Official: Vladimir Putin doesn't like punk songs. And there was MS, a sweet, sweet girl who I was too stupid to appreciate. And in some obscure way Evelyn Waugh lives!

Pussy Riot are a Russian feminist punk band. So far, so unimaginative. On a scale of 0 to 10 of original names, Punk Riot don’t even register. But they are interesting in another respect. Pussy Riot is made up of up to ten members, of which three young women - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina, and Ekaterina Samutsevich – are due in court tomorrow (July 30) and if things don’t go well for them, they each face up to seven

Well, in British eyes not a lot. Their crime lasted less than a minute and consisted in entering Moscow’s Russian Orthodox cathedral of Christ the Saviour wearing neon-coloured headbands and bursting into song. This was, according to the Russian authorities, a lewd ‘punk prayer’ called ‘Our Lady, Chase Putin Out’, Russia’s president not being flavour of the month with many of his country’s more Westernised citizens. But, it has to be said, many others, especially those doing OK under the current regime, aren’t that bothered. On the face of it, of course, official reaction to Pussy Riot’s action is not encouraging. The official line is that they are blasphemous, which a devout Russian Orthodox believer might well claim. But that doesn’t really wash does it?

Russia (and China’s) support for Assad and his regime is widely believed to come down to the principle of self-preservation: if it is allowed to happen in Syria, they ask themselves, could we be next. Well, actually, not they couldn’t, given that the ‘opposition’ in Syria is not one coherent body, but is made up (according to my reading – need I remind readers that I am not on the Foreign Office reading list for internal confidential papers, so in the main I am merely repeating what I have gathered from the media, mainly the more or less impartial BBC. But I rather think that on balance arresting – and keeping in jail since the incident last February – does not bode well for anyone in Russia who wants a more democratic system, which all things considered is a rather lame conclusion. Russia’s real problem is that however much many of its citizens do want a more democratic system, it is not something which can be instituted overnight.

All that Western bollocks about ‘free and fair elections’ is all very well, my establishing a true democracy would entail a fundamental realignment in Russian thinking. They have no history of democracy. They went from Tsarism to Communism to more or less a non-Communist one-party state because the those nominally Communist in charge realised the economy was going tits-up under the old system and a new one was needed. They now have it, but it’s still just one man and his supporters in charge. The most vital change would be an independent – let me stress that word again: independent – judiciary. And that they haven’t got. You can have all the ‘free and fair elections’ in the world but if your judges do the state’s bidding it is all very silly indeed. I came across the story in the latest edition of The Economist and you can read it here.

Interestingly, there were 14 comments appended to it, and the first points out that it’s all very well for the West to get on its high horse, but there are several things which can also get you up before the judges here in Britain, for example calling someone a ‘nigger’, disparaging ‘queers’ and generally fulminating against various other groups. My instincts tell me that the objection is invalid, though off-hand I can’t yet day why, especially as I believe that we in the West are very guilty of an awful lot of hypocritical double-think. I’ll keep an eye out for further reports on Pussy Riot and pontificate a little more at a future date. Mayne Putin’s taste in music tend more to the conventional and he doesn’t have that much time for feminist punk songs

. . .

I haven’t given up on my plan to detail my romantic history, but it has already hit a snag. My idea was to give a chronological account, but on reflection it already seems to have gone slightly awry. When I wrote about SH, the lass who dropped copious tabs of acid while carrying Ian Hunter’s child, but not only seems not to have been affected by it but went on to do a Phd at Lancaster University (Lancaster? Now there’s a surprise), I might have got the timing mixed up. When we moved in together in the little urban cottage in Taits Lane (although as I pointed out we were merely sharing a house rather than living together), that was at the beginning of my third year at Dundee University and she was starting her second. Maybe I didn’t make that clear. I think I pointed out that by the time I had split up with young SH – for which read she called time, not me – I didn’t ‘go out’(such a quaint phrase) with anyone else for the rest of that year and that was when the pattern was established in which I would lose my heart and be desolate when it all came to naught, then would treat the next girl rather badly.

