Oh oh, it's second childhood time again

Sensual or sensuous? My dictionary distinguishes. The more common sensual carries “overtones of sexual desire and pleasure”, the more neutral sensuous covers an appeal “to the senses but without the feeling of self-indulgence and sexiness”. My personal mnemonic will now be a Guardian reader and a Daily Mail reader.

So let’s have examples. Sensual taste (boiled bacon with parsley sauce), smell (Wright’s Coal Tar Soap), sound (Kirsty Young saying anything), touch (my fake silk – but uncrushable – shirt from Exact Tailoring Services), sight (Port Underwood, NZ South Island, at dawn).

We’re missing one sense: movement, not seen but experienced. Alas it’s not available to all, regarded as too terrifying, too vulgar, too laddish. But motorbike riding is right up there. For those who have only driven cars there is a comparative metaphor which, I fear, hinges on birth control methods.

Steering a car is banal: turn the wheel left and you go left, fumble that stick thing and the gearbox responds – in its own good time. With a bike, steering is closer to thinking: in both meanings of the word (ie, leaning and tending to) you incline yourself towards passage through a corner. The foot flicks, the gears change. More speed? You’ve got it. You’re part of cold, real nature. There’s risk and perhaps foolishness; but have you never willingly made a fool of yourself? Definitely sensual.

PUZZLE On November 5 I mentioned a TV programme in which a beautiful woman analysed self-portraits by famous artists. The woman’s beauty proved integral to the programme and I explored this, clumsily, badly. The title of the post was obscure and there were five comments, one of them mine. Stats reveal this has since attracted 43 pageviews. What’s going on out there?

Forget the grumbles; this is what counts

People who write novels belly-ache. I myself whinged yesterday about making jargon look “natural” rather than “researched”.

None of us deserves sympathy. The work is voluntary. And we should always reflect on moments of pure joy when a problem goes away and opens up a whole vista of plot as a result.

Pre-flight Jana, my pilot, is alone (it’s early morning). She’s taken meteo info from a computer and is now filing an online flight-plan. The two paragraphs are tightly written and appear indigestible. I re-write several times but it’s still techno for the sake of being techno.

Woke up this morning, still the same problem. Set off for a paper and some milk, pondering and pondering. I realised I’d passed the post-box despite the must-post letter in my hand. But I had a clue.

Jana is no longer alone, someone else works the computer. Thus intractable jargon can legitimately become dialogue. Problem solved. But that person is Ginette, victim of unsympathetic behaviour by male pilots yet cultivated by Jana. Jana makes a gesture, Ginette responds. And the female-male divide which will recur, off and on, throughout the whole novel is immediately fruitful.

Adding Ginette makes aviation sense and accidentally propels the plot in the direction I want it to go. A moment of joy.

BEAUTIFUL SUSPENSION Stomach feels queasy. Holding my pants up is a belt which doesn’t help the queasiness. Time for my clip-on braces. Harsh industrial braces for which Mrs BB made me pads to reduce the abrasion. Characteristically she decorated the pads. And here they are.

NEW NOVEL Chapter two, 759 words (Work rate tripled. Reason: see above). Feb 1, 2011

And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin

The day of the new car.

First the old car must be purged. No problem remembering the satnav or the bags of dried apricots in my door pocket. But how about sunglasses hidden in a trapdoor in the roof or the £1 and €1 coins kept for trolley hire at Sainsbury and Super U respectively. Plus those spare bulbs the French government insists I carry. What I almost missed were seat-belt pads to protect the breasts and shoulders of women using the back seats.

It’s a nice trip. The Ross-on-Wye road for eight miles, then a detour stopping short of Symonds Yat where the Wye wends past a heart-stopping cliff overlooked by a pair of nesting peregrines. To Monmouth with its statue of Henry V, across the Wye, swing left from the Chepstow road (possibly the most beautiful in Britain, hugging the Wye and skirting Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey) and on through the Forest of Dean where yellow tape round tree trunks signals protest against the Tories’ plan to sell off the woodlands.

To Cinderford which matches its name but is redeemed by the brisk good humour of the woman receptionist at Winner Garages. Our new car, the same make and model as its predecessor, stands out on the forecourt, not being caked with frost. In four years minor design faults (especially the computer display) have been tweaked and the new bolide feels taut and eager.

NEW NOVEL Should I record the miniscule progress? Yesterday, weaving in recent research meant a para and a half (say about 150 words) took nearly two hours. Why? Research should look casual, throwaway, unsweated.

Pages from a psychiatrist's notebook

Gaps between haircuts are getting longer. Last week I entered the hairdresser looking like Moses, left much pelt on the floor, and emerged bullet-headed, a lager-lout looking for a fight.

Shabby too. The same navy fleece unwashed these several years, navy corduroy trousers with the pile wearing away. Hair never brushed, handkerchiefs rarely changed. Away from the physical and social world, not really doing anything my late father-in-law would regard as work.

Like the haircut gaps, my blog comments are getting longer. Having found a post where content, style and discipline are in balance I advance complex often fantastical reactions that may parse but are frequently misjudged: byproducts of my new novel which demands techniques at the far end of my comprehension and ability. When I’m not drafting, tweaking, reading the stuff aloud and re-writing I’m researching.

I know what villages south of Bayonne look like, also the cockpit of a twelve-year-old Cessna 172R. I am devising R/T procedures (“Montaubon Tower this is Gascon Sierra Delta Romeo, ready for departure, request right turnout heading 330 degrees”) and exploring what technical degrees were on offer at Arizona State University fifteen years ago. My main concern is the life of a woman operating in a world predominantly shaped and controlled by men. The war in Afghanistan provides counterpoint.

