If you wanted an analogy of what's going wrong you would only have to look at the spies losing important documents on trains. Would you be totally surprised to see this headline:

"Government move to stop lost documents on trains, by banning trains"

Okay perhaps not that radical. But what about making it illegal to take property found on a train? This would make the newspapers and the BBC unable to report the problem but wouldn't actually solve the problem.

The government has become obsessed with solving symptoms rather than solving problems. 42 days detention deals with problems we shouldn't be facing in the first place. It comes back to George W. Bush. He isn't stupid. He's inexperienced and so was Blair. Neither of them could see what they were doing was wrong. And Blair was the enabler.

After 9/11 they decided on a strategy of attacking before we were attacked. This is exactly the strategy of focusing on symptoms rather than solutions. Nobody in power seemed to ask the question, "why were we attacked?".

Labels: Articles

Katherine, as you might know, is a very keen photographer. Much of my holidays are spent standing waiting for photos to be taken. Of course, if you asked Katherine I'm sure she'd say that most of her holidays are spent sitting in cafés waiting for me to finish a writing a paragraph. Of course neither is really true.

When I'm standing waiting for a photograph to be taken I often get the chance to watch people's reaction. It's interesting to see. People are constantly trying to crane their neck round to see what she could possibly be taking a photo of. This is especially true here in the UK. On holiday people expect others to be taking photos. Here at home people are clearly quite confused that you might want to take a photo of a rubber band.


© Katherine Hall

Katherine has decided to get serious about her photography. And so she has launched a website and a blog. Truth be told at the moment the website pretty much just is the blog.

When people finish looking at the rubber band, or whatever it is, they often look up at me pleading with their eyes for an explanation. I smile encouragingly, but they never approach. Perhaps now I can direct them to the website.

http://www.kathall.co.uk/blog

Labels: Articles

I'm doing a lot of early morning writing in my attempts to make some progress on my novel (13% completed of the arbitrary number I first thought of - thanks for asking). This has led to Katherine and I disagreeing on a matter of principal that only you dear Internet readers can answer. What is a lie in?

For me it could be that you wake up and lie in bed reading your book or it could be that you usually have to get up at five thirty and today you get to sleep until eight.

Katherine, on the other hand, thinks that you only have a lie in if you're awake and lying in bed. Not if you sleep in.

So which is it? You decide.

Labels: Articles

Mrs Fallon was my first inspirational teacher. She was, as far as I could tell, completely nuts. She was my science teacher and she had bags of presence. She had, remember it was the nineties, a two foot beehive hairdo which was greying but was no less impressive. Her twin sons were the music producers behind the success of David Hasselhoff. In the small storeroom behind the science room she had a skeleton.

Usually you waited for the teacher in the classroom but not in the science lab. She was always in the same room, class after class. But she made us stand outside because she wanted to enjoy a cigar between classes. She would normally still be smoking it while we filed in. As the last child sat down she would flick it from the front of the class into the bin at the back. How high we were at the end of the class was a factor of how much paper and how many chemicals there were in the bin when the cigar arrived.

She used this flicking skill to great effect in classes. I anyone spoke out of turn she would throw the board duster at the back of the classroom. It caused an enormous noise. If you disobeyed her while she was writing at the board she would turn, let go of the piece of chalk and it would go whistling past your ear. It was so swift you never even had time to move out of the way. I remember a boy called David getting hit right on the top corner of his right ear. It was an exquisite punishment. It showed she was in charge and he was powerless to respond.

I was reminded of her at the weekend when I was out to dinner with some friends. One of them was talking about a friend of theirs who had transported a tarantula on a transatlantic flight in their beehive - something that Mrs Fallon could quite easily have done. She didn’t get caught despite her husband being caught wearing a reticulated python around his belly. The customs officials clearly thought, “what’s the likelihood that both of them are transporting dangerous animals?”. A real life snakes on a plane moment.

Mrs Fallon must be retired by now, a terrible shame. She was one of the first people to make me understand that being normal wasn’t the optimum. In fact most normal people envied those who could successfully go and do something else. Being unusual for those who do it keeps them sane. It’s not really a choice. You are already different. But sometimes you need somebody to show you that unusual is a genuine option. Mrs Fallon was certainly one of the people who showed me that.

Labels: Articles

Since I decided to become a writer I have been reading authors talking about their craft. The question beyond all others that they are asked is, “where do you get your ideas?”. It is as though there is some mystical trunk of ideas somewhere which authors use to come up with themes for stories. I am afraid that’s not true. It only serves to show how people are quite happy to mythologize their heroes. In the question is the assumption that the asker’s ideas are somehow less than those of an author’s. It suggests that an author is somehow a different breed.

I published a short story here last the weekend called Gary and Fern (If you haven't read it you may want to before reading the rest of this). I thought I would talk a little bit about the process. About the way that I got the idea and the way that the story developed.

I really like puns. I have to say that one of the most crucial story development methods I use is imagining a pun. A vague joke to hang an idea from. It’s often not obvious by the end what the pun was. But it’s important to point me in the right direction. So this weekend I was sorting out some rubbish in the utility room.* There was an almost empty wine holder there. It had come from my mum over christmas she’d brought it in the back of her car. For whatever reason the can of antifreeze had been placed into the wine holder. When it had come into the house by mistake it was always meant to go back but it had been forgotten.

So I was moving it out of the way. In my mind as I was doing this I thought, “Anti-freeze” kind of goes like “Antacid”. Is there a joke there? No... But “Ant Acid” that’s formic acid. That’s a joke. Or at least a pun. So instead of making a joke, I wrote a story. Who could possibly make a comment about that? An ant. But it’s not funny unless he’s explaining it to another species. A human? No too weird. How about a spider. Do spiders and ants get on? No I think spiders eat ants. Does this one? No he’s different - he likes him? Why? Because he tells jokes. That’s how I’ll get the ant acid thing in.

