Ali's 'Comment' of 11.9.2010 requesting information about my book sales reminds me that in fact I have had 40 years' experience of the publishing industry, and since the 'blogosphere' seems to be well-provided with J.K. Rowling 'wannabees', a few comments about my books might be of general interest.
My first book, a medical textbook (Aids to Postgraduate Medicine), was published in 1970, and the first year's royalty provided enough cash to buy a Citroen Dyane car, a sort of sewing machine on 4 wheels. Before that I had travelled to work on a bicycle for several years and had then saved up to buy a clapped-out van for £105. Often I was late for work as I'd had to push the van. So the Citroen (£600)was a big improvement and I decided I liked this author lark.
Over the next 30 years or so I wrote 6 successful textbooks, 2 of which each sold about 10,000 copies each year for 20 years, went into 6 editions and were translated into several languages. I also edited 3 editions of a multi-author 4-volume textbook, and for 5 years I edited an international medical journal. I must have sold over half a million copies of my medical books over the years. By the end of my career medical publishers would regularly approach me and ask me if I'd kindly write a textbook for them.
So 10 years after retirement, I thought I'd have no trouble publishing a book on an important general subject. Wrong! You start all over again with a completely different set of publishers who have never heard of you.
So I too became a JK Rowling look-alike, except for my appearance. I refer of course to the mental anguish of being a rejected author. I struggled for a year to write the best book I could and then couldn't find a publisher. You'd think 'God' would be a bigger name than 'Harry Potter', but no dice, even though my book, like hers, deals with miracles and metaphysics as well as theoretical physics and prayers, not to mention aliens, psychology, nuns, priests and altruistic animals (no owls delivering letters though).
And in addition my book had one important new idea, namely that God exists only in the human mind, and the reason that so many hundreds of gods have been invented by so many people in so many different cultures for so many millennia (Prehistoric Bushmen, Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Scandinavians, Aboriginal Australians, Native Americans, Inuit, West Coast weirdos etc) is because religion has survival value in Darwinian evolutionary terms. The study of the evolution of human behaviour (evolutionary psychology) explains why this is, and shows that apes become altruistic for biological rather than spiritual reasons.
Nobody seemed to care.
If you are an unkown would-be author, the 'Writers and Artists Yearbook' published annually will help you to discover who is likely to care about you the least. It also has very helpful articles from 'failed' authors such as J K Rowling who detail their agonizing route to the summit. And if you still don't believe there's stiff competition, go into Waterstone's and look around.
In my experience, publishers are of three types. The vast majority won't even look at manuscripts unless they are submitted to them by a literary agent. Its worth a trying to get a literary agent, but they are not interested in big ideas about atheism unless your name is Dawkins or Hawking. I suspect that some of them aren't even interested in literature, despite the job-title. They are interested in making money from established best-selling authors, or in finding the next young J.K. Rowling, who will then make them a million a year for the next 10 years. (Could it be YOU????). Elderly people writing about science, even with jokes, don't interest them. They will reply to you, .....eventually. In some cases after 6 months,..... when repeatedly prodded. And the answer will be NO, sometimes gracious, sometimes curt, but still NO.
The second type of publisher will deign to receive a manuscript from A.N. Unknown, but will return it unopened within 48 hours, apologizing that your book doesn't quite fit their list.
The third type keeps your book for 3 to 6 months and then returns it saying that it's very interesting and well-written and they would have been interested last year, but there are rather a lot of books on cosmology and popular science and evolutionary psychology in press at the moment, and what with the recession and all, they couldn't guarantee to make a decent profit, but don't give up, why don't you try another publisher?
Meanwhile science is marching on and if you wait much longer the book will need revising. I don't think either Jane Austen or Barbara Cartland had that trouble. Blushes and bosoms are fairly durable topics, and they either suffuse delicate cheeks or heave, as the case may be, in much the same way from one millennium to the next. Okay, they might tend to sag a bit in individual cases as the years go by, but their influence as movers and shakers is less than that of the Large Hadron Collider when it comes to making the earth move. In some ways.
So after a disappointing year or so, you think "Stuff it, I'll publish it myself". I know several 'niche' writers (medical historians for example) who publish their own books and triple their annual royalties, so they make six peanuts p.a. instead of two. But they get the satisfaction of seeing their book in print rapidly, choosing the cover design and the retail price, there's no agent or publishing house taking his cut, and the taxman considers the profit and loss accounts for a small business in a different way to an author's royalty. Husbands or wives can be employed in various tasks for a reasonable stipend for example, and you will obviously need store-rooms and delivery vehicles and computers and stationery and staff parties and the use of your imagination.
