The nature of matter

In my slim experience the nature of matter is that everything conceivable and in evidence has consciousness. (Bernard Levin, eat your joyous heart out, the jokes are still massive the music fine; you so loved a parenthesis!)

But, to the thesis:

I’m writing this prompted by a discussion which is just about concurrent, as I write, on BBC Radio 4 (left to play downstairs presently) which discusses the future algorithmic potential and ‘symbiosis’ (a truly wonderful concept in all art and hap) of artificial intelligence.

The end of the discussion was lighthearted and touched upon the dimension that apparently marks human consciousness from that of future-perfect (possibly future-proofed?) artificial intelligence. Spirituality.

To me, as a man of deep beliefs, and a person who seems to be incapable of spotting evil activities, apart from the work of a number of banks (which mutually and ineffably respond to times they cannot master or control), artificial intelligence is utterly amazing and marvellous.

It is like the floret that some clever cleaning ladies will leave to look like a white rose on the head of an awaiting lavatory roll in a spotless bathroom. It might be likened more appropriately to other things too. But as in the image of man in his self-reflexive mirror, it is just one more moment in the context of its perception. And just as ego ergo ego, each such man, moment or thing is different and depends on its circumstances (I hope that women will enjoy the reference to a man as it!).

Time presses so I'll take a little imaginary leap.

In my opinion, if we use words too much such as ‘deliverables’ and ‘solutions’ and work upon these in a business-like way, all we are really doing is blindly throwing out our anchors into the mud, forgetting or unaware that the real breath and the beauty of the world and all of us (defaultedly good in our hearts at least) is not only right in front of us in real terms but is endlessly awaiting to entertain.

So once again, I’m content to read The Times Newspaper (dropped for years after Bernard Levin departed on his forward journey) to see what someone somewhere may have thought to have happened in another place, possibly, with the wind blowing in the right direction. 

Thankfully some of the servant rocks of our most amazing planet hold true however they let the light dance within them.

All silly or friendly comments truly welcome.

Hmmmm…..

Feeling in good fettle the other day at a client meeting, following six-months or so of slow admin and other work necessary to gain the trust of the client, I rather bounced into the meeting room with three highly intelligent and purposeful people and put myself in serious ‘self-check’ mode.

When a lot appears to be at stake in ordinary cash-flow terms, the last thing any of us want to do as writers and communications consultants is to blow the deal by blowing too hard on one’s own trumpet.

One has to remember that in the six-month period of negotiating one’s position, some measure of one’s calibre as a useful tool might have already been gauged.

The real purpose of any first meeting therefore – especially when one is unaccompanied by other members of one’s staff (as a freelance I have only myself accountable for my business) – is to sit as still as possible and let the brief unfold a little.

My only way of suffering the enthusiasm that spills forth is to palliate the serious dedication one has for the client, with humour.

As it happens my trumpet somewhat blew its irrepressible self for the moment at about the time of a question posed to me by my client of the order of “What do you think you will contribute?”.

Flashing out of my head came the reply, unchecked but meant as funny in a way: “I’m the brightest man I’ve ever met”. 

Ooops!

Taken out of context this is a pretty peculiar thing to say – there was of course context and I felt very comfortable with my clients at this point.

Yet I still go red in the face thinking of this possibly quite arrogant statement. Thankfully a little reflection helps: such a statement is genuinely funny (at least to me privately) and enlightening in equal parts. For surely, we all are the brightest people we have ever had the pleasure or privilege to meet.

None of us can know the reality of another’s full lives, true intelligence and desire for good outcomes.

These are, I have the faith to say, the default aspirations of all human beings. And perhaps a translation of these virtues might indicate the instinctive modes of all sociable animals. Perhaps they may be read into the life and flows of all flora and fauna – when they are left natural in their own domains.

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Perspective

Without perspective, in all senses of the word, nothing is possible inwardly, outwardly and certainly scientifically. No one can understand you well if you don’t have this essential quality. If you lose perspective, you need to be careful and take stock before your next move.

