A cure for Blue Monday

Today is, apparently, the most depressing day of the year. So says the BBC online news (with a witty idea from The Optimists Society), but there’s also an item on this phenomenon in last week’s New Scientist.

I didn’t need the media to tell me this. I was already feeling pretty fed up. The work I had scheduled to start this morning hasn’t turned up, the postie didn’t deliver the original copy of my mum’s Will (which I’ve been waiting for since Christmas), and a colleague cheerily told me she’d secured a job that I was also in the running for (though I knew I’d not done well at the interview). On top of all that, I’m tired out after a stressful weekend in Yorkshire sorting out my mum’s clothes (off to Oxfam with 3 bin bags later) and paperwork.

However, there are two reasons to be cheerful:

According to New Scientist's editorial, “being too happy can actually be bad for you, … leaving you unwilling to make the effort to change your life for the better”.

And in among my mum’s paperwork I found a little slip of paper on which my granddad (who died when my mum was just 14) had written one of his “Slick sales slogans!”

“A cup of tea, a snack, a chat.
You’ll feel better after that!”

Cup of tea and last Oreo in the biscuit barrel here I come…

McKean’s law – my new motto

I hadn’t heard of Erin McKean until this morning, but she’s clearly a woman after my own heart:

McKean’s law:
“Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error.”

… And she should know – she’s an American lexicographer, formerly the Chief Consulting Editor for American Dictionaries at Oxford University Press and was the Principal Editor of The New Oxford American Dictionary, second edition.

I’ve added her lexicography blog to my Blogroll, to accompany that of our home-grown wordmeister, David Crystal.

My colleagues at SfEP tell me there’s another law similar to McKean’s:

Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation:
“Any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror..”

Boom, boom (… read à la* Basil Brush)

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* Wonder if there’s a word for “read in a voice that sounds like…”?

Ding dong bell; put Libby down the well

It really is about time Libby Purves got a researcher assistant. Every single week she manages to upset one of her guests on Midweek (Radio 4, Weds at 9am and repeated at 9.30pm). Today her target fought back. How he restrained himself from bopping her on the head with one of his hand-bells, I’ll never know.

The blurb for this week’s show says:

Philip Earis is a bellringer. He was asked by Cambridge University to compose a special piece to mark the University's 800th anniversary this year. His composition will be rung simultaneously on the five city-centre bell towers of Cambridge this weekend, Saturday 17th January.

… Makes it sound like he’s some dull guy who stands in a drafty bell-tower tugging a rope once a week. In fact he is pretty feisty and fascinated by the mathematics of bell-ringing. His blog is a bit disappointing on that aspect of the art, but he says he’s just “slimmed it down” so maybe he’ll reinstate some of that.

For a 23-year-old to be commissioned by Cambridge University is pretty impressive, I reckon. Typically, Purves took the piss, and had apparently accused him off-air of being a ‘nerd’. Having heard a snippet of his composition (played on hand-bells instead of the biggies) I reckon he should re-brand himself as a “performance artist” and put himself up for the Turner Prize.

Of could, Ms P probably hadn’t bothered to take any notice of what was coming up after her programme (she’s too self-important to bother). If she had paid attention, she’d have heard Julian Rhind-Tutt reading today’s installment of The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross featuring Stockhausen. Maths and experimental music influencing the Beatles – who’d have thought it, eh?

Ross’s book is annoying – only because I didn’t publish it myself 20 years ago. He’s pretty much followed the whole of my undergrad music course. AND I wrote my dissertation on how the 20th century avant-garde influenced the production of Sgt Pepper. Ouch.

Why I can no longer phone home

Welcome to the bereavement counsellor’s chair. That’s you in the chair, and me the bereaved … so if you’re not ready to be subsumed by my gloomy news, “look away now”.

My mother died of a sudden heart attack on Monday 8 December, at about 2:20 in the afternoon.

I had just returned from a very pleasant walk in the woods with my dog, and answered the phone expecting a work-related call, not my grief-stricken not-step-father saying my mum had collapsed while cleaning the windows and the paramedics could not revive her. For the record, she was only 64, and had only been retired from her very hectic publishing job for about six years.

Since the 8th, life has been a strange mixture of sadness, raucous laughter, not getting ready for Christmas, and mild panic and confusion, because I no longer have anyone special to phone to tell my news.

