Brian Clegg's Blog, page 53

The curious paradox of the self-confirming Englishman

At the weekend I was saddened to see someone post on Facebook:

[the] EC debate has reinforced how out of tune I feel with any nationalistic sense of being "English"

For me, this statement was a genuine paradox in the proper logical sense. Because the only people I know who are embarrassed by their nationality are English. I don't know a single Scottish or Welsh person who isn't proud to be - Scottish or Welsh. I delight in my part-Irish background. Yet there is something in the poor tortured English soul that produces a kind of national self-loathing. So bizarrely, by proclaiming that you don't feel English... you show how English you are.

It's time we grew up in England and realised that being proud of your nation is not the same as fascist-style Nationalism. People who assume this are falling into a classic either/or logic error. Such people assume that if you don't loathe your nationality you have to be a Nazi - but, of course, the vast majority of people in the world are very happy with their nationality and proclaim that to be the case. It's time we reclaimed our right to be English without being guilty about it.

The PR Corner - issue #3

I was always a fan of Pseud's Corner in Private Eye. These days, the most purple prose I receive is often in the form of press releases for books being offered for review. I will provide an irregular series of these, both for your entertainment and, I hope, as pointers of what not to do with the press releases for your own books. 
Note that the books themselves could be brilliant... or not. But a poor press release is unlikely to generate many reviews. Names will be omitted to protect the innocent and guilty alike. 


I suspect the problems are fairly self-evident, but just in case here's a few key pointers to look out for:
Do critics really ask 'When is film coming?' [sic]Do readers want to be embroiled? Or just parboiled?So most writers don't really try with their first book?I can't see anything in the release that suggests this book 'redefines the YA/Adult crossover fantasy genre'.Fierce ability? Really?It has all the same old concepts, but doesn't succumb to... the same old concepts. Good trick.Is it a good thing it doesn't have a clear audience?Do readers want a book to be a hoot?It repeatedly tells us the book is 'unique in the market' but does not give any evidence of what makes it unique, instead reeling out the 'same old concepts.'And doesn't that last line fill us with joy?


[TITLE] :  Blistering New YA/Adult Crossover Novel Redefines Fantasy Genre. Critics Ask: “When is Film Coming”?
X’s ‘[Title]' embroils readers in a land where danger, magic, quirky creatures and chillingly-vivid characters run amok. There’s nothing else like it on the market, with critics tipping the adventure as the perfect candidate for the big screen. In fact, one critic recently wrote, “Enter through the portal and be swept up in a whirlwind of a vividly described new world. X writes like a dream”.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEUnited Kingdom – While most authors use their first release to do nothing but simply test the literary waters, X is rapidly proving that a debut novel also presents an opportunity to rival the bestsellers. In fact, X ‘[Title]’ is being praised by critics for totally redefining the YA/Adult crossover fantasy genre.It all comes down to the author’s fierce ability to defy convention and her refusal to succumb to the ‘same old’ concepts. Yes, her novel contains all of the unique, intricate creatures and characters fantasy fans crave, but with a narrative unlike anything else on the market.[...]“This novel was primarily written for both the young adult audience and adults, as the story’s culture and values transcend any single age group to make it a hoot for readers in any stage of their life,” explains X. “It’s all about retaining the hallmarks of the fantasy genre, while also breaking new ground to produce something that sits as totally unique in the market. It was no easy job, but I’m delighted with the final product.”
Continuing, “And remember, this is just the very start of the saga. The next book is currently on my writing desk and should be released later this year.”

Enjoyed this one? See PR Corner #2

Data is like money

I am very fond of scientists, but I have to admit that their discipline tends to make them pedantic (I suspect even I can be occasionally) - which is fine when assessing science, but rubbish when thinking about use of English. Scientists should realise this. Suggesting language should have a fixed set of rules that always apply and never change is a bit like saying all species should be as they were 6,000 years ago and never change. Language is far more like biology than physics.

The particular bit of scientific pedantry that gets my back up is the instance that the word 'data' should be treated as plural. So scientists will pedantically insist on writing 'the data support the hypothesis' rather than 'the data supports the hypothesis.' To every normal person, the scientists' version is clearly wrong. Because language evolves, and the way we use the word 'data' has evolved too.