With a short story there are two problems - largely. How do you get in and how do you get out. People need to feel that there is a good reason to stop telling the story even if, or especially if, the narrative doesn’t end at the end of your telling of the story. It’s difficult to leave on “they all lived happily ever after” - so far I’ve never done it. But if you aren’t going to end with that, what are you going to do?

For me in this story I was torn between, and wrote, two version of the ending. The one you read where Fern survived and one where as Fern dropped but missed all the strands and died. I pretty much randomly decided to save Fern. I have no idea why except that when I enjoyed writing for the characters as much as I did there is a chance that they will be back in another story. The other version would have been quite sad and as the sun was shining when I wrote it, I decided to go for the happy version.

An important thing to remember when you’re writing is what your reader brings to the story. I knew that some readers wouldn’t get the ant acid joke. I didn’t mind that. I telegraphed it as much as I could while staying in character. If I went for the joke too much it wouldn’t have sounded right to those who would have got it anyway.

Names are another problem. As you might have seen from the comments Fourstar couldn’t help but imagine a Fern and Gary from memories of celebrities. That’s slightly annoying because I didn’t think of it when I wrote it. I was going to have Gary and Vern but I decided to make a soundalike in Fern and forgot to check with my own memory to see if Fern was a real name of anyone. I wanted to make it recognisable but unusual enough to make you assume that something odd was happening. Clearly this didn’t work this time with this reader. I am here to tell you however that this always happens every time. You can’t imagine all of the interpretations. The largest barrier to writing is focusing on what people will think of it later. You want to instead focus on enjoying writing it and removing confusion. Try and make everything you write as clear as you can and it will help no end. You have to serve the reader in this way, but you can’t ever totally second guess them. Worrying too much about that will stop you starting in the first place.


* Yes we have a utility room now!!! Incredible.

Labels: Articles

I was in the pub the other day and I was talking to the bartender. It's normally a great little insight into the whole local scene. One of the pubs near me does haircuts for all the punters on a Saturday afternoon. This works well for the drunks who are having trouble at home. This is presumably because they can get up on a Saturday morning and say "I'm just off to get my hair cut" and when they get home on Sunday morning covered in vomit they will at least have had a haircut.

So I was talking to this bartender and while I might have imagined I was going to get some great insight into the local community and perhaps into the human psyche, we were in fact doing as all British people do in this situation: we were talking about the weather.

What do people do in countries without a temperate climate? How do they open up the conversation to chit chat without the opening gambit: “funny weather we've been having lately”. It's entirely possible that this is why the English are seen as up tight by the rest of the world. We have such a ready made perfect bit of conversational shorthand that we never have to get into any personal issues. The rest of the world have to talk to each other about real things. That is certainly not something we would tolerate over here.

Actually now I think of it perhaps that was the Neo Cons agenda all along? Perhaps they had tired of such political movements as "back to basics" and a return to "family values" and thought that the surest way of dealing with it would be to promote the ability to use the phrase "funny weather we've been having". That's why the US (and the ultra conservative China) have really been pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere. Once climate change really kicks off everyone in the world will be talking about the weather and there won't be time for all that naughty sex.

Anyway.

Because we were talking about the funny weather we've been having the conversation almost immediately turned to the great snow of April 2008. Almost 3 whole inches fell! Fancy! I must have brought it up because she said "Oh yeah, it was terrible. I had to go out and rescue my tortoises who had already come out of hibernation. Like two little slow-moving snowballs they were."

So remember to look after the environment because not only does it upset Neo Cons but it also stops tortoises becoming projectile weapons.

P.S. Sorry it's been such a long time since the last post. I think I'm back now.

Labels: Articles

Talking to taxi drivers can be difficult. Many avenues of conversation are closed to you immediately. You would be ill advised, for example, to ask “Do you come here often?”. And there is always the sneaking suspicion that they are closet members of the BNP. The BNP mayoral candidate has actually announced their traffic plan for London now, it is simply: “Fewer people”. They aren’t specifying exactly who will have to leave but I’m guessing we could figure it out. And there is a chance that your average taxi driver would agree with him.

The one thing that’s absolutely certain is that they hate Ken Livingstone. They absolutely detest him. They think that Ken wants to drive them out of business. There is an obvious question about this, what with Ken being the first mayor of London, will they end up hating all mayors of London?

But every so often you get a gem of a conversation going with a driver and it makes it all worth while. I’ve chatted to them on subjects ranging from the disappointment they are feeling in their failing marriages to the joy they feel at Saturday morning football coaching. I think a lot of their passengers focus on talking traffic, weather and politics rather than talking to them about them. Once you do though it can be rather interesting. I’m always fascinated by people who do weird jobs and taxi drivers are doubly weird because they have to face long stretches of solitude in other people’s company. I think it could easily drive one mad.

In recent years, they seem to have rather embraced the mobile phone as a solution. You often find taxi drivers talking to other taxi drivers as they’re going along. So in a way it has become more like going to the office. That coupled with this odd invention which is the TV in the back of the cab for the passengers signals the death of this great art form. Most people will love it for us British are nothing if not embarrassed by the social niceties of making polite conversation. But for those of us who enjoy playing, “see how many miles you can go without the driver saying, ‘I’m not racist but...’”, it’s the end of an era.

Labels: Articles

The other Saturday I ended up visiting the Troubadour in West Brompton for a friend's combined birthday and engagement party. It's a great fun venue, formerly visited by Dylan and Hendrix, it very much seems the kind of place you'd expect them to hang out. A good time was had by almost everyone.

Actually the only pall on the whole evening came when some oik managed to bump into me spilling my red wine over Katherine's new silk skirt.

Despite several attempts to remonstrate with the man he seemed to be feigning deafness. Now I would have normally left the situation there. No need to resort to violence which seemed the only remaining action if he couldn't hear us.

