Bystander apathy

I really didn't expect to hear back from any of the magazines I contacted, but today arrived the first reply and now I'm just waiting for copies of the book to land so I can send one out for preview.  It doesn't mean I will get a mention, but it is a step forward in getting the book out there to raise some money for charity.  I'm not sure why it makes me feel so nervous.  Fear of rejection, I assume.  The response from the social networking channels so far has been disappointing to say the least and I'm not sure how to take that.  Are people laughing, sneering or just dismissing it outright?  There are so many paranoias that come with trying to promote something you've created yourself with no marketing budget and the mere hope that people will show a little good will and spread the word.

I've always shared links and promos when friends have something to promote.  It's the least I can do to help.  People work hard to create and share their music, their art, their fundraising efforts, why wouldn't I pitch in how ever I can?  It doesn't take much effort to click share or retweet and it takes still very little to buy or contribute.  I'd be less frustrated if it wasn't a charity venture I suppose.

I remember watching Billy Connolly on Red Nose Day years ago and he talked about the apathy that seems to prevent people from giving to charity.  It's the same sort of bystander apathy that prevents people from helping someone in the street.  The assumption that someone else will do it if they don't takes over and they simply do nothing.  The thought that loads of people must be doing something so they don't have to overrides the initial instinct to do the right thing.  Maybe if I hadn't said it was for charity, I'd have had a better response.  If I'd said buy these so you can laugh at me and sneer when you me, I might have had a better response.

So I've gone beyond the social networking media to the actual media in an attempt to get some experienced marketing behind my efforts.  Of course, it's still a maybe and maybe is less than solid ground, but maybe is better than silence.  Even if it does go ahead and still only sells a couple of extra copies of any of the books, Kindle or printed, it's still better than no sales at all.

Perhaps if I'd chosen a more popular charity - one that gets TV coverage - I'd have had more success, but my charity is a smaller one and relies on people to spread the word.  I'm carrying on my Mum's legacy.  She requested donations to MS research instead of flowers at her funeral and I wouldn't have started designing if my hands and eyes hadn't both broken down simultaneously, so it seems the right thing to do.  Give my designs over to charity and try to make some small difference.  Getting people to buy a well thought out and decent quality item in the name of the cause though is proving difficult.  It doesn't sing and it doesn't dance.  It is unique and it is well made.  Have I got the quality thing the wrong way round?  Should I have gone for a pitiful look that might tug at the heartstrings? 

But it's early days and I hope to see things pick up.  If I don't, I'll find some other way.  I'm determined to do something worthwhile and I will get there, no matter how much rejection I face.

Blogging to write

I suppose I must seem obsessed.  I'm working to a bit of a deadline in a way though.  To create all the PDF download files, I need Acrobat Professional and since I've lost my license key, I'm using a trial version with a 30 day limit, now ticked down to about 18 days.  I have done the bulk of the catalogue now, so I can focus more on marketing the Kindle books and the printed book.  At the moment it's all format, format, format and what I want to do is write, write, write.

There are issues with the storefront too.  I can't give away a complete freebie.  If the checkout total is zero, it doesn't recognise that anything is then owed to the 'customer'.  A new 'free stuff' page has been added to the outer storefront instead, but it's a shame that the specials I've added just won't work.  The feature item for Journal of a Cat of Leisure looked great on the front page with a photo of the Cat herself.  Whatever I do though, a zero total amounts to a zero downloadable product.  There might be a way around it but it will no doubt mean getting into the code and I can't really face that just now.

[Edit] Free download items are fixed and remain listed in account downloads after checkout.  Much easier than anticipated, so Foobyevsky continues to grace the storefront, not that I'll wait with bated breath for downloads to begin.

For a turn-key solution though, the store application is brilliant.  PHP and MySQL, my old friends, and it's so easy to configure.  It was mildly deflating at first to have nothing to do, then I started customising the appearance a bit and changing stylesheets, then I ripped the outer shell to put on straightforward html files for the outer site.  So I got to do some tinkering, if not much.

