Oh no - not in the milk...

OK, OK, I know it's been a while but I'm back in business.

After much consideration I have started an intensive NCTJ course at Brighton Journalist Works.

One week in I have a feeling it could be one of the most important things I'll do in my professional life.

Part of our training is to write a blog, so I thought I'd update you on my progress here.

I have promised a couple of times to write about Spanish swearing. This came about after reading Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', set in Spain during the civil war.

The book is obviously written in English and Hemingway uses certain devices to show that the characters are speaking Spanish.

He translates the rather rude Spanish phrase, "Me cago en la leche", as "I obscenity in the milk". It really means, "I shit in the milk."

Which is quite a bizarre thing to say, even in exasperation.

And if you think that's bad, here's the full version: "Me cago en la leche de la puta que te date la luz", which translates as, and anyone of a nervous disposition should look away now, "I shit in the milk of the whore that bore you".

Ouch.

Although Google Translate thinks it means, "Fuck the bitch's milk you light date".

And there's more. "Me cago en su madre" is "I shit on your mother, "Me cago en todos tus muertos" means "I shit on all your ancestors" - one can add the suffix "uno a uno", or "one by one", if this is just a little too tame - and a personal favourite is, "Me cago en Dios" ("I shit on God").

It gets worse - "Chupe mantequilla de mi culo" means "Suck butter from my ass".

Now - I like an insult as much as the next person, but the mind absolutely boggles as to how those words could've ended up in that order.

All of the above makes our English swearwords seem naive and positively anaemic.

But this doesn't make me like the Spanish any less - in fact, it makes me like them more: the passion of flamenco, the drama of the bullfight, and the staggeringly creative swearing.

Look further afield and swearing becomes something of an art form.

"Airy fe dameerak" apparently is Arabic for "My dick in your conscience".

"Grozna si kato salata" is Bulgarian for "You're ugly as salad".

And what better way to end than with some Finnish: "Kuse muuntajaan" - or "Piss into a transformer".

So if you're ever stuck when you really want to speak your mind, look no further than the above for inspiration.

Status Update

Dear Readers,

Apologies for the recent inactivity on this blog and my Twitter account.

There are a number of reasons for this (so it's not because I'm lazy).

Firstly, I'm concentrating on writing an article based on my trip around Europe and Morocco for a travel website. 

Secondly, I've been thinking about carrying on writing up the journal I kept whilst I was travelling. I showed the 4,000 words or so I've written to my girlfriend, Shannon, who travelled with me, and she actually laughed.

I was buoyed by this; but then again, she has to laugh at what I write.

I hope it's because I intend to make her laugh.

So I've been really spurred on to carry on writing up my journal, although I haven't for at least a month (probably because of this blog).

Thirdly, I've taken up running - well, actually, I took up running in January.

Since then I've been gradually building up how far I run, and am up to 5.75 miles, to be precise, which takes me around 55 minutes.

I plan to keep increasing the distances I'm running, and am contemplating, contemplating, a marathon.

I'm becoming more serious; yesterday I bought myself a pair of New Balance 880 running shoes, from Sports Direct, which cost £50.

These same trainers cost £80 in the shop I visited yesterday, where they "measured my gait", by filming me running on a treadmill. Apparently I'm a neutral runner.

This shop (called Sweatshop - negative connotations, anyone?) offers this service in the hope that people will buy the trainers they recommend there and then - but you would have to be pretty silly to not shop around and pay £30 over the odds.

And I'm really chuffed, because I ordered the trainers yesterday, paid the cheapest price for standard delivery, and they arrived today. Bo!

Here are the beauties:

I do have some bad news, however - I'm still smoking (a little bit).

I have quit in the week - and haven't smoked from Monday to Friday for around two months - but still smoke if I have a drink, which is every weekend.

This means that last weekend I smoked around 25 cigarettes across two days of drinking, but the weekend before I only smoked four, on two days of drinking.

I'm still working to cut down, but it is blooming difficult after a few tipples and losing my inhibitions.

I always try to see the positive, though, and suppose this isn't half as bad as the 35 cigarettes I would have a week when I did smoke 'full time', even before taking into account those I smoked when drinking.

I guess I see myself at the moment as an old school footballer, dumb to the dangers of smoking, who is 'fit as a fiddle', ahem, but still indulges in a fag/cigar/pint every now and then.

I've heard even Wayne Rooney, or the pinnacle of physical fitness, enjoys a ciggie once in a while.

And there are other English stars too...

The Old Man and the SEO

In the midst of job hunting I have discovered that many companies now look for journalists who have knowledge of SEO. I didn't - so endeavoured to find out more. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, basically the process by which websites improve their rankings in search engine results. For example, when you type 'Search Engine Optimization' into Google, the first listing is the Wikipedia page on SEO. When you enter the name or URL of this blog into Google - Other Search Engines Are Available - the first listing links to an article on the top 100 alternative search engines; my blog doesn't figure in the first five pages of results - it's probably the 87,199,999th result out of 87,200,000. But hold on - the top 100 alternative search engines? I couldn't name 10 conventional search engines! 

Actually, I had heard of SEO - my understanding was that in order to list high in search engine results, a website should include as many keywords on a particular subject as possible. So, a website about funny-looking cats should have the words 'funny-looking cats' plastered all over the page. Given this, SEO SEO SEO. That should boost this blog's ratings. 

There is a particular factor of SEO that has concerned me, however. Whilst looking for jobs, I found websites looking for journalists with knowledge of writing for SEO; particularly, news websites. Now, I'm not the font of all journalism knowledge - I am unemployed! - but I always thought that writers should be as economical and concise with their writing as they can be, and not repeat words unnecessarily. (I once thought I'd invented a word, 'concision', as in, "the writer used concision", although apparently it exists.)

I have always tried to be as economical with words as possible (apart from that gratuitous last sentence on inventing words; oops, and this sentence). Most people don't associate journalists with ethics, but I think ethically I would struggle to purposely litter my writing with excessive words, even if I was just writing news on this month's funniest-looking cats. Funniest-looking cats.

I can think of only one writer who embodies concise use of language and that is Ernest Hemingway. What would that great man make of deliberately repeating words and phrases in reportage? I wonder.
Hemingway is a writer to whom I have only just been introduced; I have read one of his books, 'A Farewell to Arms'. I was surprised by his style and enjoyed the narrative and was pretty heartbroken by the book's end. It is semi-autobiographical, and I was left thinking, wow, either WW1 was pretty horrible or Hemingway loved a drink, or both. Probably both.

But having said what I have about repetition, Hemingway did use the technique in 'A Farewell to Arms' (and I guess in his other novels), repeating words willy nilly. Take this random excerpt:

'As we moved out through the town it was empty in the rain and the dark except for columns of troops and guns that were going through the main street. There were many trucks too and some carts going through on other streets and converging on the main road. When we were out past the tanneries onto the main road the troops, the motor trucks, the horse-drawn carts and the guns were in one wide slow-moving column.'

The lesson here I suppose is that repeating words can be used for effect, especially when describing a busy scene with lots of interacting characters. But personally I would never adapt my writing style to suit SEO SEO SEO and certainly wouldn't repeat words all over the shop.