pubs

Finally.

Sat in front of me, amid the varied clutter of my desk, is a big old manuscript that represents the culmination of the last ten months. I've finished my collection of shorts and will be submitting it to my publisher tomorrow.

I was expecting some great sense of relief but actually, I just feel weird. I think I'd just got used to having it hanging over my head and it hasn't quite sunk in yet that it's finished. Still, it's another step away from boring day jobs towards a life of full time smoking, thinking and writing. :>>

Another such step took itself recently as a short story I submitted ages ago was recently published in a new collection. I hadn't really thought about it for a while then suddenly I've got a cheque and a paperback with my work in it! (1)

So progress is being made, albeit gradual. I'm still after a literary agent and a deal with a major publisher but I must say, the two indies I'm working with currently, (ID Publishing and Chipmunka Publishing,) are great guys. I just wish I could make a living writing for people like this.

clubs

So I recently acquired an XBOX360, which is kick ass and has already sucked many hours from my life. The manner in which I acquired this piece of hardware however, is what I really wanted to talk about in this post.

We're all familiar with the process of buying stuff right?

Your average high street store is basically just a single great mechanical system. Customers come in here, pick up priced products there and move to the checkout. The staff then process the customer and their purchase in a standardised manner.

Everyone, theoretically, gets treated exactly the same. For the most part the individual attributes of the people, customers and staff alike, do not factor in this process.

Well this is isn't how I bought my 360, and it's not how I buy CDs or how I used to buy second hand books. When I bought the 360 I went into my favourite games store and had a chat with the guy that ran something like this:

This is what I want, this is what I've got, let's do a deal.

The difference with this system was that:

a) I got exactly what I wanted, not the closest available,

b) I got everything a whole lot cheaper,

c) I recycled my XBOX by trading it in,

Luckily there's still a great independent metal CD store in Leeds, though the greatest second book shop I ever encountered, Elephant Books, has long since closed down. It's better for the customer in terms of price and choice to shop in this way, it's produces less waste and it involves actual communication with another human being, usually someone who shares your interest.

Now during the world cup I had a thought which, it turns out, is relevant here. There were various instances where the commentators informed us that FIFA had decreed, 'if this happens the ref must book the player'.

It occurred to me then that this is akin to the mandatory minimum sentencing approach applied to drug offences in the US over the last few decades. (How d'you like that? A tangent within a tangent!) Basically these are both examples of the rule makers removing discretion from their operatives on the ground.

Both the referee on the pitch and the judge in the courtroom have their hands tied under such systems because they are no longer able to put the punishment in context. The underlying assumption here is that the rules are so good that they can be applied to absolutely any situation. Hence the use of discretion can only serve to pollute the ultimate justness of the laws.

Unfortunately such an assumption is not just dangerously arrogant but also quite insanely naive. It is simply impossible for any of us to predict all possible eventualities of any situation. Does it no then make more sense to rely on people to do what people have spent so many millions of years evolving to do? Respond and adapt.

Anyway, back to commerce. In the days just before eBay, (was there ever a time before eBay? apparently so,) many critics dismissed the idea as pure idiocy. Quite clearly, they said, everyone will just rip one another off.

Well eBay told it's own story and, love it or hate it, it has to be said that the whole thing is fundamentally built upon one single concept: trust in absolute strangers.

My point here is human beings are fantastic things, put two of them together and their brilliance is far greater than the sum of their parts. Why then do we seem to insist, in all areas of society, in trying to cut the man out of the machine?

We then act all surprised and sit around bitching when the cold, dead systems we've built to replace basic human warmth don't meet our needs. So many problems in the world, so many difficulties, what to do?

money is not the answer,

technology is not the answer,

you are the answer.

People need people. If we, as a society, could rediscover the huge power and potential of one on one human relationships; if we could stop scoffing, acting too cool for school when in fact we're quivering inside, and actually connect with those around us, there is nothing we could not achieve.

How's that for a come back? Expect more soon ;)

footnote

(1) check out my first published work of fiction @:
http://www.route-online.com/routev7/page.asp?idno=292