Q&A as a way of life (Updated)

I was eleven when my father first asked what I wanted to be. "A reporter," I said. My answer was instinctive, I had no real idea what being a reporter meant. Except it didn't depend on being good at what was taught at school.

I didn't count English (language and literature) since that was like being good at eating or breathing. How would I function otherwise?

Apart from Spotlight and All the President's Men movies tend to show reporters as low-life pests, shouting nonsense as someone is bundled into a police car. The truth is less noisy and more obvious. Most newspaper and magazine articles are based on asking questions and transcribing the answers. What could be easier?

Let's elaborate. Time available is usually limited. The interviewee may be reluctant. He/she may not like you. The subject may be obscure so you begin by asking questions about a void. What then is a fruitful answer and what is mere boiler-plate? An unexpected answer may force you to change your strategy. It is highly desirable you don't reveal your ignorance. These difficulties are heightened if you're a clever-clogs like me and are interviewing a monoglot French person.

Even wholly co-operative interviews require mental agility. The unco-operative ones are more like a duel. I enjoyed interviewing and miss it now. Obviously a lifetime of interviewing is unlikely to produce a congenial social animal. VR may confirm this. The price I paid.

Why then? Because revelation is addictive. When two dim facts coalesce to become a clear new fact. The slow but rewarding way understanding develops over an hour’s chat. Because being informed is better than being uninformed.

Aahh. The blank notebook, the coffee cup pushed to one side, the tentative first question, the sign that points: Somewhere.

FANCY BEING INTERVIEWED?
Share My Garden comments (see below) "You could always interview some bloggers." Then goes on to list some alarming - almost certainly tongue-in-cheek - posers.

Don't worry, I wouldn't be asking those questions. But if anyone's up for being Skype-interviewed on a mutually agreed neutral subject, and getting to read the resultant piece before it's posted, I'm willing to discuss a game-plan. Neutral doesn't mean uninteresting, by the way.

MY FAVOURITE?
Many were non-Brits, especially Swedes. But here's my favourite Brit 

(Note: Britain includes Scotland, for those  who are puzzled)

To the edge

Do we get the dreams, nightmares really, we deserve?

For minor traffic offences, I and two other males, found ourselves condemned to death. The note informing me suggested - very obliquely - death would be by shooting. Something about the wording faintly hinted, to me if not to the others, that this was not to be taken seriously.

We were herded into a narrow corridor painted dark green. A piece of paper carrying an X was stuck to the side-wall at about chest height. This was puzzling since there was insufficient width for two people to stand facing each other across the corridor. Also the victim would obscure the X. Also the wall was un-pocked by bullet holes.

We were told that a laser would be employed and that we would be required to stare fixedly at the X. This would have involved crouching slightly which has only just occurred to me.

The two other males were keen to get death over with. I moved out of the corridor, trying to convince myself that nothing harmful would happen. After a few seconds I was allowed back and saw the first male on the floor his legs (corduroy trousers, deep-patterned rubber shoe soles) curled. This was a horrible shock to me.

My attention was briefly distracted. When I looked again the first male was sitting up, tears streaming, gibbering incoherently. I was told in a matter-of-fact voice that the punishment was demonstrably not fatal, but I would have to undergo it. Since the "officials" consisted of a male teenager and a young woman I refused.

The clarity, even four hours later, was and is persuasive. Certain details (dark green corridor, the shoe soles, perhaps the X) belong to my past life. The nightmare seemed tailor-made. Hmmm.

Innocent abroad

On Friday I went shopping; it's decades since I did. For me going shopping is moral depravity.

Going shopping's when you wander into Retail-Land wanting to spend money. On what doesn't really matter. You simply crave the transaction.

I had elder daughter, Professional Bleeder, for company and we were in Abergavenny Music. Theoretically I wanted a DVD of Bartok's opera, Bluebeard's Castle, but I knew they wouldn't have it. They didn't. I ordered it (which I could have done by phone). I asked for a score of Schubert's song, Du bist die Ruh, which I didn't need. Cost £2, but they didn't have that either. Instead I bought two bound collections of scores costing £28. I definitely didn't need them. Outside I noticed one was arranged for High Voices; I'm a baritone.

