Sunday 5 May 2013

More salad items.

Following on from the cucumber theme:

I am very busy at the moment and life is quite hectic, so time for blogging is short.  But here are a few ideas which give more food for thought on the business of writing.

Morning AJ (on my side bar) talks of studying to be a journalist and learning to be concise before going to University and having to be writing longer essays and thus having to learn to expand that conciseness.  That's an interesting reversal of the process.

In the Times magazine yesterday there is an interesting article about John Le Carre, in which says says - "The cat sat on the mat is not a story, but the cat sat on the dog's mat is the beginning of a story."

Another lovely story in the article is about his dislike and distrust of George Bush (re the Iraq situation) - apparently he still has a rubber figurine of Bush in his bathroom so that he can stare at it while urinating.  I would guess that most of us could think of somebody we could have a figure of in our bathroom, even if only metaphorically.

And I did like Cro Magnon's comment on my previous post that Yeats always got his friend Lady Gregory to look through his work and suggest words he could eliminate without altering the meaning.
Anything that Yeats did is good enough for me - I don't know about you.   Have a good week-end. 

10 comments:

Gwil W said...

I cannot go with the respected author.

Imagine a story which begins:
The cat sat on the mat. The twins first words?

I find there's a growing tendency toward glibness. And, I have to say, preaching from one's own own pulpit.

But then who am I to say? Like the farmer I plough my furrow the way I will. Text book unread or gathering dust perhaps.

Maybe another man with a French name had some advice for us:

There is a greater difference between one man and another than between two animals of different species. -- Michel de Montaigne.

In the end, it's each to his own.


Gwil W said...

I like the Bush in the urinal idea. Maybe also Bush and Blair praying for guidance, like throwing up.

Irene said...

Maybe he should flush Bush down the toilet where he belongs.

Tom Stephenson said...

John Le Carre is wonderful - he knew what he was writing about and I love that cat and mat story. I would have had Bush actually INSIDE the bowl, so I could urinate directly on him every day.

Heather said...

I am also very busy just now, trying to reorganise my workspace. Every bag, box and drawer of 'stuff' is being looked into and thoroughly edited! It has already taken several days but will be very worthwhile when I've finished.
I sat in the garden for a couple of hours this lunchtime - it is a glorious day here and not to be missed.
I leave writing to those who are good at it and content myself with, hopefully, correct grammar and spelling.

angryparsnip said...

Wow.... just wow
I will have to comment about the urinating on my blog...

Plus John Le Carre was wrong. A cat would never sit on the dogs mat, the cat would have sat on the dog sitting on the mat !

cheers, parsnip

MorningAJ said...

John le Carre's comment is an interesting twist on the old journalism adage: Dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog IS news.

Em Parkinson said...

I'm very good at editing other people's work but not so good at my own! The cat sat on the mat quote is brilliant.

Jim Froggatt said...

Ed Miliband. But at my age it doesn't pay to take your attention off the job in hand.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Wise words from Gwil I think - and I suspect words that most bloggers endorse. I am always pleased when anything i write causes people to send an interesting reply. I do realise that a lot of what I write doesn't merit any reply (like my blogs about Nature for example.)
So thanks for replying.