Category: Posts

Politics

In particular British Politics.

Last night Tamzin and I sat down to watch parliament vote on a few Brexit (I really hate that term) proposals and amendments. Even a day later I’m not sure what they were actually voting on, nor whether it is likely to make any difference in the days ahead. That’s not what I want to talk about though.

British politics is an embarassment. I’m not talking about the mess we’ve got ourselves into reguarding leaving Europe (whichever way you lean, I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks May and the rest are handling it well) but the way the whole system works.

It’s a bunch of grown men and women shouting at each other, as if they were school children.

Actually no, that’s not fair. School children wouldn’t be able to act like that. When school children debate they are taught to give each other a chance to speak and be heard. They don’t shout over each other and they don’t have petty squabbles. I’d say that our parliamentary debates are more like a bunch of animals tearing into the weakest member of the pack.

It wouldn’t be such a big deal if they were actually able to achieve anything, but the process doesn’t even serve a purpose. They shout at each other and nothing gets done. I’m not sure what the point of it all is.

Even the person who was supposed to be in charge of keeping order (John Bercow) couldn’t keep control of them and, more frequently, joined in with the banter and squabble. It looked a lot like what (I suspect) it was; a bunch of private school toffs arguing over an issue that isn’t likely to affect them much either way. There was little sense of the seriousness of what was being dealt with, little obvious sign that they were aware how many jobs and lives are hanging in the balance.

It seems about time that we had a modern parliament with a modern way of doing things. I don’t know what that would look like, but it couldn’t fail to be better than what we have now. This is the 21st century and the people in charge of the country should start behaving like it. Before it’s too late for all of us.

Naming Characters

When I’m writing I like to have a list of names that I can pick and choose from as I’m going. It saves me having to stop and think of them while I’m in the flow. It also means that I don’t have to type “XX” or whatever to remind myself to add it in later.

I already have the names of the main characters in my upcoming story, but I needed some extras to choose from for characters that I don’t know about yet. This morning I put together a couple of lists, one for surnames, the other for first names.

A couple of invaluable resources for this process are:

Behind the Name

Fantasy Name Generators

I am planning to add more “quick tips” like this. There are a lot of good resources out there and I am always interested to find out what other people use.

Not Quite Dumb Phone

I have been interested in the “dumb phone revolution” for a while now but I don’t quite have the conviction to go through with switching to one. It’s not, I think, because I would struggle. It’s because it would inconvenience other people in my life too much.

I like the idea of my phone returning to the same priority in my life as it was ten years ago. A time when I would have left the house without it and not given it a thought. Now, although I do frequently leave the house without my phone, it feels like a rebellious act.

As a compromise in the past I have switched my phone to grayscale and and made my smartphone “dumb” I even switched to a budget Android phone for a while.

There were advantages to all those things, but there was still something compelling about the phone. I wouldn’t say I was addicted (it has been years since I’ve used social media or played games on it) but phones hold a level of importance in my life that I’m not happy with.

I have been using a work phone for the last six months but as I start to take on more freelance work, I have been looking at getting a personal one again. I didn’t want to spend much money. So I ordered a second hand iPhone SE and received it yesterday.

I noticed the difference immediately. Not in the sense that the phone was slower or worse in any way (it will be years before the minimal number of things that I use a phone for are too much for the device). It is a well made phone and, considering it’s second hand, remarkably well maintained. No, the big difference I noticed was the size of the screen.

The iPhone 8 has a 4.7 inch screen and the iPhone SE has a 4 inch screen. It is amazing how much difference 0.7 inches makes.

The screen is more than big enough for me to do everything I need to use it for. Which is mainly sending iMessages and making phone calls, but also includes listening to audiobooks and sometimes music. But it’s just a little bit too small to browse the web. Or most of the other things that would have caused me a problem in the past. At a stretch I could use it to watch videos, but I almost never do that.

The SE is smaller than my work issued iPhone 8 so I barely notice when I’ve got it in my pocket. It is robust enough that I don’t feel the need to use a case and it has a headphone socket, which I was surprised to find I missed on the iPhone 8. Although I don’t expect to use it as often as I was using the 8, for many reasons, I prefer the SE.

Before I wrote this I did a quick Google search to see if there is any documented relationship between phone screen size and phone use, but nothing came up. I suspect it would be difficult to prove any causation because the size of phones increased alongside other things. Speaking from personal experience, however, it looks like there must be a connection.

I still have all the same restrictions on the SE: no web browser and no app store, no social media or news sites. It’s already a cut down experience, but it is the perfect balance for me between smartphone and dumbphone. I have access to the apps that I want and none of the distractions. My only niggling concern is that there might not be another phone this size produced and that one day my phone will break. If / when that day comes I guess I’ll have to look at dumbphones again.

Back and forth

I have spent the better part of two months now working on plans for a fantasy series. So far that has all been done longhand, in notebooks.

Today I have begun the transition into digital. A simple .txt file that I am using the type up my current story.

There is no real reason why this has to be on a computer, except that it will be a change.

Sometimes that is an important reason.

This doesn’t mean I will be working on the story on computer from this point on. It means that now I am entering a back and forth process where I will use both.

After I have finished typing up these notes, I will more than likely return to longhand for the next phase.

Digital Health

A new poster has appeared in the kitchen area at work.

