Invisible Ben: 10 Scents' Worth story number six

The story

(Evil) Max and I both work for Ben who runs Afia, a brilliant, creative writing agency full of lovely people.  I do some copywriting for his website and language workshops for his clients. Ben took the team up to Langar Hall in Nottinghamshire for a meeting, and his 40^th birthday dinner. So I thought I’d make him his own special scent. Ben does lots of sporty things, and I’d never known him smell of anything but himself, so I decided to make him a body spray for after sport and showering. I wanted it to smell like extra added Ben, so he could use it to smell just like himself again, after washing it all off in the shower. Does that make some sense?

I like using cedarwood for skin scents, plus a couple of the woody smooth synthetics, and I added citrus fruits because I pictured him having an orange juice before going home. It was light and fresh and I was really fond of it. Using masses of originality, I called it Ben.

Well, he unwrapped it and just looked at me as if I was nuts, then smiled and tried to look happy and said, “Scent, errr, great! Thanks Sarah.” He’s a dreadful liar, but he was being kind. (Max, on the other hand, got really excited about the idea of knowing a perfumer, and Evil Max followed on from our conversations on wicked 80s men’s scents.)

I put it in the development drawer ready for later. Then I took it out and did a bit more work on it for the 10 Scents’ Worth project. I renamed it Invisible Ben for reasons that are probably obvious.

The materials

I’ve had to change it a little since the original. I love anthropogan because it smells like people (maybe that’s why it’s got the anthro prefix) but IFRA have banned it, so I put in copaiba balsam instead. 

Sandalwood, benzoin and opoponax (I love saying that out loud and it smells glorious so I put it in just about everything I make) and a synthetic musky/woody/softy scent give it the clean skin impression. 

Another change was adding a coffee CO₂ extract that Hermitage oils have just brought out, because Ben loves good coffee. I put in cognac absolute – birthday celebration – then orange, lime and litsea cubeba for the citrus fruit top end.

How've you been?

I really think we should be hibernating. Winter is not meant for working, but working's what I've been doing.
So I've missed a few Tuesdays. Not in the real world of course. Nope, I've been working.

We found that our house wasn't earthed, and I wanted to pay the wonderful electrician for all the work he did to deprive our home of its ability to kill us at any given time. I had to go out and earn that. Also I'd splashed out on stuff I needed to complete projects, like perfumery materials and wool (different projects, obviously, or maybe not), and to replace things that fell to bits like washing machines and socks. The result was that I had to give up my life-changing - and hibernating - time to earn my keep.

To be fair, when I go out to work I get to think, have ideas, write, or train other people to write better. It could be worse.I usually relish the chance to do a bit of writing training, but when some of those people are in the room against their will because they are unhappy with their jobs, running a workshop can be like six hours of swimming through mud. At the end I feel like I need to be plugged into a recharger for a week and a half.

So it made me think, after working for a couple of weeks with people who don't enjoy their work, how outstandingly lucky I am to have got to a place in life where I can do things I love - mostly. I've been a council gardener, worked in media planning at an ad agency, sold space in a newspaper (but not enough of it), played in bands, taught yoga and been paid for writing about handmade soap. It's led to a working life I enjoy: thinking, advising people on their businesses (and I really love that), having ideas, writing and teaching.

Today, I got a new book. It's called Job Hunting 3.0 and it's by Richard Maun, who I met at a little do for authors. I don't want a job, not exactly, but I do want to keep working freelance with nice people and it's got many a handy hint that will help me do the preparation for my meetings with them. (I went to one last week, and I was so out of practise, and so tired after the mud-swimming, that I was useless!) So in a roundabout kind of way, I'm recommending that if you don't like your job,you buy this book, study it and go find a new one that you do like. If you know people who don't like their jobs, get it for them for Christmas. That way, when I go out to run a writing workshop, I'll be more likely to meet people who really want to be there.

 I hope you're happy in your working life this week, that you've left a bit of space for diong something unusual, and that if you don't love what you do, you'll consider taking a leap in a positive direction. And now, I'm going to wrap myself in thick woollies and get back to my hibertation.

Duty, deadines, determination and discipline

Deadlines. We deal with them all the time. They approach steadily, never by themselves, and we have to hit them before they crash and get us into trouble. I like to imagine them as like the little green aliens in Space Invaders games. The longer you leave them they faster they approach and the more they proliferate. When you've got someone chasing you, or a meeting report with a date and your initial written beside it, you know what you're dealing with. They want it by Friday, you aim to get it there on Thursday night (or if it's me, more likely Saturday morning because unless I'm given strict guidelines, 4a.m. still counts as Friday night).

