Never Too Old to Learn...

And so it came to pass. Three hundred and sixty-five days after my 1st lockdown birthday, I had a second. Cue tiny violins and an outpouring of sympathy. (Sarcasm klaxon. Obviously don't.)

 The forced fun of 2020

Despite the emerging pattern, this birthday felt very different from last year's. My overriding memory of March 2020 was a determination to force enjoyment into my day. I had to do something to blot out the panic and fear that was gripping the nation. That could all be dealt with later on. After my special day. Last year I found myself filling my birthday with activities to make me feel like it was OK. In the end, it was, but I had no idea it would be. All plans were off. No hotly anticipated, well organised fun times could take place. It was all down to my wits. I managed.

This year, the vibe felt a gazillion light years away from that. Sure, there was still the boredom in the run up. The ennui and monotony of everything. I've completely forgotten what it's like to have restaurant plans or to see a bunch of friends and family. My Australian cousin messaged with a 'hope it's not another lockdown birthday' sentiment and I realised I'd forgotten that other parts of the world had got their shit together. My Twitter timeline is currently full of the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Last week it was the Adelaide Fringe. In New Zealand there was footage of a gig. I see it with my eyes but I don't realise it affects everyday people in the rest of the world. The rest of the world - or large parts of it at least - seem to be cracking on. 

Meanwhile I was celebrating forty-three years on the planet from the restrictions of my lockdown life. Despite the continuing lockdown-ness of it all, this birthday was well better than last time. Basically, there's no panic or fear anymore. Whether that's sensible or not, isn't the question. It's simply how it is in my head. This year, I'm used to it. I've not spent the past fortnight watching plans A to B to Z gradually get taken away. This year I've felt all the control. All the control of someone not allowed to leave her local area or enter another household unless it's an emergency. Obviously. But this year has definitely been better.

A dramatic reconstruction of
my waking birthday moments.

So what did I do? Of course you want the deets. I'll share them happily. Here's my birthday timetable from last week. Enjoy!

• 6.30am cup of tea in bed with Shrine of Duty podcast. What kind of knobby signal was that?
• Read a few chapter of current book in bed. The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves.
• Fielded messages from friends and family like I was PA to a busy person.
• Wore a new top and new Christmas boots. (Still waiting to wear them out and about for real.)
• Went for a drive and sang along to George Michael and Eurovision. All the greats.
• Driveway chats with friends, and then my baby nephew turned up (with brother and sister-in-law) for bonding fun by the front door.
• FaceTimes with my two nieces, my other nephew, and my goddaughter.
• Walked to a local beer garden. Coincidentally, a friend happened to be there at the same time. What are the odds? Discussed all the topics.
• Middle Eastern mezze with my bubble of three for tea. There was no end to the amount of hummus I consumed.
• Champagne. They say when a man is tired of Paris, he is tired of life. When Bondie is tired of Champagne, she is asleep.

Birthday tea, plus
subsequent day's leftover
meals, from Arabica.

Let's face it, the bar was really low. It was really low at Christmas and it's really low now. It'll be really low for ages. But how fab to be here. How marvellous to find joy in a morning cup of tea. How lovely to sit 

with a mate in an empty beer garden and put the world to rights. How boss to grin at my little nephew who has only ever known Covid Britain and see him utterly confused by the mad woman in his face. By the time I got to my fancy schmantzy delivered food, it had been a brilliant day. Next year, or maybe even the year after, all this is will be a memory. And of course I'm going to love eating in restaurants and getting crowds of people together to give me attention on my 44th or 45th or whenever. But what a lesson it is, to be taught to make the best of not much. Because when you can do that, you have everything. 

Have a lovely week, folks.

Fiddly? Dull? Welcome to My Typesetting World...

I think this is supposed to depict 
someone ogling porn. But it's also a
dramatic reconstruction of every
few seconds of my current life
as I spot irregularly spaced words
and the wrong font in the wrong place. 

