Ready Shreddy Go

As my regular (and indeed constipated) readers will know, I am something of a champion for plain English. This doesn't mean that I hate big words or flowery prose or acronyms. It means that I firmly believe that the ultimate courtesy is to write in a style that suits your readers. When you think about it, the main purpose of writing is to communicate the thoughts of one person to the brain of another when face-to-face contact is not possible. If that communication is written in a style or form that the predicted reader won't understand, then the communication has failed.

So when I see sentences like 'A multi-agency project catering for holistic diversionary provision to young people for positive action linked to the community safety strategy and the pupil referral unit' (Luton Council), or 'Aligning the drivers, values and principles with the objectives is the key to unlocking the strategy. When they are fully aligned, they will illuminate the actions that need to be taken in the region' (South West of England Regional Development Agency), I get quite annoyed. There are many people who would not understand these terms. And there are people with reading difficulties, or for whom English is a second or even third language, who wouldn't have a clue what they mean. The rule of thumb is that if an average person won't understand what you've written after one reading, it's not plain English.

I guess the best way to look at it is that if you're a microbiologist writing for other microbiologists, it's perfect acceptable to use complex language and scientific terms. There's a shared lexicon. But if you don't know who you're writing for, or you're writing for a large cross-section of the public, keep it plain. The main advantages of plain English are:

• it is faster to read; and
• you get your message across more often, more easily and in a friendlier way.

Plain English isn’t Janet and John writing; you don’t have to over-simplify words. It doesn't change the meaning of your message - It just makes it easy to understand. Banks, insurance companies and solicitors now produce plain English documents without losing meaning. Even the South African constitution was written in plain English. It promotes good grammar, but doesn’t insist on perfect grammar. In fact, some of the older supposed ‘rules of grammar’ are complete nonsense. It doesn’t ban new words or long words. And it is not an amateur version of English. In many ways, it is harder to write in plain English than in Gobbledegook. It’s not quite as easy as it looks.

So there you go. Anyway, the reason I mention this is because Plain English Campaign - the bane of those who would write in gobbledegook - is 30 years old this year and, to mark the occasion, it is launching a global shredding campaign to rid the world of officious forms, ridiculous business jargon and idiotic acronyms. I've done my small part by designing the mascot for the campaign, Ted the Shred. The drawing you see here was the finished design (I've also included an earlier version in red). He's now been simplified for animation purposes and you can see him in action at the brand new Global Shred website. There are wallpapers to download and, as the year goes on, the website will expand.

Want to more about plain English? Email me or Plain English Campaign. Glad to help.

My latest must-have vinyl figure

Damnation and hell's chickens! I wish I was at the san Diego Comicon this year. If I was I'd pick one of these sick beauties up and bring it home. This is Andrew Bell's latest figure called O-No Sushi based on his ‘Never Look Back’ print series. A Bento set like no other, Chef Bell’s course includes a nervous limb-challenged squid figure with articulated arms/legs (well… stumps), two sets of interchangeable eyes, a bowl of tentacles and a slice of tentacle sushi.

Sick but gorgeous.

Possum identification lessons should be compulsory

Just like Glastonbury but with less mud, more Pimms

'Ladies and Gentlemen ... it's raining in Glastonbury!'

A resounding cheer greeted the MC's opening statement at tonight's 5 Alive music fest at West Wycombe Park. We were all sat in a field nestling behind the palatial mansion home of the Dashwood family (of Hellfire Club infamy) and facing a stage upon which a number of music icons from the 1980s would soon be doing their stuff. There's an open air weekend of gigs like this every year at West Wycombe, usually a mix of rock, pop and classical performances. It's a glorious location. Rising high above us was West Wycombe Hill with its creepy flint-covered mausoleum and the tower of St Lawrence's church, uniquely topped by way of a hollow golden ball in which the guests of Dashwood's naughty society would perform lewd acts. The hill itself boasts the famous chalk caves in which the Hellfire Club met and debauched. But tonight, all was sunshine, warmth and an almost oppressive humidity. Still, at least it wasn't raining like at Glastonbury.

The West Wycombe area is a posh sort of place with a village of 16th century listed shops and tithe barns and quaint little alleyways and courtyards. The place gets used a lot for filming BBC costume dramas. It was also used in the recent film version of Pride and Prejudice. Consequently, these annual al fresco gigs are not your wellies, cheap tents and cheaper lager type affairs. People brought picnics and chairs - even six seater tables and chairs - the car park was stufffed with Jags and Mercedes and the air fairly whiffed of Pimms. Apparently the most common injuries every year are either champagne cork related or choking on strawberries. All through the show, majestic red kites soared overhead eyeing up the M & S whole organic chicken carcases and cous cous.

