More wedding pics (sorry everyone!)

Earth to Honeymoon, Earth to Honeymoon - are you reading me? This is just a 'small selection' so you can show Mrs W Sr. The full 600-odd will be on Imagefile (password entry only) some time during the next 24 hrs.

My Boy

1933 Austin London Taxi

Jennie & Archie

Those Wilkins Boys

Rushes

For all the many well-wishers who have followed the somewhat traumatic run-up to the marriage of my lovely sister, Catherine and her Singing Scotsman, Ken (but chiefly for the benefit of the happy couple, who seem keen to spend part of their honeymoon in an Edinburgh internet cafe gazing at pictures of themselves!) - here is a small selection of pics from the day.

It all went off beautifully, and very musically, from the 1933 Austin London taxi from Ages Past, and the massed choral forces of St Michael's Choir and Opera at Bearwood singing the Bridal Chorus from Wagner's Lohengrin, through some tremendous hymn-singing (none of your half-hearted mumbling when the Holmeses are around!); Stanford's Beati Quorum Via; an exquisite and moving performance of Mozart's Laudate by soprano Erica Eloff; John Rutter's Gaelic Blessing and The Lord Bless You and Keep You; and then back down the aisle to the Rejouissance and Menuet from Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks played on the organ by Richard Seaton.

Catherine wore the orange-blossom tiara our mother wore at her wedding 50 years ago next year.

Me & my girls

This is me with Handsome Uncle Tony. He started teaching me to say 'Handsome Uncle Tony' from the day we first met when I was but a few days old. It worked, and for many years I thought handsome meant 'man with moustache and bald head'. Well, I guess that's not such a bad definition of the word, really . . .


Lots more to follow in the next few days.

Normal musing mode will resume sometime next week . . .

Coming soon . . .

Wedding photos later today, I hope. Meanwhile, here are some flowers from my mother's garden (my equivalent of 'the testcard and music') . . .

one day to go . . .

© Karen Fardell (architect, artist, lovely friend and brilliant solver of gift problems: thank you xxx)

Off now to do/buy/wrap/pack the last few things on the List, etc.

Back soon.

. . . as wind listens for doves

While googling my way round cyberspace in search of something else entirely, I happened today on this, which is by Michael Gravel, who lives in Canada and who will very kindly, if you click here and ask him to, send you one of his poems every Friday. How kind is that?

A contrite convert to crime

Currently embroiled in a heated debate about less or fewer when applied to units of measurement. I shall be reporting in full soon, I hope, once I have garnered in the learned opinions of some eminent colleagues in this whole pernickety business.

Meanwhile, an email arrived from Martin Edwards, crime novelist, Liverpool lawyer and all-round Renaissance Man of Merseyside, who's just delivered the manuscript of his latest in the Harry Devlin series to his publishers. You can see Martin talking about his most recent Lake District novel here.



I freely admit that I have never been much of a crime fiction fan. I 'did' Agatha Christie in my teens, toyed with some Dorothy L Sayers in my twenties and that was pretty much that. I would from time to time pick up a contemporary crime paperback in a station bookstall, flick through it, think 'what IS the point?' and put it down again. As to the two great ladies at the top of the tree, I never really got on very well with P D James, but I have read and enjoyed all of Ruth Rendell's 'Barbara Vine' novels, which are less about crime and more about psychology, so don't really count, but I find old Inspector Wexford deeply dull, I have to confess. For the rest, there seemed to be so much trashy writing on offer (not to mention hideous book jackets) that I had soon dismissed the entire genre as a worthless sub-species, worlds removed from the kind of 'literary' fiction which interested me. I was, of course, indulging in the literary equivalent of the kind of mindless and dismissive bigotry to which, in other spheres of life, I am wholly opposed. How easily it can happen, though, and how glad I am to have been shown the error of my nasty little ways!

Last year I surprised myself by reading my way through the entire career (to date) of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus. What started out as a quest for a bit of light escapism ended with my counting the months until I could get my hands on the next (and final) book in the series. Rebus is a magnificent creation, a character as complex, infuriating and endearing as any I've encountered in fiction. In fact, probably - and I know I'm not alone amongst female readers in this (predictable woman that I am) - it isn't so much the next book I want to get my hands on, as Rebus himself. (And that's not a probably, it's a definitely.) In truth, I rather dread his imminent demise - it's going to be a difficult book to open. (And it is also rather a big nuisance that the Rebus exhibition at the Writers' Museum in Edinburgh will have ended by the time I finally make it up there in mid-October.)