I live about 100 miles from my mum, and haven’t lived at home permanently since I went away to school, aged 11, in 1977. In all that time, we mostly spoke on the phone, or while we were driving around from one place to another – on work-related trips or the 50-minute ‘school run’ at the start and end of holidays and Sunday afternoon ‘tea visits’. We had a regular appointment, during my school days, whereby I would ring her on Sundays (after church, a daily ritual at my C of E boarding school) giving ‘three rings’ to let her know it was me, then redialing so she could pick up the receiver.

On the day after her death, Mr Ms_well and I drove up the M1 and back to do the grim things I now know you have to do, if you’re a next of kin. When we arrived home at about 10 minutes to midnight, we couldn’t sleep, and instead watched a DVD of Peter Kaye featuring his own personal take on the ‘three rings’. Are all northern mothers the same, then? I howled with laughter, and with sadness. My mum was a fan of Peter Kaye, and I was half tempted to have Is this the way to Amarillo? – the Tony Christie version, mind you – played at the funeral, because my mum loved it, and she used to live next door but one to TC.

Once I left school and had a phone of my own and, crucially, an answering machine, my mum’s catch-phrase of “It’s only me, I’ll phone you later”, became very familiar, and already, that’s the thing I miss the most.

So here I am, having gone through a thoroughly modern Yorkshire funeral – no punch-ups (that’s the old-fashioned way!), but emotionally charged by ex-husbands, bereaved partners, bereaved partner’s US-based son who’s a stranger to everyone at the wake, aunts and uncles who don’t speak to each other, and former bosses and their families who diplomatically fail to turn up, despite the 20+ years of devoted service given with only a pittance of a pension to show for it (which will only just cover the funeral expenses, but don’t be me started on that just now).

And now I’ve had three unexpected and unwelcome weeks off work, at a time when I’ve got a bulging order book and clients who are being extremely thoughtful through the gritted teeth of “when will you deliver that job?”

Back to work, then. As my dad wrote in my son’s remembrance book “Oh blah dee, oh blah dah, life goes on …”.

Melvyn Bragg hits the hot spot

Quote of the day, aka “How to get one over on Today’s pompous and self-important anchor man, John Humphrys”:

Trailing his show In Our Time (which immediately follows Today, at 9am on Thursdays) Melvyn Bragg said:

“So, the science of heat with … [names of guests].

“It’s extraordinary to think that until 1700 almost all the world was heated and lit by fire alone. Since then, we have discovered many ingenious ways to generate hot air — John …”

[Noises off: not-so-muffled laughter and noisy protestations from Mr H!]

Time: 8.35 (2:35 minutes into Today)

A red-tailed hawk and a three-legged dog

Nothing much happens in the small Hertfordshire town where I live (though we have made the headlines once this year). But I’ve seen two unusual sights in two days, so thought I’d share them with you.

Yesterday I met a three-legged dog.

When I say ‘met’, it glared at me and my dog from a distance, stalked us for several yards, then gambled towards us at a frightening pace (given his disability). I stood my ground while my cowardly and totally soppy Springer Spaniel groveled in case the newcomer was unfriendly. [My dog was attacked when he was a puppy and has learnt to be wary of growly border-collie-types who can out-run him!]

But fear not, dear reader, after a quick sniff, the three-legged dog trotted off. Then he cocked his leg…

…Not by slightly raising the stump of the missing leg, but by doing what can only be described as a doggie hand-stand.

Talk about adaptability! (And what fantastic balance.)

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Today, because the sun was shining, we dared to stray further from home to a nearby country-park-cum-woodland (owned by the Woodland Trust, in fact), which is a very popular dog-walking venue – providing you don’t mind washing off the cow pats and badgers-doings when you get home.

We’d had a good stretch through the fields in the sunshine, and climbed high up into the woods then back down to head for home, when I spotted a chap walking towards us behaving rather oddly.

Not sure whether to choose a different direction (I am hyper-conscious of potential problems walking alone in isolated spots, even with my dog and mobile phone), I paused and shielded my eyes from the sun to see if I could tell what he was up to.

As he approached, I realised – he’d been catching his red-tailed hawk.

I put my dog on the lead and so we got a really good close-up of the bird, and a quick chat with the ‘owner’ who assured me that this huge bird of prey is fine with dogs. He tells me he doesn’t need a licence to own/hunt with the beastie, which surprised me, knowing how up-tight some farmers can be about their live-stock. Apparently, though, the red-tailed hawk only goes for the small-fry that farmers think of as pests (cute bunny rabbits, mice, voles, squirrels etc).