What about the projects that don't have set deadlines, the ones you can put off for almost ever? How do you make sure that they ever get finished? At the risk of beginning to sound like a Victorian moralist, last time I wrote about duty and now I'm thinking about discipline.

Now I'm cutting myself loose from my biggest client to do my duty, I'm going to have to set my own goals, impose my own some deadlines then make sure that I want to hit them. We can use time management techniques to sort out which ones to do first, or to delegate or ditch entirely. We can get ourselves into good habits. We all have some of those: I wouldn't dream of going out without brushing my teeth or locking the door; I always recycle everything the council take; I even bring my plastic back from my holidays.

But to make things happen, you really have to want to make them happen. Without the determination, it all fades away. Finishing off books, for example, everything that you have on your "wouldn't it be nice..." list. How do we set and stick to our own deadlines when no-one is chasing us, or won't pay us if it doesn't get finished? Now that all my big projects are going to be like that for a year at least, can I be relied on to chase myself up? What's my incentive to keep shooting down the aliens?

It's not so much about the small stuff with me; I procrastinate on a grand scale. I take on to much big stuff, then stretch myself beyond any reasonable limit, filling my screen up with thumping aliens and buzzing about like a bluebottle trying to knock them all out before they invade. (And if you don't know what it's like to play Space Invaders, go here www.freespaceinvaders.org. Or even if you do.) In the early 1980s, I did get quite good at Space Invaders, up to 14 screens. You do it by keeping a cool head and a sense of perspective and by wasting loads of time getting good at it. Probably a bad example of discipline.

It's a question of deciding what's important. Then getting on with it. I've got my list (see earlier topics) and I'll make myself a future mood board. (Of which more soon.) From May to July I've got to spend time clearing out old projects that I really will never finish, so that they don't weigh me down with guilt.

Talking of which, if you're anywhere near W13, put 15th May in your diary. I'm having a car boot sale, except in my own front room and just for nice people. I'll be making coffee.

Discipline. Yes. Let's impose a little and bring myself back to the point. From May 2010 to April 2011, the year I've given myself to get things done, I need to get things done. There's definitely going to be some room for slacking about faffing and fiddling, because it's in the faffing and fiddling times that you have your best ideas, as long as you've been taking the time to observe, contemplate, consider and plan. And talking of plans, I've got one, but I'll keep it flexible, because all the best plans should adapt to fit the circumstances.

As stated in many other places on paper and in the ether, I plan to have a building where I can run writing workshops and yoga classes and where people can come for a good creative think, and a decent coffee. So let's see how we get along, shall we?

Christmas Eve - A Fairy Tale

I almost forgot! A Christmas story or two, just a little bit late...

Christmas Eve
By Sarah McCartney

Eve was born on 24th December and her parents named her after her dad’s grandmother. It was only after they’d signed the birth certificate and the registrar laughed a little and said,
“That’s funny, naming her after Christmas Eve,” that they realised what they’d done.
All through her schooldays people thought it was funny to say, “So it’s nearly Christmas, Eve!” She could stand that, but what she really hated was that although her brother and sister both got birthday presents and Christmas presents from their friends and family, she only ever got one.
“We got you something bigger to combine birthday and Christmas,” they said, but the presents were never twice as big, just around 10% larger. What was worse was that she was never allowed to open them on her birthday; they had to be saved for Christmas Day, so that she wouldn’t be left sitting there with nothing to do while everyone else ripped through the recycled packaging of their Christmas gifts.

One Christmas Eve, Eve was sitting by the window staring at the crescent moon.
“Eve” whispered a clear bell-like voice that she’d never heard before.
She looked down into the garden but there was no-one there, although she was sure the voice had come from outside.
“Eve, out here!” the voice called again. Looking outside she noticed that the moon seemed to be waving an aura of sparkles at her. It was frosty outside and she didn’t really want to get cold, but she opened the window and called quietly,
“Moon? Is that you?”
“Yes! Of course it is,” said the moon and send a shower of sparking moondust down a moonbeam straight into Eve’s bedroom to keep her warm.
“I’ve got something for you,” said the moon, “and it’s for your birthday when everyone forgets about you but me.” The sky turned from cloudy grey to a deep purply blue, the moon itself glowed an amazing bright golden yellow and Eve could smell flowers, even though there were none in the garden. Then a small, glittering parcel shot down a moonbeam right through the window and landed on her bed next to Theo, her teddy bear. It unwrapped itself and revealed a deep blue bar with a golden moon on top; its perfume was a blend of exotic jasmine and calming ylang ylang, just right for melting away all her anxieties and worries about the unfairness of being born on Christmas Eve.
“Put it in the bath, Eve,” said the moon, and every time I see you, I’ll send you another one.”
Eve never actually spoke to the moon again. Sometimes she opened the window and waved, hoping to start up another conversation, but probably the moon was a bit busy talking to other children. But every now and again, when she’d had a bad day, Eve found another magical parcel on her bed.
“Mum, Dad! I’ll just have a bath!” she would shout, and they were delighted that Eve was so keen to keep herself clean, and they never did work out quite where that beautiful scent came from.

