ELEMENTS OF STYLE

I've been a bit mardy recently, haven't I? Waffling on about Einstein, pretending to know what I'm talking about, comparing flappybook to The Matrix, and everything else in my life to elephants. I've been lamenting Mondays and Sundays and stunted trees in posh car parks, pretentiously nudging you all in the ribs with dreadful metaphors.

I've got to stop that. I've got pull myself together a bit and start being a bit more upbeat, find some of the good things that happen and talk about them instead of all this 'woe-is-me-I-don't-want-to-be-37' claptrap.

So, in that spirit, I ought to tell you about my early birthday present. It's this book: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. My colleague gave it to me, having ordered one too many.

And what a book it is. It's great - simply laying out the rules of the language, eloquently, clearly, concisely with short and pertinent examples. I think William Strunk was a stickler for saying a thing with as few extraneous words as possible. Good man. Thank heavens he didn't read this blog.

It was a really nice thought, wasn't it? My birthday, by the way, is tomorrow and in my usual style, I'm off to a museum to wander around and learn some new stuff about the past. I like the past - it's sort of unchangeable but still observable, like a frozen tableau that gradually fades into sepia. Edwardian photos appeal to me - prim families staring into the lens in still and silvery silence, but living in a world just as fast and as turbulent as this one.

Anyway, I'll be off to the Victoria & Albert Museum I think, this year. I hear they've got some great exhibitions on at the moment.

'In my usual style'... I think Strunk would have recoiled at that kind of thing - a sort of idiomatic phrase that doesn't really mean anything. Why is it there? What's it doing? Do I really have a 'style'? To be honest, I'm just going to board a train, get off a train, get on another train, get off that, walk for a bit and come home again. It's hardly intended to be stylish - more just a kind of anonymous day out. If I do it stylishly, I don't expect anyone to notice.

Then, I think if there are 'elements of style' then probably the first one is just being comfortable enough to be yourself without caring what anyone thinks, even if you don't quite feel 37. I'll give it a shot.