The dark and light of the internet. Or, in which I salute Rebecca Curtis.

One of the things I find curious about the internet is how so many people seem to accept that the rules are different. Of course, they say sagely, people are rude or inappropriate or pushy or blatantly offensive, because it’s the internet.

I see no logical reason for this. One of the basic marks of character is that one behaves in exactly the same way when unobserved. A decent person does not snoop or pinch or cheat, just because there is no one there to watch. In the same way, there is no reason why a human should fall to ranting or rudeness just because they can type in an empty room under the folding cloak of anonymity. It seems perfectly obvious to me that one would not say anything to anyone in the virtual world that one would not say in the real world.

One of the things that puzzles me most is the element of bossiness that creeps into internet life. Complete strangers instruct other complete strangers in what they should or should not say, how they should live, what they should think, how they should proceed. I would not march up to someone in the street and say: ‘You know, your work-life balance is clearly all wrong.’ Or, your opinion on this thing is absurd, or your obsession with that thing is nuts, or you are clearly in need of some kind of serious retrenching.

I would no more tell a sentient human how to life their life than I would walk into their house and start rearranging the pictures. Yet people do this online all the time. I do not get it. I am not being disingenuous; I am genuinely perplexed.

I also find there is an odd sense of entitlement, as if these strangers have some kind of right over the lives of anyone who ever ventures into any form of social media. It’s as if there is an odd insistence that the moment a human says something in any public forum, they grant permission for other people to tell them what to do.

I loathe bossiness and prescription. I find it startling and claustrophobic. I don’t do it in real life, and I don’t do it virtual life. Grown-ups are grown-ups, and may make their own decisions. They have brains and agency and hopes and dreams; they do not need to be told.

On the flip side of this, there is a lot of gentleness and politeness and sweetness, out there in the ether. This does not make headlines, because, rather like happiness, it writes white. People console on the loss of beloved animals, or send congratulations on a grand success; they share comparable experiences and give generous encouragement. There is a lot of the lovely balm of Me Too.

I was thinking of all this because a very charming thing happened to me this week. There is a chaser I really love called Teaforthree. He’s just my kind of horse: big and bonny and handsome; brave and bold; honest and genuine as the day is long. I fell in love with him last year and followed him all season. He ran a blinder in the Grand National to finish third, and I was there, cheering him on in the glittering Aintree sunshine.

He is trained in Wales by Rebecca Curtis. She is young for a trainer, only 33, and she does a hard job in a thoughtful and imaginative way. Her horses are out a lot, instead of confined always to boxes, and encouraged to play and express their horsey selves. In a game increasingly dominated by the giant yards, she is having a great success.

I know, from watching my father, how tough the job is. The work is endless, the emotional demands are acute, and there are never enough hours in the day. Yet Curtis maintains an excellent Facebook page, where she generously takes the time to update people on the progress of her horses. Tentatively, because I don’t like to be a bore and take up precious moments in a packed life, I posted a couple of comments about the glorious Teaforthree and my admiration for him. To my delight and amazement, she sent a kind message back.

I’ve had a really good week this week, but I have to say that getting that message was a shining highlight. Lucinda Russell once did the same thing, when I sent her a note of consolation about the loss of her lovely young hurdler, Brindisi Breeze. How elegant these women are, I think. They are the diametrical opposite of the shouty voices, the raucous opinionators, the unasked-for advisors. They behave just as beautifully online as off. They are pursuing a profoundly difficult profession, in an arena still largely dominated by men, and they still manage to be incredibly polite and thoughtful.

Often, when I write here, I like to have a shining note of optimism. The weather may be buggery bollocks, the news may be dark, the existential bafflements may multiply. Yet there is always a lovely light somewhere, if only one will look for it. My lovely light was that moment of human generosity, in the rush and scramble of the online world.

I raise an actual and metaphorical glass to Rebecca Curtis, and all who sail in her. And to put my money where my mouth is, I’ve had a tiny little punt on Teaforthree in next year’s National. Wherever he goes next, the bonny fella stays in pride of place in the notebook, number one in my Horses to Follow. And, if I ever manage to write a best-selling book, I shall buy two chasers in the same stamp and send them to be trained in Scotland and Wales.

 

Today’s pictures:

Lovely morning at HorseBack UK:

Very happy herd, feeling the first spring sun on their backs:

Red the Mare doing her Minnie the Moocher:

General spring:

Mr Stanley the Dog:

Hill:

In which I muse on language and Twitter, on pedantry and insults

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

WARNING FOR UGLY LANGUAGE, TOWARDS THE END.

It’s quite modish to be rude about social networking. First of all, it has a horrid name. I wish someone could think up something better. Social networking has the ghastly whiff of jargon about it; it’s the kind of thing you might find in a leaflet about interfacing over probable outcomes, going forward. Second of all, it is infected with the ugly things called Trolls. Trolls is just another word for rude, shouty people, with no edit button. Third of all, it takes place in the darkened space of the lonely room, rather than out in the park or the restaurant or the kitchen, or other, more benign environments. It is often considered an atomising force, rather than an act of human community.

