I am ill, so I only have three things to say...

Here's my new out of office auto-reply:

Here's my new chair:

Here's my new bicycle helmet:

That is all.

Hyperspeak...engage!

I recently blogged about the excessive use of hyperbole in political and business language. You could, if you wanted, call it hyperspeak. That’s what I’m calling it. So, after the rant was over, I was curious to see how the corporate side of Games Workshop shaped up. Would they also fall victim to over-enthusiastic generalisation, or to over-use of words like "engage", "reach out", "touch base", "create value", "offline"? Would they beat around the bush like so many other companies, who seem ashamed to admit that one of their primary functions as a company is to make a profit?

Games Workshop staff are renowned for their enthusiasm and excitement. I think of them as a cross between a puppy and a cave squig. Such a combination does not necessarily produce a calm and purposeful business strategy (calm and purposeful are my new favourite business words). For instance, here is how they describe Teclis of Ulthuan on their website:

Teclis is the greatest living Mage in this age of the World and his mastery of the magical arts isunsurpassed by        any living creature.

Wow. That’s pretty categoric. Teclis sounds awesome. I’m imagining the Chairman’s biography right now.

Tom Kirby is the greatest living businessman in this age of the World and his mastery of the Company Report is unsurpassed by any living creature.

What about how they describe The Empire?

Since its founding the Empire has endured terrible invasions. Through years of bloodshed, this land of Men has stood fast through faith and steel, its tireless citizen soldiers and valiant heroes, surviving against the innumerable foes that assail it from all sides.

Sounds bad. Innumerable foes? Terrible invasions? All sides? Imagine the annual report…

Since its founding Games Workshop has endured  a terrible business environment. Through years of recession, this company of hobby gamers has stood fast, its tireless hobby centre managers surviving against the innumerable foes that assail it from all sides.

But all that froth about the miniatures, and the armies, is to be expected. Their games are meant to build excitement, they’re meant to be epic and heroic. Would this translate into their business model? Despite my irritation with hyperbole, I was starting to look forward to reading that annual report. It could be…different, that’s for sure. I popped over to their Investor Relations site to find out more.

First up, their business model:

We have a simple strategy at Games Workshop. We make the best fantasy miniatures in the world and sell them globally at a profit.

First impressions? Good. They say what they do, and they say why do it. They don’t have some misleading statement in their vision that would belong better in a not-for-profit organisation.

What about their Chairman and how he runs the company? This is from his preamble to the 2011-2012 Annual Report.

My favourite graph in our internal reporting shows the sales in each country going as far back as we have records. 1988, I believe. The really great part about it is that it has over 20 years of data. You can see proper trends over 20 years, and if your intention is to build a business that lasts, which mine always has been, then ‘long term’ means decades.

Oh. So far, so very sensible. Plain English. No hyperbole. Long-term strategy. I’m not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed.

But then in the business model I found this:

                We call these Games Workshop Hobby centres because they show customers how to engage with our hobby of collecting, painting and playing with our miniatures and games.

Engage. They could have said “get involved.” However, it does actually fit with the sentence, and it does make sense in this context. Bah. Nothing to complain about here either.

I looked through the whole website, and the only part I could really quibble with was this:

                Here we employ wonderful young men and women, who are recruited for their enthusiasm and willingness to help others.

Enthusiasm and willingness. Good. Wonderful? Not so much. Are they really all wonderful? Are they really wonderful at all? Full of wonder? Honestly?

I didn’t like one sentence in a thirteen paragraph business model. Coca-Cola failed at the first, second, and third lines. Of a three-line vision.

The rest of the site (apart from the Chairman’s Preamble) is all voting rights, codes of compliance, and share price charts. Nothing too hyperbolic in any of them.

The Chairman’s Preamble is also written in plain English, without vacuous over-exaggeration, and generally left me feeling that he was a pretty sound person.

I particularly liked this section, which is the closing paragraph of the preamble (to the annual report 2011-2012):

More shareholder value is destroyed by managers making dumb short-term decisions to enable them to produce glowing quarterly reports than ever is gained in the laughably inappropriately named ‘transparency‘ they are supposed to bring. If you would like more transparency on Games Workshop, come to our annual general meeting. You will see our facilities, and maybe be quite surprised by how interesting they are. You will get to meet all the people who do the important things and talk to them about their jobs. You will also get, if such is your desire, a foaming pint of Bugman’s best in our famous bar. No, shareholders do not get a discount on beer. We don’t do discounts, not even for you.