The formatting of Assembling the Wingpeople's interior continues apace. Yes, I know you didn't ask, but I'm telling you anyway. It's fiddly, a bit dull, and just a little time consuming. But hey, that's my life right now. Happy Monday! Despite the painstaking nature of my current working day, it's not without its moments. In the monotony of making sure every word is spaced correctly, random thoughts occur. My latest realisation is how many times I use the word realise. It's everywhere. Littered through the text. Willy nilly. From characters realising they're hungry or tired, to bigger realisations surrounding life-changing decisions. I've used that word a lot. 

Just spotting all those realises.

Or course, it might not be a disproportionate amount in reality. It's hard to tell. The reason I know I've used realise a lot is that it's consistently underlined with a red zig zag. The kind that alerts me to a spelling mistake. As it's merely my American laptop being American, I can continue to ignore it and get on with my UK day. Still, that's why realise stands out as if I've overused it. I mean, I might have done. But equally, I might have overkilled on a completely different set of words. Ones that are spelt the same in both the UK and the US, so I don't get to see them isolated with a red line. The joys of editing. Hey ho.

I never realised (lolz) quite how many divergent spellings the US and the UK had, until I started writing properly. There are so many red lines in my almost perfect manuscript at the moment. There's the S/Z switcheroo as in recognise, organise and philosophise. Then there's the missing U in colour, humour and neighbour. I've googled all the double L words to check I've written signalled, travelled, and marvelled the UK way. And not forgetting the ER/RE in measurements. I've got kilometre, centre, and then - just to be obtuse - I've thrown in creepometer the US way. Creepometre looks wrong to this Brit's eyes. Don't know about you. 

It began years ago, but I'll
do my best to keep going.

If only it were that simple though. If my only spelling downfalls were US conventions creeping into my text, I'd have it sorted. Sadly my own ineptitude kicks in too. I have consistently spelt suppress incorrectly. I say consistently, it was probably used about three times in total. But each of those times I had written supress. I clocked the red line, worked out something was wrong, but assumed it was another Americanisation and left it. Reader, I was wrong! Suppress is all about the double Ps. My bad. I also, regularly and without exception, write breath when I mean breathe and breathe when I mean breath. Just do. Soz.

Technology has moved things on.
Slightly.

But it's not just spellings that I've been working on. There's a thing in typesetting called Widows and Orphans. It's an overly dramatic - in my opinion - way of describing one or two lines at the end of a chapter that finish at the top of a new page. When that happens, it looks bad. Plus, it wastes a page of paper, and every page counts when it comes to printing costs. So deleting one or two lines of the chapter is the best thing to do. Then the paragraph ends at the bottom of the page and doesn't drag over to a new one. Deleting a couple of lines is tricky though. I mean, sometimes it's easy when you're still riddled with cuttable waffle. But when your paragraphs are precise and perfect, it's killing your darlings and deleting literary gold. OK, that's more hyperbolic drama. It's not that bad, it's just a pain in the arse. But it's a pain in the arse I've had numerous times this week.

I need to get this done. It's dragging on. I've picked a front cover - it's an absolute beauty - and I want to be able to give Gary the Designer all the info he needs to crack on. One bit of info is the number of pages. Then Gary knows how wide the spine must be. Then he can put his beautiful cover onto the correct sized template. I can upload it, it can be pre-ordered, then come October it'll be sent through the post and you can read it and enjoy it and write fan fiction and Amazon reviews and everything. Oh my. The excitement. I need a lie down. 

For now, I'll keep on keeping on. I'll get to the end of this process eventually. And then I'll start all over again with the next book. Where I'll interchange breathe and breath once again, and forget how many Ps are in random words I can never remember. The circle of life, people. It's neverending.

Have a lovely week, folks.

I'm Sick of Gambling...

Last Monday was International Women's Day. It was a normal(ish) day for me, mostly spent on my laptop. But reading about impressive projects and campaigning women whenever I had a writing break, felt empowering. By the end of the day, I'd heard or read more female voices than male ones. Not the norm, of course, in a patriarchal society, but it felt weirdly supportive. I found my head was a little higher and I walked a little taller because of it. 

