The image of mom “having a flash over breakfast” and saying “Hinks!” to my dad, and then dad rushing to send a text, made me laugh. I wrote back “Ha ha! Thank you! I shall add it into the blog post today.”

But then curiosity got the better of me, and I googled. And googled and googled and googled. I couldn’t stop.

I followed several trails and found the area where Billy probably lived – or at least had lived, a few years ago. I googled some more. I took some educated guesses. I sent a Facebook message to someone I thought might be his daughter. I emailed a woman I guessed might be his wife. The messages included a link to the blog post and some apologies for, you know, being a bit stalky.

Within half an hour, I got a reply.

Hi Emma how amazing to hear from you! Billy and I are still together [...] Billy painted loads in the 70’s he’s more into gardens now, but remains artistic and creative. I am sure Billy will email you. We aren’t into face book! Thank you for this blast from the past! Viv

How cool is that?

We emailed back and forth throughout the day. Viv remembered my parents (which is how I know she wasn’t pulling my leg!) and Viv said she would try and get Billy to write to me himself.

And, indeed, a couple of days later, I received an email from Billy:

Hi Emma,

What a wonderful surprise to hear from someone who had not arrived on planet Earth when I was working on something that I hoped would give them joy. I was privileged to work on your room, thanks to your Mum and Dad.

I am so happy that you liked the picture. It gave me so much pleasure to paint, I feel a little guilty as it was painted to give you a sense of wonder, not for me.

When I get over the shock of this I will sort out the pics I have and send you a bit of background info etc.

Glad to hear you have a “hippy” gene.

Many Thanks, Billy

I’m not ashamed to say that I shed a little happy tear when I got that. The fact that he had given me a gift before I was born, and that – through the wonders of the internet – I had had the chance to thank him… I think it’s OK that that makes me a teeny bit emotional. Hippy that I am.

A few days later, I received a couple of Tweets from another Hinks – one of Viv and Billy’s children. The first one said:

just wanted to let you know that I was speaking to my dad last night after reading your post, he said it was great to read!

Then, a minute later, one of the questions I’d posed in my original post was answered:

and yes he did paint our bedroom walls :)

I waited to see if Billy did send me any more pictures (which is why I didn’t blog this update straight away), but he didn’t. And that’s fine! I’m not going to press for more information. Honestly, I think I’m incredibly lucky to have found him at all – and privileged to have finally been able to say “thanks”.

I tweeted this earlier – and included Andy, so he would see it. But he was worried it meant I didn’t like the book. Argh! No, I loved it! Let me explain.

Cheese, in this – admittedly very personal – context, is a Good Thing.

Mark was trying to get me to use more descriptive language in my (rather bare) prose. What I saw as “cheesy”, flowery writing is actually a very useful tool. It’s appreciated by the reader.

Likewise, Andy’s book has emphasised that it’s OK to… well, *sell*, when you’re writing marketing copy. Use words like “free”, “easy” and “now”, because – guess what? They work.

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? My goal should be to invoke an emotional response in a reader, not to make myself sound cool. Sometimes, I’ve just got to ignore my inner prejudices (Descriptive language? Ugh, I sound pretentious! A direct call to action? Ugh, I sound salesy!) and just write in the most appropriate way for my reader.

Mmm, cheese.

The photo – tea stain and all – only shows a small part of the scene. The whole wall was covered. Apart from the mushroom, rabbit, butterflies and flowers that you can see here, there was a path – or possibly a stream – that wound its way up and over the hills, into a wood.

As a child I would drift off to sleep wondering where that path might lead to. What lay beyond those hills? I’ve always been a bit of a hippy and I’m pretty sure it’s because I fell asleep next to a massive mushroom for the first few years of my life. I loved that wall.

But where did the amazing mural come from?

Allow me to tell a half-remembered story, second hand.

In late 1974, when she was pregnant with me, mum was working at the BRMA Health Research Unit in Birmingham. Mum worked in the offices, but was friendly with lots of the girls at the unit, and one day – around Christmas time, she thinks – she got chatting to one of the lab technicians. The lab technician’s name might have been Viv, or Yvonne, or Yvette. Mum thinks it was probably Viv.

Mum and Viv talked about decorating the boxroom as a nursery. How do you prepare for a baby? How do you decorate a room for a child without even knowing whether they are going to be a boy or a girl? Mum can’t remember how the idea of a mural came up, but remembers Viv suggesting that her husband Billy would love the chance to paint one.

Billy and Viv (or Yvonne, or Yvette) were “a really lovely couple,” remembers mum; “very laid back and absolutely besotted with each other”. She can’t remember their surname – Hancock? Hitchin? – but reckons they were a couple of years younger than her and only lived a short distance away – Kings Heath, she thinks, or possibly Moseley.

After giving him an idea of what they wanted, mum and dad agreed that Billy could go ahead and make a start on the bedroom wall.

And so, for a couple of weeks, Billy came round to the house every night after work and holed himself away in the boxroom to paint, smoking (in mum’s words) his “weird smelling cigarettes” and drinking Coca-Cola. He didn’t want paying, apparently – just the chance to ‘do his thing’.

