My favourite mondegreens (misheard lyrics)

It should be a good word for Scrabble except that it doesn’t have any high value letters, but at least it can be a conversation piece to distract your opponent when you add ‘monde’ to their ‘green’ and they say, ‘mondegreen’; what’s that? .

 

A mondegreen is a misheard, misinterpreted or misremembered lyric or phrase, often to comic effect. As a result of near-homophony, the line takes on an entirely new meaning for the listener. Why ‘mondegreen’? The word was coined by US essayist Sylvia Wright for her 1954 piece in Harper’s Magazine, The death of Lady Mondegreen. She wrote:

 

‘When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,

Oh, where hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl o' Moray,

And Lady Mondegreen.’

 

It was not until much later that Ms Wright realised the actual fourth line reads:

And laid him on the green.

 

 

There was no existing term for the phenomenon of the misheard line, so ‘mondegreen’ was born.

 

The expression is usually applied to lines from verse, poetry or lyrics of songs. In this posting I’m going to focus on misheard song lyrics, but I’ll mention in passing one of the most famous examples in literature of a mondegreen that comes from misremembering;  it explains an otherwise weird book title: The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. Well into the novel, the narrator Holden Caulfield hears a little boy wrongly singing the words to Rabbie Burns’ Comin’ Thro’ The Rye as If a body catch a body coming through the rye, instead of Gin a body meet a body. It leads to an optimistic reverie by Caulfield and is memorialised by Salinger in the ‘catchy’ title.

 

My first memory of mondegreens (though I certainly didn’t know what they were called at the time) comes from my childhood mishearing of Christmas carols, and how we entertained ourselves in school or church services singing the ‘altered’ versions. We kids thought we were being smart, original and funny when we privately sang to each other our versions under cover of the adult voices singing the proper words, not realising that our mothers and fathers, and probably our grandparents, had done the same thing at our age. Who has not sung the first line of While Shepherds Watched  as:

 

While shepherds washed their socks by night

 

The full version of the altered first verse is, as I’m sure you’ll recall:

 

While shepherds washed their socks by night

And hung them on the line,

The angel of the lord came down

And said those socks are mine.  

 

It’s amazing how many carols and Christmas songs lend themselves to amusing mishearings. Among my early favourites were:

 

Deck the halls with Buddy Holly

Get dressed ye married gentlemen

We three kings of porridge and tar

 

The tradition goes on even to modern Christmas songs. My daughter recently pointed out to me that the Christmas single by The Waitresses Christmas Wrapping is in fact a greeting to former snooker world champion Terry Griffiths.  You’ll see what I mean if you click below for a blast of the chorus:

 

 

 

Another British former world champion was famously featured in a sort of visual mondegreen on BBC TV’s flagship music show Top of the Pops in October 1982. Dexy’s Midnight Runners came on to sing their hit version of  the Van Morrison song Jackie Wilson said (I’m in heaven when you smile). However, someone in the production team either mistook the name in the chorus or was having a laugh because the picture projected behind the group throughout the song was not the cool black American r&b singer Jackie Wilson, but the portly, lovable Scottish darts player Jocky Wilson. If you need it, here’s the proof:

 

 

Perhaps the most famous pop music mondegreen comes from the Jimi Hendrix classic Purple Haze. Is Jimi singing ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky as the published lyrics suggest, or is it ‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy? You be the judge.

 

 

Not only can we get confused about pop lyrics, but sometimes convincingly so. For years I thought Dusty Springfield was singing:

 

You don’t have to say you love me,

Just because you can.

 

Check out the line below:

 

 

 

Mick Jagger’s vocals in many of the Rolling Stones’ songs lend themselves to plenty of misinterpretation. I defy anyone, without looking up the published lyrics, to make out the full first verse of Get off my cloud. I’ve just this moment had a go, and here’s what I’ve come up with - it all goes wrong for me at the third line:

 

I live on the apartment of the 99th floor of my block.

I sit at home looking out the window, imagining the world has stopped

And in flies a guy that’s all dressed up like a Union Jack

And I’ve walked by and found that I’ve since turned out a flicker good back

I said, hey you....etc.

 

Have a listen and see if you can come up with a more intelligible version:

 

 

I  know I’m not alone in mishearing lyrics. In your own time you might want to check out some of these I’ve heard reported:

 

From Abba’s Dancing Queen:

See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen.

 

From Abba’s Chiquitita:

Take your teeth out, tell me what’s wrong.

 

From Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog:

You ain’t pornographic and you ain’t no friend of mine.

 

From Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights:

It’s me, I’m a tree, I’m a wombat

Oh, so cold at the end of your hole.

 

From Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody:

Sparing his life for his warm sausage tea.

 

From Robert’s Palmer’s Addicted to Love:

Might as well face it, you’re a dick in a glove.

 

From the Ghostbusters title track:

Who you gonna call? Those bastards.