But no, our host, who is one of the most persuasive people I have ever met, persuaded him to buy Katherine a glass of white wine to throw on herself. I'm not sure the man understood what was being asked of him as he wanted to know which kind of white wine we'd prefer.

Catherine*, our host, is like a one woman pressure group. And very effective she was too. She mainly just repeatedly asked him if he'd ever read Mrs Beaton. When the guy returned a few minutes later with the wine it looked like he wanted to be the one to throw the wine himself as if to be sure that it wasn't going to be drunk. But in the end he seemed satisfied to watch as it happened. He then shook his head and wondered off.

I can't help but imagine what happened on Monday morning at the water cooler.

Him: Morning

Friend: So how was Saturday? Big night?

Him: Well I bought a girl a drink.

Friend: And?

Him: She poured it on herself.

Friend: Surely the tradition is to pour it on you.

Him: I know, this suit doesn't get sticky by itself.

Friend: Don't talk to me anymore.

* Confusing having a Katherine and a Catherine in a story isn't it. But then that's the problem of not being the author of your own life.

Labels: Articles

The other morning I took a bagel out of the freezer to discover that it was broken into lots of small pieces. I was feeling a bit flush at that moment and so I decided to donate it to the needy. I toasted it up to defrost it, waited a day for the bread to go good and stale and then I put it out in the back garden for the birds.

Now while it was going stale, just for the day, I left it in the toaster. And on this day Kris came over. He was incredulous at my
actions. He wanted me to put the bread that was going stale on a plate. Why? I cannot say. (Perhaps he will in the comments?)

So at any rate* it was the day to feed the birds. I took the bagel out and scattered it about. And soon, after no time at all, nothing had happened. I turned away from the garden as though shunning a lover or baby marmot.

An hour or so later I looked back out of the window to discover a flock - yes despite their mixed breeds I'm willing to say they were a grouping of some kind. Perhaps, yes... I looked back to discover a melting pot of birds all pecking and flapping around in the back garden. There were pigeons and some other kinds of birds there too.

I gazed out over the throng and I saw that it was good. They seemed to be enjoying themselves enormously - even though I realised I was committing the anthropomorphic error.

Suddenly out of the corner of my garden I noticed the padding of a distinctly non-bird-like foot. It was a cat. It sauntered into view along the fence. A moment later it was joined by another. They were both observing the birds going about their business with a certain disdain. I got ready to open the window and shout. And then I saw something that steeled my resolve. A fox, as
bold as brass, in the middle of the day. I opened the window and shouted out, "it's a trap". They all survived.

* More specifically at the rate of one day**

** 24 hours ***

*** I could go on. I hope you get the picture. ****

****

Labels: Articles

I have got better over the years. I really have. Of course my parents would probably think it was worse. But I can't swear naturally. I always sound like I've just dusted off the word from the back of a library. It certainly doesn't come naturally. When I slam my finger in a door I'm likely to go, "aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh".

The thing that always surprises me about this kind of thing when it happens is that people, often before even the swelling has subsided in my thumb, say "you didn't even swear then!". This often leads me to wonder if they are actually deliberately injuring me just to see the true situation about my swearing. You might doubt they would go to such lengths, but then you might not know all of my friends.

No I don't swear, even then. The lack of normal conversational swearing thing is conditioning of course, but I really don't understand how I can be judged as weird in the personal injury area. Surely the strangled cry is more primal. Surely it's more realistic? I wonder if people often used to swear in those situations to show that it was a serious injury. A kind of, "I wouldn't normally swear but this really hurts". I'm waiting for this to flip over so that people say, "I would have sworn here but it hurt so much that I couldn’t remember English".

I understand why people think it's weird. It is especially odd because I don't mind others swearing around me. I understand the conversational percussive tone that it provides. I know from writing that it's a great shortcut. You can quickly tell a reader a lot more information. And obviously I can't write characters who are as weird as me - nobody would ever believe it.

Billy Connolly (I can't believe how quickly he became uncool - I still love him though) said, "Nobody ever writes, 'Fuck Off, he hinted'". There are some things that you can only achieve with certain well placed words. I just find myself very rarely needing to deploy them in that way. And of course people who I know, know I must be really upset if I feel the need. Anyway here's Billy with the opposite opinion:

Labels: Articles

The most terrifying thing you can admit is that most things are your own fault. Things happen around you, but really if they bother you then it's your fault. If nothing changes then it's you who caused that. It's terrifying, but boy is it empowering on the other side.

You can do anything, all you normally have to do is stop being so bloody British and ask. It's you who dictates what you do. It's you who perceives the way people react to you.

Remember you're not stuck where you are. You could today, right now, with the help of an effectively non-existent credit check system, leave the country and never come back. You are choosing to be here every day. And the reason you stayed today is because...

Labels: Articles

When I was a boy my brother and I were at a restaurant with our parents. Nothing odd there you might think, and you'd be right. The End.

Oh no, that's not right. There was something a tad unusual about the end of the meal. With the bill had come five mints not four. And what were we going to do about the extra one? Neither of my parents fancied it but to my brother and I it was the Lost Treasure of the Sierra Madre. My mother instead of deciding to simply pop it into her mouth and be done with it told us to leave the single mint. That, being a law abiding youth, was, as far as I was concerned, that.

On the way to the car park my brother announced to us all that he had in fact swiped the extra mint. And before anyone could ever do anything about it he slapped it straight into his gob. Confusion reigned in my mind. My soul had been torn asunder. He now had two mints in his mouth and I had a measly old one. I replayed the moment in my mind in slow motion. I could see that mad glint in his eye. That cheeky grin that would mean he'd get away with it. And most of all I could see the outline of those two little balls of minty goodness pushed up against his cheeks.

