Closing the Barn Door

My Postcards books were published a decade ago, and some of the essays in them are nearly twenty years old. So why did I suddenly, and so belatedly, re-release them?

Am I really that vain? Do I crave riches and glory? Have I run out of things to say?

Okay, I’ll cop to some of that, but the real, honest-to-God reason I began this revision journey was because, incredibly, people are still buying the books.

It remains a source of pride, humility, chagrin and incredulity that every month a dozen or so people, for some reason or other, purchase one or more of my ten-year-old humor books. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased as a puppy in a squeaky-toy factory, but after a time I started feeling like people were paying good money for day-old bread. This was why, some years ago, I dropped the Kindle price to $.99 on all the books. (The paperbacks have always been set to nearly their lowest price, and there’s nothing I can do about that.) Then, in the lull between finishing my latest book and picking up the next one, I thought I’d combine all three books into one so the price could be even lower.

This took a couple of days and the results looked fine and I was about to release it into the wild when a nagging voice from the back of my mind said, “Really, if you’re re-publishing it, you ought to give it another once-over.”

Now, these manuscripts have been read and re-read, and checked and re-checked, and proofed and re-proofed, but I couldn’t shake the notion, so I thought I’d try a new proofing trick I had just learned and…oh…my…lord. There were errors, small ones (mostly), ones readers might not even see, but their numbers were scandalous.

The trick is this: MS Word now has the ability to read your text back to you. Reading your work out loud has always been a basic method of proof-reading, but having a machine read it works a hundred times better than reading it yourself. The robotic voice never reads what it thinks it sees, or glosses over missed words; it says just what is there, exactly as it is written. It even has inflection, so extraneous (or missing) punctuation is also highlighted.

Click for larger image

And so, I spent a few days listening to George as he read through the new tome—all 542 pages of it—interrupting him every few paragraphs to eradicate yet another of the astoundingly frequent boo-boos we found. (Yes, George. The Read Aloud function has three different voices: George, Susan and Hazel. If you are in a document set to UK English, you get David, Zira or Mark.)

This, however, allowed me to put the book up on Amazon with a clear conscience. Then that niggling voice said, “What about the ones already up there?”

And so, I spent a few more days fixing each, individual manuscript and re-loading the updated books to Amazon. They are all up there now—Postcards From Across the Pond, More Postcards From Across the Pond, and Postcards From Ireland—and they are as error-free as is humanly possible. (Well, possible for this human, anyway.) Now, the baker’s dozen of purchasers will, at least, be getting better books. Sucks about all the other people but I can only do so much.

The lesson learned: Never, never, (never) publish anything until you have it read back to you by a machine, and—despite this—there are always, always, (always), ALWAYS more errors.

All of my books are available on Amazon:

Summer, Revisited

2020

I’m sitting in my office with a limp breeze floating in through the open window, bringing with it the scent of dry grass and sun-baked tarmac, as well as a distinctive “new clothes” smell, as I am wearing a shirt I just bought from FatFace. The odd combination brings to mind vivid memories of the first day of school, and an ache of nostalgia.

My intention was to write about the blue skies, blazing sun and record-breaking heat we’ve been enjoying (well, I have, anyway) this past week or so, but I think I’ve done that to death and, rather than rehash something I’ve already said, I will, instead, offer up a post I wrote a decade ago, of another heat wave, as it takes place in the “Before Time” and speaks of the same subject, but in prose so poetic that I can only look back on it in wonder.

2011 

And so, it is summer. A heatwave: that’s what the locals are calling it, despite the improbability of it meeting—as far as I am concerned—any of the criteria. But who would want to quibble over esoteric details on such a fine day? Certainly not I, especially when I’m on a mission.

The days here are hot, the nights long and soft, leading me back to my younger days when, like today, I remained at leisure while my elders toiled these most enjoyable of days away. I’m heading into town, to journey to a place I have never been before; a rare adventure, which makes the pull of my youthful memories even stronger. And so, as I wander past the shops selling mobile phones, iPads and the latest in electronic wizardry, I find myself yearning, with an intensity that makes me ache, for those days when a game of hide-and-seek was enough to satisfy, and the latest in high-technology was a three-speed bicycle.

One, lone person, brave enough to face the heat.

I wait in solitude at the edge of the market square, watching life buzz around me: Near the bandstand, a clutch of young mothers clucks and coos over the latest arrival while, at the bus stop, a doddering of matrons looks on with approval. In the shade of the chestnut tree, an elderly woman stands still as a frightened fawn, watching other pensioners parade past in jackets and jumpers. On the benches a languor of long-limbed ladies (heedless of the dangers of excessive alliteration) lounge lazily in the sun, their white skin steamy in the sultry heat. Nearby, an indolence of boys—bare-chested, tattooed, and rugged—gaze on in anticipation. There is nothing for me here, so I move on.