 

This is just a short selection - believe it or not there is a website dedicated to a comprehensive collection of funny misheard pop lyrics. It’s called, appropriately enough, KISSTHISGUY

 

From those early years in the carol service to today I’ve been entertained by mondegreens, but I don’t think I’ve laughed louder than when I watched comedian Peter Kay’s The Tour That Didn’t Tour on Channel 4 recently. Towards the end of the show, Peter demonstrates some of the misheard pop lyrics he has come across. Here’s the clip for your enjoyment - trust me, it is hilarious.

 

If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy Mind my malapropisms.

'Sweet Tooth' by Ian McEwan reviewed ***

 

 

I always expect so much of an Ian McEwan novel that when one slightly disappoints it really disappoints. In truth, I have given three stars out of respect for the author more than for the novel, which I won't be reading again (though I am currenly listening to the recorded serialisation from the BBC's Book at Bedtime).

Plot-wise there are too many false set-ups, starting with the opening sentences: 'My name is Serena Frome (rhymes with plume) and almost forty years ago I was sent on a secret mission for the British security service. I didn't return safely.' Now, I'm no great fan of the spy story, but having been tempted in with such self-advertised promise it was a real let-down to be served porridge as it might be cooked in a 1970s English seaside B&B; porridge which is anyway removed by the landlord before it's eaten, and replaced by another unexciting course. Or to move the metaphor into more familiar territory for the genre, it's like being offered fantastic sex only to find oneself engaged in an unadventurous affair that 'ends' in coitus interruptus.

Serena's 'mission' - to recruit a first-time novelist who will unwittingly accept funding from MI5 who have some vague hope that he will turn out a story that is a) pro-establishment/anti-communist and b) highly successful and influential - is neither gripping nor credible. That the writer Tom Haley, having been thus recruited, goes on to write a novel at apparently breakneck speed that immediately wins a major literary prize and another book within the short space of this narrative that is meant to upend Serena's (and our) expectations is a device too far for this particular reader.

Yet it is not plot but character and tone that left me most dissatisfied. McEwan is usually pitch-perfect. His characters chime with the times and he provides subtle but revealing psychological insights through and of his protagonists. I don't know whether it has anything to do with his choice of a female voice to deliver a first person narrative, but this time I was not convinced. Serena gives us her history articulately but with all the passion of a cv. She records her emotions but somehow is unable to convey them in more than mere words.

I felt no whirl in any of her relationships - with Jeremy, with Tony, with Max or with Tom - despite her professions and her descriptions of their lovemaking. Consequently, none of these characters lived for me. With the exception of Tony, I found it difficult even to get a handle on how old or young they were, relying on contextual evidence as a reminder of what I was meant to imagine. Max is a cardboard career civil servant - his drunken but apparently sincere declaration of love for Serena (a significant development in the story) left me as cold as he is. Tom, according to what Serena tells us, is attractive, desirable and sensuous, but I could only take her word for it - I did not 'feel' Tom at all, which is a major drawback in appreciating the central relationship, the spindle upon which the story is meant to turn.

Essentially, I didn't care enough either about the plot or the relationships to engage fully with this novel. McEwan blows into life several small flames of action, using some of them as a torch to lead us down wrong tunnels, but that merely frustrates, and the one main flame is too weak to create a real conflagration. Of course the story is competently written and there is some of the old McEwan art to admire, but that ain't enough for a modern author of whom (like Tom Haley in the novel) much is expected. This book, like its central characters, lacks real substance and fails to capture heart or mind.


Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape London 2012)

Can words compete with music?

In company with millions of others I have spent much of the late summer indoors despite the warm weather, watching the Olympics and Paralympics unfold in London. I tuned in to the joyful celebrations of the opening and closing ceremonies and felt myself caught up in a swirl of excitement and delight, at one with the happy participants. It struck me how central music is to the spread of fellow-feeling and (yes) love at these times of shared experience. Music is the bond and also the conduit, a channel for expressed emotions and  a carrier of the energy, the electricity that passes between us.

 

Classical music can stir the passion of a crowd  (witness the Last Night of the Proms for example) but in particular it seems to be certain strains of pop music that carry the special infectious gene. As Noel Coward has Amanda say to Elyot in Private Lives: “Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.”

 

It’s hard to tease out quite why. I suppose at the most basic level we seem to respond as humans to beat and rhythm in a way that most animals don’t. There is a binding, a unifying quality to the beat, the throb, the ripple and resonance, the call of the drum, and it must have always been so as there is evidence of group dancing in early cave drawings, and many objects have been unearthed to confirm that our prehistoric ancestors made primitive musical instruments which were mainly percussive.

 

Melody has been with us just about forever too and, being a useful memory aid, has played a huge part in establishing a collective cultural heritage through oral tradition. Songs pass among us more quickly and easily than poems or speeches, and draw us together more effectively. We might gather to watch and listen to plays but we are rarely active participants in purely verbal dramatic performance as we are wherever songs are sung.

 

How important are the words? How much of the ‘potency’ of popular music is in the lyrics? Difficult to say in isolation. Staying with the Olympic events for my example, Danny Boyle’s wonderful opening ceremony featured Ray Davies of the Kinks singing perhaps my all-time favourite pop song, Waterloo Sunset:  

 

“Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station, every Friday night.”

