Greetings!
This morning I received feedback on an article I’d submitted for workshopping in a creative writing class I’m attending. Workshopping is when you critique others’ work and have your own critiqued. I was pleasantly surprised at the feedback given, and will extend the piece a bit based on some of the comments. I’m thinking I might publish both versions in due course, side by side so you can see the differences and decide for yourself which is better.
I’ve done this sort of thing before, in the context of reviews, and people seem to appreciate it. When I’m feeling brave, I publish two reviews of the same book in the same article. One review is the one I submitted to the editor of the magazine in question, while the other is the edited version actually published. Here’s an example:
Review of Old Truths and New Clichés
Greetings! My review of this book has just appeared in Teach Secondary magazine. However, the edited version, and the copy I submitted, are quite different. Not substantively so, but in my opinion the published copy lacks some of the nuance I injected into it. I should have preferred a discussion with the editor ab…
I have a couple ready to go that I have scheduled. One is a review of a technicians exhibition and the other is a review of a book called Blurb Your Enthusiasm. The Blurb review will be published here on Friday 16 June 2023 at 08:30 UK time. The technicians review will magically appear at 08:30 UK time on Friday 23 June 2023.
But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.
Terry
A tv advert
There was a time in the UK when tv adverts assumed that viewers had more intelligence than the average three year old. I quite like this one from the 1980s. It’s an ad for Madam Tussauds, the waxworks. What makes me laugh is that the appearance of these punks is pretty frightening itself! Enjoy!
Images of London
Last week I went to the Cartoon Museum in London, and then walked to the City Lit Adult Education Institute, where I both teach and learn. Here are some photos I took on that walk.
Starting from the top left, here’s what the photos show:
A tablecloth used in the Cartoon Museum. I want one!
Berwick Street market. This used to sell all sorts of stuff. There was a stall where a man sold handmade hats (I always wanted a deerstalker myself, but never quite had the courage to wear one). These days, it features a myriad of street food outlets, including Vietnamese, Middle East and others.
This is a section of China Town. There’s at least one restaurant here that offers all you can eat for a very modest price. I might try it one of these days.
This is Leicester Square. If you look closely just beyond the right shoulder of the girl in the red top you can see two street musicians performing.
The same place, but as well as the street musicians there’s a man fornt and centre distributing Christian literature.
Finally, the cafe at the City Lit, where there are several lively conversations taking place, as you might be able to tell.
A talk
I attended a great talk last night, about the history of music. The speaker used no notes, and no PowerPoint. It was really refreshing.
Afterwards I was chatting to a lady who is not doing as much as she used to because she is in her 70s. Well blow that for a game of soldiers. My outlook is perfectly captured by Roger McGough’s poem, Let Me Die A Young Man’s Death.
A couple of other things
Firstly, I am waaaaay behind in my Substack reading and responding to comments. I am aiming to catch up soon, so please bear with me.
Secondly, if you can take out a paid subscription it would help a lot. I love writing here on Substack, but doing so takes me away from more immediately lucrative writing pursuits.
Thirdly, I thought this might provide a chortle opportunity. It’s me in my Dr Tel persona, taken when I was a schoolteacher playing in a school band. The song I was singing and playing harmonica on was “I just wanna make love to you”, which has lines like “I don’t want you to be no slave” and “I don’t want your money too”. What a great example to kids as far as grammar is concerned!
Further reading
Here are a few referral links to newsletter directories. If you click through and sign up to these services, you’ll be sent links to other newsletters you might be interested in. And the people who run these services will promote this one too. So it’s a potential win-win-win situation.
I find this one especially useful for discovering newsletters and articles concerning leadership matters, which I’m quite interested in.
I very much like the variety served up. I receive one suggestion a day, and have subscribed to a few of them.
This has links to long reads. I haven’t really explored it yet, but it seems quite interesting. If you sign up using that link apparently I’ll get $4 credit towards an advertisement. I’ve no idea how much an advert costs though.
Finally…
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I find it quite comforting seeing photos of London, even though I've never lived there. There's something nostalgic about "very British streets" for me.
TV ads used to be so much better, eh. That's a good one.
What year was that Dr Tel pic??
As is increasingly my wont I have reached your Start the week at an end-of-the-day juncture - although at least it IS still Monday as I'm typing this!
Loved everything you had to say, but also the stage snap, the hilarious advert and last but by absolutely no means least the perfect poem by the epic Roger McGough - an old friend (not really, but my ears think so) from 'Poetry Please' on Radio 4. Tears in my ageing eyes!