As far as I remember my next ‘relationship’ – and sorry for the inverted commas, but they do seem rather appropriate under the circumstances in as far as I am sure I wasn’t the only young thing on the block who had no idea what a mature relationship was and how to conduct one. Mature was not a word one might associate me with for many years to come, but in mitigation I can honestly say I was not the only one.I have wracked my brain and as far as I can remember my next relationship – i.e. the next time I went out with a girl full-time –was with MS. And MS was one of the sweetest girls on God’s earth. She fell for me hook, line and sinker but I was, unfortunately, in ‘don’t get involved mode’. Not only that, but for some reason or another I ‘jacked her in’, although I can’t for the life of me remember why, and she was heartbroken.

MS was a dark-haired girl from Bath. She was quiet and had a good sense of humour. She shared a two-bedroom flat with two other girls on the further reaches of Dundee, and one of whom was going out with one of my flatmates. So he and I would go around there, but as I was the only one to stay the night and MS and I got the single bedroom, he always had to spend an hour or so walking home again to our flat in the centre of Dundee. That never put him in a good mood. And I’m ashamed to say that although I can still picture MS and shall repeat that in the ranks of sweet-natured women she took a prime position, I did not appreciate it or her. I trust she finally met a more worthy man than me and went on to have a happy life.

. . .

I can’t but spend just a few minutes extolling the virtues of this Lenovo and especially it’s keyboard. It is a lovely machine. Might not be a Mac, but then who cares? I don’t. Since my entry in which I detailed my long list of laptops, I have put the 10in eMachine netbook on eBay and have reconciled myself to selling at a loss. The first time I listed it, I stipulated a buy-it-now price of £150. In the event, the highest bid was only £128 and I didn’t sell it. So then I listed it again with a buy-it-now of £130. This time it only got as far as £98. Now I have simply listed it, and I don’t know what I’ll get for it. One thing is certain though: it cost me £179.99 and I won’t get that. As for the Acer, a useful machine for someone, I was also going to list that, but have held off as I am in two minds whether or not to sell it. I can think of no reason why I should keep it, but …

. . .

It’s one of those when there are two of us doing the early turn, but as it’s a Monday there is not as much to do as usual, so I’ve fallen back on that old – and pretty boring – standby of surfing the net and trying to think up websites which might, just might, be halfway interesting. There are fewer than you might think. So I googled the name Evelyn Waugh, one of my favourite writers, in fact, my only favourite writer, and came across The Evelyn Waugh Society , which sounded reasonably interesting.

Unfortunately, there is not really a lot going on, just snippets of news and announcements. Then I noticed ‘EW forums’, and decided to take a look, wondering what info about Waugh might be interesting people out there. But that, too, was a disappointment: the forums were divided into ‘Forum Announcements, Comments & Questions’, ‘The Author’, ‘The Books: Fiction’, ‘The Books: Non-fiction’, ‘Short Stories, Essays, Article & Reviews’, ‘Diaries & Letter’, ‘Adaptations: Film, Television Radio & Stage’, ‘Miscellaneous’ and ‘The Society’.

Between them, those nine sections have so far – and I don’t know when exactly the society was formed or the website set up, but ‘internal evidence’ means it was at least 141 days ago – attracted a rather less than grand total of 36 topics and 46 posts. Of those sections , ‘The Books: Fiction’, ‘The Books: Non-fiction’, ‘Short Stories, Essays, Article & Reviews’, ‘Diaries & Letter’ and ‘The Society’ have so far not attracted a single post. Most popular by far – comparatively – was ‘Forum Announcements, Comments & Questions’. It has attracted 29 topics and 36 posts, so I decided to take a look. What I found would have tickled Waugh pink. He would, I’m very sure, have laughed his head off. For the net being the net and fools and idiots casting about for business being the name of the game, the topics, apart from a routine announcement that the ‘Evelyn forums are now live!’ (their exclamation mark, not mine), so far consist of:

