>Mouse for lunch

>

We’re in the garden, and our neighbour’s cat arrives to say hello.

B calls me: “Dad! Jeeves has caught a rat!”

It’s not a rat, it’s a mouse. Already dead, but knowing Jeeves, it didn’t die slowly. He enjoys playing with his prey. He’ll catch a rodent and allow it to escape once or twice, but every time catch up with it easily, and whack it with his paw. Just before he kills, the prey usually stays still for a while. Alive, but either too terrified, or too injured, to move.

We step closer, and Jeeves moves round, as if trying to show us what he’s caught. See how clever I am? he says.

Then he bends his head down, picks up the little mouse corpse, and delicately bites its head off.

I glance at Barney, thinking that he might be upset. But he’s quite calm.

“Well, that’s the head gone,” he remarks. Indeed.

Jeeves eats the head, making horrific crunching noises as the skull is pulverised by his strong jaws. Crrunch, crrunch, crrunch. Gone. Another bite removes the front half of the torso, including the front legs. He drops the rear half of the mouse on the patio. A tiny teaspoon of blood spatters the gravel.

Next, Jeeves very carefully licks the open end of the mouse’s body. It’s not clear what he’s doing here, but he is very experienced at this; he knows exactly how to proceed. After the licks, he starts on the rear half. He doesn’t use his paws at all, just his mouth. He’s not chewing, he’s dissecting. He turns the rear end of the corpse around, and eats from the tail end. Down it goes, the rear legs follow.

And what’s left, very deliberately and very clearly, is the intestines, and one or two other organs. A liver, perhaps; I’m not sure. They glisten on the stones. Jeeves walks away from them and proudly curls himself around my ankles. Barney watches him, while I look at the still-warm mouse innards he has left behind, and wonder what I’m going to do with them.

Jeeves wanders off, nonchalant and full up. See? See how clever I am? he purrs.

Well, you would, wouldn’t you?

>Nursery rhyme insurance claims

>

Magic Fairy Land Insurance Ltd,
Pudding Lane
Round-the-hill-and-back-again
There There
Ye Olde Englande

FAO: Little Boy Who Lives Down the Lane

Sir,

We received your recent claim regarding two full missing bags of wool, and attached sheet outlining the circumstances of the loss thereof.

Following our own independent investigations and a lengthy interview with your contractor, Baa Baa Black Sheep, we find that while the precise nature of your agreement is unclear, Mr Sheep did not fail to keep his side of any bargain. Since there exists no paper contract and instead, merely the “gentleman’s agreement” you mention in your claim, we find no evidence that Mr Sheep deliberately deprived you of wool. Indeed, it would seem that his contracts with other customers, particularly the Master and the Dame, were fulfilled to their entire satisfaction. The Dame, in particular, has supplied us with a most positive reference with regard to Mr Sheep’s ongoing business relationship with her.

We therefore find your claim invalid, and regret that we shall not be paying for the cost of two replacement full bags of wool, plus expenses and the amount for damages you specified.

We trust that this decision meets with your approval. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to call our customer service helpline.

Sincerely,

MFL Insurance Ltd

***

Magic Fairy Land Insurance Ltd,
Pudding Lane
Round-the-hill-and-back-again
There There
Ye Olde Englande

FAO: Boy who looks after the sheep

Sir,

We received your claim for loss of earnings and have devoted considerable thought to it. We regret, however, that we cannot meet your request and that your claim falls outside the terms laid out in your insurance premium document (copy attached).

You state in your claim that you were, and we quote, “under a haycock, fast asleep” when your colleague and would-be assistant, Little Boy Blue, set about blowing his horn. The sheep was not, as you claimed, settled down in front of the Aga – instead it was in the meadow, a fact confirmed by a number of independent witnesses. Neither was the cow enjoying a relaxing sauna, as you claimed – it was seen by Blue and others in the corn.

Since your duties as boy-who-looks-after-the-sheep were specifically to keep the sheep from entering the meadow area, there is a clear case of dereliction of duty, and we find no merit to your claim in any form whatsoever. What’s more, while your job title made no mention of looking-after-the-cow, we consider such a duty implicit, and therefore find your professional misconduct all the more alarming.

We therefore respectfully decline your claim and suggest that, in future, you take your professional responsibilities more seriously. Or failing that, find an alternative supplier of insurance policies.