 

I can never listen to that line without seeing the couple (in a monochrome long shot) moving into a gentle embrace, or without feeling their loving, sad intensity and an indefinable sense of loss that seems to be both theirs and  mine. I know everything and nothing about these lovers. I am haunted and fascinated by them. Yet the words of the song, as in this one line, are plain, unadorned; the narrative a mere sketch. It’s the music and the vocal performance that provide poignancy, a feeling of an experience beyond the words, the sense of a life lived that has some connection with yours. Spare though lyrics, music and voice are separately, they act together to evoke something ‘other’ in the listener, like a great painting that somehow causes you to see beyond the mere representation in the frame.

 

Not many popular songs can withstand scrutiny as art in the way Waterloo Sunset can, but they still exert a power over us, not least when we are gathered together, whether as a small group of family and friends, or a large crowd in a concert, a festival or an arena. You can see the power working on our bodies, in our expressions, and in the way we engage with each other, smiling and eyes shining as we chorus words that on the page might look banal or even meaningless. What is that about? I think Nick Hornby gets close to explaining it in his novel High Fidelity when he writes: “Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful at the same time.”

 

I’m sure that is especially true of music enjoyed as a group experience. I must admit that I sometimes feel envious of the songwriter and performer who can go beyond mere words to make that connection. Words alone perhaps work best on an individual - few of even the great songs can make you entirely lose yourself in absorption, never mind provide insight or life-changing revelation as a great book can - but music works supremely well as a public expression.

 

I occasionally feel I’m a writer as a second-best vocation (and I’m sure I’ve heard Nick Hornby say something similar) because I do not have the talent to be a musician. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy public readings so much. I like to make the connection. I like to see the light shine in people’s eyes. Nevertheless I can’t stop wishing I’d learned to play more than three chords on my old acoustic guitar.

 

 

Ten tips for talks by writers

I spend a fair amount of time these days talking about and reading from my books to one group or another - mainly modest gathering of rotarians, local historians, reading groups or WIs with the occasional larger literary event or festival. I welcome these as a chance to boost book sales and ‘spread the word’ but also because I enjoy public readings; I get a buzz from the engagement of a live audience and the interest they show through their questions afterwards. I also believe reading in public gives you a better perspective on your work - and it does a writer good to get out now and again.

 

I hope I have enough experience now to offer a few tips for other writers contemplating public readings. I have concentrated on logistics and practicalities not the aesthetics or the finer points of nuancing a reading, so don’t expect Stanislavski.

 

1. Let them know you’re available. If your work becomes known you might get the occasional telephone call or email asking you to speak at an event, but that assumes the organizers know you are generally willing to speak and have your contact details. That is unlikely in the first instance, so it’s up to you to let potentially interested groups know you are waiting for their call. You need to think about who your work is likely to appeal to and approach them directly. The internet is a great resource for finding the contact details of various local, regional or national groups. You also need to decide how far you’d be prepared to travel before you make contact - how far do you want to spread your wings?

 

2. Let them know you’re a great choice. Your book may be fascinating, but what is the particular angle of interest for the group? You may need to tailor your approach accordingly. When I speak to Rotary Clubs about my Stephenson novel I focus on the big events, the engineering achievements; for WIs I do a talk on The Stephenson Women. If I’m reading short stories I select them according to the audience.

 

How do they know you are capable? By quoting snippets from your reviews or briefly mentioning any awards you may have earned as a writer. Once you have a track record as a speaker, by offering testimonials and quotes from those whom you have already entertained.

 

3. Know what to expect. Obviously you need to be informed of the date, time and venue of your talk (plus any directions and the postcode for your sat nav if you have one), but you should pump the organizer for more information. Crucially, what are the likely numbers attending? Not only might this affect how you frame your talk, but it helps you decide how many books to take along. No point in staggering into a place with a huge box of books for sale if your potential customers number no more than ten. On the other hand there is chagrin all round if you run out of stock with customers still in the queue. (‘Chance would be a fine thing’ you might say, but I have been caught out a couple of times with not enough books to satisfy demand - outnumbered, I’ll admit, by the occasions I have tottered out with a box only a little lighter than the one I took so optimistically in. And by the way that’s another thing to check - is there somewhere near the entrance to park your car?) It may be useful, too, to know roughly the gender split of the audience, and whether there will be any children present.

 

Is there a particular theme to the event? (For example, some talks I’ve done have been for writers’ groups where the focus of interest has been on the business or getting published.)  Are there any other speakers? Other writers? What other business might be conducted during the meeting, and how will that affect the time and duration of your talk? (See point 6.)

 

4. Don’t be out of pocket. Even the big-name festivals can be surprisingly stingy when it comes to fees; with the small local ones you will be very lucky to be offered a fee at all. Some do, though, and don’t be afraid to ask. At the very least you should ensure that all organizers are prepared to cover your expenses - you need to make that clear in advance to avoid any embarrassment on the day, and also clarify how you are going to be paid and whether an invoice is required. True, you may earn some income from book sales, but that’s not guaranteed and there is no reason why you should risk being out of pocket even for a charitable organization. On book sales, reject any suggestion that the hosts should take a commission - the author’s margin on book sales is slim enough. The WI and some other organizations have a national policy on claiming commission on book sales, but I for one always strike that out of the agreement if I’m not being paid a reasonable fee - I usually replace it with a note that says ‘0% commission in lieu of fee’. And no, rotarians, the free meal is no substitute for expenses however well it is cooked or how convivial the company.

