Asbury & Asbury

Significant developments

A couple more developments on Significant Objects to share (background in last couple of posts) – first of all, this article on the Eye Magazine blog; and also an interview I did with Rob Walker, co-curator of the project, which is now up on the 26 website.

An initial flurry of bidding has brought Kenny up to $11.11. Bidding remains open until 6pm this Friday 16 October, so it’s all to play for.

Finally, they're running an open contest if you fancy writing a story yourself – details here.

26 x 2

Two interesting events coming up at 26, the writers' organisation of which I'm a director.

The first is the 26 Annual Lecture with Oona King, former Labour MP (famously ousted by Respect's George Galloway) and now Head of Diversity at Channel 4. It takes place at the British Library on 8 October 2009 and tickets are available here. Well worth coming along, not only for the speech itself, but also because it's a good 26 social event and everyone tends to be there. (We blogged about last year's lecture here.)

The second is an exhibition called 26 Exchanges, in association with International PEN. It takes place from 21-25 September at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London and combines the writing talents of various 26 and PEN members with the design skills of Harry Pearce at Pentagram and Sanky at All Of Us. Pretty good line-up then. And it's open to all.

More on both events

More about 26

PS: Thanks to 26 snapper and director Jim Davies for the pic

Chinese whispers

Busy playing a new and possibly pointless game, inspired by the goings-on at 26’s Free The Blog. The idea is to highlight the difficulties inherent in any form of cultural translation (which is what the blog is all about – read more about it here.)

Fairly simple rules:

1. Go to http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

2. Enter the text from a well-known work of literature (up to 150 words)

3. Translate from English to Chinese (trad)

4. Copy and paste the resulting text, then translate back into English.

Here are a couple of results so far:

My WANDER' D remote achievement cloud that in high o' Float; Not valley and hill, when I simultaneously saw the crowd, master's golden yellow narcissus; Nearby the lake, under the tree, inspires the wing and dances in the breeze. Continuously as illumination star, and in Milky Way flash, their stretch' In endless line d along bay boundary: 11,000 looked at looked I, threw them in the lively place dance head. The wave dances nearby them; But they have exceeded in the happy sparkle wave: The poet is impossible, but is joyful, in this kind of happy company: I gazed at -- And gazes at -- But an idea was assorted the wealth to bring to my demonstration: For frequently, when I lies in mine couch in vacant or in the ponder mood, do they flash in that internal eye which are solitary extremely happy; Then I and pleasure fill heart, and yellow narcissus's dance.

The survival destroys, that is a question; Whether ' tis in suffers nobly in brains crude fortune suspension cable and arrow, or adopts the arm opposition troublesome sea, and through the opposition, finished them. The death, sleeps; Does not have; And by said that our sleep conclusion heartache and 1000 natural vibration that flesh and blood were successor - ' tis is reverent completes wish' D. dies, sleeps; Sleeps, accidentally has a dream. Ay, there' perhaps the s friction, is dying that sleep's any dream to come, when we towed this to curl at the point of death, must give us to pause.

Feel free to create your own over at the blog.

Raspberry & Raspberry

Strange the things you get asked to do as a writer. I recently contributed a piece to this site by John Simmons (co-founder of 26, pioneer of verbal identity, writer of numerous books on business writing). His new book is called 26 ways of looking at a blackberry: how to let writing release the creativity of your brand.

As part of the book launch (today), he asked 26 writers to take a piece of fruit and imagine how it would talk. In my case, it was raspberry. First task was to define the tone of voice:

What’s a raspberry like?! Flipping heck! What a silly question, you nincompoop! A raspberry is childish and silly and rude. It leaves you all red-faced and spluttering. (Although it doesn’t mean any harm and it’s actually quite sweet.) Anyway, leave me alone now you plonker! :P

Next came the challenge of writing a letter from a bank, explaining why it's a good idea to stick with them during the downturn. But in the tone of a raspberry.

Bear in mind I’m still in character here.

Dear Poo-face

Only joking you wazzock!

Okay, listen to this right. Banks are really stupid, aren’t they? Load of wallies in silly suits going round borrowing too much dosh and spending it on sweets and stuff. Flipping berks.

Well, ner to them, because Raspberry Bank isn’t like that! We’ve been really really careful for ages because we’re not blinking lemons like the others. That’s why you put your lolly with us! Because you’re not really a wazzock like we said before (soz about that).

Mind you, you would be a wazzock if you went putting your lolly somewhere else! Flipping heck! What kind of spanner would do something like that! Chinny reckon!

Tell you what, you keep being our bezzy mates and we’ll keep being yours.

And if you don’t then you can bog off! You divvy! :P

Later alligator!

Nick Asbury, Client Liason Director, Raspberry Bank

You can see 25 (slightly more grown-up) examples here.

And don’t forget to order the book.

Image from Full Stop Photography

Speech, speech

Sue and I are both members of a not-for-profit organisation called 26, which brings together writers, editors and language lovers from different backgrounds. They recently kicked off the first in a series of Annual 26 Lectures at the British Library. The speaker was Phillip Collins, the political wordsmith who penned most of Tony Blair's most famous speeches. He's a clever man and, as you might expect, a persuasive speaker. You can see the whole thing here. And if you're not a member of 26 yet, it's well worth the membership fee (£26/year, naturally).


Annual 26 speech 2008 from Tom Clarkson on Vimeo.