And just when I thought it was getting all a bit too boring and businessy, they went and threw in a metaphor about moats.

Our continual investment in product quality, using our defendable intellectual property, provides us with a considerable barrier to entry for potential competitors: it is our Fortress Wall. While our 400 or so Hobby centres which show customers how to collect, paint and play with our miniatures and games provide another barrier to entry: our Fortress Moat. We have been building our Fortress Wall and Moat for many years and the competitive advantage they provide gives us confidence in our ability to grow profitably in the future.

I’d tell you all to go out an buy shares immediately, except I am not qualified AT ALL to provide financial advice, and the shares are currently the highest they’ve been for the last 5 years, and I know nothing about investing in the stock market.

What I do know is that Games Workshop, a small UK company with a history of hyperbolic over-enthusiasm for their hobby, manage to write more calm, measured, and sensible business English than some of the biggest companies in the world.  And that, quite frankly, has made my day.

This is the most amazing blog you will ever read. I loved writing it, and I will never forget it as long as I live.

Hyperbole. It's everywhere. Fact. Even here, in the opening paragraph of my blog.

As this blog is, ostensibly, about writing, I thought I should do a post about writing.

Coincidentally, I've attended three presentations last week that our Group Communications team arranged. One was about tone of voice in business communications.

Since then, I've become much more attuned to the nonsense that's spoken and written in business and politics every day. I didn't realise how much credibility businesses, and politicians, can lose through trotting out bland, mindless hyperbole.

I did an off-the-top-of-my-head search for the first company I could think of to see how they'd shape up. It was Coca-Cola, here's their "mission"

• To refresh the world - in mind, body, and spirit (Oxford comma, model's own).
• To inspire moments of optimism - through our brands and actions
• To create value and make a difference everywhere we engage.

Laying aside whether these really are the mission of the company (isn't it more likely to be profit?). The first two are just rubbish. The third element of the vision is the same kind of brand corporate drivel you'll read on a hundred company websites. It doesn't differentiate Coca-cola at all. And furthermore, who ever actually says "engage" in a conversation (insert a joke about Jean-Luc Picard here). Who "creates value" except people who forge money? What do they mean by value? What do they mean by make a difference? Do they really want to do it EVERYWHERE? It's a paradox of modern business speak. Meaningless drivel, expressed in such fervent terms. Corporate marketing folks can't give us enough of it.

Let's engage with France and create real value for the family this holiday!

And then there's politicians.

I recently read that David Cameron had claimed that he remembered his wedding night, minute by minute. Really? 02:46.....what were you doing? 03:45? It's a meaningless soundbite. It emphasises how important he considers his marriage (presumably that will reassure the readers of the original article, in the Daily Mail), but for me, it just shows that he is a vacuous idiot who blethers away in spinspeak whilst not saying anything actually useful. Basically, he's a liar. Perhaps not intentionally, but he's a liar nonetheless. I think they call that "misspeaking." It's what people do when they open their mouths and let their true faculties and beliefs show.

Take, for instance, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On the 6th August he said: "this is an opportunity for us to focus 110% on the economy." You know, I think John Maynard Keynes might have just died again. Whatever remaining shreds of credibility he had? Destroyed, by a mathematically nonsensical hyperbole. What was wrong with just 100%, George?

And then, Neil Armstrong died.

I think it's sad, and I don't think we've built upon the legacy that he, and other pioneers like him, left behind. But to begin with, I didn't think it was a "tragedy" that he's dead. He was 82. He had lived a full life. Married twice, and he leaves behind a family that will remember him fondly, and mourn his passing with sadness. They will feel he was taken from them too early; they will feel that he had more to give in life. But me? Am I gutted? If I said I was, I'd be lying, and I'll probably have forgotten by next week.

His death is part of the normal cycle of life. Sad, yes, but very much a timely reminder to us all that achievement and greatness do not come without hard work.

And then, I started to think about today's flash in the pan celebrities who are worth so much less than the men and women who were at the forefront of scientific discovery. Those people whose explorations into the unknown enabled so much of the technological innovation that make our lives what they are today. And what do we choose to celebrate now? Footballers, their wives, people on a reality show who have never done anything but be on a reality show (wow, aren't they, like, amazeballs?).

