Hackademic

...is the word I learnt yesterday. It refers to a journalist who is labouring under the misapprehension that he or she is also an academic.

One of the people on my team is working with a writer who she described thus.

I, myself, thought it was rather funny.

What a (work) experience

Quark (no, I have not stepped on the toe of a rather posh, Eton educated duck, but am starting a sentence about the software, beloved of all designers) is a bit annoying.

Picture the scene, I am on my first day of work experience, after a morning of heaving dusty books from one place to another (NB dont wear white shirt on work experience, they nearly always make you tidy up filing cabinates) a lunch gawping at the city types with neat shoes (women) and fucked up hair cuts (the men) my afternoon was spent proofing a section of a book on film, 1001 films to see before you die or something to that effect. I had the original manuscript with film titles and other bits in italics, but the Quarked page didn't have any italics.

Why? Why? I hear you cry.

Because if you transfer stuff from Word into Quark, the italics disappear. So I've spent all afternoon marking italics onto a piece of paper. What a micky ficking waste of time. There was someone else doing this as well. You would think the software designers could sort that out.

But I did learn many useful things today including,

If you make tea for people who are really busy, it makes them like you.

Big books (like the one I worked on today) are written by a collection of writers with one general editor (who in this case is external) I asked how they choose the writers and she said they have a number of writers on a number of topics who they ask again and again. Or they take new people recommended by the general editor. The people she mentioned were all either well respected film critics (for Le Monde or the Boston Globe) or academics. You could tell the difference.

The proof reading mark for italics is ital in a circle next to the words underlined.

Defenestration is the act of throwing a thing or esp. a person out of a window. (Now don't worry I didn't defenestrate anybody, but it was a word I didn't know in the section on Hitchcock's Rear Window.)

(FUCK: I'm addicted to BRACKETS)

May I take your jacket sir?

So the MA works looms ahead, I have made a few darting nervous forays, nibbling at the edges, doing a bit of that, and a bit of this, not making much progress with anything.

It is the classic mistake, I know I need to break it down into manageable chunks but I keep thinking well that will affect that, so I need to do this before that and then...

Today felt like a bit of a break through though, as I, with the help of my lovely course mate, did a mock up of my book jacket. Made it feel a bit more real and wow, like it might actually happen. I wonder how much it will change by the end of the course?

Why bring that up?

I'm doing some research for an article on motion sickness and have found the delightful and helpful www.chuckiebags.com

I'm sure you can guess what their product is for.

I wonder how long it took them to come up with their company name. I imagine the founding members of the company sitting around the kitchen table in Cranleigh, Surrey, throwing ideas around.

'How about, Up-chuck bags, Ralph?'

'Hmm, not sure Susan'

'Remove-a-puke?'

No, no I've got it Chuckie bags, the kids'll love it. Wasn't there a children's TV character called Chuckie?

'Er Ralph that was a horror -'

'Details Susan, details.'

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

I went surfing yesterday. Well to be honest it might be breaking the Trade Description Act to call what I was doing, surfing. A more accurate description would be going into the sea with my board and flapping about like winded seal trying to balance on a lolly pop stick.

I haven't been for a few weeks and though my performance left a lot to be desired, the only way I am actually going to get better is by going and bloody doing it. And I needed cheering up after the Friday I'd had.

After breakfast in bed, I drove north to South Fistral beach. From the top of the cliff as I struggled into my wetsuit, it looked like the sea was presenting some good beginner waves, fairly strong white rolls of broken water. But in the water, I kept finding myself almost out of my depth with no waves. There were waves further out and waves further in but no matter how hard I tried I keep floating back to the no-mans land of waveless grey water.

It was quite disconcerting. At one point I paddled away from the shore to what I assumed was shallow water further out, but when I turned around the shore seemed remarkably far away and my fear of death kicked in. Must do something about that fear of death thing.

Afterwards I lay in the weak sunshine on the smooth water varnished sand watching the other beginners, no one seemed to be having much luck. The sea was just not having it.

A lone oyster catcher flew from right to left, about 20 feet above me following the water line, just as the sun broke out from the patchy cloud.

What a way to spend your Saturday morning.