I would argue that data has become the same kind of singular collective noun as money. The word 'money' usually refers to more than one thing and we use some plural forms with it - so we say 'I have some money' not 'I have a money'. But we also say 'The money is in the bank,' not 'The money are in the bank.'

This makes a huge amount of sense. There are very clear similarities with the way 'money' and 'data' are used as words. But the trouble with being a pedant is that you can stick with an outdated theory  far longer than you should. So those who want data to be plural, scratch around for a justification and think they have found one. 'Ah,' they say, 'data has to be plural because it is a Latin word, the plural of datum.' But this is rubbish. Classical plural forms are decreasingly used in English, and have never been definitive. If you really wanted to be pedantic about Classical plurals - and even Fowler thought this was silly - the plural of octopus would be octopodes. Data has become a word we use for something that had nothing to do with its Latin roots.

No, you've lost this one scientists. Data, as a word, should work just like money does, and it's about time you switched away from this clumsy usage.

How Marks and Spencer may be ripping you off

There are some stores like Tesco and Asda that, frankly, we expect to deploy every sales trick in the book. But there are others, notably John Lewis/Waitrose and Marks & Spencer where you may pay a bit more, but you expect to get - and usually do get - ethical treatment. However, I may have just spotted the dirty tricks department at M&S in action.

I was in a hurry and grabbed a two-pack of sausage rolls, taking them straight to the till. And didn't suspect anything until the server rang up £3 (he may have accidentally put them through twice, but even if that's true, there was clearly something odd going on.)
It was only then that I noticed that I had picked up gluten free sausage rolls. Now, looking at the packaging you might think it was obvious, but all I saw was 'Sausage rolls'.
So I went back and replaced them with ordinary sausage rolls - they were 75p for the two pack. So I nearly got hugely overcharged.
Like 99% of the population, I am not gluten intolerant - and like the rest of that 99% I should avoid gluten free food, which usually has more additives and always has more fat to provide some of the sticking power of natural gluten. (In this case, the ordinary sausage rolls only had 75% of the fat of the gluten free ones.) Let's be clear there are ZERO health benefits to eating gluten free if you aren't gluten intolerant, and significant negatives.
But why am I making a fuss when I picked up a pack that was clearly labelled? Because the gluten free sausage rolls were next to the ordinary ones, not in a separate gluten free section. Generally speaking, a separate gluten free section is the best solution for both shop and customer. For the shop it means less opportunity of confusion, and for the customer, if you are in the 1% of sufferers you can see where your bit is, if you are in the 99% who aren't, you can find the normal stuff.

As far as I can see, there is only one reason for putting the gluten free sausage rolls in with the ordinary ones. And that is because people in a hurry will do what I do, pick up gluten free sausage rolls from a 'normal food' section and pay extra. And if that is the reason, this really is a rip-off.

Time to end literary snobbery

Perhaps because of my Northern working class family background, I struggle when presented with what appears to be pretentiousness. I know, for instance, that caviar is a horrible, salty waste of money, I prefer a good draught beer to wine with a meal, and I have real trouble with the literary scene.

The vast majority of the time I prefer to read genre fiction, whether crime or SF, rather than reading literary fiction. I'd go further - I think good genre writing is better fiction than most literary fiction. So I have real mixed feelings about seeing the quotes alongside in the Adam Roberts book By Light Alone, which I recently reviewed.

On the one hand I absolutely agree that Roberts is a brilliant writer. And I think it's true that the literary types (I would hardly describe them as mainstream (or even 'mainstram') will pick up on Roberts just as they did, for instance, with Ray Bradbury, and will do all their power to try to persuade themselves and the rest of us that because this is good writing, it's not really science fiction at all. However, I think it is a sad reflection of the nature of the literary establishment that they feel the need to do this. Roberts writes excellent fiction that makes you think - like many SF writers. And he writes science fiction.

After writing this I noticed in my review of Roberts' book The Thing Itself, I wrote 'This is the kind of science fiction that should be winning the Booker Prize. Simple as that.' It was an interesting echo of the comment above - but I ought to stress I'm not saying that Roberts' books should be considered literary fiction, but that prizes like the Booker should take in genre fiction, because it's so often better than the stuff they get excited over.

