Start the week #84

I'm back, as James Brown once sang.

In which Terry goes on about modesty, shares some great articles, and shows off his new campaign photo

Greetings! Sorry it’s been a few weeks since I wrote a Start the Week. There are good reasons for my absence from your Monday inbox. But that was then, this is now, so enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter, which is a day late, I know. What can I say?

Terry

My archived articles

I have, for the time being, disabled the feature whereby articles are paywalled after a certain period of time. I did that to give people the opportunity to have a good rummage, should they wish to do so. I’ll probably reinstate it at some point. In the meantime, I’m still churning out writing articles for paying subscribers. Most of them have a seven-day trial option, and you can even read one article for free because I’ve set that facility up in Substack.

Speaking of archives, here’s an article about my misadventures in supermarkets. It’s called Authorised Madness, and I wrote it when I had hardly any subscribers. (Do you know, I started here with precisely zero subscribers, yet within three months I’d managed to double that number.) I remembered my article when I read the article by

Sean Dietrich

called Old Guy at the checkout. I thought it would be a nice idea to include one from the archives, inspired as I am by

Rebecca Holden

. Each month she republishes an article under the heading “Old gold”.

London

My lady wife and I visited the Queen Liz Olympic Park recently. Here are some photos. The selfie is one I took in order to use on a flyer if I ever go into politics. I wanted to look dynamic. My slogan will be Freedman: Making a difference. As long as I don’t say what the difference will be, it is sure to be a vote-winner.

Some photos from the Olympic Park, plus a selfie

Modesty is not the same as begrudgement

Recently I read a Note by

Sherman Alexie

in which he wrote:

“In 1992, after my first book was published, a downtown Seattle bookstore hosted me for a signing. I sat at a table in the middle of the store and waited for an hour. And nobody showed. Well, one woman took pity and talked to me for fifteen minutes, but didn’t buy a book. I didn’t sign a single book for anybody during my first public appearance in Seattle. I became an installation art piece titled Shame, Loneliness, and Fear.”

He wrote this in response to a Note by

Cole Haddon

, and goes on to say:

“So, as Cole Haddon writes, quit picking on those writers for celebrating their successes.”

This was quite timely for me, as I’d just unsubscribed from yet another writer who was going on about her amazing success. I don’t begrudge people their success at all – far from it – but after innumerable posts in which the only subjects covered were me, myself and I, it all became a bit much.

I moseyed over to Cole’s Note, and one of the things he said is this:

“When you tell them not to celebrate their accomplishments because you think it’s uncool or crass (such as subscriber counts or their paid subscriber numbers), you’re not being cool or acting on behalf of some old unspoken rule about the arts. You’re being an asshole.”

I responded, and you can read the exchange over on Cole’s Note because I don’t want to divert you away from that. In any case, my response is possibly too long to put in a Note, and it’s something I’ve been meaning to write about anyway.

I, too, have had the kind of experience Sherman talks about. I’ve turned up to give a talk in a hall that can hold 200 people to find an audience of 1. I’ve turned up to give a talk to an audience of potentially 50 people and had precisely none. That time, I was so embarrassed that I hovered around looking to see if anyone would turn up but not wishing to be associated with what I saw as a failure if nobody did. But I’ve been successful, through hard work. As Elvis Pressley sang in Hard Knocks: Nobody never gave nothing to me. That doesn’t mean I feel the need to boast about it, especially to the world at large, to people I don’t even know.

Of course I don’t begrudge others their success. But I’ve met several people who have been riven by jealousy or just nastiness, and I’m afraid that they are definitely English traits, much as I don’t like to generalise.

For example, when I started to become successful as a writer, some people where I worked didn’t even try to conceal their jealousy. After enduring one too many comments like, “What’s in your briefcase? Is that all your money?”, I said, “Yes.” (How else can you answer a stupid question like that?) And then I said, “Instead of sitting on your arse, why don’t you pitch an article to an editor? I’ll even give you the contact details of one. There’s plenty of room for more contributors.”

The main reason I was so annoyed is that, as the writer Jessica Bell once wrote (the article seems to have disappeared), it wasn’t luck, it was bloody hard work. Because while that loser and others like him were sitting in the pub every night, I was in the library researching possible outlets, crafting pitches and writing articles.

Here’s another example. I applied for a Head of Economics job in one of the top schools in London, and received a letter inviting me for an interview. I was thrilled, and raced around to where someone I thought was a friend lived, in order to share the news.

“You won’t get the job”, she said.

“Why not?”

“You’ve just been added to the list to make up the numbers, and so they can tick a box marked ‘Ordinary working class person.’.”

I didn’t get the job, and I think that comment may have been one of the reasons why. After all, it doesn’t do one’s ego much good to be told you’re there to satisfy some objective on an equality plan.

That’s the sort of person who, to use Cole’s term, “punches up”, and he’s right to call them out.

Indeed, one of the things that struck me when I went to America as an adult was how supportive people are. Say to an American, “I’m thinking of starting my own business”, and they’re likely to say, “Wonderful”. Say it to an English person and you’re like to get a response like, “It won’t work”, because of the kind of people I’ve mentioned. Again, I apologise for the sweeping generalisations, but in my experience it’s true more often than not.

So, yes, I do get what Cole said, but begrudging someone else’s success and not wanting to hear a load of self-congratulatory stuff are not the same thing. I think a lot has to do with what the fox in The Little Prince said. If you want me to care, you have to tame me, and in this context, surely, that means that we have to have had a bit more interaction than my being on the receiving end of your bragging.

I would never tell someone to shut up, because I genuinely do think that whatever it is they’ve achieved is wonderful. But having been bombarded for years on Facebook by people showing off their holiday, and on Linkedin and X about how they’re delighted to have won such and such an award and how they’re thrilled to be the keynote speaker at some conference or other and so on ad nauseum, I personally would prefer to have a break from all that here on Substack. That’s why I tend to unsubscribe and mute people. That doesn’t make me an “asshole”, it just means that I’m quiet about my own achievements and think a modicum of modesty in others too wouldn’t come amiss.

Incidentally, I think this typically British attitude is why Spike Milligan’s response on being given a Lifetime Achievement Award is so funny:

Watch it to the end — it’s not long. Apparently, after this he wrote to the then Prince Charles to say, “I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?”.

Sax chronicles

I hope to write an update next week.  This email is already too long.

Articles you may have missed

Here are a few. There are plenty more on the website.

Experiments in style: Mastermind

Dystopian visions: My object all sublime

Letter to Rebecca Holden. It’s her turn to reply to me – tomorrow. So make sure you subscribe to hers so as not to miss it.

Other people’s articles

What’s love got to do with it? On

Good Humor by CK Steefel

.

Beyond Euclid #150.

Beyond Euclid

is an interesting weekly newsletter about science and maths.

When nuclear war came to Sheffield, by

Vicki Lesley

.

Waffle hat, by

Sharron Bassano

.

Videos

There are some brilliant blueswomen around. Here are a couple, for all you headbangers.

More nonsense from Mick Miller:

Finally

One last thing. My course on writing for blogs still has a few places left, and it’s online, you even if you’re on the other side of the world you can still attend. Woohoo! Here are the details:

Writing for blogs

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s offering. Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.