What I've been doing might look like I've been putting a lot more strain on my eyes than I actually have.  The designs were done years ago and sitting waiting to be used for something.  I exported some graphics, compiled some documents then printed to PDF.  Using WYSIWIG software, it's hardly vision intensive.  I've been working with each of the programs used for so long now, I can almost read without looking - I know where things should be and it's only when they aren't that I have to focus in.

What is under strain is my imagination.  I really want to be writing before I lose the gist of the story.  Didn't think it would take quite so long to compile all these documents, didn't think I'd lost my Acrobat licence key and didn't think the wireless card on this laptop would be quite so flaky.  Seem to be resetting it every half hour, which when your whole product hinges on being online, is quite a chunk out of your productivity.

The drive is still coming from the charity angle.  It's not for me, so I feel like I have to give it more than I would were there only me to lose out by getting nothing done.  I've not heard anything back on a few prospective emails sent out, so I have some follow-up calls to make, hopefully not too long or I'll never afford the phone bill.

My passion though is still writing and I'm really excited about the story I've got.  Giving nothing away until I have things at a stage much nearer to going public though.  My lead is cool with a catchy name, there's potential to write a sequel and from there perhaps a series.  If it turns out alright and I get somewhere with it, of course.  If not, I'll probably just blog a whole lot more...

Hindrances

Yet more diversion from actual writing.  The past few days have been spent formatting up PDF downloads for the website and finding out just what the hell is going on with the ISBN on the 'real' book.

There are now 34 products listed on the website, loads more to add yet, and I just published the first knitting pattern via Kindle.  The Union Jack Beanie was a challenge to design, make and format into a pattern that's readable on Kindle.  You'd normally get a chart for intarsia projects, but on Kindle that wasn't going t work.  Instead, I went step by step through the whole thing saying knit x red, y white, z blue and so on.  It works though, so hopefully it'll catch on!  Maybe the Olympics will give it a boost.  In case you're curious, check it out:

The ISBN thing really got my goat.  There are ways around it, but they all involve me buying a block of ten numbers for £120, or going through a UK publish on demand service that charges even more than that.  It turns out that although createspace is a subsidiary of Amazon, if you publish using their allocated ISBN, you can't then list your book anywhere but the USA.  You can't even set up as an Amazon UK seller and list your book because the ISBN doesn't resolve to a physical inventory item.  So get some copies?  No, the ISBN still refers to a virtual book even when there are printed copies in existence.  I might not have been so shall we say 'cheesed off' if this information had been made clear anywhere.  The documentation though says they do not have UK and European distribution channels and in fact tells you to set up as an Amazon seller or go through Amazon Advantage.  Well, the first doesn't work as explained above, and the second requires you to be a registered business willing to pay for the privilege of setting up your Amazon store.  So, if you're just someone trying to raise some money for charity, you're a bit 'stuck'.  What's more frustrating is it's an International Standard Book Number.  These must be international in the sense of the World Series being worldwide.

I suppose when my finances are back in order, I might buy that block of ten numbers, because I will have use for at least a couple more of them.  I say that, but I've written nothing but product blurbs in days now and may have forgotten how to write anything else by the time I reach the point where I can turn my attention back to Max and his exploits.

In the meantime, to complete a collection, I have three more charts to design and many more to format and upload.  Someone might even buy something eventually, but I won't hold my breath.  From what I can tell though, being able to create something quickly bears no relation to how quickly that can then be turned into sales. It's not often I move faster than everyone else and I don't think I like it...

Non-stop

Updated the blurbs on the Kindle books.  They were far too clinical; almost like dictionary entries.  They're a lot more personable now and give a bit more info where it matters, a bit less where it's not needed.  Not sure how I update the blurb to go with the printed book and since publishing, the site has become a nightmare to navigate.  It needs to be done though, so I'll have to figure it out.

What else have I done today, apart from catch up on sleep?  Created a professional-looking email template to send to potential retailers and sent it to the first one.  See what they come back with before sending any more.  Always a good idea to test the pitch!

