the gallery?
Of course, many of the above notions are frankly staggeringly subjective, and tricky to define. Anyone have any more defined measurements of such things? Please post them in the comments if you do...
*I say this with conviction, as I watched the sequence in question just last night.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
And Lo, They Did Hack At The Monster
As you might have heard, the online jobsearch site Monster has been hacked into, and around a million jobseekers' personal details were obtained by the people responsible. Tut. And double Tut to Monster for not noticing, and it falling to Symantec to point it out to them.
I put my CV on Monster a very long time ago - back when the internet was still powered by coal, I think - and as I'm still on their mailing list I've received an e-mail from Monster; presumably it's part of their PR damage limitation work in relation to this incident, but I have to say it does little to reassure me... the following are genuine quotes, slightly edited but in the correct chronological order, cut-n-pasted from the e-mail:
MONSTER SAY:
"As you may be aware, the Monster CV database was recently the target of malicious activity that involved the illegal downloading of information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for some of our job seekers with CVs posted on Monster sites. Monster responded to this specific incident by conducting a comprehensive review of internal processes and procedures, notified those job seekers that their contact records had been downloaded illegally, and shut down a rogue server that was hosting these records."
I SAY:
Er, not in that order, I hope? You switched off the problem server first, then told people what had happened, and then started to look into it with an eye to prevention of further occurrences, yes? Come on, reassure me here...
MONSTER SAY:
"The Company has determined that this incident is not the first time Monster's database has been the target of criminal activity."
I SAY:
No, no, no! You're meant to be putting my mind at rest here, not making me think that your service is like a warehouse with a nightwatchman with a dodgy leg! I want to know how safe and resilient your security measures are, not how often people target you! Still, I'm sure your PR people will have swung into action, e-mailing those whose data's been nicked, right?
MONSTER SAY:
"Due to the significant amount of uncertainty in determining which individual job seekers may have been impacted, Monster felt that it was in your best interest to take the precautionary steps of reaching out to you and all Monster job seekers regarding this issue."
I SAY:
Well, that's not very good, is it? Despite the fact you've got lots of personal details of the punters on record, you decided not to go the personal route, but to do an 'en masse' mailing? Hmph, makes me glad I'm not on your Christmas Card list, it'd probably contain one of those unseemly 'this year Monsterette has passed her GCSEs' letters. Still, you're probably about to tell me about the steps you've taken to beef up your processes, right?
MONSTER SAY:
"We want to inform you about preventive measures you can take to protect yourself from online fraud. While no company can completely prevent unauthorised access to data, we believe that by reaching out to job seekers like you, the Company can help users better defend themselves against those who have attacked Monster as well as other databases."
I SAY:
Hey, hang on a mo, isn't this the wrong way round? why are you telling me how to avoid my information falling into the wrong hands? Pot calling Kettle and all that here, I think. I'm reminded of the observation the comedian Rob (later Robert) Newman made about the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert taking place to alert us all to the dangers of HIV/AIDS: "Us. Not Freddie. Us." And this e-mail feels the same way, really. Surely the responsibility lies with Monster?
Whilst I appreciate it's a huge kick in the PR groin for Monster, I think that they could have been a lot more specific about what they'll be doing to protect data in future. I mean, I'm not a techie, but ... well, not having servers in the Ukraine might be a step, and indeed relying on third parties to notice that you've been breached seems less than impressive.
Oh, and just in case you're worrying that I might ruin a good working relationship with Monster with this post, I think I'm pretty safe; I don't think I've ever actually got a job as a result of applying via Monster. So it doesn't feel like much of a bridge to burn.
Besides, the bridge has probably already been nicked while they were looking the other way.
I put my CV on Monster a very long time ago - back when the internet was still powered by coal, I think - and as I'm still on their mailing list I've received an e-mail from Monster; presumably it's part of their PR damage limitation work in relation to this incident, but I have to say it does little to reassure me... the following are genuine quotes, slightly edited but in the correct chronological order, cut-n-pasted from the e-mail:
MONSTER SAY:
"As you may be aware, the Monster CV database was recently the target of malicious activity that involved the illegal downloading of information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for some of our job seekers with CVs posted on Monster sites. Monster responded to this specific incident by conducting a comprehensive review of internal processes and procedures, notified those job seekers that their contact records had been downloaded illegally, and shut down a rogue server that was hosting these records."
I SAY:
Er, not in that order, I hope? You switched off the problem server first, then told people what had happened, and then started to look into it with an eye to prevention of further occurrences, yes? Come on, reassure me here...
MONSTER SAY:
"The Company has determined that this incident is not the first time Monster's database has been the target of criminal activity."
I SAY:
No, no, no! You're meant to be putting my mind at rest here, not making me think that your service is like a warehouse with a nightwatchman with a dodgy leg! I want to know how safe and resilient your security measures are, not how often people target you! Still, I'm sure your PR people will have swung into action, e-mailing those whose data's been nicked, right?
MONSTER SAY:
"Due to the significant amount of uncertainty in determining which individual job seekers may have been impacted, Monster felt that it was in your best interest to take the precautionary steps of reaching out to you and all Monster job seekers regarding this issue."
I SAY:
Well, that's not very good, is it? Despite the fact you've got lots of personal details of the punters on record, you decided not to go the personal route, but to do an 'en masse' mailing? Hmph, makes me glad I'm not on your Christmas Card list, it'd probably contain one of those unseemly 'this year Monsterette has passed her GCSEs' letters. Still, you're probably about to tell me about the steps you've taken to beef up your processes, right?
MONSTER SAY:
"We want to inform you about preventive measures you can take to protect yourself from online fraud. While no company can completely prevent unauthorised access to data, we believe that by reaching out to job seekers like you, the Company can help users better defend themselves against those who have attacked Monster as well as other databases."
I SAY:
Hey, hang on a mo, isn't this the wrong way round? why are you telling me how to avoid my information falling into the wrong hands? Pot calling Kettle and all that here, I think. I'm reminded of the observation the comedian Rob (later Robert) Newman made about the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert taking place to alert us all to the dangers of HIV/AIDS: "Us. Not Freddie. Us." And this e-mail feels the same way, really. Surely the responsibility lies with Monster?
Whilst I appreciate it's a huge kick in the PR groin for Monster, I think that they could have been a lot more specific about what they'll be doing to protect data in future. I mean, I'm not a techie, but ... well, not having servers in the Ukraine might be a step, and indeed relying on third parties to notice that you've been breached seems less than impressive.
Oh, and just in case you're worrying that I might ruin a good working relationship with Monster with this post, I think I'm pretty safe; I don't think I've ever actually got a job as a result of applying via Monster. So it doesn't feel like much of a bridge to burn.
Besides, the bridge has probably already been nicked while they were looking the other way.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Urban Or Urbane? That Is For Others To Judge...
Much to my delight, one of my recent bits of writing has made it into the final stages of a competition.
I wrote a 'Flash Fiction' (that is, under 250 words) version of an urban myth for the Manchester Literature Festival Urban Myths Project (more information here), and was notified over the weekend that I'm into the final ten.
All rather pleasing, and I shall be intrigued to see how the Interactive Arts students from Manchester Metropolitan University decide to bring it to life. Because I've been invited to go and watch, and as this is the first (though hopefully not the last) time my words have been performed by other people, I'm keen and eager to see how that looks.
Oddly enough, it turns out that the cliché is true - whether I win or not (an idea which only occasionally skitters across my mind), it is, as the old saying goes, nice to be nominated.
And to be a part, howsoever small, of a Literature Festival. That's real writing, isn't it ? Crikey, I might be out of my league a bit...
I wrote a 'Flash Fiction' (that is, under 250 words) version of an urban myth for the Manchester Literature Festival Urban Myths Project (more information here), and was notified over the weekend that I'm into the final ten.
All rather pleasing, and I shall be intrigued to see how the Interactive Arts students from Manchester Metropolitan University decide to bring it to life. Because I've been invited to go and watch, and as this is the first (though hopefully not the last) time my words have been performed by other people, I'm keen and eager to see how that looks.
Oddly enough, it turns out that the cliché is true - whether I win or not (an idea which only occasionally skitters across my mind), it is, as the old saying goes, nice to be nominated.
And to be a part, howsoever small, of a Literature Festival. That's real writing, isn't it ? Crikey, I might be out of my league a bit...
Friday, August 31, 2007
And I'm Bored Of Headlines Playing On The Whole 'Rehab/No, No, No' Thing As Well
Something which I've probably referred to here before, and have certainly tried to capture in writing I've done in the past, is what I like to think of as 'sickening inevitability'. I liken it to the experience of being in a car on an icy surface, slamming on the brakes, and having no option but to sit and watch as you slide towards another vehicle. Nothing you can do, or say, to avoid the inevitable. Not just on terms of driving, of course - in life generally.
Which brings me to the recent media coverage of Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse. Firstly, let's be honest and admit that the press coverage of these musical artistes is in vast disproportion to their importance to the world of music - the way the press give them column inches, you'd think that Doherty was the new Jacques Brel and Winehouse the new Marion Montgomery or something, and that both of them are selling albums in volumes that are making Beyonce Knowles jealous. They're not, and I'm hard pressed to decide whether the excessive coverage is due to them being UK-based (the British press tends to exaggerate in such cases) or simply because it's summer and the papers are in the midst of the 'silly season' (a phrase which is often thrown around by papers as they write about other papers, in a definite plank-in-your-own-eye scenario). Either way, the last few weeks, if not months, have seen loads of reports about these two individuals as they flounder from drink to drugs to rehab and back again.
And yet, when/if either or both of them is found dead with a needle hanging out of their arm or a dozen empty vodka bottles next to the body, I have the slightly bored suspicion that the media and their fans alike will feign surprise, shock, dismay and other such synonyms that Pete or Amy, the spokesperson for a generation, should be so cruelly cut down in the prime of their life, and during such a prolific period of their creativity.
People - me included - often talk about TV programmes such as Big Brother and The X-Factor as being 'car crash TV', where you know it's somehow wrong to look but you somehow can't stop yourself, but the current fascination with these two individuals, who seem to be sorely in need of a decent friend to take them aside and point out what's wrong with their life, seems more like (oh, look, I've cleverly linked back to the opening of this post) watching the slide before the impact.
I wish them both no ill-will at all (I'm utterly unmoved by their music, but the world's big enough for music I don't care for), and I'm happy to be proved wrong by events, but it all just seems … well, as I say: sickening inevitability.
Which brings me to the recent media coverage of Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse. Firstly, let's be honest and admit that the press coverage of these musical artistes is in vast disproportion to their importance to the world of music - the way the press give them column inches, you'd think that Doherty was the new Jacques Brel and Winehouse the new Marion Montgomery or something, and that both of them are selling albums in volumes that are making Beyonce Knowles jealous. They're not, and I'm hard pressed to decide whether the excessive coverage is due to them being UK-based (the British press tends to exaggerate in such cases) or simply because it's summer and the papers are in the midst of the 'silly season' (a phrase which is often thrown around by papers as they write about other papers, in a definite plank-in-your-own-eye scenario). Either way, the last few weeks, if not months, have seen loads of reports about these two individuals as they flounder from drink to drugs to rehab and back again.
And yet, when/if either or both of them is found dead with a needle hanging out of their arm or a dozen empty vodka bottles next to the body, I have the slightly bored suspicion that the media and their fans alike will feign surprise, shock, dismay and other such synonyms that Pete or Amy, the spokesperson for a generation, should be so cruelly cut down in the prime of their life, and during such a prolific period of their creativity.
People - me included - often talk about TV programmes such as Big Brother and The X-Factor as being 'car crash TV', where you know it's somehow wrong to look but you somehow can't stop yourself, but the current fascination with these two individuals, who seem to be sorely in need of a decent friend to take them aside and point out what's wrong with their life, seems more like (oh, look, I've cleverly linked back to the opening of this post) watching the slide before the impact.
I wish them both no ill-will at all (I'm utterly unmoved by their music, but the world's big enough for music I don't care for), and I'm happy to be proved wrong by events, but it all just seems … well, as I say: sickening inevitability.
As Russell Brand Might Put It, "'Citing!"
I've been working away on it for a while now, and this week has seen me thrashing at it with some vigour (hence the lack of posts), but I'm pleased - to say the least - to be able to honestly say that I've just e-mailed off my entry to the Red Planet Prize, a screenplay competition.
The prizes are very good indeed - £5000, representation and a commission - and as I've said before, I'm trying to get into film/TV/radio writing, so I was spurred on to submit the first ten pages (as required under the rules) of my first screenplay 'Broken Glass'. Hopefully not my last screenplay, though.
I e-mailed it, along with a synopsis and a mini-biography of me, about an hour ago, and receipt has been acknowledged. So now all I have to do is wait.
Well, that and make sure I've got the other 80-odd pages of 'Broken Glass' ready to hand over if I get to the next round (notification is in October, I think).
But don't be fooled by the measured and sedate tone of this post: basically, my feelings about the subject boil down to one word running through my head: Yeeeeeeeeeeeee!
The prizes are very good indeed - £5000, representation and a commission - and as I've said before, I'm trying to get into film/TV/radio writing, so I was spurred on to submit the first ten pages (as required under the rules) of my first screenplay 'Broken Glass'. Hopefully not my last screenplay, though.
I e-mailed it, along with a synopsis and a mini-biography of me, about an hour ago, and receipt has been acknowledged. So now all I have to do is wait.
Well, that and make sure I've got the other 80-odd pages of 'Broken Glass' ready to hand over if I get to the next round (notification is in October, I think).
But don't be fooled by the measured and sedate tone of this post: basically, my feelings about the subject boil down to one word running through my head: Yeeeeeeeeeeeee!
LIST: Words My Phone Knows But I Don't
This might turn out to be the first entry in a series, not sure; words which predictive text offers me, along with the word I was aiming for.
DUNADRY (for 'dunno')
LONDRINA (for 'London')
FUZHOU (for 'fuzzy')
I have no idea what these three words mean. None whatsoever. Remind me never to challenge my phone to a game of Boggle.