That's the great tragedy here, that Neil Armstrong lived to see an era where people didn't follow in his footsteps, because the politicians and business people were too busy telling us how excited they are about engaging to create real value and making a difference with a Big Society vision that would mean we all live a life where we too can remember "every minute" of our most amazing night.

So actually, if you want to indulge in hyperbole, then if it's to do with Neil Armstrong, I'm actually going to give you a pass on that one.

Olympic Science

I love looking at old posters, and seeing how their design reflects the era. Here's the official Olympic posters through the ages:

I like the designs of Tokyo and Moscow best, but I don't like the way they've rendered the rings on one colour. I like to see them in their multi-coloured glory. I also like quite like Stockholm's:

Have your children been inspired by the Olympics? Mine apparently have...to new feats of science:

Josie: For the first time in doggy Olympic history
Lori: Not doggy, not just doggy, catty too!
Josie: For the first time in Olympic history of all the different Olympics, an opening ceremony that...
Lori: No wait, wait. I'm not ready.
Josie: Well, I hope you're almost all here, because the opening ceremony starts in 10 seconds...
10...9...876...fiiiiiiiive....4321. Welcome everybody to the opening ceremony of the doggy, catty and humany Olympics. I'm going to take you on a magical mystery....but first: the athletes! And the referees! Next the athletes...the athletes...the athletes...
Lori: No, that's not an athlete
Josie: Anyway....it's your moment to shine at the Olympics. The sparkle, like nothing the Olympics has seen before, the rainbow circle, doooooooooooooooo...now visible light will be transformed....visible light into a spectrum of rainbow.

Lori and Josie: Lights! Rainbow!
Josie: Spectrum!

They are using their toys to make an Olympic parade, and then Josie is performing an opening ceremony which involves splitting visible light through a prism. Not quite as impressive as the Danny Boyle offering, but she does pull off a good presenter voice.

Tonk...tonk...tonk

I was saddened today to read about the demise of the studio that created the Wipeout series of games. It was my first ever game for the Playstation, and I loved it. I’ve never been a fan of racing games, but there was something about Wipeout that made it very special.

Perhaps it was the way you glided round corners effortlessly, with no need to change gear, or do anything other than make a tiny tap of the airbrake.

 Perhaps it was the weapons, and how you could blow other competitors off the track, or send forward (or backwards) a massive quake to cause carnage among your rivals.

Perhaps it was because I was better at it than all my friends, and took great delight in inviting them round to beat them while they "tonked" off walls.

Was it speed starts, or massive jumps, or loop-the-loops?  

Or was it the soundtrack - a thumping and pulsing electronica, which I would never listen to in everyday life, but curiously fitted with the bright colours of the futuristic game?

It was probably all of those things, and they hooked me into console gaming, and never let me go.

RIP Psygnosis, aka Liverpool Studios.

Onwards, and downwards!

I'm making chilli again, but I've only had to invoke Amazing Deglazing Jack once so far! It turns that it's a bad idea to nip to the shop to pick up some extras without telling your napping husband that there's a pan on full heat, at a critical stage, which might need his attention.

In other food news, further to yesterday's slightly downbeat post, we've been trying out some new things with Lori. Here are the successes so far:

• Huge plates. It makes the food seem smaller and much less challenging.
• Tiny portions. When combined with huge plates it looks like there’s hardly anything to eat.

Alice was faced with a bewildering array of choices in order to render herself small again. 

• Healthy desserts. Another way to break food down into more manageable chunks. I'd add a link to a healthy dessert, but it'll only be a sugar-free yoghurt, and I'm sure you know your way to the dairy aisle.
• Sibling collaboration. Josie is old enough to understand that she needs to help Lori. She was given a much bigger portion (unbeknownst to Lori) so that Lori would have a chance to finish before her.

Lori finished her first serving of food yesterday in super quick time, and was given two sets of seconds, and yoghurt to finish.

It was a really good way to be able to give positive feedback and make her feel that she was constantly succeeding, rather than mealtimes being a succession of failures.

Lindsay couldn't understand why the children didn't finish their packed lunches, until she realised she'd added  a gherkin.

I’ve tried to follow this through at lunchtime, as much as possible, by buying a packed lunch box with compartments and providing lots of little, healthy things that will be less daunting than a huge sandwich loaded with cheese, meat and salad.

Breakfast...one honey loop at a time

Having a child with eating problems can be demoralising and miserable. Mealtimes stop being a source of sustenance and start becoming an emotional battleground.