Anyway, that was me and Rankin and Rebus last year. I'd read the best, so there wasn't much point in looking at anything lower down the star-ratings list, was there? And then along came Martin, who is nothing like as well known as Ian Rankin but this is something which must be rectified in the very near future, in my view, because he deserves to be. Though I have, in my ongoing quest to lose friends as fast as possible, pointed out to Martin aspects of some of his books which have annoyed me - and even confessed to having hurled one across the room in a grump when I'd finished it - on the whole they are wonderfully well written, the plots are superbly crafted and the body count (generally) the right side of intolerably gory or improbable. More to the point, for me, these are not plot-driven page-turners, but contain much that resonates long after the pages have, in fact, been turned. The protagonists are psychologically complex and their relationships are subtly drawn, in a way which, as with Rebus, makes the reader care, and engage emotionally in their somewhat troubled lives. They are, in short, wholly believable and interesting characters who just 'happen' to get themselves entangled in some heinous crime or other during the course of the novel. For me, the characters stay in the mind far longer than the twists and turns of the plots, clever though the latter often are.

If you enjoy crime novels, I would urge you to give Martin's a go and let me know what you think. If you studiously ignore that section of your favourite bookshop, then I would say (as we Mrs Doyles are wont to say), g'wan, g'wan, g'wan. Dip your toe in, even just a little weeny toe just a little weeny way - you never know, the water might be more inviting than you think and you'll find yourself happily splashing around in no time.
Oh, and Martin's Equal Opportunities Handbook is pretty damned good as well!

Ranting and not ranting

Good morning. That is, I hope that you are having a good morning.

An email from Susan at Green Chair Press was awaiting me first thing today, which said, inter alia, 'Please post your typographic rant soon. Reading a good rant is a good way to start the day!'


Well, that may be true, I suppose, but having a rant certainly isn't an ideal way to start the day, as I have just proved and had I one of those blood-pressure-reading machines I have little doubt that it would be flashing warning messages at me. It is the first day of term for the three small Doyles (three different schools, first day at new one for youngest), and what with that, and work issues, and Wedding-related issues, I woke about 27 times in the night, worrying about one thing or another and have calculated total hours' sleep to have been in the region of two and a half. Possibly less. So my every utterance thus far has been a rant. For example, on SD No 1 (who is actually not very small at all and certainly taller than me) announcing this morning that she needed to be in school half an hour earlier than usual. She has had seven weeks in which to mention this, but chose to do so this morning. And, for another example, on finding that SD No 2 had helpfully left school trainers in garden overnight to 'dry out' and 'de-smell', forgetting that night-time in September brings heavy dew and hence trainers far wetter (though marginally less stinky) than previously - and the whole discovery only came to light after he suddenly 'realised' that he might need them today after all, which prompted a huge flurry of outgoing texts to other parents asking ' is it PE today?', to which the majority of replies were 'don't know, assume not', so trainers retrieved from car at last minute - much to relief of other occupants - and now dangle from washing line in emerging sunshine to dry out properly.

I fear, therefore that, in my current condition, a genuine full-blown Rant, on a topic of such major importance as typography, would today go right off the scale and probably destroy half the internet.

I will be back when I'm feeling calmer. I think I shall play some Lute Sonatas by Silvius Leopold Weiss, and that might do the trick. It usually does. My eternal gratitude, etc, to the one who introduced me to the music of this under-rated chum of J S B.

'What’s important in life is not the triumph but the struggle'

Hooray! My copy of Susan Angebranndt's gorgeous broadside, Triumph or Struggle , has just arrived in the post, all the way from Burlingame, California. When I saw it on Susan's Green Chair Press blog, I simply couldn't resist. (It will have to be part of my Christmas present from someone, to save them the bother of having to trek round the shops!)

Last day of the school hols here, so a busy day on the home front, sewing name-tapes into new school uniform and catching up on ironing dozens of school shirts which have been waiting in the 'Ironing In' basket for the last seven [arrgh!] weeks. So no time for work or blogging until all the books are found, the forgotten-about homework safely completed and a full kit inspection this evening proves that all is present and correct.

Today's 'quote for the day' is apt in many ways.

Anyway, be warned, I have been ranting on someone else's blog about issues typographical, so I've a good long 'muse' on the subject up my sleeve which will be splurged in all its convoluted glory across these pages in days to come. But probably not until after The Wedding.

More things ticked off the list:

Practised walking in to-die-for shoes without falling downstairs, breaking neck and actually . . . dying - tick

Tried on Trinny and Susannah's fab miracle magic item - tick (and gosh!!)

Affixed additional adormnent to hat (flowers, fruit, feathers, small stuffed animals,* etc, etc) - tick



* - I jest (probably)

Losing friends and Draconian measures behind the scenes

In addition to being asked, quite frequently, what copy editors and proofreaders DO, I am also asked what we are FOR. Who needs us? And why? Well, here are two examples which I noticed in quick succession.