Having seen it up-close, I’m very glad he caught the bird, before it caught us!

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This wasn’t what I had intended to write in my blog this week, but you know how things can pile up. Things I was intending to write about:

* Eddie Izzard live in London last Saturday - excellent; and included an hysterical joke for editors… but damned if I can remember it. Woe.
* Last night’s Horizon on ‘Time’, plus more on science communication.
* Still trying to get round to doing my ‘green’ story; started it in September. It will come, eventually.
* And ‘slow blogging’ - snippet spotted in Guardian last week. Instead of writing about it, I’ve been practising it!

Who knows where the time goes?

Woman's Hour are currently talking about Sandy Denny and her role in the English folk music scene. They started the package by playing my all time number one favourite song in any genre ever* (hyperbole, moi?) 'Who knows where the time goes?'.

While Sandy's version is definitive, I don't care who sings it, I just love it.

The freelance writer/editor's anthem, perhaps? (as in, got to dash now, I've got to work on another project that's running late!)


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*And hey, I know a few, having been a singer of all sorts of music for >30 years.

So, is ‘Plan A’ a load of pants, Mr Rose?

Marks and Sparks is having a sale. Whoopie…

Well no, actually. I don’t think this is a ‘good thing’.

“Plan A is our five-year, 100-point 'eco' plan to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our business and our world. It will see us working with our customers and our suppliers to combat climate change, reduce waste, safeguard natural resources, trade ethically and build a healthier nation.” (M&S Plan A website)

For a while I was willing to go along with their eco-hype. I agree with a lot of things that they’re doing. But the announcement today that they’re having a 20% off everything sale has undone all the good PR, as far as I’m concerned.

I know that we have to consume stuff; and choosing recyclable packaging is a good thing; and that trade (fair trade, that is) is a good thing for the developing world and for us here too. But the most pernicious problem (in the West) is that we all over-consume. Especially at Christmas. It makes me want to vomit.

Wouldn’t it be better for all of us, in the long run, if they sold fewer items of a higher quality at a slightly higher price?

I can’t help noticing that, since Plan A was introduced, the quality of M&S pants has gone right down. (I know Jeremy Paxman would agree with me! ) Sad to say, I’ve been buying the same old basic style for the past 20 years… And of course, these basics do wear out. I just wish they wouldn’t wear out so quickly these days. The fabric may be fair trade organic, but it’s not as thick (and strong) as it used to be, and the quality of the elastic would make Nora Batty turn in her grave (is she in her grave yet? Ah, Wikipedia suggests not… sorry)

[I see M&S has ‘relaunched’ its Plan A website too (old site vs new site; and why doesn’t the site URL appear in the title bar of Firefox? Strange.)]

What I really can’t bear is the vast quantity of totally unnecessary items (and their associated transportation, and packaging, and the transportation of the packaging…) that will be hauled from the shops today just because there’s 20% off. In my new local M&S yesterday (yes, I do go there – for mid-week fruit and veg shopping, because the big T killed off the local greengrocers years ago) they were ‘offering’ low-priced boxes of chocolates at the till. Over packaged; over priced; unnecessary*.

Minutes after I’d listened to two retail giants debate the ‘'Irrational' downturn in high street spending’ on Today this morning, the programme finished early to launch an emergency appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee to raise funds to help displaced and distressed people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Yet again, at Christmas time, I'm frustrated and fed up with it all. I don’t need any more unpleasantly perfumed and over-packaged hand creams, jumpers that don’t fit and have to be returned to the shops, or kitchen gizmos that gather dust.

Instead of feeding Mr Rose’s bank account today, I’m going to give my Christmas-present-fund to the appeal, and hope that my family will be happy with my home-baked cakes instead.

Bah humbug
Rant over!

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* Mr Ms_well and I do enjoy choccies now and again. We once bought a fancy heart-shaped box from Thorntons, ate the contents and kept the packet. Now for anniversaries and whatnot, we buy lower priced bags of Fair Trade chocs and put them in the recycled fancy box. Stingy, but kinder to the environment (and our pockets).

Guilty, m'lord

Popular wisdom (aka the media in its various guises) suggests that those who are raised in the Catholic faith have a tendency towards all-encompassing feelings of guilt and an ongoing urge to confess their sins.