 

5. Don’t be down at heel. Is there a particular dress code? Rotarians, for instance, expect you to be suited and booted for their meetings, though personally I draw the line at wearing a tie - like snooker player Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins who had a permanent doctor’s note claiming a neck rash to get out of wearing the otherwise obligatory bow tie during championship matches, my excuse is that a tie constricts my throat and affects my speaking. It might even be true. In general, though, don’t give your audience a reason for disliking you before you open your mouth by turning up in inappropriate dress or needlessly scruffy, however bohemian you wish to appear.

 

6. It’s not about you. Speaking to a local group such as a Rotary Club is quite different from appearing at a literary festival or a special event organized by a library where the audience (if one turns up - and I’ve known an occasion where it was literally one person) has come specifically to hear you talk and read. The local group meet regularly, perhaps weekly or monthly, and you are there as a guest, just part of the proceedings. One of the advantages is that you are guaranteed a certain number of bums on seats, but bear in mind they are not parked there especially for you.

 

As ‘the speaker’ you will find yourself having to wait for the normal business of the club to be conducted. There may be reports from the president, the secretary and treasurer; perhaps other guests to be welcomed and accommodated; a meal to be eaten or refreshments taken on board (or both); a forthcoming trip to be discussed; a raffle to be won (you may have the privilege of drawing the winning number); even, at rotary meetings, a series of ‘fines’ to be jokingly levied on several of the members attending, to boost the charity pot. My advice is to act the polite participant, interested, amused as appropriate, without reticence but without drawing too much attention to yourself, and without too many surreptitious glances at your watch or fretting about whether you will be left any time to say your piece.

 

7. It is about you. Once you are introduced (you will have provided a brief CV in advance to help with this, and with a bit of luck the person making the introduction might have glanced at it) the stage is finally yours. I say ‘stage’ but you are much more likely to be behind a table at the same level as everyone else, perhaps with a small lectern in front of you to add another little barrier between you and your audience. It is your job to make everyone (this includes yourself) leave behind all the distractions of earlier business and focus on your talk, your book. This might seem daunting, but my experience is that even if members of the audience don’t know you from Adam or Eve they will be generally well disposed towards you from the start simply because one of their colleagues has invited you along - for tonight you are their honoured guest and they will give you the respect that goes with the position whether or not you turn out to be the least interesting speaker they have heard this season. (For the removal of doubt, if there are no questions afterwards and no book sales, you probably were.)

 

There are really only three things you can do to lose that respect:

• Give the slightest insult or offence to any of the members present, or to the customs of the organization.
• Make inappropriate jokes or comments.
• Exceed your time slot by more than five minutes.

I strongly recommend you do your best to avoid committing any of these sins.

 

Beyond that, there are a few things you can do to ensure that the focus remains on you and your work for the time you are speaking. It’s all about engagement, so it’s helpful to remove as many barriers as possible. If you can get away from that table, that lectern, into an open space that’s still close to the audience, take the liberated option; don’t hide behind the furniture. If you have been offered A/V equipment beforehand, think carefully: do you really need it? Any moment spent looking at the screen and not at you risks inattention. On the other hand if you have physical props that are relevant to your talk by all means use them - because you are directly handling these they will enhance, not distract. Think twice also before you accept the offer of a microphone. It’s unlikely that your audience will be large enough for you to need one. Microphone equipment  available to a local group is generally of a low quality, and liable to malfunction. Unless it is a clip-on mike you will probably have to hold it close to your mouth (another barrier) and it will restrict your hand movement - try turning a page with a book in one hand and a mike in the other. If the microphone is on a stand you will find your head and body movement restricted.  In any event listening to an amplified voice can be wearying after a short time; far better to rely on your own naked voice - well modulated, well projected.

 

I mentioned props and the difficulties of turning a page with one hand, which takes me to the most important prop of all - and potentially another barrier - the book you are reading from. These days I always do public readings from the Kindle version of my books, and here’s why: the Kindle is slim and easy to hold in one hand; the text can be bumped up several points larger so I can read easily while maintaining regular eye contact with my audience (vital in engagement); I can ‘turn the page’ with the same hand that holds the book simply by clicking the advance button with my thumb as I read; and I can flip easily from one extract to another with the use of pre-prepared ‘bookmarks’.

 

On the other hand, I want to persuade everyone to buy physical copies of my book at the event, so I ensure that I have all the books I’m referring to beside me to hold up on first mention (physical props) and of course I emphasise the delight of having a ‘real’ book to read while subtly advertising the fact that my books are also available on Kindle.

 

It’s very important that you come across as a ‘real’ person with a connection to the audience you are speaking to. Without eating up all the time of your talk by telling everyone your  complete life history, include some relevant personal information - where you come from, something about your family, how you came to be interested in writing, in this subject. Let your enthusiasm for your work and for your readers come through. And be sure to invite questions at the end, because they are the best possible opportunity for real engagement and interaction. The question-and-answer session can often be the determining factor in whether a particular member of the audience is or is not going to buy your book.

