Specifically for Alfster and SoRB among others – you know who you are

Here’s an atheist meme I picked up on Adopt-An-Atheist  who credits The Friendly Atheist Site.  I’ve done it more because I’m interested in how others will reply than because I think you give a flying-meatball about my beliefs.  But here, for the little it’s worth is 

The Atheist Quiz

Have you ever…

1. Participated in the Blasphemy Challenge? - No – but one of my favourite jokes has the punchline – “Are you kidding….?  I went there 2000 years ago, got some bird pregnant and they’re still talking about it!”  If that’s not denial of the holy spirit, what is?  My big sis said that the sin against the holy ghost is usually thought to be bestiality, but I’m not sure how they work that  out.  I’ve not notched that one up either.
2. Met at least one of the “Four Horsemen” (Richard Dawkins,Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris) in person? - No – but I did go to hear Richard Dawkins speak when he was plugging was “Unweaving the Rainbow”.
3. Created an atheist blog? - Well it’s a blog and I’m an atheist…
4. Used the Flying Spaghetti Monster in a religious debate with someone? - No.  I’m an atheist not an evangelist.   I don’t care what you believe so long as you don’t care what I believe.
5. Been offended when someone called you an agnostic? - Impossible to say.
6. Been unable to watch Growing Pains reruns because of Kirk Cameron? - Huh?
7. Own more Bibles than most Christians you know? - Just the one, I think.  Maybe two.   Dunno.
8. Have at least one Bible with your personal annotations regarding contradictions, disturbing parts, etc? - Puh-lease.  I have only one life.  Why would I spend precious time trying to prove it?
9. Have come out as an atheist to your family? - Dunno.  Probably not.  It’s a belief-system not a lifestyle.
10. Attended a campus or off-campus atheist gathering? - Er.  Why would I do that?
11. Are a member of an organized atheist/Humanist/etc. organization? – Surprisingly, yes, I’ve signed up to the BHA.
12. Had a Humanist wedding ceremony? - No.  But I’m thinking of becoming someone who can officiate at humanist funerals.  Not a thing to do lightly, so I’m mulling it over.
13. Donated money to an atheist organization? - Yes, the atheist bus campaign and the BHA.  
14. Have a bookshelf dedicated solely to Richard Dawkins? – No, but I do have a chair dedicated solely to … oh, I can’t be bothered.  Dawkins is eye-wateringly good on genetics, but I dislike polemics.  
15. Lost the friendship of someone you know because of your non-theism? – I doubt it.  I do believe very strongly we should all be allowed to go to the devil our own way.
16. Tried to argue or have a discussion with someone who stopped you on the street to proselytize? – No.  Why bother?  
17. Had to hide your atheist beliefs on a first date because you didn’t want to scare him/her away? - No.  I don’t foam at the mouth.
18. Own a stockpile of atheist paraphernalia (bumper stickers, buttons, shirts, etc)? – No.  Or any other kind for that matter.
19. Attended a protest that involved religion? - No
20. Attended an atheist conference? - No
21. Subscribe to Pat Condell’s YouTube channel? – Who?
22. Started an atheist group in your area or school? - No
23. Successfully “de-converted” someone to atheism? - I doubt it. 
24. Have already made plans to donate your body to science after you die? - No.  I’ve arranged to have my ashes packed into fireworks and set off at my wake.
25. Told someone you’re an atheist only because you wanted to see the person’s reaction? – No, I’m not a teenager.
26. Had to think twice before screaming “Oh God!” during sex. Or you said something else in its place? –  Heh heh.  No.  (There has to be a marian joke here, but I can’t work it out).
27. Lost a job because of your atheism? - No.  That would be illegal.
28. Formed a bond with someone specifically because of your mutual atheism (meeting this person at a local gathering or conference doesn’t count)? - I doubt it.  You’d have to ask my friends.
29. Have crossed “In God We Trust” off of — or put a pro-church-state-separation stamp on — dollar bills? - N/A
30. Refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance? - N/A
31. Said “Gesundheit!” (or nothing at all) after someone sneezed because you didn’t want to say “Bless you!”? - No.  And I tend to say “Bless me” rather plaintively after I sneeze.  Pavlov’s got a lot to answer for.
32. Have ever chosen not to clasp your hands together out of fear someone might think you’re praying? - Eh?
33. Have turned on Christian TV because you needed something entertaining to watch? - N-n-no.  Though I have played follow-the-fundy on YouTube.
34. Are a 2nd or 3rd (or more) generation atheist? - My father and great-grandfather were clergymen.  So that’ll be a ‘no’ then.
35. Have “atheism” listed on your Facebook or dating profile — and not a euphemistic variant? - Oh, I don’t know.  I think I don’t list it one way or the other.
36. Attended an atheist’s funeral (i.e. a non-religious service)? - No, but see #12 above.
37. Subscribe to a freethought magazine (e.g. Free Inquiry, Skeptic)? - Only as podcasts.
38. Have been interviewed by a reporter because of your atheism? - No
39. Written a letter-to-the-editor about an issue related to your non-belief in God? - No.   But I did write a chunk of the Wikipedia entry on the atheist bus campaign.
40. Gave a friend or acquaintance a New Atheist book as a gift? – “The Selfish Gene” doesn’t count, presumably.  Call that a “no”.
41. Wear pro-atheist clothing in public? - No.  But then I don’t wear any slogans in public.
42. Have invited Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses into your house specifically because you wanted to argue with them? - No.  One and only precious lifetime.  Not going to spend it arguing about something that doesn’t exist.
43. Have been physically threatened (or beaten up) because you didn’t believe in God? - No.
44. Receive Google Alerts on “atheism” (or variants)? - No.
45. Received fewer Christmas presents than expected because people assumed you didn’t celebrate it? - No.  I actually don’t celebrate it when I’m single, only when I’m in a relationship with someone who does.  I find it bemusing and rather sweet that people give me presents.
46. Visited The Creation Museum or saw Ben Stein’s Expelled just so you could keep tabs on the “enemy”? – No
47. Refuse to tell anyone what your “sign” is… because it doesn’t matter at all? - No.  Confirmation bias and expectations theory have made me an absolutely typical Aries.  Little sheep that I am.  Baa-aaa-aaa.
48. Are on a mailing list for a Christian organization just so you can see what they’re up to?  - Do I look like someone who gives a bleep?
49. Have kept your eyes open while you watched others around you pray? - No.  I still bob to the knees when I sit down in Church.  Pavlov again.  It stops other people chatting to me and lets me focus on why I’m there – wedding, funeral, whatever.
50. Avoid even Unitarian churches because they’re too close to religion for you? - Eh?

