Semicolonic irrigation

I tell all of my students, as part of the ‘Citizenship Training’ aspect of teaching, that if they read a broadsheet newspaper (I care not which one) and watch or listen to Newsnight, Channel 4 News or Today a couple of times a week they will reap the benefits in their writing. So I’m sure at least some of them will have read this helpful little piece in the Guardian…

Grunwick – ‘CBH’ article publication date

I’ve just had confirmation that my article, ‘Dispute’, ‘Battle’, ‘Siege’, ‘Farce’? – Grunwick 30 Years On, will appear in print in Contemporary British History Volume 22 Issue 3. This edition is due out in September 2008. But see below to access the online version which is available already.

And the first USHA goes to….

I have a sense of humour. I watch dodgy “history” clip-shows on very dodgy TV channels and am quite happy to forgive some (indeed many) factual errors if they can be disguised by a witty, pithy one-liner. I like ‘pop’ history (in all senses of the word) very much. I understand and value its function. I believe pop/rock music history is not only a valid branch of cultural history but a highly informative means of examining the recent past. I often find myself admiring music journalists – even when they irritate me – for their sheer rhetorical chutzpah. I also realise that the newspaper business can make deadline demands which result in short-cuts, non-existent research time or brutal hacking by a sub-editor.

Having said all that, could this be the most pointless, meandering, impenetrable and incomprehensible “article” on “music history” I have ever had the misfortune to read in a national newspaper?

Actually, I didn’t quite finish it. I just couldn’t. Two-thirds of the way through (having succumbed to the double-whammy of sinking heart and rising blood-pressure) I began to weep at the gratuitous mass-murder of trees required to run it in the very newspaper which used to be graced by the mighty Julie Burchill. (Incidentally, despite her somewhat fearsome reputation, I won’t have a word said against Julie. On a personal level I can vouch that she is a lovely woman: about five years ago she sent me an entirely unsolicited signed first edition of her brilliant, long-out-of-print first book Damaged Gods after I had tried every means to source it. In a small way she helped inspire me back on to the route which has led to my current PhD. Love or loathe her opinions, her prose style is phenomenal and her ability to sustain an argument unrivaled. She would never allow tosh like this to run under her name.)

The article in question, by contrast, is vacuous. Ostensibly about The Clash’s London Calling, it has no thesis or insights to offer. Its non-content is conveyed through prose both turgid and flaccid. It is not history. It is not sociological analysis. It is not entertaining to read, even to provoke opposition; it is devoid of any meaning worthy of opposing. It is, literally, pointless. I cannot work out what it is trying to convey to me, or about what. It put me in mind of Truman Capote (and not in a good way), who allegedly said: “that’s not writing – that’s typing”. More so, to paraphrase Harrison Ford to George Lucas: “you can type this sh*t – but you can’t read it”.

If anyone can decipher what the author is, in fact, trying to say (my life is too short for any further attempts at analysis) they may have a prize of their own choosing. If not, I declare that the author has just been awarded the first ever Smashing The Window USHA. Yes, you’ve guessed it: JQ is the recipient (proud, I hope) of the inaugural Utterly Sh*te History Award.

Hoop Jumping III: ‘The Definitive’.

I have been prevaricating badly for several weeks – or it could, perhaps, appear so to others. I’m having terrible trouble actually making the final edit/revision/cut of a proposed article I’ve been encouraged to produce for some time. This is a revision of previous (well-received) work.

Why the delay and apparent mental block? Because I’m lazy? No, because for weeks I’ve rarely switched-off from thinking about and actually working on material for this. Because I’m a ‘perfectionist’, as the psychologists would have it? Perhaps. Because I’m more interested in the research and learning process than the ‘kudos’ of winning the approval needed to get it into print? Quite possibly. Because I don’t respond well to, or simply resent, being told to produce to a deadline? I’m really not sure about that one.

I’m writing about a relatively recent historical event which is still very much alive and contested. I’ve been in contact with several of the key surviving political ‘big beasts’. They have offered encouragement, clarification and excellent personal insights. This has been a wonderful learning opportunity for me.

It has proved, however, that anyone who thinks the personal testimony/oral history route is somehow an easy one is badly mistaken. With respect to those who work in a purely archive-driven way, dealing with live human beings is an infinitely more time-consuming way of working. They take time to respond. They also need some charming, chasing-up and cajoling. This requires emotional investment and personal contact. It is an exciting but very draining process.

It also creates a sense of debt. In this case, I have received responses so encouraging and detailed that I’ve been encouraged to make yet more contacts and go further and further with my research. Undoubtedly, all of the insights I’ve received are worth hearing, and deserve to be part of a well-rounded historical record.

That’s the problem. I’m writing a 10,000 word article – not ‘the definitive’ magnum-opus of synthesis on the subject. (That can, and will, come later.) It can only be the best I can offer at the moment. In that sense, I have to accept that it is a work-in-progress. But when, if ever, does what we do cease to be a work-in-progress?

I’ve written this post quickly a) by way of a final plan of attack and kick-up-the-bum, b) to remind myself how this felt when it happens again (which, in my case, it always seems to do), and c) to ask: am I alone in this? If not, how do others cope? What techniques and strategies do you use to avoid or break through such a situation?

Le Roi Jen-kins

My relative quiet on the blogging front is due to my juggling of several mini-projects at the moment. All of these should come to fruition in the next few weeks. All will be revealed in due course.

However, here is a link to an insightful review by my fellow PhD-er Henry Miller of a new(ish) book on Roy Jenkins.

Jenkins – love or loathe him – was a pivotal figure in the shaping of British political, social and cultural life throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s. And if anyone is well-placed to pass judgement on Roy Jenkins: A Retrospective, edited by Andrew Adonis and Keith Thomas, (OUP, 2004), then it is Mr Miller. I’m delighted Henry has had this review published. He commends at least parts of the book, but rightly also namechecks Giles Radice’s Friends and Rivals: Crosland, Healey and Jenkins – a brilliant, highly readable account of the central trio of Labour intellectual ‘heavyweights’ and their roles in the upper echelons of the Party in the 1960s and 1970s.