I'm afraid to say I did the only thing I knew how to do - I cried. I cried my little eyes out. And I was asked what had happened, what was wrong, why was I so sad? I opened my mouth to explain the injustice of the situation and the mint I was sucking fell straight out, onto the road and rolled away. This, as you might imagine, made matters even worse.

When I hear people talking about the amount of pee and other unpleasantness that are found on restaurant mints I can't help but remember this mint that I coveted so much that I was willing to risk all to get.

Moral: A mint in the gob, is worth two in your brother.

Labels: Articles

So on Monday I packed myself off to the Drill Hall in London's glittering west end. I was there to see Radio 4's Banter with Andrew Collins, Richard Herring, Russell Howard, Will Smith (no not that one) and Natalie Haynes.

Overall comedy winner of the night was Russell Howard for a couple of lovely flights of fancy. However that's over the course of the evening. He didn't at any point reach the totally piss yourself funny heights of four moments which were all done by others.

I almost cried when the frightfully posh Will Smith was forced to say "Butt Monkey" by Radio 4 production (okay Russell might have suggested this one but it's the execution that counts).

Richard Herring actually made my head hurt with a bit I can't explain without crushing the comedy moment. I hope they find a way to broadcast at least some of what he said on the night.

But the final two go to Andrew Collins. He managed to get Herring after Natalie Haynes left early. She kissed Herring before she left and he was very pleased with himself because "she didn't kiss anyone else". Andrew suggested the reason was because Richard had put her off men for the rest of her life.

Andrew also did something accidentally great when he asked, on his radio show, for a show of hands from the team members who hadn't played their jokers.

If I was going to make any pointers at all in room for improvement I'd say I'd prefer it if Andrew was slightly lest swift on occasion at getting back to the quiz. And I think Richard might be right about the jokers being a bit rubbish. But if you get rid of them then Richard would have nothing to complain about.

I bet this show will sound great on the radio but if you can get yourself to any of the recordings then you'll hear a lot of stuff that can never make it on air. Here's my gratuitous movie poster pull quote: "I laughed so much Richard Herring hurt my brain".

Labels: Articles

One of my favorite treats is going to see a film on a weekday afternoon. It always feels deliciously like bunking off. But sometimes it leads to rather odd situations. Like now I am writing this while sitting in a completely empty cinema - don't worry the film hasn't started yet.

I was once in this position before. I really wanted to go and see Texas Chainsaw Massacre when Camden re-approved the cut a few years ago. There is a strange set of rules surrounding what can and can't be shown in cinemas and one of the rules is that basically local councils have the final say. Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn't available in the shops at the time so the fact that Camden allowed it was a pretty special occasion.

The only problem was that I couldn't get anyone to go with me. The excuses were varied but most just didn't see the appeal of going and watching a banned film. Nick must have had a much better more relevant excuse because I'm sure he'd have come along. Anyway it seemed to be a problem shared by others as when I arrived there was no-one else in the place. It's always an odd sensation but when going to see such a supposedly scary movie I was pretty spooked.

But then something far worse happened. One other person arrived. I felt slightly worried, but surely some other people would come. No-one came. The guy was walking quite slowly along the aisle toward me. Despite his slow step he was breathing quite heavily. And then of course he sat down behind me.

I had no idea what to do. Could I actually sit through what was supposed to be the scariest movie of all time with somebody breathing down my neck? Should I move? Maybe he didn't particularly want to sit behind me. Maybe he just liked that seat. Maybe I was encroaching on his space. Maybe I should move. But what if he followed me? That would be terrifying. So I just stayed there and it made me appreciate the movie even more.

I'd better stop now, some other people have arrived. And the movie is about to begin.

Labels: Articles

Nigella Lawson said that, to her, vegetarianism is like exercise - it's all right as long as someone else is doing it. I'm with her of course. The weird thing is that we all know it makes us feel better about ourselves, allows us to be sanctimonious in front of others and isn't even that bad while we're doing it and yet... It's the getting started that's the problem.

My favourite kind of joggers are those who have clearly just rescued their traccy bottoms from the bottom of their wardrobes. I walk quite quickly and I find it a confusing experience as I wander past them. I take a small kind of joy from the situation - I can't help it, please try not to judge me. But what is the etiquette in this situation? Should I be changing my route, slowing my pace or should I pat them on the back as I pass? I can't be sure. Perhaps you could write in with advice? I'll try not to judge you.

I worry about it as well. Douglas Adams died while riding an exercise bike. I mean clearly exercise isn't very good for your heart. And what if I get addicted to exercise? I have an addictive personality. I have as much fear of being unable to kick the habit as I do about kicking the bucket.

In the end it's going to have to happen. Inches can already be pinched, pounds have already been piled and people on the internet have already written to me to point out my man boobs. But in a way all of this makes me even less likely to do it. My least favourite thing is being told.

Convincing myself that I'm doing it for me rather than what other people think is probably the most crucial step. But it's a hard one.

Labels: Articles

Around our house "don't touch that, it's hotter than the sun" is something we hear a lot.

Other than this sounding to men like me as though it's an open invitation to touch whatever it is just so that we can know for ourselves - it also happens to be true.

No it is, really.

A human being, for example, produces more heat per cubic metre than the sun. The sun is just really really really big.

Just thought you might like to know.

Labels: Articles

I've been engaged for some three years. And every so often Katherine and I talk about getting married. There are a number of reasons for getting married, but one thing occurred to me the other day - and I realised after I thought of it that it was perhaps the most stupid reason for getting married ever considered.

To make the point, we've been going out for five years (Is this right - Ed?) and we've been engaged for three of those.

Driving back from Birmingham the other day there was somebody on the radio talking to a listener and they asked that most innocuous of questions "so how long have you been married then"? And I thought, "hey, what if they'd been going out for ages first, surely that should be taken into account?". And then I thought, "maybe we should get married soon, because otherwise years from now people we don't know might think we haven't been together that long because we've been disproportionately not-married for such a long time in our relationship?" And then I remembered - that's the kind of thing that people consider "a bad reason".