DUNADRY (for 'dunno')
LONDRINA (for 'London')
FUZHOU (for 'fuzzy')
I have no idea what these three words mean. None whatsoever. Remind me never to challenge my phone to a game of Boggle.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Rare Sighting I Thought I'd Share With You
As these are so rarely seen in real life, I thought it was only fair that I share: behold, the lesser-spotted Parcelforce card.According to Parcelforce's own procedures, they drop these off when they've knocked on the door to deliver an item, but you weren't in.
However, given that Parcelforce claim that they've tried to deliver a parcel to m'lady five times recently and on none of these occasions has a card been left, I have but one thing to say about Parcelforce's claim that this is their standard operating procedure: REALLY, PARCELFORCE? I MEAN, REALLY?
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
One Does Indeed Learn A New Thing Every Day
Hearing 'Waterloo' by Abba the other day, I idly wondered what kind of score France had awarded it in the Eurovision Song Contest taht year (1974). Given the Napoleon-related theme and all, I mean.
So I looked it up online, and it turns out that France had withdrawn from the Eurovision that year, scant days before it took place, because their President had died. Though the single was a Top 10 hit in France, so one could cheerfully conclude that the whole Napoleon thing was irrelevant.
Anyway, what did grab my attention was that the Portuguese entry in the same year was the signal to launch the Carnation Revolution, an essentially pacifist uprising against the authoritarian regime of the time (which was successful - yay!).
So, quite the year for Eurovision, 1974. The UK entry this year, by Scooch, somehow looks rather lightweight and rubbish in comparison, doesn't it?
Oh, hang on, that song would look lightweight and rubbish in and of itself, regardless of any comparison. But in comparison to launching a revolution and Abba, even more so.
So I looked it up online, and it turns out that France had withdrawn from the Eurovision that year, scant days before it took place, because their President had died. Though the single was a Top 10 hit in France, so one could cheerfully conclude that the whole Napoleon thing was irrelevant.
Anyway, what did grab my attention was that the Portuguese entry in the same year was the signal to launch the Carnation Revolution, an essentially pacifist uprising against the authoritarian regime of the time (which was successful - yay!).
So, quite the year for Eurovision, 1974. The UK entry this year, by Scooch, somehow looks rather lightweight and rubbish in comparison, doesn't it?
Oh, hang on, that song would look lightweight and rubbish in and of itself, regardless of any comparison. But in comparison to launching a revolution and Abba, even more so.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
LINKS: oder rechts, ich weiss es nicht
I promised here that I’d provide a link to some photos done by ‘Gromit Lad’, who’s a close personal showbiz friend of mine, and twist my nipples if I haven’t been utterly remiss in doing so. So, brace yourself for a sudden influx of class, and remind yourself that this talented man is the official wedding photographer for my and Jules’s nuptials next year. Here, then, is his virtual gallery…
This is deeply immature. I approve heartily.
Mark Steel writes clearly on a rather thorny subject I’ve kind of avoided blogging about, and I think he makes a good point. More than one, in fact…
Boy, talk about your tricky-to-enforce laws!
Free on Bank Holiday Monday? Why not be a Zombie?
And finally, in non-news, do you get the feeling that some of these ‘complaints’ were typed or dialled with only one hand? I know it’s the silly season, and this ‘story’ is in a pathetic excuse for a paper, but this is hardly a possibly a new low: basically, ‘Woman Has Legs Shock’. Pass the tissues – er, I mean the Basildon Bond - I feel a letter of complaint coming on…
This is deeply immature. I approve heartily.
Mark Steel writes clearly on a rather thorny subject I’ve kind of avoided blogging about, and I think he makes a good point. More than one, in fact…
Boy, talk about your tricky-to-enforce laws!
Free on Bank Holiday Monday? Why not be a Zombie?
And finally, in non-news, do you get the feeling that some of these ‘complaints’ were typed or dialled with only one hand? I know it’s the silly season, and this ‘story’ is in a pathetic excuse for a paper, but this is hardly a possibly a new low: basically, ‘Woman Has Legs Shock’. Pass the tissues – er, I mean the Basildon Bond - I feel a letter of complaint coming on…
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Mark*! Lard!
When I went for an eye check-up last week, I was faintly concerned to see that the second line down on the chart (which was not, I hasten to add, the extreme of my post-laser vision) spelled the word LARD. I commented on this to the optometrist, and she assured me that the charts were made in Japan, and that there was no significance to it. Fair enough, I believed her.
But… there's no escaping it, I have put on a considerable amount of weight in the last year or two. It's not been without resistance on my part - I did the London Marathon this April, after all - but I have to face the fact that since I turned 30, my metabolism has slowed down, and I can no longer chuck down a cinema-size bag of Galaxy Minstrels without it having some kind of calorific impact. Cause and, inevitably, effect.
If nothing else, I'm determined that as I approach 40 I shan't just become the cliché of the chap who gives up on health concerns, any more than I intend to fall into any of the other mid-life behaviour (sports car, cringe-inducing attempts to flirt with the babysitter, that kind of nonsense).
I won't turn this blog into some running commentary on my intake of food or anything like that, or on the exercise I do, though I may post sporadic updates; after all, between now and the end of the year, I will be scuba diving in exotic climes, and as I walk along the beach, I'd prefer to resemble Daniel Craig in 'Casino Royale' than a whale which has been washed ashore.
Not to mention how I'll look in my wetsuit (shudders at the thought of how bad that could be).
*In the Shakespearean sense of the word, that is - ie: 'look!'
But… there's no escaping it, I have put on a considerable amount of weight in the last year or two. It's not been without resistance on my part - I did the London Marathon this April, after all - but I have to face the fact that since I turned 30, my metabolism has slowed down, and I can no longer chuck down a cinema-size bag of Galaxy Minstrels without it having some kind of calorific impact. Cause and, inevitably, effect.
If nothing else, I'm determined that as I approach 40 I shan't just become the cliché of the chap who gives up on health concerns, any more than I intend to fall into any of the other mid-life behaviour (sports car, cringe-inducing attempts to flirt with the babysitter, that kind of nonsense).
I won't turn this blog into some running commentary on my intake of food or anything like that, or on the exercise I do, though I may post sporadic updates; after all, between now and the end of the year, I will be scuba diving in exotic climes, and as I walk along the beach, I'd prefer to resemble Daniel Craig in 'Casino Royale' than a whale which has been washed ashore.
Not to mention how I'll look in my wetsuit (shudders at the thought of how bad that could be).
*In the Shakespearean sense of the word, that is - ie: 'look!'
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
People Seem To Say It's Advertised Earlier Every Year Earlier Every Year, Don't They?
Last week, Cancer Research UK sent me a copy of their 2007 Christmas Gift Catalogue. Yesterday in the supermarket, m'lady pointed out that there were Christmas Puddings on the shelf, available to purchase.
I can deny it no longer: it must be August.
I can deny it no longer: it must be August.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Please Note This Was In The Days I Needed Glasses (And I Wasn't Wearing Them At The Time)
Sauntering through Soho a couple of weeks ago, I spotted a chap who looked familiar.
"Oh," I thought, "that's Kevin Godley of Godley and Creme and 10CC. Perhaps I should go over and say how much I admire his work, particularly the video for Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Two Tribes'."
Then he drew closer and I realised it was in fact writer and TV presenter Howard Jacobson, who always seems an intelligent chap, but to whom I honestly have nothing to say.
One of the very rare occasions in my life when I actually avoided an embarrassing situation for everyone concerned.
Friday, August 17, 2007
For Some Unfathomable Reason, Private Eye Usually Change His Surname To 'Moron' (Talent Shows: Post 2 of 2)
Whilst I'm unable to source the exact details of the incident, I'm led to believe that whilst judging the TV Talent Show 'America's Got Talent', David Hasselhoff had a disagreement with fellow judge Piers Morgan and called him 'a wanker'. Morgan allegedly responded by saying, 'If you said that in Britain, you'd be beheaded'.
Leaving aside - despite the fun it would involve - the issue of whether or not The Hoff was right in what he said, isn't it just a little odd that a man who, as editor of Daily Mirror, published a front-page story featuring faked photos of Iraqi prisoners being abused by members of the British Army, seems to think that beheading is currently a punishment for calling someone a wanker?
What an odd legal system he must think we have, with major punishments for minor social infractions. Best we keep him away from news reporting, then.
Leaving aside - despite the fun it would involve - the issue of whether or not The Hoff was right in what he said, isn't it just a little odd that a man who, as editor of Daily Mirror, published a front-page story featuring faked photos of Iraqi prisoners being abused by members of the British Army, seems to think that beheading is currently a punishment for calling someone a wanker?
What an odd legal system he must think we have, with major punishments for minor social infractions. Best we keep him away from news reporting, then.
Then Again, What With The Phone Voting Hoo-ha, I Thought She Might Be Deliberately Keeping Her Head Down (Talent Shows: Post 1 of 2)
From a Press Release issued this week:
"Leona Lewis's long awaited first single, set for release in the UK on October 29th is called BLEEDING LOVE and was written and produced by Ryan Tedder in LA. She is putting the final touches to the album this week in LA and then jets back to the UK. The album (as yet untitled) is set for release on the 5th November in the UK and early 2008 in the US."
Interesting approach; given how the vast majority of people who've won these shows have faded from public view within a year or so, she seems to have left herself a window of something like four months to capitalise on winning X-Factor last year.
Could be a zany marketing move, or a disastrous assumption that the people who voted for her last December will be bothered to re-validate their actions almost a year later. We shall see...
"Leona Lewis's long awaited first single, set for release in the UK on October 29th is called BLEEDING LOVE and was written and produced by Ryan Tedder in LA. She is putting the final touches to the album this week in LA and then jets back to the UK. The album (as yet untitled) is set for release on the 5th November in the UK and early 2008 in the US."
Interesting approach; given how the vast majority of people who've won these shows have faded from public view within a year or so, she seems to have left herself a window of something like four months to capitalise on winning X-Factor last year.
Could be a zany marketing move, or a disastrous assumption that the people who voted for her last December will be bothered to re-validate their actions almost a year later. We shall see...
Thursday, August 16, 2007
"Careful Now" / "Down With This Sort Of Thing"*
Spotted in Holborn, a rather extreme bit of graffiti.As a Vegetarian, I often worry that I look a bit half-hearted by not being a Vegan, but on the basis of this it looks as if Veganism's all gone a bit hardcore, so I'll continue to eat dairy products, I think...
*As Fathers Ted and Dougal put it in 'The Passion of St Tibulus'
A Welcome Break From The Usual Discarded Free Papers
Spotted on a Central Line train recently - alongside some discarded newspapers - a copy of a slim book, left (I like to think) for someone to find and read.Which book is it, you ask? Well, it was none other than the Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tse, a frankly terrific read if you're looking for a more meaty read than the usual papers dished out to London commuters.
I'd like to think this was my first encounter with the BookCrossing phenomenon, though as I didn't peek at the book itself (I already have a copy), I can neither confirm nor deny...
I Can See Clearly Now The Laser's Done
So, quite a few people have asked me what the laser eye surgery was like. Some in person, and one - bless his sibling heart - by e-mail, urging me to post the full story online. And as I am little more than a whorish blogging jukebox, and am at a little bit of a pause between writing things (five bits of 'flash fiction' and a 30min stage monologue done this week, and a screenplay to kick off in the next day or so, I'm being startlingly productive at the mo), who am I to say no?
All right then, the background; before the treatment (look - foreshadowing! You can tell I take this writing lark seriously), my eyes were slightly short-sighted (a -1.25 prescription, I think) and with astigmatism in the left eye (which is less painful than it sounds). As a result, it was recommended that I have LASIK treatment on them, with Infralase. What does this mean? Well, I'm glad you asked. LASIK treatment is where they cut the surface of the eye itself, flip it up like the top of a boiled egg, and then use lasers to burn at the inside of the eye to make it the right shape (as you may remember from school, people are short- or long-sighted because their eyes are wrongly shaped, meaning that the focal point falls in front of, or behind, the correct point in the eye). There's another treatment, called LASEK, which is the slightly older version of the surgery, I think, which seems to involve using a contact lens-type arrangement instead of the flap process, but I'm not certain. Check elsewhere on the interweb if you want to know. Oh, and the Infralase thing is advisable for astigmatism, as it means that an eye-recognition system is involved, tracking the eye if you move it during the procedure, and making sure the laser continues to reshape things correctly.
Right, that's the science part, let me tell you about what happened on Friday afternoon. I went down to Ultralase (that's who I had it with, as they offer a Lifetime Guarantee, as opposed to some of the other firms, whose impressively low prices could be offset by it, I dunno, being performed by a wild-eyed man with a potato peeler and a souped-up laser pointer), and sat and waited. And waited. And… you get the idea. They were running late. Hmph, a bit.
Anyway, later than it should have been, they took me for another eye check, just to ensure that the procedure I was about to undergo was still suitable for me. And it was, so they put anaesthetic drops into my eyes, and painted around my eyes with some kind of sterilising thing, apparently a bit like the iodine they paint onto the abdomen before performing a caesarean (usually a female abdomen, though I have gained weight in recent years, so perhaps I look a bit pregnant? Anyway, my shirt remained buttoned up). As I was the canvas for this daubing, I couldn't see what this looked like, but the woman doing it assured me I looked a bit like I'd been in a fight, and probably lost. Oh good, glad I didn't miss an opportunity to look ridiculous.
I sat for about ten minutes or so looking like Soo the Panda, and noticed I was able to blink and move my eyes without any hassle, but they did feel a bit heavy, as if I'd been wearing contact lenses and had stayed up all night or similar (hey, it's not a hollow comparison, I used to be a bit of a wildman, but that's a tale for another time). They reapplied the drops a few more times, then put some of those elasticated anti-germ plastic 'shoes' over my shoes, and an anti-germ shower cap on my head. Oddly enough, I don't recall them putting a gown over the rest of my clothes, but maybe that's Crap Memory Syndrome on my part.
They led me into a room with scary signs on the door, saying 'BEWARE - LASER' and with pictures of pacemakers with red diagonal lines through them, and being one of the finest minds of my generation, I guessed this must be the room where it all took place, and narrowed my eyes and nodded like Holmes when my suspicions were confirmed. They asked me to lie down on an elevated bed thing. If you've ever seen someone on a TV programme like House having a PET scan (I think that's the name), then you'll know the kind of bed-table thing I mean. And looming over it was the laser, which looked more like the business end of a Moulinex than something out of Star Wars.