A lot of people made an effort to dress up although there did seem to be some confusion among some of the cosplayers as to what decade we were celebrating tonight. There were enormous Afro wigs everywhere and quite a few ABBA clones. The last time I saw so many leg-warmers was while watching the original Fame.

The warm up act was a Take That tribute band appropriately named Fake That. Nothing to do with the 1980s of course but they were fun, sounded pretty authentic and they warmed up the slowly inebriating crowd nicely for the first proper act of the night ... Clare Grogan and Altered Images.

Now, you younger readers may only know Clare as the original Kochanski in Red Dwarf or as the stroppy feminist rock star Niamh Connolly in Father Ted. But to my generation, she was a pop star. And, to my utter delight (because I always had a crush on her), Ms Grogan appears to have completely avoided the ravages of time. Despite happily telling everyone that she's 47 years old and that we'd made 'an old bird very happy', she looked insanely young and fresh and was bursting with energy. She still dances in that slightly bonkers way she always did and her voice still sounds like she's six years old but she was great! If I still can act like that when I'm 47 ... oh. Bugger. They played all of their hits (surprisingly many) but the high spot was a spirited cover of the Ting Tings' That's not my name.

Next up was the act I was most looking forward to - Nik Kershaw. I always loved his quirky pop songs. They always had a dark edge to them with some strange chord shifts and menacing keyboards. He didn't disappoint. His set was immaculate, his guitar playing impeccable and I loved every minute.

Somewhat appropriately, he sang I won't let the sun go down on me as we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the hills behind us. It's a cliche but it really did look as if the sky was on fire. And still the rain held off ...

Next up was Bucks Fizz. A threesome these days rather than the full quartet that won Eurovision, they came out on stage in a riot of colour. Mike Nolan wore a Tango orange suit that I reckon astronauts on the International Space Station could have seen. Meanwhile, Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston (back together after 25 years) both bravely wore a kind of weird burlesque basque affair supplemented with coloured ostrich feathers and short furry skirts. Apparently, it was a visual pun on their band name with the ladies as the bubbly champagne and Nolan as the flat OJ. Poor old Baker's chest was overspilling the tight corset most of the time and she added some extra hand movements to the dance routines as she kept spooning herself back into her costume. They were ... okay. I was never a fan and Nolan's voice - never terribly strong - lost its way on many of the tougher notes and the dance routines were interestingly uncoordinated. But it was great fun and they were very entertaining. Again, I was surprised at just how many hits they'd had as I knew every song. They ended with Making your mind up and the inevitable whipping off of furry skirts. 'And if you want to see some ... more!'

All of which led us to tonight's headline act - Howard Jones. The reason Mr J got top billing, I suspect, is because Wycombe is his home town. It's where he grew up and, between songs, he shared stories about his childhood and teen years in the area. He became quite emotional when he pointed to West Wycombe Hill and explained that he'd both written the lyrics to New Song - his breakthrough hit - and met his wife there. His set was amazing and made more so by the almost supernatural bass expertise of Nick Beggs - late of Kajagoogoo - whose long blonde hair and camouflaged kilt added some strange glamour to proceedings.

As the evening came to a close we were treated to an excellent fireworks display and then, in tribute to the passing of the King of Pop yesterday, a Michael Jackson impersonator came on stage and blamed it pretty convincingly on the boogie. Having heard nothing but Jacko music for two days we decided to leave, thus clearing the car park nicely before the midnight stampede.

It was a great gig and it's made me dig out my old Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw albums. I've never thought of the 1980s as a particularly good decade for music but there were some real stars like Tears for Fears, Adam and the Ants, The Pogues, Talk Talk, Cocteau Twins, Missing Persons, Propaganda, The Creeps, PIL ... and Kershaw and Jones deserve their place in that list too.

And, apparently, it's still raining at Glastonbury.

Fallen Princesses

Wonderful Disney-inspired photography project from Dina Goldstein. See the other pics here.

Mobile Phone Evolution

A brilliant Russian Dolls-style series of cardboard models by Brit designer Kyle Bean showing the evolution of the mobile phone. Very very clever. Kyle's site is here.

Twitterific

As you'll recall, I've always had a bit of a downer on web-based social networks. I've written on the subject several times (here, for instance). Bebo and Myspace have recently been cited in cases of bullying (see here) and even suicide pacts. And we all know how Facebook was outrageously used to attack the survivors of the Dunblane massacre (see here). It was always inevitable, I guess, that these sites which encourage us to share so much - personal details, tastes and attitudes, drunken photos etc. - could be turned into something negative or just plain nasty. They also do much to attack the fundamental notion that we should all retain some privacy and secrecy about ourselves. As I discovered while taking part in the recent Twitstunt event, communication by electronic media quite often leads us to reveal more about ourselves than we ever would in face to face encounters. Maybe it's something to do with the lack of visual stimulus? It is a fact that the spoken word accounts for only a small proportion of our face to face communication after all. So maybe with wholly written communication and no access to non-verbals, intonation, accent, emphasis etc. we have to provide more detail to qualify what we say?
The one social media platform I have sung the praises of is Twitter. And with good reason. Firstly, Twitter does not demand many personal details; the bare minimum is a log-in and password. Secondly, it doesn't take up your time asking for photos and profile details or by engaging you in pointless quizzes and activities. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is quick and efficient. All you have to play with is a single field of just 140 characters.