Also reformatted some PDF downloads to 'maintain a consistent brand'.  I've learned a lot about these things in the course of my various jobs.  What I don't know is how long it will take to build things up.  As long as it takes, I suppose.  It's a very similar feeling to job hunting and we all know you have to keep trying with that too.  I'll wait to gauge success rate before working on any more design titles in print.  With Kindle it might be more a case of saturate the market.

Must remember that design titles are not my ultimate goal though and put some time in on the novel.  People are dying horribly in my head all the time and others are on the trail of the killer, but I'm not putting it on paper and that is not good.  One thing at a time though.

Overnight, but a success?

So tired I'm not sure I'll make it up to bed.  You know when you get engrossed in something and you just want to finish one bit, and then the next?  Building database driven websites is not what I usually get stuck on.  It's usally a good book or some writing.  Hadn't built a site for a long time and definitely not a PHP/MySQL job, but it was good to retrieve some data from the old brain.

The result is a not quite finished but fully operational author and ecommerce site.  It seemed easier than becoming an Amazon seller to peddle my wares.  Might have somewhat misjudged that, but I'm not beholden to anyone this way.  The printed book will only make it onto Amazon UK if I sign up and sell it myself.  I notice they can handle the fulfilment though, which would be useful.  They will do anyway ultimately.

The book is more expensive to ship from the publisher site, so I figured since it's print on demand, I'll take an order and go straight to Amazon.com, shipping directly to the customer.  It's the easiest way to get international shipping and handling and the packaging will be good!  Of course, I need to sell an actual book before I worry about that.

Might end up switching back to eBay sales to raise those pennies and I hate that.  No printed documents if I do. 

I have more download products to format up and add to the site.  It's quite funky for turn-key gnu license.  I can specify how many times a buyer can download the file before they have to pay again.  Stops them sending the link and login to someone else.  Don't think I'd guard things so jealously if it weren't for the charity aspect.  I can't really deny responisibility now I've spammed half the known universe with tweets and posts and stumbles and blogs.  Was going to develop a newsletter, but think I might wait until I have a few users to send it to.

Falling asleep after my all night configuration session, so link, then off to get some zeds - http://julietfoster.co.uk - feedback would be good, but not as good as multiple purchases...

A strange feeling

Wow again!  Am I excited, am I nervous, or am I both?

The printed book is now finished and live in my createspace store.  It will appear on Amazon in the next few days.  I guess the idea of having a book out is exciting and the idea of it just not selling is nervewracking.  Thanks to the brilliant service from createspace it looks fantastic.  The cover design is consistent with the eBook minis and the interior is just exactly what I had in mind - full colour on every page, charts in full colour plus symbols so they couldn't be easier to follow, and if I do say so myself, they look great.

Printed Book
Kindle Books

The really nervewracking thing is that all proceeds from this book and the Kindle books in the Egyptian Collection are for charity.  If I can't market them, I feel like I'm breaking a promise.  Please tweet, post, blog, email, +1, whatever it is you do, to your heart's content and help out a good cause.

The MS Society does not only help people affected by MS in the UK.  The research projects they contribute to benefit people the world over.  MS is more understood than it was just a few years ago thanks to ongoing research, but we still don't even know the exact cause or how to stop it.  Every penny raised on these books will make a difference.

Yes, that's definitely why I'm nervous.  What if I never get a royalty cheque on any of them?  I've sold a few of the Kindle books, but it's not enough.  Don't make me go back to selling on eBay, people - the insertion fees and PayPal fees alone take a chunk out of whatever I manage to raise.  Sure, the books are not 100% return, but to stay competetive on eBay, I have to price items so low that pennies is all I get in return.

I'm willing to spend my own money to boost sales.  I don't, however, have much in the way of disposable income right now and I'm relying on word of mouth and social networking to get the message out.  Please, people of the Internet, all it takes is a share and a couple of words about quality products sold for charity.  They are not cheap and nasty homemade items.  They are painstakingly designed, professionally made books and ebooks.  Buyers will not be disappointed!!