But I don't think they don't hold an exclusive licence to such feelings: guilt, regret, and an inexplicable tendency to start 95% of all emails with the words "I'm sorry* I haven't…" are issues for us non-denominational-girls too**.

Having spouted off in this blog about my fellow editors and their scrupulous/unscrupulous behaviour, I'm now dreading the fallout and wishing I'd kept shtum. Oh woe. (In fact, I've now gone back and edited that item, to avoid potential problems.)

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* Can't think where I picked up the habit, but I even tend to say "I'm sorry?" when I really mean "Pardon? What did you say?" It comes to something when I'm even apologising for my own lack of acuity… There's no hope, is there?

I worked in a pizza restaurant when I was a student and one customer had been a real pain. As he paid the bill he muttered something about the quality of the food/service. Wanting him to speak up a bit I said: "I'm sorry?" To which he swiftly replied: "So you should be!"

**[Also a tendency to over-use the word 'tendency'. Whoops.]

Unhealthy competition among copy-editors

I really should be getting on with something else, but this has worked me up into such a froth that I need to get it off my chest…[Edited 15/11/08]

I’m a member (Advanced member, in fact) of a worthy organisation which, among other things, aims to raise professional standards for Es and Ps.

A few weeks ago, I received a round-robin email from this organisation containing a paid-for advertisement from a potential client seeking writers/editors to put on a “preferred supplier” list. The client in question is one I’ve been intending to contact for several years, and so I was eager to fill in the tender documents and get on their list. I’m already on similar lists, and have worked for a number of similar clients and I do reckon I’m pretty well qualified for that particular work.

I didn’t hear back from them, despite asking them to email me to confirm receipt of my submission, but I put that to the back of my mind until yesterday afternoon, when they sent out a message to all tenderers saying something like “we’ve been inundated with applicants, so many that we’re going to need extra time to sift and therefore have had to put back the planned interview dates”.

On the face of it, that’s fine. But this has got me worried.

This client is not a publisher; their work is in a neatly defined industrial sector (can’t go into detail for obvious reasons); they are used to dealing with high-level government officials, business leaders and expensive PR companies.

I’m worried about who has taken part in this tender, the quality of their submissions, and most important, the prices they’ve quoted.

Why? Well, in the past I’ve gone through a similar exercise myself in order to sub-contract work during busy periods. I’ve sent out a round-robin email to fellow editors/proofreaders and received a flood of replies. Out of 20 or 30 applicants, only two or three were (on paper) suitably qualified; and in one case I gave the work to someone who really didn’t turn out to be as good as I’d hoped.

I strongly suspect that the same gang will have been part of the flood of tenders to this client*. This worries me for two reasons:

• They will probably seriously undercut my (reasonable) rates, making it look like editors work for tuppence ha’penny, (and that I’m taking the p*** with my ‘professional’ rate).
• It undervalues the society's stance of ‘raising standards’ etc., because Uncle Tom Cobley and All may have applied, regardless of whether they are really suitable for the job.

What to do? I’m tempted to raise the issue on the organisation's email newsgroup, but things have become rather fractious there lately and I don’t want to stir up a hornets nest when I’m busy. Instead, I think I’ll send a quiet note to the appropriate committee member and see what they have to say.

I can see that the editors' organisation was happy to accept the money to cover the cost of the advert, but they could have been a bit more sophisticated about sending it out. They do have a directory of members where we all list our specialisms/keywords. So they could, for instance, have done a quick trawl and only contacted people with relevant experience/skills.

All of the above sounds like I’m a bitter old bat clinging on to a stronghold of lucrative clients against young upstarts who might do a better, cheaper job than me. Erm… partly true! (Not the ‘old’ bit… well, I’m probably just about still in the ‘youth’ wing of the organisation.)

But I do wonder whether I’ve shot myself in the foot by talking to fellow editors very publicly (e.g. at conference, in the members’ journal) about what I do. Have I made it sound like a gravy train that’s worth catching?

I’ve always been slightly concerned about that, and have tried to prevent it. For instance, the NUJ lists details of hourly or daily rates paid particular clients. I’ve spoken out in favour of sharing ‘rates’, but against naming the clients, because I reckon there are some unscrupulous so and sos who’d deliberately undercut me.

And now I’m faced with the prospect that this may, rather publicly, happen. Hmm.

