Hypergraphia

Must remember to copy and save text on to notepad next time before attempting to publish.

It really is incredibly annoying to finish a piece of writing just to watch it disappear into thin air.

I'm sure it puts a lot of people off more regular posting.

Never underestimate the power of the translator. The theatre gag about the poor old messenger who gets executed because he's saying "My leader sends you warm greetings and congratulations on your recent victory" and the interpreter's telling the king "His leader says you have a face like a monkey's bum and you cheat at cards" is a standard that will never go out of fashion as long as miscommunication fosters trouble.

My parents were translators, among other things. My mother's great unfulfilled ambition was to create a new English Language translation of the Bible from the Greek, bypassing all the corruptions that have realigned its texts in one direction or the other for the last couple of millennia. She'd have loved to have gone back to the original, but her Aramaic wasn't up to much and her Hebrew didn't go very far past Shalom.

This proved quite handy when Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, which they did frequently as we lived quite near where they trained, so we and our neighbours provided the stony ground on which these sorry embryonic preachers cast the first seeds of their chosen mission.
"We were just wondering if you've read the Word of the Lord," they would begin (or words to that effect).
"Which word is that, precisely?" my mother would ask, in all seriousness.
"The Bible, Ma'am. We'd like to take a moment to chat about it with you."
"Ah, the Bible. Well, it's interesting you should ask me that, as I'm in the middle of translating it from the Greek at the moment. Perhaps you'd like to come in and discuss the linguistic implications. Do you know any Aramaic?" Her academic gravitas made it clear she wasn't joking.
"Er..."
It worked every time. My father's approach was different - when they offered to share a Christmas message with him he agreed eagerly: "Great idea. Peace On Earth and goodwill to all men - that's my favourite. Happy to share that with you. Goodbye." Either way, they didn't hang around.

With their devotion to the finesse of language and how even small changes in its use can alter the tone and content of whatever is being said - and therefore the hearer's/reader's perception of the message, I wonder what my folks would have made of the machine translations you can get online now. I hope they would have found them as funny as I do.

Many translation sites admit that their translations are rubbish. They exist in order to sell the services of real, human translators, whose electronic counterparts have no discrimination as to the essence of what has been input. The literal results, often succeeding in translating proper names while they're at it, can be great fun. The English version of a German page on the artist Hans Feibusch, for example, kept going on about Hans "protecting shrubs". And a lengthy translation from Danish about the musician Peter Belli, or as the machine would have it, Georg Peter Fire Daisy, is positively (Stanley) Unwinesque:
PETER Daisy LES RIVALS went fast country leading ”pigtrådsorkester” , and by PETER Daisy cm fetch hair , went he a fænomen to Danish music!!! A disc by ”You Better Move On” did the constellation PETER Daisy LES RIVALS to they young favoritter at linje by Tea Beatles and Role Stones!! TO 1966 getting PETER Daisy LES RIVALS a from datidens megabyte hits by ”Helt Through Respectable. Tresserne went a from PETER Daisy suveræne årtier by lots of pladehits , TELEVISION shows and cheer up - concerts by thousandth from people. That one's courtesy of langenberg.com. There's more. A lot more. If you can stand the pace, the rest of the article is here. Go for your life.

You can translate whole websites now if you don't mind a bar across the top of your browser. World Lingo is pretty good if you're looking for a quick, very rough interpretation of all that Foreign up on the screen.

What I find interesting is how reading the literal English text explains something of the architecture of the original language. I know it's a bit like talking Foreign in a raised voice with the appropriate accent and assuming that Johnny or Janey Foreigner is going to understand, but I like to think it gives a bit of a glimpse into a different head.

If you form sentences naturally in a particular way - very formal or very casual, stacking up nouns or constructing delicate grammatical edifices around which to arrange your carefully chosen subjects, objects and verbs - the chances are it will have some impact on the way you structure your thoughts. Probably that won't be noticed by someone else who does it exactly the same way, someone who literally speaks your language. But I wonder if understanding the grammar, rhythm and principles of Urdu, for example, without actually learning the vocabulary or script, could subliminally weaken the resolve of the British racist. Supposing you could actually find one prepared to undergo the experiment.

Maybe online machine translators will become such standard tools of research and communication that in time we'll all assimilate a few more of the flavours of other languages and cultures without even realising it, and just as mistrust of foreign food has been replaced by healthy curiosity and appetite, hostility borne out of helplessness at not being able to understand what is being communicated will begin to evaporate.

