Sweary pants

According to Ritula Shah on Radio 4 last week, a new survey has revealed that only five per cent of adults make it through the day without hearing a swearword. (Poor people, they must lead particularly sheltered lives - forget battling along a binge-drunk high street on a Friday night or bunfighting over cheap Chinese jeans in Primark on a Saturday afternoon; you only have to turn on the telly for a torrent of abusive language and obscene words to sully your world. Hell, I'm sure even The Archers plays host to the odd slightly less offensive colloquialism every now and again if you listen carefully when those young'uns are on the Old Rosie in The Bull!)

Regular readers will probably have already recognised that I am quite a fan of, er, colourful language, so given the opportunity to hear an intellectual discussion on the subject, I was obviously all ears.

The main topic up for debate was whether swearing has lost its potency as we all vomit forth crudeities and blaspheme our way through modern life.


John Ayto, lexicographer and co-editor of Stone The Crows: Oxford Dictionary Of Modern Slang (OUP Oxford, 2008, £10.99), said that if it's used as filler, cussing may indeed be less potent, but that when used in anger, it can still carry "quite a hefty whack". John admitted that his main concern is that we're "losing some of our swearwords as they become common currency and create less of a frisson", citing the example of "bloody", a word many people would have found shocking 50 years ago, but which, nowadays, "most people wouldn't turn a hair at".

His wife, Jean Aitchison, Professor of Language And Communication at the University Of Oxford, also made a few points, but she gave too many quotes using actual profanities, so a large part of her contribution was bleeped out. Shame.

But I digress. Point is, if we're starting to run short on swearwords, we need to tackle this problem head on before it becomes a major social issue not so far into the future from now. I therefore propose that we have a competition to come up with some new swearwords. Perhaps we could even get the winners into Mr Ayto's Oxford Dictionary Of Modern Slang.

Caught short

On the last day of the first Didsbury Arts Festival, I've left my Chorlton comfort zone and taken part in a workshop on fiction writing. It was held by novelist and short story writer Robert Graham, who is a lecturer for MMU Cheshire and has published the useful tome How To Write Fiction (And Think About It) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, £14.99).



I've been reading a lot of short stories lately, notably Dylan Thomas and Roald Dahl, and was after a bit of guidance to help me get my own ideas down on paper. We learnt about characterisation and immediacy, and we wrote some stuff off the cuff, there and then, in the class, hangovers and all. Here are three of my stories, each written in about five minutes flat.

This one was about a man, of whom I had been given a photograph and had previously been tasked with describing. I picked the situation "walking into a party" from a list we were presented with.

Standing at the edge of the room, Michael nursed a warm bottle of Old Speckled Hen and eyed the other guests cautiously. Realising he had been loitering alone a little too long, he made a beeline for the table where a simple buffet was laid out, and perused the food on offer. It was just as he was reaching out for a coronation chicken sandwich on white sliced that a voice made him jump.
"Do you come here often?"
He swerved round, holding the beer and sandwich up and close, and peered at the intruder.
"My name's Susan," she said, smiling.
"Oh, er, Michael. Er, Mike," he replied, putting the bottle down and holding out his right hand.
"I saw you standing on your own and thought I'd come over and make sure you're OK," said Susan.

This one was to lead on from the sentence: "I wonder if this happens to a lot of people".

I wonder if this happens to a lot of people. It's certainly not the first time it's happened to me. I supposed I really should learn, but I'm always in a hurry, and generally I have my hands full as I'm on my way to work. The first time it happened, I managed to ram my hands onto a black lady's ample bosom. It was so embarrassing but thankfully she saw the funny side of it.

This one was following an exercise when we worked in pairs to come up with three scenarios which included a person, a place and a problem. We then had to pick one person, one place and one problem, but not the ones that went together. I ended up with "teenage girl", "park bench, eating lunch", and "loses her son".

Bethany liked going to the park to have her lunch; it got her out of the poky council house she shared with her mum and younger brother. It also meant Ryan, who was now two and quite boisterous, could run around and wear himself out so she could have a nice, fuss-free evening in front of the telly. That wasn't going to happen this Thursday, however, although as yet she didn't know that. As usual, she laboured with the pushchair on the rough ground just inside the gate and went straight to the bench near the tree. She unclipped Ryan and lifted him out, then watched as he ran over to the roundabout where some other children were playing. She sat down and reached under the pushchair for her sandwiches, wrapped in an old Sunblest bag. She pulled one out and sank her teeth into the soft white bap, the tang of Cheddar almost a surprise. Looking over towards the roundabout, she saw it spinning, growing gradually slower, but the children were gone; the two that had been there and Ryan, who had joined them.

I really enjoyed myself, and hopefully I've learnt something useful. Robert Graham was a good teacher and a very nice man, and everyone seemed to have fun.