Die Enstehung von Android
If there is no wind woods will win the good weather to match charm faded decreases
British open by the third round woods hold: JiuSanZhi bird before two bogies
Discovering Android
Tablet PSc – Arten und ihre Vorteile Exploring
No-Hassle Plans In Car Transport
Thoughts on Standard Elements In Cool Story Bro Clothes
The Alternatives For Important Requirements in No No Hair Removal
No-Fuss No No Hair Removal Tricks – Where You Can Go
Finding Simple Ideas Of Floor
Vital Aspects For Safelink Wireless
Fundamental Components Of No No Hair Removal
Men’s Professional Challenge second round of Cao a leading Fredric two behind
2012 the McAllen Cup Golf Tour SauHainingEagle’s Nest Station is a complete pars
and finally
May cases match All-Star golf team fell apart more than 40 stars participating.

Just thought I would share that with you and with Evelyn himself if spirits do exist and he takes a look in from time to time. No, I don’t know what it all means either, except perhaps that someone with some new technique for removing hair is hoping for extra business.

(From left) Ekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina. ©Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty years in jail. Given that a spot of bad driving which involves the accidental death of someone else can earn a drive –if things go really badly – a similar spell in jail here in Britain, you must ask yourself what terrible thing these fillies have done.

Are we (were we) in for another bout of expensive Olympic kitsch? I rather think we are (were). And Apple shareholders are disappointed with record profit. Corrupt fuckers, I say. And - sorry - but another teensy bit about the bloody euro: just how patient are the Germans? Finally, I discover Thin Lizzy (about 60 years too late)

Now that I seem to have got back into my stride writing this blog after a rather embarrassed few weeks when I gave it a rest until a felt able to write something which was not about the euro, the EU, the eurozone and related matters, I thought I might tell you all about my fascination with kitsch.


As I first came across the word, and concept, when I was growing up and living in Germany, I still think of it first as a German word and concept. But, like many other German words and concepts, it has been enthusiastically hi-jacked by the Brits and the Anglo-Saxon world so that I’m sure most people think it is an English word. Other German words and concepts similarly hi-jacked by the bloody Anglo-Saxons are Weltanshauung, Angst and Schadenfreude. They are invariably used by rather trendy types, and when they are used in English. I can never quite rid myself of the suspicion that that user is, consciously or not, showing off a little, rather as they will use a French or Italian word and attempt to pronounce it as the French and Italians do. In fact, using a French phrase which is now solidly part of the English language presents a problem: making it sound too French merely shows that you are a pretentious. Giving it a completely English sound merely proves that your a thick twat. The secret is to give it a slightly French pronunciation, but not too much. Tricky that one.


When this happens, the speaker always - always - sinks a little in my estimation, thereby achieving the opposite of what he or she hoped to achieve. The practice has reached rock-bottom in my view with such speakers sticking the German prefix über before words. Such usage always makes me want to puke though I am

well-brought up enough never to do so immediately but to wait until the speaker is no longer present. Unsuprisingly, the Germans (as far as I know) don’t use it in that way at all, which is not, however, to say that they don’t also have a fair proportion of pretentious fuckwits. But back to kitsch.


I think we all know what kitsch is - Kitsch in German - though one man’s kitsch is often nothing of the kind to someone else. I thought of kitsch watching the news on TV a little earlier on when there was speculation about what Danny Boyle would produce to mark the opening ceremony of London 2012. The item previewed what we already knew and commented what might take place by showing footage of similar opening ceremony events at previous Olympic Games. And that’s when I realised that as far as I was concerned every last example shown was kitsch in its purest form. Olympic Games opening ceremony kitsch is, if you like a kind of überkitsch. There, I’ve now done it, too.



I am at a disadvantage here in as far as, apart from the Rome Olympics in 1960 when I was ten and attending a German school in Berlin which meant I was back home every afternoon by 2pm, I have not taken any interest at all in the Games and have not made a point of sitting down in front of the TV with a crate of beer and tray of sandwiches to watch ‘the opening ceremony’. It simply doesn’t grab me, and I still don’t know whether I shall bother watching tonight’s ‘Games event’, due to start in exactly one hour and 35 minutes. (UPDATE: I didn’t.)