And there's always the possibility that your book on 'A historical survey of methods of administering clysters' will then become an airport best-seller and all the profit will be yours. My own book entitled 'Six Hundred Miseries-the seventeenth century womb' (no kidding, it was published by RCOG, London, 2005, ISBN no.1-904752-13-6) almost made it, and I have high hopes for my planned sequel 'The Wombless of Wimbledon -a D.I.Y. guide to hysterectomy'...OK that was a joke, but there are precedents. Ever heard of Virginia Woolf's 'Womb with a View'? Or Hemingway's 'For Womb the Bell Tolls'?
I'll tell you tomorrow how to self-publish.
Monday, 13 September 2010
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Waiting for Godot
Really tired now. Just come back from a 3 hour book-signing at Waterstone's.
Sounds great, doesn't it? The reality though is rather different.
First of all it took weeks and weeks to arrange; an appointment with the manager to discuss the book, then fill in these forms, then wait for approval from head office, wait a bit longer, ring up once a week for 4 weeks until head office had deigned to respond, then choose a suitable Saturday morning, but no dice... "I'm afraid somebody important is coming that week" (Nigella? Who She?), and the next (SAS Hero) So choose today. Lug very heavy box of new books from home to shop, no parking nearby, so arrive in a muck-sweat and exhausted. Need not have hurried as nothing happens for a long time.
Sit at small table with pile of books and wait. Smile at customers as they pass by my table. Make eye-contact. Feel very like Rowan Atkinson playing the part of a pillock.
Wait some more. Walk round store, return to table, sit down, yawn, make more eye-contact. No takers. You could see the punters thinking 'Uh oh! Elderly gentleman selling book with God in the title, may be dangerous religous fanatic or other unsavoury character so best avoided' "Rachel come away from that table darling".
At last, a young man takes an interest in my book. He's going to University soon to read Philosophy. Intelligent conversation ensues, hurrah! But he's only browsing today as he has no money. Takes the details anyway.
Than another young man takes an interest. His father is a vicar and would, it seems, be very interested in my views. If only he were here.
Then two middle-aged ladies appear from nowhere, pick up the book and buy a copy each, just like that, no questions asked.
Then another lady appears to be fascinated by the title. "Is it about Dogs?" "Not really, its more about Gods" I say. "Oh, what a pity" she says,and walks off.
By this time I am sincerely wishing that religious protesters had threatened to fire-bomb the building and exterminate me if I turned up for a book signing, so then I would have been safely at home, relaxing and drinking coffee, a la Tony Blair.
Maybe I should ask the manager for a copy of the Koran and ceremonially burn it?
Finally a young man with long hair and a badge proclaiming 'I love (heart-shape) furry' stood nearby for a while, then plucked up courage to approach me and ask me what I thought about animals and their spirituality.
"Well that's a very interesting question and my book does discuss it" I said, so then he told in some considerable detail that he has great empathy with animals and in fact they talk to him, and even wild animals that nobody can train become docile in his presence, and a robin once fluttered nearby until he followed it to its nest and its mate was hurt and the robin was asking for his help, but unfortunately the lady robin was beyond help, which he managed to convey to the male robin with body-language, and another time he was in a cage with a sea-eagle which could tear barbed wire apart with its talons and ripped men to shreds and when I woke up it was half an hour later and he was still there with yet another empathetic animal anecdote. Then we moved onto the question of previous civilizations and nuclear wars before the time of Christ and his extensive research on the subject of radio-active ruined cities. Next we had space-fiction adventures as described in the Bible (rocket-ships, jet-planes etc.) Finally, Hallelujah, we moved onto the reason for our little discussion which was his ambition to become a writer. He has written nine science fiction novels so far (the first when he should have been working for GCSE), all with very, very complicated and interlocking plots, but he doesn't want to approach a publisher until the plot cycle has burnt itself out. Let me know if you're interested.
Oh, and if you ever think about publishing an important book about religion ....don't.
Sounds great, doesn't it? The reality though is rather different.
