My hometown is Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, Australia. Also known as Brisvegas, Brisboring and Brisneyland. When I worked in advertising in Brisbane, colleagues from the ‘big smokes’ of Sydney and Melbourne would sometimes comment that it was more like a big country town than a city. Certainly from the vantage point of having lived in London for 8.5 years, I can see their point. We have skyscrapers and busy streets in Brisbane, but the ambience is not that of a big city. Thank goodness.
One of the things I love about Brisbane is that people say hello to and smile at strangers. Not just in the suburbs, but in the heart of the CBD too. Not all the time and not everywhere, but it happens. It’s one of the things I miss most about home – the friendliness. I really enjoy walking through the streets of the centre of town and smiling and saying hello to random people, it gives me a real buzz and makes me feel connected. Maybe if I lived in a small community like a village in the UK it might be similar, but the big city vibe of London is certainly not friendly, and rather isolationist.
Which is why I started to say hello to strangers here, on the streets of North London (even I’m not masochistic enough to try it on Oxford Street, on the rare occasions I venture into that hellhole). I’ve had many and varied reactions – from surprise, a quick smile and muttered ‘hello’, through complete shock and a look of disgust, to blank looks and being completely ignored. I invariably walk away with a broad smile – sometimes because of the look on the face of the person I’ve just so completely discombobulated, other times because they’ve responded in kind. I persevere, if only because it amuses me to make some people realise that the figures passing them on the street are real live human beings who might (shock!) actually want to interact with them.
Hence the Hello Project. My most successful venture so far has been saying hello to a little old guy I used to see almost every weekday morning on the way to the train station. He’d be coming back from the corner shop with his newspaper, and I’d be walking to catch the train for work. That first morning, just before he passed me, I said ‘hello’ and smiled. He was completely taken aback and kind of choked, staring at me. I smiled to myself and kept walking. The next morning, I did it again, and he tentatively murmured ‘hello’. I kept at it for weeks, occasionally using the rather more British ‘good morning’, and before long I could see him registering my presence from the end of the street: he straightened up and a little bounce came into his step. He would say ‘hello’ cheerfully with a big smile in response to my greeting, and we would both continue with our day, at least one of us (me) heartened by our contact. I haven’t seen him for over a year now, and I miss our ‘hello’s’.
The poet and I are so close to booking our flights to Australia for 2007. I can’t wait to be back in the land where not one person gives you a dirty look for smiling at them.
One of the perks of being married to a poet is getting to work and finding in my bag a framed poem, written to me while I lay sleeping early this morning.What is it with the rash of relative youngsters writing ‘autobiographies’? I’m 36, and while I may not be a celebrity or have a jetsetting life, I know that it would be a rare person my age who could write a decent autobiography. Even someone who’s been kept hostage by aliens in a cave for 5 years - that could be a good book, but it wouldn’t necessarily be an autobiography.
We have the likes of Billie Piper, Jordan and Kerry Katona, none of whom has reached the ripe old age of 30, cluttering up the bookstores with their 'autobiographies' while I can imagine there are scores of older, better writers who are hard pressed to get their work published. David Beckham, Jade Goody and Gary Barlow - what exactly am I meant to take away from their recounting of their lives so far? And that's just the UK. Damn this celebrity-obsessed culture, and a publishing world dictated by marketing.
The best autobiographies I've read were written by those in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s or older. In my opinion, Sharon Osbourne should have waited another 20 years, although I'm sure her book is entertaining. I want to read books by people who have actually lived, have seen the world change, have maybe had children, grandchildren, changed careers…. People who have had the time to look back and reflect on their life, not just write a retrospective diary. Or, even better, have it ghost-written. And yet Wayne bloody Rooney gets £5 million for a five-book deal. He’s, what, 21?
All of these people who emerge from shows like Big Brother now know just how much they can sell their first interview for. They're far more clued-up than ever before. The celebrity autobiography is a natural extension of that. It's become the must-have accessory for anyone who's reached a certain level of fame.Maybe that's my gripe. I don't want to read an accessory.
There's also a school district where, in gym class, the children are jumping rope for exercise - but without a rope. They don't want the kids who trip over the rope to feel bad and lose precious self-esteem. By removing the actual rope, kids can simply pretend to jump rope, and no kid gets embarrassed.
Dweck found that in America, 85% of parents think that telling your kids "you're so smart" was an important thing to say and did it daily. Unwittingly, they were depriving their children of what really mattered - the conviction that an industrious work ethic will bring them success. Confidence might breed success, but artificial confidence doesn't. It actually lowers ambition.
