Omit Needless Words

I sometimes wish that I could play a musical instrument. I imagine it must be enjoyable to pick up a guitar, or sit down at a piano, and make music. Alas, I have never learned to play anything. The recorder that I supposedly learned to play at school does not count.

My recorder and I made one appearance in a concert at school which was marked by my gazing without comprehension at the sheet music before me, covering holes on my recorder and blowing into its mouthpiece mostly at random; the law of averages suggests that at some point I played the right note, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

There are people who can play music by ear (not being able to read music has not inhibited illustrious performers such as Elvis Presley, Slash, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix), however, knowledge of musical theory is probably advantageous if one has ambitions to compose, and acquiring that knowledge requires formal learning.

Jimi Hendrix

As I lack that sort of knowledge, I could no more sit down and write music than I could fly to the moon. On the other hand, I know as much as I need to about writing prose – or so I thought.

Some doubt crept in when I read Stephen King’s entertaining and informative book, On Writing. I’ve not read much of King’s fiction, just his alternative history novel, 11.22.63, about a time traveller who attempts to prevent the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, and The Outsider, which starts out as a straightforward crime fiction story, but ends in horror/supernatural territory. I appreciated the subject matter of 11.22.63 more than The Outsider, but enjoyed King’s writing style in both.

Stephen King

On Writing is part autobiography, part writing manual. The chapter in which he describes being hit by the ice cream truck that almost claimed his life is thoroughly engrossing. The chapters that comprise instruction on how to write are interesting, but apart from guidance on editing, and the very valid advice to limit the use of adverbs - especially when writing dialogue - King’s most useful suggestion is to read The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E B White.

The Elements of Style is brief, just ninety-six pages, and barely a word is wasted. Strunk practices what he preaches; “omit needless words” he urges us in Rule 17. Reading this book made me realise that in the English I was taught at school, grammar and the theory of writing played very little part.

Worth reading, even if all you write are work emails.

I have vague memories of being taught some formal grammar at junior school, but from the age of eleven onwards, nothing. What I understand about grammar is probably similar to the musician who cannot read music; I know what sounds right and what sounds wrong but I would struggle to explain it. Yes, I do know what an article is, and a noun, and a verb, so I suppose that means I could parse a simple sentence, although I struggle to see why I would want to.

You will have noticed that the last sentence ended with a preposition (I know what one of those is, largely due to the fact that ending a sentence with a preposition has long been regarded as an almost mortal sin in written English). One might imagine that Strunk would frown on such a practice, but he does not, since slavishly avoiding ending sentences with prepositions may lead to tortuous construction, up with which he would not put.

Sadly, while Strunk would not have been concerned with my ending that sentence with “to,” he would have been less impressed by my following it up with one that contains “due to the fact that,” which he says should be revised out of every sentence in which it appears.

That is not the only expression of which Strunk disapproves that I am guilty of using, overusing, perhaps. “As to whether” is another, as is “in terms of.” These, and others, are hangovers from my working days, when I wrote a lot of technical documents, such as user specifications and user manuals, documents that require a certain style, or at least lend themselves to a certain style. That style is rather formal, hackneyed, repetitive, and trite because that is the norm. One could not write a user manual in the style of Raymond Chandler or Damon Runyan, although it might be fun to try!

Strunk rightly decries the use of certain words that add nothing to a sentence. For instance, certainly is a word that pops up frequently in my writing, and so is feature, as in “a feature of.” Strunk disapproves of both, and frankly, it is hard to disagree: he would probably not approve of frankly, either.

Strunk says that qualifiers, such as quite, very, rather, little, and pretty should be avoided, and I agree, but they insinuate themselves in my writing without my being aware of it. Likewise, adverbs. Blogs don’t have much, if any, dialogue, which is fortunate, because if I wrote dialogue, I suspect it would be peppered with them. Dialogue doesn’t always need “he said,” “she said,” if the identity of the speaker is clear; when it isn’t, a constant stream of them can be wearisome, but not as bad as people speaking “consolingly,” or “tiredly.”