Want to Believe
By Sarah McCartney

“Father Christmas is coming tonight” shouted Emily, all excited. She would be awake every hour wondering if he’s got there, running into her brother’s room to see if he was ready to go and look under the tree for presents.
Joe wasn’t so sure. People at school had told him that their parents gave them their Christmas presents and that there was no such thing as Father Christmas, no reindeer, no sleigh and no coming down the chimney. He was sure he had heard him the previous year, but perhaps it was his mum and dad after all.
“Is there really a Father Christmas?” he asked them at tea time and he saw them glance at each other quickly.
“It’s like this,” said his dad, “If you believe in him, then he’ll bring your presents, but if you don’t, then we have to do it for him.” This was a dilemma. Joe was a very considerate boy and he didn’t want his parents to have to buy things out of their own money just because he doubted the practicalities of the Father Christmas myth.
“I do want to believe,” he said and got on with eating his pasta.
He asked his grandmother what to do.
“Gran,” he said, “If I don’t believe in Father Christmas, I’m going to put mum and dad to a lot of expense, but I don’t really see how a sleigh can fly or how a fat man can get down the chimney. What can I do?”
“Hmmm,” said his gran to buy some time, “There is one story that says that if you are good you will get your presents but if you are bad, you will get a lump of coal.”
“I’ve been pretty good, I think,” said Joe, who was quite a good boy most of the time, “So I want to believe that too.”
Joe was confused, but it wasn’t enough to keep him awake. In the morning Emily woke Joe up, leaping around and giggling with delight at the lovely things Father Christmas had brought her. Joe looked and saw a pile of coal at the end of his bed.
“Oh no!” he wailed, “Everything’s gone wrong and it’s all my fault.” Then he picked up the coal and noticed that it smelled sweet; he licked it and found that it tasted of sugar; he bit it and it was delicious! Downstairs he found a stack of presents and they all said, “To Joe, with love from mum and dad.”
“I’m sorry you had to buy them, but I couldn’t believe any more,” he said to them giving them each a big hug.
“That’s OK Joe,” said his mum. “We wanted to buy them for you anyway.”
Then Joe remembered the pile of coal sweets upstairs.
“Thanks for the sweets, too” he said.
“What sweets?” asked his mum and she looked at his dad with her eyebrows raised. His dad gave one of those “don’t look at me” glances and shook his head.
“That was odd,” thought Joe. “Even though I don’t believe in Father Christmas, I definitely believe in something.”

Shanks's Pony

I wonder if you've heard about the Nun Study, Dr. David A. Snowdon's research into aging. It's the most wonderful long-term observation into what might happen to us as we get older, carried out amongst a whole convent full of Catholic nuns in Minnesota. What's unusual about it is that all the nuns eat the same food and have accurate, comparable health records from a young age so researchers can rule out a lot of the variables that normally mess up your average health study.

One of the correlations (becasue it's tricky to say what's actually cause and effect) is that people who walk three miles a day stay healthy long into old age. Current research reckons that longevity is influenced up to 75% by behaviour and attitude, not genetics, by the way. Since I found that out, I've tried to grab the opportunity to walk rather than take a lazier way of getting around whenever I have the time. It's selfishness really: naturally I want to stay fit for as long as I can manage, but I also find that walking has instant benefits for creative thinking. (Yoga too, but that's another story.)

For starters, on foot you have more time to notice what's happening around you. (You can choose not to; I have a friend who always strolls, deep in thought, staring at the pavement with his mind elsewhere.) If you like, you can observe people, buildings, clouds, spaces, faces, your neighbours' front gardens and your own reactions to them. When I'm stuck, really stuck, I love to go for a walk. Even just walking a slightly different route from usual can get you out of your rut. I've got six different direct routes to my tube station and I do like to vary them just for the fun of it; it's a Edwardian working man's suburb - lots of parallel streets.

Time is a bit of a nuisance - well, absence of time to be more accurate - but if I'm on my way to a meeting or a workshop that's going to need me to delve into my deepest thinking resources, then I like to allow time to get there on Shanks's pony. (Grandma's term for legs.) It really does clear your mind of rubbish and fill it with interesting things - if you allow it, and put a bit of effort it.