In a book-shop I discovered a tome-ish paperback on musical theory. I stood at the shelving, flicking through, wondering whether I'd ever read it. But standing proved irksome and wasn't helping me make up my mind. Then I spotted two easy chairs. I sat down, flicked some more, decided yes. Complimented the woman at the till on the chairs.

In an elaborate new butcher's there was brisket on the bone. I love brisket but was mildly surprised to find it associated with bone. Only the possibility that VR lacked freezer space (suggested by PB) stayed my hand.

Recently I bought a decanter that  turned out unusable. In a cheapo chain I saw a carafe, typical of French cafés. I hovered but PB discovered it cost a ridiculous £40. An industrial-size bottle of Head & Shoulders shampoo was labelled £3.15. I sighed. My present bottle is still half full and will last well into 2018.

Buying isn't absolutely necessary when "going shopping". Exposing oneself to the risk is.

The Q&A trade

Gummed-up eyelids caused me to misread the bedside clock and I got up an hour early. Not wanting to disturb VR by going back to bed, I took to the downstairs couch and let my mind wander. Thought about interviewing, the basis of my ex-job as a journalist.

I've interviewed hundreds. MDs, engineers, academics, travellers from the top deck of the Clapham omnibus, teachers, men of the cloth, bike racers powered and unpowered, software geeks. Brits, Germans, Americans, the French, Italians, Venezuelans, Antipodeans, Swedes (lots of them), Canucks. In Tokyo I questioned a logistics specialist via a translator, in Geneva - daringly - I interviewed the catering manageress of the World Health Organisation in French.

These weren't adversarial encounters as seen on telly, I was simply after info. Even so, skills are involved. You need to keep your mind open as well as your ears. To compare today’s revelation with a chance remark you overheard six months ago.

Notes are essential. You must keep track of what you're asking so that the answers build up naturally into the article you will eventually write. It's important not to come over as stupid since you'll usually be talking to experts. You have to show you know things, not in depth, shallow will do. I am naturally facetious but I made that work for me. You cannot afford to be shy.

In whodunnits the rule is Cherchez la femme. In my latter-day journalism it was Cherchez l'argent. Cash usually defines success and failure even in activities away from business; many are reticent about this and it's your job to prise them open.

If there’s a rapport it’s exhilarating, a bit like ice-dancing.

Could I do it now, old and enfeebled? I reckon. Wanna try me out?

Wow! (Tenth revision)

The post-op Festival of Light
The eye is clear, its former glum opacity
Has gone – good riddance halo-ed mysteries.
The eye now views a fine geometry
With knife-cut edges at its boundaries.

The lens digests these spectral coloured bands,
It takes advantage of their separate states,
It meets the needs of newer light’s demands,
Responding to the changing brain’s dictates.

And now the book spines say: Just look, read me!
While CD cases shout orchestral chords.
Under the influence of clarity
The patient thrills to unforeseen rewards

I saw but barely, swayed by ignorance.
Cleverer now, I dance the photons' dance.

Thanks to Mr J. Deutsch, Anna and the team
Hereford, November 19, 2014

Roderick Robinson

Note: Written in the AM; savagely rewritten and turned into a sonnet in the PM. The following day it underwent total evisceration. Now it says something

Scroggie! Give him a knighthood

In The Guardian's series, Books That Have Changed My Life, politico-literary cerebralists admit to being bowled over by The Rights Of Man, Middlemarch, Das Kapital, The Second Sex, etc.

But who comes uninfluenced to such works? I believe these readers' lives were already changing (intellectually) before they turned the first page. That these books, often requiring much effort, were mere confirmation.

And those are the honest ones. Others... well you gotta believe they're flaunting.