The result was my fairytale wall.

Although mum remembers the couple fondly, she lost touch with them over the years. Mum remembers hearing that they had had daughters – one called Crystal and another called Faith… or was it Hope…?

It’s a bit of a long shot, of course, but I would love to find Billy again. If he was about 25 then, he’d be in his early 60s now. If his children were born a few years after me, they’ll be in their early 30s. Did he paint their rooms too? Does he remember painting my mushroom, my butterflies, my path into the forest? Did he ever wonder if I liked it? I’d love the chance to tell him that I really did.

In infant school, I found it a bit odd that all the girls wanted to be nurses and all the boys wanted to be firemen or train drivers. I knew I didn’t want to be any of those things. But what did I want to be?

I had been reading at home already (thanks, mum and dad!) and so when we learned about letters and started spelling out words at school, it sparked an obsession that hasn’t gone away.

Our class had a large yellow grid thing, into which letter tiles would slot, so that you could make words appear in rows – magically, or so it seemed to me. I was fascinated. I used to beg to take it home, in the same way that others would bid for custody of the hamster.

At the age of four, I produced some ‘books’. Each ‘book’ was a folded piece of A4 paper with the words ‘POEMS by Emma Jones’ on the front and two illustrated ‘poems’ inside. I can remember two of the ‘poems’ very well. The first was “I will sing / To my ring”. It was illustrated by a stick figure with an open mouth, wearing what was probably supposed to be a diamond ring. The second was “You lie / That I am shy”. I don’t remember the drawing that went with it, but I do remember feeling that the poem made a very important and immensely personal statement.

My parents, of course, were happy to humour me. They’re both wordy people, although they may not describe themselves as such. It was mum who read to me as a child and to whom dad would direct me for help with spelling homework, but it was dad who sent a complaint to Birds Eye in poetry form, complete with silly puns, when we bought a faulty packet of Chicksticks.

English continued to be my favourite subject throughout school, although not every teacher noticed quite how much I was enjoying it. In third year juniors, Miss Bolshaw got very cross at something my giggly group of friends and I were doing and decided that, instead of going to the PE lesson, I should stay behind in the classroom to complete some exercises of my own. She plonked a Mainline English book in front of me and told me it was my punishment. English comprehension exercises! I pretended to pout, but inside I was cheering.

Throughout my childhood, and into my teens, I wrote a near-daily diary and produced more and more ‘books’. One, “The Book Of Fun!” has detailed instructions of how to play some of the games that my sister and I had made up during the summer holidays. I remember taking notes as we played and writing them up into bullet points afterwards. (Then showing the book to my Auntie Maureen and feeling rather miffed that, despite praise for my comprehensive directions, she didn’t want to engage in a game of “mummies”, whereby two people wrap themselves up in a single blanket and wrestle until one falls over.)

So, although I couldn’t answer the question “what would you like to be when you grow up?”, I knew that I wanted it to involve words. I wasn’t interested in news, so journalism wasn’t really on my radar as a child, but I knew that my favourite hobby of an evening was writing (especially instructions and photo captions), and cutting and pasting from magazines to produce my own pieces of work. I wanted to be an editor.

How to be an editor

At grammar school, no longer top of the class, I found it harder to focus. I was an immature teenager and had no comprehension of how lessons might prepare me for the real world of work. I didn’t want to go to college – I wanted to get out of the system as soon as I could – but our school seemed only to worry about getting us into the right university. Even our English classes, with their endless dissection of famous fiction, seemed to be at odds with the way I felt about writing.

It seemed so much easier for my friends. Tracey, who loved maths, told me she would be an accountant (and indeed she is). Seran, who loved biology, explained that she would like to become a teacher or a doctor (she’s now a biology teacher). The school wanted to produce teachers, doctors and lawyers, but I couldn’t see a path for me. I looked into becoming a speech therapist or a librarian, but never really felt strongly enough about any of it. My teachers fretted while I began to spend more and more time on my other great loves; music and boys.

Despite my lack of focus, I managed to gain some good grades at GCSE. But I still didn’t have much direction. I felt I should do an English A Level but, despite the school’s emphasis on where English Lit might get us in academia, I knew I would be bored if I studied more literature. I wanted something that would reflect my love of the language and give me an opportunity to play with it, rather than an analysis of others’ work.

Luckily, the local sixth form college did an English Language A Level, so I left grammar school to study subjects like etymology, language during child development, IPA, accents and dialects – and thoroughly enjoyed it. We analysed others’ work, but we studied their writing style, not their philosophies.

But the kicker was the timed exam. To my delight, they gave us pages and pages of photocopied material from press releases, news articles and encylopedias, and told us to come up with “400 words on the subject, suitable for a women’s magazine”, or “200 words on the subject, suitable for an advertisement feature in a broadsheet newspaper”. It’s the only exam that I’ve ever felt excited about, and even looked forward to taking.

I had found my calling.

By now I thought I wanted to be a magazine editor (and yes, if I’d known then that the internet would exist, I would have wanted to be a website editor). But how did people become editors? The answer was vague then and it’s just as vague now.

Unfortunately it took years of bumbling around and accidental introductions before I managed to make a career out of editing. I did some proof reading as a favour to a friend who worked in an ad agency, then found work writing advertorials through sheer chance. From here I graduated to website editing and have spent many years honing these skills… which is where you find me now.

I suppose if I had done things ‘properly’ I would have been to university and gained an apprenticeship somewhere after that. But I’ve never been one for doing things properly.

I love editing

I’ll sum up: I love editing.

The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines the word ‘edit’ as: ‘prepare (written material) for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it’ and it’s this that really excites me. Not the ‘having of ideas’ in the first place – although I love it when that happens – but the manipulation of content to fit a purpose. The psychology of defining a market; the aesthetics of page layout. Re-presenting ideas. Explaining, translating, simplifying. Getting under the skin of a piece. Understanding a readership and speaking its language.

I am an editor. I’ve always been an editor. I love being given two brochures, nine press releases and a grubby flyer, and being asked to produce 100 words for a website’s ‘about’ page. I love taking something complicated and boring – like Capital Gains Tax – and trying to make it simple and interesting. I love it.

And now that I’m freelance, with over fifteen years of editing experience, I have the ultimate control over my career. I have always wanted to be an editor, and I am an editor. What an extraordinary privilege.

Old building, not usually open to the public? Check. Original 1920s and 1930s architecture and interior design? Check. Public transport nerdery? Checkety check check check.

The visit, however, was marred by some rather bizarre rules about photography.

The DSLR ban

When I bought the tickets I had noticed the Aldwych Terms and Conditions pdf included the following:

No professional audio visual or audio recording equipment may be brought into the venue without the express permission of London Transport Museum. No digital SLR cameras will be allowed into the station.

At the time, I guessed that this was down to them not wanting people to take photos that could possibly be used commercially afterwards. But why specify digital SLRs? Did that mean manual SLRs were OK? What about a Panasonic Lumix, or an Olympus PEN – not SLRs, but “professional” quality cameras?

The only point and shoot camera I have is my Fujifilm Finepix S6500fd (I haven’t owned a compact camera since my Pentax Optio broke on our honeymoon). It’s a big camera, though, and has been mistaken for an SLR before. I didn’t want to get to Aldwych and find that they were banning all large cameras, for whatever reason, so I went onto the London Transport Museum website and filled in their online contact form:

Hello,

I’m coming to the event at Aldwych tube station on 4th December and very much looking forward to it.

I am not a professional photographer, but I was hoping to take some photos at the event. I noticed in the T&Cs that “No digital SLR cameras will be allowed into the station”. Is this true for everyone, even amateur photographers who have no intention of using their photos for any commercial purposes?

I don’t currently have a compact camera, but if I can’t bring an SLR (I’m assuming manual SLRs are also banned?), I’d like to be able to bring my old camera – a Fuji Finepix S6500fd. This is not a digital SLR; it’s a “point and shoot” camera – although it has a bulky body which may look like an digital SLR to some people. Please can you clarify whether this would be allowed, before I get to the event? I don’t want to bring it along and then be unable to take any photos because my camera looks “too professional”!

Many thanks for your time. I hope to hear from you soon.

Emma Wright

I got a reply a couple of days later:

Hi Emma,

My name’s Lyndsey and I’m organising the event at Aldwych. First of all – thanks you for taking note of the Terms and Conditions! Unfortunately we cannot allow any digital SLR cameras in the station. This is something that London Underground have been very strict on.
Your Fuji Finepix camera should be fine – I will let the staff working the event know you have contacted to ask about this ,and perhaps you could print out this email, just in case you get asked any questions.

Thanks again,

Lyndsey

Lyndsey McLean
Public Programmes Manager

London Transport Museum

I took the line “This is something that London Underground have been very strict on” to mean that the museum staff themselves were not responsible for the ban, and that it had been imposed by London Underground. This, I supposed, was why they hadn’t answered my query about manual SLRs, or given any further information about the reasons behind the ban on DSLRs. Fair enough. Silly? Yes. But not their fault. I was just grateful that Lyndsey ‘had my back’.

On the day

On Sunday, we arrived at the event to see a sign [Photo: Tim Allen]: “Due to their combination of high-quality sensor and high resolution, digital SLR cameras are unfortunately not permitted inside the station”.

Huh?

The London Transport Museum had obviously been asked about the ban a lot and had decided they had to come up with a reason to give to their visitors. But how on earth is “high quality” a reason? What effect does the “high-quality sensor and high resolution” have on Aldwych Station, or the event? It didn’t make sense. They might as well have said “Due to their combination of sexiness and clippy-cloppy sound, high heeled shoes are unfortunately not permitted inside the station”*. It was clearly not the true reason for the ban and didn’t explain anything at all.

Standing in the queue, reading the sign, we laughed… but I was uneasy. Event staff were obviously taking the ban seriously. I made sure the email from Lyndsey was on my phone ready to show to anyone who asked.

Then a young man in a suit came bounding over to us. “Mrs Wright?” (I’m not sure how he knew it was me. The woman who took our names on arrival must have pointed me out.) “I just wanted to say: thank you SO MUCH for emailing us about your camera. We’re really grateful that you emailed us and asked about it in advance. It’s really helped us out. So – thank you! I just wanted to let you know that no-one should ask you about your camera today, because we know all about it. And if they do… well, my name’s Jason – so if you have any trouble, come to me!”

I stuttered a bemused “thank you” and he bounced off again, back into the station. I didn’t really know what to say. I’d helped them out? I still don’t know how that works. The rest of the queue looked at me with interest. I stayed baffled.

Then we were called in and had our 30 minute tour of Aldwych Station (and you can see the photos – high noise level and all! – in my Aldwych Station Flickr set).

Over the next few days, a picture of the sign was posted on Twitter and mocked widely. Publications like Amateur Photographer covered the ban.

The real reason: time

On 6th December, two days after I’d been, a statement appeared on the London Transport Museum website that finally shed some light on the real reason behind the DSLR ban:

London Transport Museum Statement regarding restriction on digital SLR’s at Aldwych – 6 December 2011

Terms and conditions for the recent sale of tickets to visit Aldwych Underground station clearly stated that digital SLR cameras were not permitted, as these are classed as professional equipment.

There was not a ban on taking photos during tours. However, there were restrictions on professional cameras and tripods because we were concerned that people using them could delay the tours for others, as it was a very tight schedule with more than 2,500 visitors going up and down a spiral staircase of about 160 steps to get to and from the platforms.

We wanted to make the tours as enjoyable and safe as we could for everyone. With the huge public interest in seeing the disused Tube station it was better to have the event with this restriction rather than no visit at all.

We apologise to visitors who wanted to use this kind of camera during tours to the stations.

It wasn’t down to London Underground at all. It was London Transport Museum wanting people to hurry up. They’d obviously had trouble with photographers taking their time… and had decided that this was down to them being “professional photographers”. And, needing a metric to weed out “professional photographers”, they’d decided upon “camera type: DSLR”.

There’s a lot about this that’s totally nuts. I mean, I can understand their frustration, but banning DSLRs – and especially giving so many inconsistent reasons – is not the way to go. In fact I’d argue it’s done their reputation more harm than good.

(It’s also counter-productive, if my own experience was anything to go by. I spent longer taking photos with the Fujifilm – experimenting with the ISO, finding surfaces upon which I could rest the camera to take longer exposures – than I would have done if I’d had the Canon with me. With the DSLR, I’d just have stuck my 50mm portrait lens on a wide aperture and not have had to worry about it.)

So what else could LTM have done?

I think London Transport Museum could manage people’s expectations better. Don’t say “no digital SLR cameras will be allowed”; instead, explain that it’s a history tour, not a photo opportunity. Explain from the start – in the Terms and Conditions – that time will be very limited and that you won’t be able to spend time composing shots.

It’s hard to take photos of an “abandoned” station when it’s full of people taking photos, so a few people were hanging back each time the group moved on to the next area… And, of course, they were going to do this whatever sort of camera they had. This wasn’t something that was going to be solved by banning DSLRs. (Fewer people on each tour would have made this better – but wouldn’t have earned LTM the same amount of cash, of course.)

It was very apparent that most people there wanted to take photos, but at each point of the tour, the group was first obliged to hear an LTM volunteer give a history of the station before wandering off to take photos. Interesting though it was (and all credit to the volunteers, who clearly knew their stuff), it was clear to me that most of the group would have preferred more time to explore. So why not cut down on the talks? Or make them optional?

Aldwych Underground Station is an interesting mini-museum and there are some fascinating old posters and signage. But herding hundreds of people an hour through the place at £20 a pop doesn’t give anyone the chance to appreciate it. I would probably pay more to have a couple of hours’ exclusive access, especially if I knew I would get time to compose and take some great photos. Unfortunately, if the next set of tours they do there is like this one, I probably wouldn’t recommend it.

Aldwych tube station – my set of photographs on Flickr

(*Yes, high heeled shoes were also banned, but that was for obvious health and safety reasons!)

So here’s the lowdown.

Why does my washing machine smell?

There are two main reasons your washing machine (and therefore your clothes) may smell:

1) Plumbing woes: backwash from your sink

If your machine is next to your kitchen sink, have a look under the sink to see if the waste pipes are connected. On lots of machines (mine included) the machine’s waste pipe – where the water drains out during a wash – is attached to the waste pipe of the sink, just above the u-bend. If it’s been connected badly, there’s a possibility that sink waste could be sloshing back up into the washing machine’s waste pipe – and potentially back into the machine. As you can imagine, dirty water with food waste in it isn’t meant to go into your washing machine and it’s going to start smelling rotten after a while.

Usually this problem is caused by the washing machine pipe being connected at the wrong angle. Fixing it is a question of simple physics: you will need to make sure that the washing machine’s waste pipe comes out of the machine at a high level and attaches to the sink pipe at a much lower level. You need to know that water can drain out (downwards) but cannot go back in (upwards).

If you can’t see an obvious way to make sure that waste water is going to flow in the right direction, you may need a plumber to come and make some adjustments.

Urgh, right? Luckily, this problem is nowhere near as common as…

2) Blockages: mould, limescale and general gunge

Lack of general maintenance is the most likely reason that your clothes might begin to smell despite being “freshly” washed. After all, washing on low temperatures all the time is all very well for the environment but not so great for your washing machine. Your machine needs a high temperature wash at least once a month to get rid of residues and to kill off any nasties – especially if, like me, you use a non-biological powder (biological kills enzymes and proteins; non-bio doesn’t).

Particular blackspots – excuse the pun – for mould to grow include inside the drawer, around the door seal, and in the filters and waste pipes. But it’s easy to remove and even easier to prevent.

If you can see black mould in your machine, remove it first by scrubbing with a brush and a small amount of household bleach. Wear gloves, and be careful on the door seal; the mould may already have weakened the rubber. (If it just won’t go from the door seal, you can buy a replacement seal for under £30. I’m told they’re very easy to fit.)

Blockages can also be caused by limescale; luckily that’s not something that affects us here in Birmingham, so I don’t know a great deal about fixing it, although I’ve heard that you can use an electronic water softener. I’ve also had problems with those “liquitab” style pouches of washing liquid; sometimes the pouches don’t quite dissolve fully and a residue can collect and clog up the holes in your drawer and door seal.

Remove the drawer completely to make sure you clean all around and underneath. Carefully poke something – I used a wooden skewer! – into the softener hole in the drawer and the drainage hole in the door seal to make sure they’re not blocked and everything comes out. Make sure you rinse any bleach off afterwards, then do a maintenance wash.

The maintenance wash

Even if you’re plumbed in correctly and don’t have any signs of mould, it’s good practice to give your machine a maintenance wash every month or so.

First make sure that the drawer and drainage holes are free from blockages, as above. Make sure you clean the filter, by opening the little door (usually at the bottom right corner of the machine), unscrewing the filter and letting the water drain out into an old towel, then picking any gunge out of it and screwing it back into place. Clean any residue from around the inside of the door.

Chuck half a bag of soda crystals[1] directly into the drum – and spray or pour a little white vinegar[2] around the door seal and into the drawer. Then put the machine onto the hottest wash it will do – usually 90 degrees – and, if you have the choice, get it to do lots of rinses but no spins.

This should leave your machine really sparkly and ready to face your next load.

The soda crystals and vinegar don’t have any fragrance, but if you’re feeling fancy, you could put a drop (just a drop, mind!) of your favourite essential oil onto a hankie, and send that round in the otherwise empty cycle.

[1] Soda crystals: also known as washing crystals. I got a kilo for 90p in Sainsbury’s – the laundry section
[2] White vinegar: also known as distilled malt vinegar. The clear, 5% stuff. I got 568ml of Sarson’s for £1.20 in the Co-op, but you can probably find non-brand stuff a lot cheaper.

So there you have it. Not the most exciting way to return to blogging after a four month break, but hey – it’s what my fans demanded…!

I tell people I’m a copywriter, editor and proofreader – and of course, I am – but really, it’s the specialism that counts. I write for the web. It’s a skill that I’ve been honing over the last… ooh, twelve or so years, and it’s about time I started telling other people about it – putting my knowledge to good use.

Anyway, I guess you could call this a teaser. It’s a list of the differences between the way that you read content on the web and printed content. I started it some time ago and I find it helpful to refer to when writing content for the web.

I know I don’t usually put worky stuff on my personal blog, but I figured this was interesting enough and could even prove useful to others who are writing for the web.

(Despite the point about web users being cynical, I haven’t cited any sources here. That’s because these are my own personal notes – and I know I trusted the sources that led me to include each point in the first place. I know there is bound to be controversy over some of them, but the idea is really just to get you thinking about the way you’re presenting content. If anything looks really wrong to you, or you’re intrigued and want to know more, ask away and I’ll try and find my original research.)

Of course, this is a work in progress. There are a million differences between print and web that should make a difference to the way you write. If you can think of any more, stick ‘em in the comments – I’d love to add to the list.

Obviously I feel a bit strange about this – but the fact it’s happened is not very surprising. The .com domain had been available when I first started using the name editorialgirl but, at that time, I didn’t identify with it as strongly as I do now. Had I known six years ago that I would one day answer to the name ‘editorialgirl’ in public (yes, sometimes people recognise me from Twitter or Flickr but don’t know my real name), then perhaps I would have registered it then.

I have already written about how and why I came up with the name editorialgirl to use online. What I wrote then still stands:

These days, I identify with the name editorialgirl (all one word, please, and all lower case) as much as my given name. I might even prefer it a little, since it’s virtually unique. I feel complete ownership over it. It’s my name on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Identi.ca and b3ta (to name a few*) and if ever I find someone else using it – and there have been a couple – I feel absolutely indignant. I love editorialgirl.

So, we’ve established I have an emotional connection to the name, but does it really matter?

Objectively, I suppose the answer is “probably not”. Despite the fact that it refers to my work as an editor and writer, I don’t use the name editorialgirl (or Editorial Girl, or any combination of the above) as an official business name – so I can’t really begrudge someone else taking it up.

Or can I? When does an online name become a “personal brand”? Should I even think of it in those terms? Do I have any right at all to feel as though editorialgirl is my intellectual property?

I feel… discombobulated.

Partly, of course, I’m a bit embarrassed that I didn’t register the .com domain years ago. Then there’s a little bit of … well, I don’t know what the word is, but it involves not appreciating what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, or wanting the best of both worlds… or kicking yourself for resting on your laurels, or… something. I had the choice of using editorialgirl as my company name when I registered with the HMRC as a sole trader / freelancer… but I didn’t. I chose to just stick with my ‘real’ name – now Emma Wright. I saw the name editorialgirl as a bit too frivolous. But now I’m thinking… well, you know; “Google” is hardly a sensible, serious, businessy word.

Now I’m trying to think about it professionally. Although I don’t use the name for work, I do find it odd that someone planning a start-up would just go ahead and use a name that is already taken on pretty much every social media tool. Even if you weren’t planning to ply your trade online, you’d surely check Facebook and Twitter, just to make sure your search rankings weren’t going to be too diluted… wouldn’t you? Just in case you wanted to branch out and do some web PR at some point in the future? I wonder if the woman behind Editorial Girl googled it and decided that it would be fine, as none of the results pointed to a company name?

Perhaps Editorial Girl (US) already has a large offline following. After all, I doubt that not having the Twitter name will matter to them when the .com name starts to come first for every Google search – as it inevitably will if the business takes off. And they already have a Facebook page, with fans, even if they don’t have the “http://www.facebook.com/editorialgirl” URL. [EDIT: They do now! See update, below]

Completely co-incidentally, someone retweeted this blog post from ‘Shoeperwoman’ just after I found out about the Editorial Girl website. Although it’s not a retail site, Amber makes money from “Shoeperwoman” – she refers to the blog as her livelihood – but had never trademarked the name. Now someone else has applied to use “Shoeper-woman” as a trademark for their retail blog.  I bristled as I read her post. How dare they? I’ll be very interested to find out how that goes. It seems absurd that years of use and a large blog following may not protect a name.

As for Editorial Girl and editorialgirl – well, I guess I’ll just have to see how this goes, too. Perhaps it’s the start of a silly battle, where our weapons are SEO and useful blog content (er… dammit. They’ll win). Or perhaps we’ll live peacefully – side by side online and on opposite sides of the Atlantic in real life – for the foreseeable future.

And perhaps this is the kick up the arse I needed to finally get serious about my freelancing work. Well, you never know. Keep your eyes peeled for a page about my editing and copywriting work appearing here on this blog over the next few weeks…!

* I had a bit of fun this afternoon trying to remember every site on which I use the name editorialgirl – and when I signed up to each one. If I was using editorialgirl as a business name, would I have a case?

http://www.flickr.com/people/editorialgirl/ (June 2005)
http://editorialgirl.blogspot.com/ (July 2005)
http://www.last.fm/user/editorialgirl (January 2007)
http://www.editorialgirl.co.uk/ (October 2007)
http://twitter.com/#!/editorialgirl (April 2008)
http://identi.ca/editorialgirl (July 2008)
http://www.facebook.com/editorialgirl (June 2009, when username URLs became available) [EDIT: Not any more. See update, below]
skype name “editorialgirl” (April 2011)
http://editorialgirl.tumblr.com (April 2011)

(Well, OK. I have to admit that I only signed up to those last two after talking to someone about online profiles last week and realising they were still available. Petty, moi?)
Oh and on YouTube I’m editorialgirlUK – editorialgirl is taken by someone else (but not, surprisingly, by the ‘new’ Editorial Girl).

UPDATE 26.09.2011: Just got back from a week’s holiday to find that I couldn’t log into Facebook. Why? Because my username – editorialgirl – “violated username policy”. Huh? After changing it to “emma.editorialgirl” I was able to log in again and find out more: apparently one of the ways a violation might occur is when a username conflicts with a (Facebook) page of the same name. So, despite the fact that I’d been using editorialgirl on Facebook before ‘pages’, or this new company, even existed – they get the username, just like that. Thanks a bunch!

Why? Because art is form and content. This is a new one on me, I’m ashamed to say. I have always understood ‘form’: the aesthetic part, the part that pleases the eye, or rolls off the tongue… but it’s only relatively recently that I’ve come to understand that a piece of work needs ‘content’ in order to be art. How does it interact with the viewer? Why was it produced? What thoughts does it provoke? What’s the story?

The photos on my flickr account that get the most hits (or even, dare I say, praise) are, of course, the photos that have both form and content but – silly though it sounds – I’ve only just realised this. I love taking photos with form: shapes and lines, shadows and silhouettes and symmetry… but I never take the time to think about the content.

	Good form, dubious content: the space between the Central Library and the Conservatoire. I love this photo – phwoar, the symmetry! – but what does it mean? Nothing. Are the buildings interesting? Well, possibly, but it’s obvious that’s not what this photo is about. So is it art?
Good form and good content, although only by accident or in hindsight: a guy sitting on a wall. This is one of few photos I’ve taken that could be said to illustrate both form and content (the Moseley Road Baths set is an obvious contender, too, but it’s all over this blog already). It’s an interesting image, but there’s also a potential story. I called it ‘waiting’. What’s he waiting for? There you go: art.
	This photo of Birmingham’s BT tower has good form (in my opinion, of course) – the silhouette; the shapes formed by the buildings around it; the sky; the light. But the actual content is … meh, pretty meaningless. Perhaps if BT had just gone bust, or if the tower was attacked by terrorists the very night I took the photo, it would also have good content. Would that make it art? Is the photo, as it stands, not art?

But do I even want to make art? Does any of this matter?

I left school with dire A level results, no chance of getting into university and no idea of what I wanted to do (or might be capable of), but I knew I liked being creative. I wrote stories and I played music and occasionally managed to get as far as drawing and sketching, taking photos and making scrapbooks and collages, but I didn’t really know whether there was a way that I could take it further – or indeed if I should.

I wrote to my friend John, who was always destined to be an artist and in 1994 was at college in London. I asked if he thought I should do an art foundation course. (I imagine my letter was fairly childish in both form and content.)

I’ve still got John’s reply, typewritten on a scrap of paper – I found it again the other day. After explaining how to put together a portfolio, how to decide on which college to apply to and what the interview stages might be like, he had written:

“…But is art actually what you’re into? There’s a potter at our college who refuses to be called a “ceramicist” because it’s horribly not-what-she’s-into. She makes pots – she’s a potter. A ceramicist is into art – trying to make a socio-political point through the clay. Are you more of a crafty good-with-your-hands-I-just-want-to-make-objects-of-beauty type? (Such an attitude is unlikely to get you too far at art college.) That sort of decision is up to you, and will probably come naturally.”

At the age of nineteen, I didn’t know what a socio-political point was, never mind whether I might want to make one through art. I realised that what I thought was art and what artists actually do are totally different things. I decided that, given I didn’t even understand the point he was making, art college probably wasn’t for me.

Luckily, over the years, I’ve drifted into what turns out to be a career – one that’s allowed me to use my creative talents in a way that I’m comfortable with. Being a website content editor means producing content – words and pictures – within very specific guidelines. And I’m able to combine this with a satisying amount of logic and problem-solving; I need the rules of the web. It’s only vaguely creative and it’s certainly not art (but it’s very me).

I’ve wondered about what people have called my “artistic streak” over the years and come to the conclusion that I was right not to go to art college. I’m not an artist. I have the same problem with anything that I produce ‘creatively’: I’m all about the form; I’m far too literal. I don’t write enough outside of work because, although I like to think I’m good with words, I don’t have enough original ideas. I would love to write stories, but a story is ‘content’ by definition and sadly thinking up content of my own stumps me most of the time.

Could I ever be an artist? I don’t know. I’m going to be pretentious and say that one of my new year’s resolutions will be to try and give as much thought to content as I do form. At least, I’ll devote some time to thinking about it when I take pictures. As far as writing goes, I might just have to wait for that big story – you know, the one that everyone has inside them? – to come pouring out when I’m least expecting it. And not to beat myself up too much if it never does.

I’ve had a Kindle, on and off, since August. (I’ll come to the “on and off” bit later.) People keep asking me what it’s like and if they should get one. So I thought I’d spend some time to try and answer all the questions I’ve been asked – as well as a few more things I’ve thought of.

This isn’t in any way a definitive list of pros and cons (to be fair, it’s not even a list) and even as I’m uploading this post I’ve thought of loads more that I could have said… but this will do for now.

Is it like reading a book?

The first thing that everyone seems to ask is easy to answer: no, reading a book on a Kindle is nothing like reading a physical book. If you’re a book lover, then a Kindle – or any e-book reader – can never replace your books. Books have covers with illustrations and teaser text; paper that you can feel; a thickness you can measure. When you have your nose in a book, you can smell it. Of course a Kindle has none of these things (but, by gum, it’s easier to go on holiday with). So, yeah, if you love books, you’ll probably miss the multi-sensory side of reading.

In bed, it’s a lot easier to read a Kindle lying down than it is to read a book. There are ‘next page’ and ‘previous page’ buttons on each side, so it doesn’t matter which hand you hold it in. Annoyingly, though, you can’t flick back easily like you can with real pages. If you need to reference something that happened a few chapters ago (say if a character turns up and you can’t remember who he is), you’ve got no chance.

And, of course, a Kindle is not as hardy as a book. You can’t read it in the bath* and you can’t rest your mug of tea on it. Actually, it’s not hardy at all. Not only do you need to be careful not to drop it, you need to be careful not to put any pressure on it at all. The casing is thin and the screen will crack fairly easily. My first Kindle’s screen (pictured, right) cracked simply from being put into and taken out of its case – the official, Amazon-recommended case! Thankfully, Amazon replaced the broken Kindle immediately, free of charge. (They phoned me within an hour of my emailed complaint and sent a new Kindle to arrive 24 hours later… which is great, but did make me wonder if they were trying to hush something up. Did they already know the case was causing these problems, or did they just feel genuinely sorry for ruining my honeymoon?)

So reading on the Kindle is nothing like reading a book. On the plus side, though, it is also nothing like reading on a laptop, iPad or phone. It doesn’t have a back-light, so you need to have a reading light, but you don’t get the glare or the flicker of a ‘normal’ screen. I LOVE this about the Kindle. I used to stay awake reading stuff on my phone and then find it hard to get to sleep, but with the Kindle I drop off whilst reading, just like I do with books.

How do you download books? Is it cheaper in the long term?

No, it doesn’t work out cheaper. My Kindle was £109, then on top of that, you pay for each book you download. The Kindle version of a book tends to be around the same price as the paper version; sometimes a couple of quid less. Some very old (ie out of copyright) classics are free.

I didn’t bother getting the 3G Kindle and I haven’t missed this function. If you have access to wi-fi, you probably won’t miss it either. The browsing capabilities on the Kindle are pretty lame, so I never browse for books – or anything else – on there. I just order books from my PC or phone and then sync it using the wi-fi when I get home.

Disappointingly, the choice of books for the Kindle is very much limited and I haven’t really worked out what the rules are for this. I can understand why some of the smaller publishers might not bother publishing for the Kindle but I’ve been surprised at some of the omissions I’ve found (or, er, not found). I fancied reading some of Raymond Carver’s short stories the other night, for example, but none of them are available. Amazon reckons it has 1,702,955 ‘fiction’ books on its, er, books… but when you specify Kindle as a format, that number drops to 154,896. Ouch.

This also means that my Amazon recommendations, honed pretty much to perfection thanks to ten years of buying (paper) books from them, have been absolutely ruined. Now, apparently, anything that’s available for Kindle is worth a punt. Today, it’s recommending The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes because I bought Digging to America by Anne Tyler, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray because I purchased A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. I don’t know if that sort of thing bothers you, but it drives me crackers.

Once you’ve bought the e-book, that’s it. It’s yours, stuck on your Kindle. You can’t lend it to anyone afterwards. Likewise, if you already own a paper copy of a book, it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to an electronic version. It would be great if you could have the best of both worlds but unfortunately you have to choose between owning a book in paper form or owning it for the Kindle. (If only owning a book was like owning a CD! Given the choice, I always buy a CD instead of downloading an album directly, because I like to own the cover art and sleeve notes – but, unlike a book, I can upload the content of a CD and access it via any device – PC, phone, even the telly. If I want to make my book’s content portable I have to make a completely separate purchase for my Kindle.)

What’s worse is that some Kindle versions of books have obviously been rushed out and have errors. This would never happen with a good book and it has bothered me a lot. I like to immerse myself in a book, but seeing even one or two glaring mistakes really distracts from the experience. The problems seem to be down to books having been scanned and copied automatically. One book I read recently had a number 7 every time the author had used an italicized I, as well as a host of other errors that could easily have been caught in a basic proof read.

Whu… where are the positives?

I know I’ve mentioned a lot of downsides in this post, but I don’t regret having a Kindle at all. Having 40-odd books available to me on holiday was amazing (well, ignoring the whole ‘broken’ thing) and since I’ve been home I’ve loved having the option of popping the ultra-slim Kindle into my handbag for long trips. It hardly takes up any room at all, no matter what I’m reading.

Weirdly, I’ve also read more books in the last two months than I have done in the last two years. And Daz mentions that he’s started reading a much wider range of books since he’s owned his Kindle. I don’t really know why this is but I guess that, very vaguely, it’s to do with a perception – daft though it sounds – that you’re not committing as much when you buy a digital version of a book.

I think what I mean is that, in the same way that the cover, font, paper stock, etc can compel you to buy (or at least feel some kind of affinity for) some types of book, it’s also likely to put you off others. So to be free of this and to see your bookshelf in a bald list of black and grey is actually quite liberating.

In summary?

Don’t compare having a Kindle to having books. There’s room in your life for both. Personally, my Kindle hasn’t diminished my love of books, but it has gone a little way towards broadening my mind (no, seriously!)… and now, I wouldn’t be without it.

*Technically, of course, there’s nothing to stop you reading a Kindle in the bath as long as you don’t get it wet. But I’d imagine it wouldn’t be a very relaxing bath, what with all the worrying about getting your Kindle wet.