According to this poster, people under 16 are spending 4 hours a day on their phones, people over 16 are spending 3 hours and 45 minutes. These figures seem low to me, but that’s beside the point. The point of the poster is that this is causing problems with people’s necks, backs, eyes and other things. It then goes on to give some simple stretching exercises and tips that can help alleviate these problems. Which seems like a very good thing.

But it seems disingenuous when you consider that I work for a telecoms company. A company that has a vested interest in people using their phones a lot.

There seems to be a trend for companies doing this sort of thing at the moment; Facebook launching studies about the risks of social media use, Apple and Google creating tools to help you track and manage the time you spend using their devices. It all seems… well, I’m not sure what word describes it best, but it reminds me that for years it was scientists funded by big tobacco who were saying there were no dangers to smoking, that it is the dairy industry that says adult humans should be drinking milk.

Although I do appreciate that technology companies are making this effort to help people manage their device use, part of me thinks that it would be better for everyone if Facebook (or whoever) just came right out and said, “We don’t care what this is doing to you, we just want you to spend more time on our service”. That would at least feel genuine.

The company I work for has put up a poster to help people deal with the problems that they have helped to create. An honest poster would probably say something more like “Stop spending 4 hours a day staring at your phone!” Then, if they genuinely cared, they would do something that might actually help people achieve that. As it currently stands they are doing the technological equivalent of getting people hooked on smoking and then telling them to open a window when they do it so their house doesn’t smell.

Compromises

We don’t live in an ideal world.

In an ideal world I would only read beautifully bound hardback books. I would sit in a comfortable chair with a foot stool and a reading lamp. During the day I would drink fresh coffee and in the evening a glass of whiskey. I would listen to music on vinyl and do all my writing with a fountain pen at a large wooden desk.

In reality I read in whatever format I can, be that audio books, ebooks or paperbacks. I grab a few minutes whenever I can.

Until yesterday I was reading three fiction books; one audio book, one ebook and one paperback. I didn’t have any issue keeping the stories straight, but it was frustrating for other reasons. Leaving the audio aside, which was working well as I have a long commute so can count on a couple of hours each day listening to that book. The problem was that I didn’t get much time to read and I was splitting my time between two books because I felt like I needed to have a paperback on the go.

Ideally I would have kept the paperback and given up reading ebooks, but like I’ve already said, this isn’t an ideal world. I have many more opportunities to read an ebook because I can have it on my Kobo reader, on my phone and even on my computer. I can read in bed without needing a light on and disturbing Tamzin. In reality, it was the only option that made sense.

So I have re-bought the paperback I was reading as an ebook and I’ve already had more opportunities to read it. I have to admit that this is the best option, even if it isn’t the ideal one. And it makes me wonder if there are other places in my life where I am stubbornly holding on to (already compromised) versions of the ideal. Music, for example. I like CDs (already compromised from my ideal of vinyl) but it’s more convenient to subscribe to Apple Music. I think this is something that I’m going to explore more over the coming weeks.

Finding Time

It’s amazing what you can find time for if you really try.

Life could make things easier, but that’s a lame excuse. If you want to do it then you will find a way.

It doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Ten minutes a day is 60 hours a year.

Bit by bit, making progress towards what is important.

Offline

Some thoughts on the internet…

I try to stay away from networked devices. It isn’t always possible. I work for a big technology company and that means that all the tools I use are connected. In my spare time I do copy writing and that often means I have to go online to do research. So what I really mean is that I try to manage my online use.

I have social media accounts but I don’t use them. Someone tried to contact me on Facebook Messenger and I didn’t find out about it until they messaged Tamzin to ask why I wasn’t responding. The responsible thing to do would be to close my account so that no one expects me to respond to anything they send there.

I subscribe to 22 RSS feeds but only a few of them post daily. Only one of them posts more than once a day and they are very short. None of them are technology related and none of them are “news”.

The internet is a powerful tool, but something feels broken about the way we use it. I don’t think that we should live there the way we do. Maybe that’s just an issue of nomenclature; maybe referring to a home page is what bothers me. But then I see reports about screen time and I ask myself is any time reasonable to spend online every day? Should the internet even be an every day thing?

I don’t have any answers. I’m trying to work it out. I think everyone should work it out for themselves because any answers I come up with will only apply to me.

A Room of my Own

I used to have a room to write in. The spare room in our little two-up, two-down terrace. I had a big desk and plenty of space. Most importantly, I had a door that I could close. After my son Jude was born, it continued to be my office, although sometimes when he had a difficult night I had to share it with him in the morning. When he was six months old my office became his bedroom. That was five years ago now.

Since then I’ve worked in a variety of places. At the dining room table, in coffee shops, on my lap. It wasn’t a problem.

When we bought our new house the plan was to use one of the bedrooms as a laundry room / office. But as we tore down walls and built them up again, as we decorated and furnished, the spare room was never a priority. Again, this wasn’t a problem. I was used to working wherever I could open a notebook.

I have written previously about the number of meetings I have at my day job. It is an hours drive away and I’ve been getting frustrated with doing that journey just to sit at my desk and sit on conference calls. So over the weekend I bought and built a small desk and wedged it into the spare room. The walls are unfinished, the carpet isn’t laid. There is no light in the ceiling and it still smells a bit like plaster. I’m sitting there now and I could not be happier.

It wasn’t until I got the space back that I realised how much I’ve missed having a room of my own. Or, in this case, the corner of a room. There is a door that I can close and that makes all the difference. Finally I have a place where I can go to write, or to work, and feel comfortable.