Sincerely,

MFL Insurance Ltd

***

Magic Fairy Land Insurance Ltd,
Pudding Lane
Round-the-hill-and-back-again
There There
Ye Olde Englande

FAO: Mrs Grundy (wife of Mr Solomon Grundy, deceased)

Madam,

Permit us to begin our letter with an expression of our most sincere condolences following the tragic and early death of your husband. Although brief, his life touched many and the news of his demise caused much grief and upset here at the offices of Magic Fairy Insurance. He was a great man who achieved much in a very short time, and for his achievements he will always be remembered.

Now let us turn to your life insurance claim, which we received shortly after the news of Mr Grundy’s passing.

You married Mr Grundy on Wednesday, as soon as was possible given his fast-paced life. We note that your life insurance policy began on that same day.

We also note that it is a matter of public record that Mr Grundy was taken ill the very next day, Thursday. The two of you did not even enjoy a honeymoon.

Furthermore, he was worse the following day. There is no record of any attempt to consult a doctor, and you did not mention any medical history or the name of any professionals in that field. Already, we regret to point out, your actions (or lack of them) fall foul of several of the terms and conditions laid out in our life insurance policy documents (copies attached).

Mr Grundy’s condition must have worsened very rapidly indeed, and he died on the Saturday. While we have no doubt that this was a traumatic event for you and the rest of the Grundy family, we note with some concern that no time was allowed for any sort of post-mortem, and that Mr Grundy was buried (with what some might say was indecent haste) the following day.

Your claim letter was written the day after that.

Mrs Grundy, we do not doubt your devotion to your husband, and we mourn his passing as much as the rest of the community. But we consider his life insurance policy null and void, and your related claim likewise. While your haste to file the claim might be an attempt to honour your late husband’s tendency to act swiftly and get things done with the minimum of delay, we find that his passing, and your actions, do not fall within the strict terms of our policy.

For that reason, and with the greatest respect, we must decline your claim for a life insurance payout.

Sincerely,

MFL Insurance Ltd

>Copywriting

>

This is what copywriting smells like.

Not entirely a complete fabrication

For the Morning News, I wrote Mr Bowyer’s Fantastic Machine, a piece that combines science, geography, science fiction, profile piece, and mulling on the theory and practice of journalism. All in just under 1300 words.

A web writer’s dream come true

You know me, you know I have an obsession with writing software for ages. I like to try out everything that comes along. Rarely has anything lived up to the gorgeous simplicity of TextMate and a bunch of folders in the Finder.

The difference for me, and this is something I consider fairly fundamental to my obsessive behaviour, is that a lot of what I write is destined for publication on the web. Right now, about 70% of all my paid work is for blogs and other web publications, and will never see the light of day in print.

If I were solely a print journalist, I’d probably have stuck with something like Scrivener or Mori or DevonNote years ago. They’re just the thing for managing articles where all you need to consider is the words.

But a web writer has to consider more than the words. A web writer has to consider the links, and to some extent, the presentation and formatting of the words. This is stuff that simply isn’t required for print content.

So the direct consequence of this is that most software that’s great for writing just words isn’t so great for writing words for the web. There’s a difference in the required output, and there’s a difference in the requirements of the software.

This is what lies behind my obsession. I’ve been writing for web sites for many years, but I’ve never really found the writing tool that fulfilled that very specific niche. It has to have certain features:

• easy integration with various blog tools and their APIs
• word count (live if possible, called up by command if not)
• treat plain text properly
• convert Markdown to HTML in situ and instantly
• have a full screen editing mode, and be able to flit between window and full screen with one button
• ideally, offer some degree of management of content, so that I can keep track of ideas-for-articles, articles-in-progress, articles-to-be-posted, and articles-posted-previously

Now I’ve known about MarsEdit for years, but haven’t sat down and tried using it properly. Not until a couple of weeks ago, when anger with WordPress-in-a-browser sent me scurrying for a client app that wouldn’t make me quite so cross.

And having downloaded and used it for just a few hours, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done so years ago. It solves many of the problems I was dealing with, and adds other features to boot. For 15 quid, it’s a marvel.

But there’s more: although MarsEdit doesn’t have everything, I can add things to it with a utility like ThisService. After an hour or so of of Googling and fiddling about, I have set up MarsEdit so that it can do everything on the list above. It can even do full screen editing, thanks to its helpful “Edit with…” command that can be invoked with a simple tap on Command+J.