 

8. Become a point of sale. You are going to arrive early at the venue (aren’t you?), not least because you need to check the configuration of the meeting to determine where you are going to speak from and where you are going to sell your books. It is vital that audience members can get to you and your books easily at the end of the talk, indeed that they should have to pass by on their way out. Think of visitor attractions, with the gift shop always the last stop and usually integrated into the exit. You and your books need to be where the natural flow is.

 

I say you and your books. At the end of your talk you must become the point of sale because it is you that audience members want to connect with, particularly if you have done a good job of engagement during the session. It’s much more likely that they will buy books if you are standing right next to them while you talk than if you are in another part of the room, especially if you are directly involved in the selling. Even if someone else is physically going to help you sell your books (which can be useful as it’s hard to talk and count money at the same time) you must be right alongside, still fully engaging with audience members until the last one has left.

 

Make it easy for your customers to buy. Before the event ask the organizer to ensure everyone knows that books will be available; otherwise they may not bring any cash. It’s important you bring along a float with plenty of the right change for the notes you will be offered. Bring a good signing pen too because weirdly (I’ve written about this before) so many people will want you personally to sign their books and perhaps include a message for them or the person they intend to give the book to.

 

Some people may get very enthusiastic about your talk, and want to chat with you at great length about it. This can be flattering, but be aware there might be a queue building up behind, even if it’s only a queue of one. People don’t like to be kept waiting. If necessary, ask to be excused for a moment to deal with the next customer, but let your enthusiast know you’re eager to continue the conversation. Otherwise you might be watching your potential sale disappear through the doorway while your new-found fan is still in full flow.

 

9. Ask for feedback and testimonials. You can partly trust your intuition to assess how well a talk has gone (sometimes but not always reflected in immediate book sales) and if it has been a positive experience you will usually have people coming to tell you so spontaneously. Virtually no-one will tell you if they didn’t like it, or even some aspect of it, unless you ask them directly. Don’t duck out of this; every talk is a valuable learning experience of one kind or another. My old friend Rosabeth Moss Kanter used to say if you want to learn how to do a better job take your sternest critic out to lunch. I’m not suggesting you go to those lengths, but how did I do? any advice for the future? are good questions to ask the organizer.

 

If you have done a good job you are well on your way to another one. The best routes to securing more talks, should you want them, are repeat business and referrals. Repeat business is valuable, though only really worthwhile when you have a new title on offer, otherwise you will be largely speaking to customers who either bought your book already or passed up the chance to purchase. Referrals will bring you new business, so ask your delighted organizer to spread the word around the network and also provide you with a couple of lines that you could use as a testimonial on your next piece of marketing material.

 

10. Keep and grow your contacts. These days every writer has to be a marketeer too. Every marketeer will tell you that their most valuable resource is their contact database. By keeping your contacts up to date, keeping in touch with people you have met along the way, and working with them to foster new relationships, you will grow your reputation and extend your opportunities to talk about your books, develop your readership and sell more books. 

 

 

 

                 

Finding the balance - the writer's 3Rs

What I’m calling the Writer’s 3Rs are like the standard 3Rs in two ways. First, they do not all begin with R, though they are closer than the originals. For Reading, ‘Riting, ‘Rithmetic I’d like to substitute Reading, Research, and ‘Riting. Second, like the standard 3Rs they are all fundamentally important if we are to have any chance of success.

Reading

Put simply, you can’t be a writer without being a reader. Forget Disraeli’s famously vainglorious ‘When I want to read a good novel I write one’; if you are not reading the best of others you will not make the best of yourself. This is not to say you should imitate what others are doing, but good reading gives you the rhythm of good writing.

By ‘good reading’ I mean reading both as a noun and a verb. Don’t read trash except for learning what to avoid in your writing or for occasional entertainment. You only have so much reading time; spend it wisely with the great writers of all ages, and I mean read them - it’s not enough to have these books on your shelves like trophies, and the screen adaptations are no substitute for the real thing, as good as they might be on their own terms. I’ve had many conversations with people who claim (and believe) they have read this Austen or that Dickens only to discover on probing that they have merely seen the film or TV series.

Don’t think of reading great books as homework, as a necessary duty; they are great books because they contain within them tremendous stories with wonderful characters, and these are books that make you feel, think and grow. Don’t play safe by sticking only to the classics; some of your contemporaries are greats in the making, not all yet widely recognized.

As writers, our ‘good reading’ is also creative reading, dynamic reading, and often rereading because when the writer’s spell is first on us we might become so entranced we fail to interrogate and analyse. Again, rereading is not homework; it is a different level of pleasure with learning in it, and enhances our own art. Creative reading has us thinking more productively, sometimes explosively. It charges our Eureka moments.

Research

I make the distinction between reading and research partly to indicate the more focused reading that purposeful research for a book requires, and partly as a reminder that research requires more than reading. It also means ‘being there’ in the footsteps of your characters, getting out to the locality of your plots; and listening. When J M Synge was writing The Shadow of the Glen he said that much of his inspiration came from overhearing the servant girls in the kitchen through a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow house where he was lodging at the time.