I’m on a reconnaissance mission to scope out a local village in preparation for a meeting I have there next week. I find it advantageous to make a practice trip in such instances for reasons that become obvious even as the bus rumbles along the impossibly narrow country lanes: if you have never been to a place before, how do you know when you have arrived?

When we enter an area where there are at least a few houses, I get off the bus. I had envisioned a twee village, perhaps with a cobbled main street lined with shops, an old stone church and the pub I was searching for. Instead, there were just empty roads, some houses and, alarmingly, no people. I walk up the road and down the road but find nothing promising. At the opposite bus stop I see a young woman and, as she is my only option, I approach her.

“Do you know…” I begin, but then I realize I have nothing intelligent to ask her. “Where I am?” would make me seem hopelessly inept and, perhaps, dangerous. Asking the location of the pub would be a good opening line, but I have neglected to memorize it. I didn’t feel the need, as I have memorized what I regard to be the one piece of information I need to know: it is the only pub in the village. But where is the village?

So I continue. “Is there anything that resembles a village around here?”

She seems puzzled by the concept of “village,” so I take her to be a local.

“Well, if you go up this road and take a left, you’ll find a pub and a store,” she tells me. I thank her and set off, but soon begin to wonder if, having noticed my accent, she has decided to play “trick the tourist.” The road I am on is narrow and empty and I am about to turn around and try the opposite direction when I round a corner and find, just as she promised, a pub, a store and little else.

But the pub is lovely, old and dark with low, beamed ceilings, and the publican is cordial. I had planned nothing more than a quick drink and a return trip, but the waitress explains to me that the bus service is…well, …

“Crap?” I offer.

She smiles, relieved at not having to break the news to me herself.

“So, I’m going to have to stay here until four o’clock?” I ask, incredulously.

She shrugs and looks at the pristine sky.

“It’s such a lovely day; I shouldn’t think you’d mind.”

And, indeed, I don’t.

Faking It

The US 2020 Presidential Election is beginning to gear up, and we all know what that means: the tidal wave of Fake News (real Fake News—not opinions you don’t like) that is currently swamping Twitter and Facebook (and wherever else virtual people gather in virtual meeting places to argue with virtual strangers) is set to swell into a tsunami.

For the most part, people seem unwilling or unable to do much about Fake News other than spread it. I do not; I’m one of those obnoxious people who call it out.

What do you think? Real, or Fake?

This, however, gives me little satisfaction, and it takes enough time as it stands now, so when the election really gets rolling, it’s going to become a full-time job. Unless I do something about it, and since I can’t stop it, the only thing I can do—the only thing that remains in my control—is to not look at it.

This won’t be easy, as it is so pervasive, but what I propose is this:

If anyone I follow posts Fake News, I will block and/or de-friend them.

I don’t take this challenge lightly, as I have few enough friends—real or imagined—as it is, but at least the few that I am left with will have their feet firmly planted in reality. I’m not saying I’ll agree with them, I’m just saying I don’t want to engage in conversations with people—real or virtual—who base their opinions on fantasy. 

The Fake News Spreader comes in a variety of flavours, but I don’t wish to sample any of them:

- The Originators: I don’t have to worry about these people, they are not on my Friends List, and most of them are in Russia, operating out of some dank warehouse, churning out pseudo-news for fun, profit or world domination.

- The Believers: These are the people who can look at a mocked-up news story that wouldn’t fool a five-year-old and exclaim, “Oh, my GOD! I have to send this to as many people as possible! This has to get out! People need to know this! How come CNN, FoxNews, NBC, ABC or any major news outlet anywhere in the entire world has not picked up on this yet…ow! My head hurts! I must be doing something I’ve never tried before…like…like…thinking…”

From the 2016 Election. A Chihuahua could tell this has been Photoshopped.

- The Provocateurs: These people know they are posting lies, but they don’t care. 

I tagged this as Fake. The thread was deleted. Then it was 
put back up without my comment on it.
So I tagged it again...

There really is no lower form of human endeavour, except, perhaps…

- The Clueless: These are Believers who are so wilfully stupid that they cannot tell the difference between real fantasy and fake reality, causing them to post satire and call it truth.

These people should not be allowed out without supervision, and should be discouraged from watching movies like Game of Thrones, The Hobbit and Avatar.

I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, or that I might not come upon some disappointing truths while attempting to ferret out lies.

I looked this up. It really did happen. I guess, as far as the
US Government is concerned, black lives don't matter.
But using it to scaremonger a vaccine is just crazy.

Nor do I harbour any hopes of being able to completely avoid it. But I do hope, when the tsunami does hit, that I will be on ground solid enough and high enough where I will only get wet and not washed away.