Walk before trying to run

 

Wow.  What an impressive service from Fasthosts and impressive price too – web space up and running and DNS updated within about two hours of transferring in.  That’s how to live up to your brand name and no mistake.  I took the space for the scripting ability.  It’s been quite a while since I played with PHP and MySQL, so hoping it’ll all come back to me once I get stuck in.  Whilst the book and ebooks are taken care of by Amazon and Createspace, there are other publications I’ll have to control.  Things like cards from the photography, needlework charts by PDF and knitting patterns (if I ever design any more of them) that I can’t easily sell by other means.

Of course, I’m getting miles ahead of myself here.  How am I going to manage inventory and shipping for these things when I’ll soon be back to work?  How am I going to stay awake long enough to barrage social networking sites with sales messages, let along fulfil orders?  That’s assuming I ever receive any orders of course. 

Before I can even sort out the ‘real’ book sales channels, I need to complete forms for the IRS.  HMRC, all is forgiven – you make it so easy to find out what needs to be done.  The American IRS site is really difficult to fathom out and the documents are in English, but it’s very legalistic English and I haven’t a clue what I’m doing.  At the worst they’ll send it back, I suppose and tell me to start again.

If I don’t fill out these forms, I’ll be charged income tax by the IRS that as a UK citizen I’m protected from by tax treaty.  It’s a painful 30% from any royalties and since sales of this first book are for charity, that thought really bothers me.  That’s 30% of a donation, not just 30% of royalties and it won’t make much, if anything, to begin with.  I’ll get my head around it all somehow.

Now I’m having misgivings about the website too.  I really quite like the neat grey and orange tabbed format, but that throws up a few problems.  A tabbed page means all the code is embedded on one page and organised by javascript.  Problem?  Linking to items is hit and miss and traffic statistics will report one page view when someone might have been checking every tab ten times over.  It completely screws up hits versus views and means I can’t spam people with links to a specific item.  Back to separate pages per category and a messier overall look than I wanted.  I might seem scatty but my tortured little brain likes things to be simple and straightforward.  

This all seemed like such a good idea in the beginning.  I did think it through and I thought ok, go for it.  It’s for a good cause.  I’ve not lost motivation at all.  Just hope I haven’t grossly mistimed launch.  Maybe slow down a bit and stop pressuring myself so much.  The only person with any expectations is me, and I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to what I want from me.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the saying goes.  My little charity empire doesn’t have to be either.  Will I listen though…?

Ctrl+ yourself woman

After a whole night and day of extracting, pasting, formatting and re-formatting uploading, being kicked out and reformatting again, I decided to give up using the online templates and create the whole damn thing myself. What damn thing? Why, the actual book to complete the Egyptian Collection series of course! The 32 page full colour soft-back glossy book that in 48 hours will be availble to buy the world over. It's quite exciting in a sad sort of way. It's no best seller category work - it's just a simple idea I had to raise some money and awareness for the MS Society. But to see my name on the cover of a book and maybe sell a few copies of something all my own work, it's exciting. Many thanks to my sister for her immediate and accurate explantion of how to get around a software shortcoming - worked a treat and saved me hours of annoyance.

The book will be the big daddy to the Kindle books of smaller designs. I've sold a few copies of those but not enough to write home about.  Need to look into some marketing strategies.  It's not for my personal gain so I'm quite unashamed to keep plugging away.  If only everyone would realise the way to shut me up is to buy a copy of at least one of the publications, it would be so much better all round.  On that note, here are some handy links:

I've been amazed just how easy both publication processes have been.  I had the content already; have had it for years just sitting on the hard drive doing nothing.  All it took was following some guidelines and uploading.  It was a bit like being at work really.  Second nature to create a document, format it according to rules and upload it through an online publishing tool.  Of course I got to choose a lot more of the options, but it's an eerily similar process.

It took a long time, eyes not co-operating (with each other never mind with me), scrolling pages kicking off a swimming head into the deep end, but I've been able to keep at it and that's progress.  That just hasn't been possible for a long time.  A little more work on physical strength and normality is not far off.  That's quite exciting too in its equally sad little way.