Interestingly, earlier this year I took part in a similar process for a different client. I successfully made it onto the list, and the client let all the list members know who’d ‘won’. I was the only member of this particularly organisation on the list.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting I have a god-given right to this particular work; just that I'm worried about (unfair) competition, which may only increase as the recession bites and more hopefuls respond to those dreadful ads for 'profreeders'.

Not a good start to the day! But now I’d better get on with the work I do have, before it gets whisked from under my feet…

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* I do know of one other person who’s involved who does have relevant experience.

Who will edit the editors?

It's all very well being a writer/editor, but it's pretty nigh impossible to edit your own words.

On several occasions I have embarrassed myself in editorial email fora/ums by accidentally mistyping, or scrambling my words as I edit and re-edit a message in the vain hope of ending up error-free. Now I find I'm doing it on my very own blog. Dammit.

If I wasn't trying to maintain my anonymity (for the precise reason that I don't want fellow editors to come here and carp), I'd offer a prize for readers who find errors. But I'd run out of prizes pretty quickly…

Editing someone else's writing is much easier, and I do have happy clients to prove it.

Phew! Thank goodness for that; but what sort of puppy should Obama pick?

I woke early and the Today programme on my bedside radio seemed particularly gloomy. No cheering crowds, no excited presenters. Half asleep, I thought McCain had won, and dozed for half an hour worrying about the future for global environmental politics (not to mention everything else). What a relief when the headlines came on at 7am.

My favourite line from Obama's victory speech:

"Even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century." (my emphasis)

But that aside, the most pressing decision Obama now faces is what sort of dog he should get for his daughters!

"Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."

Much as I love my English Springer Spaniel, and he's great with people (especially kids), I don't think that would be an appropriate choice. A hound of traditional US pedigree might be advisable, but a rescue mut might be more politically sensitive. Who'd have thought that picking a puppy could be such a political decision?

And then there's the question of a name…

Waiting, waiting, waiting, for the party to begin…

Turning on the Large Hadron Collider didn’t end the world, as some people had feared. But here we are, less than two months later, poised on the brink of another potentially world-changing event. Not sure I can take the strain of “Waiting, waiting, waiting…”*

Hot news is that Barack Obama has already won one race: in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, a town of only 21 voters. Turning the town Democrat for the first time since 1968, the electorate chose Obama by 15 votes to 6.

I’m surprised to see that some fellow UK-based bloggers/editors say they’re not interested in the election. Whichever way the voting goes, it’s unavoidable that the US presidential election will have a knock-on effect – for better or worse – on global politics and economics, not to mentioned environmental issues.

So I’m keeping my fingers (and everything else) crossed for a high turn-out and the right decision…

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* First poem we had to learn in “Elocution” lessons, 30 years ago. (They really should have filled our growing minds with something more useful!)

Brand or bland? The editor’s decision is final

Thanks to Messrs Brand and Ross for knocking the Credit Crunch out of the headlines for a day or two (though I’m already bored of their story too). I don’t want to comment on the detail of the incident, but I do want to talk about the editor’s role in the palaver.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Kelvin McKenzie actually said something sensible (on Today, R4) this morning: it’s the decision of the editor – or more specifically, the editor’s line managers – that should be called to question.

I'm not saying they should be sacked, suspended or anything else, but I do think that they are the ones who need to be out there justifying their decision, not B&R (although they’ve had the sense and/or PR advice to apologise).

This wasn’t a live show; it was recorded. The editor apparently took the tape to line management for approval and someone somewhere in the chain of command decided to approve it. Now they need to stand up (or 'fess up) for their decision.

Being an editor is a tough job; they don’t tell you that in the careers guidance. But I do try to tell would-be editors that, when I get the chance. You need to be thick-skinned, and you need to be able to stick to your guns if necessary, but you also need to be quick to hold up your hands if you’re wrong. And that’s as true for editors of books and journals as it is for those in charge of national newspapers and radio shows.

On my first outing as a trainer of editors I likened the role to that of Graham Poll, the international footy ref whose error during a World Cup game led to his resignation. This certainly wasn’t the first time GP had made very public errors, but he wasn’t afraid, when necessary, to stand up to international football superstars.

Editors need to do the same. Even if it’s just a simple matter of defending your stance on a grammatical construction, or choice of illustration, or whether or not to publish the damned book at all…

You don’t often hear young people saying “I want to be an editor”, do you? But we’re actually an awful lot more powerful than people realise. Not just the big names in the national press or TV, but right down to the humble freelance book ‘editor’ who wonders whether she should strike out the author’s phrase ‘cradle-land’ and use ‘place of origin’ instead. (Go on – live a little. Let that new word fly!)