And just so you know how you fare, here’s a scale to rank yourself (adapted from Darwin’s Dagger’s suggestions):

0-10: Impressive, but not too far from agnosticism.
11-20: You are, literally, a “New Atheist.” But you now have something to strive for! Go for the full 50!
21-30: You are an atheist, but babies aren’t running away from you. Yet.
31-40: You are the 5th Horseman! Congratulations!
41-50: PZ Myers will now be taking lessons from you.

That’s 5 or so out of 50.  So not a militant then.

A psychologist, a geneticist and a neurologist walk into a bookshop

I am currently reading “Irrationality” – an excellent book in which Stuart Sutherland describes the mechanisms by which we leap to conclusions, confuse and deceive ourselves.

I am deeply amused by the publisher’s cynical use of the techniques that Sutherland describes to promote the book.  Sutherland discusses the halo effect (when we assume a person’s good or bad characteristics apply more widely than they do), and they way we give more credence to authority figures than perhaps we should.  It’s a book about cognitivie processes, right?  So you’d have to be a psychologist to give authorative recommendations, right?  Now, Richard Dawkins is a hero in his own field and Oliver Sacks is another, but how come a geneticist and a neurologist suddenly have expertise in psychology?  It can only be the halo effect and that pesky deference to authority.

These ironies aside, it’s an excellent book and if you think, evaluate evidence or make recommendations for a living then it will keep you awake at night.

In a good way.

Mind the gap

The rapid implosion of an A-Z of retailers this year is unnerving: Adams, Dolcis, MFI, MK One, the Officers Club, Olan Mills, the Pier, Rosebys, Stead and Simpson, USC, Whittards of Chelsea, Woolworths, and what used to be Virgin Megastores but is now apparently  Zavvi.   (These links take you to screenshots of their websites as of 29th December 2008). The case of Zavvi is particularly interesting because it was severely damaged when Woolworths’ wholesale arm could no longer supply it with CDs and DVDs.  

What is different about this retail recession is – if you’ll pardon the pun – the wholesale nature of it.  Each of these failures leaves boarded up premises in hundreds or even thousands of towns.  The shock is palpable when giants of the high street fold, but of course it isn’t necesarily worse than the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of individual local traders going under.  But it is certainly more unnerving.  