I think good writing is like this: you as the writer know what you have in mind but if you are without the balance and judgement that permits the flow of your words – as you wish them to flow – you must take stock and put the kettle on. There is, as EM Forster so often reminded us, the problem of muddle - the knot that comes with too much connection and no clarity. 

It's a beleaguering kind of knot that ravels and unravels like a demented self-procreating organ fed with fire and doused with ice. Take the internet as an agent in this confusion. Think how we over-connect as a people and remember too how little light can get through the blocked up cave of our times when we don't remember our hearts and try only to use our minds to think out a way forward. Most endeavours are a tad pissed on by the internet, although they can occasionally be made strong by the good connections that do get through.

Generally, with muddle, the ease that perspective brings can be difficult to attain.

So we have to be careful and watch our feet, letting imagination do the work until the plot and the character come appropriately into view. It helps to take a walk sometimes, rain, shine or whatever – or sneak out for a fag on the pretence of needing one to get a breath of fresh air. This is particularly the case at those times when the family crowds us…just after we’ve sat on a drawing pin or  while we are trying to stifle wind, buttocks clenched, or when we forget to put the dustbins out...or the man from Porlock knocks and....

  

On a personal note, thanks to everyone who leaves a comment and thanks for visiting.

Oh Lord, save us from euphemism!

It seems astonishing but it was actually more than 20 years ago that I wrote an article for The Independent which was fairly savage about certain nasty but popular expressions. One of them was ‘natural wastage’. When I first heard this I was curious; I seriously had no idea to what it referred and I recall being a little shocked to learn that it was intended as a quick way of referring to people who take early retirement at a time when a company is intent on shaving down numbers. So it’s kind of but not quite ‘a forced early retirement’.  

Perhaps the person or committee that came up with this term intended the ‘natural’ element to convey something that is going along happily in the ordinary course of things, and therefore is acceptable. But the idea of ‘wastage’ makes the expression totally repugnant, particularly as regards putting people out of work. Somehow the inventor of this expression either missed a trick or is taking the Michael.

Natural wastage is one of many grubby little euphemisms. Like most euphemisms it sits on the shady side of the street and is used as a means of, at best, lessening the impact of a hard truth and, in most cases, attempting to sterilise the emotional impact of words. But it’s an odd thing to do isn’t it? To use words which seek to muffle meaning? So often, the very attempt at muffling meaning or diverting an emotional reaction will simply draw attention and even augment the very emotion you are seeking to calm or suppress. There is a cold, clinical detachment in ‘natural wastage’ – a sense of job-lot disposal of real human beings – that is not felt at all in the easy equivalent idea of ‘early retirement’, even of ‘forced early retirement’.  

  

One other point about this particular expression and then I’ll stop worrying the bone on the floor any further. Part of the reason for its repugnance is that it is one of a number of macho, semi-militaristic expressions that flooded business language in the late eighties and early nineties. Business people, even number-counters, liked to think of themselves as bold, aggressive fighters bringing home the bacon, doing the deals, hoisting the stuff up the flagpole, bringing each other up to speed. The first Gulf War brought such gems as ‘collateral damage’ meaning the accidental killing of civilians into most people’s living rooms and this and other military terms were a gift to the new business ‘speke’ of that era.

Another one is ‘ethnic cleansing’ – a term that bobbed up at about this time, leaping on to the news pages and into the mouths of broadcasters as they reported on the Bosnian/Serbian conflict in former Yugoslavia at the beginning of the nineties.

I couldn’t believe that people would stoop to use such a term. What on earth is ‘cleansing’ about a process that starts at persecution and ends at cold bloodied murder? I remain amazed that this strangely anodyne term is still used today to describe an activity that so often happens in war-torn countries across the globe.  

Here’s what I said at the end of that article of yesteryear: “Natural wastage is probably as welcome a term to the naturally wasted as ethnic cleansing is to the ethnically cleansed. Let us murder, kill, rid ourselves of, but let us not ethnically cleanse.”

