Greetings!
I feel as though I am living in an Oulipian1 nightmare. In a story called A Few Musketeers, Hervé Le Tellier portrays a situation in which all the numbers in his life change. It starts with the number of his bookshelves increasing, and the titles of his books changing, such as Fahrenheit 451 becoming Fahrenheit 4522.
Because of a combination of factors: difficulty in writing the article called Dreaming3, an emotionally difficult family occasion and a decision, since abandoned, to write the Start the week posts and the Experiments in Style post every two weeks rather than every week, all the days of the week are now wrong from my writing point of view:
The experiment in style post was published yesterday instead of Sunday, this is appearing today instead of yesterday, and my post for paying subscribers will appear tomorrow whereas it should have come out today.
But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter. Because Start the Week didn’t come out last week, this is a bumper double issue. So if you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin4.
What happened to Start the Week, a new experiment in style and the new schedule?
Having explained the delays and the gaps in service so to speak (but come on: it was only a week!), I see no need to repeat myself here. The Experiment in Style posted yesterday was an older post that had previously been available only to paying subscribers. It contains an experiment I did in which I asked an artificial intelligence (AI) app to develop personas for a blog readership, an experiment in the style of a politician written by AI, and the same style written by yours truly. Do have a look, and I shall be most upset if you conclude that the AI did a better job of it!
As for the new schedule. Well, I devised a great spreadsheet in Excel, inspired by a comment by
(check out his newsletter, by the way, if you like puzzles). I remembered that I had created a scheduling spreadsheet about 25 years ago so I repurposed it, and then stood back to admire my handiwork. Maybe you would like to admire it as well, so here ya go:However, I suddenly received a flurry of emails, well, quite a few anyway, from people saying how much they loved those experiments. This engendered a profound sense of guilt. Therefore, I’ve decided to revert to Plan A, in which I suggest to people that if you feel that I’m writing too much for you to cope with, you can elect to unsubscribe from some of the sections. I wrote about how to do this eons ago, and it’s also in my Welcome email:
Selecting which emails you receive.
And I was reminded of this option through subscribing to
’s newsletter, because she also writes a lot, under different headings.Anyway, if I get a load of unsubscribes, or letters to The Times complaining, I may revisit the two-weekly idea.
Training day
In England the kids go back to school this week and we all know what that means: a training day for the teachers. In my experience these are almost invariably useless, with some so-called expert parachuted in at vast expense to read from a set of PowerPoint slides or state the obvious. My feedback on a management training day in response to the question, “How could this be improved for next time”, I wrote “Hire a speaker who assumes we can all read.” It would be vastly untrue to say that went up like a balloon filled with helium. In fact, the best statement I heard of was that of a librarian who, despite having done the job for twenty years, was sent on a course to learn how to stack bookshelves. In response to the question, “What have you taken from this course?”, he wrote “The biscuits”.
So, for all those teachers who have recently had to suffer one of these dreadful events, here is a sketch called The Pirates’ Training Day. I hope it will provide a maxi chortle5:
Cycling courses
I mentioned in my last letter to
that Elaine and I signed up for some cycling courses. Here’s an extract:Fay: A lot of drivers don’t bother with hand signals.
Me: Oh I don’t know. I get a lot of hand signals, often using just one finger.
So do have a read of that, and while you’re at it subscribe to Rebecca’s newsletter because we have a good laugh writing letters to each other.
Following that we did a cycle maintenance course. On the way out I let Elaine go first, and the trainer looked at me admiringly.
“I always let Elaine go first”, I said. “In case there are potholes.”
The girl in the bookshop
In those long gone days of my youth, there was a bookshop whose employee was very attractive. She was bright. She was blonde. She was beautiful. I said to my landlady, Mary6, I’ve been fancying this girl for so long that I’m going to ask her out. Today’s the day, wish me luck!
I waited until the shop was empty, and then bowled up to the till. “Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I would like to ask you something”, I said. I looked round. Behind me, in this previously empty bookshop, was a queue of old ladies.
Girl: Yes?
Me: I would like your professional advice. Which of these bookmarks you have for sale are most suited to hardbacks?
The ladies were all smirking. Well, I escaped from there, but I did actually get the opportunity to ask her out. I raced home and called out to Mary:
Me: Hey, Mary. I asked that girl out!!
Mary: Oh brilliant! What did she say?
Me: No.
Mary: 😂 😂 I’m sorry. 😂 But you have to admit 😂 you set yourself up.
Me: 😂 Yeah I suppose so.