The video below shows how Walmart took over the US between 1962 and 2007, but all our retailers have been expanding in similar ways in the last 20 years in the UK.

Imagine those lights going out in reverse order.  No, I don’t want to think about it either.

The Telegraph‘s headline says one in 10 shops will stand empty, but in the text it speculates it could be as much as 15% of retail floor space, and the Times today discusses the different ways that administrators are salvaging something – anything – from the various wreckages.  Me, I wouldn’t want anything to do with a retail business right now.  Online, maybe.  Retail, no.

What is really scary is how much of the boarded up space in high streets, shopping centres and retail parks will never be viable as retail premises again.  When consumer spending finally revives, it’ll be online.    I can see one possible future in which our former market towns pleasant places to live, if wise town planners give planning permission for shops to revert back to dwellings and make residents’ parking safe and cheap.  But there really is nothing you can do with an out of town shopping centre, not even turn it back to the agricultural land it was 15 years ago.  These videos of the Trafford Centre, Bluewater and Lakeside Thurrock from the excellent BBC series Britain from Above hint at the scale of this problem.

I tried googling for images of missing teeth, because that is the obvious metaphor but all I found was endless photos of cute kids, interspersed with ads for dental practices.  Instead, I’ll leave you with a screenshot of Woolworth’s website from the 29th December:

Woolworth's web site - 29 December 2008

And I don’t really have a conclusion.  What conclusion is there?  As Napoleon said, we are a nation of shopkeepers.

The half-life of data

These days we live in a world where information is oddly durable and oddly ephemeral.  In the long run only plastic survives as well as a pottery shard, so our archaeological legacy will mouse mats and promotional mugs.  The ones and zeros you are reading right now will have disappeared long before the last person to leave flicks off the switch.  Even so, online data endures: when I google myself (doesn’t everyone do that?)  I find a 10 year old post in a news group about Terry Pratchett.   

However, data on specific machines is frighteningly fragile.  Recently – and it’s hard for me to admit this in public – I had a data back-up disaster.  To cut this embarrassing story short, I carefully selected all my most precious and pertinant files and … deleted them.  Recovery software helped me restore some things, but the rest were blown  into random bits and bytes.  This included things going back 10 years or so, and a lot of the interim backups.  We are talking data armageddon.

What has been a surprise is that the whole exercise has been something of a data-detox.  It was strangely cleansing to be freed of folders of stuff relating to bad times.   After the initial shock I found that the only things that I really minded are the personal and creative stuff.  Thankfully, the best of the photos are on Picassa and the creative writing came back via the Way Back Machine.  A few weeks on, the only things I mind losing are the soft copies of two of my MSc assignments.  Other than that… not much really.  In fact, other than that, it’s been decidedly liberating.

The obvious lesson, of course, is to store off-site and on other media.

But I wonder if the real lesson is the one about letting go and moving on,  being the person you are now not the person you were then, treading the hard-drive lightly and all that guff.

Which seems a timely thought as one year fades and a new one starts.  So let me wish you a good and happy Christmas and hope that the New Year is a time when we all let go of things best left behind.

What Christmas is really all about

Word clouds fascinate me because they tell you exactly what people are thinking: words are not consciously chosen for the look of it in quite the way that tags and categories are. In this case it seems  Matthew and Luke were thinking about patriarchy, monarchy and infanticide.   I found it interesting if irrelevant, but that’s true of most things I post here,  so here it is.

Whatever your beliefs or as in my case the lack of them, I wish you a peaceful turn of the year and as much prosperity and peace as this fucked-up world can manage in 2009.

Thanks go to wordle.net and biblegateway.com

Yelping about babies and bathwater

Every now and again I back myself into a conceptual corner and sit there yelping in confusion and distress.

I realised very clearly the other day just how subversive feminism actually is. I’m not sure that women can live financially and professionally independent lives without un-weaving society around us. I don’t think we can have our cake and eat it. It’s an unsettling thought – particularly from a position of feminine freedom and privilege.

But feminism is good – right? I mean it’s freedom and self-actualisation isn’t it? How can that be wrong?

But communities are good – right? They’re caring and supportive networks of people reaching out to help each other. When communities fall apart we end up with underclasses and gang warfare and drugs and knives and guns.

Shit! I’m turning into a Daily Mail reader before my very eyes.

I’ve always known communities aren’t necesarily either caring or supportive. There are too many places in the world where you can’t be gay or trans or bi, where you can’t be a woman and educated, where you can’t be poor and ill, where you can’t be an atheist and hold office for me to think for a second that communities are safe places to be. But on the other hand, we are social animals and we do need some glue to hold us together: if you are a round peg, then those round holes and cosy and snug.