There'll no doubt be another post in less than 48 hours to extoll the virtues of buying my book for the good of mankind.  All proceeds to the MS Society on that one too - now to tackle the next job - learning how best to market these products without spending any (excessive) money to do so.  Check out the books, blog them, tweet them, share them on facebook, whatever it is you do to spread the word on anything.  It's for a very good cause that otherwise doesn't get much publicity.  If I figure out the best way to harness the power of social networking, I'll publish a book about it.

And so it begins

Well the first two eBooklets are live in the Kindle store, and so far a massive two units have sold (yes, to kind and generous friends) and I’m wondering what I can do to promote them.  It’s for charity, and I know the motifs have appeal because I used to sell them commercially.  Here they are for you to see, the Eye of Horus and Heh, god of Mischief (Chaos).

Spent a while creating a Myspace account last night, added the links and information, and today the account has been deleted.  Apparently a band can promote their gigs, but an author can’t promote her books sold for charity.  How does that equal fair?

The plan is to create one more eBooklet in the ‘Egyptian Collection’ then to produce an actual book using the createspace.com print on demand scheme.  I know most stitchers prefer a printed format.  No matter how I tried to sell in PDF format all those years ago, everyone wanted hard copy and that’s what kept my costs always just above my revenue.  On the sarcastic plus side, at least the tax man got nothing from me.

If I can get a book formatted up and get it on sale, there’s more than just Amazon as an outlet.  There are so many crafting sites out there that might add it to their catalogues.  No stock outlay for them, and that has to be worked out is what cut they might demand.  It is for charity, but I can’t imagine many will sell it for free.

As day three was dawning I was still awake and wondering just what I’ve let myself in for.  I can set up promotional pages here, there and everywhere, but they have to be maintained.  Do I have the energy and dedication for this?  Should I just go back to selling on eBay and refusing to send out charts in print?  The thing I liked about the Kindle method for this was that it’s a much more mutually exclusive sale.  People won’t finish the designs on their Kindle then pass the device on to someone else.  Where it falls down is the crossover between audiences.  People buy a Kindle to read on the move.  How likely are they to have their sewing gear with them in the park or on the plane?

Whatever I decide to do in the long run, I have a whole lot of documents to create and format up.  The third instalment of eBooklets, the real book format, the PDF formats and who knows?  One day I might spend some time on writing!

I do want to raise some money for the MS Society and I’m not up to a challenge trek.  Let the virtual challenge continue…

Having a go for the good

This morning I started a new blog, a completely separate one to this.  I had the notion of blogging to raise awareness and understanding of MS without turning this one into a personal agenda forum.  Then I thought I don’t get that many views on this one, so why would a second achieve any more.  So I deleted it.

Then I had a think about what skills I have that I could use to raise awareness and understanding and also some cash for research and support.  Years ago I designed and sold cross stitch charts on eBay.  It was interesting to see that people actually wanted what I’d created and were willing to not only pay for it but sometimes get into bidding wars.  I had a best seller, a customer database with actual customers in it, and my stuff was going worldwide.  I shipped charts off to Australia, to China, to France and to Italy and all over the UK.  I never broke even though – the cost of listing, paypal fees, printing and postage alone was going to take years to win back.  I couldn’t give it the time it needed to make it go anywhere, and I couldn’t give up the day job because the design business would have cost me more than it made for quite some time, so I just stopped.  Sent the last customer her charts and never listed again.

But I still have all of those designs that people were willing to buy.  What about those?  Well I wasn’t going to down the eBay route again – already proven a failure and I want decent returns to be sending off to the MS Society – but what about Kindle?  I write and I will get something out there some day in the not too distant future, so I already have an Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing account and contract.  All I have to do is format up the charts into a Kindle eBook and publish.  I never have to touch it again.

