Start the week #77

Language barriers, new books, articles, videos *PLUS*: the definitive word on how to rise to the challenge I set recently.

Greetings!

The number of this newsletter reminds me that there used to be a TV series called 77 Sunset Strip. Here’s a clip from it. I can just about understand what they’re saying, which is actually rather worrying.

But enough of this persiflage, except to say: sorry this is a day late, and — on with the newsletter!

Communication difficulties

Yesterday, Elaine and I went to a part of London we’d never been to before. There was a decent-looking coffee bar, and I thought perhaps I’d take Elaine there, as a change from the burger van parked next to the A12, even though it wasn’t her birthday or anything.

Me, to café owner: May we have an Americano and a chai latté please?

Café owner: No problem, Sir.

…

Elaine: This is tea, not an Americano.

Me: Excuse me, but I asked for an Americano.

Café owner: No problem, Sir.

…

Me: Excuse me, but I asked for a chai latté; this is tea.

Café owner: No problem, Sir.

…

Me to Elaine: If this is chai latté then I’m the king of Siam. It looks like tea and tastes like hot water.

But by that time I was beginning to lose the will to live, so we just quaffed and went. We should have gone to the burger van.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with a lady who ran a newsagents where I was at university.

Me: Do you have Private Eye¹, please?

Lady: No, sorry. We’ve got Penthouse and Playboy.

Me: Right.

I told my girlfriend at the time, but she didn’t believe me, so I took her there. The exchange was exactly the same.

Me: Now do you believe me?

Girlfriend: Yes. I didn’t because you exaggerate so much.

Me: I’ve told you a million times that that is simply not true.

Girlfriend: 🙄

Books added to the TBR heap

I'm looking forward to reading these!

I was contacted by the PR person at Bodleian Library Publishing to ask whether I’d like to review the Dickens book, which is out on 4th October. I’ve started to read it, and it makes Dickens a lot more accessible to people who are unfamiliar with, or daunted by, his work. I’ll say more when I’ve read a bit more.

‘What Is A Doctor?’ was sent to me by Canongate books. It’s a doctor’s view of how the NHS needs to be changed. That should prove very interesting.

Finally, the Penguin Book of Bengali Short Stories was in the library, and I thought that as I know nothing about the Bengali culture, short stories would probably give me an insight into it. I haven’t started that yet.

Writing short-form

Some people have contacted me to say that they find my challenge of writing a book review in six words a bit too challenging. I mean, come on! If you can’t think of six words to say about a book then you must be reading very thin books is all I can say. Or is the problem that you can think of several hundred words to say about a book you’ve read²?

I’m here to help! Here, unveiled for the first time, is the concept I’ve just invented: the MVW. This is, the minimum viable wordage. In other words, write a review that’s longer than 6 words, and then consider: which six words out of this lot sums up all my thoughts in a nutshell? I think you’ll find that six words is quite adequate, although more would let you write more detail. But by writing long and then chipping out the excess, that is anything over the MVW, you’ll arrive at the MVW and will have produced a small work of literary brilliance.

Coded message

My latest ‘experiment in style’ is actually the original story enciphered by a process called ROT-13, which is where each letter is replaced by the one 13 letters further on. It looks like nonsense, but

Mark R DeLong

, who suggested the idea in the first place, has left a thought-provoking comment that I’m still thinking about. Have a read.

Sax chronicles

Rightly or wrongly, I’m prioritising getting a nice tone, and not frightening the cats when I attempt the very high notes. I’m making progress, slowly, but the thing I’m very pleased about is that I have been disciplining myself to do it, every day. In the past, I’ve never got as far as I could with an instrument because given the choice of knocking out a nice tune by ear or trying to do the basic (and hard) work, I’ve opted for the former because of boredom setting in after five minutes. Instruments on which my proficiency has stalled at a certain level include the descant recorder, treble recorder, bass recorder, ocarina, flute, guitar, ukuele, piano and organ. Once I’ve become a bit better at the sax, I’d like to teach myself chromatic harmonica³. I’m starting to feel more self-confident about the prospect now. I’ll be starting that in twenty years’ time at this rate.

Other people’s articles

Here’s a lovely article by Helen Poore about the healing effects of walking amongst trees.

The worst thing, and also the best thing, about creative writing courses is that you have to do workshopping, which means reading your work out and receiving feedback from the other students, and vice-versa.

Richard Donnelly

captures this situation in a wryly humorous way.

I can’t remember if I shared Bulls of Branton by

Jim Cummings

so here it is (again?). If you like hardboiled fiction then grab a Jack Daniels, ensconce yourself in an armchair or hammock, and settle down for a nice, long-ish, satisfying read.

At the other end of the length scale, read Clare, by

Sharron Bassano

. Have some tissues handy.

Videos

If you like Year of the Cat, then I think you’ll enjoy this short video of Al Stewart talking about how the song came about, and how his career came about. He comes across as very humble. I saw him live once, while I was at university. His bandmates had all gone down with the flu, so Al played the whole set (around three hours) by himself. It was brilliant. Anyway, here’s the video.

Mick Miller joke

This joke is so dreadful that it’s funny! I hope you enjoy it.

That’s it from me! Do leave a comment?

1. A satirical magazine.

2. Or a film you’ve seen, exhibition you’ve been too, etc.

3. That’s the one that has a slide, so you can play sharps and flats and, in theory, in any key.