What I hadn’t realised is that if you are a woman and you don’t suit the community you are born and raised in, then you will either damage yourself or undermine that community.

I realised this when I had lunch with a friend the other day. The friend is Asian, 30ish, educated, professional and has a strong stream of self-determination in her temperament. So far so westernised. She is also a sincere believer in her religion and a committed member of what she refers to as “my community”. Her religion, her family and her roles as a daughter and aunt are part of her identity. But she doesn’t want to become another one of the submissive women she sees around her, tucked in to an arranged marriage and made bitchy and manipulative by boredom. She wants to be herself within her family, her friends and her religion, and respected for it. It’s like looking back in time to the 50s or the period before the first World War. My friend’s position is very much the same as that of my grandmother’s sister a century or so ago who left home to become an actress: to do that she left her family, any hopes she had of marriage, her friends and the places she knew. These things are more common than not in the West now, and we forget how hard they were.

My friend wants to have her cake and eat it, and I don’t think she can. Communities function best when men work and women don’t (oh, goddess, the Daily Mail) because men bond when they are active and women bond when they talk. This isn’t how it should be, not in a society of human beings where the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy are more or less taken care of. But darwiniansim sucks and it’s an observable fact that communities start to fracture when more than a few of the women work, and communities where the men don’t work fall apart. Social cohesion happens when women share conversation, motherhood and domesticity and men win bread or hunt mightily.

You can see why this thought has left me yelping. Unfortunately we can’t wrap ourselves up in warm value judgements about social justice, ethics and how things should be: this is a matter of wiring.

So women like me, my grandmother’s sister and my Asian friend, who aren’t mothers, who work in predominantly male environments, who have friends of both sexes, who network rather than gossip, we pick away at the glue that holds communities together.

And women like my friend and my grandmother’s sister have to choose between cutting off one part of their identity of suppressing another. Individual western women are luckier: we don’t have such strong and cohesive communities and families to constrain us. But collectively are we worse off?  They are not there to support us either, because we’ve torn them down pay-cheque by pay-cheque and latch-key by latch-key.

Which means that the mad feminists of the 70s who said that the patriarchy were inherently opposed to wimmin’s freedom were right.

The mad feminists AND the Daily Mail?

Shit.

¿eh?

 

Query that

I don’t want this blog to turn in to series of photographs of low flying apostrophes but they do seem to fall out of the sky at me.    This one of course is in the right place, but it still amused me.   ‘Tis the season to be jolly?

99 things a meme can do

A meme shamelessly stolen from the delightful May, who got it from Dr Spouse.  Bold is for have done, italics for would like to do.