It is quite galling to read a book on how to write and find that one’s own style features heavily as what not to do (I am conscious of the fact that this sentence did not require the word quite; it was either galling or it wasn’t, there really is no need to qualify the degree to which it was galling). A voice is screaming “omit needless words!” at me, but it is not easy.

I know I overwrite without Strunk having to point it out, and according to his usage of the word, I flagrantly misuse ‘hopefully,’ although so does virtually everyone else.

Strunk’s book, and other sources, have shown me that what I know about grammar is instinctive rather than learned. I know that I use the pluperfect tense, but would struggle to define it. The same goes for the fronted adverbial (not something Strunk addresses), a term I recently encountered for the first time on Twitter. Immediately, I Googled it, so now I know what a fronted adverbial is, although I do not think that I am any the better off for it.

Reading Stephen King and William Strunk’s books has taught me valuable lessons. Firstly, I realise that I know very little of the theory of writing, especially grammar, and secondly that my writing is peppered with stock phrases that it would be better off without.

The most valuable lesson I have learned, however, is “omit needless words.” I will try to do so in future.

I Resolve

Here we are, a week into 2021: How are your New Year’s resolutions going? Did you even make any? I didn’t, and rarely have in the past. Any I made usually didn’t last 24 hours.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that most involve giving something up, whether it’s smoking, alcohol, eating too much, or gambling. These are either addictions or things that people really enjoy, so deep down, giving them up is the last thing you want to do. Ideally, if one wants to make a success of a resolution to quit doing something, it should be something you don’t like doing anyway; unfortunately, these turn out to be things you’re not allowed to give up, like work or visiting the in-laws.

Over indulging at Christmas and resolving, on Boxing Day, to give up some habit or vice a week later makes little sense. Give it up there and then, or don’t give it up at all. When I went for counselling to stop smoking, the first thing I was told was that you don’t finish whatever you have left and then give up, you give up immediately. So, no finishing that last pack of cigarettes, no finishing the beer that’s in the fridge, no last bet, just stop, full stop, period.

The flip side of giving up is the resolution to do something positive. Join a gym, read good books, take more exercise, take a course in flower arranging or cyber security, something that improves the mind, body, or soul. Every year (apart from this one), Fitness First, Nuffield, David Lloyd, and all the other gyms see a surge in membership in January, are packed to the gunwales for a few weeks, then see their new members fall by the wayside in February.

And books:How many copies of worthy books like Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, or Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time (25 million copies sold) have been purchased and discarded unfinished, or barely started? The Booker Prize list is where many people start when they want to find a serious, worthy, improving novel, and although most winners are best sellers, I bet many are enjoyed much less than the novels of non-prize-winning authors. For full disclosure, I submit that I have read just three of the winners since the prize was instituted in 1969.[1]

Courses get dropped, exercise tails off, improved diet lapses into a regime of fast food and sugar laden soft drinks as the majority of people lack self-discipline and will power, but first and foremost, we are set in our ways and all of these resolutions require change, and change is painful. Some also require more time than we are prepared to sacrifice.

There’s an expression – New Year, New You – that we have all heard and possibly wanted to embrace. It’s seductive, but potentially poisonous. If you want to change – and change is hard, change is painful – do it when you need to, when you want to, not because the calendar has changed.

Do I resolve to change in 2021? Do I have a shopping list of things I will stop doing, or start doing, or do more of? No, but I do resolve that as far as my blog goes, after this one, I will not write about Brexit unless something very dramatic happens or affects me directly. Ditto, covid (although that may be much harder to avoid).

As far as Brexit goes, my position is the same as it was when the EU referendum debate was in full swing in 2016. The EU has many flaws, and a sensibly negotiated exit on the back of a significant Leave majority may have been beneficial for this country. My fear in 2016 was that the actual act of negotiating how Britain would disengage from the EU would be a clusterfuck, particularly since Leave’s margin of victory was so small. Nothing I have seen in the last four and a half years persuades me otherwise.