First, I was on a frequently visited website which has Google ads running across the top and down the sides. Suddenly, up popped a giant ad, all on its own and taking up the space usually reserved for three smaller ads. Here’s what it said:



I shall not at this point humiliate the major ‘integrated web solutions’ consultancy (‘an official Google [sic] Analytics authorised consultant’, no less) who paid premium-rate charges for the privilege of allowing Google to publish this embarrassing gaffe worldwide, where it will have been seen and sniggered at by a zillion web users for several days. One of the services they offer is website design and optimisation, including answers to the question: ‘My conversions are poor - can you please audit my site to tell me what's going wrong?'

I rather suspect that their own ‘conversion’ on this ad will have been pretty dire. I dropped them a quick line over the weekend but have not yet received a reply. Quelle surprise.

Next, blogs. Now, OK, I’m new to all this and my posts undoubtedly leave much to be desired in every respect. But . . . I was reading a short 249-word one today, written by someone who has in the past taken me to task in a big way for being excessively picky and pedantic. Absolutely right: I am. Here’s why:

‘a string quartet who proceeded to play . . .’

Had I been asked to edit this (which I have not, so my being so bold will doubtless cause a burst of spluttering outrage), I would have changed this to:

‘a string quartet which played . . .’

Who refers to people, while which refers to groups, teams and things. So: 'Two members of the string quartet, who wept while playing . . . ' would be correct, because it is the individuals to whom one refers in this instance, not the entire group.

In the context, also, they didn’t ‘proceed to play’, they simply played. All the way through the event. ‘Proceeded to play’ implies that they started, or resumed after some interruption, yet in fact they were playing for ages. So here, ‘proceeded’ is an entirely redundant word. I could go on, but I don’t wish to be unduly tiresome. However, I would add that, if you are going to use the word ‘however’ twice in the space of two short, successive sentences (which is, however, not advisable), then I would suggest that, as in this sentence, the insertion of commas before and aft would look . . . 'nicer'. Not to put too fine a point on it.

(You will by now have concluded that the remark about proofreaders being not only pedantic but friendless, which I reported on yesterday’s blog, was not quite so unfounded as might have been supposed . . . )

So you see – we have our little uses in this life. We cannot claim, like surgeons, midwives or members of the armed forces, to deal in matters of life or death. But . . . we can save embarrassment, enhance the readability and meaning of the written word, and in some instances help to make texts do more justice to the intelligence of their creators. We’re specialists. Just as it’s often best to call in a gas engineer to sort out your central heating boiler (rather than to twiddle around inside it yourself with spanners, screwdrivers and lighted matches, etc), so is it sometimes prudent to call in a professional to tinker with your words, point out any possible infelicities and perhaps re-arrange what you say so that it more clearly reflects what you mean.

Here endeth today's lesson.

On a topic of far greater global import, namely the run-up to My Sister's Wedding (5 days and counting down): three more things ticked off the List.

Haircut and highlights - tick.

Dress altered - tick.

Radical solution to consequences of chocoholism - tick. Yeah!!!!

Middling, pedantic and covered in blackberries

I spent an interesting couple of hours earlier today surfing round various websites which offer us freelance publishing types an opportunity to advertise our services, link up with potential clients and do a bit of networking with our fellow wordsmiths. It was fascinating to see the range of websites through which editors and proofreaders offer their services to the world. Some are incredibly slick, snappy and seductive. Others look rather like one might suppose websites would have looked had they been around circa 1972 - brown/orange/red colour scheme, bad typography, unedifying content, uninspiring layout - just plan dull, frankly.

I have concluded that my site is probably somewhere in the middle. Which is at once both reassuring and vaguely alarming. It may not be glitzy, but with luck will not bore anyone to death. It receives a steadily increasing number of hits. And it brings in plenty of enquiries, so it must be serving its purpose.

And yet . . . who wants to be ‘middle’ anything? –aged? –of-the-road? -England? No thanks!

Except that by definition that’s exactly what the majority of us are (or is, if one is being quibbly over the singularity or plurality of ‘the majority’, which I suppose, in this game, one should be).

Having very nearly resolved, as a result of today's survey, to wrench my own website to tiny pieces and put it back together in a hip, cool and trendy fashion, I decided to take time out over a cup of tea and a (very small, I can assure you) portion of you-know-what, while listening to the Classic Serial on Radio 4. Which might be taken, I suppose, as proof beyond reasonable doubt of middle-just-about-everythingness.

Suffice to say, having mused on the matter for a little while, I concluded that I might as well leave the site as it is for the time being. After all, no single provider of publishing services is going to appeal to all potential clients, and it’s generally advisable to ‘be oneself’ rather than to cultivate an image, whether online or in person, which is likely, in the long run, to mislead.

One of the sites on which I have just listed my editorial ‘credentials’ describes proofreaders as ‘pedantic people with no friends’. Ha ha ha ha. Possibly not the ideal way to encourage potential advertisers – particular since it’s a pay-to-list site – but, yeah, well, we know what you mean, although some of us are really quite nice and friendly, actually, and haven’t worn an anorak since 1968.