But twenty years later and this proved to be such a fruitless plea. There are some fashions of speaking which just disappear after a brief outing – remember how everyone in business referred to their salaries in terms of ‘k’? But a large number remain. What slightly disturbs me is that so many of those that eventually get bound into the lexicon show our weakest profile.

How to write advertorials

Or perhaps I should say why to write advertorials. Do we need advertorials? Do they work and for that matter how many adverts that we submit to magazines in a sometimes desperate attempt to nudge the awareness of the buying public actually work as they are supposed to? How do we measure this? Too many questions.

Usually it is a matter of trust. Let’s say you are a hard-working independent retailer and you are called by your local town, city or county magazine and told all about the wonderful forthcoming Christmas issue. You are given what appear to be impressive distribution figures so that you imagine countless thousands of people devouring every page and vacuuming all the information you put together about your shop. It’s a little pricey but surely a half-page advert will do wonders for your Christmas trade. You can submit some photos and your logo and the magazine will do the rest, even allowing you to write your own words to accompany the advert – the beloved advertorial.

But caveat emptor! One client of mine has followed through two such conversations and has both times decided to take an advert and also, both times, has asked specifically that she be able to write the advertorial – not the magazine. She then came to me to prepare about 250 words to go with an advert showing off her new Christmas products and promoting her name to the world. In advance of the deadline for submitting the material for the advert, the magazine editor emailed her with a suggested advertorial of their own. It misspelt several things, was poorly punctuated and it seemed to be loosely based on a template selling just about anything in any shop. My client quickly made it clear that she was, as agreed, providing the advertorial, not them and soon afterwards sent them the words I’d written. Subsequently, no proofs arrived for her to check and approve but she was sent a copy of the new issue on the first day of publication. Lo and behold, there before her was an advertorial written by God knows who at the magazine – boldly printed but written badly and about nothing in particular, with all the misspellings and solecisms intact. My client was furious and vowed never to have further dealings with the magazine.

A year went by, the phone rang. A new charming editor talked my client through the dazzling Christmas issue – a nice price was dangled. My client had not forgotten what happened before but nevertheless gave in eventually and booked another ad. I was again contacted to write another 250 words. Oddly enough, as the deadline for submitting the advert approached the magazine sent a reminder with their own poorly penned, misspelt and generic piece of advertorial nonsense appended. My client was very quick to pick up the phone and tell them in no uncertain terms that only the advertorial she sent them must be printed. Again, she sent them the piece of writing she wanted.

Two weeks later the glossy magazine landed on her doorstep and when she opened it – you know what I’m going to say – the ghastly piece of nonsense was there in place of the advertorial she had commissioned from me. This time war was declared. Here was another printed advert that would probably do more harm than good. The editor and editor-in-chief both called and grovelled but the damage was done.

I was going to write about how to write advertorials but I was side-tracked, my only excuse being that this might act as a warning to others to ensure that, since you pay good money for this supposed service, you should damn well get what you have agreed in the deal you have struck.

But as to how to write advertorials, the nub of it is this. Make it interesting and different. Give the piece a bit of personality – perhaps by opening it with a quote from the business owner about something new in the Christmas offer. Employ an angle, or hook just as you would when you tell any story and you’ll find that instead of just saying ‘we sell beautiful scarves’ you’ve already wrapped a tantalising silk scarf round your customer’s neck and you’re towing her to your door.   

How to start writing

You know that the time has come – in actual fact it probably came about three weeks ago – when you really must sit at your computer and write that report, article, content piece for the website, important business letter…

But one of the main reasons for your timidity about doing this, possibly your dread of doing this is, is how to start.

On previous parts of this blog I’ve given advice about the need to marshal your thoughts, take notes, organise material, get prepared, before you sit down to write anything. I won’t repeat any of that here. I want to keep this simple and just say that in my experience there are far too many logical and perfectly acceptable beginnings to reports, business letters and so on to allow your fear of starting to have sway over the process.