But kitsch does fascinate me, and I have often promised myself that if I am ever rich enough to afford a big house with several more rooms than I might actually need, I should like to furnish

one of those rooms in pure kitsch: leopard skin-patterned furniture, pink lights, puky neon-coloured pictures of the Madonna and Child and the Sacred Heart of Jesus,  utterly horrible wallpaper, lava lamps, ducks flying along the wall, more pink, mauve and lime green than you might find in a tranny’s wardrobe, that kind of thing. It would be quite challenge - a rather enjoyable challenge - to try to ensure that absolutely nothing was in good taste. It would also be a challenge to try to ensure that everything was bought as cheaply as possible.
 
After seeing the 5pm TV news and its round-up of previousOlympic kitsch, I listened to the 6pm Radio 4 news in which Danny Boyle spoke - or someone - spoke about what would be intended by the London 2012 opening spectacular and I was a little heartened. He - or the speaker - said that it would

be futile to try to compete on a scale of grandeur and spectacle and that the idea was to give to the world a sense of what Britain was today, and furthermore that it ranged far wider than the usual cliches of the Tower of London and the Queen. Modern Britain was also all about the Sex Pistol and Mr Blobby (he added, thereby showing he is most definitely over 40. So perhaps it won’t be all bad.


Perhaps I should psyche myself up to watch it. We are told that it involves 1,000 participants and - bizarrely - 80 sheep. But I cannot but ask whether as a true reflection of ‘modern Britain’ it will also include scenes of inner-city drunken binge-drinking, looting and riots, widespread public fornication by under-age girls and litter. On balance, I probably think Boyle will have resisted the temptation to give too accurate a portrayal,


. . . .


We all have our concept of ‘corruption’, which can range from anything from police and state employs accepting bribes to the devaluation of moral standards (though here I must confess that I have long been convinced that moral standards are as relative as everything else and what is acceptable and unacceptable today is not necessarily acceptable or unacceptable tomorrow. For example, the news that in a year’s time people of the same sex can marry in church would have struck many less than 60 years ago as the stuff of vicious satire.


Then there is the news I have just spotted on the Telegraph website that ‘brain-dead patients might be kept alive so that their parts can be used’. Or then there is the creeping acceptability of official euthansia which, I suspect, will in time - though not for a long time yet - lead to policy of culling our old folk to help manage our care bills. But let me suggest another instance of corruption.


It is not an obvious one, but it demonstrates and attitude which is very widespread: the computer firm Apple, which last year alone sold more than 25 million of its bloody iPhones has seen its share price fall by, under the circumstances, are rather large 6pc. Why? The firm has made record profits but the rise in profits was lower than what was forecast. Oh dear.


. . . .


Despite my repeated promise to keep away from all things euro and EU, I have just come across a report in the respected Der Spiegel magazine about the latest wheeze the European Central Bank has come up with to try to ensure the tide doesn’t come in. (Astute readers will note an oblique reference there to our very own King Canute, who didn’t, as if all-too-often assumed, think he was powerful enough to command the tide not to come in, but who wanted to put in their place fawning courtiers who suggested as much. To show them what dumb wastrels they were he commanded that his throne be positioned on the beach while the tide was out and sat in it as the tide came ever closer and finally closed in around his throne. His point: no one can conquer the tide (which might also, if I could be arsed, which I can’t, serve as a useful link to a discussion of the Tao).


The Spiegel points out that German savers will be hard hit by the latest clever-dick financial manipulations of the ECB, which leads me to wonder just how long the patience of the average German will last. Not quite as long as their idiot political leaders hope, I suspect. And when they do finally lose patience - which will be before September 2013 at the latest, for that is when their idiot political leaders will present themselves for re-election - they will have all my sympathy. Pensioners who will see their savings shrink alarmingly and savers who will realise there is no point in saving will want to know why exactly they are being asked to agree to a course of action which more and more people think is doomed. And they will increasingly realise that no one, but no one can command the tide not to come in.


