Feeding the Mechanical Cannibal

Friends always seem interested in the types of writing I get asked to do as a freelance writer and always ask me what I’ve been working on.  The short answer to their question is ‘anything and everything’ because there is not a single topic about which you can’t find some information on the internet – and all that information has to written by someone like me.

Every article needs to be informative and as accurate as possible (although I’m only too well aware that is not always the case with everything you read on the World Wide Web).  Needless to say, my knowledge is not encyclopaedic (if it only were, I would be applying as an understudy for the legendary Stephen Fry!) and of course worthwhile articles require painstaking research to give them any commercial value at all.  That, of course, means that I spend most of my day browsing the internet, sifting through the billions of words in search of reliable, verifiable facts.

I have two visions of the internet: one as something vaguely incestuous with interrelated links like a massively extended Eastenders family; and the other like a gigantic mechanical cannibal as it constantly feeds off its own kind, regurgitating the same information to be re-devoured and regurgitated in a slightly different way in order to evade accusations of plagiarism.  There are numerous devices available to check for copyright infringements, but after a few years of writing articles it become easy to trace these back to their source through their sometimes tortuous literary umbilical cords.  I have seen my own material re-created in this way and no longer feel indignant about what at school was once called ‘cheating’ but which has now become standard internet practice.  After all, it’s only words, and the spirit of the internet is to make knowledge accessible, which can only be a good thing.

Still, it does make general article-writing pall after a while.  Thinking up new things to say on a subject becomes more and more difficult as the internet expands at such a fast and mind-boggling rate.  Do we need one more article parroting the same information on this over-burdened super highway?  This is one of the reasons I have moved slightly sideways into editing and am finding this much more satisfying.

Most interesting of all is editing creative work.  With the growing popularity of ebooks, more and more writers are taking advantage of this platform to self-publish.  They say everyone has a book in them and just a quick glance at Amazon’s Kindle store seems to corroborate this urban myth.  However the internet also encourages brutal honesty and readers will write reviews telling you exactly what they think and one thing readers definitely dislike is reading a book with glaring errors of grammar, punctuation, syntax etc.  And this is where I come in.

I feel truly privileged to work with really creative people and help them to realise their ideas by tidying up a well-crafted story so that it flows properly and does not hinder its readers’ enjoyment of the narrative.  With my own aspirations to be a published writer, I can honestly say that this is a dream job – only one step away from enjoying success in my own right (or should I say write?)

Creativity and ambition are infectious too, it seems.  One particular writer for whom I edited an ebook quickly became a very good friend who began to encourage me in my own writing endeavours in a positive and helpful way.  The result was that within a week, thanks entirely to her, I published my first ebook on Kindle and that was a truly thrilling event for me!  It was something I had simply not considered for myself before.  The short blog to follow this will contain brief descriptions and links to both Deb’s debut novel (Bound to the Prince) and my own (The Apple Tree) and I would be equally thrilled if you chose to read either of them, as one shows my editing skills and one my writing.

Tie be, or not tie be - that is the question

Drive through any urban area between three and four pm when the schools are disgorging students faster than the speed of light, and you will notice the radically different ways kids from different schools wear (or sometimes don’t wear) their school ties. This got me wondering whether tie fashions reflect the way students feel about their ties or about their schools.

As a former teacher, I know how important the school uniform is to a school and in most secondary schools, the senior management team will try to ensure that children leave the school premises looking smart. After all they represent the school to the local community. But somewhere between the school gate and the nearest bus stop, that uniform – and the tie in particular – undergoes a radical makeover.

If students resent wearing ties so much, shouldn’t we be listening to them? What real function to ties serve anyway? The blazer colour and badge identify the school perfectly well, so as a means of advertising the school the tie is pretty well redundant. The majority of students leaving school will probably only wear a tie on very rare occasions. For boys, these will be their first interview, their wedding and perhaps if attending a funeral. But what about the girls? Unless they join the forces, they will probably never again wear a tie in their lives. So why inflict this unwanted accessory on them for eleven of their most formative years?

I began noticing ties more and more over the last few weeks – or perhaps I should say I began noticing their absence. On a trip to London during the rush hour, I noticed the majority of commuters were men and in my carriage only a small percentage were wearing ties. On the TV, whilst Tim Henman seemed to sport his tie with pride, another famous commentator, Boris Becker, looked far more relaxed without one; and on Question Time, last week, I noticed Hugh Grant was the only male panellist not to wear a tie – but that certainly had no adverse effect his eloquence, wit and credibility. The audience was solidly behind him (and I only noticed one tie amongst them). Conversely, Stephen Fry was the only tie-wearing member of the all-male team on QI and while his tie may have looked like an esplanade of multi-coloured pebbles snaking a beach of fuchsia-tinted sand, it definitely did not dim his dazzling repartee.

Nevertheless, it seems being on TV (even the BBC) is no longer up there with weddings and funerals as meriting formal attire. Is this a silent rebellion against the noose-like symbol of subservience to one’s company? Are ties gradually disappearing in the same way as cuff links which might be seen as jewels in the manacles of servitude?

Politicians, when they do wear them, seem to pick them as an afterthought to bring out the colour their rosettes when they are out and about, slumming it with Joe or Jo public; whilst in hospitals they are no longer considered de rigueur by the medical profession.

So why do men wear ties? And what’s more, why do women seem to get so much pleasure out of choosing and buying them for their men? Are ties really smart attire, or are they simply outdated throwbacks to some sort of institutionalised servitude, which women, in some sinister fashion, endorse?