In the meantime, there's always the Surrealizer. It really only works if you're talking about George Bush or a couple of his old enemies, and it isn't very grown-up, but it's rather fun. Feed in the URL of a webpage mentioning Bush and watch it go. It won't make grim news go away, but it'll make it look a bit funny for a minute or two. And with a flick of a mouse you can translate Dubya all the way out of the picture.

As long as nobody shoots the messenger.

For years governments and businesses have used scenario planning as an aid to policy making in an ever more unpredictable and complicated world.

Now the BBC is doing the same with its new series IF. Editor Peter Barron explains why he is mixing fact and fiction.

First it was the millennium, then 11 September, and suddenly everyone was thinking about the future.

We seem to have two choices. If unexpected and tumultuous events lie ahead we can stick our heads in the sand and hope for the best, or we can try to work out what might be round the next corner and aim to do something about it.

It's called scenario planning and, of course, the big organisations have been doing it for years. Peter Barron, Editor, IF [read the rest of his article on BBCi]

It's hardly surprising, given recent events, that the BBC may be feeling insecure. As a body it's come a long way since life was breathed into Lord Reith's vision of an institution to inform, educate and entertain the public.

In the wake of the Hutton Enquiry it is temporarily rudderless. In itself, in the short term, this is not too grave. With a bureaucracy far larger than the creative talent it is there to support, the Beeb is seasoned with a general sense of ethics and loyalty that will keep the ship afloat in far tougher times than these. But it's unlikely anyone working there right now will be feeling too confident or comfortable about the long term future.

A large proportion of those controlling the editorial output of BBC Television are adults in their prime - too old to be young, too young to be old. The generation whose fear for their offspring gave rise to the absurdity that is the school run rush hour. For the most part, these are nice, well-educated middle-class people who had versions of textbook childhoods full of interesting activities and toys, punctuated by wholesome children's TV from a brightly coloured fantasy world where everything was safe and had a happy ending. Ironically these programmes were made initially by people whose memories of the Second World War were recent enough for them to know the "real world" is very different, and who went to extraordinary lengths to protect their children from witnessing just how bad things could get. And now those children are in charge, many of them disillusioned and frightened for the future.

It's not just at the BBC - it's symptomatic of the age. But the BBC reflects the times in which it operates, and the early 21st century is shaping up to be as apocalyptic as any other historic era.

In terms of doom-and-gloom programming, few series could top the 1970s drama series Doomwatch, almost certainly a dim childhood memory for many of today's commissioning editors. But Doomwatch was unabashed fiction. IF, the quasi-documentary series examining a selection of justifiable fears for the not-too-distant future, is a product of the Current Affairs department. To be fair, it's not pretending the chosen alarmist scenarios are anything but fictional, but drama is used here as an illustrative tool rather than as an end in itself.

And it's all perfectly plausible. IF the lights go out (take a look at New York - it happened already). IF things don't get better [ie if the economic divide widens] (some people have always been more equal than others...George Orwell used to work for the BBC). IF we can't stop eating (we'll all burst...problem solved). IF women ruled the world (relax, there's a few centuries of global emancipation to go before you need to worry about that; meantime get help for the gynaeophobia). IF the generations fall out (haven't they always?).

Barron's assertion that we live in "an ever more unpredictable and complicated world" is a common complaint. People have been saying the same for centuries. Whether the net total of the complications and the complainants' inability to predict a safe outcome is greater now than at any time in the past is less certain. There's a strong argument that the perception is actually a symptom of dawning adulthood, of the realisation that our control over the environment in which we live is less than we hoped it would be, and that younger people without our breadth of vision and experience will come along with new, possibly incorrect or unwise ideas, and impose their will over ours. Which will lead to a further loss of control. Knowing what we know now, and how much less we knew then, we understand the pitfalls that the young appear not to be able to see. It's bleak stuff.

The real question is whether painting the kind of negative pictures of how the next few years might turn out that IF does is the most effective way to make sure the worst-possible-scenarios don't come true. Thinkers have pointed out down the centuries that what we fear most is more likely to happen: "What you fear most intensely and most persistently, you will likely create as a result of the energy and attention you give to it." (Ralph Marston). "He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat." (Napoleon Bonaparte). "For it is not death or hardship that is a fearful thing, but the fear of death and hardship." (Epictetus, Stoic Philosopher). "There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it." (Alfred Hitchcock). Even the Bible suggests that what you fear most, you will attract.