I hopped up onto the table and they pivoted me into the appropriate position, then put in some more drops and did some fiddling with the machine to make sure it was pointing at the right place (so it would burn my eyes, and not, say, burn out my septum, as much as that would be useful in the future should I decide to develop a cocaine habit), and then they put a bandage over one eye (the left, as the right was the first burn-ee) and the doctor came in and started clamping my eyes into place so I wouldn't go blinking and ending up with a laser-ventilated eyelid or anything like that.
This was probably the strangest part of the whole process; it didn't hurt because the eye had been anaesthetised, but … well, if you've ever accidentally poked yourself in the corner of the eye and made it move so that it dealigns from the other eye, leaving you with a weird stereo-image effect, or if you remember the image that the 3-D ViewMaster toy offered when you'd half-pressed down the little black lever… well, then you're getting an idea of what it looked like. One eye, covered by the bandage, was open and looking at the inside of the bandage, whilst the other was being moved around by someone else, and seeing all sorts of things around me as he got the eyeball ready to have a flap made.
Probably fortunately, because he was so very close, I couldn't focus on what he was doing, so didn't see him slice across the surface of my eye with a Swiss army knife (or possibly some other implement), but then things went very blurry all of a sudden in that eye (because he'd flipped up the top surface of it - mmm, lovely), and then after a bit more fiddling about I was under the laser, and they were telling me how many bursts of light there'd be (three for the right eye, four for the left - I guess the astigmatic eyeball needed more work done), and once that was done, they flipped the flap back closed, like putting down the toilet seat, and then repeated the process for the other eye.
It wasn't - let me state this for the record - painful at all. But it was a little odd picking up a strange smell and realising it was the smell of my own eyes burning. Let me say that again: I could smell my eyes burning.
It was probably over in about five minutes, if not less, and when I sat up afterwards, I could see… fuzzily. It was like I'd been swimming underwater too much in a chlorinated pool, as things were a bit grey and indistinct. But I'd been warned to expect this - frankly, things were a lot more clear than I thought they'd be, I was expecting it to look all streaky and strange.
They took me out to the stylish waiting room, where my stylish fiancée was waiting, and then I was led to a darkened room to let my eyes rest a bit. They rested, and then they gave me another quick eye test - no major change from before the process, really, but no damage done, which is reassuring, gave me a bag full of after-care goodies, and told me to come back the next day for a check-up.
Getting home was okay-ish - sunglasses helped, but my eyes kept wanting to close; I'm guessing they were objecting to their treatment and refusing to stay open if they were likely to be sliced and fried again. Fortunately, my lovely companion saw me to the door, and fed me food, and was very tolerant when I suggested an early night (not like that, you perv - they advised against 'contact sports' for a week or two. Or was it a month? Anyway, get out of the gutter, you filthmonger).
You'll be pleased to know that one aspect of the aftercare is that, when sleeping, you have to tape little plastic covers over your eyes - being who I am, they put me in mind of the eyes of the Spider-Man costume as worn by Nicholas Hammond in the old TV show; that is, they're like sunglass lenses, though made of clear plastic, and with holes in to allow air to circulate. So I did that on Friday night, and as I'm sure you can imagine, the sight was ridiculous enough to ensure any amorous feelings m'lady might have had were well and truly cold-showered.
And so to bed. Despite it being a Saturday, I woke the next morning at work-time ("so," any colleagues reading this will think, "around 10, was that, John?"), and … well, to continue the Spider-Man comparisons (and I will), it was like that bit in the first Raimi Spider-Man film where Peter Parker realises that he doesn't need his glasses any more. I could see across the room, and the details were sharp. Unlike Mr Parker, I didn't find that my midsection had suddenly become a clearly-defined six-pack, though (my midriff probably looks more like the contents of a six-pack. Of chocolate cakes. Fried. In chocolate batter), but that wasn't a predicted side-effect of the LASEK anyway, so let’s not feign surprise or dismay, folks.
I went off for my day-after check-up, and the lady there seemed faintly surprised by the speed with which my eyes were recovering, but I wasn't complaining, especially when she gave me an eye test again, and this time I was able to read to the bottom line of the chart (and no, that's not because I'd done it so often I'd learned the letters). Which makes my vision pretty much 20/20, apparently. And the slightly bloodshot nature of the eyeballs is clearing up as the days go by.
Obviously, I'm very pleased, and whilst I'm delighting in being able to see stuff without glasses or contact lenses, it's often in the little moments that it hits home; when it started raining the other day and I instinctively reached up to take off the glasses which weren't there (to stop them getting wet), or when I pat my pockets as I leave home and remember no, I don't need to take the specs along any more. That kind of thing.
So, if you have the money lying around - or you'll pass the credit test for the Interest Free Credit payment scheme - and your eyes are suitable for laser treatment, I'd recommend it, but of course some people like the style aspect of glasses - different frames, etc. That was never the case for me, and what with the whole running / diving / mountain-climbing thing, they were becoming more of a nuisance hence the decision to get them fried. Er, I mean, 'professionally laser-treated'.
Any questions about any of it, feel free to e-mail me at MyEyesBurningLikeFire@johnsoanes.co.uk - so many people know someone who knows someone who's had their eyes done, but rather than relegate it to the status of an urban myth or other 'foaf' tale, why not get genuine first-generation info from me?
(Bro, I'm looking at you… and my eyes see you now!)
All right then, the background; before the treatment (look - foreshadowing! You can tell I take this writing lark seriously), my eyes were slightly short-sighted (a -1.25 prescription, I think) and with astigmatism in the left eye (which is less painful than it sounds). As a result, it was recommended that I have LASIK treatment on them, with Infralase. What does this mean? Well, I'm glad you asked. LASIK treatment is where they cut the surface of the eye itself, flip it up like the top of a boiled egg, and then use lasers to burn at the inside of the eye to make it the right shape (as you may remember from school, people are short- or long-sighted because their eyes are wrongly shaped, meaning that the focal point falls in front of, or behind, the correct point in the eye). There's another treatment, called LASEK, which is the slightly older version of the surgery, I think, which seems to involve using a contact lens-type arrangement instead of the flap process, but I'm not certain. Check elsewhere on the interweb if you want to know. Oh, and the Infralase thing is advisable for astigmatism, as it means that an eye-recognition system is involved, tracking the eye if you move it during the procedure, and making sure the laser continues to reshape things correctly.
Right, that's the science part, let me tell you about what happened on Friday afternoon. I went down to Ultralase (that's who I had it with, as they offer a Lifetime Guarantee, as opposed to some of the other firms, whose impressively low prices could be offset by it, I dunno, being performed by a wild-eyed man with a potato peeler and a souped-up laser pointer), and sat and waited. And waited. And… you get the idea. They were running late. Hmph, a bit.
Anyway, later than it should have been, they took me for another eye check, just to ensure that the procedure I was about to undergo was still suitable for me. And it was, so they put anaesthetic drops into my eyes, and painted around my eyes with some kind of sterilising thing, apparently a bit like the iodine they paint onto the abdomen before performing a caesarean (usually a female abdomen, though I have gained weight in recent years, so perhaps I look a bit pregnant? Anyway, my shirt remained buttoned up). As I was the canvas for this daubing, I couldn't see what this looked like, but the woman doing it assured me I looked a bit like I'd been in a fight, and probably lost. Oh good, glad I didn't miss an opportunity to look ridiculous.
I sat for about ten minutes or so looking like Soo the Panda, and noticed I was able to blink and move my eyes without any hassle, but they did feel a bit heavy, as if I'd been wearing contact lenses and had stayed up all night or similar (hey, it's not a hollow comparison, I used to be a bit of a wildman, but that's a tale for another time). They reapplied the drops a few more times, then put some of those elasticated anti-germ plastic 'shoes' over my shoes, and an anti-germ shower cap on my head. Oddly enough, I don't recall them putting a gown over the rest of my clothes, but maybe that's Crap Memory Syndrome on my part.
They led me into a room with scary signs on the door, saying 'BEWARE - LASER' and with pictures of pacemakers with red diagonal lines through them, and being one of the finest minds of my generation, I guessed this must be the room where it all took place, and narrowed my eyes and nodded like Holmes when my suspicions were confirmed. They asked me to lie down on an elevated bed thing. If you've ever seen someone on a TV programme like House having a PET scan (I think that's the name), then you'll know the kind of bed-table thing I mean. And looming over it was the laser, which looked more like the business end of a Moulinex than something out of Star Wars.
I hopped up onto the table and they pivoted me into the appropriate position, then put in some more drops and did some fiddling with the machine to make sure it was pointing at the right place (so it would burn my eyes, and not, say, burn out my septum, as much as that would be useful in the future should I decide to develop a cocaine habit), and then they put a bandage over one eye (the left, as the right was the first burn-ee) and the doctor came in and started clamping my eyes into place so I wouldn't go blinking and ending up with a laser-ventilated eyelid or anything like that.
This was probably the strangest part of the whole process; it didn't hurt because the eye had been anaesthetised, but … well, if you've ever accidentally poked yourself in the corner of the eye and made it move so that it dealigns from the other eye, leaving you with a weird stereo-image effect, or if you remember the image that the 3-D ViewMaster toy offered when you'd half-pressed down the little black lever… well, then you're getting an idea of what it looked like. One eye, covered by the bandage, was open and looking at the inside of the bandage, whilst the other was being moved around by someone else, and seeing all sorts of things around me as he got the eyeball ready to have a flap made.
Probably fortunately, because he was so very close, I couldn't focus on what he was doing, so didn't see him slice across the surface of my eye with a Swiss army knife (or possibly some other implement), but then things went very blurry all of a sudden in that eye (because he'd flipped up the top surface of it - mmm, lovely), and then after a bit more fiddling about I was under the laser, and they were telling me how many bursts of light there'd be (three for the right eye, four for the left - I guess the astigmatic eyeball needed more work done), and once that was done, they flipped the flap back closed, like putting down the toilet seat, and then repeated the process for the other eye.
It wasn't - let me state this for the record - painful at all. But it was a little odd picking up a strange smell and realising it was the smell of my own eyes burning. Let me say that again: I could smell my eyes burning.
It was probably over in about five minutes, if not less, and when I sat up afterwards, I could see… fuzzily. It was like I'd been swimming underwater too much in a chlorinated pool, as things were a bit grey and indistinct. But I'd been warned to expect this - frankly, things were a lot more clear than I thought they'd be, I was expecting it to look all streaky and strange.
They took me out to the stylish waiting room, where my stylish fiancée was waiting, and then I was led to a darkened room to let my eyes rest a bit. They rested, and then they gave me another quick eye test - no major change from before the process, really, but no damage done, which is reassuring, gave me a bag full of after-care goodies, and told me to come back the next day for a check-up.
Getting home was okay-ish - sunglasses helped, but my eyes kept wanting to close; I'm guessing they were objecting to their treatment and refusing to stay open if they were likely to be sliced and fried again. Fortunately, my lovely companion saw me to the door, and fed me food, and was very tolerant when I suggested an early night (not like that, you perv - they advised against 'contact sports' for a week or two. Or was it a month? Anyway, get out of the gutter, you filthmonger).
You'll be pleased to know that one aspect of the aftercare is that, when sleeping, you have to tape little plastic covers over your eyes - being who I am, they put me in mind of the eyes of the Spider-Man costume as worn by Nicholas Hammond in the old TV show; that is, they're like sunglass lenses, though made of clear plastic, and with holes in to allow air to circulate. So I did that on Friday night, and as I'm sure you can imagine, the sight was ridiculous enough to ensure any amorous feelings m'lady might have had were well and truly cold-showered.
And so to bed. Despite it being a Saturday, I woke the next morning at work-time ("so," any colleagues reading this will think, "around 10, was that, John?"), and … well, to continue the Spider-Man comparisons (and I will), it was like that bit in the first Raimi Spider-Man film where Peter Parker realises that he doesn't need his glasses any more. I could see across the room, and the details were sharp. Unlike Mr Parker, I didn't find that my midsection had suddenly become a clearly-defined six-pack, though (my midriff probably looks more like the contents of a six-pack. Of chocolate cakes. Fried. In chocolate batter), but that wasn't a predicted side-effect of the LASEK anyway, so let’s not feign surprise or dismay, folks.
I went off for my day-after check-up, and the lady there seemed faintly surprised by the speed with which my eyes were recovering, but I wasn't complaining, especially when she gave me an eye test again, and this time I was able to read to the bottom line of the chart (and no, that's not because I'd done it so often I'd learned the letters). Which makes my vision pretty much 20/20, apparently. And the slightly bloodshot nature of the eyeballs is clearing up as the days go by.
Obviously, I'm very pleased, and whilst I'm delighting in being able to see stuff without glasses or contact lenses, it's often in the little moments that it hits home; when it started raining the other day and I instinctively reached up to take off the glasses which weren't there (to stop them getting wet), or when I pat my pockets as I leave home and remember no, I don't need to take the specs along any more. That kind of thing.
So, if you have the money lying around - or you'll pass the credit test for the Interest Free Credit payment scheme - and your eyes are suitable for laser treatment, I'd recommend it, but of course some people like the style aspect of glasses - different frames, etc. That was never the case for me, and what with the whole running / diving / mountain-climbing thing, they were becoming more of a nuisance hence the decision to get them fried. Er, I mean, 'professionally laser-treated'.
Any questions about any of it, feel free to e-mail me at MyEyesBurningLikeFire@johnsoanes.co.uk - so many people know someone who knows someone who's had their eyes done, but rather than relegate it to the status of an urban myth or other 'foaf' tale, why not get genuine first-generation info from me?
(Bro, I'm looking at you… and my eyes see you now!)
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
As X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (Apocryphally) Put It, "I Can Still See!"
And indeed I can. This has been independently verified by people with certificates on their walls.
Full post about the eye surgery coming soon, but am currently on a deadline re some writing stuff, and (unlike blogging) that might, y'know, bring in some money, so bear with me.
In the meantime, why not visit one of the fine blogs listed in the column to the right? Or, should you need to, you could just do a web search on the title of this post to see what the hell I'm on about this time.
Full post about the eye surgery coming soon, but am currently on a deadline re some writing stuff, and (unlike blogging) that might, y'know, bring in some money, so bear with me.