Songs are commodities - get over it, performers

Hardly a day seems to go by without some egotistical musician proclaiming they don't want some individual or some organisation they happen not to agree with to use their music at an event. I suspect this reflects the general feeling that being a musician is being an 'artist' and as such, one should retain control of one's work. As far as I'm concerned this is rubbish.

A song is a commodity. If someone buys it and pays the appropriate reproduction fees it should be entirely up to them how they use it. There is no sense that it suggests the artist is supporting the cause or an individual who is playing it. It's just background music.

Think how bizarre it would be if I said that I don't want people using my book, say, to prop up the leg of a wonky table. Feel free to do so - buy as many as you like for this purpose. For that matter, provided you don't misquote me, and pay attention to copyright/copying fees etc., feel free to use text from my books as a backdrop to your events. Whatever they are. If I don't agree with you, that's fine. I'm not making the statement about your cause, any more than the manufacturer of the paint on the walls is.

Get a grip, music people. Deflate those egos a little.

By Light Alone review - Adam Roberts

I have only relatively recently discovered Adam Roberts, with the likes of Jack Glass and The Thing Itself , but every one of his books I've read has been excellent, so it seemed time to start filling in the gaps.

I went for By Light Alone because of its interesting sounding premise. It's a cracker (as they say). The idea is that science has produced a mechanism where people can get all the energy they need from sunlight, thanks to a bug that turns their hair into super-photosynethic light absorbers. All they need to live is some water and a few essential nutrients. A clever (if technically verging on the impossible) idea, certainly. But where Roberts triumphs is in going into the unexpected implications of the change - the absolute heart of what makes science fiction, and which so few literary types who do SF down, and think it's all about spaceships and ray guns, appreciate.

One implication considered is that for the first time ever it's possible to have a group of people who have literary no money at all. Not just poor but literally penniless. Roberts also examines the possibilities for male/female distinctions, and how a small group of wealthy people might consider those who have the special hair to be a subspecies, and to conspicuously wear their hair short to emphasise they don't need it.

The book is divided into four parts, each seen from a different (but linked) individual's point of view. At the heart of the book is the story of a privileged family whose daughter is taken from them on a skiing holiday. They assume initially it is as a hostage, but the authorities gradually explain that something much darker is behind it.

The one fault I would say that the book has is that the forth segment, which is the longest, seen from the viewpoint of the captured daughter, is the least effective. It's partly because the environment she is in forces a slow, plodding development, with occasional dramatic outbreaks of violence, but also because it just doesn't work quite as well as the other sections. It's good, but the others are brilliant.

If you want to see what good, modern science fiction is like - or are looking for a new author to branch out into, Adam Roberts is an obvious choice. I wouldn't go straight to his latest, The Thing Itself, as it is his most complex book, but either By Light Alone or Jack Glass would make an excellent way in. Recommended.

By Light Alone is available from amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.

Lies, damned lies and viewing figures

I read in the i newspaper that Britain's Got Talent 'recorded the lowest audience figures in the show's ten year history.' How do they know? Because 'on average 8.5 million viewers watched the final... [recording] a peak audience of 10.5 million viewers.' But how can they know that? They can't - and worse still, the method of discovering it is far less reliable than it used to be.

These numbers are based on a sample. A few thousand brave volunteers register what they watch on little boxes - the data is then aggregated and multiplied up by various esoteric factors to try to make the sample truly representative. As polls often show, this kind of multiplying up has many problems and often doesn't work very well. But at least it was relatively simple when this system first started to be used. You either watched some or all of a programme, or you didn't.

Now the viewing audience is painfully splintered. We, for instance, hardly ever watch anything when it is broadcast. We either watch it recorded on a YouView box, or using catch up. And a fair proportion of the time we're viewing via more indirect streaming from the likes of Netflix. So, for instance, a couple of months ago, we watched Series 3 of Call the Midwife on Netflix. Even if we were part of the sample (which we aren't) there is no way that would count towards the viewing figures when it was first broadcast in 2013.

Of course not everyone watches the same way we do - but that's the whole point. For example, we hardly ever watch TV on phones or tablets - but some do all the time. This fragmentation makes the margin for error on the statistics potentially much larger. I have never seen any error bars on viewing figures (why not?) - but by now they must be pretty enormous. I honestly don't think the public is too thick to cope with a range rather than a single figure - and it would make the statistics far more honest than they currently are.

