headlessness blog

Words deployed in recent games of Words with Friends I've played, listed here as an aide-memoire:

Rickey. Guar. Lazied. Abas. Vertu. Carrotin. Rho. Jow. Tret. Qua. Zee. Curia. Aha. Suq. Alts. Si. Rin. Ut. Ef. Hollo. Qaid.

It's the ultra-a.m. of Thursday (though actually, it's fast becoming a respectable getting up time) and I've been awake for some time due to a tiny nightmare. A stranger was in my home, playing my xbox, and they'd tilted the television to a slightly different angle. I've got the feeling that actually I'm worrying about an unresolved work situation. Better sort it out, otherwise tonight the stranger's going to be fiddling with cables at the back and changing resolutions and things.

I went to the library yesterday to take out a poetry book. I prefer multi-poet anthologies rather than reading one person's work in bulk: I think it makes it easier to appreciate a particular poem when its likely to be dissimilar to the previous one you've read. I chose one of the anthologies of poems that have been displayed on the London Underground.

That Open University poetry course I did was good. It taught me things about poetry I didn't know. I wonder if I took it as a response to years of writing emails and specifications on technical stuff that you sort of have to write as plainly as clearly as possible. I think I worry that my brain has set into a sort of concrete cube incapable of meaningful expression. And I was supposed to be good at the creative stuff at school. Maybe it's a response to that.

There's a cheap little pocket book I've taken to scratching the beginnings of poems into. They're  crap, obviously. I have no idea what my style is. They tend to be about people more than anything else.

Words with paranoia.

Curious shadows that could never be in this Santander ad.

On Thursday, my iPhone crashed while shutting down (or starting back up). Here are some things I did as a result that I haven't done in ages, if at all:

1. Use a telephone box. It was raining and there was a puddle inside. I had a phonebox experience.
2. Telephone a number from memory. There are only five of these.
3. Use an address book. You know: a real one. It wasn't mine but belonged to the person on the end of one of the five telephone numbers I know, and strictly speaking they used it at my request, but I think it still counts because I was reliant upon it.
4. Visit an internet cafe. This was mortifying, but unavoidable.
5. Go in one of those dodgy-looking unlock-your-phone shops. This was just to see if they knew how to force my phone off. Apparently it needed a software update which costs £35. I laughed at this because I knew it didn't, so they offered to update it for £15, which was nearly as amusing. They were about to offer to do it for £5 but I finally managed to communicate that that wasn't what I wanted.

It's almost worth carrying around a spare mobile phone to avoid all this sort of rubbish. Except address books. I'm sold on those.

I like offal. Always have. I'm not sure the British needed educating as to its many virtues, as the circle of celebrity chefs seem to make out, but it's probably a good thing that we now know more and better ways to cook livers, hearts, tongues and what have you. Thing is, if these animal appurtenances are cheaper than prime cuts, why do dishes containing them cost as much in restaurants? The same is true for the plentiful fish with undeserved unglamorous reputations, like herring and the various mackerel. TV chefs insist these are every bit as tasty as the slightly harder to catch but often very similar cousins -- and I think they're right. But they're only cheaper in the fishmonger, not in any of the restaurants I seem to go in -- which isn't many, but I've been slowly accumulating anecdotal evidence for some time. Obviously they can charge what they like for these things, but it's a bit annoying if on the other hand we're told how wonderfully cheap they are, and how wonderfully patronisingly middle class we must be to know to buy them. "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data" Sherlock Holmes said. But I'm doing it anyway.

Monday. Love-hate relationship with blogging continues. Ommwriter on a big screen is nice, but not when other people are around: it's like inviting someone to peer into your head with a magnifying glass. On a whim I googled "Ommwriter Windows" to see if people were discussing alternatives I could install on my netbook. I tried a new, highly visible alternative "inspired by Ommwriter". And Saw, judging by the weird noises it made when I launched it. Created my own Windows-alternative to Ommwriter. I call it Darkroom-and-Brian-Eno-on-Spotify. Wrote a lengthy blog post on my experiences doing an Open University degree, which seemed like something worth sharing. When I read it back it was just an opinionated pile of wank. Instead I dug out my notebook and wrote a poem about a cameraman on one of the in-the-nine-hundreds adult chat channels. S has gone to bed. Wrote this on Ommwrite and a big screen.

I'm always on the lookout for crossover between the worlds of fairy tale and buildings engineering. This morning I happened upon one such example, at the beginning of the third chapter of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell:

A great old church in the depths of winter is a discouraging place at the best of times; the cold of a hundred winters seems to have been preserved in its stones and to seep out of them.

As good a summary of the principle of thermal mass as I have come across in fantasy fiction. When I come across another nine hundred and ninety-nine examples my compendium will be complete.