Robert is taking part in the upcoming Manchester Literature Festival
(see www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk for full details), in a free event called Northern Salt on Sunday 18 October at 3pm at the Whitworth. This is a showcase of Northern talent, all published by the independent publisher Salt, and Robert will be reading some of his work, alongside prizewinning writer Elizabeth Baines, novelist Mark Illis and poet John Siddique.

Politics and religion

It's not often you'll catch me discussing politics or religion. Certainly not in public, anyway. Perhaps it's because, in terms of the first, I just can't make up my mind any more, having been let down so often in the past, like a lonely spinster; in terms of the second, I've made up my mind, but I don't really want to offend anyone unnecessarily.

Or, perhaps, I'm now old enough and wise enough to know it's best to keep my mouth shut on both thorny subjects, especially at family get-togethers, and especially when booze has been imbibed. Ah, Christmas 2007...

So anyway, I surprise myself to be drawing to your attention yesterday's Thought For The Day, from the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. Newly woken and face still puffy with sleep, I was caught somewhat unawares and it took me a very long time (until the first mention of the Bible, actually) to realise there was a religious undercurrent as I perked my ears up to the talk of grammar.

"...when I was at school we were encouraged to be a bit suspicious of adjectives. Rules of syntax kept them firmly in their place. An adjective qualifies a noun or pronoun. They are not the important words like verbs: 'being or doing words', or nouns: 'names of persons, places or things'. For all their flamboyance they don't really tell you much. They may make you feel vital, vibrant and vigorous, but in fact their content is often vain and void. They represent aspirations, worthy ones, perhaps, but they don't come with dates, times or budgets; they are wonderfully cheap because they float free of concrete reality. They soar like helium balloons, raising our sights, but not delivering anything except, perhaps, hot air..."

It's interesting, this. I, too, GCSE guinea pig that I was (so grammar wasn't really up there on the curriculum's list of important skills to learn in English Language class; preferred were exploring abstract ideas and presenting your work at the front), was taught to be unliberal with descriptive words, and henceforth I've shied away from overly flowery prose and quickly developed a tendency to run screaming from anything written before 1950. (I'm getting better, but Thomas Hardy still brings me out in a cold sweat.)

I also find that excessive use of adjectives sees me getting my ersatz (now, that's a good adjective) red pen out straight away when I'm editing and have to cut to fit. Well, spurious adjectives and shit copy and crap structure.

Anyway, the full TFTD is here if you follow this link, and you'll see it sits in a wider context of politics, just to complete that circle of doom.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/documents/t20091001.shtml

STOP PRESS!

I'm over the moon to be able to announce that Words & Fixtures has been nominated in the category of Best New Blog in the upcoming Manchester Blog Awards, which is being held during Manchester Literature Festival (more on that soon)! Read all about it at:
http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/the-shortlist


If anyone fancies joining me at the Awards Ceremony, it's on Wednesday, October 21 at 7pm at the recently revamped Band On The Wall. Tickets are £4 (£3 concs). Right, I'm off to buy a fancy frock for the soiree and try and stop grinning like the Cheshire Cat...

Piekus

Made my second pie in as many weeks. Both have been plate pies, made with shortcrust pastry. That is the best kind of pie you can have, in my humble pie opinion. Unless it's a pork pie, which is a different kettle of fish (or, at least, a different kind of pie).

Anyway, the last pie I made was rabbit, in tribute to the sad demise of classic musical duo Chas and Dave. The latest one was chicken, using the leftovers from Sunday's roast (it is a recession, y'know).

So, there I was, standing in the kitchen rubbing butter into flour and gazing wistfully out of the window at the newly trained jasmine, when inspiration came to me. In a flash. Like it does. That's when I started making up haikus about pies; piekus, if you will.

Here's a selection of the tasty morsels. Let me know what you think.

Pieku #1: Prize Pies
Pastry case, golden
Glaze. Crimped, pimped: three leaves, two slits.
Fit for first, this one.

Pieku #2: Mind The Gap
Meat and potato.
Chicken, mushroom, leek; steak n'ale.
Pork, mustard on't side.

Pieku #3: On A Theme By Queen
I want a pie. I
Want a pie. I want a pie.
And I want it now.

Pieku #4: Not My Type
Shortcrust. Suet. Puff.
Plate pie. Pudding. Vol-au-vent.
Well, each to their own.

Pieku #5: Lady Killer
"You're too damn flaky,"
Shrilled the woman, knife in hand,
Expertly stabbing.

Pieku #6: Man Slaughter
"You're a right pudding,"
He muttered under his breath,
Then dug in sharp teeth.

Pieku #7: After The Beatles
I am the pie man.
I am the pie man. I am
The pieman. Coo-coo-ki-choo.

(Copyright Clare Conlon, as if you were going to nick this rubbish.)