1. Started my own blog - Er, you’re reading it.  I’ve also started one in my own name on the wonderweb and one in my own name at work.  Which is why I’m posting here so much less often and so many of the posts are memes.
2. Slept under the stars – Don’t think so.  In tents and barns and things, but not under the stars.
3. Played in a band – Be glad, be very glad that I haven’t.
4. Visited Hawaii – No.  I do like islands, but prefer them in more northerly climes.  Shetland.  Orkney.  The occasional Hebridee.
5. Watched a meteor shower - Surprisingly, no.  Watched FOR meteor showers, yes.
6. Given more than I can afford to charity – No.  Yes.  The Atheist Bus, since you ask.
7. Been to Disneyland/world – In no circumstances.
8. Climbed a mountain – What counts as a mountain?  Technically yes, in that I’ve progressed vertically under my own propulsion above 1000′ but actually no.
9. Held a praying mantis – No.  Tarantulas and snakes yes.  Mantises, not yet.
10. Sung a solo – See 3 above.
11. Bungee jumped – Absolutely not.  Far too fond of my spine. 
12. Visited Paris – Worked there, but not done the tourist thing.  It’s a town.  Don’t like towns.
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea – Yes.  I watched the Newhaven ferry racing the lightning strikes into harbour.  Fun.
14. Taught myself an art from scratch – May mentioned poetry here, so I think I will too.
15. Adopted a child – No.
16. Had food poisoning – No.  
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty – It’s in America.  It’s in a city.  It’s in an American City.  So that’ll be a No then.
18. Grown my own vegetables – Yes, not many and not successfully, but yes.
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France – No.  Paris.  Cities.  No.
20. Slept on an overnight train – Yes, on the train up to the Ice Hotel in Sweden, and incredibly exciting trips to Scotland and back when I was a wee snippet of a blogling.
21. Had a pillow fight – Yep. Sisters, brothers, boarding school.  
22. Hitchhiked – No. 
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill – No.  Not capable of the necessary lies.  
24. Built a snow fort – Surprisingly, no.
25. Held a lamb – Probably.  But my grandma used to keep goats, and I’ve certainly held and fed kids.  They are wildly enthusiastic for food and their tails rotate like helicopter blades.  Enchanting, even after decades.
26. Gone skinny dipping – Yes.
27. Run a marathon – No.
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice – No, though Venice is on my long-list of places to go.
29. Seen a total eclipse – Twice.  Or been there while they were happening behind clouds, anyway.  Cornwall in 1999 and Ceduna in 2002.  Hope to go to Cairns in 2012 if I can get the cash together.
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset - More times than you can shake a stick at.  I was born on the Cotswold escarpment with views westwards over the Severn estuary into Wales and beyond.  In the winter the sun would set early and to the right, in the summer, it would set late and to the left.  It’s given me a need to live with distant horizons ever since.  My current horizon is a cozy mile away.  I like air.
31. Hit a home run – No
32. Been on a cruise – No
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person – No.  
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors - I was born in the birthplace of my ancestors – or in the same house that my grandmother was born in, anyway.
35. Seen an Amish community – No
36. Taught myself a new language – No
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied – Yes.  It was nice while it lasted, and it’s left me with a sense of deep gratitude that I can pay my bills even if I cannot afford frivolities. 
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person – Yes.  Disturbing, like something designed by MC Escher.  But smaller than you’d expect.  
39. Gone rock climbing – No, just sea-side stuff as a child.
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David – Yes. And the waiter at one of the nearby restaurants was a dead ringer; those Etruscan genes are strong.
41. Sung karaoke – See 3 above.
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt – No.
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant – No.
44. Visited Africa – No.  
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight – Probably.  I’ve seen a lot of moonlight and I’ve walked on a fair few beeches.  And as I’ve mentioned recently (was it here?) a favourite activity is driving by moonlight with the lights off.  The moon must be high and at the correct angle to slightly damp straight lanes.  Oh, and I turned my lights off once on the M50, but it was Christmas Evening and there was no one, but No One but No One there apart from me.
46. Been transported in an ambulance – No.
47. Had my portrait painted – No.
48. Gone deep sea fishing – No
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person – No.
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris – See 12.
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling – Yes, in Trinidad, or was it Tobago, visiting my sister.
52. Kissed in the rain – Yes.  Snogged like a cheap movie in the Tottenham Court Road in one of those downpours where the sky simply spills itself onto the ground below like a torn tarpaulin.  We even had a begger come up and say “you make a lovurr-ly couple”.  That was the sum of our romantic encounter, but hey.
53. Played in the mud – That is what mud was for when I was little.
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre – No.
55. Been in a movie – Oh, surprisingly, Yes.  Well, a made for tv special.  They filmed Cider with Rosie in our part of the Cotswolds and recruited yokels to turn up at the village fete.  Enormous fun.
56. Visited the Great Wall of China – Yes.  
57.  Started a business – Yes.  And ran it for 8 years.    I had employees and everything.
58. Taken a martial arts class – Tai Chi in Glasgow really should count: none of that “imagine a ball of shining light” crap.  This was “Ye’ve got hiss elbow in one hand and hiss rist in th’other”.
59. Visited Russia – No
60. Served at a soup kitchen – No.
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies – No. 
62. Gone whale watching – No.
63. Got flowers for no reason – For myself, every week in the summer.  For others, whenever it seems good.  
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma – I have been turned down on five separate occasions for five separate reasons.  (Had a cold too recently, had acupuncture, they wanted to go home, just come back from abroad, not had enough breakfast).  There’s only so much rejection a girl can take so after that I thought “fuck this for a game of soldiers” and kept my blood to myself.  
65. Gone sky diving – Absolutely not.
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp – No.  I should have done and I could have done, I could have gone to Dachau when I worked in Munich and I knowingly and consciously bottled out.
67. Bounced a check – Not that I can remember.
68. Flown in a helicopter – Yes.  Took a helicopter flight with my Big Bro over the 12 Apostles in Australia.  Here.  See.  Look at the nice photies.  Oh, and I read that as “Flown a helicopter” to which the answer is no, but I did stop learning to fly because I enjoyed spinning the plane too much.  I realised that here was a sport that could kill me.  And a friend let me have a go in one of the flight simulators at Heathrow, so I’ve landed a 737 there, in theory at least.  It wasn’t a bad landing but the best Best BEST bit was destroying Terminal 3 by taxi-ing through it.  Deep joy.
     





