Ticks, tacky troubling ticks.

I am forcing myself to make a small but rather embarrassing confession in this post. Small because in the general scheme of things it is so insignificant as to be unworthy of mention; embarrassing because every time it happens I find myself wondering why it has happened, what has caused it and whether or not I should be bothered by it. But mostly because I am aware of it happening after the event and thus far never before. I am also embarrassed by having ceded control to a renegade part of my brain. And what is it?

It is a small verbal tick that I seem to have picked up from goodness knows where. I am aware of verbal ticks in others, the constant “you knows’ that irritate the speech patterns of some unfortunates like grit in a machine and whose overly frequent and inappropriate repetition make me want to scream “STOP IT NOW”; the “innits’, those verbal warts that attach themselves to everyday speech, that make the traditionalist part of me squirm and fight with the modernist “language is a fluid and constantly evolving means of communication’ part of me. (The traditionalist, if you’re wondering, wins. Every time.)

It’s the same impulse in me that makes my knuckles white when I hear an antipodean upward inflection at the end of a sentence that isn’t a question. It’s a personal thing, I know. I’m not proud of it, the onboard, inbuilt, instant negative judgement, language snob in me. It just is. I accept it. But this new development in my own speech troubles me. I am usually hyper aware of my speech. It served me well in my career interviewing the great and good for Oneword Radio. It serves me well when chairing live events at literary festivals. I hope it will continue to serve me well in a couple of weeks time at the London Literature Festival, but a doubt in my confidence in that ability has crept in like a bad smell.

My employer, Ben Budworth, the CEO and publisher of The Lady magazine, first pointed it out. We had been chatting in his office and as the conversation closed I headed for the door and said “OK fella, see you later.” An innocuous statement that would have gone unnoticed but for the sharp antennae that Mr Budworth has for new developments that jar. “Hold on,” he said. ‘Come back here” I returned to stand, confused, beside his desk. “Fella?” “FELLA?” “Surely “my good fellow,” if you must, but “Fella”, oh no, never. Not here. Now go and wash your mouth out.”

I left, chastened by the boss's rather proficient ‘David Brent of traditional magazine publishing' impersonation. I asked myself a number of questions. “Was this the first time I’d said it?” “Where on earth did I pick it up?” “Why had I not noticed it before?” I felt troubled that somehow I’d been found wanting by my boss, who although a long-standing friend, is still my boss in a new job. Someone that I want to impress with my accuracy of language, dexterity of speech and text. I am the literary editor after all. Standards have to set and maintained, even if they're only mine.

Since that first time there have been others. Always with Mr Budworth, some commented on, others not. No-one else has picked up on it. I am not aware of having said it to anyone but him. But there, lurking in the back of my mind is new and uncomfortable seed of insecurity in what was until recently a reliable skill.

As I said, small and embarrassing. But there nonetheless.

Yours,

LibraDoodle

Pirates, Oxford and peril

A little news to impart and a few snippets to report but lest I have given you the impression that my entire reading time is spent in the imagined worlds of fine fiction or in the worthy immersion of brain improving non-fiction, I thought I’d open with a departure from the norm.

I’ve been captivated of late by the rise in piracy off the coast of the horn of Africa. Was I alone in being amazed by the news images some months ago of a ransom payment, where a briefcase full of cash was placed in a waterproof container and dropped by parachute onto the deck of a hijacked vessel? Was this week’s story, still unravelling daily, of the first American vessel to be hijacked in 200 years as it took food aid to Africa’s East coast from Djibouti, of the crew taking control back from the pirate crew but the Captain himself being taken off the vessel as security, as American destroyers steam to the scene, not the most compelling news story of recent months? I thought so and wanting to dig a little further found my way onto the International Chamber of Commerce’s website. Not only is there a map of recent piratical events on it but also a rather fascinating document entitled “Best Management Practices to Deter Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the Coast of Somalia”. It makes for extraordinary reading, giving vessel masters a “how to” guide to maximise prevention of attack and a step-by-step manual on what to do in the event of being boarded. Its calm professional language belies the sense of fear and panic that must attend such an event and serves as a reminder to land-lubbers of the self-reliance and grit that modern sailors bring to their work, on which we are reliant for so many of the foodstuffs and goods that fill our shelves.

On other, less dangerous, fronts, I spent last week at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, waking each morning to the glorious honeyed architecture of Christ Church College. It is a beautiful place to spend time, its old thick walls as calming and inspirational to a creative mind as they are resistant to a wi-fi signal.

There were more high spots than a few words here can cover but which include breakfasting each morning with Joanne Harris in the Great Hall – formally the seat of Parliament, now immortalised in the Harry Potter films, interviewing John Calder who published William Burroughs, Hubert Selby Jnr and Henry Miller and in defending the right to do so was the first to hire a young John Mortimer whose successful defence made him the darling of those who fought for freedoms of speech and publishing and led to him later defending the famous Oz trial. John M was meant to be interviewing John C himself but his death last Christmas Eve created a vacancy I was honoured to fill. Indeed I believe I was one of – if not the – last people to interview John Mortimer, which gave me a sense of pride and the event a certain circularity. Calder published so much of Samuel Beckett’s work and another connection was made when Joanne Harris told me one morning of a walk in Montparnasse cemetery when she and her husband chanced upon a funeral in progress. They waited until the few mourners had moved away before approaching the grave only to find that it was the interment of Beckett that they had just witnessed.