First of all it took weeks and weeks to arrange; an appointment with the manager to discuss the book, then fill in these forms, then wait for approval from head office, wait a bit longer, ring up once a week for 4 weeks until head office had deigned to respond, then choose a suitable Saturday morning, but no dice... "I'm afraid somebody important is coming that week" (Nigella? Who She?), and the next (SAS Hero) So choose today. Lug very heavy box of new books from home to shop, no parking nearby, so arrive in a muck-sweat and exhausted. Need not have hurried as nothing happens for a long time.
Sit at small table with pile of books and wait. Smile at customers as they pass by my table. Make eye-contact. Feel very like Rowan Atkinson playing the part of a pillock.
Wait some more. Walk round store, return to table, sit down, yawn, make more eye-contact. No takers. You could see the punters thinking 'Uh oh! Elderly gentleman selling book with God in the title, may be dangerous religous fanatic or other unsavoury character so best avoided' "Rachel come away from that table darling".
At last, a young man takes an interest in my book. He's going to University soon to read Philosophy. Intelligent conversation ensues, hurrah! But he's only browsing today as he has no money. Takes the details anyway.
Than another young man takes an interest. His father is a vicar and would, it seems, be very interested in my views. If only he were here.
Then two middle-aged ladies appear from nowhere, pick up the book and buy a copy each, just like that, no questions asked.
Then another lady appears to be fascinated by the title. "Is it about Dogs?" "Not really, its more about Gods" I say. "Oh, what a pity" she says,and walks off.
By this time I am sincerely wishing that religious protesters had threatened to fire-bomb the building and exterminate me if I turned up for a book signing, so then I would have been safely at home, relaxing and drinking coffee, a la Tony Blair.
Maybe I should ask the manager for a copy of the Koran and ceremonially burn it?
Finally a young man with long hair and a badge proclaiming 'I love (heart-shape) furry' stood nearby for a while, then plucked up courage to approach me and ask me what I thought about animals and their spirituality.
"Well that's a very interesting question and my book does discuss it" I said, so then he told in some considerable detail that he has great empathy with animals and in fact they talk to him, and even wild animals that nobody can train become docile in his presence, and a robin once fluttered nearby until he followed it to its nest and its mate was hurt and the robin was asking for his help, but unfortunately the lady robin was beyond help, which he managed to convey to the male robin with body-language, and another time he was in a cage with a sea-eagle which could tear barbed wire apart with its talons and ripped men to shreds and when I woke up it was half an hour later and he was still there with yet another empathetic animal anecdote. Then we moved onto the question of previous civilizations and nuclear wars before the time of Christ and his extensive research on the subject of radio-active ruined cities. Next we had space-fiction adventures as described in the Bible (rocket-ships, jet-planes etc.) Finally, Hallelujah, we moved onto the reason for our little discussion which was his ambition to become a writer. He has written nine science fiction novels so far (the first when he should have been working for GCSE), all with very, very complicated and interlocking plots, but he doesn't want to approach a publisher until the plot cycle has burnt itself out. Let me know if you're interested.
Oh, and if you ever think about publishing an important book about religion ....don't.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Never hesitate to do a favour for a friend, or a bathroom tap.
My wife is pleased with the progress I'm making with my Domestic Gods course. I de-stoned some plums only yesterday while she was out shopping. And cooked them! And I thought to take them off the Aga hot-plate after the plums had boiled over and covered the surface in bubbling, brown, smelly goo. Not immediately of course because the computer isn't in the kitchen and it takes a while for smells to travel. And its not a bad smell really......at first. It was a tad unpleasant by the time the smoke-alarm went off though, I must admit.
She's so pleased with my work in the kitchen that in return she's offered to take on some of the DIY jobs about the house, grouting and stuff, man's work really. I don't like to over-load her, but if it makes her happy, what can one do?
I'm not sure, but I think her sudden interest in DIY might be because I bought a 50kg. bag of ready-mixed mortar the other day and I took it out of the car boot and put it down for a few minutes while I got my keys out. I must have left it on the door-step and it seems the idiot mortar-manufacturer had put it in a paper-bag which isn't waterproof, so that when it rained in the night, the mortar set solid, still in the bag on the door-step. I'd forgotten all about it until the next morning.
I didn't know she'd fall over it, did I?
They're only bruises.
I'm not sure I should be encouraging her to get involved in this DIY thing though. My neighbour, the one with the lovely old house and the beautiful young wife, is good at DIY. He was re-hanging their bathroom door the other day and he decided he needed a new hinge, so since his wife was just going into town to do some shopping he asked her to call at the hardware shop and pick up a new hinge.
