Oh, for a cracking head

Sub-editors are a vanishing breed these days. The bean counters that run print media organisations think subs are an unnecessary cost, leaving production desks nursing the scars of the razor gang's frenzy.

This piece is a damned good argument for employing skilled subs, who know their way around the language, who can think laterally, who have sharp news sense and a dash of sensitivity.

Abdul-Ahad's piece is strong and fine. It's simply and powerfully written (and I wish I had his skill). It's good reportage.

But, oh, that headline. It's banal. It doesn't do justice to Abdul-Ahad's writing. With that head, you may as well pin a note to the top of the page saying: "Run along, nothing worth spending your time on here, it's just a bit of didactic hand-wringing."

I know you're not meant to judge a book by its cover, or a story by its headline. But bloody hell, all it takes is a wee bit of effort and a bit of thought. There's a headline in there that would have - should have - made that page sing. It's a shame no one found it.

Lost leader

Scottish port Mick Imlah, who may win the TS Eliot prize tonight, has died.

Railway Children

After the branch line went to Ochiltree -
I would have been fifteen – two men were shut
In the station waiting-room, and one of them
Brought out his pocket anecdote of me:

'The boy's a splurger! - hey, when Danny Craig
Passed him a flask on the train the other day,
He gulped it, just for the sake of showing off.
And he's a coward too, for all his face.
For after he'd taken the drink, he noised about,
And Dan, to clip his wings, made up a threat
To hang him out o' the window by his heels -
You know Dan didn't mean it, but the boy
Grew white at the very idea o't – shook
Like a dog in the wet - "Oh!," he cried, and "Oh! -
But how would tha ground go flying past your eyes;
How quick tha wheel beside your face would buzz -
Would blind you by quickness – how tha grey slag
Would flash below ye!" - Those were his actual words;
He seemed to see it all as if for real,
And flinched, and stopped, and stared, like a body in fits,
Till Dan was drawn to give him another drink;
"You'd spew with dizziness," he said, shut
His eyes where he sat, and actually bocked himself.'

Going in circles

(Brought to you by Gazprom. The copy taps are shut, this way I look like I'm working. Excellent)

We're a mixed bunch at drawing class - a couple of young, tattooed, dreadlocked boys hoping to get tattooist's apprenticeships, a lass waiting to start architecture studies, a newly-widowed 80-year-old man, J, L and myself.

We all have crisp A3 sketchbooks, newly-sharpened pencils and - speaking for myself - a dearth of inspiration.

I stare at the blank page and pick up a 2B pencil. I am no Kathe Kollwitz. I doubt I can make a line sing. Dag, our teacher, tells us to get a feel for our pencils (mine feels distinctly pencil-like, for the record) and to draw lines. Straight ones.

Tricky one, that. I'm not so good at straight. I can't walk a straight line sober, let alone draw one freehand (sober or otherwise). Even with a ruler, it's a bit hit and miss.

Sod it, I think, I'll draw straight-ish ones and see what happens.

And it's fun. Especially finding out what shades and thickness of line I can get by turning the pencil this way and that, by holding it differently, by drawing quickly or taking my time. I enjoy it, anyway.

My lines are wibbly, wonky, decidedly wobbly, but some of them are quite pretty. Who cares about straightness? It's over-rated.

We talk about circles (calming apparently), squares (solid) and triangles (aggressive). I'm sidetracked by the thought of hundreds of thousands of aggressive triangles on the march, growling angry iscolese-esque threats at all and sundry as they stomp towards ... where? I don't know. I got stuck at the bit with all those jostling, angry, growling triangles.

Now, two parallel lines across the page, a dot on each, directly opposite each other. We're to draw a circle using the two dots as a guide.

Much, much harder than it looks. He doesn't want perfect circles, but he is after something circular. Right.

I try. The first attempt's not so good. The circle starts off circular, but one of those irate triangles must have taken possession of my pencil mid-stroke, ruining the arc. I fail. Badly.

Try again. It's ovoid. Which is an improvement, except I have managed to take the left hand side of one oval and marry it to the right hand side of an entirely different oval. They don't match. Hmm. The teacher has a look over my shoulder and can't think of anything to say. Not even a mumble. The look on his face says it all.