The following day I was right back in my place. During the weekly food shop, I had to ask a member of staff to reach something from a top shelf. I am the average height for a UK female and yet the design of the supermarket I regularly fund, precluded me from buying the item I wanted. The man I asked to help was kind and willing, but the fact I had to ask for help to buy onions felt pathetic. I felt pathetic. And pissed off. 

By the end of the week, of course, there were far bigger reasons to feel pissed off. Burning with anger might be a better description of how I felt. The remains of a woman, Sarah Everard, were found in Kent. I'd been following the progress of the search but even when it was announced that someone had been charged, it all felt so familiar. Earlier in the week, local police had issued 'advice' to women telling them not to go out in the evenings while the suspect was still unknown. Quite rightly, the various responses to that could be paraphrased with, 'No. Why don't you tell men to stay indoors until you find which of them did it.' I think my rage started then. By the time Saturday came, and the vigil on Clapham Common saw policing that might be termed as 'heavy handed, inappropriate, or disproportionate' at best, I was exhausted. It's knackering being angry. And yet to not be, isn't an option. It implies acceptance of the unacceptable. And yet acceptance is what we've had for so long. 

Women policing their behaviour because of the threat of male violence, is not new. In my younger years, I would carry a bottle of Bud inside my jacket when I got the last bus home from my boyfriend's. As a teenager, I was given a rape alarm as a present. I forcibly told the man that stopped to help with a flat tyre on the motorway, I was absolutely fine and he needed to get back in his car, because I remembered the murder of a woman on the hard shoulder when I was a kid. The risk is always there. In my head. In many women's heads when they walk home, get the bus, break down, or exist. 

And yet I hate the narrative of being made to behave in a restricted way. I hate that, as Caitlin Moran tweeted this week, women have a curfew. It's shameful that this is the way a modern society functions; when women have to behave less than in order to be safe. Despite my general indifference, I watched the Oprah interview last week. What was clear was how Meghan was able to use her voice. She had been silenced - by protocol, by the media, by the need to keep safe in a toxic environment. Now she was free to talk. Ultimately being less than had been catastrophic for her mental health. She may have privilege, money and a platform, but she proved that policing your own behaviour because of outside pressures is destructive. 

Predictably, the Twitter trends for the week were skewed. An ex-breakfast host and his creepy obsession were trending for a few days, as was the hashtag # notallmen. Last week I spoke about the marvellousness of male allies. I know loads of them and they rock. Men who, when hearing a friend make a sexist joke or objectify a woman, tell them to give their head a wobble. Men who have female mates and so develop their empathy of another's lived experience. Men who teach their sons to respect women by respecting women themselves. Those men are brilliant. And the more of them that exist openly, the more the systemic issue of violence against women and girls will be reduced. It's definitely not all men. But it is men. 

The news that a police officer has been arrested for Sarah Everard's murder is shocking. Except it isn't. Women are used to being on high alert no matter who they meet. Every interaction is a gamble. The man I asked for help in the supermarket was kind and willing. I got my onions with only my pride dented. A man whose job is to protect the public has been charged with killing one of them. In the meantime, male allies? Keep on keeping on. Make it really clear, you're not a gamble a woman may live to regret.

Have a lovely week, folks.

Smashing the Patriarchy One Challenge at a Time...

Shout out to the international women in the crowd! Helloooo! I too am an international woman. Or at least I was until COVID. These days I'm more of a domestic woman, sadly. Although even pre-pandemic, my thrill of air travel had dampened somewhat, with my developing conscience over climate change. When 'all this' is over, perhaps I'll do a European inter-railing holiday instead of flying somewhere. Except Brexit makes that way tricker now. Maybe I could get a ferry. Tour the Scottish highlands? Anyway. I've quite considerably gone off topic. Let's get right back on it.

Not just Richard Herring either.