In the hardware shop she asked the price of a set of beautiful bathroom taps which caught her eye. The assistant said "I'm afraid those taps are very expensive because they're plated in real gold. They price is £2,500". "Oh dear", she replied, downcast, "That's way out of my price range".
So the man went into the storeroom to get the hinges, and as he went he said over his shoulder "Do you wanna screw for the hinge?"
She hesitated for a moment and then shouted back, "No, but I will for the taps".
She's so pleased with my work in the kitchen that in return she's offered to take on some of the DIY jobs about the house, grouting and stuff, man's work really. I don't like to over-load her, but if it makes her happy, what can one do?
I'm not sure, but I think her sudden interest in DIY might be because I bought a 50kg. bag of ready-mixed mortar the other day and I took it out of the car boot and put it down for a few minutes while I got my keys out. I must have left it on the door-step and it seems the idiot mortar-manufacturer had put it in a paper-bag which isn't waterproof, so that when it rained in the night, the mortar set solid, still in the bag on the door-step. I'd forgotten all about it until the next morning.
I didn't know she'd fall over it, did I?
They're only bruises.
I'm not sure I should be encouraging her to get involved in this DIY thing though. My neighbour, the one with the lovely old house and the beautiful young wife, is good at DIY. He was re-hanging their bathroom door the other day and he decided he needed a new hinge, so since his wife was just going into town to do some shopping he asked her to call at the hardware shop and pick up a new hinge.
In the hardware shop she asked the price of a set of beautiful bathroom taps which caught her eye. The assistant said "I'm afraid those taps are very expensive because they're plated in real gold. They price is £2,500". "Oh dear", she replied, downcast, "That's way out of my price range".
So the man went into the storeroom to get the hinges, and as he went he said over his shoulder "Do you wanna screw for the hinge?"
She hesitated for a moment and then shouted back, "No, but I will for the taps".
Cock-a-hoopery.
'Oh Lord, My cup overfloweth....,' as the well-endowed nun said when her bra shrank.
Does that look right to you?
(I was hoping to insert at this point a tasteful picture of a well-endowed nun bustin' out all over, so that 'Legend-in-his-own-lunchtime' could smirk and say "Looks okay to me!" but as with my search for the flatulent nuns of a previous Post (Dead sheep and Green Energy, July 2nd. and ensuing Comments) you can't always find just the right nuns when you most need 'em).
Never mind, it was the 'shrank' I was doubtful about. I've spoken (speaked? spake?) a lot of English in my time but past participles still puzzle me. Come to that, quite a lot of things about my past puzzle me, and that would include participants and my principles as well as my participles. But 'shrank' worries me. Okay, ships sink and that ship sank, just as pigs stink and that pig stank, but philosophers think they don't thank, which is as I thought, so shrank should be shrought. (Quite the little poet this morning, aren't I? Those banana skins must be stronger than I thought). But when you think about it, if you think before you fight, then you thought before you fought, so why didn't you thank before you fank? And as for men who wink, .....let's not allow things to get out of hand. The whole thing is fraught, it stinks, I think.
(May I just point out to my more pedantic friends that fraught can in fact be a verb, though obsolete; it's means to carry or tote, as you do freight. If that gave you a fright, I'm afraid you might be frightened .... or affrighted?....or afraught? ....or affrank?).
But I confesss I digress, as one is wont to do after the banana skins.
The reason for my good humour is that I have had a letter published in the Telegraph (Mon. Sept 6th. p.23). The current interest in religion, cosmology and the origin of the Universe (Stephen Hawking, John Gribbin and all that) had prompted John Capel to write to the Telegraph to imply that God must exist because spontaneous faith is as old as mankind. I was able to point out smugly that this is in fact an argument against religion, for the many worshippers of so many different gods in so many cultures for so many millennia can't all be correct. A small triumph, but better than finding a penny when you've lost sixpence.
Mind you, to prevent an outbreak of cock-a-hoopery, the Western Gazette, based in Yeovil, recently gave my own God-book a write-up ..... about 4 cm of very narrow column-width, most of which was taken up with describing the work of the National Eczema Society (and only published in the Crewkerne edition). On the next page they devoted 9cm. of the same column-width to a police raid on a house in Yeovil in which nobody was at home, no crime had been committed and they found no drugs.