No-one will be able to read the charts from a Kindle, you Muppet, I hear you cry.  Well I checked to see what’s already out there and there are some titles on Kindle.  The main complaint is that large charts are near impossible to read.  But what if I took the best seller, an Egyptian Sampler, and broke it down motif by motif into small charts that could be displayed better then take the buyers step by step through placing the motifs.  A guided jigsaw puzzle.  That would work.  So I started creating it in a Word document first.  Problem with that is the sheer number of images and the resolution they had to have made the document a bit large.  If your files are more than 1MB in size, you pay a surcharge from your royalties.  Canny, Amazon, very canny.  It would take a lot more working out how to minimise the file size. 

The motif’s though, are perfect little card and gift designs.  So what I have done and it’s taken ages to get the formatting just right (thank you Word, your HTML sucks but I’m supposed to include page breaks ), is take the first of several motifs, create its own little chart and key and its own instructions and call it part of the Egyptian Collection by Juliet Foster: In support of the MS Society.  It always sounds more marketable if you call it a collection and not just ‘stuff’.  Created my cover image (must find my PhotoShop disk because the injured laptop nearly didn’t boot) and after many run throughs  with Kindle Previewer, finally created a Kindle book where you can read the symbols on the chart and the key with no issues.  It’s been uploaded and is currently at status ‘in review’.  It has to be vetted in case I didn’t bother spending all that time compiling everything to spec.

So by tomorrow morning, I should know whether I’ve successfully published something for worldwide consumption for which all proceeds will go to the MS Society.  I’m quite pleased I found something I could do that might reach a lot more people than a blog, raise awareness, but more importantly raise some cash for a good cause too.  It might not sell.  It might just languish there for all eternity and never raise enough for Amazon to put a cheque (or check as they say) in the post.  For some reason I’m horrible nervous.  No idea why.  There’s absolutely no further obligation from me other than to do a few more of these little eBooklets, sit back, wait and see.  Of course I’ll also have to pay any money that comes in to the intended recipient, but that’s a simple matter – it won’t come in that often even if it does reach cheque proportions.  So why I’m nervous, I don’t know.  Maybe it’s because I might be secretly horrified if the Collection sells well and I’ve pledged all proceeds away, but I don’t think it’s that.  Maybe I’m just paranoid.  Anyone that stitches, watch this space for details!

Another thread pulled

When I said this blog would show the unravelling of a mind, I might not have been aware of just how unravelled it was already.

I’ve just spent an hour or so, maybe less, talking to an external hard drive, starting quite nicely like friendly GP and building up to threats of unspeakable violence.  Oddly enough, it didn’t respond to either.

It wouldn’t respond to anything though, and that was the thing that set me off.  It’s a half full one terabyte expansion drive on which I store my music, my photos, and my general files that no longer needs to be on C.  Losing it would be a huge loss of data.  You could call that the stresser if you were looking to profile my behaviour.

It just stopped connecting for no apparent reason.  The laptop told me.  It didn’t send any sort of message itself.  I thought perhaps it had had a falling out with this laptop, so I recalled the old one out of its semi-retirement (it had to cut its duties owing to injury and ill health) and watched to see if the external drive would still talk to its old friend.  It wouldn’t.  It was clearly having some kind of major tantrum.

Well, what do you do when someone has a tantrum?  You take away their sweets and you give them the silent treatment, so I did the same (pulled all the cables).  I gave it a while to think about its obstinacy then returned its food and social sources.  It still wasn’t talking.

Time to get nasty.  No violence to it – it has all my data after all and I don’t want to damage it.  This was clearly a communication problem and the only way to make it talk was to scare the hell out of it.

So I reconnected it to the new laptop and since it still seemed to be sitting there with its arms folded and nose in the air, I decided to spook it.  You’ve seen it before.  People get a fright and suddenly they start jabbering away and looking to communicate with anyone just to have a sense of normality.  There it was with every opportunity given to it for an amicable response and still nothing.  So I systematically killed all of its connections, one by one until it was left connected to what was technically a dead body.  It can’t unplug itself.  It’s stuck there until I do something for it.  Imagine if someone left you chained to a dead body.  You’d probably be a bit worried.