Lori is 5, and she eats very, very slowly, when she eats at all. Today, she didn't get to play with her friends at lunchtime because she spent the whole time eating her packed lunch, which she didn't even finish. This morning, she started breakfast at 07:10, and still wasn't finished by 08:25.

It's not that she doesn't like food, or she's being naughty, and it's therefore hard to either find her food she does like, or discipline her. Basically, the problem has come because, for some reason, she's started to get very worried about having too much food in her mouth. And, if she gets too much food in her mouth, she starts to panic and won't swallow it. Getting angry, or sending her to her room, simply makes her panic more.

It takes a long time to consume a bowl of honey loops when you only eat one at a time. The annoying thing is is that it's completely unpredictable. I only bought the stupid loops because last week she happened to eat a bowl quickly, and I thought I was on to a breakfast winner. I should have stuck with healthy porridge. Lasagne has been a reliable favourite for months, until last Tuesday when she had a minor panic attack eating one. Dairylea cheese triangles are adored, but last night she ran round the living room screaming with her mouth open after something (who knows what) made her feel her mouth was too full...of squishy and completely swallowable cheese. Andrew had to talk her down like he was negotiating with a particularly trigger-happy bank robber.

This has been going on for months, and we started off by being pretty unconcerned, "it'll pass", "it's a phase", "remember when Josie was like this?" but when packed lunch after packed lunch came home from school uneaten or barely touched, or when school dinners were "cleared away before I could eat because I had to go to the toilet" it started to get a bit worrying, especially because she's a skinny little monkey to begin with.

It's hard to know what to do, but I've got some ideas to try out tomorrow:

1. Yoghurt - how hard can it be to take small bites of that?
2. Toast - so if she's not finished by the time we need to leave she can take it along the road with her.
3. Cut the pepper and cucumber into smaller bites in her packed lunch.
4. Make sure she goes to the toilet before the meal to try to reduce the use of toilet trips as a get-out-of-eating card.

Sorry for the serious post! Normal service to resume later, I have archery trips and iPad apps to discuss!

And in first place...Pinus Sylvestris!

In my ongoing quest to do interesting things at the weekend, we took a trip to the Botanic Gardens today.

We collected fallen leaves to take home and identify them, pretended to be explorers traipsing through a wilderness, created a bed for passing fairies, and then Josie and Lori insisted we sat at a table for lunch because it had a plaque on it in memory of someone called Andrew Lindsay (Andrew being their Dad, if you didn't know, and me, Lindsay, being their Mum, obviously). They were both very eager to know what each tree was, but because the Botanic Gardens label their trees only with the Latin names, it's not so easy to work out what they're actually called.

Here's a handy interactive site for identifying UK trees from their leaves.

Because of a recurring theme in my book, I am absolutely obsessed with the Latin names for animals, birds and fish right now. I find them fascinating, and I'm trying to remember as many as possible. Cedrus was pretty easy to remember (cedar of various varieties). Acer also seemed to recur quite a lot. My Higher Latin completely failed me, because all I could think of was the computer brand. Turned out they were varieties of sycamore or maple.

I particularly liked the Latin name for Scots Pine. It's English name, which suggests it's somehow unique to Scotland, is particularly misleading. This its range:

The SNP had slightly larger ambitions for the independent state of Scotland than they admitted to the media.

As you can can see, Scotland probably makes up less than 1% of its range.

So, would they continue this blatant misdirection in the Latin name? If they did, then I would have expected Pinus Caledonius, or Pinus Scotius, or something of that ilk. Apparently they decided to go in the other direction and give it a name that couldn't possibly give you any idea of any of its characteristics. In Latin, a Scots Pine is Pinus Sylvestris, which basically means Pine of the forest or woods. And really, aren't they all?

The Pinus Sylvestris was pleased to provide 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize in this year's Obvious, But Surprisingly Unhelpful Names Awards.

Anyway, the name sparked a little idea in my head. and I'm very much looking forward to getting back to redrafting, editing, and extending from next Tuesday.

Why Tuesday? Because I go back to Burlesque classes at Dancebase on Tuesday night, which means I'll have three free hours beforehand to scribble, type, and generally do an impression of Jo March in her garret (sans little black hat to wipe ink on) on the second floor of Fettes Row.

Oh, and finally...if you have children who are 8+, and live in the Edinburgh area, then you might want to head down to the Botanics tomorrow for an Olympic/Brave inspired activity: archery!