. . .


One last thing. I’ve just watched a BBC Four documentary on Thin Lizzy. I had - obviously - Whiskey In The Jar and The Boys Are Back In Town but for some very odd reason I’ve never realised quite how big they were. It was a fascinating documentary, but it has to be said that surely, apart from the great guitarists in the band at different times, of whom Scott Gorham seems to be the standout, if only because he was the longest lasting member (and by all accounts fundamentally a very down-to-earth guy - this is something of an outrageously simplistic account, but the way he says it, he overcame a very debilitating heroin addiction by taking up golf) Phil Lynott’s voice and lyrical talent were the key to their great work. I decided to buy an album and finally opted for Nightlife after hearing part of the song I’m Still In Love With You.

In which I make a confession, hang my head in shame and pray my wife doesn't discover my appalling acts

This entry is only to be read on the strict understanding that my wife is not informed of its contents. I shall not, however, be detailing some mad, passionate extramarital affair: it is far more serious than that. So, you have been warned. Any transgression will be viewed very dimly indeed, and all transgressors – there can be no exceptions – will be crossed off my Christmas card list. There will be no possibility of appeal. Right, now I have got the official stuff out of the way, as the Germans say, zur Sache.

One of the standing jokes at work is the number of mobile phones I own. I actually only use one, and that one rarely, but I do have quite a collections. I shan’t go into detail here, because that would not only bore you, but, more to the point, it would bore me, and I hate being bored. I shall only say that the situation is not quite as alarming as it might sound and there were sound and rational reasons for acquiring each of them (i.e. some once belonged to my daughter etc.) But this entry is not about mobile phones but about laptop computers, because something rather similar has occurred with laptop computers,  viz I now own seven and have eight – the eighth is one I have been lent by work to ‘do the puzzles’ (of which more, perhaps or perhaps not) another time. In mitigation I should add – swiftly, to avoid any suggestions that I am quite mad or rich or both – that almost all of them were bought secondhand on eBay. However, three weren’t, and it is about those three which I shall now write.

But for background I should tell you that I have a Macbook Pro, a nice clean one, which never leaves the house, and a Macbook, nice but not quite as clean which I take with me on my travels. Then at my stepmother’s I have another nice clean Macbook Pro, of which I can only say that for the life of me I can’t think why I bought it, but it, too, was something of a bargain. I leave it at her house because quite often she likes watching racing events on TV – the Gold Cup, Ascot and the Grand National, that kind of thing – and I am then on hand to place her bets for her with Ladbrokes online.

This time last year, I was in Bordeaux for my visit to my aunt’s for the concerts, and with me I had the works Lenovo (to do the puzzles). Somehow, I fucked it up and couldn’t use it any more. I had, by then done all the relevant puzzles work for the week and didn’t actually need a laptop any more, but as we computer addicts know – Marianne – there is a kind of withdrawal process which takes place when one no longer have access to the net. So off  I went to L Leclerc in Langon to see what I might pick up cheaply. And there I found are rather neat little 10in netbook produced by Acer in their eMachines which had exactly the same chip, hard drive and memory as netbooks produced by ‘name’ brands such as Sony, Samsung and HP, but which was far more attractive as it was selling for around  40 euros cheaper. And, dear reader, I bought it. It was only when I got back to my aunt’s house and unpacked it that I realized I hadn’t thought matters through sufficiently. The problem was that everything was in French, a language of which I know next to nothing. Worse, the keyboard was a French layout, with, for example, Z where the W should be and Lord knows what else. I struggled.

The thing was I rather liked that small netbook. It was neat. So back home in Old Blighty I put it on eBay and got a good price for it. And then I bought the same netbook but with an English OS and keyboard layout. However – there’s always a however- I realized that it was – um, rather slow and, more to the point watching BBC iPlayer was something of a chore. This was because the graphic chip was integrated and nothing rang very smoothly.