My friend Greg, who I mention every so often (see, for instance, Miscommunication) once told me of a similar experience. There was a fruit and veg stall just outside the bus stop he used to alight at7. He really liked the girl who worked there, so one day he plucked up the courage to ask her out. Each time he was about to do so, someone else would appear at the stall. So Greg would say, “Erm, a bag of apples please”, and then a few minutes later, “A bag of pears please”, and htis continued until, at last, he was the only one there.
Greg: May I take you out for a coffee please?
Girl: No.
So Greg had to traipse home with several hundredweight of fruit and vegetables that he didn't want.
Is Greg real?
As I wrote above, I mention my friend Greg every so often. You know I write creative non-fiction on the whole, which means not making things up. But do you think Greg really exists?
I ask because one of my favourite authors, a great influence on me, is Paul Jennings, who I wrote about here:
Well, his stories often featured a friend of his called Harblow, and I’ve never been able to determine whether or not Harblow really existed! Still, it’s a great device, I think. You?
More great writing
Clouds like dust
did a fine job of responding to my challenge, in which I —- well, never mind. Have a read of this: The Bard, or how poetry became meNathan’s Notes tip
On the subject of Nathan, he came up with a brilliant tip for saving Notes. Copy the url at the top of the browser and paste it into a document. Dunno why I didn’t think of that myself. Nathan writes excellent stories, beautifully, and if you do nothing else you should subscribe if you haven’t already done so.
More constraints – from Cameron Bradley
As a fan of Oulipo I like writing with constraints. I don’t mean handcuffs by the way. Well, Cameron publishes articles about poetry written with constraints. It’s quite interesting and mentally challenging stuff. Enjoy: Lit Smithery
Turning the classics into parenting guides
A brilliant post from
— very chortleworthy:Loss of a record collection
describes how he lost a treasured vinyl jazz collection:Dreams symposium
An amazing collection of stories, poetry and even video on the subject of dreams (disclosure: one of mine is featured there). Be sure to bookmark this.
Another article round-up
This time from the Books That Made Us newsletter (disclosure: one of mine is featured there too). Save this one too.
My recent writings
Experiments in Style: Bertie Wooster The latest in my ongoing series of experiments.
Reply to Rebecca #20 About cycling and potholes amongst other things. Read this, then read Rebecca’s reply tomorrow.
Miscommunication. Worth watching for the video clip alone, this looks at three conversations that I’ve given a one star rating to. Hope it gives you a good chortle.
The investigator This is an article about a radio play from 1954 called The Investigator. It’s a satire on McCarthyism, and was so near the knuckle that it got the playwright deported. It includes footage of McCarthy as well. This is worth reading if (a) you intend to see the film Oppenheimer and (b) you don’t know much about McCarthyism.
Is satire dead This is an article I wrote when I had very few subscribers. It includes articles I published while at university which, despite being obviously written by a madman, some people took seriously.
Currently reading
Links are Amazon affiliate links. Buying books through those links will help me feed our cats who seem hell bent on bankrupting us.
The Anomaly by Hervé le Tellier. It made a big splash when it came out, and is a great Oulipian piece of work.
Retroland by Peter Kemp,. A brilliant romp through the fiction produced in the 20th century.
The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios I’m trying to teach myself some physics, in the hope that I will understand Oppenheimer even better. (Hope springs eterbal and all that.)
Well I’m sorry that this was a bit on the long side, but I hope it’s provided some pleasure.
Thanks for reading!
Terry
The Oulipo is a French writing movement that aims to produce “potential literature” through the use of constraints.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the story, and the collection in which I discovered it, read this article:
I will explain the difficulty and how I overcame it in my next paid post.
When I was a toddler I used to listen to a radio programme called Listen With Mother. It always started with the lady saying “Are you sitting comfortably?” followed by a pause. My mother would whisper to me, “Say ‘Yes’”, so I would say “Yes”, and then the lady would say, “Then I’ll begin”. I only found out last week that the lady hadn’t actually been waiting for my reply.
Useful advance info: Hastings is a seaside resort in England.
Name changed to protect the innocent.
The location of the bus stop has absolutely no bearing on this story, so I don’t know why I’ve mentioned it, but still.
“Hire a speaker who assumes we can all read.” 😂 Take away their PowerPoints and see if they can still speak! 🤣
Delightful read, and poor Greg; it’s all one big setup!
I'm Greg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKCmyiljKo0
Now that we've got that out of the way, wow, Terry, what a fabulous start to the week! And starting the week on a Monday is hugely overrated in any case - could you stick with (at least!) Tuesday moving forward?
'The biscuits'! - what great feedback! They should have been grateful that anyone had turned up at all, let alone filled in the questionnaire at the end!
I haven't yet had the chance to explore every wonderful thing you have crammed into this post, Terry - so I might be finishing the week with it, too! Another absolutely great read - thank you!