Sketch of JM Synge by John B Yeats

Good research is organised curiosity. The notes you accumulate along the way may eventually represent a forest, yet it will seem that you use only a few branches in the final book. Don’t look on the rest as waste. The research you have done will be in the timbre of your work even where it is not apparent in the content; in fact, research can become all too visible in a book and weaken the effect, like seeing the conjuror palm the card or catching a glimpse of the elegant model’s bra strap. Beware of exposing the architecture.

Do not confine your research to factual material. At certain times people speak more freely in fiction, not least in societies or periods such as the Victorian where repression is the norm and writers have to speak truth in disguise.

The most difficult decision in research is knowing when to stop. One route opens many others; the answer to the question you had yields more questions; or the material is just so damn interesting. In the age of high speed broadband, where you can be delivered in a trice to yet another treasure trove, it's especially tempting to sit, and sit, to sift the jewels ('Oh, my precious'). It’s important to recognize when exploration threatens to slide into procrastination, for then it’s time to write. For all our learning, we will only be credited for what we have ourselves contributed, not simply contemplated.

Writing

Writers do not exist who know exactly what they are going to say from beginning to end when they first sit down to craft the opening words of book or novel. Some will be highly organised with a detailed plot summary, time line, storyboard or chapter plan; others will have mapped out only the sketchiest outline, perhaps a paragraph or three of synopsis. However prepared, no writer is entirely in control at this stage.

The act of writing is a journey in the company of characters and ideas. You may think you know your characters at the outset - after all you have written their biographies and pinned them on the board in front of you - but you don’t. They will let you know more fully who they are as you move along together, just as real friends do on a long trip. Often they will take you to places you didn’t know you were going to visit. And as for the ideas you had when you started; prepare to shed some and take on board a host more that you will discover along the way. If you are new to the experience, prepare to be surprised how much you have to write to find out what you think.

Perhaps there should be a fourth R. Rewriting. At some point you are going to have to turn back and do it all again. Some writers wait until they put the final stop on the last sentence of their first draft, then pause before they begin the process of rewriting; others (myself included) constantly redraft as they go. The truth is, whatever our individual techniques, for most published writers six, seven, eight drafts and more are not unusual.

Master storyteller Stephen King in his book On Writing helpfully makes the distinction between writing with the door closed (first draft) and writing with the door open (rewriting). There is a heat and intimacy, a first flush, in your relations with your book which does not bear interference. But even lovers have to come out of the bedroom sometime. Getting the advice of others is like marriage counselling for your book - better make sure you consult with someone who has expertise on the subject.

Are you getting the idea yet that a writer’s life is a busy one? It is, and it is tricky to get the balance right between the three (or four) Rs to make it also a productive one. Nor are these all. Just as in school our children cannot become entirely rounded individuals by concentrating only on the 3Rs but must also explore other subjects and have time to play and socialise, so must we writers allow ourselves the opportunity to be fully human. Above all, we must find from somewhere the space for another 3Rs - Recreation, Rest and Recuperation. Oh, I wish had the time for one of those time management courses.

Dumbed down by PowerPoint

It’s twenty-five years since Microsoft acquired PowerPoint. In one-third of a lifetime the program has achieved virtual ubiquity, not just for business presentations and sales pitches but in public meetings, schools and colleges across the developed world. It’s a fair bet if you have sat in a classroom or meeting room anytime over the last quarter of a century you will have been PowerPointed; and then some.

I’m sure I’d find common ground with readers, elicit nods of recognition with an article entitled Bored silly by PowerPoint. Which of us has not peered past a turned shoulder in an imposture of attentiveness to a distant screen, our yawns politely stifled while a speaker (more likely male than female) works his way through every one of forty slides by reading aloud each of the myriad bullet points on each slide, breaking off only to say of a particularly crowded specimen, ‘Mmm, you probably won’t be able to read this...’ A too-familiar scene, but my argument is a wider one - that the way this Microsoft presentation tool is conventionally, almost universally deployed acts as a barrier to clear reasoning and expression, and actively inhibits the close, creative engagement that can help to spark, expand and develop our best thinking. In school or at work we are brain-dulled and dumbed down by PowerPoint.

One generic descriptive label for presentation equipment and software is speaker support: a telling phrase, its focus on the messenger rather than the message, much less the audience. Of course there can be genuine benefit for those who only sit and stare - it’s true that a striking illustration, a well-designed graphic, a significant quote may, judiciously selected, enhance enjoyment and understanding - but all too often the speaker’s PowerPoint pack is not there to support the presentation; it is the presentation.

What we generally see is an abridged form of autocue on slide. On slide after slide after slide in relentless sequence. Our speaker would probably prefer to have it all up there word for word, but that’s not the done thing with PowerPoint. It’s de rigueur to employ nouns without verbs, cut out conditionals, avoid pronouns (especially personal pronouns), chop and order everything into a hierarchy of bullet points. The effect is a flat placebo of a presentation, pretending potency but squeezed of content, reason and any trace of passion.