I decided to get another netbook and after a lot of research opted for an Acer 722. This had a faster chip and all-round was a better investment. But it, too, had a flaw: the keyboard. As far as I was concerned the keyboard is useless for typing and as I had specifically bought it for writing, I had another problem. So – deep breath – I have bought another, and it is on this one that I am writing this entry.

So far, so utterly irresponsible and mad, but there is a silver lining. This particular model is not sexy and as it is a Lenovo, it is intended for business. It is a Lenovo X121e. But now to the important bit: there are two versions. One has an AMD C60 chip (like my Acer) but Lenovo also produce a more expensive version with an Intel i3 Core chip. And that is the one I have. New the AMD version costs around 345. The Intel is on sale for about 530. But, dear reader, I struck lucky, very lucky: on eBay I found an Intel version which I managed to nab – brand new and still sealed in the box – for just 355. I shan’t go into details, but everything is well above board: I simply struck very lucky indeed. And the keyboard is perfect. And as I have just installed a solid state drive (i.e. no spinning disc, no moving parts) it simply zips along. Lovely. If only I actually needed it. Now just to get rid of the eMachines and Acer, both of which are still in tip-top condition, at prices which will go some way to assuaging my feelings of guilt. Remember: not a word to my wife who isn’t as enlightened on such matters as I am.

In which I let my hair down a little, go out on a limb and offer a little advice (but the cheek of it)

The usual: I'm driving up to London on a Sunday morning, with nothing else to do but keep my eye on the road, and I think of all kinds of things I should like to write about (which - crucially - don't involve the bloody euro: you're fed up with reading about it here? Not half as much as I am about writing about it here. For one thing, I have nothing original to say and merely repeat what has been said 1,000 by everyone else who think it's a dog's dinner, and for another, like the weather, there is bugger all I can do about it, bugger all you can do about it, and bugger all he/she/it can do about it.)


One of the things I could do is to use this space as a kind of note pad and sounding board. I have found, curiously, that I sharpen my ideas far more when I am debating something with someone rather than just mulling something over on my own, and I often find that I sharpen my ideas more if I try to set it and related matters down on paper. Which  brings me to the first thing I might record: a few truths about writing I have garnered over the years, either from reading or hearing someone else's view or from personal experience. So, in no particular order:


1 It doesn't have to be perfect from the off. It is quite crucial to realise that. The trick is to get started, then to carry on and then to finish. Revising can come later, once it is all down on paper. And what you initially put down on paper - writing this on a laptop word processor means obviously that 'putting it down on paper' is meant metaphorically - doesn't even have to be 'good'. It just has to 'be', it has to exist. It might sound like an outrageous truism, but a flawed, quite awful completed novel, short story, script or play is 1,000 times better than an incompleted piece of work. And far, far better than one 'you have in your head'. That is worth nothing, but once it is down on paper, it can be improved, then improved again, then again, until you get it to the point where you think it is reasonably worthwhile.


2 No one, but no one, is in the slightest bit interested in 'your work'. Years ago, I came across a piece of wisdom whose provenance (i.e. where I heard it and how I came to hear it) is so banal, I would hate to tell you and so I shan't. But that piece of wisdom, obvious once you have understood it, is all-important. It is this: just as you are the centre of your world, everyone else, without exception is the centre of theirs. Crucially, that means you are not the centre of their world, you never were and you never will be. So your work is of know interest to them whatsoever, especially when you are still completing it. They just don't want to know. They might be too polite to tell you, but they aren't in the slightest bit interested. Not one jot. Once you have completed it, they might, just might, be interested if it amuses them or entertains them in some way (and I mean 'entertain' in a far, far broader sense than you might at first think. More of that, perhaps, later).