69. Saved a favorite childhood toy – Yep.  Big Ted is sitting on the wool box upstairs.
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial – No.
71. Eaten caviar - Not sure.  You’re never entirely sure if it’s yer-actual caviar at these things or not.
72. Pieced a quilt – No.
73. Stood in Times Square – No.
74. Toured the Everglades – No. 
75. Been fired from a job – No. Though I’ve been ‘let go’ a couple of times.  And that is most certainly a possibility again.
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London – No.
77. Broken a bone – Not a one.
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle – Yes.  
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person – No. The best thing I can do here is quote May: “Have not been to States. Have you seen the Giant’s Causeway? Helvellyn? The Kyles of Bute? Trafalgar Square? Lavenham? Edinburgh Castle? The walls of York? Wells Cathedral? No? Why ever not?”
80. Published a book – No.
81. Visited the Vatican – No.
82. Bought a brand new car – No.  Though I’ve had some rather nice second hand ones.  
83. Walked in Jerusalem – No.
84. Had my picture in the newspaper – Yes.  
85. Read the entire Bible – No.  But I bet I know it better than you do.
86. Visited the White House – See 79.
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating – Yes.  Rabbits.  We used to pick ‘em off with a .22 with a silencer and telescopic sights.  Hard to imagine just how illegal that would be these days.
88. Had chickenpox -  Yep.  I only have one scar, on my sacrum.  Impressive self-control that.  I picked it up aged 17 from the nasty little boys in the prep-school were I was undermatroning at the time.
89. Saved someone’s life – No.
90. Sat on a jury – No – but would be fascinated to do so.
91. Met someone famous – Arnie, once, in a tiny airfield in the middle of the Arizona desert.  Yes, I have been to the US, but not much and not far and not for long.
92. Joined a book club – Yes.
93. Lost a loved one – Yes. 
94. Had a baby – No. 
95. Seen the Alamo in person – No.
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake – No.
97. Been involved in a law suit – No.
98. Owned a cell phone – Errr… yes. Had the same number since 1990.  
99. Been stung by a bee – Yes.

More apostrophising

This one is beyond comment.  It’s outside one of the buildings where I work.  Good, i’n’ it? 

More on apostrophes here.

Type before you think

I’m losing the ability to write. Not the ability to type. Ho no. Just the ability to sit down with a blank sheet of paper, a pen and some ideas and write out a clean coherent argument. PowerPoint broke the other day so I used a piece of paper to draft up the bullet points the slides I was working on.  Three pieces of paper later I had arrows all over the place. I didn’t make any headway until the help desk had helped and PowerPoint was up and running again.

Writing logically is hard. When I started my MSc we had an afternoon’s lectures and exercises based on Minto’s Pyramid Principle. It’s a powerful way to communicate and it’s radically changed how I write and to some extent how I speak. What I took from that afternoon was to start with the punchline and then fill in the details. This is how good news reports should be written – though heaven knows all to often they aren’t. It is also how I was taught to write.

Ideally, someone reading the first sentence of every paragraph should have a summary right there in front of them. A mix between a precis and an acrostic, if you will. My history teacher taught me how to do that by making us put a five or six point essay plan at the top of each piece of homework. It takes a lot of effort though. You actually have to think before you write. Um. Make that sentence: “You actually have to think”.

The more logically we think, the harder it is to write simple and accessible prose because  we tend to start with cause and move on to effect. But this is not the best way to take the information in. For most people the best way to take an idea in is to start with the big picture and then fill in the details. Tabloid editors know this and they have mastered the art of grabbing our attention.

• The tabloids and the headlines that say it all
• Greatest Tabloid Headlines
• Loads of pun – best tabloid headlines to make you smile

One interesting effect of putting the meat of every paragraph into its first sentence is that a lot of the “essential explanation” turns out to be padding and guff. Pushing the important bit to the front of every paragraph means that what you write can seem abrupt or rude. But boy is it lucid.

So writing simple clear prose is hard in the first place, but the software is seductively helpful. The Outline views in Word and in PowerPoint help you to do what my history teacher taught me; to structure your piece of writing first and then to put in the detail afterwards.

Outline View in MS Word

I was really rather rattled to discover just how hard I found it to do the same thing on a sheet of paper.