The story that was never written

This morning I was in the shower when a great opening line came to me. I was really proud of myself as I knew that from this one sentence a story could develop.  I made a mental note to write it down as soon as I could.

 Here I am, 6 hours later. I have just remembered that I’ve completely forgotten the words that came to me. The greatest short story ever written has disappeared forever.

Happiness or Joy ?

Happiness appears to be a very popular theme at the moment. Do people feel that they are happy? What is happiness? I’ve always preferred the word Joy. For a start it is the middle name of my little sister. Let’s see….

Happiness:
(Wikipedia says)
“Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.

The science of happiness endeavors to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what "happiness" is, and how we might attain it.”

A science??!

Joy:
(Wikipedia says)
"Joy may refer to:
• Happiness an emotion
• Joy (Given name) people with the given name or surname Joy"

(Cambridge Dictionaries online says that)
"Joy is great happiness."

Dictionary.com says:
"–noun
1.
the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation: She felt the joy of seeing her son's success.
2.
a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Her prose style is a pure joy.
3.
the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.
4.
a state of happiness or felicity.

–verb (used without object)
5.
to feel joy; be glad; rejoice."

Number 5 is the definition for me. If you had to use another word instead of happiness, which word would you choose?

I hope that your Easter is a joyous one.

Charlie Chaplin and Richard Herring

I’ve discovered Richard Herring over the last two weeks. He’s currently presenting a series on Radio 4 about objects we’ve grown to hate, like Hitler moustaches and, this evening, hoodies. Last week he talked about the BNP getting seats in the European parliament because people didn’t bother to vote, like happened in France with Mr Le Penn. He talks a lot of sense and he sent me looking for the speech from the end of The dictator by Charlie Chaplin (so that’s where Hitler got his moustache from). Here is the text.

Self-ascription

Dom emailed Rob and I simultaneously asking us what the word self-ascription means. I couldn’t find self-ascription, only ascription in the dictionaries and I must admit to not being sure at all as to what self-ascription means. I presume it’s from a psychology paper she’s reading at the moment.

Any ideas?

Oulipo

Or OuLiPo if you want to be pedantic. Was a gathering of French speaking writers founded in 1960. Radio 4 had a program about them last week. The idea is that you impose constraints on your writing which provides inspiration for new ideas. That’s what I understand anyway. I rather like the idea of a lipogram, that is to say, trying to write a paragraph, essay, poem or even a book omitting the use of a letter. How about ‘e’? Looks like a good excuse to pick the synonym finder up from the floor and start rooting for new words…

I’ll try to dash off a chain of words without using ‘e’s. Not bad so far, but now I’m short of inspiration, I want aid in this almighty task… My synonym book is so commodious for this work. How long, I ask my mind can I carry on, until I go mad…..aaaaghhhhh.

Now it’s your turn (I did it again [and again])

Do women have a soul?

I was looking up something in a French reference book last week. Quid is a sort of who’s who, encyclopaedia, years news, lists of everything, book. We have the 1992 issue; 2000 pages to get lost in. I was surprised to find that there was a section entitled ‘women’.

This included the debate about souls and whether women were to be considered a human being at all. This is a very ancient debate, by the way, and was used to illustrate some point or other. A lot of statistics, including how many women are beaten and the social background of the men beating them up. Then there were statistics on prostitution giving lots of details on the social background, race, and religion of the men paying for services. How long do women spend on housework? Not a very positive bunch of figures at all. It would have been more interesting to see how many women have received the Nobel peace prize for instance (In the quid yes, but not in the women’s part), the women holding important posts in politics, education etc. I haven’t looked at a more recent Quid. I do hope they’ve managed to find women’s souls in the last 17 years.

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is very hard to define; everyone is okay with it – until someone says something that perhaps doesn’t quite fit. It’s important to be able to say what we want, worship how we want, have access to the information we want, go where we choose, live our lives in the way we want. If we agree with free speech have we got the right to prevent someone from saying things we know to be wrong?

I remember there was a book with the lines, that I can’t quote exactly and I can’t find online, so if you know them please put me straight:

“This is a free country, you can't stop me. This is a free country, I can try.”