Today is International Women's Day! A day to promote gender equality and celebrate women's achievements. ALL women, no exclusions. And it's really that simple. What a fabulous idea! Erect the balloon arch and fire up the party poppers! Let the celebrations begin! Yet despite my upbeat mood, IWD is sometimes met with ignorance and fear. Can you believe it? This year Richard Herring will not be replying to every sarky tweet that says 'International Women's Day is sexist! When is men's day?' His consistent reply used to be along the lines of, 'It's November 19th. Looking forward to your awareness campaign!' or words to that effect. He's not doing it anymore because he did it for a decade and hopefully the point has been made. Last year on November 19th, I tweeted, 'Men! Enjoy your day!' And I really hope they did. It would be lovely for that sentiment to be returned and the concept of gender equality and the celebration of women not attacked. Hashtag not all men, of course. Many are allies. Hurrah! You are marvellous! But the vocal minority are not and might need a smidge more awareness in their lives. 

I'm going to assume that NPH
is a true ally. I can't imagine
he wouldn't be.

This year's IWD has a theme. It's called Choose to Challenge. Or in modern English, #ChooseToChallenge. You've got to have a hashtag. And while I love a good political march, and I'm no stranger to petition signing, or funding energetic people to run marathons for activism, I do find it hard to stand up and challenge every little thing. I might spot an inequality in my head but I have to choose my moment. Sometimes, for example, correcting a stranger's sexism is only going to end badly for me. I have to be sensible about how I challenge. 

But I do challenge in my own way. In my subtle and hopefully non-feather ruffling way. Although, feathers do need to be ruffled now and then, and sometimes I'm well up for the fight. But on a daily basis, that can be exhausting. So here are my tried and tested tips on smashing the patriarchy - the patriarchy that restricts everybody - during the times you need less hassle in your life. All easily done from your own brain. For women and allies alike.

1. Use the word woman to describe anyone who identifies as a woman, over the age of eighteen. Before that, go right ahead and use the word girl. A twenty-three year old woman is not a girl and calling her one is dismissive as well as inaccurate.

2. When someone is talking about visiting the doctor (for example) and you don't know the sex of their doctor, you could ask the question, 'And what did she say?' and let them correct you if they had been talking about a man. In 2016, 52% of GPs were women so odds are you'd be right first time. Doing it the other way perpetuates a stereotype that the data doesn't support. Of course you could be supportive to non-binary folks too and use the word they. That would be even better tbh. They is a great word when you don't know.

3. Think about avoiding language that includes man but refers to everyone. It's nice to use something more inclusive. Humankind instead of mankind, linesperson instead of linesman, staffed instead of manned, and - my personal menu favourite - a Fisherperson's Platter instead of... look, you get the gist. We're swimming against the tide here and sometimes it can sound comical to try to correct a sexism. I remember the snorts of derision at an extended family get together when the Mersey tunnel booths were changed from MANNED to STAFFED. But anything new sounds funny. One day it won't be new and it will be normal. Besides, I imagine there were several cave women who found it hysterical when some wag came up with mankind meaning everybody. It's just as nonsensical to have default male language when it excludes a majority of the population.

4. No matter how harmlessly intentioned the phrasing may be, small animals don't seem appropriate names for adult women. Chick, bird and pet are all teeny tiny cute things. Yet women are powerhouses. It doesn't compute.

5. Don't assume a married hetero couple shares a surname. Or any couple for that matter. By not assuming, it shows you know that women choose to retain or change their name. It keeps their agency. A good thing!

6. Think about the kinds of words that are only used to describe women. Feisty. Uppity. Bolshy. Bitch. You know what? Why not give 'em a swerve. So much nicer not to get into all that. And the words that are only used to describe men don't help them much either. How stressful and pressurised to be expected to be ambitious, strong, brave, and powerful. Many lovely lovely, lovely men don't exhibit those qualities that often. At least not in the traditional way. The way that society expects them to be exhibited. Stereotyped language helps neither those it confines nor those it excludes. The more equal our language, the more equal our behaviour, and the more equally we treat each other. Let's think about what we say. Every little helps.

