225. ✒️ A letter to Terry: #25-11
On long-winded language and the birth of an even crazier sandwich than the last one.
In which Rebecca reflects on a lovely holiday and declines Terry’s suggestion for her to adopt his pets.
✒️
This is the latest letter in my regular, informal correspondence with Substacker and fellow Brit Terry Freedman, in which we take it in turns to delve into the things that British people talk about the most. We’re inviting you to read our letters over our shoulders!
Dear Terry,
Many thanks for your latest letter, which I read with both alarm and enjoyment. I’m sorry to hear that two thirds of the feline population of Freedman Towers have been such a cause for concern. I trust that Bigfoot has become Smallerfoot since you wrote last week, and that Willow’s feeling much better and less fed up with having to be carted to the vet daily. I’m sending them every good wish!
While we’re on the subject, your kind offer of the opportunity to ‘buy a couple of cats’ is one I shall be declining. Thanks, anyway.
🖋️ Rambling language
Onto the parts of your letter which I enjoyed, though, and I must say that I was very taken with your feeling that ‘writing should reflect the way people actually speak’. You referred to Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling as having ‘no fancy language’, and your observation that ‘There’s no long-winded Shakespearean guff about the morn in russet mantle clad walking over the mist of a distant hill. Give me a break. No, this book tells how it is: stark, plain, relentless’ caused a cranial cascade into cacchinatory convulsions made me laugh.
Might it be fun one day to have a go at writing Shakespeare using straight-down-the-line, no-messing-about Terry-and-Rebecca contemporary language? Perhaps we should each take the same chunk of, say, Henry IV Part II* and see how our own versions differ firstly to the original, and to each other’s?!
*other plays are available
🍺 A beer-fuelled editing service
I remember once being asked by a friend at university – a Masters student of electronic engineering – to see what I could do about altering what he called ‘a rather repetitive phrase’ in his thesis, whose working title was Network Time Reference.
I was pleased as Punch with my alternative of the interval measured by the device to his the time timed by the timer, and suggested he take me to the student bar for a celebratory pint.
‘Hmmmmmm’, he told me. ‘I think you ought to squeeze one mention of time back into it, given the whole thing is about, well, time.
We went back to the drawing board over our first pint, and began long, multi-pint discussions over how time should duly be squeezed back in. What should it be?
The time measured by the device?
The interval timed by the device?
The interval measured by the timer?
To this day I don’t recall which one we went for, but I do know we had a super evening! 🍺
📚 Reading and reviewing
Well, you’ve had some work on your hands – I can’t imagine having four books to review all at the same time! A short review is, well, short, but there’s no getting away from having to do a whole load of reading in order to get an understanding of what it is you’re reviewing and to give your considered response to it.
There’s a book I’ve read recently which I’d love to write about on Dear Reader, I’m lost, but the angle I’ve chosen for my essay has required me both to read its sequel and reread a book I’d last opened at school! It’s nothing in comparison to what you’re having to do, firstly being only three books and secondly it being entirely my choice what to – and indeed whether to – read!
Speaking of being people overwhelmed with work, I took this screenshot recently of the online calendar I share with Jim. Hope it gives you as much of a laugh as it did me!
🏕️ A much-needed holiday
Ah yes, overwhelm. Well, I don’t think I’d realised quite how much I needed a break until Jim and I headed off in our van for our trip to the West Country a couple of weeks ago! We met up with members of both sides of our family: two thirds of his family and a third of mine have recently – although not together! – relocated to beautiful Dorset, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with all of them.
We stopped on the New Forest on our way in order to stretch our legs and have lunch, and at a picnic table in a sheltered spot we saw two ladies settling down to have theirs. They’d spread a tablecloth out, had a couple of large bags in front of them, and were busy setting out things that looked, well, not in the least bit like lunch!
Terry, they were setting up a game of Scrabble! After our walk we passed them again, and they were engrossed with the game they were playing with a full-sized board with lovely wooden tiles and letter racks. Incongruous and absolutely flipping fabulous.
Their tablecloth was beautiful; dark blue with white stars and crescent moons all over it. At first glance I thought they’d just wanted their table to look pretty, but the cloth had a practical purpose, too. Here’s a snap of a neighbouring table – I’ll leave you to imagine the inconvenience of picking up Scrabble tiles from the forest floor had the ladies not had a tablecloth on theirs to cover all of those gaps!
Next on our destination list was Devon, the next county along if you keep heading left – sorry, west – and I’d assumed that the drive would not amount to, what, more than an hour or so. Terry, it turns out that Devon is immense! After well over three hours we arrived at our campsite, where, having been before, we were delighted to be greeted like long-lost friends by the site team.
Over our three-day stay Jim headed off to recce four different – and, to varying degrees, very remote – woodland locations to shoot for his latest book project, which gave me the fabulous opportunity for a bit of walking, a lot of reading and plenty of time to mull over future writing projects.
Writing. That thing I love. Well, my writing log is jam-packed with no end of ideas, snippets of conversations heard and plenty of things I’ve read and experienced… but with my laptop not being flipped open even once on our trip I’m afraid none of these jottings has yet quite borne fruit.
You see, I’m tired. I’m absolutely fine, and although I’m getting plenty of things done – the catering and laundry at Chateau Snaps, getting into a super (albeit tiring, but it feels like good tiring!) routine of swimming with Mum, sometimes reading, sometimes not – I’m not spending terribly much time engaging with the fabulous and lovely gang of writers and readers on Substack.
I’ll get there. I know I will.
👨🎓 The crossword column
While I’m spending my time pacing myself I’ve been enjoying the sorts of pastimes I can dip in and out of, with my beloved cryptic crosswords an excellent example.
I’m very proud of my efforts so far with this one from the Daily Telegraph on Saturday 26 July, although three clues still confound me. Any ideas?
6 down: Several overcome by river current like bore? (9)
W _ A _ I _ O _ E
23 down: Singular odds for a kind of rugby (6)
_ _ _ E _ S
25 across: Arrived unexpectedly going among Scots to drink (5, 4)
T _ B _ E _ I _ _
🥪 The chiller cabinet
Remember that bonkers M&S strawberries and cream sandwich brought out in time for Wimbledon? Seems that Tesco have outdone their competition with their even more bonkers idea: a birthday cake sandwich. (I’d say that it knocks the Dutch chocolate spread sandwiches you’d mentioned in your letter into a cocked hat!)
I gather it has ‘divided opinion’. 🙄 Terry, it’s another ‘no thanks!’ from me….
All the very best, as always,
Rebecca
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Wow! What a great. letter! Personally, I would love to hear you and Terry exchange a few simplified Shakespearean passages! And Scrabble al fresco! Yes! I would love that.
Most chortlesome, Rebecca. I'm looking forward to replying