So much for the burning questions of our age and my fight to liberate the world from the shackles of religious dogma.
Does that look right to you?
(I was hoping to insert at this point a tasteful picture of a well-endowed nun bustin' out all over, so that 'Legend-in-his-own-lunchtime' could smirk and say "Looks okay to me!" but as with my search for the flatulent nuns of a previous Post (Dead sheep and Green Energy, July 2nd. and ensuing Comments) you can't always find just the right nuns when you most need 'em).
Never mind, it was the 'shrank' I was doubtful about. I've spoken (speaked? spake?) a lot of English in my time but past participles still puzzle me. Come to that, quite a lot of things about my past puzzle me, and that would include participants and my principles as well as my participles. But 'shrank' worries me. Okay, ships sink and that ship sank, just as pigs stink and that pig stank, but philosophers think they don't thank, which is as I thought, so shrank should be shrought. (Quite the little poet this morning, aren't I? Those banana skins must be stronger than I thought). But when you think about it, if you think before you fight, then you thought before you fought, so why didn't you thank before you fank? And as for men who wink, .....let's not allow things to get out of hand. The whole thing is fraught, it stinks, I think.
(May I just point out to my more pedantic friends that fraught can in fact be a verb, though obsolete; it's means to carry or tote, as you do freight. If that gave you a fright, I'm afraid you might be frightened .... or affrighted?....or afraught? ....or affrank?).
But I confesss I digress, as one is wont to do after the banana skins.
The reason for my good humour is that I have had a letter published in the Telegraph (Mon. Sept 6th. p.23). The current interest in religion, cosmology and the origin of the Universe (Stephen Hawking, John Gribbin and all that) had prompted John Capel to write to the Telegraph to imply that God must exist because spontaneous faith is as old as mankind. I was able to point out smugly that this is in fact an argument against religion, for the many worshippers of so many different gods in so many cultures for so many millennia can't all be correct. A small triumph, but better than finding a penny when you've lost sixpence.
Mind you, to prevent an outbreak of cock-a-hoopery, the Western Gazette, based in Yeovil, recently gave my own God-book a write-up ..... about 4 cm of very narrow column-width, most of which was taken up with describing the work of the National Eczema Society (and only published in the Crewkerne edition). On the next page they devoted 9cm. of the same column-width to a police raid on a house in Yeovil in which nobody was at home, no crime had been committed and they found no drugs.
So much for the burning questions of our age and my fight to liberate the world from the shackles of religious dogma.
Damned with faint praise
When I spoke about lunatics in California the other day (Is anybody out there?) I did not of course intend to slight the worthy citizens of the good old U.S.of A.
Even if I had so intended I couldn't possibly compete with the American comedian Rich Hall (he's the one that scowls lugubriously at everyone in the TV quiz show Q.I.). In his book 'Things Snowball' (ISBN 0349115109) he describes the denizens of Las Vegas (whom he earlier calls "fish-faced fossils") in these terms:-
'To walk the teeming pavements of this town is to battle a tide of slack-jawed human rodentia: a never-ending parade of grifters, drifters, alcoholics, hookers, scam artists, Prairie scum and California detritus, clutching their plastic cups of slot nickels, staring in bovine awe at the monuments of stucco and neon built for their Neanderthal amusement. Men in backwards-worn baseball caps, belt-buckles the size of bin lids, half-buried beneath cascading beer guts. Jiggly-arsed women with permanently toasted tumbleweeds of hair, frizzed out, teased up, bedecked in gold rope, their protoplasmic corpulent manatee-shaped bodies sheathed in shell suits...', and so on.
Gee-whiz, I'd love to hear him describe people he didn't like very much.
The fly-leaf of his book says that he now resides in London. I should think that's very wise.
Buy his book, we don't want to lose him.
Even if I had so intended I couldn't possibly compete with the American comedian Rich Hall (he's the one that scowls lugubriously at everyone in the TV quiz show Q.I.). In his book 'Things Snowball' (ISBN 0349115109) he describes the denizens of Las Vegas (whom he earlier calls "fish-faced fossils") in these terms:-
'To walk the teeming pavements of this town is to battle a tide of slack-jawed human rodentia: a never-ending parade of grifters, drifters, alcoholics, hookers, scam artists, Prairie scum and California detritus, clutching their plastic cups of slot nickels, staring in bovine awe at the monuments of stucco and neon built for their Neanderthal amusement. Men in backwards-worn baseball caps, belt-buckles the size of bin lids, half-buried beneath cascading beer guts. Jiggly-arsed women with permanently toasted tumbleweeds of hair, frizzed out, teased up, bedecked in gold rope, their protoplasmic corpulent manatee-shaped bodies sheathed in shell suits...', and so on.