Meanwhile, I’m currently being edited myself. It’s a dull technical book I’ve been working on for 9 months; and now that the gestation period is nearly over, the editing process feels nearly as uncomfortable as Braxton Hicks contractions. Having spent 2 hours late last night responding rather tetchily to the editor’s queries, I now realise I need to rein myself in a bit and let the beleaguered editor get on with her job.

Biscuits: the driving force behind the nation’s freelance writers/editors

Freelance writers and editors, working at home, need to demonstrate a significant level of willpower; so I’m pleased to learn that scientists have published evidence to suggest that sneaking a daily dip into the biscuit barrel could, contrary to expectations, give your willpower a much needed boost.

Although I criticised the concept of Psychologies magazine last week, I am still drawn to psychology-related articles in the more serious press. Last week, while belated flicking through back issues of New Scientist, I came across a piece that pretty neatly sums up the chemistry/biology behind that eternal freelances’ problem: procrastination. And, in a twist of logic that Psychologies would surely be proud of, here I go reinterpreting the hard science for my own journalistic purposes…

Resist! by Helen Phillips (New Scientist, 13 September 2008, pp40–43) reports on several studies into self-control and willpower. Few readers will be surprised to learn that some people are better at self-control than others, that female impulse control is linked to the menstrual cycle, and that there are links between IQ and the ability to avoid temptation.

More interesting, though, is the news that resisting temptation appears to be controlled by the frontal lobes of the brain (especially the right frontal lobe), and that the effort of self-control also taxes the areas of the brain responsible for ‘working memory’. (One conclusion the researchers draw from these results is that teenagers find it hard to control their impulses because their frontal lobes are still developing.)

On top of that, there’s evidence that exercising willpower is also a physiological process – i.e. it’s a process that needs energy.

Helen Phillips cites studies published in the journals Psychological Science, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which suggest that self-control requires effort (energy) and, just as you can run out of energy when you’re pounding the treadmill at the gym, you can run of out self-control.

Part of the evidence for this comes from studying people’s heart rates while they’re being asked to resist temptation, which shows that there are peaks in energy use during temptation experiments. Another study (by Roy Baumeister at Florida State University) found that giving participants a sugary drink before their self-control was challenged improved their ability to resist temptation.

Ok, so here’s my spin on this news: eating a bicky or two before I set to work in the morning is actually good for me, because keeping up my blood sugar level boosts my self-control ‘muscle’.

A bit far fetched, perhaps? Not necessarily. One thing I’ve noticed since I turned freelance is that prioritisation (inextricably linked to resistance and self-control) is getting harder and harder. On the evidence of Phillips’ article, I now suspect my problem is caused by long-term depletion of willpower.

Ponder this for a moment:

Ten years ago the biggest drain on my self-control was the effort of getting out of bed, performing my daily ablutions and setting off for the office.

Fast forward a few years and my self-control was sorely tested by the arrival of a baby who needed me to think on his behalf (and I still do, 9 years on!), then later, along came the dog who had to be walked, fed and pampered, with rarely a day off from my responsibilities. (Not to mention all the other domestic chores, of which the most brain-taxing is invariably answering the question "What's for dinner?" )

These days I reckon I spend 90% of my time resisting doing the things I want to do, because I have so many other things that MUST BE DONE.

Having a deadline, therefore, is crucial. If, as now, I have work on the books, but nothing urgent, I can’t resist the temptation to blog instead of getting on with the paid-for stuff. And every day I’m also using up currency from my bank of self-control by “resisting” the temptation to tidy the house, put the rubbish out, stuff/unstuff the washing machine, prune my email inbox, write letters to friends I should’ve replied to in January…

It’s only biscuit power that’s helping me to resist all these exciting opportunities!!

One last thought before I really MUST get on with real work: one of Phillips’ interviewees strongly recommends writing detailed ‘to do’ lists as a way of giving yourself a leg-up to get over the procrastination fence:

“… Even something as simple as saying you will go to the gym at 5pm on a specific day is a more successful strategy than intending to exercise once a week. Planning can turn a difficult conscious decision into an unconscious habit, which makes the whole process faster and more efficient without depleting energy levels.”

So if you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s because I’m knee-deep in ‘to do’ spreadsheets.