Of course if every kid in the class gets a gold star, gold stars won't mean anything. And no one is going to feel good about themselves for getting a gold star, not even the kids who have done well. In fact, the kid with the best self esteem in that class might just be the one who got the smiley face sticker when the teacher (omg disaster!) ran out of gold stars. Because she's obviously special. Right? Smiley stickers will be coveted.
How can people start out with the best intentions and get it so wrong? I've been reading this excellent book and I really like the author's take on how we've gone wrong with self-esteem.
Our schools today are full of ... programs that reward kids with everything from gold stars on up for what are really minor or insignificant achievements. Today's parents are cautioned not to be critical of their children under any circumstances; the message is that unconditional love and acceptance build self-esteem. But the flaw in this logic is obvious. True self-esteem requires an accurate appraisal of one's own abilities in comparison to those of others. With a healthy sense of self, you can accept your weaknesses... There are real differences in abilities, which are rewarded differentially by life. Unconditional acceptance seeks to deny those differences and build a phony self-esteem, vulnerable to puncture by life's experiences. (Richard O'Connor, Ph.D.)Praise our kids, yes. But don't praise them for every little thing and for everything equally so that they never learn the value of their efforts.
From the Guardian article again:
Generation Zero was raised in this culture, with Dr Frankenstein's results. Case in point: today, 94% of high school seniors believe they are going to college. That's their plan, their ambition. But only 63% of them will actually enrol. That gap between their plan and reality has never been wider. And 64% believe they will have a career as a "working professional," when just less than 20% will.
They've been given inflated ambitions, without being taught the necessity of effort. They are unequipped to respond to failure.
... because you all care so much, this is what is in my handbag today.
I sat there very quietly, and I held in a primal scream that would have shattered all the glass in the office.The golden rule of writing, Show, don't tell obviously means nothing to this guy.
James Patterson is such a prolific writer, and Alex Cross is such a familiar character, that fans, and those new to this series, are bound to enjoy the latest addition to the Alex Cross/Will Lee novels.Yeah, because we all know the more prolific a writer, the better. Right?
James Patterson is the literary equivalent to a five-course dinner at your local fast-food restaurant. Meaning: it probably won't kill you, but there are certainly better ways to enjoy yourself. Patterson novels come in small bites. There are 121 chapters in 2nd Chance, each of them rarely more than two pages long. So, the book consists of a surprising amount of empty and half-empty pages. This might agree with readers afflicted with a short attention span. They won't have a problem finding the page where they fell asleep the night before. It is rather irritating to readers who are used to regarding a novel's division into chapters...as part of the story's construction. Between the empty pages there is regrettably a lot of mediocre if not bad writing. " Political correct " cartoon characters and dialogue that seems to come straight from " Writing by Numbers " are quite annoying.Not that I'm necessarily opposed to a bit of bad but strangely engaging fiction once in a while. I've read a fair number of Patterson's books, each time wondering why. As opposed to all the Buffy the Vampire Slayer books I read a couple of years ago when I was anxious and depressed. Literary valium. Highly recommended.
I would like to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the enormous sky.
When I first started reading poetry, long before I met the poet, this line by Rainer Maria Rilke, the German poet, caught at my heart. During a particularly melancholy period I decided on this line as my epitaph. These days I’m not so focused on the grave all the time!
Tonight we went to a reading and launch for one of the poet’s friends who has just published a translation of Rilke’s The Duino Elegies. The reading was held in a wonderful independent bookshop, Crockatt and Powell, near Waterloo station, a bookseller of the kind that is sadly becoming increasingly rare thanks to the empires of Borders, Waterstones and Amazon. My favourite quirky touch was the assortment of intriguing and beautiful bookmarks scattered through the shelves and tables of books. And they have a blog!
We read in the tube and the bus on the way home, delving into the very accessible introduction by a German scholar, becoming absorbed in the elegies, and I wondered why I had never really followed up that first Rilke moment, why I had read bits and pieces over the years but never a whole book. This is changing as I write, I’ll be carrying this book around with me for some time. Rilke’s poetry is breathtaking, and this is a fine translation, as you might expect from a fine poet like Martyn. Even though my knowledge of German is fairly rudimentary, having the German text facing means I can both entertain myself and get a sense of the rhythm the poet intended, reading aloud on the bus like your average German-speaking literate London loony.
And how bewildered is any creature
that is womb-born and yet has to fly.
As if frightened of itself, it must hurtle
through the air the way a crack goes
through a tea-cup – so a bat’s track
streaks through the porcelain of evening. (Eighth Elegy)