So I keep trying. Over and over and over again. I'm determined to draw something slightly circular. It can't be that hard.

The more I try, the less circular they get. I have to give it up as a bad job. But I'll come back to it. I have seven weeks of this class and if I can manage to circle by the end of it, it'll have been seven weeks well spent. For sure.

After-school club

Christmas and new year was a bit bumpy. Cold and grey and gloomy. L and I both found out that fresh starts can be false. Ouch. As for J? The poor man was crushed.

Over a few too many beers not so long ago - beer is the balm for broken hearts, surely? - we decided we needed a plan. A Plan, even. Rather than whimpering and licking wounds, it was time to do. To do what? Something. New year, new you and you and you.

Well, maybe.

L, being a practical, level-headed type, already had an idea in mind. She sketched it out.

First, we drink more beer. No arguments there from either J or I. To drink more beer, we need to go out more. Obvious, really. To go out more, we need a reason to be out.

(I'd always thought going out purely for being out was good enough, but hey ...)

And L had the reason sorted too. An after-school club. For adults. Three adults specifically. The three sitting around a table in an out-of-the-way bar. The trio who spent a little too much time at work, thinking that work was a good way to dull the nagging ache of bruised hearts.

She pulled out sheets of paper (she's a producer through and through, this one. Everything planned, mapped out, timetabled. Impressive and then some). She'd signed us all up for drawing classes. She had sussed out extra yoga for me, more salsa for herself. She'd also scouted out some cookery courses, and there were drumming classes as well, if we were interested.

We were. We are. We're cracking on with it. Fingers crossed it works.

Blinded

In Youngstorget last night, 10,000 of us stood in the cold, holding torches, asking - quietly - for peace. We shuffled our feet to keep them warm, shielded our candles from the wind, we listened to calls for a ceasefire. Then walked from Youngstorget to Rådhusplassen, by the Nobel Peace Prize Centre.

I'd like to think what were doing said that violence diminishes all of us, regardless of who we are, where we are, or in whose name or for what cause we strike out. That force is the last resort of the weak and the foolish. That revenge is poison. That all attack and counter-attack leave behind is dust. That an eye for an eye blinds us all.

Three streets away, at a smaller demonstration, a riot broke out. There were running street battles between Stortinget and Tullinløkka between the police and gangs of youths. Bricks and bins became missiles, new year's fireworks morphed into rockets, burning cars as barricades. Tear gas and baton charges.

Blindness.

Good things

I've never been good at resolutions, new year or otherwise. I think, perhaps, I like change to be gradual. To ease myself into new situations, new ways of doing things, to ease myself out of things, habits, frames of mind. Abrupt changes disturb my equilibrium, leaves me looking for something familiar to grasp. It's not pretty.

So this new year, despite some gentle nudging from above, I didn't make a list of things to do or a list of things to stop doing. I took a deep breath and hoped. Hoped for some good things - for me, for the people I care about, for the planet (I know, I know, bloody hippy). Mostly I hoped for good things. Kept it vague, tried to keep it positive.

This year, for sure.

It should have been obvious

To the cinema this afternoon - nothing better than a matinee on a sleety Sunday afternoon - to see Max Manus, this year's big Norwegian film. It's the biggest budget homegrown film ever, about one of Norway's biggest heroes.

The Telemark saboteurs are probably more famous outside Norway, thanks to Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris, but in Oslo? The resistance boils down Manus and the Oslo gang. They blew up ships and railway lines, they sank the Donau, they destroyed government files containing the details of thousands of Norwegian boys, saving them from conscription and service on the Eastern Front.

It was a good film. A little flabby in parts, but the story - and it's a true story - is so good that any quibbles are better coming from a Norwegian.

The thing is, though, that despite knowing that King Haakon (that's him in statue form just up there) was born in Denmark to a Danish prince, was brought up and educated in Denmark, you know what I hadn't realised until this afternoon?

Norway's king - a man who is still universally revered by Norwegians - spoke Danish.