April 2008 - Posts
William of Ockham, who flourished in the 14C, is a hero. It is he who wrote, 'Pluralitas non est panenda sine neccesitate,' (keep it simple). The concept rejoices in the name of Ockham's Razor.
What it means is that we should always consider the simplest explanation first as it may well be right. It will not always be right, but give simplicity a chance. Using Ockham's Razor we can consider the Loch Ness Monster. It might be a plesiosaur miraculously surviving from the age of the dinosaurs in Loch Ness, despite the Loch having been frozen solid during the Ice Age. Or it might be the product of hoaxes, faulty observation of logs and otters, the Scottish Tourist Board and too many wee drams. We could well apply this to flying saucers. Space ships flown by aliens from the planet Zog? Or maybe they are the planet Venus, weather balloons, military aircraft, hoaxes and too many wee drams.
Princess Diana's death falls into the middle ground between Ockham's Razor and Hanlon's Razor, although I would favour the latter. Hanlon's Razor states - 'Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity'. Here we have another hero.
Taken together both of these seem to me to provide an excellent philosophy of life, much more likely to produce results than, 'Love they neighbour.'
My doctor gave me insomnia. Let me explain why. As the only person one the planet (probably) with hay fever in the winter I trotted along to my doctor for some dodgy NHS advice. Thinking I was taking part in the Beijing Olympics he put me on a course of steroids. The side effects are remarkable. I am being nice to people; those who know me find it hard to cope with the transformation. I also have insomnia. I am one of the great sleepers of our time, often at inappropriate moments, but now I am writing this at 2 am thanks to steroids. As for the hay fever, I still have it. Another triumph for the NHS
As I now have many hours of spare time I have been learning about copy writing. A well written Google Adword is said to be a good way of driving traffic to our Alonah Reading Cambridge website. That or the free offer of a night with Jordon. Keeping to plan A, I looked for free stuff from the 'How to Make Money' website Gurus. These are the people who show you how to become a dollar billionaire. They share with racing tipsters a question left unanswered. "If you are so good why not use your own system and retire?" Anyway I checked out a chap on YouTube, a good source of business information. Hooray, a full three minute video on copy writing. The headline appeared - Slaesmanship Counts. Now we know why one Guru has yet to holiday on his million dollar topsail schooner in the South China Sea.
The only purpose of words is to convey information. Wrong words equals wrong information. Last week I saw a sign in a shop window QUALITY DOWN. How refreshing, I thought, someone admits what we already know - that these days we can only buy cheap rubbish or expensive rubbish. Then I realised the shop sold duvets.
Precision is important too. If a wartime commander had told his men, 'Just fly over there and drop a few thingies on that city. The one by the River Whatsitsname,' things could have gone rather wrong. It is, of course, the only logical explanation of the madness that destroyed Dresden, but that's another story.
Teenagers know just three words, with slight variations - 'bed,' 'food,' 'sex.' Any word of emphasis begins with F. This is because they are too lazy to read books, don't have a dictionary and wouldn't know how to use one if they did and their parents don't have any vocabulary either. As the media is now run by lower middles I fear that in a few generations we will all communicate by grunts.
I didn't take the course at UEA as I was too busy being a cub journalist. I have been telling them I didn't even start the course for three months without any response to my letters or emails. They are now sending me threatening letters about late payment. I shall phone 'You are in a queue, if you wish to violently assault someone in charge please press two.' Don't you just love the arrogance of large organisations?
Footnotes are a pain. My edition of Wide Sargasso Sea has many; too many. They stop the flow of the writing but are, of course, impossible to skip for fear of missing something vital. So I trundle on, being told Adieu: is a farewell (we know, we know) or chain gang: convicts chained together (yup) or even having our hand held by telling us, Rochester resumes the narration (really), and all just when I wanted to get on with the story. I am reminded of George Bernard Shaw whose prefaces were frequently longer than the rest of the work and, in his case, often a lot better.
My other worry about Wide Sargasso Sea is that it is fine to have a prequel if the reader knows the original. But what if he doesn't. Wide Sargasso Sea could colour the whole reading of Jane Eyre for the first time, which would be a pity. After all, if Charlotte Bronte had wanted us to know the back story of Mr Rochester and his wife she would have written it. So anyone who has so far successfully avoided Jane Eyre, read it first.
I am busy researching Charlemagne. There is a lot of potential in the story of him and his brother. They both had much to overcome, not least of which was having a father named Pippin the Short.