I can afford not to flaunt. I arrived at National Service in the RAF knowing, quite frankly, bugger-all. My schooling was a disaster and two years in newspapers had taught me to type and to write shorter sentences. The RAF said I had the capacity to maintain and repair their radio equipment. Eight months of training from the structure of the atom to the tripes of the radio altimeter. Thereafter I took on technical journalism (especially in the USA) that would previously have been beyond me. Later still I started to love science.

Step forward Foundations Of Wireless And Electronics by Marcus Graham Scroggie - a genuine life changer.

JOE’S NUDGE

Hey, poetry needn’t always be solemn and profound. It can be fun, so long as it has something to say. This limerick’s complete:

I wish I weren’t doing Divvers
It honestly gives me the shivers,
I don’t know the facts
Of the Gospels and Acts
And tomorrow they’ll drag all the rivers.

Reasons why. It benefits that the delinquent student is doing a serious subject,  divinity (Divvers) – otherwise theology. But what about the punchline? An effortless bit of compression and an exhilarating leap forward. Good wordsmithing.

Anon

Acceptance, gloom, anti-gloom

The mini-adventure didn't happen - medical matters intervened. Never mind; old age teaches us to be philosophical.

Less easy to be philosophical about Alzheimer-stricken brother Nick (the best dressed one in the centre). At his "home" I  presented him with a pot plant - a strange, unbrotherly thing to do. I emphasised how his yacht Takista had invigorated my latter years. Mentioned sailing north at night with the Cote d'Aquitaine to starboard. As I spoke I saw flashes of recognition, then shared his suffering as he tried  to dredge up responses from a mind shot to hell by disease. As if we were alone on an alien and uncongenial planet.

Sir Hugh and I drove away looking for lunch in the Yorkshire Dales. Came upon the village of Leyburn, where the centre was devoted to a heaving mass of shiny car roofs. Two hundred beetle carapaces? Drove on, depressed.

Back at Sir Hugh's house I drank gin, wine and Scotch knowing there'd be a price to pay. Somehow Proust cropped up in talk; Sir Hugh has read A La Recherche (he has the necessary doggedness) and told me he enjoyed it. This cheered me.

Spent the following afternoon with Ron and Frances at their house in the tiny Lakes village of Mungrisdale. Ron and I started out on the same Bradford newspapers at the same time. He went on to write about Everest attempts, yachting, rock climbing, sub-aqua stuff and choral singing, travelling the world betimes. Frances has an honours degree in music from the Open University. Time after time I was conversationally outgunned. Parked outside was Ron's 600 cc metallic red Honda but happily there was no spare crash helmet. Instead I played the first line of God Save The Queen on Frances's harpsichord.

Driving home today I managed to transfer from the M6 motorway to the M5 motoway without being mired in a traffic jam. Almost a miracle. 

A lugubrious celebration

Since this is my hundredth post (as LdP) and I am demonstrably old, I am using the hymn tune, Old Hundredth, to celebrate. Despite my atheism hymns represent my introduction to music. My mum sang them round the house and I copied her. Briefly, inexplicably, I joined a church choir. Hymn words and music are still embedded, three-quarters of a century later.

OH is a lumbering TUNE usually played very slowly, as here. It becomes risible when attached to these words:

All people that on earth do dwell

since the second line is distinctly contradictory:

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.

OH is not cheerful. Later the words become repetitive and then acutely genteel:

Praise, laud and bless His name always

For it is seemly so to do

When was the last time you did something seemly?

The tune also accompanies a four-liner also known as the Doxology.

Praise Him from whom all blessings flow,

Praise Him all creatures here below, etc.

The Doxology is not the scientific study of detergent but “a short hymn often added to the end of canticles, psalms, and hymns.”

None of which is very interesting. What is interesting is that you can sing Good King Wenceslas to OH. It’s difficult but possible. Doing so tells you a good deal about how the brain’s cells work for and against your inclinations. Your instinct tells you what you’re doing is wrong, but another set of cells supports this inventive and adaptive act. I urge you to try this. It will cause you to love your brain.

The recording is by the Westminster Abbey choir, sharpened up strategically by London Brass.