Interviewing Dame Ann Leslie, doyen of the Daily Mail for over forty years, was all that one might expect from one who has witnessed first hand the great world events of the latter part of the twentieth century. Meeting Willie Harcourt Cooze, he of the chocolate factory TV programme and the brother of a beautiful girl I was entranced by twenty years ago, was an unexpected pleasure as was interviewing Rory McGrath, a more gentle and evolved man than his television persona might lead you to believe.

Much fun and many good conversations were had at the various lunches and dinners with Andrew Holgate, literary editor of the Sunday Times and perhaps the hardest working sponsor of any literary festival I’m aware of and Sally Dunsmore, the festival director who is possessed of a preternatural calm and grace that belies her sleeplessness and work rate. It is an excellent festival that if you haven’t yet attended should be added to next year’s diary.

During the course of the week The Lady magazine published its relaunch issue and in doing so shed its Miss Havisham image to reveal a rather fetching Estella. It also announced a new literary editor who over the course of the next few weeks and months will add to the improved editorial with book recommendations, a book club and various other literary events and opinions. Watch this space.

One final joy from Oxford was sharing a stage with two rather extraordinary men, David and James Livingston, who in April 2003 both competed in the Oxford-Cambridge University Boat Race. Not the first time that siblings had done so of course, but the first time in more than a century that they had done so on opposing teams. It was, like the John Calder event, not a full house, but the intimacy of a smaller crowd made for an extraordinary event, both the brothers giving frank and often painful accounts of the bittersweet rivalry of the race and the cost to their relationship. Their father, sitting proudly in the audience, responded generously to questions from me and gave the hour a piquancy that is rarely achieved at a live event.

Whilst not the open ocean, the Thames has been the location for much bravery, heartache and human drama and so I’ll close with thoughts for those in peril on the sea.

Yours truly,

LibraDoodle.

Hail, The Lady and Private Eye.

A week of literary socialising has left me shivery of limb and sniffing of nose and taught me that March weather in London is not to be trusted. It hailed on me yesterday afternoon in Covent Garden, hailstones that were large enough to hurt on impact, sent people scattering into doorways for shelter and shattered onto the roads and pavements like little, glassy grenades.

Tuesday marked the putting to bed of the beautiful new re-launch of The Lady magazine as the longest continuously published magazine for women has for the past few months been undergoing a quiet facelift. No longer the rather dated, monochrome-dominated source of adverts for household staff, its renaissance sees a glorious, full colour magazine with some rather good editorial hit the newsstands on Monday the 31^st. It will still be the source of choice for quality nannies, drivers, cooks, cleaners, holiday cottages and the like, a sort of Fortnum and Mason for domestic and catering staff, but now boasts a more modern, sleeker image, some great, interesting new writing (I must here confess that I will be the author of some of its content) and an overall look that brings it right up to date.

A family owned business, the Great Grandfather of the current publisher established the title in 1885 as a weekly periodical for gentlewomen, having already founded Vanity Fair for gentlemen in 1868. It still holds the same values of tradition, quality, manners, politeness and grace that have always been its watchwords but now does so in a manner more fitting for the twenty first century.

If you haven’t picked a copy up in the past few years then do have a look. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the changes and the content.

On Wednesday I had the rare honour of being lunched by Private Eye. Ian Hislop, the editor, who very kindly graced the microphones at Oneword Radio on a number of occasions, was in Dubai at the Emirate Airline International Festival of Literature with his wife Victoria, author of The Island, and as we sat chatting by the pool was so horrified to hear that since the demise of the radio station I have been unemployed that he invited me to lunch to discuss possibilities. On returning to the UK three weeks ago an invitation was extended, although sadly not to me but to another of the same name, a motorcycle journalist, who on arrival announced himself to the gathered throng only to be told by Ian and Francis Wheen “no you’re not!” The confusion having been explained he duly tucked into the Eye’s generous hospitality, as of course he should. So it was, two weeks later than planned, that I pitched up at the Soho landmark venue and enjoyed a rather good fish and chip lunch with a fine selection of bright and erudite representatives of the worlds of letters, law, broadcasting and thinking. There was much talk of the parlous state of the British press, how print journalism is being hammered by the free content available on the net, how good investigative journalism is suffering and suchlike. There was talk of the state of Dubai, of freedom of speech and of the law. It was all that one might wish of a lunch with luminaries.

An unexpected pleasure was meeting an old friend, a rather good BBC journalist and writer, who I was at school with and as I sat at the table I wondered what our rural childhood selves would have made of it if told that a quarter of a century later we would be having lunch with movers, shakers and household names.

Ian was on fine form as our host and as he, the well-known daughter of a major literary family and damn fine author in her own right and I were nattering away, an image kept popping into my mind which I hope he won’t mind me telling you. Whilst we were all in Dubai, he heard about a water park that boasted a magnificent flume, or water slide, and came over all excited. Sadly I was working too damn hard and couldn’t indulge but I heard tell that he, Anthony Horowitz –author of the Alex Rider series and good man - and Louis de Bernieres all packed their Speedos and went off on a boys outing to flume with impunity. I wish I’d been there, I’d like to have seen those three men of letters giggling their way down a huge water flume, hell I wish I’d been able make up the four.

I leave you with that rather glorious image and as the rain continues to batter the poor daffodils in the garden into submission I say “Hail" to The Lady, “Hail" to Private Eye and “Hail” to Mr Hislop for a fine lunch and for a very kind and well received offer of hope.

Yours,

LibraDoodle.