My advice is simply this. Once you’ve reasonably focused your ideas and organised your material, just start writing. Start anywhere you like and work towards your theme. Do not try to uber-craft every word or sentence from the outset because nine times out of ten the good stuff, the proper logical direction of your argument, will not appear until at least the second or third paragraph. It’s as if your initial words are like the preparation before the real paintwork begins; they provide a fix and a foundation, an even and clean surface, but they will not be seen when the job is done.

So having written all or a considerable amount of your first draft, look back at your opening and be very critical. Does it lay a half-decent basis for the arguments that follow? Does it grab attention? Are you trying too hard to encompass everything that follows in a few short swift strokes and so confusing the reader?

Be prepared to use the scalpel and if necessary cut all the beginning section and try to forget that you spent considerable time squeezing your brains in its preparation and that some of the sentences are really quite felicitous; what a shame to lose them.

Honestly, this is hard-won advice. I spent years crafting and re-crafting the opening lines and early paragraphs of speeches, presentations, brochure copy, website home pages, reports – you name it – only to return and make the painful incision, dropping all of it to the cutting room floor.

Of course, this hard editing approach is necessary right the way through your work and not just for the beginning section. Read, reread, cut, shape, refine. It will improve the message. I believe in hard editing generally. But in my experience it is usually the beginning that needs the most attention – which is why I am advising you to be easy on yourself when you start. Start anywhere and in due course you’ll realise that you are doing the job you set out to do.  

Only the wealthy dare apply

I’m just back from a couple of days in London where I went to support my partner Rai on an exploration and buying expedition at the Decorex Trade Fair. This is one of several major annual events showing off the great and the good in the interior design sector.

Compared to one or two other fairs I’ve been to for the same purpose, Decorex is what might be called ‘high-end’. That’s to say that for the most part one’s eventual customers have to be extremely well heeled. The fabrics, furniture, lighting, flooring, panelling, wallpaper and accessories on show were generally sumptuous and gorgeous. So much so that there were actually very few items that Rai felt she could order for her shop – although thankfully she was pleased with the few she did encounter – because once you add her own mark-up the price becomes prohibitively high. There are too few people in and around provincial Ludlow who could imagine paying more than £4,000 for a single deckchair or £25,000 for a chandelier, nor even the more accessible £2,000 for a glass vase from Murano – let alone actually shell out for such purchases on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.

On the second day we went to the Chelsea Harbour Design Centre which had its very own show, tying in with Decorex event. The Design Centre oozes urban chic as you would expect. But added to chic and some serious creative flair was an almost chilling note of opulence.

Each beautiful shop in the three beautiful domes housing several storeys of top brand outlets was manned by beautiful, expensive-looking people. I couldn’t help but feel that my frayed collars had been noted in an expert flick of the eye, the smile unchanging.

Some of these shops were deceptively huge. The Armani display was like a many-roomed cave; there was a chocolate-rich darkness in which every prized item was lit ingeniously; a place where even a humble glass paperweight would set you back £350.

Close by, the Clive Christian premises offered an entire show-home featuring a chandeliered and panelled kitchen and a hallway with a large bar plus a bedroom with a walk in wardrobe fit for Gatsby himself. It is easy to feel marginalised in such an environment because the overwhelming theme is super wealth with designs that have travelled a long way beyond tacky into the realms of a fantasy of polished granite, gilding, faux snakeskin and superb craftsmanship. Awaiting each visitor in the inviting hallway was a mysterious golden bag with a gold brochure and gold hardback book of selected Clive Christian interiors. Who could resist?

But while I’d thoroughly enjoyed much of what I’d seen I was left by both Decorex and the Design Centre with a sense of alienation. I had been to see someone else’s world which seemed to be many moons and generations away from reality, even of everyday London life. When Rai and I stepped out of the Decorex show, held at Kensington Palace, to find some lunch, we were at one point approached by old immigrant woman; twisted, tiny and pleading for money, she was in an agony of poverty of a kind no one could alleviate. Oddly enough, her image looms large as the themes of opulent and fabulous design fade.