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September 17, 2007
specs
With our usual tardiness, we finally took Kiloh to the optician’s on Saturday and confirmed her need for specs. It’s not a strong prescription. It was explained to her on a different system from the one I understand, but ‘a wee bittie’ is probably as accurate as I need. Apparently, she only needs to wear them in class and when she thinks she needs them. Naturally, my genes are the culprit.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 8:04 AM | Comments (0)
September 7, 2007
linguists still love jamie
All the linguists I spoke to were early adopters and big fans of Jamie Oliver when he first started off as a young lad zipping around London on his scooter picking up ingredients and drumming with his mates. He’s still got the ability to come up with recipes that look simple, turn out to actually be simple and taste good when you’ve made them. We’ve just started a routine where the kids cook one evening meal each every week and Apoa is starting off by referring to the first Naked Chef book
Last night we had her own adaptation of ‘Pappardelle with mixed wild mushrooms’ It was, indeed, delicious.
We’re impressed by her creative and artistic approach. Her first thought was to ask us if we could pick up any enoki mushrooms and she’s had us out sourcing ingredients for the past few days.
B-)
Posted by Billy at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
September 5, 2007
Literary Boredom
Education Guardian - Literary Boredom
‘Academics love a dull read’ according to Jonathan Wolff. I totally agree with him but would point out that Kurt Vonnegut recommends the following for short story writers:
‘Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.’
Wolff’s main point is that good writing involves keeping the reader in suspenders while academics encourage the opposite:
‘At least in my subject, we teach students to go sub-zero on the tension scale: to give the game away right from the start. A detective novel written by a good philosophy student would begin: ‘In this novel I shall show that the butler did it.’ The rest will be just filling in the details.’
I’ve often advised students to follow Vonnegut’s advice on the tension question. His other rules are worth a look too. You can find them here:
American State - Kurt Vonnegut’s rules for writing fiction
And here’s the book where you’ll find them:
B-)
Posted by Billy at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)