In the meantime, why not visit one of the fine blogs listed in the column to the right? Or, should you need to, you could just do a web search on the title of this post to see what the hell I'm on about this time.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Yes, It May Well Resemble The Ludovico Treatment Apparatus
Well, today I go to get my eyes lasered to (according to the write-up) "remove my reliance on glasses" - or, as I prefer to see it, sort out my short-sightedness. I'm hoping it'll go straightforwardly, as I have things to do in the next few weeks. I'm a busy man, dammit! Get me the Montreal Office on the phone!
Ahem.
Anyway, as the vast majority of people seem to know someone who knows someone who's had their eyes burnt this way, let me hereby volunteer to be your first-generation teller of the tale after I'm done. As well as the inevitable blog post about what it was, how it went, and whether it seems to have worked, etc, you can also e-mail me with any specific questions and the like.
Speaking of e-mail, if it all goes horribly wrong, these next few hours might be the last time you can send me e-mails, so send them now! Now, I say! To the keyboard with you, with all haste!
(So, in summary; might be a bit blog-quiet in the immediate future, but don't lose heart - I shall return with tales of lasers, as well as pictures of rude graffiti, strange books lying on tube seats, and links to classy photos taken by the talented chap who'll be photographing our wedding [yes indeed, you SHOULD be impressed], and, no doubt, the usual drivel.)
Ahem.
Anyway, as the vast majority of people seem to know someone who knows someone who's had their eyes burnt this way, let me hereby volunteer to be your first-generation teller of the tale after I'm done. As well as the inevitable blog post about what it was, how it went, and whether it seems to have worked, etc, you can also e-mail me with any specific questions and the like.
Speaking of e-mail, if it all goes horribly wrong, these next few hours might be the last time you can send me e-mails, so send them now! Now, I say! To the keyboard with you, with all haste!
(So, in summary; might be a bit blog-quiet in the immediate future, but don't lose heart - I shall return with tales of lasers, as well as pictures of rude graffiti, strange books lying on tube seats, and links to classy photos taken by the talented chap who'll be photographing our wedding [yes indeed, you SHOULD be impressed], and, no doubt, the usual drivel.)
Thursday, August 09, 2007
I Myself Personally
It occurs to me that perhaps in recent times I've slightly depersonalised this blog, and on a number of days it's been little more than a place for me to post links to interesting things (not that I'm knocking interesting things, you understand) or to pontificate about subjects (the vast majority of which, we all know, I have a limited knowledge about, but that's rarely stopped me in real life either). So I thought it was about time I posted something a bit more personal.
I have, for much of my life, confused being a decent chap with being a bit of a doormat. Particularly when it comes to women (historically, that is), I've been inclined to equate a willingness to let other people get what they want with being 'a good guy'. Obviously, I want to be one of the good guys - and hope that in the main part I am - but it does mean that on many occasions I've allowed my own desires to be secondary, or permitted people to be rude to me and not said anything back, in order to keep the peace.
This is partly a result of my upbringing (too much reading of superhero comics and wanting to be the hero, I fear), and also of my previous work in Customer Service (where you have to pretend that The Customer Is Always Right - you don't have to actually believe it, just act accordingly), and almost certainly of the strange political air when I was at college in the late 1980s (a subject I keep starting blog entries on, but which I can't quite get the right words for… yet. I will), and no doubt other experiences and relationships.
It's certainly had a knock-on effect in my life, meaning that I haven't pursued things which I've wanted, or spoken out in my favour when I could have done, lest I should offend or in some way prevent someone else getting what they want. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it's actually a self-reinforcing behavioural pattern, in that if people think I'm likely to let them have what they want, they'll be more likely to push their luck, and so on.
But as Seymour Krelbourne in 'Little Shop Of Horrors' sings (in 'The Meek Shall Inherit'), "No! No! There's only so far you can bend", and for me that happened on a fairly major level in January of this year.
I won't go into the details, but suffice to say someone did something which pissed months of my time away and hurt my feelings, and when I pointed out what they'd done, they refused to take responsibility or show any remorse, and generally wheedled and lied about it - to me and people close to me. And whilst people close to me have said they understand my position, I think they've been faintly surprised that I've maintained my position on this - that is, that a wrong has been done and that I will never again speak to the person responsible - in the face of quite a lot of pressure, both explicit and implied.
This hasn't necessarily been an easy thing for me to learn to do - though it's abundantly clear to me that I needed to learn how to do it - and it's been by turns upsetting and frustrating, and it's frequently shown how I'm tacitly expected to drop the issue and effectively let the wrongdoer off the hook (and please, don't think that this was the first time this person has behaved like this towards me or those close to me, because it really wasn't). I've been fortunate in that my soon-to-be-wife Jules has had more experience of standing firm in such situations, because at the slightest sign of wavering on my part, she's been there to remind me of the wrong done, and what I need to do.
And I have to say that I feel better for having stood my ground. I think I've written before of how moving from the South of England to the North led to me feeling like a bit of an outsider, or a weirdo, and whilst I have no problem at all with that status (see Colin Wilson's excellent book 'The Outsider' for numerous examples of why this is an important position socially and creatively), it's perhaps telling that I have, more times than not, let other people have what they want for fear of appearing unreasonable or causing offence. Hardly, I realise, the behaviour of a wide-eyed loner who doesn't care if he travels the road to oblivion alone.
This post is, as I say, in the spirit of candour, and as it isn't an essay or argument, I don't have any direct conclusion to share or point to make, other than to suggest that, if you find yourself faltering when you know you're in the right (and in the situation I'm alluding to above, I can provide solid factual evidence that the other person was lying), I heartily recommend that you take a moment to consider whether that faltering comes from a wish to gain approval - and if so, whether approval from the person in question is actually worth having, if they're willing to ignore your side of things. And if course, there are the people who could suffer similar treatment if you let it pass - rewarding or permitting bad behaviour in a so-called adult is just as misplaced as with a child, as they too will carry on behaving that way.
Final thought: I used to work with a chap who would come into work two or three days a week, and frequently announce that he was working from home on Friday at about 4.45 on Thursday afternoon, often inconveniencing other people, and yet there was something about the way he did it which made it seem perfectly normal and reasonable. I commented on it to a friend, saying that his manner made it sound as if he was doing the logical thing, and that any suggestion to the contrary was sheer madness, and I noted that it was as if his words were rewriting reality as we perceived it to bring us into line with his thinking. My friend agreed, though like most people who aren't me, she found a much more succinct way to describe it: "Piss-taking with panache".
So, I say, let's not let people take the piss, be it with panache or not. And if they try, let them know you know what they're doing, and that you won't accept it. You can be pretty sure they won't try it again.
I have, for much of my life, confused being a decent chap with being a bit of a doormat. Particularly when it comes to women (historically, that is), I've been inclined to equate a willingness to let other people get what they want with being 'a good guy'. Obviously, I want to be one of the good guys - and hope that in the main part I am - but it does mean that on many occasions I've allowed my own desires to be secondary, or permitted people to be rude to me and not said anything back, in order to keep the peace.
This is partly a result of my upbringing (too much reading of superhero comics and wanting to be the hero, I fear), and also of my previous work in Customer Service (where you have to pretend that The Customer Is Always Right - you don't have to actually believe it, just act accordingly), and almost certainly of the strange political air when I was at college in the late 1980s (a subject I keep starting blog entries on, but which I can't quite get the right words for… yet. I will), and no doubt other experiences and relationships.
It's certainly had a knock-on effect in my life, meaning that I haven't pursued things which I've wanted, or spoken out in my favour when I could have done, lest I should offend or in some way prevent someone else getting what they want. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it's actually a self-reinforcing behavioural pattern, in that if people think I'm likely to let them have what they want, they'll be more likely to push their luck, and so on.
But as Seymour Krelbourne in 'Little Shop Of Horrors' sings (in 'The Meek Shall Inherit'), "No! No! There's only so far you can bend", and for me that happened on a fairly major level in January of this year.
I won't go into the details, but suffice to say someone did something which pissed months of my time away and hurt my feelings, and when I pointed out what they'd done, they refused to take responsibility or show any remorse, and generally wheedled and lied about it - to me and people close to me. And whilst people close to me have said they understand my position, I think they've been faintly surprised that I've maintained my position on this - that is, that a wrong has been done and that I will never again speak to the person responsible - in the face of quite a lot of pressure, both explicit and implied.
This hasn't necessarily been an easy thing for me to learn to do - though it's abundantly clear to me that I needed to learn how to do it - and it's been by turns upsetting and frustrating, and it's frequently shown how I'm tacitly expected to drop the issue and effectively let the wrongdoer off the hook (and please, don't think that this was the first time this person has behaved like this towards me or those close to me, because it really wasn't). I've been fortunate in that my soon-to-be-wife Jules has had more experience of standing firm in such situations, because at the slightest sign of wavering on my part, she's been there to remind me of the wrong done, and what I need to do.
And I have to say that I feel better for having stood my ground. I think I've written before of how moving from the South of England to the North led to me feeling like a bit of an outsider, or a weirdo, and whilst I have no problem at all with that status (see Colin Wilson's excellent book 'The Outsider' for numerous examples of why this is an important position socially and creatively), it's perhaps telling that I have, more times than not, let other people have what they want for fear of appearing unreasonable or causing offence. Hardly, I realise, the behaviour of a wide-eyed loner who doesn't care if he travels the road to oblivion alone.
This post is, as I say, in the spirit of candour, and as it isn't an essay or argument, I don't have any direct conclusion to share or point to make, other than to suggest that, if you find yourself faltering when you know you're in the right (and in the situation I'm alluding to above, I can provide solid factual evidence that the other person was lying), I heartily recommend that you take a moment to consider whether that faltering comes from a wish to gain approval - and if so, whether approval from the person in question is actually worth having, if they're willing to ignore your side of things. And if course, there are the people who could suffer similar treatment if you let it pass - rewarding or permitting bad behaviour in a so-called adult is just as misplaced as with a child, as they too will carry on behaving that way.
Final thought: I used to work with a chap who would come into work two or three days a week, and frequently announce that he was working from home on Friday at about 4.45 on Thursday afternoon, often inconveniencing other people, and yet there was something about the way he did it which made it seem perfectly normal and reasonable. I commented on it to a friend, saying that his manner made it sound as if he was doing the logical thing, and that any suggestion to the contrary was sheer madness, and I noted that it was as if his words were rewriting reality as we perceived it to bring us into line with his thinking. My friend agreed, though like most people who aren't me, she found a much more succinct way to describe it: "Piss-taking with panache".
So, I say, let's not let people take the piss, be it with panache or not. And if they try, let them know you know what they're doing, and that you won't accept it. You can be pretty sure they won't try it again.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Behold, I Am Indeed Become An Old Fart Who Just Doesn't Get It
Lyrics from the single currently at Number 2 in the youth-beat music charts, 'Foundations' by Kate Nash:
"Your face is pasty 'cause you've gone and got so wasted, what a surprise.
Don't want to look at your face 'cause it's makin' me sick.
You've gone and got sick on my trainers,
I only got these yesterday.
Oh, my gosh, I cannot be bothered with this."
Poetry, sheer poetry, it speaks to the spirit deep inside of me.
And, I suspect, all of us.
(It was a close-run thing; I almost posted something by Mike Skinner, but the repetition of the word 'sick' was what tipped it for me.)
"Your face is pasty 'cause you've gone and got so wasted, what a surprise.
Don't want to look at your face 'cause it's makin' me sick.
You've gone and got sick on my trainers,
I only got these yesterday.
Oh, my gosh, I cannot be bothered with this."
Poetry, sheer poetry, it speaks to the spirit deep inside of me.
And, I suspect, all of us.
(It was a close-run thing; I almost posted something by Mike Skinner, but the repetition of the word 'sick' was what tipped it for me.)
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Excess In Moderation, Moderation In Excess
As I may have mentioned, I'm having laser eye surgery at the end of this week, and by way of being a good patient, I'm making sure I've done all the background reading and the like.
However, I'm slightly at a loss as to how, afterwards, I'm supposed to 'avoid using my eyes excessively' - I mean, I use them from pretty much the moment I wake up until ... well, the moment I go to sleep.
Any ideas as to what the jiggins this means, please send them in. Before the end of the week, obviously, as after that time I'll be trying to avoid unnecessary wear and tear on my eyeballs.
However, I'm slightly at a loss as to how, afterwards, I'm supposed to 'avoid using my eyes excessively' - I mean, I use them from pretty much the moment I wake up until ... well, the moment I go to sleep.
Any ideas as to what the jiggins this means, please send them in. Before the end of the week, obviously, as after that time I'll be trying to avoid unnecessary wear and tear on my eyeballs.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Serve The Ego*
It's a Monday, and which of us doesn't feel a certain lassitude every now and again at the start of the week?
Join me in rampant egotism by getting yourself a Hollywood sign of your name here (link nicked from David Bishop's ever-interesting blog, Vicious Imagery).
Join me in rampant egotism by getting yourself a Hollywood sign of your name here (link nicked from David Bishop's ever-interesting blog, Vicious Imagery).
*A song by Jewel, whose music sells in vast quantities in the USA, but she's barely-known here. I heartily recommend her stuff (except for the album '03/04', which I felt was a bit of a misjudged departure in style, to be honest).
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Not Quite Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam, But A Step In The Right Direction
Is it just me, or is anyone else finding that the tone of spam e-mails has taken a turn for the more friendly recently?
Over the years, I've become accustomed - indeed, almost numb - to e-mails trying to incite me to buy v1@gra and c1ali$ by offering me startling amounts of ejaculate*, or the ability to perform as if I were an actor in an adult straight-to-DVD feature, or even (less enticingly) to have a member capable of breaking wood, if not harming one's partner on some level.
But now, after a strange transitional phase when many spam e-mails appeared to be doing some kind of Burroughs-meets-Joyce cut-up text merge thing (frequently including long passages of text which, even more bizarrely, featured religious references), the majority of spam I receive now seems more polite, more positive, and in places, even literary.
For example, my spam filter this morning caught uninvited items with the following titles trying to sneak into the exclusive party that is my inbox:
To be or not to be. To be… (x3)
I show you how far the rabbit hole goes
You can…
Take a pride with Cial!s!
Wanna be like me?
Be happy! :)
Are you insecure?
You see? It almost feels as if they care about me, or at least want to engage in a genuine dialogue with me.
I mean, they've got a long way to go before they seem even remotely as friendly as those nice chaps from Nigeria who want to give me the money which is rightly owed to me by the fallen regime there, but it's good to know that the people who are willing to fulfil all my sex-chemical needs read Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll, and want to ensure that my mind is as free of insecurity and unhappiness as it is from thwarted sexual desires.
*That's the noun there, not the verb. Pronounced as if 'twere rhyming with "consulate".
Over the years, I've become accustomed - indeed, almost numb - to e-mails trying to incite me to buy v1@gra and c1ali$ by offering me startling amounts of ejaculate*, or the ability to perform as if I were an actor in an adult straight-to-DVD feature, or even (less enticingly) to have a member capable of breaking wood, if not harming one's partner on some level.
But now, after a strange transitional phase when many spam e-mails appeared to be doing some kind of Burroughs-meets-Joyce cut-up text merge thing (frequently including long passages of text which, even more bizarrely, featured religious references), the majority of spam I receive now seems more polite, more positive, and in places, even literary.
For example, my spam filter this morning caught uninvited items with the following titles trying to sneak into the exclusive party that is my inbox:
To be or not to be. To be… (x3)
I show you how far the rabbit hole goes
You can…
Take a pride with Cial!s!
Wanna be like me?
Be happy! :)
Are you insecure?
You see? It almost feels as if they care about me, or at least want to engage in a genuine dialogue with me.
I mean, they've got a long way to go before they seem even remotely as friendly as those nice chaps from Nigeria who want to give me the money which is rightly owed to me by the fallen regime there, but it's good to know that the people who are willing to fulfil all my sex-chemical needs read Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll, and want to ensure that my mind is as free of insecurity and unhappiness as it is from thwarted sexual desires.
*That's the noun there, not the verb. Pronounced as if 'twere rhyming with "consulate".
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
And Finally…
You’d hope that the length of this post would mean I’d exhausted all I had to say on the topic, but here’s a related link I couldn’t resist sharing: A Postmodern Essay Generator.
Just click ‘Refresh’ (or equivalent) on your browser to create a new essay. Worryingly convincing, aren’t they?
Just click ‘Refresh’ (or equivalent) on your browser to create a new essay. Worryingly convincing, aren’t they?
Mind You, If This Wish Was Granted, Writing Would Be Even More Competitive…
One of my favourite stand-up comedians, as I may well have mentioned before, is the late Bill Hicks. As with many things, the fanbase surrounding Hicks and his work can often get a little over-zealous, proclaiming him as a comedy messiah or preacher, and reciting his lines to the extent that a lot of people frown at the acolytes and understandably feel a bit wary of looking at the work in question. I've often averred that fans are the worst advert for their passions, and I think that this is pretty easily demonstrated - your average Rocky Horror Show fan, or the chap who quotes Monty Python sketches in the pub (as John Hannah does in 'Sliding Doors' much to the delight of those around him, which is at odds with anything I've ever seen) is unlikely to attract people to the subject matter.
But I digress, as the reason I refer to Hicks is that, probably a couple of decades ago now, he said "I've noticed a certain anti-intellectualism in this country", and as a fan of both Hicks and the idea that we should use our brains wherever possible, I always feel a little uncomfortable when saying things which have the ring of anti-intellectualism about them. And the following definitely has that, so please bear in mind it's written with a distinct feeling of 'is it just me, or ..?' about it.
So.
For a while now, I've been wondering about things like literary theories and critical approaches, and keep coming to the semi-conclusion that, well, really, they don't add a great deal to the sum of human knowledge. There seem to be a variety of ways of analysing a 'text' (and this word appears to apply to films as well as the printed word, oddly enough), many of which seem to relate to the issue of Cognitive Relativism - a theory which basically suggests that the veracity of something is relative to an individual or group. One theory, known as the Intentional Fallacy, states that the author's intention is irrelevant when it comes to assessing the literary or aesthetic merits of a text. These are simplistic examples, I'll freely admit, and you can easily find much more involved theories and approaches – here’s an example - but I want to be honest and admit that I've only dabbled in the shallowest ends of this big pool of thought; possibly because - see above - a lot of the advocates of these theories frankly scare me with their choices of words and ferocity of conviction.
The problem I have with all these approaches is one which can be summed up in another quote from Bill Hicks, and which sums up my feelings in four words: "Yeah, and so what?"
I know that sounds simplistic, but … well, if I take a modernist, post-modernist, or most-modernist approach to Hamlet and publish an essay about it, am I necessarily adding anything to the sum of human knowledge? Probably not. The original work still stands, hundreds of years after its first performance, and still speaks to people as a story, regardless of whether it has an oedipal subtext or whatever. And this, for me, is the problem for me with much criticism and theorising - it dwells on subtext or metaphor or possible interpretation, whilst seeming less keen on the actual stated narrative content. Yes, you could say that Hamlet wants to sleep with his Mum or that Iago wants to snog Othello, but it's not there on the page. It might be implied or vaguely alluded to or whatever, but it's faintly insulting to Shaky or any other author to suggest that they didn't put in everything that was important or relevant to the story. It also feels a lot like making a job for oneself - literally - if you're going to spend the rest of your life pumping out papers analysing other people's work.
My feelings on this clearly go back a long way, as I recall a conversation at college where my then-girlfriend told me about her English course:
But I digress, as the reason I refer to Hicks is that, probably a couple of decades ago now, he said "I've noticed a certain anti-intellectualism in this country", and as a fan of both Hicks and the idea that we should use our brains wherever possible, I always feel a little uncomfortable when saying things which have the ring of anti-intellectualism about them. And the following definitely has that, so please bear in mind it's written with a distinct feeling of 'is it just me, or ..?' about it.
So.
For a while now, I've been wondering about things like literary theories and critical approaches, and keep coming to the semi-conclusion that, well, really, they don't add a great deal to the sum of human knowledge. There seem to be a variety of ways of analysing a 'text' (and this word appears to apply to films as well as the printed word, oddly enough), many of which seem to relate to the issue of Cognitive Relativism - a theory which basically suggests that the veracity of something is relative to an individual or group. One theory, known as the Intentional Fallacy, states that the author's intention is irrelevant when it comes to assessing the literary or aesthetic merits of a text. These are simplistic examples, I'll freely admit, and you can easily find much more involved theories and approaches – here’s an example - but I want to be honest and admit that I've only dabbled in the shallowest ends of this big pool of thought; possibly because - see above - a lot of the advocates of these theories frankly scare me with their choices of words and ferocity of conviction.
The problem I have with all these approaches is one which can be summed up in another quote from Bill Hicks, and which sums up my feelings in four words: "Yeah, and so what?"
I know that sounds simplistic, but … well, if I take a modernist, post-modernist, or most-modernist approach to Hamlet and publish an essay about it, am I necessarily adding anything to the sum of human knowledge? Probably not. The original work still stands, hundreds of years after its first performance, and still speaks to people as a story, regardless of whether it has an oedipal subtext or whatever. And this, for me, is the problem for me with much criticism and theorising - it dwells on subtext or metaphor or possible interpretation, whilst seeming less keen on the actual stated narrative content. Yes, you could say that Hamlet wants to sleep with his Mum or that Iago wants to snog Othello, but it's not there on the page. It might be implied or vaguely alluded to or whatever, but it's faintly insulting to Shaky or any other author to suggest that they didn't put in everything that was important or relevant to the story. It also feels a lot like making a job for oneself - literally - if you're going to spend the rest of your life pumping out papers analysing other people's work.
My feelings on this clearly go back a long way, as I recall a conversation at college where my then-girlfriend told me about her English course:
SHE: Basically, we're being trained to be critics.
ME: But … but we don't need any more critics. We need creators.
ME: But … but we don't need any more critics. We need creators.
And I believe that; we need people making films and books and music and buildings and art and sculptures and plays much more than we need another person trained to analyse it from a post-structuralist angle or whatever. I think it was Colin Wilson (a man whose huge body of work spans both creation and analysis) who said that the reason various critical approaches have been seized upon so readily is because, when you use a specific approach to analyse a piece of art, you almost feel like you're doing something. This, to me, seems to be what it's all about - keeping yourself busy analysing how things are made, which is all very well and good, but we don't need the ratio of critics to creators to be so heavily weighted in favour of the former, especially when some clearly very good minds are effectively being wasted (I'm particularly thinking of the French literary theorists and philosophers here) when they could be, y'know, actually making something.
Subtext and metaphor and irony and the like are all very well indeed, but they have to be the cream on the cake or the sizzle on the steak; there needs to be a story (or, at the very least, series of events) for these to rest on. I've nothing against considering the possibility that Hamlet fancies his Mum as the reason for his hatred of his uncle, but that has to be a side issue compared with analysis of actual, specified events within the play. The danger of Cognitive Relativism is that, taken to its logical conclusion, it allows pretty much any interpretation of any piece of art to have equal merit and weight when compared with the opinions of the creator, which is odd at best, and strangely rude at worst.
Theorising run amok - and on this occasion overlapping with the world of science - was flagged up (and to my mind brilliantly skewered) by the physicist Alan Sokal in 1996. He felt that a lot of modern critics and philosophers were quoting scientific material (especially in relation to quantum physics) sloppily, and without regard to whether it actually made any sense. So, to see how true this might (or might not) be, he wrote a paper called ``Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity'', basically cobbling together a whole load of science and philosophy to lead to a daft conclusion, albeit one phrased convincingly.
Sokal submitted it to a cultural studies journal, Social Text, who published it, despite it containing bizarre assertions such as "It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical ``reality'', no less than social ``reality'', is at bottom a social and linguistic construct" (as Sokal commented when revealing the hoax, "anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. [I live on the twenty-first floor.]").
Suffice to say, when revealed, Sokal's prank was not entirely popular with the people he was parodying and poking fun at, and I suspect this is more than partly because he pointed out to them that much of what they do is, essentially, of limited value. Indeed, there's an old - and surprisingly knowing - joke that the politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low. Though if someone's effectively pointed out (as Sokal did) that your academic stance is bogus, it might put your livelihood in jeopardy, which does make the stakes rather more real, and substantially higher.
(Aside: Sokal's book following the inevitable brouhaha, Intellectual Impostures, is an even more comprehensive demolition of sloppy theorising, but I must admit my brain started aching after several chapters, mainly because of the insanity of the ideas that Sokal and his co-writer were dismantling; if you want a more readable book on this theme, I highly recommend How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen.)
As one who's keen to make his living from the written word, I may well be slightly jealous of those people who are able to do so more as a result of commenting on or theorising about existing works, but I truly and sincerely believe that the time and effort expended in training the next generation of critics would be much more profitably pointed in the direction of the creation of new material.
Simply put, would you rather be Samuel Johnson or James Boswell?
Subtext and metaphor and irony and the like are all very well indeed, but they have to be the cream on the cake or the sizzle on the steak; there needs to be a story (or, at the very least, series of events) for these to rest on. I've nothing against considering the possibility that Hamlet fancies his Mum as the reason for his hatred of his uncle, but that has to be a side issue compared with analysis of actual, specified events within the play. The danger of Cognitive Relativism is that, taken to its logical conclusion, it allows pretty much any interpretation of any piece of art to have equal merit and weight when compared with the opinions of the creator, which is odd at best, and strangely rude at worst.
Theorising run amok - and on this occasion overlapping with the world of science - was flagged up (and to my mind brilliantly skewered) by the physicist Alan Sokal in 1996. He felt that a lot of modern critics and philosophers were quoting scientific material (especially in relation to quantum physics) sloppily, and without regard to whether it actually made any sense. So, to see how true this might (or might not) be, he wrote a paper called ``Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity'', basically cobbling together a whole load of science and philosophy to lead to a daft conclusion, albeit one phrased convincingly.
Sokal submitted it to a cultural studies journal, Social Text, who published it, despite it containing bizarre assertions such as "It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical ``reality'', no less than social ``reality'', is at bottom a social and linguistic construct" (as Sokal commented when revealing the hoax, "anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. [I live on the twenty-first floor.]").
Suffice to say, when revealed, Sokal's prank was not entirely popular with the people he was parodying and poking fun at, and I suspect this is more than partly because he pointed out to them that much of what they do is, essentially, of limited value. Indeed, there's an old - and surprisingly knowing - joke that the politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low. Though if someone's effectively pointed out (as Sokal did) that your academic stance is bogus, it might put your livelihood in jeopardy, which does make the stakes rather more real, and substantially higher.
(Aside: Sokal's book following the inevitable brouhaha, Intellectual Impostures, is an even more comprehensive demolition of sloppy theorising, but I must admit my brain started aching after several chapters, mainly because of the insanity of the ideas that Sokal and his co-writer were dismantling; if you want a more readable book on this theme, I highly recommend How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen.)
As one who's keen to make his living from the written word, I may well be slightly jealous of those people who are able to do so more as a result of commenting on or theorising about existing works, but I truly and sincerely believe that the time and effort expended in training the next generation of critics would be much more profitably pointed in the direction of the creation of new material.
Simply put, would you rather be Samuel Johnson or James Boswell?
Monday, July 30, 2007
The Lunatic Fringe
Two jolly nice chaps I know, Martin and Mathew, are doing a show at the Edinburgh Fringe. If their everyday behaviour and conversation is anything to go by, I think it'll be a very funny indeed. And best of all, tickets are free, yes FREE, gratis, libre, not a penny (well, they do ask for a contribution to charity, but I think that's pretty reasonable).
So, if you're at the Fringe on August 7th and/or 9th, why not give it a go? Check out their website at Half Life Crisis.
Tell them I sent you. Or don't. Shouldn't influence things either way, really, but it feels like the sort of thing I should put at the end of this kind of post.
So, if you're at the Fringe on August 7th and/or 9th, why not give it a go? Check out their website at Half Life Crisis.
Tell them I sent you. Or don't. Shouldn't influence things either way, really, but it feels like the sort of thing I should put at the end of this kind of post.
