Typos

I've started studying my typos, not for evidence of diminished brain function, but for how distracting the current cold and dark is.

Writing has always been difficult and one area of literary criticism that most amuses me is the way literary historians work. They scrutinise revisions and rewrites as if they had some other worldly significance. Usually they can be taken as evidence that the writer had a friend drop by for a visit or that they had temporarily stopped thinking because they found the task in hand boring.

I know that in a long body of work, when the writer has been showered with acclaim, how they approach the craft comes under well earned scrutiny. Leitmotivs, evidence of emotional changes as can be traced in handwriting, introduction of new words... it goes on indefinitely as I learned at a tortuous lecture in Trinity College once.
I'll fix the confusion at the end of the last post in time, if ever.

Europe can be such a bore... (And in this case a typing course might get skills better honed.)

Productivity

Thanks to a conversation in a chat room on the subject of "work" I'm tempted to think more about how the workplace was a place of boredome and stress in the past and how it curtailed productivity and was sometimes a cause of illness.

This is not some fantasy, as I worked as a teacher for several years and one way of getting every airborne bug known is to be in an overcrowded, overheated space in winter with a group. I tend to keep the temperature in our house quite cool, mostly because the much praised insulation systems now available are not installed and I'm not in a hurry to spend a lot more money just to save putting on an extra jumper. Also, heat breeds bugs.

Of course I was very pleased to be offered work in the past, as it meant survival. But when I look at life today compared with all the activity spent placating taskmasters and equally bored employers I wonder I did it for so long.

This is at odds with the experience of many of my generation. People who are approaching retirement are, to my surprise, apprehensive of change and wonder how to fill time. Also, those who have reached a position where status is quite high are faced with a sense of loss. I had a feeling that I would just wait round for my friends to retire as well and things would go on as before. However, our lives have taken such different directions that I find that the boredome of the workplace, though absent in reality, seems to come along with some of them, like a shadow they cannot shake off.

I remember laughing when Charles Lamb admitted that he spent so long at his desk the wood had entered into his soul. It seems less amusing now.

Writing for money is a chore, but a good training. Writing for pleasure is so much more fun.

Rev the Motors, It's Back to School Time

Old habits...
I still approach Autumn with a sense of excitement as I sharpen my virtual pencils and lay out a simple curriculum for the year to come. Since I left college almost forty years ago, it still amuses me to find that I instinctively line up books as if they were to be analysed for essay writing, or ... worse ... for discussion in seminars where everybody got a bit hot and bothered about meaning, syntax and their place within the literary canon.

Anyways, I have been told that a copy of "Down These Green Streets", orchestrated by the top crime and noir writers of my generation, awaits in the local library.

At last... a tome I can get my teeth into...
Or, for the purists... into which I can get my teeth.

Bad Weather Makes Good Writers

Yesterday was an exceptionally productive time in relation to putting order on internet usage. Bored by the incredibly unwieldy way the hacking problems are being approached, I decided to drop Twitter, Facebook and Boards.ie indefinitely.

This is not a personal foible, just a reminder to myself that popularity always leads to oversubscription. Getting in and out of these systems is now awkward and time consuming and the systems that are going to succeed for me will have to be efficient and speedy.

I'm happy enough to trundle on with Flickr for the time being. The more cheerful atmosphere there is engaging and the photos are a delightful mosaic of our world, most of which I will never see in reality. People actually still exchange tips and ideas there, rather than sit in their own little universe alone.

This is purely one individual's choice and does not cast any criticism on the very successful names that are now gathering many new users daily. In an emergency, tweeting for help might be a good strategy, though calling on one's neighbour is still the best way to deal with a problem efficiently.

The numbing effect of the televised investigation into media practice was very helpful in revealing the problems that anybody choosing to work in that area will face. I had never heard of "willful blindness" and shall now avoid any situation that may bring an attack of such a strange condition on. In a nutshell, it seems to mean that a person is guilty of not knowing something that they should know. Manuel in "Fawlty Towers" comes to mind.

Having been bludgeoned with Knowledge and Truth for hours, I return happily to Blogger and shall continue a while more, hopefully.

Also, finding yesterday's post even looked dull, I peppered it with some needless commas at the time, as decoration rather than for meaning.

Just goes to show what living in a cold damp climate does for writing. There's not much else to do...

"Writing only leads to more writing"

My favourite (among many) writer, Colette, seems to have put her finger on the problem. You send an email... an answer comes back... the blasted things breed like rabbits... more writing, explanations, congratulations, counter-congratulations, mob hugs, Twitter campaigns. There's no end to the blabbering.

A friend recently told me of a web site that had over a million hits. I was horrified. That would crash the system, I felt. My idea of success to have nothing in my in-box and a gentle jog-trot of comments back and forth among an increasing number of friendly bloggers.

So far, this has been achieved.

Academics Unite

During an idle moment this morning
I looked at the Extramural Classes
being offered by Trinity College.

Maybe next year...

All my friends seemed to have been innoculated
with a writing bug at birth.

They have produced books, pamphlets,
theses, "belles lettres", manuals
and various specialist articles
on everything from herbs to
multi-lingualism over the years.

Long may it continue...

Voyage Into the Unknown

Well, let's put it this way, having read about all the confusion
caused by missed bits in computer programming I'll be staying
with the more secure areas of photography for some time to come.
My ethical problems in relation to this new technology are almost
on the verge of being simple-minded.
Living in a small city, I tend to have great qualms about uploading
photos of people on the street, in case they may not like it.

These are paltry concerns when compared to the life and death
realities that many computer professionals face daily.

"Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility"

presents the alarming proposition that cause and effect
are no longer predictable, once computers are involved.

Far from causing fear, this idea has opened up a vast
area of curiosity which should keep my Winter reading very
lively indeed.

But the prospect of writing code takes on a
link to social responsibility that may
prove a burden?