The Comfort of a fire

This morning I went off to Wetherspoon’s here in Midsomer Norton  to have my usual sunshine breakfast and to my delight they had a real life fire though it was not that cold . There is something welcoming about an open fire; I’m sure it goes back to the time when we lived in caves and a fire was a method for cooking, keeping warm obviously and keeping wild animals away.

To me the best way of meditating is staring into a fire whereas if I try and do a formal meditation I keep thinking of other things that I want to do, so it is a failure for me .

My launch meeting for writers this Wednesday

I have today sent off my final invitations to the launch meeting of my Writers and Diarists group that I am forming here in Midsomer Norton. I’m doing it because there is a gap in the market. Sites for writers are 10 a penny on Facebook but in real life there are but few.

There are some linked with The Third Age (U3A). and one or two in places like Bath and Frome but such creative groups are distinctly lacking in my neck of the woods. We have eight serious candidates and I look forward to welcoming them at my place.

Part of the reason that I started this group was that I was less than enthusiastic about the reception, or non-reception, given to me when I attended the Frome Writers Collective. I have been to five meetings and at each meeting I might as well have been invisible as no one came up to me to greet me except the secretary and no one asked me if I was a writer and what was I hoping to achieve etc.

I felt the atmosphere in the meeting was very cliquey; people were too busy talking to each other to take an interest, most of the people obviously knew each other.  Well, good for them, what about any newcomers. At one meeting I saw two older men arrive who did not  appear to know anybody.

They sat together and chatted briefly but no one extended the hand of welcome. To my knowledge they did not return. My group that I intend to launch will be the opposite of this, people centered, always on the lookout for those in need.

Writing can be a lonely occupation – why make it worse?

How to be a good interviewer

I want to talk today about interviewing habits and techniques especially bearing in mind the hundreds of video interviews that I see on YouTube, Rumble, Brighteon, Banned etc. The rules of being an interviewer are fairly simple. You are there with your guest to draw out what they know about a subject and bring on a new perspective.

A guest is not there as an adjunct to prove or disprove your own views. The less you interrupt, the better. The only reason for interruption in any form is if the guest goes off the subject, or they mention technical terms that the audience might not understand.

The usual protocol is ‘for those not for me with the subject could you please explain so and so. The guess normally realizes at the point that they were too technical and will happily reprise what they have said in less technical language.

There’s one interviewer whom I will not name who if they agree with the guests they say yes as if demonstrating their knowledge of the subject. The camera quickly flicks to them if it’s on automatic and it interrupts the flow. In a way I feel the less the interviewer says the better.

The host should do their homework beforehand in order to be able to ask the right questions and not use a difference in perception as a weapon to jump in and interrupt a speaker in mid sentence. There are certain news-based programs where four to five people regularly butt in to each other and you can hardly follow what is being said and even the transcriber cannot keep up. I tend to switch off from these

An interviewer should be genuinely involved and not overact by doing the nodding donkey performance.  It requires a balance temperament to be neutral well taking part in a controversial subject which could touch many people for example pedophilia.

We then get the famous  phrase, ‘well I’m afraid we have run out of time’ so the real skill is ending the topic on a positive note even if the meeting was fractious