7. Final one I can think of right now, and it's a toughy. Properly hard to do, but once you get used to it, it's so much nicer. It's fairly common knowledge that women are judged by their looks all the time. Negatively or positively, it's all so reductive. Unless you're a model and your job is to look a certain way (and there a bazillion caveats to that statement alone) it really doesn't matter what someone looks like. So let's not mention it. Yeah? Let's not go there. Unless someone specifically asks you how they look (and that's a question with it's own challenges) there's no reason to comment. I once heard an acquaintance tell the story of a colleague who had caused them hassle at work. They had a legitimate reason to be pissed off and I was sympathetic. I found I lost sympathy, however, when they ended their rant with the statement that the woman in question had a fat arse. That's not on. Mean and rude, as well as subjective. And also nothing to do with the point they had been making. We all get annoyed at times, but insulting women in the same way an abusive boyfriend might, is not cool. But OMG it's hard to be kind, consistently. It's easy with your mates, but not when it's someone who does your head in. But have a go. Give it a try. Criticise or comment on behaviour or words if necessary, but not looks. Lets challenge the assumption that women's worth is only located in their outward appearance.

 

Malala knows the score

And there we have it. A few teeny-tiny linguistic changes we could train ourselves to make. Of course by choosing one or more of these non-confrontational options, you'll be sure to stand out to some eagle-eared sexists. Challenging norms, opting out of gendered language, and refusing to prop up the patriarchy in the smallest of ways, still irritates some people. The ones that think equality for everyone will have some negative effect on their own status. And that's when you have a fight. Even when you've picked the least challenging thing you can think of. It isn't easy. But on International Women's Day, the majority of women and allies are behind you.

Have a lovely week, folks.

Ich spreche weder fließend Deutsch noch Word...

Here's a fun fact! I have five years of German lessons under my belt resulting in the triumph of a GCSE at grade C. Impressed? Yeah, course you are. Take that, World! Or should I say 'Nimm das, Welt!' Despite my quick usage of Google Translate in the last sentence, my German grade C makes me feel utterly fluent almost all of the time. I'm bilingual. A proper German speaker. You'd be forgiven for mistaking me for Angela Merkel or Steffi Graf. Or Dr. Ruth.

Back in the days when we 
paid to see the photos we
took, this was my best effort
 of downtown Zurich.
Switzerland, I can only
apologise.

I do have evidence to back up my self-proclaimed German fluency. Honestly. In 1999 I successfully navigated myself out of Zurich airport via the rail network by remembering that hauptbahnhof meant main train station and that I should head there for my connection. You can't put a price on knowledge like that. I floated on a cloud of achievement for the rest of the day.

I can make out a couple of beers  
and some sausage. And THAT is my
kind of weekend! Ba-dum tish.

Sadly there is the odd counter argument to my German expertise. Years ago, in a restaurant in Austria, my travel companion ordered a pudding as a main meal, after I had translated the menu for him. (Obviously, when my meal arrived, it was fine.) When I remember the confidence with which I had translated each dish, a few doubts creep in. Perhaps I'm not as fluent as I think. The linguistic areas I'm confident about are really quite small. Look, German is definitely still my second language, but there may be a few gaps in my knowledge. I know all the buildings of a town, (rathaus, bibliothek, kino!) and I know how to order ice cream (erdbeereis, himbeereis or zitroneneis?) But when I got a German language TV series on DVD (by accident for Christmas, ask my brother) I could only make out a few words of most sentences. Good morning, the, a, but, big, small, yes, no, wardrobe... You get the drift. The plot of the drama moved on from those basics immediately and I was lost. German. I think I'm fluent but when it comes down to it, I'm anything but. My grade C mocks me at every turn.

 

Just me, sitting by a Salzburg lake, 
pondering all the German words
I know.