Labels: Articles

I started watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 the other day and had to stop because I didn't have a clue what was going on. I realised that I couldn't really remember various vital points in the series. So I've watched part 1 again and it was really entertaining.

My question, which I will evaluate while I re-watch part 2 and watch fully for the first time part 3 is this:

"Were the movies actually quite poor because they were based on a theme park ride?" Perhaps the first film was unjustifiably good and that skewed our perceptions of parts two and three when they were probably just okay and not terrible like people said.

That's what I hope to find out.
`

Labels: Articles, Film

Something very exciting happened by accident the other day. I wrote a comment on a post on the very interesting film blog "SHADDOWPLAY" and David Cairns, who writes the blog, decided to follow up on the post and in doing so he referred to me as "author Alex Andronov".

Apart from the nice alliteration, I think it is the first time I've been referred to as an author by somebody I don't know. I know it shouldn't be that important but along with receiving my first royalty payment it was hugely significant to me. I loved the feeling. This might just be a giant ego trip for me, but I can live with that.

Labels: Articles

As we know, philosophically, if a tree falls in the woods and it falls on the only person who was there to hear it, the tree wouldn't have made a noise when it killed them - presumably because it would be trying to sneak up on the blighter.

Or something. Welcome to the wonderful world of perception. At an evolutionary level we humans tend to think of ourselves as pretty special. And yet from what we know about perception that isn't true in all ways.

Take birds for example. Many birds "know" which way is North. They don't have to think about it. They don't have to take out their compass or whatever, they just know. The same way you know which way is down or the same way you know when it's dark or light. You don't have to think "oh, it's dark", you just know. That's perception.

Now in this example we're pretty sure that we agree with birds where North is. And so it doesn't feel that weird knowing they can sense it.

But what about hummingbirds? They can see infra-red as a colour. Now, in theory we can see infra-red too. But of course infra-red isn't red in just the same way that green isn't red. It's another colour and we can't see it and they can. They don't turn on their infra-red vision to see it, they just see it. And we never will. Because to make it visible to us we have to turn off the other colours and substitute something else (red).

So we can see that the world isn't necessarily as we perceive it. The world isn't the way a human sees it where the other animals are getting it wrong. The world has never truly been seen by anything. We just happen to see it and sense it in one way.

Back to the hummingbird. The hummingbird also perceives the world more slowly than we do. If you were jogging along, the bird would perceive you as moving slowly compared to everything else. That's why birds seem to move out of the way of cars far too late. Even time is not constantly perceived. We know that we can measure its progress, but what does it mean if we know we aren't perceiving it at the same speed as anything else on our planet?* To birds we are lumbering slow moving things, like elephants seem to us.

So why are we so sure of ourselves? Unless you're really thinking about the issue people find it very difficult to think that the world might not be as they are perceiving. The answer is, of course, evolution. People who were constantly questioning what they perceived have been deselected. If you approach a lion wondering if it really is a lion you might not live long enough to have so many children.

We've been hearing a lot in the last few years about scientists attacking religion (Richard Dawkins, for example) and while I'm not religious, I really think science is being badly misrepresented. The best way to make people question their devout beliefs is to show them things like this. Now you might have read this and seen it as a confirmation of God's splendor and mysterious ways. But I like to think that subjects like this remind us that you shouldn't really believe received wisdom, especially not the received wisdom of your own brain or upbringing. Go and find out for yourself.

Just quickly, I'd like to tie this back to the subject of Free Will I discussed last year. Hopefully you can see why many scientists and philosophers believe that free will is an illusion of a similar kind to time and vision. It is useful to believe that we are consciously in charge of what we're doing, but we might not be. And if that doesn’t make you question what's going on in the world, then I don't know what will.

*surely there's a low chance those aliens we meet in sci-fi are actually all going to perceive time at the same rate as us - but I imagine it would make conversation a bit difficult.

Labels: Articles, Free Will

Why do we need to ban factory-farmed chickens?

Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have both been on TV recently explaining that battery farming techniques are terrible and people should stop buying food farmed in such conditions. Fair enough - I only ever buy Free Range.

Certainly Jamie has been calling for a ban. A ban doesn't solve the problem. People currently have a choice. They can either care about animal welfare or they can have cheaper food. And large numbers of people choose to have cheaper food. Banning battery farming won't make free range farming cheaper overnight. You and I might be able to
absorb the cost but what about everyone else? They aren't choosing the nicer version now - there must be a reason.

The drive to ban activities is a dangerous one. It comes from intellectuals wanting to force their enlightened views on others. Spend the money on education if you must change behaviour. Just banning it doesn't solve the problem - changing people's minds so they feel it's worth spending more is better. That way people still have a choice and supermarkets will stop stocking goods when people stop buying them.

Labels: Articles

Katherine sent me a text message the other day. Nothing that surprising in that - I suppose. But we were in the same house, and she was asking me if I wanted a cup of coffee.

Now when I was brought up, I was always told that I was not supposed to shout up the stairs. Shouting, I was told, was a terrible thing to do as it made the baby Jesus cry. So we weren't allowed to shout up the stairs at home. So if you wanted to ask a question you had to go up and ask. When I was a child I always wanted some kind of intercom system, some way of contacting those in other rooms without shouting. And that is very much what Katherine had achieved with her text message.

On the other hand my parents tried to teach me the value of money and how one should try very hard not to waste it. In many ways this text message was exactly that - a waste of money*.

So was it a reasonable thing to do? What solutions do you have? We do have an internal telephone that has an intercom, but there isn't a telephone in every room so that needs to be taken into account.

*We were both within our minutes but is that an opportunity cost or a sunk cost? Economists amongst you - you be the judge.