Still, the majority of us may see little difference post-Brexit. Queuing at European airports for passport control (when we can actually go back to the Continent for holidays), a return to Duty Free limitations (with baggage restrictions on most airlines, not many people bring back ‘cheap’ booze or fags any more, anyway) are minor inconveniences, although for Britons who own homes in Europe and don’t have dual nationality, the 90 days in 180 rule will be a problem they have to work round. And for those UK citizens now permanently resident in the EU, some will find that if they have a UK bank account, their bankers will shortly be requiring them to make alternative arrangements, as some passporting arrangements are not available to financial institutions based in a third country, which the UK now is.

News to me was the introduction on 1^st January 2021 of a new method for the treatment of VAT on goods arriving in Britain, not just from the EU, but worldwide. In the interests of treating companies in EU and non-EU countries which sell to UK consumers in the same way, these companies will have to register with HM Revenue & Customs, and collect and pay VAT on HMRC’s behalf on orders under £135. Some companies have decided that this is too onerous and have ceased selling to UK consumers, as my elder daughter has discovered, as a company that she regularly buys from and who are based in Europe, will no longer ship to this country.

Former Star Trek actor William Shatner has similarly decided that his online store – based of course in the USA - will no longer be available to UK consumers. As he explained on Twitter back in October, he had decided that the costs of collecting the VAT and filing returns were prohibitive.

How much this affects me or you is difficult to assess (I’ve never bought anything from William Shatner, heck, I didn’t even know he had an online store), but I have bought plenty of stuff online from European retailers, so chances are I may find some products unavailable to me in future.

An immediate benefit of Brexit is the zero-rating of VAT on feminine hygiene products – the so-called Tampon Tax – albeit it’s too early to know if the benefits will be passed on to the consumer or retained by manufacturers or retailers.

Both of these changes – one a benefit, one a potential drawback – are relatively small beer. The major pros and cons that will accrue from Brexit won’t be known for months, or years, or as Jacob Rees-Mogg said in 2018, maybe not for fifty years.

I can’t wait for Rees-Mogg’s fifty year timescale to elapse (I’ll be long dead by then), so I will inevitably return to the subject of Brexit before then, but I resolve to hang on as long as possible.

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[1] Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally; Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel; The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis

Meet the New Year, Same As the Old Year

In recent years it has been my custom to write a blog about the gigs and shows I have seen in the preceding twelve months. To write one for 2020 would not take long. Of the nineteen I was supposed to see last year, I saw just two.

 

In January Val and I went to The Barbican to see Joe Stilgoe, who played a selection of songs from the movies, accompanied by the Guildhall Studio Orchestra. It was entertaining, if a little unadventurous. If the name Stilgoe is familiar, older readers may remember Joe’s father, Richard, as the singer/songwriter who appeared on TV’s Nationwide and That’s Life! during the 1970s. He also wrote the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express and collaborated on The Phantom of the Opera.

 

Joe Stilgoe

In February we saw Alice’s Adventures Underground at The Royal Opera House, an off-the-wall version of the Lewis Carroll classic (which is somewhat off the wall to start with). Frankly it wasn’t up to much, but at least it was short.

 

Shows in 2020 featuring artists as diverse as Genesis, Lonely Robot, Sparks, Level 42, Fischer-Z, Steven Wilson, and Derren Brown were all either rescheduled (some more than once) or cancelled outright. Currently I have eleven shows lined up for 2021, although I’m not particularly optimistic about any of them, especially Genesis at The O2, which is supposed to be at the end of April. Perhaps by the time we get to autumn, from when I have Steven Wilson, Steve Hackett, Marillion, IQ, Cosmograph, Level 42, and IQ to look forward to, we’ll be out of the woods and back to some semblance of normality (vaccine willing) – or perhaps not.

 

I should have seen Steven Wilson (centre, seen here performing with Blackfield) in September; we'll try again in 2021

I have bought tickets for a couple of newly announced gigs in 2021, more from not wanting to miss out if they actually go ahead rather from any great optimism that they will; my innate pessimism will not allow me to believe that there is any guarantee that the new year will be any less of a horror show than 2020 was.