Gee-whiz, I'd love to hear him describe people he didn't like very much.
The fly-leaf of his book says that he now resides in London. I should think that's very wise.
Buy his book, we don't want to lose him.
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Bloody awesome.
My friend Mike cannot really be described as a religious person but he is clearly intrigued by my recent explanation of (he calls them rants about) the finer points of the Creation of the Universes because he's sent me an account of the Australian Creation story, which I had failed to mention. I'd expected it to be about Aboriginal Songlines and Dreamtime and Giant Serpents but there's more to it than that.
In the beginning,it seems, on the First Day of Creation, God created Day and Night. The Day was for footy matches and barbeques and going to the beach, and the Night was for going prawning and sleeping; and God saw that it was good.
On the Second Day God created the oceans for surfing and swimming; and God saw that it was good.
On the Third Day God created the Earth, to bring forth plants and provide food, and malt and hops for beer, and wood for barbeques; and God saw that it was good.
On the Fourth Day God created animals to provide chops, sausages, steak and prawns for barbeques; and God saw that it was good.
On the Fifth Day God created a Bloke to go to the footy,enjoy the beach, drink the beer and eat the meat and prawns at the barbie; and God saw that it was good.
On the Sixth Day God saw the Bloke was a bit lonely and needed a soulmate to share his pleasures on the beach and around the barbie. So God created Mates and they were all good Blokes; and God saw that it was good.
On the Seventh Day God looked around at the twinkling barbie fires on the beach. He heard the gentle roar of the surf, the hiss of the opening beer cans and the raucous laughter of the Blokes. He smelled the aroma of the grilled chops and the sizzling prawns and he saw that it was good,...BUT He saw that the Blokes were too tired to clean up. So God created Sheilas, to clean up the barbie, to bear and look after the children, to wash, to cook, to sew and to do the shopping, and then God saw that it was not just good, it was Bloody Awesome!
It was AUSTRALIA!!!
In the beginning,it seems, on the First Day of Creation, God created Day and Night. The Day was for footy matches and barbeques and going to the beach, and the Night was for going prawning and sleeping; and God saw that it was good.
On the Second Day God created the oceans for surfing and swimming; and God saw that it was good.
On the Third Day God created the Earth, to bring forth plants and provide food, and malt and hops for beer, and wood for barbeques; and God saw that it was good.
On the Fourth Day God created animals to provide chops, sausages, steak and prawns for barbeques; and God saw that it was good.
On the Fifth Day God created a Bloke to go to the footy,enjoy the beach, drink the beer and eat the meat and prawns at the barbie; and God saw that it was good.
On the Sixth Day God saw the Bloke was a bit lonely and needed a soulmate to share his pleasures on the beach and around the barbie. So God created Mates and they were all good Blokes; and God saw that it was good.
On the Seventh Day God looked around at the twinkling barbie fires on the beach. He heard the gentle roar of the surf, the hiss of the opening beer cans and the raucous laughter of the Blokes. He smelled the aroma of the grilled chops and the sizzling prawns and he saw that it was good,...BUT He saw that the Blokes were too tired to clean up. So God created Sheilas, to clean up the barbie, to bear and look after the children, to wash, to cook, to sew and to do the shopping, and then God saw that it was not just good, it was Bloody Awesome!
It was AUSTRALIA!!!
The Magnificent Seven
I had another of my blinding insights this morning. I used to get them nearly every weekend, but they don't seem to come so often since I came off the red wine.
It's all to do with this blooming Windows 7 computer.
You see, when I was a lad we used to have a thing called a wireless, something of a misnomer since it didn't work without a wire which went from the back into an electric socket. You quickly learnt though that the 'wireless' bit referred to the magic radio-waves that came through the ether into your wireless set. It was best not to think too deeply about the ether, but our science teacher said it had no real substance to it and was everywhere (rather like Nick Clegg nowadays, the Leader of the Liberal Party). Later on we learnt much more about these things and we realized that there is no such thing as the ether (ditto the Liberal Party?). How the heck the radio waves get here is still a complete mystery to me but I have slowly learnt to live with it.