People are always leaving Twitter in a huff, or ostentatiously shutting down their Facebook page. I rather sympathise with this, because I have absolutely no defence against the negative comment. But even if sometimes I need to take a couple of days off from the hurly burly of the communal sites on the internet, to regroup and butch up, I always come back. The advantages far outweigh the drawbacks.

I am particularly in love with Twitter at the moment. Often, if I wake early and do not need to leap out of bed, I listen to the Today programme for a while and noodle about on Twitter. There is a whole set of clever, ironical people, discussing what this minister said about that, or which apparatchik refused to answer the question. The Lobby is usually up, and so there will be some excellent insider political talk; my racing Tweeters will be rubbing their hands over the 2.30 at Newmarket; often, a lone journalist will be breaking news from a faraway country of which we know little. It is a sort of miracle really. There am I, up in the north of Scotland, lying in bed with the Pigeon watching on, whilst the whole world unfurls on my small screen.

The thing that particularly amuses me is when hares get sent running. I never know what thought or sentiment will strike a chord. Sometimes I think I have written something rather pithy and apposite, and it falls like a lonely stone into the deepest well. Sometimes, I say something mere and whimsical, and suddenly, it’s a thing, and it takes off and assumes a life of its own.

This happened today. Someone put out a tweet saying that 7 in 10 Britons are ‘disinterested’ in the Olympics. This made me very, very sad. My melancholy fell not because of prosaic Britons refusing to get excited about a sporting event. (I guarantee that people will perk up once the thing is up and running; it’s the thought that does not inspire, what with the traffic problems and the logistical disasters, and the G4S epic screw-up. Once Rebecca Adlington wins her first gold medal, everyone will go crazy, and forget the congestion in the Mile End Road.) The sadness was because a smart, professional woman did not know what disinterested meant. It does not mean having a lack of interest, but having no stake in the outcome. It is more nuanced than neutral, more immediate than unbiased. It is a lovely, useful word, and I fear it may now be lost.

Anyway, I tweeted about this, and instead of being sent to pedant’s corner with no breakfast I was greeted by a chorus of other bugbears. Discrete and discreet apparently are now routinely confused, as are principle and principal. One linguistically-minded gentleman even said that he was inspired to a hymn in praise of gerunds. One women informed me that she was in a meeting with a BBC lawyer, who solemnly announced that he wished the application of ‘Charterhouse Rules’. (We suspect he must have meant Chatham House rules, unless there is some kind of obscure minor public school rulebook used by the legal profession.)
So there, on a dull Friday morning, was a perfect festival of etymological delight. Of course, etymology can be as much friend as foe. When I dig back into the origins of disinterested, I find that it did once mean lack of interest, and switched to its current meaning some time in the 1650s. Perhaps there were seventeenth century pedants mourning that shift. Perhaps the fact that it is shifting again should not be cause for tears, but a robust example of the living, sinuous nature of the English language.

I do draw the line at refute and reject, though. But true to the antic form of the language, it turns out that refute did indeed mean reject until the 1540s. Still, all linguistic scholars now agree that it means to disprove by means of argument, and if anyone wants to take me on with sixteenth century precedent, let them.
Just as I was finishing this, and thinking about language, someone on Twitter put up a link to the transcript of the magistrate’s summing up in the John Terry trial. (For my foreign readers, he is a footballer accused of racial aggravation.) I was struck by this paragraph:

‘The defendant does not deny that he used the words, “fuck off, fuck off”, “fucking black cunt” or “fucking knobhead”. His case is that his words were not uttered by way of abuse or insult nor were they intended to be abusive or insulting.’

You know how I always say that language matters? I may have lived a sheltered life, but I don’t really see how calling someone a black cunt is not insulting or abusive. It was not as if Terry said it in a hail fellow well met way: my old china, my dear old black cunt. Even that is really not nice, but I suppose one might argue the intention was not to insult.

Still, through the mysteries of the British legal system, and the maze of meaning and context, John Terry was found not guilty. I could say that I was a disinterested observer, but that would not quite be true. I do have skin in this game. The great aunt in me would very much like not to live in a society where people run around calling each other black cunts. Call me old-fashioned if you like.

Pictures of the day:











Red’s view:





The mare, in sepia, pointing her dear toe:



Having a pick:



Are you amazed by my restraint in not writing of her today? It took heroic self-control, especially as she decided that today was the day that she would excel herself in sweetness. For someone who can be so zoomy, she can also be incredibly soft and dopey. Today was one of those days. So I just did a bit of groundwork with her, and then hung out. I sat on the stile by the henhouse and she rested her head against my shoulder, and I scratched her sweet spot, and she closed her eyes, and we stayed like that for quite a long time, whilst the swallows flew about us, and the little grey pony munched her way through the good grass.

The mother and Stepfather’s small terrier is staying whilst Mum is in the hospital for a procedure:



She really is rather sweet:



The Pigeon tolerates visitors, but is much more concerned with sniffin’ about:



The hill: