OKAY, I ADMIT IT, I have a problem with copy generated by AI chatbots. That’s hardly surprising, you might think, after all I’m a human who has written for a living for more than half a century. But, to be clear, I’m not in fear of my livelihood - it’s just that chatbot copy is so often very badly done.
THE YOUNG policeman looks bored. “Do you have a booking,” he says. “Yes,” I answer, “we’re staying at The Northern Light Inn.” He doesn’t quite manage a sigh. “Let me see the booking,” he says.
IT’S CHALLENGING to write about The Rule of Three because it’s such a fundamental part of culture, so embedded in our way of thinking, that even those who could not tell you precisely what it is already know about it intuitively.
FRIEND recently took me to task for a grammatical error I made in a Facebook post. I haven’t caught up with him since, so I don’t know whether he was being serious or not, but he was right: I made a grammatical error, and I did it deliberately.
THE WOMAN in the seat in front of us on the bus we had never intended to take was Asian - perhaps Filipina - middle-aged and dressed like a fashion buyer. She spoke softly in perfect Italian into her smart phone, which she charged from a USB port in the roof of the coach. At one point, she caught my eye and smiled.
OKAY, I ADMIT IT, I have a problem with copy generated by AI chatbots. That’s hardly surprising, you might think, after all I’m a human who has written for a living for more than half a century. But, to be clear, I’m not in fear of my livelihood - it’s just that chatbot copy is so often very badly done.
THE WOMAN in the seat in front of us on the bus we had never intended to take was Asian - perhaps Filipina - middle-aged and dressed like a fashion buyer. She spoke softly in perfect Italian into her smart phone, which she charged from a USB port in the roof of the coach. At one point, she caught my eye and smiled.
THE RAVEN ON the dockside roof cackled into the wind, its range of vocalisations surprisingly broad. There was that familiar low kronking call like a football rattle slowed down, and a series of chattering noises ending in a higher, repetitive sound almost like laughter. There were no other ravens in sight, and as we walked across Ísafjörður high up in Iceland’s Westfjords I played with the idea that it was trying to tell us something. I couldn’t guess what*.
A YEAR OR TWO before the pandemic, I was learning a piece of publishing software called InDesign and I had just managed to create three embossed lozenges that looked like hallmarked ingots on the page. It sort of made sense to colour them platinum, gold and silver and, for completion, I added a fourth, bronze.
I LOVE LONDON - and not only its restaurants and bars, its museums and parks. I love commonplace London, the streets and squares where people have lived, worked, loved and played for centuries, and where they still do. I like the way the lives of Londoners, past and present, are layered in the urban landscape.
AT FIRST, I can’t see what Andrew is pointing at. He is clearly excited, but all I can see is a huge, domed bramble bush … and then, among the wiry branches, I begin to make out the shape of antlers. They are brilliantly disguised, and the stag beneath them is standing perfectly still, as if caught in a game of hide and seek.
I WAS GIVEN another three notebooks for Christmas: a classic fiery orange Moleskine with elasticated binder and internal pocket; a beautiful little hand-designed and branded black notebook from a friend who runs a graphic design company in Berlin; and - from my daughter, Lucy - an American Rite in the Rain All-Weather Memo Book, originally designed for woodsmen in Tacoma, WA, and perfect for damp birding trips in the UK. That one is the colour of beech leaves in mid-summer.