Anyway a bright young chap like me quickly fathomed that a wireless has 3 knobs on the front. There was the ON/OFF knob, the TUNING knob and the VOLUME knob, all of which worked every time, resulting in predictable satisfaction and happiness as we sat in a family group listening to 'Dick Barton Special Agent' or 'The Goons'.
As I became adolescent and entered adult life, things gradually became much more complicated. The wireless became a radio and radios started having timers and alarms, and bass and treble controls, stereo, woofers, tweeters, and a place to stick your tapes in a slot, but I persevered. Eventually I more or less understood what most of the controls did and I usually got some sort of gratification if I persevered long enough.
Then late in my life came computers, and I more or less gave up. They sometimes do what you want, but more often they don't, and they tend to cause tremendous frustration and annoyance.
'So where's the blinding insight in that?' you may reasonably ask.
Well I realize now that my gradual understanding and mastery of the new-fangled wireless of my youth, followed by my long and increasing bewilderment about the ever-more complicated electronic gizmos and computers, exactly reflects my experience of the female sex.
It happens to any adolescent lad when he discovers girls. He thinks he understands them but they tend to get more and more complicated as time goes by. When you first get a girl-friend, one your friends who has already got one will explain that there are fairly obvious knobs on the front, which you must twiddle to try to get whatever gratification you're looking for. I don't think I need to pursue this analogy much further but we all know that slots to take your CDs come at a later stage.
But you'd think after a lifetime of experience, you'd have got the hang of things, wouldn't you? But the internal workings will remain forever a mystery. Windows 7 is really, really complicated and there's no instruction book. It seems to have its own agenda, it rarely does exactly what you want, it often causes frustration, even annoyance, but there's no chance you'll ever understand it because it has an unfathomable mind of its own and by God its clever. Need I say more?
I'd better go now and do some grouting before I get into trouble.
It's all to do with this blooming Windows 7 computer.
You see, when I was a lad we used to have a thing called a wireless, something of a misnomer since it didn't work without a wire which went from the back into an electric socket. You quickly learnt though that the 'wireless' bit referred to the magic radio-waves that came through the ether into your wireless set. It was best not to think too deeply about the ether, but our science teacher said it had no real substance to it and was everywhere (rather like Nick Clegg nowadays, the Leader of the Liberal Party). Later on we learnt much more about these things and we realized that there is no such thing as the ether (ditto the Liberal Party?). How the heck the radio waves get here is still a complete mystery to me but I have slowly learnt to live with it.
Anyway a bright young chap like me quickly fathomed that a wireless has 3 knobs on the front. There was the ON/OFF knob, the TUNING knob and the VOLUME knob, all of which worked every time, resulting in predictable satisfaction and happiness as we sat in a family group listening to 'Dick Barton Special Agent' or 'The Goons'.
As I became adolescent and entered adult life, things gradually became much more complicated. The wireless became a radio and radios started having timers and alarms, and bass and treble controls, stereo, woofers, tweeters, and a place to stick your tapes in a slot, but I persevered. Eventually I more or less understood what most of the controls did and I usually got some sort of gratification if I persevered long enough.
Then late in my life came computers, and I more or less gave up. They sometimes do what you want, but more often they don't, and they tend to cause tremendous frustration and annoyance.
'So where's the blinding insight in that?' you may reasonably ask.
Well I realize now that my gradual understanding and mastery of the new-fangled wireless of my youth, followed by my long and increasing bewilderment about the ever-more complicated electronic gizmos and computers, exactly reflects my experience of the female sex.
It happens to any adolescent lad when he discovers girls. He thinks he understands them but they tend to get more and more complicated as time goes by. When you first get a girl-friend, one your friends who has already got one will explain that there are fairly obvious knobs on the front, which you must twiddle to try to get whatever gratification you're looking for. I don't think I need to pursue this analogy much further but we all know that slots to take your CDs come at a later stage.
But you'd think after a lifetime of experience, you'd have got the hang of things, wouldn't you? But the internal workings will remain forever a mystery. Windows 7 is really, really complicated and there's no instruction book. It seems to have its own agenda, it rarely does exactly what you want, it often causes frustration, even annoyance, but there's no chance you'll ever understand it because it has an unfathomable mind of its own and by God its clever. Need I say more?
I'd better go now and do some grouting before I get into trouble.
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