BBC people are Good People. The kind of people who took Scouts and Guides seriously and never left the house without Pencil, Paper and String. Oh, and a hankie to use as a bandage. Just In Case. The Baden-Powellian spirit that gave rise to programmes like Blue Peter and its ilk pervades the corridors and meeting rooms of the BBC as strongly as ever it did whenever the Golden Age was supposed to have been. The same collective mindset that materialised the Daleks out of a couple of dustbins and a sink plunger is still exhorting us to Be Prepared. That is all Peter Barron and his colleagues are doing with these programmes.

How about a different scenario? How about choosing to look through a different window in the Play School house? IF we switched to completely renewable forms of energy. IF the only food you could buy was organically produced, and nutrition studies were part of the school curriculum. IF all forms of age discrimination were outlawed and there were policies in place to encourage greater interaction between people of differing ages. IF gender were as unremarkable as the colour of someone's eyes. IF economists devised a system that could harness human nature to guarantee prosperity for all.

All these seem a lot less likely than Barron's set-pieces. For a start, where's the drama? Where's the conflict if the problems have already been addressed?

From a purely literary point of view, given that any satisfying story demands conflict and some form of resolution, the characters are all available - the villains would be the people who resisted this kind of change, and the challenge would be to convice them that their co-operation was worth fighting for.

A few years ago it was reported that Mother Theresa of Calcutta was asked if she would march against war, and she refused. She would, however, march FOR peace. Bob Geldof, instead of ranting about how awful the Ethiopian famine was in the mid 1980s, united people all over the world in doing something about it.

It's worth noting in passing, without meaning to imply any religious significance by so doing, that the final book in the Bible can be called Apocalypse or Revelation, depending which version you're looking at. It's the same thing - just depends which way you look at it.

To stand up for the positive is a brave and sometimes lonely activity in a world where negativity is often seen as both chic and "more realistic". But every time someone does it there is a massive response. Stories like "The Peace Book" and "Pay It Forward" have had a huge, largely unheralded impact on children and forward-thinking adults who have put their simple ideas into practice. Just check out the websites to see how, bearing in mind that what you read will only represent the tip of a much larger, unreported iceberg. The boom in sales of books about positive thinking and spiritual awakening, from Susan Jeffers through Wayne Dyer to Eckhart Tolle, reflects a quiet revolution of individuals "doing something about it" in their own back yard, unreliant on the applause or approbation of the media.

BBC journalist Martyn Lewis faced scorn and ridicule when he complained about the gloomy bias in contemporary reporting:
" we should be more prepared than we have been in the past to weigh the positive stories - not artificially , but as they naturally occur in the news agenda - on the same set of journalistic scales on which we weight the negative stories.

And the balancing factor on those scales - the main criteria for commissioning and including stories - should not be the degree of violence, death, conflict, failure or disaster they encompass or represent, but rather the extent to which those stories shape or change - or have the potential to shape and change - the country or the world in which we live.

And they are a criteria which will not only allow us to expose the injustices and the tragedies in the world, but also to give proper weight to the successes and triumphs. I am not saying - indeed have never said - that we shouldn’t report the negative. That would be clear journalistic nonsense. I just think we should get it in better balance with the reporting of the positive, so that we hold up a fairer mirror image of the world in which explaining and analysing mankind’s achievements should be just as important as chronicling and investigating its failures...

The Prince of Wales, writing in the Parliamentary House magazine two years ago, described them [environmental organisations at odds with big business or government] as "warring parties hurling abuse at each other from firmly entrenched positions." However, he went on, "Those days are now largely behind us. We are now witnessing a hugely creative process in which those erstwhile warring parties come together around tables and in a whole range of shared products and events. "But", he adds, "You will rarely see that reflected in the national media."

Why on earth not? Isn’t it just as important for readers and viewers to know about those people and organisations that are working together in new, innovative ways as well as those who are at each others throats? I happen to believe that when there is a disaster, there are people trying to recover from it. When there is suffering, there are people trying to help. Where there is conflict, there are people trying to end it. Where things go wrong, there are people trying to put them right, and trying to make sure they don’t happen again. And there are mistakes and misjudgments, there are lessons being learned - paving the way for success and achievement. Too often we choose the negative route...