The Very Stray Thoughts Of You
1. Yes, a few days off there. Back now, though, and I had a good time, thanks. How are you?
2. My Pobrophenia post appears to have been greeted with general bemusement and disagreement. I'd argue that it's more apparent when both chaps are moving, but you might still disagree. Ah well.
3. Mike Reid - arguably best known from EastEnders - died yesterday. As I was a contestant in 1981 on the TV quiz show Runaround, which he hosted, I can cheerfully report that he was a friendly chap, and that he willingly signed autographs for the members of the audience who asked for them. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I won a digital watch, not the top prize. I still have the t-shirt, but it does look more like a belly-baring top now, so I only wear it on special occasions. Anyway, Mike was a nice chap, from my meeting with him.
4. I don't want to sound like an old straight, but when I was a kid, it was pretty clear to me that Battlestar Galactica (the original version) was a rip-off of Star Wars. When I was older, I felt the same way about Digimon and Pokemon, even though I was arguably outside their target audience. And now, again though the stuff's not aimed at me, am I entirely wrong in thinking that Kate Nash's music is suspiciously like that of Lily Allen?
5. When I'm not writing this blog, what do I do with my time? I'm glad you asked. At the moment, I've mainly been writing a screenplay, a stage monologue, and a shortish radio play. And at my back I always hear my second novel, not drawing particularly near… which does beggar the question of what I'm doing typing this right now, doesn't it? All right, I'll get me gone.
2. My Pobrophenia post appears to have been greeted with general bemusement and disagreement. I'd argue that it's more apparent when both chaps are moving, but you might still disagree. Ah well.
3. Mike Reid - arguably best known from EastEnders - died yesterday. As I was a contestant in 1981 on the TV quiz show Runaround, which he hosted, I can cheerfully report that he was a friendly chap, and that he willingly signed autographs for the members of the audience who asked for them. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I won a digital watch, not the top prize. I still have the t-shirt, but it does look more like a belly-baring top now, so I only wear it on special occasions. Anyway, Mike was a nice chap, from my meeting with him.
4. I don't want to sound like an old straight, but when I was a kid, it was pretty clear to me that Battlestar Galactica (the original version) was a rip-off of Star Wars. When I was older, I felt the same way about Digimon and Pokemon, even though I was arguably outside their target audience. And now, again though the stuff's not aimed at me, am I entirely wrong in thinking that Kate Nash's music is suspiciously like that of Lily Allen?
5. When I'm not writing this blog, what do I do with my time? I'm glad you asked. At the moment, I've mainly been writing a screenplay, a stage monologue, and a shortish radio play. And at my back I always hear my second novel, not drawing particularly near… which does beggar the question of what I'm doing typing this right now, doesn't it? All right, I'll get me gone.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
This One Goes Out For The One I Love
My frankly smashing fiancée Jules completed the Cancer Research Race For Life on Sunday, and I am, unsurprisingly, very proud of her.
I know the readers of this blog are generous as well as well-read folks, and so I hope you won’t mind if ask you to click here and sponsor her (it’s after the event, I know, but I can assure you she completed it). All donations welcomed, and the link’s one of those secure ones, so you don’t need to worry that your money will be purloined by miscreants such as a TV company running a phone-in competition or similar. Honest.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and the heart of my bottom.
I know the readers of this blog are generous as well as well-read folks, and so I hope you won’t mind if ask you to click here and sponsor her (it’s after the event, I know, but I can assure you she completed it). All donations welcomed, and the link’s one of those secure ones, so you don’t need to worry that your money will be purloined by miscreants such as a TV company running a phone-in competition or similar. Honest.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and the heart of my bottom.
The Television Will Be Revolutionised
Partly prompted by my recent tilt towards writing for TV, and certainly catalysed by interweb posts by Lucy and John August, I've been mulling over what TV might be like in the not-too-distant future.
I'm often wary of this kind of prediction, as it's often off the mark (cf all the jokes in the Year 2000 asking where our flying cars are, etc), and too many such articles both on TV and in print seem to end with the phrase 'scientists hope the {whatever] could be on sale within five to ten years', which usually translates the whole item into 'wouldn't it be kewl if..?' like the worst kind of writing on Ain't-It-Cool-News.
But anyway, it seems to me that the development of Tivo and Sky+ and other hard drives, combined with the 'shows on demand' facilities offered by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 (and, for all I know, others) could well herald the end of TV scheduling as we know it. Which may not necessarily be a bad thing for the audience, but will certainly crate challenges for broadcasters and advertisers.
Given that we don't seem too far from a point in time where you as good as ignore the broadcast times of programmes and decide to watch them by downloading them (I'm kind of presupposing an internet-TV link here, but it doesn't seem too unlikely) at your leisure, and effectively creating your own schedule, doesn't this potentially remove the need for programmes to fit into timeslots? If, for example, an episode of Casualty is scripted to run to 58 mins instead of the standard 50, is there actually any need for it to be trimmed down? The next programme's not going to run late as a result, as there is no 'next programme'. So I'd see it as having considerable effects on the actual making of programmes - whether it'll lead to excessively slow-paced programmes with sloppy editing and needless padding, or allow for more creative use of pacing and the like is, of course, a matter of conjecture.
For commercial channels and advertisers too, there's the problem that 'ratings' as such almost cease to exist, which will play happy havoc with the idea of paying to have a prime-time slot, as again, there's no such thing as prime-time any more. There may be a vast number of people downloading or selecting Coronation Street, though the chances of them doing so at exactly 7.30pm and again at 8.30pm on Monday night seem rather reduced. Actually, you can watch the last 30 days' of Corrie online for free at www.itv.com, and I'd be interested to see what - if anything - they do about the ad breaks. Anyone know if they retain them (as with the televised omnibus) or drop them altogether (as if one was watching the DVD boxed set)? Removal of adverts would also have an impact on the placing of scene breaks and cliffhangers in commercial TV drama, too.
Now, I won't flatter myself that the above constitute searingly original thoughts, but things do seem to be heading towards the all-in-one side of things with the rise of cable-based TV/Internet providers with their 'on demand' film stashes etc, and I can't help thinking that being able to choose your own channel - YourTube, as it were - will have a startling effect on the form and content alike of TV programming in the not too distant future> It seems likely to change the nature of TV, from the making of shows through to the way they're broadcast and watched, as well as the monitoring of ratings and advertising rates. All fairly fundamental stuff, and I keep wondering just how it'll all shake out.
Which is, of course, to say: John expects that TV will be completely 'on demand' within five or ten years.
I'm often wary of this kind of prediction, as it's often off the mark (cf all the jokes in the Year 2000 asking where our flying cars are, etc), and too many such articles both on TV and in print seem to end with the phrase 'scientists hope the {whatever] could be on sale within five to ten years', which usually translates the whole item into 'wouldn't it be kewl if..?' like the worst kind of writing on Ain't-It-Cool-News.
But anyway, it seems to me that the development of Tivo and Sky+ and other hard drives, combined with the 'shows on demand' facilities offered by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 (and, for all I know, others) could well herald the end of TV scheduling as we know it. Which may not necessarily be a bad thing for the audience, but will certainly crate challenges for broadcasters and advertisers.
Given that we don't seem too far from a point in time where you as good as ignore the broadcast times of programmes and decide to watch them by downloading them (I'm kind of presupposing an internet-TV link here, but it doesn't seem too unlikely) at your leisure, and effectively creating your own schedule, doesn't this potentially remove the need for programmes to fit into timeslots? If, for example, an episode of Casualty is scripted to run to 58 mins instead of the standard 50, is there actually any need for it to be trimmed down? The next programme's not going to run late as a result, as there is no 'next programme'. So I'd see it as having considerable effects on the actual making of programmes - whether it'll lead to excessively slow-paced programmes with sloppy editing and needless padding, or allow for more creative use of pacing and the like is, of course, a matter of conjecture.
For commercial channels and advertisers too, there's the problem that 'ratings' as such almost cease to exist, which will play happy havoc with the idea of paying to have a prime-time slot, as again, there's no such thing as prime-time any more. There may be a vast number of people downloading or selecting Coronation Street, though the chances of them doing so at exactly 7.30pm and again at 8.30pm on Monday night seem rather reduced. Actually, you can watch the last 30 days' of Corrie online for free at www.itv.com, and I'd be interested to see what - if anything - they do about the ad breaks. Anyone know if they retain them (as with the televised omnibus) or drop them altogether (as if one was watching the DVD boxed set)? Removal of adverts would also have an impact on the placing of scene breaks and cliffhangers in commercial TV drama, too.
Now, I won't flatter myself that the above constitute searingly original thoughts, but things do seem to be heading towards the all-in-one side of things with the rise of cable-based TV/Internet providers with their 'on demand' film stashes etc, and I can't help thinking that being able to choose your own channel - YourTube, as it were - will have a startling effect on the form and content alike of TV programming in the not too distant future> It seems likely to change the nature of TV, from the making of shows through to the way they're broadcast and watched, as well as the monitoring of ratings and advertising rates. All fairly fundamental stuff, and I keep wondering just how it'll all shake out.
Which is, of course, to say: John expects that TV will be completely 'on demand' within five or ten years.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
Maybe They Should Have Inhaled
In the last couple of days, two government ministers have - in suspiciously similar words and circumstances - admitted that they smoked cannabis at college. It was many years ago, they said, and they haven't done it since.
The conclusion's there to be drawn, of course: if you don't smoke cannabis often enough, you end up as a Member of Parliament.
The conclusion's there to be drawn, of course: if you don't smoke cannabis often enough, you end up as a Member of Parliament.
Harry Potter: The End*
Despite the alleged on-sale time of 12.01am tomorrow, as someone who used to work in a bookshop, I know this means that as I post this, bookshops (and other locations including, oddly enough, petrol stations) around the country have received their copies of the final Harry Potter book, and they're sitting waiting to be put on the shelves.
Now, I don't really care for the Potter stuff - I read the first book and thought 'eh', and saw the first film, and thought the same. I'm partly jaded by the fact that the character reminds me of the comic character Tim Hunter, partly put off the hype around something that seems fairly unremarkable to me, and certainly far from convinced by the claims that it's a series which both adults and children can enjoy; the one I read felt like I was dipping below my reading age, frankly.
That said, there are various things about the release of the final Potter book which I think are interesting:
1. The story of Joanne Rowling, and how her ideas went from ideas in her head to internationally recognised characters and films, etc. In my childish way, In think there's something vaguely magical about turning ideas into food on the table, like a kind of alchemy; transforming airy nothingness into grub.
2. The way she's kept the rights to the books separate from the films; as I understand it, all the merchandise that's available is related to the film incarnation (though I stand to be corrected). A wise move, I think, as that allows her to do what it's said Raymond Chandler did when people suggested the film adaptations had in some way diminished the books; apparently, he pointed at the books on a nearby shelf and said 'no, they’re over there, and they're still the same' or words to that effect.
3. In reference to the books being stored in bookshops, the publishers have done pretty well in keeping the events in the book secret, though some of the publicity (and I do think a lot of it is made up to keep interest levels up) does rather remind me of a story I heard about the release of 'Free As A Bird', the 'new Beatles single' back in 1995. The story goes that at the press event to mark its release, as the boxes containing the copies of the record were carried to the front of the room, the assembled journalists were asked to turn away, and they started to comply, but one of them shouted 'For crying out loud, it's only a record!', which broke the spell, and I'm rather inclined to feel that there may be a touch of this about the end of the Potter series. By this time tomorrow, of course, I'm pretty sure that the interweb will be awash with spoilers about who lives and who dies etc.
4. Waterstones, I gather, have started an online petition to try to convince Joanne R to consider writing more books in the series. Nice demonstration of commercial concerns over creative integrity there, though I can understand why they're worried, as the Potter books, especially when launched, are a big earner. Waterstone's e-mail alludes to the Return of Sherlock Holmes, which seems a rather premature comparison to me. Let's give it some time, eh ?
*Well, that should bring in a few new readers via Google and Yahoo.
Now, I don't really care for the Potter stuff - I read the first book and thought 'eh', and saw the first film, and thought the same. I'm partly jaded by the fact that the character reminds me of the comic character Tim Hunter, partly put off the hype around something that seems fairly unremarkable to me, and certainly far from convinced by the claims that it's a series which both adults and children can enjoy; the one I read felt like I was dipping below my reading age, frankly.
That said, there are various things about the release of the final Potter book which I think are interesting:
1. The story of Joanne Rowling, and how her ideas went from ideas in her head to internationally recognised characters and films, etc. In my childish way, In think there's something vaguely magical about turning ideas into food on the table, like a kind of alchemy; transforming airy nothingness into grub.
2. The way she's kept the rights to the books separate from the films; as I understand it, all the merchandise that's available is related to the film incarnation (though I stand to be corrected). A wise move, I think, as that allows her to do what it's said Raymond Chandler did when people suggested the film adaptations had in some way diminished the books; apparently, he pointed at the books on a nearby shelf and said 'no, they’re over there, and they're still the same' or words to that effect.
3. In reference to the books being stored in bookshops, the publishers have done pretty well in keeping the events in the book secret, though some of the publicity (and I do think a lot of it is made up to keep interest levels up) does rather remind me of a story I heard about the release of 'Free As A Bird', the 'new Beatles single' back in 1995. The story goes that at the press event to mark its release, as the boxes containing the copies of the record were carried to the front of the room, the assembled journalists were asked to turn away, and they started to comply, but one of them shouted 'For crying out loud, it's only a record!', which broke the spell, and I'm rather inclined to feel that there may be a touch of this about the end of the Potter series. By this time tomorrow, of course, I'm pretty sure that the interweb will be awash with spoilers about who lives and who dies etc.
4. Waterstones, I gather, have started an online petition to try to convince Joanne R to consider writing more books in the series. Nice demonstration of commercial concerns over creative integrity there, though I can understand why they're worried, as the Potter books, especially when launched, are a big earner. Waterstone's e-mail alludes to the Return of Sherlock Holmes, which seems a rather premature comparison to me. Let's give it some time, eh ?
*Well, that should bring in a few new readers via Google and Yahoo.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Plagues and Plagiarism
Two things relating to Jane Austen (which is as surprising to me as it is to you; I don't really care for her stuff):
Firstly, this amuses me - it might not be wholly damning (they might only have one form rejection letter, after all), but it was kind of amusing. Though slightly negative, as it allows rejectees to say 'Ah, so this is why my genius goes unacknowledged', and other would-be writers to think that submitted material goes unread. Though that might clear the field a bit, hmm...
