Lynn is a recent acquaintance of mine and a refugee from the cold, wintery English weather so she has chosen to live in cold, wintery Austria instead.

Lynn and I met after she read some of my personal writings and was kind enough to comment and since then we have been keeping tabs on how each other has been getting on.

Lynn is far more “arty” than I am while multi tasking is second nature as Lynn combines motherhood with heavy metal loving sprogs, performing as a musician and actress together with translation work while playing the organ in unheated Austrian churches on Sundays.  Lynn also writes with whatever spare time she can muster.

So without permission (my own sole responsibility) with full attribution (Lynn Ford, 2008 The New Curiosity Shop) here is one of Lynn’s poems:

Over the Water.

At the moment of your death
The sea stood transfixed
As the pattern of your life
Fled brightly over the water.

But time’s great heart
Shuddered into motion
And the cold bell of grief
Began to toll.

Lynn:

This is my present to you and thank you for your kind comments on my own work.

 Writing brought Lynn and I together, and like so many other friends I have accumulated, my writing has attracted them to me as much as their own efforts at expression has attracted me to them.  A commercial, artistically challenged beast I may be but I know what I like.

ERH

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I didn’t realise 2008 was a leap year until the day arrived.  Friends of mine have had a baby at 2 minutes past midnight which makes him a “leapling” and the choice of ageing at a quarter of the rate allowed us normal mortals as well as sharing his birthday with Superman.  Superman’s birthday was chosen to be the 29th because it made it easier to justify his youthfulness over time and the disparity between Earth years and Kryptonite ones.

For me, leap years meant that women could propose and the history behind it is a fascinating insight into the workings of the male and female mind.  The guys sought to restirct the ability of a woman to propose by firstly, claiming getting married in a leap year was bad luck and then when this failed as a deterrent, restricting the tradition to the leap day i.e. the 29th February.  A few other adjustments also were introduced, not least that a woman intent on proposing had to wear a red petticoat to give the poor chap fair warning of what was to come. 

Personally, I follow Dr Samuel Johnson’s advice to a young man contemplating marriage - “Don’t!” - I think the framers of this tradition perhaps came to the same conclusion over time thus leading to the phrase “Ruhn, Forrest, ruhn!”

The poor chaps could always refuse the proposal but that would lead to a fine or compensation ranging from a simple kiss, a pound of twelve pairs of gloves depending on whether you were in England, Norway or Greece.  Either way, the proposing strumpets couldn’t lose.  Nice to see that the same principles continue to apply

The reason for a leap year is to straighten out some of the irregularity with the man made, Julian calendar that does not exactly match the solar year.  This leads to a drift of the months from the seasons and is especially significant in religious celebrations no matter what the religion.  The only exception is with Islam which forbids the addition or removal of time from the calendar given to the Muslim world by Mohammed while the Hebrew and Chinese calendars don’t add a day - they add an entire month.

What has this to do with writing - absolutely nothing, it’s just for fun

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A chicken and egg are in bed together.

The chicken has his arms/wings folded back behind his head.

Big grin on his face and puffing away on a cigarette.

Meanwhile the egg is miffed, rolled up in the duvet and not very happy.

The egg turns to the chicken and says “Well, I guess we answered THAT question!”

That is one of my best jokes and I am a bit of raconteur when I get rolling though with mixed success.  I really enjoy humour that has that twist in it and Spike Milligan is one of my heroes with the misdirection of simple thought.  I recall he was introduced on the Goon Show as “that well known typing error, Spike Milligna” and you had to be quick to catch everything he packed into those scripts.

Writing with humour is a fantastic way of engaging your readers but beware of too much.  Remember your target audience as not everyone gets the joke and some may be positively offended - most women I have cracked the joke above too have laughed and made some come back about “How true!” but that does not mean to say everyone will. 