I left it to think for a while, let the panic build a bit then I slowly reactivated the connections, in reverse order so it had time to worry it still might be chained to something horribly maimed.  As the last one activated, it whirred into life and started talking frantically to the laptop.

It’s still talking freely, handing over my data when requested and generally being a good little external drive.  Technically I tortured it, but it has no legal rights and I’m the only one that thinks it’s even remotely alive.

But that’s sort of the point.  I do think everything’s alive.  I apologise to inanimate objects.  I was wracked with guilt and sorrow when the old laptop, which still came to my aid today, became poorly.  If I pick up a soft toy in a shop somewhere, I nearly always feel compelled to buy it because I’ve given it the hope that it might be getting a new home.  I carefully avoid going to animal shelters because I can’t tear myself away from the first pair of big brown eyes, let alone let them see me talking to another dog.  Dogs are different, yes, and they do get excited that someone might take care of them.  But hard drives?  I’ve done it all my life.  I anthropomorphise everything.  I upgrade nothing because it would be that talking to another dog feeling.  It’s crazy behaviour and I know it, but I can’t control it.  The fact that a whole story about how I tortured a hard drive should really give me pause, but it doesn’t.  I am unravelled.  Perhaps I should have started this blog to help me pick up the threads instead of finding another loose one and pulling…

Paschal paradox

Two blogs in one day?  Well I’m too tired to do much else but think, so just be glad if the sentences are formed coherently.

An old school chum from Freyed Edge: The Early Years posted an update that set my mind unravelling again.  I heard it start whirring as though it had hooked a mighty fish and was waiting for the line to go taught.

The battles we have around Christmas and Easter to get the best joint of beef, the best turkey, or the last must-have toy from the shelves of the supermarkets set off a minor paradox alert in my brain.  I do all my shopping online because of the phenomenon I’m about to explore.  The rage, the competition, the absolute imperative to trample one another to win the spoils and take them home to the family really must stem from our most ancient genes.  The Hunter/Gatherer in the vast majority of the population of this country kicks in and goes out precisely to hunt and gather, forgetting the evolved processes of politeness, civility and as for good will, well that stays at home in the cave.

What’s the paradox?  Well, you’re out there facing the melee in all your prehistoric splendour in order to celebrate a Christian festival.  Some of you might be with me already, but for those that aren’t…

For centuries, Christian people have been taught to believe in creation and to denounce evolution.  According to Christianity via the prequel also known as the Old Testament, the human race was made exactly as it is today (minus the designer labels and Apple products (another irony which I’ll come to some other time)).  So when the festivities come around twice a year, there is no explanation for the frankly un-Christian behaviour that ensues.

Really, is there a better example of our primeval origins than their clear display over the meat counter or in the toy department?  Under the pressure to have the best at the same time as everyone else must have the best, and when there might only be one of the best left, how far removed are we from the idea that we were created as civilised, intelligent creatures?  Pretty damn far, I’d say.

If we are expected not to believe in the proven record of evolution, how do we explain that in the aisles of the supermarket at these times of year, people are barely even able to walk with their knuckles above the ground?  Do you see the paradox yet?

People are celebrating the festivals of a doctrine that teaches creationism and in preparing to celebrate they are displaying the most blatant evidence for evolution.  The two cannot both be correct.  They cannot co-exist.  But somehow, at Christmas and Easter (both festivals transposed to different times of year to hoodwink our non-Christian ancestors into entering the paradox) people are ostensibly accepting both.  Not that many people really remember what they’re actually celebrating let alone understand the origins.  Easter could just as easily be called Chocolate Egg Day to most.  I’m so much in danger of launching off on a tangent about why no-one remembers, but I’ll save that for another day when I’m feeling even less PC.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Neanderthal man brought home a leg of lamb to celebrate a festival that would, at its root, cause him not to exist in the first place.  Good news for the lamb, who has been spared by the cancellation of the man.  Maybe that’s what the reference to saving the flock really means…