And secondly, following on from the success of Life on Mars, ITV have announced a show called Lost in Austen, about a woman who finds herself in the works of Jane Austen. A fun idea, but I would say that, as I enjoyed the book The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, which features a woman who finds she's able to ... oh, however did you guess?
Firstly, this amuses me - it might not be wholly damning (they might only have one form rejection letter, after all), but it was kind of amusing. Though slightly negative, as it allows rejectees to say 'Ah, so this is why my genius goes unacknowledged', and other would-be writers to think that submitted material goes unread. Though that might clear the field a bit, hmm...
And secondly, following on from the success of Life on Mars, ITV have announced a show called Lost in Austen, about a woman who finds herself in the works of Jane Austen. A fun idea, but I would say that, as I enjoyed the book The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, which features a woman who finds she's able to ... oh, however did you guess?
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
It Pays To Increase Your Word Power
NUTTJob (n.) : One promoted beyond their abilities, and incapable of fulfilling their allotted role, to the detriment of others. Often overpaid or in a position of importance [f. Not Up To The Job].
This word is ideological freeware; use it as appropriate...
This word is ideological freeware; use it as appropriate...
Monday, July 16, 2007
Links Fahren
Submitted for your approval, four links to places elsewhere on the world wide webternet:
1. What would I look like if I was wearing a dayglo t-shirt and running, you ask? Find out here.
2. Charlie Higson I was mildly surprised by, but this was genuinely unexpected.
3. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, they say. But at least it’s a form of wit, I say. And some of these reviews still made me grin.
4. A picture, the cliché has it, is worth a thousand words. And the two pictures here certainly speak volumes.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Nota Bene: Good Notes
Aha. As I suspected, some jolly decent sorts have posted their notes from the Tony Jordan chat on Wednesday, and frankly, they’re probably better than mine.
So, I’d respectfully point you towards the write-ups by David and Lianne – if you read both their sets of notes, you get an extremely good picture of the event.
And, of course, an idea of just why it was so interesting and worthwhile.
So, I’d respectfully point you towards the write-ups by David and Lianne – if you read both their sets of notes, you get an extremely good picture of the event.
And, of course, an idea of just why it was so interesting and worthwhile.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Sometimes It's Useful To Be Reminded Of These Things
Last night I went, as mentioned previously, to the Tony Jordan event at the Royal Court here in London. It was a nicely informal bash, with probably a couple of hundred people there, and topics covered in the interview and Q&A ranged from coming up with ideas to some real nuts-n-bolts stuff, so it was definitely worth my time and attention, especially as it was free (yes, free - arranged by the BBC. Huzzah for Auntie!).
Almost tempted to type up large chunks of my notes by way of sharing with folks who might be interested but couldn't get there, but while I mull over whether I'll just be duplicating work which others will be doing in more accurate form elsewhere, I'll share the following (only slightly elided) quote, which rang very true for me:
"Writers are always looking for reasons not to write, or why they haven't been discovered yet… there is no secret. A writer writes."
And don't worry, I'm not entirely unaware of the irony of posting this on m'blog when I could be finishing off something more substantive… but I thought it was worthy of reporting to a wider audience.
Almost tempted to type up large chunks of my notes by way of sharing with folks who might be interested but couldn't get there, but while I mull over whether I'll just be duplicating work which others will be doing in more accurate form elsewhere, I'll share the following (only slightly elided) quote, which rang very true for me:
"Writers are always looking for reasons not to write, or why they haven't been discovered yet… there is no secret. A writer writes."
And don't worry, I'm not entirely unaware of the irony of posting this on m'blog when I could be finishing off something more substantive… but I thought it was worthy of reporting to a wider audience.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Cup Of Tea… Or Perhaps You’d Prefer Something Stronger?
Anyone out there in the world of blogging fancy a drink after the Tony Jordan session tomorrow at the Royal Court in London? It’d be good to put faces to names (and words, if that makes any kind of sense).
If you do, drop me an e-mail at john@johnsoanes.co.uk sometime between now and mid-Wednesday afternoon. Or leave a Comment on this ‘ere blog. Thanks.
If you do, drop me an e-mail at john@johnsoanes.co.uk sometime between now and mid-Wednesday afternoon. Or leave a Comment on this ‘ere blog. Thanks.
IdleWilde(r)
There must have been a point when Eric Idle started to look like Gene Wilder, but I can’t pinpoint it exactly…
Curses, He Grimaced, Foiled Again… For Now
In case you’re looking for closure on the BBC thing I mentioned in this post, the successful entries are published here – and nah, I’m not amongst them. Ah well, I’m sure there’ll be other opportunities soon, and – hey, what’s this?
Right, back to the keyboard, I think.
As Samuel Beckett put it, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Right, back to the keyboard, I think.
As Samuel Beckett put it, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Not As Profound As The Butterfly Dream Of Chuang Tzu, I'll Freely Admit
I know it's a terrible way to end a story, but early this morning I dreamt the following.
I was in a room with a woman I didn't know, who was reading a newspaper.article to me. I don't why or how I knew it, but I knew this woman wasn't very intellligent.
SHE: It says here that there was a vicious attack, and the victim was left some toes.
ME: What?
SHE: The victim was left some toes.
ME: That doesn't make any sense. They left some toes? Let me see that.
(She hands over the paper, and I read it - oddly enough, I see genuine text in the dream. All sounds a bit like the start of Richard Linklater's film 'Slacker', I know, but 'tis true.)
ME: It says 'comatose', not 'some toes'. The victim was left comatose. It's one word, and the 'c' is hard.
SHE: Oh.
… and then, as the cliché has it, I woke up.
The above is entirely as it happened around 4.30am, ladies and gentlemen, and I share it it you not so much for the amusement value of the pun / play on words, but because this is the sort of thing my mind does even when I'm asleep.You might think the stuff I lob on my blog is dull, but trust me, you're getting the edited version. I, on the other hand, am thinking this sort of thing every single second of the day.
Oh, the horror.
I was in a room with a woman I didn't know, who was reading a newspaper.article to me. I don't why or how I knew it, but I knew this woman wasn't very intellligent.
SHE: It says here that there was a vicious attack, and the victim was left some toes.
ME: What?
SHE: The victim was left some toes.
ME: That doesn't make any sense. They left some toes? Let me see that.
(She hands over the paper, and I read it - oddly enough, I see genuine text in the dream. All sounds a bit like the start of Richard Linklater's film 'Slacker', I know, but 'tis true.)
ME: It says 'comatose', not 'some toes'. The victim was left comatose. It's one word, and the 'c' is hard.
SHE: Oh.
… and then, as the cliché has it, I woke up.
The above is entirely as it happened around 4.30am, ladies and gentlemen, and I share it it you not so much for the amusement value of the pun / play on words, but because this is the sort of thing my mind does even when I'm asleep.You might think the stuff I lob on my blog is dull, but trust me, you're getting the edited version. I, on the other hand, am thinking this sort of thing every single second of the day.
Oh, the horror.
Friday, July 06, 2007
And This Is Me*
If you go over to this site - and you do need to register, and it is connected to the release of a certain film - you can tinker around and create an 'avatar' of yourself in the style of the Simpsons, or - if you prefer - the cartooning style of Matt Groening.So, to the left there, the Groening version of me. The nose is probably smaller than it should be, but at least they have an option to make the skin paler than the traditional Springfield Yellow Tan, to reflect my far less healthy pallor.
And in my defence, my hair doesn't really look like that. Honest.
*As Mike Yarwood used to say, before finishing the show with a song.
The Allure Of The Glass Teat (or ‘The Pictures Are Better’)
I don’t think I’ve specifically stated it, so I might as well now: I’ve broadened the range of my writing recently (not that you’d know from the blog).
By which I mean that I’m trying to broaden the range of things I write, on the basis that some stories are better suited to particular media, and this means I’m venturing away from the familiar territory of prose into the less charted waters of radio and TV – oh, and even a screenplay.
Which is part of the reason I didn’t post so much last week – I was racing to make the deadline for a BBC radio submission thing (should find out in the next few days if they liked the stuff), and so my typing energy was being expended there. Now I see about a screenplay competition which has appealing prizes, so I’ll try to get something done in time for that too.
As a result of thinking and reading and researching about these sorts of things, I find myself reading a lot of blogs and sites online about screenwriting and the like – the eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that I’ve added David Bishop’s blog to the column of links to the right – and I suspect I’ll add more. And you’ll probably notice me posting more comments about radio, TV drama and the soaps, as I continue my research and try to make sure I know my market, and all that.
(Which is why I was looking at EastEnders the other day and thinking that you could see the rewrites in the Dawn-May-Rob storyline, most notably in the absence of a proper answer to the question ‘How far back does Rob and May’s “evil plan” go?’ I appreciate that they’ve rewritten it in the light of real-world news events, but I think that the holes showed a bit.)
By which I mean that I’m trying to broaden the range of things I write, on the basis that some stories are better suited to particular media, and this means I’m venturing away from the familiar territory of prose into the less charted waters of radio and TV – oh, and even a screenplay.
Which is part of the reason I didn’t post so much last week – I was racing to make the deadline for a BBC radio submission thing (should find out in the next few days if they liked the stuff), and so my typing energy was being expended there. Now I see about a screenplay competition which has appealing prizes, so I’ll try to get something done in time for that too.
As a result of thinking and reading and researching about these sorts of things, I find myself reading a lot of blogs and sites online about screenwriting and the like – the eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that I’ve added David Bishop’s blog to the column of links to the right – and I suspect I’ll add more. And you’ll probably notice me posting more comments about radio, TV drama and the soaps, as I continue my research and try to make sure I know my market, and all that.
(Which is why I was looking at EastEnders the other day and thinking that you could see the rewrites in the Dawn-May-Rob storyline, most notably in the absence of a proper answer to the question ‘How far back does Rob and May’s “evil plan” go?’ I appreciate that they’ve rewritten it in the light of real-world news events, but I think that the holes showed a bit.)
And The Award Goes To… Oh, I can't Seem To Get The Envelope Open…
The shortlist for what's now going to be the final First Novel Competition (see this entry for the ridiculous reasons why) has been announced over at Susan Hill's blog.
I'm not amongst the shortlistees, but I'm sure that's because their stuff was better than mine. Still, no harm in entering - 'if you don't ask the answer's always going to be no' and all that.
I like to think I'm being reasoned and stable about this - then again, I take comfort in the words Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in 'The Valley of Fear': “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius"
And let's face it, he was a man who knew what he was talking about when it came to talent.
I'm not amongst the shortlistees, but I'm sure that's because their stuff was better than mine. Still, no harm in entering - 'if you don't ask the answer's always going to be no' and all that.
I like to think I'm being reasoned and stable about this - then again, I take comfort in the words Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in 'The Valley of Fear': “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius"
And let's face it, he was a man who knew what he was talking about when it came to talent.
Tell Me If You Want To See A World Outside Your Window*
Just in case you think that I spend all my time in melodramatic self-absorbed mode, here are a few links to the virtual world which I think shed some light on events in the actual world. But as they tend to align with my own beliefs and prejudices, well, I would say that, wouldn't I?
'Shooter' Cheney a naughty boy? Golly, imagine my surprise…
Now, say after me: Reality. Fiction. Reality… Fiction. Now do you see?
But… this is painted as being a threat justifying ID Cards and ignoring the Geneva Convention and other basic rights. Surely we're looking at the massed ranks of SPECTRE, not just some idiots with a grudge. Otherwise, that would mean…. Why, that would mean politicians were lying to us. Surely not
Very possibly the greatest headline I've seen in connection with this whole business.
*With apologies to Tanita Tikaram (incidentally, the first musical artist I ever saw live - Sheffield Leadmill in about 1988. And jolly good it was too.)
'Shooter' Cheney a naughty boy? Golly, imagine my surprise…
Now, say after me: Reality. Fiction. Reality… Fiction. Now do you see?
But… this is painted as being a threat justifying ID Cards and ignoring the Geneva Convention and other basic rights. Surely we're looking at the massed ranks of SPECTRE, not just some idiots with a grudge. Otherwise, that would mean…. Why, that would mean politicians were lying to us. Surely not
Very possibly the greatest headline I've seen in connection with this whole business.
*With apologies to Tanita Tikaram (incidentally, the first musical artist I ever saw live - Sheffield Leadmill in about 1988. And jolly good it was too.)
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Contains Incidents Of Brief Nudity And Criminal Activity
Since it wasn't proving cost-effective (about three visits in five months), I've now cancelled my gym membership. Thinking about it, I've been a member of a gym for the vast majority of the time I've lived in London (over a decade), but as my main form of exercise is now running, and London has an abundance of pavements and parks, I don't see any need to pay out for the use of treadmills. Should have realised this earlier and saved myself money, duh.
But, being how I am, my time in the gym hasn't always been without incident - and I don't mean someone getting the wrong towel or bumping into me or whatever. I mean, of course, the sort of statistically-unlikely and socially awkward nonsense that seems to be a recurrent feature of my life. So, I shall share with you two tales of my gym-related shame - there are more I could tell, but these have the common theme of involving the changing rooms.
Shame the first: talking to a (nude) stranger
At the chain of gyms I was formerly a member of, the showers were in a communal area, with little cubicles whose walls came up to about shoulder-height. It was a Sunday afternoon, and after a bout of exercise, I was having a shower. Another chap was doing the same, though of course we'd left a couple of empty shower cubicles between as a kind of buffer, as one does.
As I was standing there under the shower, rivulets of water streaming down my naked body (I'm sharing that detail for the ladies), the fire alarm went off. Just briefly, but it went off nonetheless. I frowned, and then looked over to the other chap, who was busy lathering shampoo into his hair. He looked back at me.
"Tch," I said. "This is the last place you want to be when a fire alarm goes off, eh?"
"Yeah," he said without enthusiasm, and then quickly looked away.
I couldn't understand why he didn't seem to share my bemusement. Until a second or two later, when I realised that he hadn't heard the alarm, and had a very male moment of panic.
