Influences

I was listening to the third and final part f the Sins Of Literature on BBC Radio 4 and was all about plagiarism. In a way once the written word is out there it becomes universal and public.

“Plagiarism is perhaps the gravest of literary sins and yet writers steal all the time and sweat away their lives under the anxiety of influence. This program looks at the shifting sands of plagiarism, theft, influence and borrowing. The Romantics may have worshipped the original genius of Shakespeare but he merrily lifted whole sections of Anthony and Cleopatra from Holinshed's chronicles. In the internet age true creativity appears to reside not in what you write yourself but in the ways you can remix, mash up, parody and generally mess around with the work of others. Robert examines the extent to which ideas of originality are being remixed “

I suppose as writers we are influenced by others no matter how much we try to be ourselves.

Telly Problems

It looks  like we have telly problems. The TV is turning on and then cutting out again. The red power light flashes on and off and then goes stationary again. So reduced to watching TV on the laptop. I am not too bothered as we have unlimited broadband but poor old Spot is getting mightily frustrated without  the large screen TV.