The blog is my neighbourhood where I walk an imaginary dog (which does not defecate) and chat to those I meet, most of whom seem to have arranged their creative impulses rather better than me. Less obsessionally. I believe I am seen as a dry-land Captain Ahab who has lost the desire to hurt whales; certainly I’m indulged and thankful for that.

A debt acknowledged

Recently I’ve discussed American English and some American respondents adopted an apologetic tone regarding their native tongue. The stuff below proves that any apology is misplaced. Exceeds 300 words.

Mark Twain's Rules for Funeral Etiquette. At the moving passages, be moved -- but only according to the degree of your intimacy with the parties giving the entertainment, or with the party in whose honor the entertainment is given. Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.

Do not bring your dog.

William Goldman, screen writer. As to his size: he's like the Pentagon; no matter how big you think it's going to be it's always bigger. André's publicity has him at seven feet five inches and 550 pounds (This is not a fat man remember.)... It's in his presence. André is very still... (perhaps) because he's never sure what reaction people will have to him. I've seen children meet him and go mad with glee and start to climb on him. Other children scream in fear and run away... His hands may well be the most remarkable thing about him... Shaking hands with André is like dipping your hand into a well.

Richard P Feynman, physicist, on letter censorship at Los Alamos.
I said: I have a game. I challenge (my friends, relations) to send me a code that I can’t decipher, see. So, they’re making up codes at the other end, and they’re sending them in, and they’re not going to tell me what the key is.
Los Alamos letter censor: Well you’re going to have to tell them please to send the key in with the code.
I said: But I don’t want to see the key!
Censor: Well, all right, we’ll take the code out.

The Great Gatsby. There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby’s enormous house, so I looked at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour. A brewer had built it early in the “period” craze, a decade before, and there was a story that he’d agreed to pay five years’ taxes on all the neighbouring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to Found a Family – he went into an immediate decline.

Ross Thomas, underrated thriller writer. It could have been called a trial, I suppose… Our Star Chamber judge carefully arranged six sharpened pencils on the desk beside a fresh yellow legal pad. Next he produced his pipe, tobacco pouch and match box, and placed them within easy reach. He then adopted an expression which he may have thought was his best horse-sense look. He made his face as long as possible, showed both of us his teeth in an impartial manner, and nodded several times as if he were adjusting to some invisible halter. I almost expected him to neigh us to order.

BB en route to Trier

The above photograph is a better illuminated shot of my Rhine barge cap and is at the gentle request of Rouchswalwe. I hope the braid and the decorated tape below the braid are now clearer. I have taken to wearing the cap as I write the novel and am experiencing a wave of smooth intellectualism typical of Germany’s most admirable former chancellor who wore his Rhine barge cap with enormous panache.

Note: The item supporting the cap is not my head.

NEW NOVEL First chapter completed: 5586 words, January 23 2011. Thanks to the excellent support I have received (see comments to previous post) about English French and French English I can’t wait to get on with Chapter 2

Doing my Helmut Schmidt bit

Frosty. I wear my Rhine barge cap to Tesco and become A Man In A Hat - a slightly different person. Always aware of the headgear but comforted by a conviction that I at least know it doesn’t look stupid.

We buy flowers which Mrs BB says need protection. Recently a potted basil plant suffered frost-bite when exposed to very cold weather on the ten-minute walk back home.

Neighbour Andy has unearthed his mother’s Common Prayer (dated 1922) and draws my attention to material he assumes has subsequently been altered or expunged:
● Almighty Lord God who for the sin of man didst once drown all the world, except eight persons, and afterwards of thy great mercy didst promise never to destroy it so again…
● Oh Almighty God, who in thy wrath didst send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron…
● (Headline) Articles agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces and the whole clergy… for the avoiding of diversities of opinion and for the establishing of consent touching true religion. London 1562
● (One such article) The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, touching the right, title and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists boast…

NEW NOVEL 4902 words, January 21 2011. Yana, an American living in France, is speaking French to Josette. Since the book is in English the dialogue appears as English. Should Yana’s “translated” English differ from the American English she uses when speaking to an English speaker? Sounds silly, perhaps, but there are advantages in having these two modes.

And you say you read all the time

Peter: Feet on ground, head in literary clouds

Elder Daughter (Professional Bleeder), a former NHS phlebotomist, is not to be confused with Younger Daughter (Occasional Speeder), whose blogonym is easier to decode. PB, an omnivorous reader who has clearly inherited her mother’s genes, phones in another compelling story about Kindle.

PB’s partner, Peter, didn’t read much before they met but soon succumbed to the Bonden virus. And not just easy books; he’s read Cloud Atlas which is more than I have. Once when I visited them Peter was in the bath reading and he took a long time getting out. I approve of this. People who have baths to get clean are missing the point.

In fact Peter has taken reading further than any of us - literally. He walks to his workplace reading all the way, avoiding loose paving stones and casually driven cars in his absorption. Inevitably PB bought him a Kindle for Christmas and he asked her to download titles out of copyright she thinks he “should have read” given his present age. Within days he found Brave New World “terrific”.

I’ve heard several people express their doubts about ebook readers but I’m cheered that these devices, with their modest screens, compete directly with that larger, omni-present screen which threatens to gobble us all up at times.

NEW NOVEL Provisional title: The Love Problem, 4579 words, Jan 18, 2010. Much research on aviation in USA and in France. American central character (Yana – a Rouchswalwe suggestion) has to talk to American friend in plausible US idiom without lapses into honey, figure (for think), and gee. Then there’s French conversation between Yana and French woman: is it OK to give a French twist to the English I write? More on this latter – much more.