Labels: Articles

It's very difficult to have a truly objective awareness of how ill you are. As a thinking modern man, I know all too well that woman consider most men to only really get "man 'flu". The problem is that moaning is very much a male characteristic - although I know men who would never moan in a million years. It does seem to characterise our gender.

The only thing I can say is that I was so ill that I didn't stop coughing for three weeks, I felt dreadful and, most tellingly, I stopped being able to write. This doesn't happen very often - actually being ill doesn't do it just by itself.

This reminds me, I really agree with current poet laureate, Andrew Motion - he drinks a lemsip every morning before he starts writing because it reminds him of feeling ill which is a melancholy*, self-reflective time. He thinks this helps him write because writing is about self-absorption - something that goes along with being ill. It works for me. The only downside is when you aren't able to take a proper break, in those cases you have to use so much of your non-existent energy on normal life that there just isn't the energy for writing - and so I just stopped. I hope you'll forgive me.

Anyway, I'm back. I hope you're happy now. Most importantly "Preparation" which is the continuing story which didn't continue because, irony of ironies, it wasn't prepared in advance, will continue from this Friday. Happy Christmas and happy New Year.

* This reminds me of my favourite answer to the question "so how are you doing?" I've ever heard which was, "I feel melancholy". It was immediately clear that the individual wasn't English**.

** He was Italian.

Labels: Articles

I've always wondered what's really going on with those people who propose in really public places. Are they doing it so that the event is memorable? And if so why don't they realise that:

A) Getting engaged is a pretty memorable occasion, and

B) If you want to do memorable, why not go to a great but relatively secluded location?

I blame the movies. Actually I saw a pretty good compromise in Rome. A guy there proposed while at the colosseum. It was just big enough an occasion to fit the criteria but small enough to be okay if she hadn't accepted.

I think it is a weird lack of self belief that causes some guys to invoke the jumbo-tron. They want to make sure she'll accept and also commit themselves to going through with it. But what happens if even with all of that peer pressure she still says no? Well you'd have to kill yourself.

Or of course you could kill her instead. That's what a Spanish guy did recently when he proposed to his girlfriend on national television. Of course it makes me think of a follow-up question - why do people write amusing posts about things that aren't that funny? Well I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that one.

Labels: Articles

One of the strangest aspects of an economy is what happens when things are free. And in the new internet economy we are seeing some really strange effects.

One of the most obvious free things are blogs. Here you are reading something I have created for free. Not only that, but I have published it for free as well using software that is also free. So who is paying for this?

Like most bloggers, I am doing this because I enjoy it. Also I see it as Richard Herring puts it on his blog - I am "warming up". But what about the corporations involved, why do they do it? They largely see blogs as free content to hang their adverts on. They might not even force you to have ads on your blog, in fact there are no ads here, but they know that most users will realize over time that they can charge for content (through advertising) and enough of them will do it to make it a hugely profitable business.

People's expectations change when things become free. If you try and give something away people will assume it's worthless (well no surprise, you just told them that in the price) but if you charge for the same item, people will buy it. This has been well-established and still is the way the economy works out in the physical world. But on the Internet this relationship has been broken. We have now all learned that free products on the Internet can often be very valuable. In many ways it is advertising's fault - it allows the company to charge us without consent. When you watch a TV show, you don't feel like you just paid for it, but you have. Or at least you will. Or perhaps you are one of those people for whom advertising doesn't work. You realize everyone thinks they're immune to it? You can't all be right.

The strangest effect of free things is the incredible expectation of quality. Products from Google aren't just useful add-ons to your computer, they are tools people use all the time. I have at least one of their products open at all times when I'm online (Google Reader, if you're interested). The amazing thing is that they are useful and they work - and they're free. But this leads to some wacky expectations of free products. If you look at the comments on (Dilbert-creator) Scott Adams' blog, you'll see some pretty critical comments. Scott's blog is so good, that when he fails his readers in some way, they complain. Usually they seem to get upset when he says he'd like to make money from his activities or when readers don't agree with their interpretation of what Scott said. The question has to be, what right do they have to complain? He didn't force them to read the post and he gave it to them for nothing.

The final point is from Joel Spolsky. Joel is a software developer. He warned other developers from making custom-ware, saying that trying to please everyone is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps Scott should realize that his repeat customers are unlikely to be the ones complaining. But on the other hand he has boxed himself into a bit of a corner. His posts largely annoy stupid people who leave, and smart people don't click on ads.

My suggestion to him? Split the blogs. The Dilbert blog can have all of the silly stories from around the world and the heart-warming ones too. Then on the Scott Adams blog he can talk about his philosotainment. I know I'd still read both, I just think it would make it more enjoyable for him.

Labels: Articles

I was talking yesterday about judging a book by its cover and it reminded my of something from the recent trip to my father's house.

We were having a wine tasting and it wasn't blind. This led naturally to the subject of what advantage a blind tasting has. The most important thing you're guarding from in a blind tasting is probably reputation. If you know what Robert Parker thinks about the wine then you might let it influence you unduly.

But a second aspect is one of design - the design of the label, the weight of the bottle and any directly printed onto the bottle. This last was considered by some around the table to be a key indicator. A very poor indicator, by the by, is fastening (although plastic corks are a big no-no). Between screw tops and corks there is not much useful information to deduce the quality of the wine.*

All in all though, the only trend observed is that heavier bottles tend to be nicer. Not a guarantee of course and I can hear all of the objections coming. I'm not saying heavy bottles of wine will be nice but that wines of a better quality will often have thicker bottles.

As a side note we all knew what we liked about some labels but found it difficult to articulate what it was. Garish labels are usually bad, as are pun titles but not always (try drinking some Nine Popes if you don't believe me). But as to what a good label looks like, it's something you have to learn.

If all of this sounds wishy-washy then that's because it is. What we clearly need to do is a double-blind test. Look at the bottles and score the wine without tasting it, and then score the wine. If we split the bottle scores into weight and label then we might be able to prove the better indicator.