So now we come to the point of this post. I know. Can you believe we're not there yet? What am I like? It's not really about German I'm afraid. But it is about thinking you know a topic well, but then being reminded that you haven't got a clue. What am I talking about? Word. No, I'm not doing youth speak like saying preach or bae - even though I use those phrases when I don't understand them. No. I'm talking about Microsoft Word. Bill and Melinda Gates' Word. That simple-looking virtual blank page with the B I U icons at the top. That Word. That's the German language in this analogy. 

73 pages of a
foreign language. 

I think I am fluent in Word. I use it every day and access many of its features regularly. I'm always underlining or italicising. I often copy and paste, or insert or zoom. I can add a header and a footer, I can include a text box or a shape, and I like nothing more than pimping up a boring document with a snazzy border. But when we compare all that fluency with my German example, I'm still on the town hall, the library, and the ice cream. I only know the basics. And right now, I'm at the point on the book publishing treadmill when I have to know a whole lot more than that. 

But let me squeeze in a quick book update whilst you're here. It'll make sense in a minute. I'm still editing the story; still changing words all the time but I've also moved onto the next stage. The next stage is to format the interior of the book. That means, the inside pages need to look like a book's inside pages and not simply a typed and stapled sheaf of A4 paper. Books are not typed A4 sheets, FYI. This is the 3rd time I've been through this process so I remember some of it well. Other bits, not so much. So far, I've bought my template. This is a life saver and takes out a lot of the faff. But it also requires someone who has a better working knowledge of German Word to use it. 

My pre-formatted template worked great the past two times. Eventually. When I had Googled every single aspect that was required of me, and resorted to trial and error and crossed fingers. But I got there. I managed to transfer my own Word document novel onto the the pre-formatted Word document template that would eventually be turned into a PDF interior. I have done it twice before. Let me repeat that. I have done it twice before. I know I will do it again. But it's still clear I'm not as fluent in Word as I thought.

This is Styles. Or Bloody Styles, as I prefer.

The big issue I'm struggling with right now is getting to grips with Styles. Not an aspect of Word I've ever given the time of day, but now I must. If I want my chapter headings to link to the list of chapters at the front (essential for ebook-age), I have to make sure I've got the right Style. If something is highlighted in the wrong Style, it screws everything up. I don't understand it, I just do it. (Like when I Google Translated 'Take that, World!' earlier and hoped for the best.) I also have to get a handle on my Page Breaks. Some chapters have to start on a right hand side page. If the previous chapter also ends on a right hand side page, I have to add Page Break (Opposite Page) to the end of it. If I want the next chapter to start on the left hand side (like if it's a normal next chapter and not a chapter after a new part of the book) then I have to insert Page Break (Next Page) after the preceding chapter. The problem is when I accidentally insert the wrong kind of page break and try to correct it, without knowing whether I've accidentally inserted several blank pages into my eventual book, or if I've got it right. None of it becomes clear until the whole thing is converted to a PDF. The process is horrific. I could go on with a list of my pet Word peeves but I'll spare you. Hopefully you've got the hair-tearing drift of my frustration.

There is never a wrong time to insert this
Gif into your life.

There'll be computer geniuses out there who'll be laughing at me. Or perhaps just people born after 1990. They'll read the last paragraph and think I'm ridiculous. Everything will make sense to them, and they won't understand how in the dark it feels to be crap. Just like there are actual Germans in the world who'll know lots more words than ice cream and municipal buildings. And I'm not stupid. I realise my real problem is how my inflated bubble of self-worth has been burst this week. I don't like finding things hard. It makes life less fun. But sometimes things are literally, just hard. I need to persevere and keep going. I'll have to remember the stuff I used to tell kids in my class when they found concepts tricky. So far, I've ignored it, distracted myself, and got drunk at the weekend. I'm pretty sure none of that was my teacher advice back in the day.

 
For now, however, another week of frustrating technical shizzle is about to begin. I've got four and a half days ahead where I'll stare at a screen, be fully aware of my limitations, and hopefully stumble through the process until the end. I've had a good rant and I can look forward to when this is just another faded memory. Like the last two times. 

Habt eine schöne woche, Leute.