Monday, 21 June 2010

The bizarre power of the internet

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

(From The Debonaire, which I found via India Knight's Posterous page)

This is my version:

Pick a bad photo and apply

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:

P6202932

P6202930

P6202924

P6202926

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.

5 comments:

  1. 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 ;-)
    Lou x

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  2. 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.

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  3. I enjoyed these words, whatever the 1661 other words were!

    And just so you know, summer isn't gracing ANYwhere in the UK with her presence at the moment ;o)

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  4. How very lovely and reassuring you all are, especially in the face of that slightly self-indulgent wail. Thank you so much.

    And - GoldenGirl: am I right in thinking you are a new visitor? In which case, a very special welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 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.

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