Don’t mention the R—; it’s just a BAGEL

Clearly there’s no escaping the economic downturn. Most people are now convinced we’re facing a slowdown, and first the Today programme (Radio4), then the mighty GB himself, used the R-word yesterday. These people ought to be more careful with their terminology.

Today, in fact, specifically said “… the R-word …”, which caught my ear over the cornflakes (well, porridge, actually). There must be a West Wing fan in the Today editorial team; for all WW fans know that it’s not an *R—, it’s just a ‘bagel’.

Shame on me for not knowing off the top of my head which particular episode this is from (I DO have all of them on DVD), but through the wonder of t’internet I can tell you that it’s from Season 5, Episode 1, first screened in 2003.

The context is that Pres. Bartlett (Democrat) has had to hand over the presidency to the Speaker of the House, Walken (Republican), because Bartlett’s daughter Zoey has been kidnapped. Meanwhile there’re various other crises rumbling along, not least the impending Bagel.

Josh Lyman (played by Bradley Whitford) can’t bear the idea of mentioning the R-word, and quite right too! I’m sure there’s a saying (but can’t bring it to mind) about naming a thing bringing it into existence. If there isn’t, there should be – especially in the field of economics.

I do accept that current circumstances are, to say the least, exceptional. Nevertheless, the more the media harp on about the Bagel, the worse it is likely to get.

Funny thing is, I barely remember the Bagel last time around, even though it landed me and Mr Ms_well in negative equity territory. Back then, I’d just finished a stint writing for an electronics magazine (that industry was going great guns); and I'd moved to work for one of the UK’s largest trade unions.

The economy was certainly high on our list of priority issues, but the focus was much more on the loss of manufacturing jobs in the midlands and the north. So despite the (moderate) fall in house prices in the South East, the City carried on regardless and as I recall there was less hype about the Bagel, and more concern about the ‘balance of trade’ deficit. On top of that, with high inflation, those of us who didn’t lose our jobs were getting decent pay rises – my salary increased by £15k in the five years after I graduated in 1988 (though, admittedly part of that was linked to rising up the career ladder).

Things certainly don’t seem the same this time around. For one thing, I now listen to Today – guaranteed hype-on-toast Monday to Friday – and for another, as a freelance, I’m potentially more likely to feel the effects of organisational purse-string-tightening.

No sign of that yet, so far, for me (but I’m keeping everything crossed), but just this morning I bumped into a neighbour who’s a freelance PR, off on her way to an interview for a secretarial job at our local school. She says she’s sick of working at home, but I can’t help wondering whether the downturn is making her (and others) worry unduly about their employment prospects.

C’mon folks, I agree that we’re living in uncertain times (no change there then?), but life WILL go on. The only thing that IS certain, is that panic and media hype won’t help anyone. Sorry to quote Michael Winner, but “Calm down, dears” is the only advice I’m currently willing to take.

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* R—, of course, stands for recession. Nice to be able to use an em-rule once in a while!

Do I need 'Psychologies' magazine?

I'm vaguely worried about the appearance of Psychologies on the newsstands of the nation. I say 'vaguely' because I admit that I haven't succumbed to buying a copy, so it's perhaps not fair of me to pass judgement … But here I go anyway!

It came to my attention via ads in the Guardian's G2 section, and I've surfed around the mag's website to try to get a handle on what it's about. Skimming over the contents of the latest issue, it looks like the usual mix of celebrity interviews, problem pages, and {skincare/healthfood/holiday}-vendor-driven items masquerading as helpful health-related info. What worries me is the mag's title/raison d'être. What could be interpreted as research-driven reportage is more likely the same old women's mag guff dressed up in a pseudoscientific overcoat*.

The main reason why I'm concerned about the emergence of this publication is that I don't like the way that the popularisation of knowledge about human psychology is taking hold in society. [Originally I'd posted a second reason, but I've just deleted it for fear of a lawsuit from the mag's contributor I was moaning about.]

It's so easy for people to read a few articles about, say, posture or gestures, then sit in a meeting (or worse, a job interview) and analyse every move you make. This has become engrained in our society to such a degree that I find myself consciously wondering whether I'm making eye contact often enough when talking to friends (never mind interviewers), and uncrossing my arms when waiting at the school gate for fear of looking unapproachable, when really I'm just feeling chilly!

All in all, I'll stick to New Scientist for my weekly insight into theories of human behaviour, thanks very much.