In South Africa, Alistair Sparks, now head of news at the South African Broadcasting Corporation, invited me to discuss my views with fifty of the young black reporters he was then training at his journalism college. They were going to help run some of the 70 new community radio stations being set up. Thami Sibisi summed up their view well. He came from Alexandria Township, widely reported for its high level of crime. He said that over the previous year the community there had got together to mount their own night-time patrols to make the streets safer, and had worked with the police to recover large quantities of stolen goods. But many journalists refused to report that - they preferred to home in on those stories that reinforced the township’s reputation for violence.

In Northern Ireland, a veritable flood of international journalists pulled out within days of the two cease-fires being declared. One was heard to say as he left: "You can photograph violence, but you can’t photograph peace." And yet surely staying to chronicle the details of the attempts to achieve permanent peace - at all levels within the communities of Northern Ireland - is just as great a journalistic challenge as showing the world the bodies under blood-stained sheets!

It can be done...

Does such an approach reduce sales or ratings? That’s the big fear of those whose journalistic instincts or commercial imperatives drive them to dip ever deeper into the whirlpool of negative stories. The answer, surprisingly, is no. On the contrary, there are early signs that it actually increases them - or, at the worst, preserves them as they are." [read Martyn Lewis's whole article]

Lewis reclaims the word "real" from the gloom-merchants by redefining his journalistic ideal, previously confused with the Biblical and born-again-Christian connotations of "Good News" (and therefore dismissed), as "Real News". He goes on to say that a seachange is possible within BBC thinking and that some of his ideas were now taking hold within the Corporation in the form of more positive programming. That IS good news.

Sadly Martyn Lewis is not in the running to succeed that affable and dynamic soul, Greg Dyke, as the new Director General. One can only hope that whoever does take on the job manages to infuse Auntie with the kind of spirit that can reassure programme makers like Peter Barron (and therefore viewers and listeners) that life is not just scary but also quite exciting, depending on your viewpoint. Lord Reith saw the BBC as an opportunity to promote harmony in the world, to forge bonds and understanding between people from different countries and backgrounds. There's no reason why a new DG shouldn't take on the Corporation's core values and make them work for good.

And IF that's too much to ask, we could always take advice from a classic BBC children's TV series from the 1980s: "Why Don't You Turn Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead".

IF you dare. Hey - it's only a scenario.

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1 Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctor worry about them.
2 Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3 Keep learning. Learn more about whatever Never let the brain idle. “An idle mind is the devil's workshop.” And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.
4 Enjoy the simple things.
5 Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6 The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7 Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8 Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is not, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9 Don't! take guilt trips. Take a trip anywhere, but NOT to where the guilt is.
10.Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

More inspiring stuff like this from Geof Cox's excellent e-periodical Cuttings, now on its 50th issue.

Lists like the one above arrive in my inbox every now and then, usually preceded by the email addresses of half a dozen or so people who, like the sender, are probably bored with their jobs, and accompanied by a message exhorting me to forward it on to five non-gender-specific friends with a promise that my wishes will come true within a prescribed timeframe or to five noble feminists in the belief this will somehow bring strength to the sisterhood. Maybe it will.

Geof's magazine is different because its positivism is tempered with a good deal of common sense and business acumen. He's not starting a religion or a cult, there are no photographs of him backlit with Eye Candy glow effects; he's not even trying to sell me anything. He's a management consultant with his feet on the ground and his observations on the web.

Cuttings isn't a blog, but it fulfils many of the same functions. Geof gathers sensible, often motivational bits and pieces about teams, organisations, management and interactions that he comes across and presents them in a manner that doesn't scare the average office type away. It's clear he's a true believer in human potential and bothered enough about it to want to share his insights with anyone interested. Kind of happy without the clappy. Management talk without all the boring bits. If more people in business read this stuff and understood it, there's just a chance the workplace most of them inhabit could become a healthier and more pleasant place to be, and the phrase "positively businesslike" would be less of an oxymoron.

To borrow a snippet from one of his previous issues:“The biggest and best transforming ventures have been simple ideas with simple strategies.” John Doer

I hope Geof's circulation continues to increase and provide food for thought for all its readers.

Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.
(Almost Famous)

Woodstock Taylor: Perhaps if people stopped worrying about whether they were cool or not and focused on sharing what is good with others the world would be further from the brink of bankrupcy.

Perhaps the world isn't bankrupt at all, simply full of people who think it is and act accordingly.

Perhaps everything we need is already here.