Start the Week #113

A special edition

Greetings!

Here in London the mood is one of joyous celebration. People are dancing in the street, and giving hugs to random strangers. The unaccustomed heat (68 F today and that was cool by recent standards) has not been enough to prevent the merriment.

Photo by Tom Sekula on Unsplash

And what is the reason for such joy and jubilation, especially bearing in mind the default position of the average Brit, which is one of misery and an almost professional level of damp squibness? July is the month in which I celebrate my birthday.

Well, when I say “celebrate”, my idea of a day of festivities is to spend it in a bookshop or a café, or a combination of both, having as few conversations as possible. I was going to push the boat out and treat myself to a Belgian bun, but the bakery that used to sell that and other comestibles has closed. The empty space it used to occupy is hidden by construction hoardings. This is a clear sign of civilisational collapse.

“So, do you feel any different?”, Elaine asked me.

“Only psychologically”, I replied. “I keep reading obituaries of people who are my age or younger and who have shuffled off this mortal coil. I need to read different ones.”¹

Still, I am fortunate in that I am able to stay young in both looks and attitude — the former because of the portrait in the attic, the latter because I identify as a 25 year-old.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

The course is dead, long live the course

My one day blogging course took place at the City Lit yesterday². I think people found it useful. We got off to a rather poor start because I had specifically requested that I be given a room with a trapdoor in the floor, so that at the appointed hour I could rise onto the stage in a cloud of dry ice to the accompaniment of a fanfare.

Still, the course went well I think. I had a PowerPoint, but showed only one slide. The worst courses and talks I’ve attended have involved a reliance on PowerPoint, and best ones employed no or very few slides. I think if you know what you’re talking about, and you’re reasonably good at engaging people, you don’t need such a prop.

And it is a prop, and almost always used badly. Either the slides are full of bullet points, which the presenter tediously reads out³, or the illustrations appear to have so little to do with the subject matter that you spend the whole time trying to figure out the connection.

A recommendation

As a great believer in the wisdom expressed by Salvator Rosa — “Be silent unless what you have to say is better than silence” — I will bring this, my latest contribution to the annals of English literature, to a close. But not before recommending this relatively new Substack from nisha ✨🌻🌙 . I quite liked her post about job rejections:

Kind Regards, Rejected

It has inspired me to write my own version soonish.

Well, that’s it from me for now. Thanks for reading.

1. Gay Talese wrote a wonderful essay called Mr Bad News, in which he profiled a newspaper obituary writer. As you probably know, obits are written and updated while the person is still alive, so as to be ready to publish as soon as they kick the bucket. The writer who Talese interviewed observed that the problem with being an obituary writer is that you keep hoping the person will die so that you can see your work in print.

2. Should the news that the course is over fill you with a feeling of sadness over a missed opportunity, you will be delighted to learn that I will be teaching it again in November, online, over two evenings: Writing for Blogs.

3. The feedback I gave in the evaluation form for a Senior Managers Away Day when I was a big noise in a Local Authority was “Next time, hire presenters who assume the people in the audience can read.”