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* Talking of overcoats, I see this month's issue has an article on "What Your Clothes Say About You: How our life journeys are woven into our wardrobe". They'd better not come round here to analyse me. I'm still wearing yesterday's clothes (saggy old trackies) pulled on in haste at 7:00 so that I could get straight to the computer to meet a 9:00 deadline…

Autumn Days – a hymn that gets the bloggers' keyboards clattering

I never intended to blog about religion – it’s not something that I think about often – but here’s my second post this month pertaining to the Church of England.

On Monday I went along to my son’s junior school [‘voluntary aided’ C of E; aka the closest school to our home] for Harvest Festival. The format worked well. Each class performed a ‘sketch’ on the harvest theme, interspersed with prayers and hymns. Unfortunately, it was hard to pay attention after the first five minutes because the first hymn raised my hackles to such a degree I could hardly sit still.

The hymn in question – Autumn Days, written by former nun, Estelle White, about 30 years ago – turns out to be quite a favourite among bloggers.

It was the lyric of the first verse that incensed me (no pun in tended; this is C of E we’re dealing with!):

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled
And the silk inside a chestnut shell
Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled
All these things I love so well

To which I can only respond using a new acronym (pinched from Kathryn Flett* in Sunday’s Observer): WTF?

Why on earth would anyone want to praise “Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled”? Having Googled the hymn title, and nosied around a few of the very many blogs that seem to adore this bizarre hymn [see for instance this, and caseyleaver], I turned up a snippet from the Independent in 1996, which reports on a Norfolk-based church choir’s mutiny when the incumbent asked them to sing this ‘modern’ ditty instead of a good old-fashioned harvest hymn. White’s justification for mentioning the jet planes was, the Independent reported: “Mid-air refuelling was a wonder in the Sixties”.

I suppose it was the juxtaposition of this hymn among some very good items about Fair Trade (and a great word game that extracted the words ‘Eat’ and ‘Starve’ from the letters of ‘Harvest’) that really annoyed me about the school’s choice of hymn. They’d done so well, why ruin it with this nonsense?

As far as I can tell, the only planes that refuel in mid air are fighter jets. Not really appropriate for a junior school Harvest Festival… never mind the issue of pollution and ‘food miles’.

So I picked up my grumpy-old-woman pen and dashed of a letter to the head teacher, extolling the virtues of good old-fashioned “We Plough the Fields and Scatter” – the tune of which is attributed (‘doubtful attribution’, says Hyperion Records) to a German, J.A.P. Schulz, but is actually more correctly linked to an English folksong John Barleycorn.

Today’s lesson: If you want to get your blog noticed, add some hymn lyrics! (Though I suppose it all depends what kind of traffic you want to attract…)

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* Kathryn's column this week is well worth reading if you're an enthusiastic participant in newgroups, blogs, social networking and virtual worlds.

Very useful list of confusing words

I didn't mean to be blogging today (urgent deadline to meet), but I've just found this via another blog, and if I don't post it up here right now, I'll lose it.

Difficult words

Some of these don't bother me in the slightest; others I often type in haste and repent at leisure.

OK; back to my deadline…

What feminists did for a physicist

Dame Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell, interviewed on Woman’s Hour this morning, praised the feminist movement for its on-going efforts to raise awareness of her ground-breaking non-Nobel-laureate-winning work.

Bell Burnell has recently been appointed as the first female President of the Institute of Physics; and from what I heard on WH this morning, it sounds like she’ll do a fantastic job.

I already know several women who’ve studied physics because of her influence; now she’s in a position to encourage many, many more. The great thing about her comments today was that, instead of going down the “physics is exciting, it’s all about the stars and outer-space” hackneyed route, she pointed out that the great thing about physics is “there’s less to learn” – less, that is, than learning all the names of the bones in the body, or parts of a plant. There are a number of fundamental concepts and equations to grasp; the rest is about applying them.

I hadn’t ever thought of it like that; very clever way to turn children on to the subject, I reckon. After all, people so often get put off school science because it is, fundamentally, boring. The trick is to find a way to help them through the dull but necessary senior-school stuff so that they stick with it to a higher level where they really will get to learn about the fundamental principles of the universe.

It sounds like JBB has some ideas for doing just that; and it was great to hear a cheer for the feminists too. JBB might have been overlooked for the Nobel, which was given to her (male) supervisor, but the outrage of the feminist movement has probably done more to raise JBB's profile, to the extent that she reckons she’s probably better off without it!