My great grandmother made the local papers when she walked three miles to a party aged 92 then refused a lift home and hoofed it all the way back again. I'm rather hoping to follow in her footsteps, so to speak. In the meantime, for a good spring clean of the mental cobwebs, I shall be walking whenever... Machines in gyms don't work by the way. That's not one of Dr. Snowdon's conculsions; that's just what I think. They might help your health, but they don't refill your inspiration tanks.

The kit: for a formal event: Paul Smith brogues. They take a few months to break in then they are like walking on clouds, leathers ones. Informal around town: I've not found a walking shoe to beat my Nike Shox. Muddy: Merrell. Fields: barefoot but watch for cowpats. I've done that. Heels, if you must: Cole Haan G-Series with Nike Air technology. People tell me that Crocs are comfortable, but I wouldn't be seen dead, darlings.

Crystal Balls for Business Writers

"Now that we've all gone casual and chatty when we write," said Mr. 4160 last night, "what do you think will be next? Going serious and using masses of jargon?"

So I had a bit of a think.

Based on what happens in writing workhops - the ones I've been in; I can't speak for the others - I'd predict that we're going to be tidying up our English. At every workshop I've run, I've told everyone that they are not in a grammar class and no-one's going to start lecturing about accuracy; on the other hand, when you're in a room full of people who write for a living, and no-one's going to judge you if you've got a question, it's probably a good time to air your worries. I might ask, opening the shutters a little, "Where would you use brackets and where would you use dashes?" Then it all pours out: semi-colons, it's and its, different to, than or from. Just like which knife and fork to start with, it's not life and death, but people want to do it right.

In my experience, there are two groups of people who say they don't care about where apostrophes go. The first: people with masters degrees in languages, literature or linguistics. The second: the deeply insecure who hate being taught and disliked the way they were forced to learn at school.
Greengrocers care deeply where apostrophes go; they just get it wrong.

The first group talk about the Greengrocers' Apostrophe, the one that turns up in "Apple's £1 a basket" or "Fresh farm egg's". There is a common misunderstanding that apostrophes go in plurals, which they don't if you follow the generally accepted, current guidelines. The outstandingly educated people I know put it all into historical context and talk about the evolution of language; if that's the way the common man writes, then that is the way the language will go. Mind you, they wouldn't be seen dead with their own apostrophes out of place. (For the best ever discussion about this read David Foster Wallace in Consider the Lobster.)

The second group never seem to mind if their spelling is corrected. It's fine for spelling to be unequivocally right or wrong (although any research into Mr. Shakespeare's or Miss Austen's original works might change their minds) but questioning their grammar and punctuation is like suggesting they work on improving their dancing, driving or sexual techniques.

Nope, I think that the greengrocers do care. Why else would they bother to put them in at all? There's a beautiful mix up I've seen in a cafe window: Tea's, Coffees and Breakfast's. What was it that went through the mind of the signwriter as he or she wrote it? What is it about coffees that makes it exempt?

That picture was in New Look's window in York this summer. Gladiator sandals was £20. Did no-one ever say, "Ahem, shouldn't we say "were" because there's more than one sandal?" Not one person? In the whole approval process from concept to window, everyone thought it was fine to write was instead of were? I'll tell you who would have kicked up a fuss, anyone French, German, Spanish or Italian who had learned English at school. One of my foreign colleagues recently asked me why a native English speaker had made a particular mistake and the best answer I could give at the time was, "He's doing his very best but he's not as well educated as you are." Rude, I know, but what would you say?

For me, taking time to check that your writing says what you mean is simple politeness. You are hoping that someone will read it and understand it, then act on it. New Look were hoping that people would buy the sandals; the cafe wants to sell breakfasts and they probably will. Only the most severe of Trussites would punish errors by withholding their business.
If you want to check that your writing is clear, pass it to someone else to read out loud; if they trip over the words, then it needs more work. BBC newsreaders say they can read anything, live with no rehearsal, as long as it's been punctuated correctly.

For me, getting it right it not about the writer and his or her ego, their past education, their concerns about where they fit into the class system, authenticity or any of the other excuses I've heard. It's about being considerate, kind and polite.

It's like deciding whether or not to use the indicators when you're driving or sticking your arms out when you're cycling. It's making your intentions clear to others so that they can make a decision based on what you are telling them. If you can't be bothered to give clear signals, whether they are hands, flashing lights or semi-colons, then you are being inconsiderate. If you're misunderstood it's your own silly fault.

Life's too short to waste time explaining yourself twice. Once is bad enough.
If you'd like to check the guidelines go for the Penguin Writer's Manual. It's small, light, cheap and easy to read. It sheds light where there is darkness.