Oh god, I thought. He reckons that was some kind of come-on, and that the comment about the fire alarm was my opening gambit.
I say that this is a very male thing, because as we all know, women's changing rooms are very different to men's. On the male side of things, we spend as little time as possible there, possibly grunting to acknowledge that the locker someone's obstructing is yours. That's about the extent of it. Whereas in the women's changing rooms, the women spend a long time towelling and applying lotions and powders and drying their hair, and even when they're partly-dressed, they'll find time to have a playful session of towel-flicking in their underwear. They… what's with that look of scepticism in your eyes? That's how things go over in the women's changing room. I've seen the films to prove it.
Anyway, it's a male thing, and I had that horrible sinking feeling of embarrassment - not so much because the naked man might have thought I was gay (he wouldn't be the first, and it's not an insult anyway), but rather because he might have thought I was gay and that 'oh, I wouldn't like the fire alarm to go off' was the best opening line I could come up with. If he thought that, it would have been truly horrifying.
Thankfully, the alarm went off again several minutes later, and one of the staff came in and asked us to dress and leave as quickly as we could, so I guess he must have realised I wasn't just coming up with lousy chat-up lines. Either that, or he might have thought that I somehow the power to predict when a fire alarm was going to go off. Regardless of which of those conclusions he came to, it was an awkward couple of minutes, I have to say, though it was probably amplified by the fact I was bare-ass nekkid throughout.
Shame the second: who would do such a thing?
Another time: having worked myself into a frankly testosteronal sweat (ladies), I went to the changing room, retrieved my towel, took off my clothes, dumped them on the floor, and wrapped the towel around my waist and went off to have a shower.
When I got back to my locker, all clean and glistening with beads of water (…), I found that someone had stolen my underwear. My t-shirt and shorts and socks and trainers were still there on the floor, where I'd left them, but my actually rather classy undergarb (Calvin Klein, no less) had gone. Now, I can't really believe this was an accident, as the boxers were atop a pile of clothes on a bench which was nowhere near anyone else's clothing pile or anything like that - in fact, there wasn't anyone using the bench near me. So I can only conclude that someone had stolen my sweaty boxers. Which is a little odd.
Granted, that branch of the gym was pretty close to Old Compton Street, so maybe someone had decided that rather than buying something saucy from Janus or Prowler to liven up things at home, they'd take my frankly-riddled-with-man-musk pants home to add some zing to things. But still…
Going commando wasn't really that big a deal - or that big a thrill, either, don't go thinking that - but why would someone steal my underwear? All right, let's be more specific - why would a man steal my underwear? All very strange.
I'm hoping that making home my base when it comes to running and the like will cut down on underwear theft, or eyebrows being raised at my come-on lines, but I'm not putting money on that being the case.
But, being how I am, my time in the gym hasn't always been without incident - and I don't mean someone getting the wrong towel or bumping into me or whatever. I mean, of course, the sort of statistically-unlikely and socially awkward nonsense that seems to be a recurrent feature of my life. So, I shall share with you two tales of my gym-related shame - there are more I could tell, but these have the common theme of involving the changing rooms.
Shame the first: talking to a (nude) stranger
At the chain of gyms I was formerly a member of, the showers were in a communal area, with little cubicles whose walls came up to about shoulder-height. It was a Sunday afternoon, and after a bout of exercise, I was having a shower. Another chap was doing the same, though of course we'd left a couple of empty shower cubicles between as a kind of buffer, as one does.
As I was standing there under the shower, rivulets of water streaming down my naked body (I'm sharing that detail for the ladies), the fire alarm went off. Just briefly, but it went off nonetheless. I frowned, and then looked over to the other chap, who was busy lathering shampoo into his hair. He looked back at me.
"Tch," I said. "This is the last place you want to be when a fire alarm goes off, eh?"
"Yeah," he said without enthusiasm, and then quickly looked away.
I couldn't understand why he didn't seem to share my bemusement. Until a second or two later, when I realised that he hadn't heard the alarm, and had a very male moment of panic.
Oh god, I thought. He reckons that was some kind of come-on, and that the comment about the fire alarm was my opening gambit.
I say that this is a very male thing, because as we all know, women's changing rooms are very different to men's. On the male side of things, we spend as little time as possible there, possibly grunting to acknowledge that the locker someone's obstructing is yours. That's about the extent of it. Whereas in the women's changing rooms, the women spend a long time towelling and applying lotions and powders and drying their hair, and even when they're partly-dressed, they'll find time to have a playful session of towel-flicking in their underwear. They… what's with that look of scepticism in your eyes? That's how things go over in the women's changing room. I've seen the films to prove it.
Anyway, it's a male thing, and I had that horrible sinking feeling of embarrassment - not so much because the naked man might have thought I was gay (he wouldn't be the first, and it's not an insult anyway), but rather because he might have thought I was gay and that 'oh, I wouldn't like the fire alarm to go off' was the best opening line I could come up with. If he thought that, it would have been truly horrifying.
Thankfully, the alarm went off again several minutes later, and one of the staff came in and asked us to dress and leave as quickly as we could, so I guess he must have realised I wasn't just coming up with lousy chat-up lines. Either that, or he might have thought that I somehow the power to predict when a fire alarm was going to go off. Regardless of which of those conclusions he came to, it was an awkward couple of minutes, I have to say, though it was probably amplified by the fact I was bare-ass nekkid throughout.
Shame the second: who would do such a thing?
Another time: having worked myself into a frankly testosteronal sweat (ladies), I went to the changing room, retrieved my towel, took off my clothes, dumped them on the floor, and wrapped the towel around my waist and went off to have a shower.
When I got back to my locker, all clean and glistening with beads of water (…), I found that someone had stolen my underwear. My t-shirt and shorts and socks and trainers were still there on the floor, where I'd left them, but my actually rather classy undergarb (Calvin Klein, no less) had gone. Now, I can't really believe this was an accident, as the boxers were atop a pile of clothes on a bench which was nowhere near anyone else's clothing pile or anything like that - in fact, there wasn't anyone using the bench near me. So I can only conclude that someone had stolen my sweaty boxers. Which is a little odd.
Granted, that branch of the gym was pretty close to Old Compton Street, so maybe someone had decided that rather than buying something saucy from Janus or Prowler to liven up things at home, they'd take my frankly-riddled-with-man-musk pants home to add some zing to things. But still…
Going commando wasn't really that big a deal - or that big a thrill, either, don't go thinking that - but why would someone steal my underwear? All right, let's be more specific - why would a man steal my underwear? All very strange.
I'm hoping that making home my base when it comes to running and the like will cut down on underwear theft, or eyebrows being raised at my come-on lines, but I'm not putting money on that being the case.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Hah! That'll Teach My Face! (or 'Who Needs A Nose Anyway?')
As you can see here, I've written a novel, Human Noises. I finished it a while ago, and then sent it to a number of literary agents. They recommend that you do this rather than send it directly to publishers, as publishers are often tight on time and staff, and don't have enough resources to wade through the slush pile at any great speed. Fair enough.
So, I sent it out, and got it back, and sent it to another agent, and got it back, and so on, until I'd approached around 75 agents. All of them rejected it, which isn't what I was hoping for, but as the majority of the letters said something on the lines of 'sorry, we're not currently taking on new authors', I didn't get too disheartened. However, after a while I shrugged my shoulders and started writing something else, on the grounds that Human Noises is a lengthy and involved tale, and maybe I should try to catch the attention with something a bit shorter and more punchy, and then say 'well, I do have this as well…'
Obviously, I didn't always take the rejections quite so calmly - some of the replies I received showed that they'd not read the covering letter, let alone the chapters they were purporting to reject (best example: the agency who thanked me for the chapters I hadn't sent them - I'd only sent them a letter saying 'would you be interested in seeing stuff?') - but I'm all too aware that rejection is a vast part of the whole scribbling deal. Some people, unfortunately, seem less able to take rejection or criticism (have a look here for examples, and here to see the other side of the coin).
Anyway, whilst working on the new book, I noticed that the author Susan Hill was running (as she has for the past two years) a First Novel competition, the prize of which is to see your book published. So I thought I'd send Human Noises in. No harm in doing so, after all, it's not currently on anyone's desk elsewhere. I e-mailed it off and waited.
Time passed, as it does, and as the shortlist was due last Friday, I had a look on SH's site to see what the news was (I was kind of guessing I hadn't made the shortlist as I thought I would have been contacted, but I could be wrong - it wouldn't be the first time). Now, if you're expecting all the above to lead to a dramatic “little did I know that I was the winner” type turn of phrase, then I'm afraid you'd better prepare yourself for disappointment, because…
… well, because some other entrants were clearly less well prepared for disappointment, even if it was only implied. What had happened during the judging stage was that one of the judges had commented that the overall standard wasn't very high, and that they were going to extend the deadline for entries (and, I think, allow writers with agents to enter, though I could be wrong on that). However, a lot of people took offence at this, and started sending both the judge and Susan Hill angry e-mails and posting comments on their blogs, many of which seem to have been personally offensive. All because these people had heard that the judges weren't too impressed with the calibre of entries, and somehow had concluded that this must apply to their entries.
So now Susan Hill has announced that the First Novel competition will not run in future years as a result of all this. I can't say I blame her at all - some people have acted in a frankly childish manner as a result of a comment which they rather self-centredly appear to have concluded was aimed at them. I agree almost entirely with the comments made over at Struggling Author where Marie points out that the best thing to do in these circumstances is to get on and rewrite it, or to write something else. I actually happen to think Human Noises is a pretty decent first novel, but I'm sure it could be improved, and I'm sure there are better writers than me out there in unpublishedland, so I can accept that my entry might not have been up to the standard required, without sending stroppy e-mails to the judges - especially as, at that point, the stroppy folks didn't know for sure that they weren't in the running for the shortlist.
Anyway, that won't be a problem for any unpublished novelists in the future, as the thoughtless behaviour of a few has led to the removal of a useful opportunity to be published. It all smacks of a child swiping the gameboard off the table in a tantrum so that no-one else can play. Bravo, I say, Bravo (hand-claps slowly and sarcastically).
The best way to deal with rejection, I’d say, is as per the old adage about ‘the best revenge is living well’, As I understand it, both Sylvester Stallone when receiving his Oscar for Rocky and Michael Palin when receiving (with his fellow Pythons) an award from the BAFTA folks took the opportunity to point out how many people had rejected them, and how they had, in spite of that, rolled their sleeves up and carried on working, and gone on to succeed.
A much more profitable use of energy, I think you’d agree.
So, I sent it out, and got it back, and sent it to another agent, and got it back, and so on, until I'd approached around 75 agents. All of them rejected it, which isn't what I was hoping for, but as the majority of the letters said something on the lines of 'sorry, we're not currently taking on new authors', I didn't get too disheartened. However, after a while I shrugged my shoulders and started writing something else, on the grounds that Human Noises is a lengthy and involved tale, and maybe I should try to catch the attention with something a bit shorter and more punchy, and then say 'well, I do have this as well…'
Obviously, I didn't always take the rejections quite so calmly - some of the replies I received showed that they'd not read the covering letter, let alone the chapters they were purporting to reject (best example: the agency who thanked me for the chapters I hadn't sent them - I'd only sent them a letter saying 'would you be interested in seeing stuff?') - but I'm all too aware that rejection is a vast part of the whole scribbling deal. Some people, unfortunately, seem less able to take rejection or criticism (have a look here for examples, and here to see the other side of the coin).
Anyway, whilst working on the new book, I noticed that the author Susan Hill was running (as she has for the past two years) a First Novel competition, the prize of which is to see your book published. So I thought I'd send Human Noises in. No harm in doing so, after all, it's not currently on anyone's desk elsewhere. I e-mailed it off and waited.
Time passed, as it does, and as the shortlist was due last Friday, I had a look on SH's site to see what the news was (I was kind of guessing I hadn't made the shortlist as I thought I would have been contacted, but I could be wrong - it wouldn't be the first time). Now, if you're expecting all the above to lead to a dramatic “little did I know that I was the winner” type turn of phrase, then I'm afraid you'd better prepare yourself for disappointment, because…
… well, because some other entrants were clearly less well prepared for disappointment, even if it was only implied. What had happened during the judging stage was that one of the judges had commented that the overall standard wasn't very high, and that they were going to extend the deadline for entries (and, I think, allow writers with agents to enter, though I could be wrong on that). However, a lot of people took offence at this, and started sending both the judge and Susan Hill angry e-mails and posting comments on their blogs, many of which seem to have been personally offensive. All because these people had heard that the judges weren't too impressed with the calibre of entries, and somehow had concluded that this must apply to their entries.
So now Susan Hill has announced that the First Novel competition will not run in future years as a result of all this. I can't say I blame her at all - some people have acted in a frankly childish manner as a result of a comment which they rather self-centredly appear to have concluded was aimed at them. I agree almost entirely with the comments made over at Struggling Author where Marie points out that the best thing to do in these circumstances is to get on and rewrite it, or to write something else. I actually happen to think Human Noises is a pretty decent first novel, but I'm sure it could be improved, and I'm sure there are better writers than me out there in unpublishedland, so I can accept that my entry might not have been up to the standard required, without sending stroppy e-mails to the judges - especially as, at that point, the stroppy folks didn't know for sure that they weren't in the running for the shortlist.
Anyway, that won't be a problem for any unpublished novelists in the future, as the thoughtless behaviour of a few has led to the removal of a useful opportunity to be published. It all smacks of a child swiping the gameboard off the table in a tantrum so that no-one else can play. Bravo, I say, Bravo (hand-claps slowly and sarcastically).
The best way to deal with rejection, I’d say, is as per the old adage about ‘the best revenge is living well’, As I understand it, both Sylvester Stallone when receiving his Oscar for Rocky and Michael Palin when receiving (with his fellow Pythons) an award from the BAFTA folks took the opportunity to point out how many people had rejected them, and how they had, in spite of that, rolled their sleeves up and carried on working, and gone on to succeed.
A much more profitable use of energy, I think you’d agree.
Ah, But Was It Truly A More Innocent Age?
Posted in honour of the banning of smoking in public places in the UK.
I have to say, I'd probably have more sympathy if people admitted they were addicted to the addictive chemical nicotine instead of saying stuff about their civil liberties being curtailed ... is that mean of me?
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