In this past week, I've seen some wonderful examples of why Twitter comes out on top. Firstly, there are the 'trending topics'. This is where topics are suggested for comment and conversation. Anyone who comments includes a hashtag in the body of their 140 tweet so that clicking on it takes you to an index page where all related comments are displayed. Fascinating reading at times. And good fun too as many trending topics are created solely for us all to demonstrate our dreadful punning ability. Like some online democratic version of 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue' (and aren't we all glad that's back? Sadly without Humph, but still just as funny), we get to answer trends like #animalinstruments with such silly answers as Cellocanth, Oboe Constrictor and Captain Corelli's Pangolin. Playing along with these daft games keeps my brain sharp and I love joining in on the daily commute.

Secondly, it's a great way to meet people in an anonymous non-threatening environment. I've met some extraordinary minds via Twitter and think of many as genuine friends even though I've never met them. Some Tweeters do meet of course - I met a couple recently while taking part in filming Tony Hawks' new movie - and TV foodie Greg Wallace took this to a whole new level recently by finding his girlfriend on Twitter (see story here).

Thirdly, Twitter allows for short, quick communication one-to-one or one-to-many. As such, it allows celebs to instantly refute allegations and press stories, at least to those people who follow them (and that can be a lot). Direct messaging between two people mutually following each other provides a quick and easy method of private communication; I definitely DM much more than I email or text these days. And we all vicariously experienced the extraordinary events inside Iran this past week by following various individuals (whom I won't name for their safety) who were trapped in the heart of the chaos and violence of post-election Tehran. It was like watching a quality drama with desperate cliffhangers as the terrified tweeters told us things like 'the police on motorbikes are here ... shots are being fired ... ' or 'we have to split up ... I don't know when we will be able to speak again ...' It was heart-wrenching to read some of this stuff but it was so addictive. Nothing can put you at the heart of events better than personal reportage.

Apple have been quick to mobilise the Twitter platform with various i-phone apps but even a basic web-ready phone like my Nokia E71 allows me to tweet. Twitter allows us to communicate, participate and share without revealing personal details or becoming too invasive. If other software designers take this as a starting point, Twitter points the way to a brighter future for social networks.

For a great explanation of Twitter go here.

(I'll expect a cheque in the post Mr Dorsey)

And we're back ...

I'm so sorry. There has been an unforgiveable pause in my bloggery. I can only put it down to pressures of work, heavy workloads, pretty distractions and general procrastination. Things are once again easing and I will endeavour to be less tardy.

So what have I been up to? Well, great things are afoot. Firstly, I've had to write two book proposals; massively detailed documents with which my agent can whore me around the publishing houses. You may not be aware of this but 95% of all non-fiction books sell on the strength of the proposal ... so they have to be pretty comprehensive. And that means exaplaining the project, why you should be the one to write it, why the market needs this book, what else is out there and how does this differ ... and much, much more.

Secondly came the news that my proposed book of Cornish faeries stories is finally going to see the light of day. The Cornish Language Council approached me a couple of years ago and asked if they could publish the stories - suitable translated - in the Cornish language. I was happy to agree. Most Cornish literature is translations of existing books so there isn't much new material to read in the language. I was happy to help. So now they want to run a bilingual edition of my book and I've been hard at work on the illustrations. Stephen Fry has again provided me with a cover quote bless him.

And on the subject of illustrations, one of mine has just been published in a US school text book for mathematics and Plain English Campaign have asked me to design a new mascot character for their 25th anniversary. Oh, and I'm applying for an 'Artist in Residence' post with a local art college and I may once agin be taking on the mantle of university lecturer in creative thinking and problem solving. It's all been go, go, go. And all this on top of the 40 hours per week day job.

So, plenty to report but not a lot to show you yet. So I'll leave you with some pictures of a very nice walk I did this past week along the river Thames from Bourne End to Marlow - what we locally call the Millionnaires' Riverwalk. What a lovely day it was. And what lovely houses they were.

Ecstacy!

As I've put up a couple of videos already this week, I fancied sharing a couple more. Here's my favourite band of all time, XTC with King for a Day, one of the best Summer songs I know, and The Mayor of Simpleton. Has there ever been a better walking baseline written? Ever?

Live from the Birdhouse

Two of the best performances I've ever seen of one of my favourite songs of all time - Birdhouse in your soul by They Might be Giants. That guitar riff is fantastic! Enjoy.