Anyway, in the course of all this surfing around, I happened upon two particularly memorable sites, to which I’m sure I shall return on a frequent basis. The first is Hoopoe Prints - artist and printmaker Lisa Hooper’s beautifully presented site, in which her passion for landscape and the natural world shines through her work. Her mastery of a wide range of printmaking techniques, as well as painting, and her covetable handmade books are a delight to see.

Today’s other major discovery is dovegreyreader scribbles. I am probably the last bibliophile on earth to have discovered this, the ultimate reader’s blog. So forgive me for being behind the times and feel free to say 'like, duh, hello? you are soooo last year'. But it really is tremendous. You might not agree with all her verdicts, but you have to admit, dovegreyreader sure gets through a vast number of books in a month. And there are between-book vignettes on home, garden, craft-making, jam-making and Agas, too. What could be nicer?

I had a good-ish crop of blackberries in the garden myself, which I was planning to gather in and turn into delicious things to eat and drink. And then my son had a friend round to play. And they came in from the garden after some lengthy time, completely purple from tousled head to filthy toe. They had been having a battle. Naturally. The ammunition had been . . . blackberries. Why not? A handy and plentiful supply; spectacularly messy results – absolutely ideal for the purpose. Their bewilderment at the ensuing rant from the mad mother was so disarming that I nearly stopped mid-flow. But then thought better of it and continued unabated, from 'disgraceful waste of food', through 'purple footprints on kitchen floor', right up to 'get-those-clothes-off-straight-away-so-I-can-wash-them-or-the-stains-will-never-come-out'. I am going to have to search a little further afield for bramble bushes in the next week or two.

I really miss my Aga.

Blogger’s block

Just couldn't think of anything worth blogging about this last week. But then it's been a fearsomely busy week. Have barely had time to lift my head from my desk, let alone run the Dyson round the house, ankle-deep though the floors are with the usual unappealing melange of sand, glitter and cake crumbs. I suspect I have sent and received more emails this week than ever before in the history of my Outlook in/out boxes. (But this will remain a mere suspicion because I certainly don't have time to go and count them.)

Sometimes I am asked: ‘What does a freelance editor actually DO then?’ A question usually supplemented by a remark containing the word ‘just’. As in: ‘I suppose it’s mainly “just” checking spellings 'n’ stuff, isn’t it?’

Well, to give you an idea (and excuse myself for this round of blogger's block), in the last seven days I have wrestled with a textbook (and its somewhat problematical footnotes) on the legacy of Marxism on Contemporary International Law, and another on the History of Ecumenism in Wales. I have edited one law journal focusing on decision-making in Chinese courts and ‘living law’, and two journals on aspects of Welsh history and archaeology, one of which I am now also typesetting. I’ve researched and located the most up-to-date statistical data for the new editions of two student law textbooks. I’ve also found and inserted page references into the statutory tables for another student law book; proofread some web content for a training course for aspiring City traders; finished preparing a ‘text and materials’ book on Revenue Law for typesetting; commissioned some content for one of the looseleaf manuals I manage; started copy-editing a book on Managing Executive Health; and carried out some more preparatory work on my forthcoming David Britton website.

The school holidays are nearly over, however, so working life will return to what passes as ‘normal’ hereabouts – which is not saying very much. Merely that I will not be needing to intervene in so many pointless squabbles or have glitter (yes, glitter again – it is a ubiquitous element of life with a 5-year-old daughter) dropped in my keyboard or have to start planning lunch the moment breakfast is finally cleared away. On the other hand . . . there are an awful lot of name-tapes to be sewn into new uniform in the next two days. And finding of books and sports kit and sharpening of pencils and last-minute practising of musical instruments sadly left gathering dust (and no doubt glitter) over the past seven weeks. Ho hum.

On top of which, there’s the run up to the much anticipated Wedding in Sandhurst. I have been on my knees adjusting the hem of my elder daughter’s bridesmaid’s dress for days on end. She must either grow between-times or shrink, or slump sideways or something, because however hard I try, it never seems exactly straight and even. I am hoping, therefore, for a light breeze on the day, to create a bit of movement, and then my dressmaking deficiencies will not be so evident. Then there are haircuts (and highlights) and a trip to the zoo and an emergency dash into town for Draconian Pants (as my less-than-sylphlike female readers will understand), in order to make up for radical weight-loss plan not having quite, er, 'delivered' - owing partly to an unfortunate but understandable predilection for Maya Gold , and partly to having by no stretch of the imagination kept to my 'Training Programme' for next week’s Fun Run through Colchester’s Castle Park. I shall be running as part of the Colchester Rugby Club team. Which is such a laughably unlikely idea that it cannot possibly be true.

Except that it is.