I’m almost exploding with excitement about this. ThisService makes a sensible Word Count and use of Markdown possible in every app I have. Now I have them inside MarsEdit, which does all the article-management and talking-to-API gubbins too. And it copes very nicely with images too, just drag ‘em in. This is the software setup I’ve been looking for inside a single app for years, but it turns out that three very niche apps, working together, have provided the answer instead.

I’d urge any of you who regularly write for web publications – yes, both of you – to have a try with this setup and see if it makes you more productive. Cos I think it probably will.

The tone of voice indicator

Email’s horrible, it conveys nothing of your tone of voice. This leads to problems.

A chunk of text that you’ve written in a cheery tone can be easily misinterpreted by the recipient as snarky, sarcastic, and rude. Something you’ve sent to be supportive might be read as condescending or patronising.

I’ve seen it happen, we all have. Just recently, a friend described an email conversation and was spitting with fury at what she saw as obvious rudeness. And in the tone of voice she related it to me with, it was rude. But the words themselves were not rude, and I silently wondered whether they’d been intended to be read in a different tone altogether.

This bothers me to the extent that I’ve adopted something I call the “tone-of-voice indicator”, which I append to the bottom of very occasional emails where I believe the tone of voice they’re read in is important.

Usually these are difficult or troublesome conversations that involve disagreement. Just because I disagree with someone, doesn’t mean I don’t like them, or don’t see their point of view.

A tone-of-voice indicator isn’t new. Here’s one: :)

That’s what smileys were invented for. They were designed to add emotion to text, hence the name emoticons.

The problem is that they’ve become so ubiquitous that no-one pays the slightest bit of attention to them. They fade into the background, like the words “the” or “said”. You can insert them into controversial text as much as you like, but instead of conveying your emotion or tone-of-voice, they will just make you look like a leering, gurning loon.

What I do now, then, when the circumstances warrant it, is add the following to a message:

[Tone-of-voice indicator, because emails are easy to mis-read in that regard: :) ]

(And almost every time I use that, it is a smiley icon that I insert. Usually because I’m stating a point of view or an opinion, but don’t want to give the impression that I’m being snotty or uppity about it.)

What’s different between a normal smiley and my tone-of-voice indicator is the context in which it is presented. I make it very clear what I’m doing with the sentence that precedes the smiley. I state what I’m doing, in plain English.

Or to put it another way, I explain why I’m putting in a smiley, rather than simply littering my text with the damn things and hoping they get understood.

A glacial mystery

An essay at gilest.org: The mystery of the Fan Hir glacier.

Musings on geomorphology and the importance of clambering up mountains, etc.

Published in The New Writer’s Handbook

I’m chuffed to tell you that my essay for The Morning News, A writer by any other name has been printed in The New Writer’s Handbook Volume 2, which you can buy from Amazon UK if you fancy it.

As you can imagine, it’s a handbook for writers. Most of it is short pieces culled from the web, as mine was. All of them contain practical or whimsical advice for writers, either professional or amateur, and most of them are much funnier and more entertaining than my contribution.

Still, it’s nice to see something from the Morning News getting a wider audience, and comforting to think that the piece would never have been picked up by the Scarletta Press editors had it not appeared at TMN in the first place.

While the book was going through production, editor Philip Martin asked me to provide a short bio to go with my article. Since the article is entirely concerned with the pain of writing short bios, I was delighted that he was happy to print my suggestion of: “Giles Turnbull is a — well, you know all that now.”

Replicators and journalists

I’ve just posted A story of replication and journalism on my mailing list. It’s a story about a story that I’d hoped to write – it tells you two stories at once. That’s the idea, anyway.

I’m posting quite a lot of words over on the list these days. If you like my stuff here, and you want more of it, more often, you might want to subscribe to the list.

New toy

I’ve got a new toy – a mailing list of my own, just like the good old days of gorjuss and luvly. If you remember them, you’ll know what it’s like. Stuff, from me, sent out as and when. So far, it’s mainly chunks of text and thoughts that occur. In the future, it might include works-in-progress, stuff that got spiked, bits of interview, you know the sort of thing.

It’s a Google Group because that was the least hassle. Apologies to those of you with a burning hatred of Google Groups or hosted list services generally.

For a moment I was going to call it “triffic” or something similar, but in the end opted for the duller-than-twigs “gilest”.

So then: info page, and gilest at Google Groups. Get subscribin’, if you want to.