Russell Davies has been saying and linking to thought-provoking things on the subject of criticism. Something I've been pondering for years is whether a negative opinion on a thing is ever worth sharing, and if so, under what circumstances. Russell linked to a blog post in which Brenda Ueland's succinct case against criticism is quoted:

"I hate [criticism] because of the potentially shining, gentle, gifted people of all ages,that it snuffs out every year. It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones to get killed off. It is the brutal egotists that survive."

Now despite the fact that I'm about to take issue with a few of the specifics of this argument, its main thrust is absolutely worth bearing in mind before you launch into a criticism of something, because if the person whose work you're criticising reads it, it's probably going to hurt their feelings. So, done wrong, it's not worth doing. Done right, though, I don't think it's quite the murderous practice Ueland makes out, and I think it serves a valuable purpose.

I know that criticism hurts. But criticism is free feedback and feedback is valuable. Criticism, unless handled very badly, is not bullying -- and while outright bullying has soul-destroying potential, mere criticism, I think, does not. Criticism may be particularly hard to take if it is overwhelmingly negative, and a chorus of voices reinforce each other, but if that's the case it's quite likely that the critics have a point that the creator would be wise to listen to. Sensitive people are not unable to learn, listen to feedback and improve. In one of Stephen King's essays on writing, he gives some useful tips on evaluating feedback, and though he's talking about invited feedback, I'm not so sure that's a meaningful distinction.

And criticism is definitely valid when someone is asking you for money in exchange for something. Dishing out criticism to the local haikuist putting their poetry online for free probably makes one an unmitigated ass, but criticising the latest Hollywood blockbuster is a different story. If there are few shining and gentle people directing mainstream films, it's at least plausible that they were "killed off" by bullying suited execs rather than vile press critics.

Back when Mark Kermode's podcast used to be about films, I'd make a point of listening to help inform what we might see on our regular weekly cinema trip. If you're able to find a critic whose taste falls somewhat into line with yours, that's quite simply financially expedient: that's as true of friends with blogs as it is professional critics. We live in a world that is, er, highly economic, and in such an environment, criticism of anything which can be obtained for cash is not only valid, it's necessary. Perhaps more interestingly, Kermode has frequently defended criticism by pointing out that he does not think that he could do a better job of making films than any of the directors whose films he has reviewed. His reviews carry more weight precisely because he isn't arguing that he could do better.

Charlie Brooker is an example Russell is right to raise as being problematic. I don't go to many conferences, and haven't heard any people getting sweary at QAs, but I think it's fair to say I've noticed his influence in writing on the web. I agree with Russell that Brooker's belligerent style is only effective in the hands of a skilled writer.

In particular, Brooker is a master of three devices (that I've noticed) that he employs regularly in his work: swearing, sarcasm and extending an observation or hypothesis to ridiculous extents -- a sort of deliberate use of reductio ad absurdum to comic effect. The problem is that the first two are very easy to do but very hard to do well, and the latter -- which is often what elevates a Brooker column to something out of the ordinary -- is extremely hard to do full stop. But though Brooker is making insightful points, he's also, usually, despite the apparent extremity of his writing, taking a remarkably moderate, sensible point of view on an issue. What's more, he rarely delves into his most destructive arsenal for the criticism of other people's work -- especially creative work.

Having said all that, I'm going to defend the imitators for a moment. Unless they've misguidedly concluded that people like Charlie Brooker have made it okay to be rude to people, which they haven't, I am all for a bit of sarcasm and swearing if people are making a deliberate effort to make their writing more accessible and entertaining. There's a fine line between imitating something and merely being influenced by it. I'm interested in trying to be funny, and though I generally fail at it, I still like to try. There are a relatively few ways to create humour, and Brooker doesn't have the monopoly on swearing or sarcasm in print or on the web. He certainly didn't invent them (not that anyone is claiming otherwise). The web is democratic and writing is hard: if people are imitating Brooker, or anyone else, then at least they're conscious of style, and there is hope that they will improve, move on, or even find their own voice.

Another wee phenomenon I've noticed online is people defending moaning because it's in their nature. That may be. It's in my nature too, and though I do succumb to it, (and more often than I'd like), I'm pretty determined in my view that it's a negative character trait and something generally to try to avoid. It's certainly not something to wallow in or celebrate.

So I think what I'm saying is that everyone is entitled to be a critic -- they don't have to be good at it, or entertaining (which is Kermode's other defence of criticism that I'm less comfortable with) -- so long as they are trying to be insightful, and thinking hard about what they're criticising and why. People's feelings are potentially in play and so it should be entered into with a sense of responsibility, even if -- no, especially if -- you're trying to be entertaining at the same time.

That covers most of my thoughts on the subject at the moment, but if I gave the impression my mind was made up on the issue, I've mislead you. It's probably one of those things people should constantly re-evaluate.

Back. With a name and url change a bit more consistent with my other web bits and pieces. I think that, after 18 months of tinkering, false starts, indecision and pondering, I'm starting to get a grip.