3 This might well be summed up in a coarse, but highly truthful observation: we all love the smell of our own farts. The corollary is, of course, that others don't, and however much you point out the positive points of that fart, how others have rather missed the point of it, they still won't. Think about it: when were you utterly disgusted by the smell when you have farted? The answer is: never. That's the odd thing about our own farts: we don't mind them and so we lose all proportion about them. To expand that thought, when you produce anything, and I'm sure this goes for piece of music of any kind, a painting or a sculpture just as much as a piece of writing, you might think it is a piece of genius or, at worst, rather good. It is, of course, nothing of the kind. What is even more dangerous is that you probably think it is excellent or reasonably good for one reason: you produced it. But it's not.


4 Another observation I came across years ago and which strikes me as being eminently true is that 'sloppy writing betrays sloppy thought'. If you sit down to write anything and find the task rather difficult, it is only because you haven't thought about it. I would even suggest that all writing takes place and is often completed in the mind long before any words are set down on paper (OK, clever dick, tapped out on a computer keyboard). The more you think about what you want to write and how you want to write it, the greater chance you have of producing less than awful work.


5 Having made those four points, I should stress that they are merely points I have made for others, perhaps you, to consider. They are not rules, because and, this is both the easiest and hardest point to get over: there are no rules. Whether you are writing something, painting something, composing something or doing whatever you are trying to do - there are no rules. You can do what the hell you like. You can do anything you like. Now here's the catch: whether anyone is in the slightest bit interested in what you have produced is quite another matter. Your 'novel', for example, might consist of writing the word 'love' 60,000 times.

Fair enough, but I would bet my bottom dollar that anyone would ever bother to carry on reading it after 20 seconds, and no amount of explaining 'what you were trying to do' will spark any further interest whatsoever. When I was still doing a lot of photography, I would often visit photographic exhibitions and see some great pictures. But what always put me off in some exhibutions would be an A4 sheet of paper next to a quite ordinary photo 'explaining' explaining what it is all about. As far as I am concerned those photos should stand on their own. If they need some kind of longwinded exposition about why they are good and worthwhile, they are simply nothing of the kind.

There's is, what is, if I have got this right, something called The Intentional Fallacy. The debate centres on whether a work of art should stand alone without us knowing the first thing about the author, composer or painter. Some argue that knowing some details can - and I do hope I have got this right and am prepared to be corrected - somehow 'add' to that work. I'm sure there's far more to it than that, but I am firmly in the camp that each and every 'work of art' (and Lord how I loathe that phrase for being woolly and vacuous) should stand and fall on its own intrinsic merits, that everything needed to 'understand' what it was intended to be conveyed is given, that no more should be needed. Certainly, I must admit, that subsequently coming across certain biographical details can somehow enhance our experience. But my point is that such an enhancement is a bonus.

6 There are 1,001 different kinds of novel, painting, pieces of music or whatever it is you are producing and there will be 1,001 different kinds of people who will appreciate some but not others. So, my warning about farts and self-love notwithstanding (and unless, of course, you are simply writing like a journeyman and being hired to produce a certain something), it would seem obvious to me that you should first and foremost write for yourself. If others are also interested, all well and good. But don't go about trying to please others. Not only will you most probably produce pretty mediocre work, but the chances are you won't even impress those you are hoping to impress.
I've run out of steam on this one and if I carry on, I shall merely be wasting your time as well as mine. But there is one last thing I should like to advocate:


7 Learn to touch-type. First of all it is not half as difficult as you might think and you don't have to reach a particular level. PAs and secretaries might be expected to reach a touch-typing speed of whatever is the norm - 100 words a minute - but you don't. Forty words a minute or even slower is perfectly adequate. But what you will gain is the ability to write as you think. If, like me for years and years (and like almost all the hacks I know) you use the two, three or four-finger system, you are interrrupting your train of thought several times every few seconds and suffering because of it. The chances are that you will type in such manner, make quite a few mistakes and go back and correct them before you carry on. Or, like me, you will carry on regardless and then go back once you feel you have finished to correct all those mistakes. That is not only excessively boring, but the chances are that you will start re-writing what you have written and ensure that what was more or less a coherent train of thought becomes anything but. That's what happened to me, but a few years ago I bought the Mavis Beacon touch typing program and taught myself and the benefit is enormous.