Sounds like something to try over Christmas. The only problem is that if you've seen the label then you know what wine it is. Bringing previous experience and Parker back in to play. This might take some planning.

*Although everyone agrees that the screw top is far preferable. Because there isn't consensus out in the industry there isn't a trend in the wine.

Labels: Articles

I recently bought a copy of Woody Allen's new book of short stories "Mere Anarchy".



While nosing around a book shop in Rome, Katherine spotted the Italian edition of the same book. Just take a look at the cover - isn't it far more interesting?



So I bought it - of course - even though I can't read Italian. I literally judged a book by its cover. And I was quite pleased to.

Labels: Articles

Last night I went to see the movie Helvetica at the ICA. A movie about the ubiquitous typeface (if you don't think you know it then you might know the cheap knock off Arial). Once you know what you're looking for you will see it everywhere (hint: the a and e are the easiest ways to identify it). So an important typeface is 50 years old, but is the movie any good?

I very much enjoyed it. The design gurus interviewed were just as crackers as you need to keep the thing moving along. In fact there were quite a few laughs in the sold out cinema - mostly people were laughing at the obsessiveness of the type designers. The only question I had afterwards was one of how different the film would have been if a different typeface had been the star? The film's main interest was in these crazy characters of the world of type and they would have happily spouted forth on any font. I think the film maker was wise to hang the film on a specific typeface though as it did ground the piece, I just don't think in that in the end Helvetica was the star of the movie.

After the movie one of my friends, Anna said that she'd enjoyed it but that it made her feel a little dirty. I think she felt that because there were these obsessives revealing the details of their secret world. I loved the obsessiveness of it all. It certainly stuck a chord with me and the way Adrian and I approach our work.

All in all an interesting film. Should you see it?

Labels: Articles

One of the more obscure social conventions of the 21st century is that friends don't put friends on company mailing lists. It is a cardinal sin akin, in the modern age, to stabbing.

Companies have cottoned on to this and now they try and bribe people who have already been foolish enough to be caught in their web of doom to enslave others. This is still socially unacceptable but you get to replace your acquaintances with vouchers. Surely everyone knows somebody they'd like to passively aggressively de-friend and this is the ideal way. What says "I don't value your friendship very much" better than actually letting somebody know you value it less than a five pound gift voucher for Boots that you'll leave in the fruit bowl until it expires.

So as you can imagine I was interested to work out what was going on when I heard two women on the train and one said to the other, "I signed you up to the mailing list because that way they gave me a free facial". I expected blows to follow so I took out my phone to call the police, but then the first woman added, "don't worry I used your old address that way you won't get the junk mail".

Weirdly the second woman seemed satisfied with this arrangement. I wonder how long it will be before she realises: there is only one thing more annoying than junk mail, incorrectly addressed junk mail. You can't contact them to fix the address because then they'll know you're alive but if you do nothing the junk just keeps on coming and coming - forever.

Labels: Articles

I'm going to write a word in the comments in a moment and all you need to do is decide what word comes next. Write that word in the comments and off we go. Good luck to all of us, this could be quite weird.

Labels: Articles

I was asked, the other day, as I often am, a fairly random question: "why does the beer always overflow the first time I pour a glass"?

Well the answer is pretty simple but some of the other people crowded around the pub table got very much the wrong end of the stick. "You're not pouring it right" was the most common suggestion, others added helpfully that you always realise your mistake and that's why the second glass poured better. Good guess but wrong.

The answer is of course, as it is for so many things in life, dust. Basically the head in beer is formed by trapped bubbles. Bubbles that are free fly off through the top of the beer and off into the atmosphere. But all bubbles are formed around dust. The bubbles are formed around any little particles they can find. If there are a few particles then the gas remains lighter than the water and breaks for freedom. But what if there is enough dust grouped together that the gas is trapped under the surface? Well that's the head and the more dust there is the faster the head grows. The head has more volume than the liquid and so it takes up more room in the glass, hence the overflowing.

Now I will admit that poor pouring is a factor because it means that more of the dust is touched by the beer more quickly. In fact if you are pouring your beer correctly then you'll probably end up only touching a small section of one side of the glass. And we now know that the reason the beer doesn't overflow the second time isn't because your pouring improved but simply because you've drunk all of the dust.
The safest way to be sure your beer pours perfectly is to rinse the glass (no soap) and you won't have any problems.

By around this time you might be thinking, "urgh I don't like the fact that I've been drinking dust all of these years". But don't worry, unless the glasses that you're drinking from are actually dirty this dust is no different than the dust you inhale through breathing. In fact without it you would be dead. So worrying about the dust is silly, but rinsing the glass before you pour will stop you spilling beer and surely that makes it all worthwhile.

Labels: Articles

When we went to Rome on the weekend I was worried that we wouldn't see any really old things, but then we did:


That's a relief!


Afterwards we decided to buy something from a gift shop, it was pretty large but we thought it would be okay.



Unfortunately we can't fit it in our living room so we're going to have to sell it, hopefully it will urn a few quid.


Anyway Rome is no laughing matter, there is one road that Katherine and I managed to avoid the whole time we were there:

Labels: Articles

There is a copy of my book in my hands.* It's one of the most exciting moments in my life. Thanks for everyone who helped especially last minute heroics from Adrian who got the copy to me before I flew to Rome. However if you feel like you were unable to help thus far and still want a piece of the action then why not buy a copy online. It's available direct from the publisher now, but will be available on Amazon shortly.

It's a collection of some of the short stories from the blog. Go on! You know you want to be able to point to a book on your shelves and say "someone I know wrote that". That's the kind of thing that impresses some people. People, having seen that you own this book, might even declare their undying love for you and offer to kiss you, and more! That's the power of this book. I'd want to have that kind of help in my life but I don't need to worry because I already have a copy. Let me know how your life is working out without it or even better buy the book and let me know what you think!