 

One of my great pleasures in recent years has been visiting the BBC to attend radio recordings. I managed a few in early 2020 – Brain of Britain, and Newsjack among them – but none since February, although I was in the virtual, online audience for a recording of Paul Sinha’s General Knowledge via Zoom, which was okay, but not really as rewarding as a recording at the Radio Theatre; I’ve not bothered applying for any other shows since.

 

Naturally, it wasn’t just gig-going that saw a downturn in 2020. In 2019 Val and I were lucky enough to have six holidays or mini-breaks. Cyprus (twice), a Norwegian cruise, Center Parcs, Norwich, and Folkestone. We had planned to do slightly less in 2020, but didn’t imagine that our holidaying together would be limited to a few days in Eastbourne in August, although Val did get away to Tenerife with our younger daughter in January, while I stayed at home because I had football matches to go to. These were inevitably postponed due to the weather! At present I feel disinclined to contemplate an overseas holiday in 2021, although I suspect that Val would jump at the opportunity.

 

A Norwegian cruise was one of our holidays in 2019...

...Cyprus was another...

...Eastbourne is as far as we went in 2020

In 2019 I saw all forty-five football matches that Romford FC played; in 2020 I also saw every game the club played, but there were just twenty of them. The last game that Romford played in the 2019-20 season was against Tilbury on 11^th March. There was a sense at that game that there was something pretty serious brewing, and the Isthmian League’s decision to put the season on hold for a few weeks came as no surprise.

 

Romford (in white) on the attack at Bury Town in October 2020, the last football match I'll see for the foreseeable future.

By the end of March, the decision had been reached to terminate the season at Romford’s level. This decision did not meet with universal approval, although in my view it was justified, if for no other reason than it provided certainty. When the 2020-21 season began in September, non-League clubs in football’s seventh and eighth tiers and below had to get used to a whole raft of new guidelines and protocols, which were gradually tightened until the end of October when new Government restrictions resulted in the season being suspended again. Attempts to restart again have not been successful (apart from a few matches in the Northern Premier League), and with the whole of the Isthmian League’s footprint now in Tier 4, in which non-elite sport is not permitted, the chances of a restart any time soon are slim to non-existent.

 

Those who were critical of the decision to null and void 2019-20 will no doubt be apoplectic if 2020-21 goes the same way. I see little prospect of it being possible to restart football below the National League (which, like the Premier and Football Leagues is considered elite and is continuing behind closed doors thanks to the £10m it received from The National Lottery) until maybe April. Null and voiding 2020-21 seems almost inevitable, and a decisive move needs to be made soon to provide everyone with certainty; the stop-start-stop cycle non-elite football has been in for the last few months does no one any good.

 

There are plenty of people who don’t believe that lockdowns work. My view is that the one that ran from March until the summer was successful but, having locked down too late, it was relaxed to soon. This has resulted in the lockdown>release>lockdown cycle we have become locked into. It’s analogous to a scab over a wound: let it follow its course and the scab will come off and the wound will heal after a month; pick it off after two weeks and it’s back to square one.

 

I understand why lengthy lockdowns are hard for business, and detrimental to people’s mental health, but a relentless lockdown>release>lockdown cycle is no better – worse, in fact as there is greater uncertainty, and for pubs and restaurants, there’s all that wasted stock.  I’m not being wise after the event, but when the initial national lockdown was introduced in March, I was of the opinion that it would last at least twelve months, eighteen months even (with or without a vaccine)

 

At the start of the pandemic, I thought it only a matter of time before I caught covid. As time went by, my concerns eased, but my anxiety has increased with the recent upsurge in cases, especially as I live close to the areas with the highest numbers, and even more so since the previously anonymous cases have recently begun to include people I know.

 

Right now, we are pinning our hopes on the vaccines, and I fervently hope that they are effective and administered quickly and allow us to break the vicious circle we are locked in at present, and which is doing my anxiety no good whatever.

 

In the run up to the New Year, social media was awash with posts bidding good riddance to 2020 and looking forward to 2021 as though the ticking of the clock would, by itself, make things right again: It won’t. Until we see positive effects from the vaccine, and until restrictions can be lifted safely, for some time to come it will be very much a case of meet the new year, same as the old year.