Posted by Tania Kindersley.
1661 words today, but they were absolute buggery bollocks. I am sorry, gentle readers, but really: bollocks. The more I wrote, the more awful it got. I was scrabbling around for adjectives, always a terrible sign. I was not even making much sense. On I bashed, despite it all, like someone walking across a blasted moor in horizontal rain. In some ways it's quite magnificent, to go on writing that badly for that long. It felt very British, anyway. Perhaps I was paying unwitting homage to the England football team.
After I had finished this festival of mediocrity, I went to have a look at the internet, to cheer myself up. One of the things I love most about the bloggers I follow is that they always make me laugh. Who cares if I wrote 1661 substandard words? It's a first world worry if ever I heard one.
I found lots of lovely diversion out there on the net. I clicked from link to link, until I found something that really caught my attention. It was an instruction, and, in a very strange way, for no apparent reason, I followed it, almost to the letter.
This is the original:
(From The Debonaire, which I found via India Knight's Posterous page)
This is my version:
The reason it is not to the letter is that I do not appear to have the Helvetica font, which I am quite grumpy about.
But really. What am I? Some kind of mad sheeplike person who just does whatever the internet says?
Also, even more bizarrely, I am quite cross that the original Helvetica picture is much better than my own. I am getting competitive about something that does not matter, found at random on the internet, created by someone I do not know. If I was only very slightly nuttier than I already am, I would go back and strive for a better effect. Luckily, I do have actual work to do.
In the meantime, to introduce a welcome note of sanity, here are some pictures of a charming silver birch wood from yesterday, with some extra lichen thrown in, because you know how I love the lichen:
It was a gloomy old day (summer ruthlessly declines to grace Scotland with her presence), but the trees still contrived to have a beauty and grace all their own.
Finally: very lovely comments on Saturday's post. Thank you all so much for them.
Hello - you are ridiculously hard on yourself with your writing - bollocks? I am sure your words were not! If all else fails - there is lichen ;-)
ReplyDeleteLou x
Would that 1,600 were the fewest mediocre words I'd ever written at one go, though I doubt your 1661 were truly mediocre. We are harder on ourselves than others could be, aren't we? For my money, you may yammer till the cows come home.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed these words, whatever the 1661 other words were!
ReplyDeleteAnd just so you know, summer isn't gracing ANYwhere in the UK with her presence at the moment ;o)
How very lovely and reassuring you all are, especially in the face of that slightly self-indulgent wail. Thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteAnd - GoldenGirl: am I right in thinking you are a new visitor? In which case, a very special welcome.
I am putting much (too much) energy into trying to find a paint to match that lovely green/yellow of some lichen, for my sitting room walls. Lichen and birch trees … just beautiful.
ReplyDelete