I wrote a dating book some time ago, and filled it with crass, male humour which my commissioning client thought was great.  The book was deliberately written to be mildly offensive to any woman who read it but I was surprised at how offensive I felt it all was.  Some things can be very funny in a personal context but not in public, and what is not funny to you will appeal to someone else.

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I watched the news with my morning coffee and fag before taking my daughter into town for a day of mayhem with a bunch of other hyper 8 year olds.  The big news seems to be the writers strike is now over and the Oscars can proceed as someone will now write the script.  That set my devious imagination running - the Oscars are scripted? 

Apparently so!

Instantly I had a picture of all of those blubbing actresses (usually) with gushing tributes to mom, dad and the cat I ran over with my tricycle in kindergarten and turning over and over how someone could possibly script any of that.  Can you imagine the script?

Cake Blanche: “I..”

CB starts shedding a tear

Cake Blanche: “..would…”

CB takes a deep emotional breath, make sure bosom heaves

Cake Blanche: “..like to thank…”

CB starts crying copiously (have crew on standby with tanker fleet as there is a drought in California and we can use the water)

…and so it will perhaps go.

The impact of the writers strike has had virtually no impact on this side of the Pond but in the US it has been a huge deal.  This strike has not simply affected Hollywood, the other major media centre is New York and television production on both coasts has been seriously affected with some 10,000 production staff laid off as projects such as desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty have had to be pulled.  Two of my friends work in Hollywood, one lost her job and the other has been “resting” for a couple of months.  I’m no TV buff myself but if scribblers can take down a show like Desperate Housewives and threaten Tinsel Town’s annual blub bash that does surprise me.

Looking on the dark side of the end of the this strike, it does of course mean that we will be getting a load of new rubbish gracing our TV screens later this year instead of the usual old American trash.  I wonder what it will take to get them back on the picket lines?

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The idea that new words can be developed, articulated and assimiliated into the English language is something I take a particular interest in.  I am a purist in the sense that I like to see a word being developed over a couple of centuries before it truly can be said to be “English” though many will disagree with me.

I had to write a piece on etymology and the reasons why we strangle our vocabulary or as some may argue, liberate it under the influence of fashion, laziness, cathartic events and a host of other factors.  Some of the words that I picked up on came from The Oxford Dictionary of New Words and some of them really made me wince, laugh and cheer at pretty much the same time.  Just to share some of the fun, here are a few examples I came across:

Nega-

A combining form used to counter the effect of mega-

Used by those who are looking to convey the effect of saving a resource or ecologcal activists.  Examples include negamiles (to describe how many miles can be saved in wasted journeys) or negawatts (to describe the megawatts of electricity that may be saved).

Lipstick Lesbian

Used to describe a lesbian of definitively feminine appearance.

Originating in the mid-eighties, it is a contradictory statement as lesbians were supposed to eschew the feminine accoutrements such as lipstick, perfumes and good female dress sense.  Currently, lipstick lesbian is used in a wider sense outside of homosexuality to describe a woman who takes a an unconventional, different direction politically or commercially.

TINA

Acronym which stands for “There Is No Alternative” originating with the Young Conservatives and indelibly associated with Margaret Thatcher. 

There are a host of other words that populate this fairly hefty dictionary - 2,000 or so to be more precise and reading the descriptions and application within the mainstream press makes for interesting reading.  What is surprising, and something I take to support my own viewpoint that messing around with the language is something that should stand the test of time before we accept it into the English fold is just how many of these “new” words have not actually made it into the mainstream consciousness.

Of the three examples above, I cannot think of a single occasion since I acquired English consciousness 35 years ago, of seeing these or any of the many other words that were introduced in the relatively recent past.  Twigloo, happy clappy, thrillcraft, karoshi, burb and car bra have come and gone sinking almost tracelessly whereas some such as “loved up” have become pretty much established and accepted.

I have the companion guide to “New Words” sitting on the table next to me - it’s The Oxford Dictionary of Slang; my initial question is what is the difference between slang and new words?

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