8 Perhaps I should restate my first point and expand on it a little: quite apart from what you write not having to be perfect from the off, don't take on too much in one session. It only gets worse. Set yourself a target, reach it, then get up and do something entirely different for at least a few hours, but preferably a day. You will then come back to what you have written and see it with a far clearer, far more objective eye. So you revise it and try to improve it, discarding, more often than not, those bits you first thought were quite magnificent because in a rather colder light they are nothing of the kind.

Oh, and I have only written a few short stories over the years, two short novels and one what would be called a novella. Of those I will only stand by the second novel as - perhaps - getting there. Everything I wrote before then was, I'm sure, shite, because I had no idea what I was doing or even wanted to do.

Lesson for today: Never Trust A Grown-up, especially if you elected him or her or they deal in money. The chances are he and she find it impossible to distinguish between their arse and their elbow

Let me take you back to your childhood, to the days when there were still ‘grown-ups’. These ‘grown-ups’ were initially like gods: when you were 3 or 4 they were simply always right because the were ‘grown-ups’. Later, at 7 or 8, you might well have become a little more rebellious, or not, but you usually felt rather overawed by these ‘grown-ups’. In those days, too, people of 17 and 18 were quite simply ancient and could quite easily be put in the same category as the ‘grown-ups’. (These days, I find I can’t even treat men and women in their late teens and early twenties as though they have much of a clue of what’s going on, and even feel ever-so-slightly guilty if I find a woman of 19 or 20 sexually attractive, knowing just how emotionally vulnerable she still is. But, ssh, don’t tell anyone, especially not anyone in their late teens and early twenties, who do so like to think they have reached the winning line.)

The point about ‘grown-ups’ were, among other things, was that if something went wrong, a ‘grown-up’ could sort it out and there was an end to the matter.  ‘Grown-ups’ were seemingly all-powerful. Naturally, as we get over, we wise up. As I have told my two children over and over again since they were quite young, in many ways ‘grown-ups’ are just older children: they, too, squabble and bicker and lie to each other in just the same way as children do, but unfortunately they are not amenable to the same kind of sanctions. (As recently as three years ago, when my daughter was, 13, she misbehaved and I ordered her to ‘go to your room, now!’ And off she went, admittedly protesting, and meekly stayed there for the next ten minutes until I came upstairs to tell her ‘not to do it again’ and ‘you can go downstairs now, if you like’. I could not believe I got away with it.)

I also tell them that when ‘grown-ups’ squabble, bicker and lie to each other in it far more serious than when children do it, because they know better. But although we wise up, aspects of that attitude still remain with us. So, for example, we have what can only be described as a naive belief that those engaged in the law and medicine know what they are talking about, and crucially, more than we do. To a certain extent that’s true, but at the end of the day a lawyer and doctor can only give you his or her informed opinion, one based on extra training and experience. But it can still be a bloody awful opinion, and of you get more than three or four lawyers or doctors together and present them with the same problem, you will get at least three or four opinions and, unhelpfully, at least two will contradict each other totally.

Then there are the ‘money men’, the big businessmen, our politicians and others of that ilk. Most certainly we all wise up in time and realise that not only do a great many of them have feet of clay but their brains are also exceptionally suspect, but such realisation does come rather later in life than would be sensible. And that brings me to my favourite topic: the euro crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, lads and lasses: we all assume that at the end of the day our politicians and their advisers know what they are doing, however obscure and daft it might seem to us. We tell ourselves that if we can’t quite follow the logic of it all, it is our fault for not being bright enough or lacking a sufficiently knowledge about certain matters.

But have none of it: they haven’t a bloody clue. And those who DO have a clue, simply haven’t the backbone to do what they know to be the right thing. It’s politically impossible, they say, so instead they almost willingly lead not just Europe but the rest of the world into an economic depression the like of which none of us has seen in his or her lifetime.