Incidentally, Word's built in grammar checker quite often gets it wrong.

If you'd like to come to one of our workshops, get in touch.
If you'd like us to run one at your organisation, same applies.

Writing workshops coming up. Want to come too?
We'll be at the Swedenborg Society in Bloomsbury on 25th September, 23rd October and 20th November, Fridays all.
Do say if you'd like to come along. (They're extraordinarily good value, full of practical and inspiring ways to keep you writing even on your blank paper days, and make you even better at it.
We also have very good biscuits.
We'll be in a fascinating setting with equally fascinating people and you'll bounce out at the end of the session full of good ideas.

At the Proms

On Sunday night, we were at the Albert Hall to see a Promenade concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. We got some Beethoven (4th Symphony - which I'd heard before but couldn't remember). First there was a very modern piece which used three sets of timpani and the biggest collection of percussion I've ever seen, plus two harps which you couldn't hear for the percussion. Fun to watch though. You could observe the action while listening to the sounds, and let your mind wander off to the music and see where it took you. It sounded like a film score, passing through a ghost story, science fiction, a bit of 1950s black and white cowboy film (the bit where they're parched with thirst in the desert) ending with some huge explosions as the goodies triumph in the end. During the interval, we compared notes, and we'd all pictured the same things: Nick, who doesn't normally listen to orchestral music, Alex, (18) who's got a place at the Guildhall and performs classical music, and me, who got grade 8 clarinet in 1978 and was brought up on the stuff.

After the interval we got Berlioz' Te Deum. The choir had at least 300 people in it. 100 boys, 100 men and 100 women that I could count and I couldn't see them all. We'd a huge orchestra, four each of the woodwinds, five horns and trombones, two tubas, four(+?) trumpets, a row of side drums and one of cymbals. Watching the cymbal players was fantastic. Once every 15 minutes or so there'd be a couple of huge crashes, then the four of them would sit down again, carefully placing their kit into their custom-made stands. The trick was to spot out of the corner of your eye when they stood up, when they lifted the cymbals out, lined them up, then wallop!

At the back was a bloke with a substantial stomach who sat perfectly still for at least 40 minutes, then started to twiddle with his cufflinks. Then he opened his book and finally stood to sing. A wonderful tenor voice wafted around this huge space.

The best bit was the loudest; call me crass, but I'm standing by my claim; if you go to hear Berlioz, you want noise. The Bertie Hall organ is not to be messed with. We were way, way up, so high that if we lobbed a peanut off the circle it would take a good few seconds to hit the promenaders on the floor below. When the organ crashed out a huge chord, from bass pipes so massive you couldn't wrap your arms round them, and all 300 voices, basses to trebles, hit their notes, I burst into tears. I always do.

I count things. I think that there were around 3000 people in the audience (400 or so were the choir's mums, dads, brothers and sisters), but there were still some spare seats. I've not been to a Prom for years and yet it's only a 20 tube ride from my house. It's the biggest orchestral music event in the world, it's on my doorstep, each concert is wonderful. Yet along with another several million Londoners I don't shift myself off my office chair to go there often enough. The Albert Hall is glorious in its Victorian opulence, with its red and gold garments and its curiously intimate feel for such a vast space. Human civilisation started in the mud and several billions of years later it comes together in a round hall in SW1. The choir was singing to the glory of God, but for me this was the glory of the Big Bang and aeons of evolution.

Why don't we go? Well, because we've seen the Last Night of the Proms on television, all union flags and prats jumping up and down to Rule Britannia so we think it's for the white middle classes. Or we think it'll be sold out, or we think it's expensive. It's none of those things. We paid £11 each to sit down and Alex stood in the second row from the front for a fiver last Tuesday. It's less than the cinema. You can listen, you can watch, you can panic a bit when the organ player starts to flip his score backwards and forwards and you think he's lost his place! In front of me there were a couple of young teenage boys I bet had never been to a classical concert before; they'd come to watch their brother in the choir. At the very, very end of the final applause, when the choirmasters had been on and off three times and the tenor had been on and off twice, and the conductor finally left the stage and indicated that her orchestra could pack up, one of them clapped and clapped until he was sure he was the absolute last one. I leaned forward.
"You won," I said to him.
"I know!" he said delighted, "I was trying hard."

Which is why everyone should grab the chance to get down there. It'll fill you to bursting with things you've never felt before. It made me want to spring the Symphony 1010 clarinet from its case, make red and gold clothing for winter and unpack the spare speakers so I can have music in my office. Even if it just inspires you to be the last man clapping, don't miss it.