Imagine if Martin Luther King, getting to the crux of his I have a dream speech, turned his back on his audience and addressed them using PowerPoint, thus:

At least as a member of the audience you might have some of the gaps filled in by the speaker on the day (though a 2007 study by the University of New South Wales found that trying to attend to a speaker while simultaneously following a visual summary of the words leads to ‘cognitive overload’ and a consequent failure to do either). What’s worse is trying to make sense of handouts that are merely a print-out of the given presentation. Devoid of oral interpretation, meaning drains from the printed sheet. Yet surveys have shown that an audience is even less likely to focus properly on a presentation when they know they will be provided with a handout of the slides at the end.

Despite these shortcomings PowerPoint continues to be used with mind-boggling frequency – 30 million presentations per day according to Microsoft’s own estimate – and across an extraordinary range of subjects. To test the breadth of use, try typing any random concept you can conceive into a search engine and add the extension ppt. I just tried it with the phrase diabetic monkeys ppt and sure enough a PowerPoint slide show obligingly presented itself at the top of the search results. Why the enduring popularity of this mind-sapping software? I’d like to suggest some reasons as I continue my exploration of its deleterious effects.

First its use in schools, embedding early the notion of PowerPoint as the default mode of presentation. Teachers – often influenced by teaching guides set out in PowerPoint format – tend to be regular users. Pressed for time and conscious of copyright issues, many rely on standard Microsoft templates and reach too readily for the royalty-free images, so inventive opportunities are forsaken for cliché. Pupils are encouraged to present much of their own work in the same style, so what may traditionally have been reports written in full sentences and carefully structured in paragraphs, perhaps with hand-drawn charts or illustrations, are these days prepared and given like client pitches in the inelegant, anti-literate half-language of bullet points. Art is sacrificed for clip art.

For children and adults PowerPoint is the easy option. It obviates the need even to express a complete thought, still less develop an argument or guide a reader through possibly complex or subtle ideas with clarity and skill. Enough to dash down a few headers, fill under with some salient points – an outline sufficient to talk to. Trouble is, in avoiding the hard graft of deep thinking and writing, they avoid the deep learning too. They lose the richest opportunities for analysis, exposition, synthesis and, at best, revelation. As E M Forster wrote, ‘How can I know what I think until I see what I say?’

On a superficial level PowerPoint looks good, looks cool, and of course it’s slick to use. The presenter with the remote control has the room under control (if only because the audience is semi-comatose). The more polished the presentation the more authoritative it appears to be – and certainly the aspiring executive who can carry it off with a measure of pizzazz and conviction is often the one who will attract the notice of senior management and gain both kudos and promotion.

In this very coolness lurks the greatest danger. I use the term ‘danger’ advisedly because, as I’ll exemplify, there are circumstances in which the consequences can be life-threatening. By preferring form over content, sales pitch over objective analysis, by substituting condensed pellets for the meat of the argument, by creating an illusion of control and authority that stifles discussion and relegates the audience to passive recipients of here’s-some-I-made-earlier slices of preorganised information, without elaboration or deconstruction, the PowerPoint presenter can lead us to mistaken conclusions, shallow judgements, bad decisions.

 

In February 2003 the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. All seven crew members were lost. A tragic accident, yes, but an avoidable one according to post-disaster analysis by Professor Edward Tufte of Yale University.

A fortnight earlier, while the craft was in orbit, a short video sequence had shown NASA observers that something (it turned out to be a piece of foam debris) had hit the wing. To help senior officials assess the threat, Boeing Corporation executives converted their engineers’ investigations into a rapidly-assembled PowerPoint presentation of 28 slides on screen with summary printouts – a standard form of briefing. The devil (doubts, uncertainties, worries) was in the detail. Specific technical findings about the wing damage were buried in a confusing, multi-layered crowded slide. The highlighted, key bullet-pointed executive summary was generally upbeat about the problem. Top level officials missed the underlying messages. Drawn to the optimistic summary and reassured by the tone of the presenters, they concluded there was nothing really to worry about. A wrong decision not to intervene turned the undetected hole in the wing of the spacecraft into a two-week time bomb that triggered calamity.

Columbia Space Shuttle February 2003

 

This was a failure both of the presentation and the organisational framework within which it was delivered. In many corporate cultures – not least typically ‘macho’ environments such as the military, the space industry, engineering – there is a strict reporting hierarchy and an assumption, as information is passed up the line, that senior management is far too busy and important to be bothered with small details. Bosses have their eye on ‘the big picture’; they demand reports presented in hyper-condensed form so that they may review and pass judgement without having their valuable time wasted on minutiae. This is condition perfect for bog-standard PowerPoint – neatly ordered bullets with key words and phrases lined up for inspection (supporting information filtered out), a few charts with coloured bars or arrows interweaving between word bubbles to provide (illusory) one-page snapshots of the technically complex; all smartly presented electronically and with a slim sheaf of hard copy for later perusal (or more likely to be filed unread).