*Not while I'm writing this of course that would be tricky. It's a metaphor.**

**Of course I could have been using speech recognition to write this***

***But I wasn't.

Labels: Articles

My good friend Larry and I were talking the other day and he was relating the story of how he had met his wife. Larry and his wife had been working together when they had fallen in love. They had decided to keep their relationship secret because it might have caused problems at work. They kept it so secret that they didn't even tell their closest work colleagues.

At the time there was a guy that Larry had lunch with almost every day. They were very close colleagues who got on very well. But even so Larry didn't tell him that he was seeing this woman. Then one day at a party this guy introduced Larry to somebody, the somebody that he was already living with. They had kept their relationship so secret that nobody knew. Once they moved in with each other it wasn't such an issue telling people but Larry had never really worked out a way of telling this guy, because he had kept it from him all of this time and they were supposed to be such good friends. But right then at this party the guy found out, and since then Larry and the guy never really spoke, such was the betrayal this guy felt.

I told him that I had the opposite story. When Adrian first came to work with me we were so busy that we rarely ever got a chance to go out for lunch together - in fact it's still pretty rare now. But one day Adrian said that we had to go out to lunch. We got to the place and sat down and Adrian told me that his wife was going to have a baby. He had, I think, only found out that day. And of course normally you don't tell people for twelve weeks. He was bursting to tell somebody, but he said that he felt he could tell me because I didn't really know him or any of his friends. It was quite an odd beginning to a friendship, but clearly quite a good one - we've been friends ever since.

Labels: Articles

When you're writing your novel there are sometimes moments when you find yourself dreaming of your book lying in a bookshop. It's a nice thought for the aspiring author but the aspiring author should always think of how important the bookshop is.

Think about how you choose a book when you are in a book shop. Most people look at the cover, the title, the author and then open it up and read the first sentence. Some people also read page sixty nine on the advice of Marshall McLuhan - but lets ignore that for the moment.

So the title you can pick and choose and it is very important. But you can't be an established aspiring author so people aren't going to recognise your name. And you probably won't be designing your own cover. But you can focus on the first line that is something you can do.

They can be funny, like Iain Banks in The Crow Road,

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

Or intriguing like, Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar,

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

What are your favourite opening lines?

Labels: Articles

The music industry thinks that we the customers are to blame for their falling sales. But actually a lot of their problems are due to them failing to embrace a new business model. Or even to a certain extent them working out what that new business model is.

But there is another problem. There are two kinds of publicity out there. The manufactured kind and the newsworthy kind. The former is pop stars going on kids TV, the latter is a star getting themselves caught doing something illegal. The first kind will increase your record sales a bit, the latter will make you number one.

Now record companies and management have a conflict of interest. They want their stars to act illegally because that sells records faster than writing a good record ever could.

Take Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse. They are so much more famous for their antics than their music. Both are talented (or at least were in Doherty's case - I remain unconvinced of his solo work) and yet that wasn't enough to make them famous. What made them famous is that they are prominent drug addicts.

Well I'm not about to get high* and mighty about drug use but I can't help but be concerned about the other side of this equation. The talent of these artists is being put at risk by what they are doing and the only people who can stop them are their management. But their management don't want to stop them because what they are doing is selling records.

The problem is that all of these antics will only ever sell one rubbish album. After you've bought one rubbish album you won't want to buy another one. And that's where the record labels are injecting themselves in the foot.

* Whoops unintended pun alert.

Labels: Articles

One of the worst things you can do as a writer is litter your work with cliché. It makes the work sound tired and like it was thrown together.

The problem is that there is a reason clichés get used all of the time and that's that they are a nice kind of shorthand for what's going on. They tell you a lot of information without getting you bogged down.

There is however a very nice trick you can use which is the cliché variation. This makes it possible to give the sentiment of the cliché without sounding like you can't write.

What you do is take a standard cliché and change some of the words and leave the sense intact. This actually happens out in the wild with clichés anyway so it isn't as much of a surprise to the reader. Here are three examples of what I mean all culled from real life.

You couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery

You couldn't organise a bun fight in a bakery

You couldn't organise a fire in a matchbox factory

It most often happens out in the wild when the oldest form is seen as being slightly rude (the piss up one).

By creating your own version you use the shorthand everyone knows to convey the sense, but make it clear that you know your turnips from your swedes.

So, fair gamboling readers, it's over to you. Just how many different ways are there to describe someone who is poor at organising things using this structure?

Labels: Articles

Antonia has mentioned sucking one's thumb over on her blog and I couldn't help but remember why I had stopped.

My parents despaired of me sucking my thumb when I was a lad. But then one of their friends came over to dinner. Completely unprompted by my parents he noticed that I was sucking my thumb and he sidled over to me.

He said, "hey I see you're sucking your thumb - that's pretty cool".

And after ages of my parents telling me that it was the devil's work my immediate thought was "yes, this is pretty cool". We connected immediately.

Then he said, "I wish I could still do that".

Which I have to admit made me feel a little nervous, what possible reason could there be for not sucking your thumb other than because "your parents want you to"?

So I asked, "why can't you"?

And he said, "well I don't want to go completely bald do I"?

And I never sucked my thumb again. Thanks Fred.

Labels: Articles

I think it's about time to check back in with the train station Andweep which I renamed in a previous post (It's all over for Smitham). The train station used to be called Smitham and Smitham is a place so small that nobody even lives there. In fact the train station is where the hamlet of Smitham used to be.

Anyway I'm pleased to announce that the non-existent townsfolk seem to have taken to the idea and the first wafts of the winds of change are beginning to be felt on the cheek of indifference. Wikipedia mentions the proposed change! It's serious now. Even though in the very comment on Wikipedia seems to question the seriousness we must fight for this change. Progress is being made, I can feel it!

Labels: Articles