Should you love your job?

Thanks to Eric Doyle on Facebook, I came across an article written by Janelle Quibuyen, who was complaining that 'quitting your job to pursue your passion is bullshit.' I'm afraid it was a piece that totally missed the point of working for yourself. And as someone who made the shift 20 years ago, and hasn't had a proper job since, I wanted to stick up for those who take the plunge.

Firstly, it is important to say something about the 'your passion' part of 'pursuing your passion', which seems not to have occurred to the author of the article. Just because you are passionate about something doesn't mean you are good at it. Few passionate football fans are potential professionals. Shows like The X-Factor demonstrate the gap that can exist between enthusiasm and ability all too clearly. So to make this kind of thing work, you need to be objectively sure that you are at least competent. Don't rely on your own opinion or that of your friends and relations - they will lie. Have a go in your spare time and see if anyone will pay you for it.  Of course you can get better, and you will if you go for it full time - but you have to have some initial aptitude.

Try, if possible, to arrange some kind of transition, so that you don't go straight from employed to nothing coming in. It will almost certainly be bumpy - you might need to change accommodation arrangements, rely more on a partner/move back with your parents for a while. And it could end in failure. No doubt about that at all. But if you have a passion and you're genuinely good at it, you are going to kick yourself if you never try.

Taking the plunge is inevitable a compromise. You will have to weigh positives against negatives. I still don't earn as much as I did when I left my job 20 years ago - so you may well have to plan for a cut in income. One of the things we did about this was to move from somewhere it was expensive to live to somewhere cheap. Unlike our friends who stayed around the London area, we aren't sitting on a million pound house now. But in exchange for having less capital, I was at home most of the time while my children grew up - far more than I would have been if I had left the house at 7am and got back at 6.30pm. And we got to live in the country, rather than the suburbs, where I think the children had a better life.

Similarly, you do have to weigh potential loss of earnings against really enjoying your working day. I don't dread Monday morning, I look forward to it. How much is it worth to spend one of the biggest chunks of your life doing something you love, rather than something you hate? And if I had stayed in my job, when I retired, I would have had far less to look back on and think 'I did that' than is the case since I became a writer.

Of course, as the article suggests, there is a degree of uncertainty. Sometimes it is hard to get enough money coming in, and you've got to be prepared to be flexible, to have a portfolio job, rather than always doing the same thing (though I've found that part of the positives). But bear in mind that the impression of certainty from a salaried job only lasts as long as they don't decide to lay you off. At least when self-employed you can do something about it - you aren't a victim.

Also, as the article suggests, not everyone leaves a job because they have a passion, and not everyone has the kind of drive required to do it all yourself. It seems likely that Quibuyen doesn't. And that's fine. Self-employment and attempting to live the dream is not for everyone. But to suggest, as she does, that somehow this is something only privileged middle class people can do is the real bullshit here. Quibuyen says 'The statement [quitting your job to pursue your passion] reeks of privilege. It confirms you had a full-time job to begin with. It confirms you had time to develop a passion (that you can capitalize off of, enough to meet your cost of living). It confirms you had the option to pursue something different because you feel like it. There are more challenges to being self-employed than just mental perseverance and grit. We are predatorily luring working class people into an entrepreneur lifestyle as the answer to living a meaningful life and loads of money.' I find that patronising and simply untrue as a blanket statement. There are plenty of working class people who successfully set up their own business, doing something they really wanted to do. She seems to suggest that if you are working class you can't have aspirations or a passion. I'm sorry, that's so condescending.

To make this kind of thing work needs personal drive and a certain amount of luck. I was lucky, for instance, that the company I was working for was offering voluntary redundancy, so I didn't have to go from earning to nothing in one go. But the fact remains that for some people, whatever their background, taking such a move can really work. It's not a universal panacea. It definitely isn't for everyone. But I'd suggest if you aren't happy with what you do in life, it's at least worth thinking through.

Where'd it go?

I'm afraid it's that time of year again, when blogging becomes difficult, thanks to all the exciting alternatives like trimming the hedge, cutting the lawn and arguing on Facebook about EU referenda (okay, that doesn't happen every year) start getting in the way, and posts become somewhat sporadic. However, I would like to assure my reader that I've not given up. As a bigger and more Austrian person once said, 'I'll be back.'