On May 6, 3:21 am, "Mark Wallace" <mwall...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Good God.
> You've replied three times to the same posting, with God-only knows how
many
> words.
Using your mouse, why not select the text in question, copy it, and
paste it into a fairly well-featured word processing application from
which you can satisfy your curiosity by running an automated word-
count.
> Make the effort: Do it once, with the right number of words.
Y'see I can't help reading your posts and concluding the reason you
can stick to a 25 word specification so easily is that you've little
to say.
I replied twice, one in which I referred to what works of yours
available on-line that you'd posted a recent pointer to; and one by
which time I'd realised that, never having lived further South than
Bromsgrove myself, I shouldn't be so naive when it comes to assuming
people can probably be believed and thus I realised I should probably
be better demonstrating that, no, actually, your doubt is unfounded,
and the resources I mention can be located at <link to mark's numeric
URL>.
I prefer to use the number of words it requires to get a concept
across. All forms of communication contain some amount of redundancy.
If you want to read concatenated one-liners masquerading as wit, why,
there's the rest of USENET there at your fingertips. A lot of it gets
recycled though, which isn't exactly "writing" as I conceive it.
If you're wanting to tactfully engineer an on-line collaborative
exercise to which James Follett can contribute then by all means do
set the ball rolling. I'm sure you're far more masterful with the
search terms than I ever could be so you should be able to apprise
yourself of his current cir***stances without any help from me.
The 25 words thing is your baby. Pretty much everyone else who's
active here at the moment has acquiesced to the proposal. My only
reservation is that it's the kind of exercise that would benefit from
multiple contributions from all participants on a daily basis, if only
to keep it pacy and - more to the point - fun, and I cannot commit to
that kind of CPU time right now.
Talking of Mr Follett a moment I do recall catching one of the
episodes of the Sci-Fi series he was tirading against the BBC for
having ripped him off over. I heard enough to recall it was somewhat
"plummy" in a way Blake's7, for example, wasn't but perhaps The
Avengers was and heard his name mentioned in the credits at the end.
I boycotted it from then on as he was so vehemently opposed to them
broadcasting it all.
My suggestion would be that he may like to consider making it
available via MP4 (MP3 with DRM, or so I gather, and presumably
incor****ating some kind of file-completion checkbit such as one finds
in JPGs but which for obvious reasons would be unneccessary in a
format originally designed to be chopped up and resequenced using
SMPTE conventions) and see what he can make on the pay-per-download
market. He was quite clear about the fact it was the BBC who had
breached the terms of their contract with him and this was the kind of
programme where the voice artists are paid for their time per episode,
like session musicians, rather than incurring any 50-year residual
mechanicals.
I don't know if you know him, but he is original UCAW material is he
not? I wouldn't know how to approach him either. But it's entirely
likely here is somewhere he may be keeping an eye on.
I also think you should keep in mind that you are not the only person
likely to be reading posts I make here and, to put it bluntly, you
ain't paying the piper but you're trying to call the tune.
I'm thinking of a guy I studied with with SMA, who's now dead, who
insisted on doing all his own writing. And a friend from when I was
living elsewhere in the country worked as a personal assistant for who
experienced similar difficulties and labouriously entered each letter
one by one despite that people had told him they'd be happy to type if
he told them what to write. He insisted on doing it himself because it
was coursework. Then some gits broke into the school and stole his
computer. There may not have seemed much on there but it really did
represent months out of his life.
All I know is that one and, I suppose, the other would have no real
respect for me at all if I jumped up and down crowing about an output
of 25 words a week because, ahem, I really do know how to write.
If you want a title why not try "The Accelerating Universe"?
I'm happy with verse if you prefer. I love the way that Iron Maiden's
"Aces High" has the same underlying stress pattern as Sir John
Betjeman's "Myfanwy".
G DAEB
COPYRIGHT (C) 2007 SIPSTON
--
|