What’s missing from this picture is just about everything that vivifies learning and leads to genuine understanding: motivation, engagement, interaction, examination of evidence and counter-evidence; thinking aloud, questioning, discussing, opining, debating, arguing, reasoning, imagining, postulating; pulling strands together and reaching some sort of realisation, new awareness, consensus or resolution.

If, as seems probable, PowerPoint continues to hold sway as it has done for the last twenty-five years, don’t hold out for improvement. Oh, there will be technological advances no doubt – the PowerPoint of the future is sure to be even more impressive and glitzy, studded with apps and gizmos for the new world – but what they’ll add up to is the modern equivalent of smoke and mirrors, taking us further away from the opportunity to experience insights that can result from the deep thinking that accompanies considered writing, truths that can be revealed by discussion without distraction.

At its worst, a PowerPoint-supported talk is a conspiracy of pretence. The speaker pretends to communicate, and the audience pretends to listen. Nobody learns. The presentation may seem smart, it may look great, rather like a picture in a swish corporate brochure, and equally devoid of life. There may be words, words and more words spoken from the platform, but it’s one dumb show.

Comedy sketch: So you want a pay rise?

A couple of weeks ago I posted the series of short Matt and Nev sketches I wrote for the BBC 'Jesting About' radio show. Here's a longer sketch that was recorded but did not make the final edit. Hope you enjoy it.

SO YOU WANT A PAYRISE?

David Williams

FX                                                    OFFICE ATMOS

FRANK                                           You busy, boss?

BOSS                                              Frank, come in, you know my door’s always

                                                        open. Don’t stand on ceremony – perch

                                                        nervously on the edge of the chair.

                                                        This is about your pay-rise request, yes?

FRANK                                           Well, I’ve been here nearly three years now,

                                                        and I’ve never had...

BOSS                                              Three years. Time flies, eh? How many days

                                                        in a year, Frank?

FRANK                                           Eh? Oh, er... 365. (EAGER BEAVER) 366 in

                                                        a leap year.

BOSS                                              Good. Very, very good. That’s what I like

                                                        about you, Frank, you’re quick. And how

                                                        many hours in a day?

FRANK                                           (ENCOURAGED BY PRAISE) That’s easy.

                                                        24.

BOSS                                              Of which you work?

FRANK                                           Oh, er, nine to five. (BRIGHTLY) That’s eight

                                                        hours, boss.

BOSS                                              Which is precisely one third of a day. So, over

                                                        the year. Come on, Rain Man, what’s one

                                                        third of 366 days?

FRANK                                           Mmm, that would be 122 days, boss.

BOSS                                              I said you were quick. Remind me, Frank, do

                                                        you work weekends at all?

FRANK                                           No, no. I’m staff side. We don’t...

BOSS                                              So, no Saturdays, no Sundays. Let’s see. 52

                                                        weeks in the year... By my reckoning that’s

                                                        104 days, which we take off your...?

FRANK                                           122.

BOSS                                              Which leaves...?

FRANK                                           (BEMUSED) Oh, er, 18.

BOSS                                              Very good. Now, Frank, holidays!

FRANK                                           (INTERESTED) Yes, that’s another thing I

                                                        was going to ask about...

BOSS                                              Of course, Frank, no subject barred. So

                                                        what’s your entitlement at the moment?

FRANK                                           Just 14 days, boss. I think you’ll agree...

BOSS                                              Don’t interrupt while I’m doing the sums. 18

                                                        minus 14, that’s...

FRANK                                           (HELPFUL) Four.

BOSS                                              Just got there before you, Frank. Wow, you

                                                        young guys keep me on my mettle. That’s

                                                        what I love about this business. Now, where

                                                        had we got to?

FRANK                                           Er... four?

BOSS                                              Oh, yes, four days. But of course the office is

                                                        closed Christmas Day.

FRANK                                           And New Year’s Day.

BOSS                                              Which leaves two days. Do you work Good

                                                        Friday, Frank?

FRANK                                           (BELATEDLY REALISING WHERE THIS IS

                                                        GOING) Ermmm, no. (BEAT) No.

BOSS                                              Easter Monday?

FRANK                                           (DEFEATED) No, boss.

BOSS                                              Well, Frank. You know me, always ready to

                                                         be persuaded by the facts. And in this case I

                                                         have to say your pay claim doesn’t stand up

                                                         to scrutiny. In the circumstances I think we’ve

                                                         been more than generous. According to the

                                                         figures you and I have just kicked around you

                                                         haven’t worked for this firm one single day.

                                                         (BEAT) Are you OK, Frank? You’ve suddenly

                                                         turned a little pale.

FRANK                                           I do feel a bit sick all of a sudden.

BOSS                                              (SYMPATHETIC) Ah Frank, mate, we can’t

                                                         have you working if you’re not well. Please,

                                                         with my blessing, take the rest of the day off.

FRANK                                           (WEAKLY) Thank you, boss. That’s very kind

                                                         of you.

BOSS                                              Not at all – you know my mantra; this

                                                         company’s greatest asset is its workforce,

                                                         and it has to be looked after. What time is it

                                                         now? 2 o’ clock. You get along home to bed,

                                                         I’ll let Accounts know they’ll need to dock

                                                         three hours off your salary this month.

END