How strange the change from 'Tuscan Biscotti' to 'Champagne Suede'.

When Walter Sheffersqueuetonshaw, renowned chromaclature consultant, offered the chance of an interview, our reporter David Rince leapt at the opportunity.

Here are some excerpts from his report:

Walter was waiting for me at the appointed rendez-vous outside the café in Grape Lane.  He was staring distractedly into his coffee:

WS: “They’ve put full-fat in this.  I asked for semi.”

DR: “How can you tell?  You’ve not tasted it yet.”

WS: “Just look.  See how the foam here is Tuscan Biscotti?  It should be much nearer to Champagne Suede.  Full-fat.”

I didn’t really see, but I was loath to doubt the finely-honed eye of the expert. *

DR: “Thank you for giving us this interview, Mr Sheffersqueuetonshaw.  I know that many of our readers have wondered exactly who it is that names the colours in household paint…”

WS: “Not just household paint, I do any form of colour, domestic and institutional stuff too.”

DR: “I see, so what exactly is the exciting world of ‘chromaclature’ all about?”

WS: “Essentially, it is about naming colours.  You could think about it as a kind of taxonomy of tone, or a cataloguing of chromaticity.”

DR: “A heirarchy of hue?”

WS: “Don’t be flippant.”

DR: “I’m sorry.  So what makes a good chromaclature consultant?”

WS: “Well, my training has been long and hard. This is both an art and a science you see – so obviously I can’t explain everything in five minutes…  Briefly, though, the aim of what we do is to help the end user of a colour to engage with it on an emotional and intellectual level. So, for example, if you want to choose a shirt, you might feel more attracted to one whose colour was Saint Tropez Zenith than one whose colour was simply light blue. Even if (and this is the powerful bit) they were exactly the same shirt!”

DR: “that’s … er… ”

WS: “From a marketing point of view, the actual naming is very important. An exotic foreign-sounding destination can give an air of sophistication and worldliness to a colour. A nice literary adjective can lend an aspect of intellectual superiority.  Foreign food, too, is often a winner.  Currently, I’m hunting for just the right colour to go with ‘Vyshhorod Insouciant Mechoui‘.

DR: “I’d no idea that…”

WS: “This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Lately, we’ve been excited to discover that there’s a flip-side to the coin, too:  just as the name of a colour can have an impact on its marketability, it transpires that the colour itself can have some value…”

DR: “In what way?”

WS: “As the science of naming colour has evolved, we have come to understand that colours themselves can, in fact, have strong emotional effects…”

DR: “I understand that orange is good for digestion…”

WS: “… well, quite, but that’s a very broad interpretation.  We believe that Mandarin Tea-Time is more effective for the digestion of red meats, while Saffron Tambourine can have a beneficial effect if one eats a lot of lentils.”

DR: “Astounding!  How is this understanding applied?”

WS: “Well marketing we have already talked about, but there are also more interesting uses.  I can’t divulge the name of the client but, seeing as we were talking about orange, I could perhaps tell you about the time my colleagues and I were involved with the development of a shade that says “we care little for your human rights, and can get away with it because we have more guns than you do“.  We called it Manazanillo Chilli.  I believe it’s also popular with branding people in the home improvement industry.”

DR: “I suppose this technology could be quite powerful?”

WS: “Indeed.  And it can be as dangerous used in ignorance as it can when used in anger.”

Agua Fuego, neither blue nor watery. A precise shade of red specifically tuned to the appreciation of 'designer' bottled water.

DR: “What do you mean?”

WS: “Well, for example, not too long ago we discovered that a certain education authority in the North had bought a bulk consignment of paint for its schools’ corridors.  It was a shade of green that we call Brassica Flatulence.  The effect on pupils’ motivation was devastating.  We convinced them to paint over the walls with Mintellectual, and saw an almost immediate five-point grade average improvement.  That’s more than the government achieved in 5 years of sacking teachers and slashing book budgets.”

DR: “Who would have…”

WS: “We’ve been ignorant about colour for so long, and we still have a long way to come.  For example, I doubt that whoever made your shirt would have enjoyed any real success if they’d understood the true nature of the colour they’d chosen.”

DR: “I realise that some consider pink to be a risk for men but… well… it said Financial Times… and I… is that to say that…?”

WS: “Angelina Strap-on”

DR: “Oh.”

Later, we hope to bring you more insightful interviews with the people who name fonts, racehorses and fishing tackle.  When David feels ready, of course.

ho hum.

Actually, I don’t necessarily have exactly those thoughts, but I just felt the need to use the phrase ‘poop deck’.  It doesn’t get used enough hereabouts.

On this very day in 475 AD, as I’m sure you all know, Basiliscus became the Byzantine Emperor, crowned Hebdomon palace in Constantinople.  I, on the other hand, in 2012, managed to do a bit of shopping, some light laundry at around lunchtime, and achieve an almost complete ignorance on the subject of Drupal Fusion sub-theming.

I think you’ll agree that that all just goes to show.

Anyway, yoghurt is what I brought you all here to talk to you about, but I fear that there’s no time left.  That’ll have to be for another time.

Still, I’m glad we had this chat.

One of my few regrets about leaving London is that a it’ll be that much less easy to go and see them live.

Anyway.  It also so happens that I’m learning the guitar, and I enjoy doing that by playing things that I like – generally by looking for the relevant tabulature on the electric InterWeb.

Having recently failed to find tab for ‘Wade Into The Water’ from Alabama 3′s charming ‘La Peste‘ album, I decided to pay back the tabiverse by tabbing it myself.

The results can be found on Ultimate-Guitar.com

Talltoise

Do you see what I did there?

Gecko. Our Gecko. Not yours.

Incidentally, the photo is upside down.  The dude is actually hanging nonchalantly upside down on the ceiling.  They do that, geckos.

Go, little gecko!  Gorge yourself silly on houseflies!

(*) and, strictly speaking, this chap could in fact be a girl.

On the 5th March 2011 The BBC broadcast a series of programmes celebrating World Book Night. Amoung them was the particularly entertaining “The Books We Really Read”, presented by the friskily intelligent Sue Perkins.

I was particularly struck by a comment made by Lee Child, blockbuster author of what is known as ‘genre’ fiction, about ‘literary’ fiction.

I happen to be married to a, frankly, stunning literary fiction author who has just signed a squeelingly fantastic book deal with Bloomsbury. As she explains it (and excuse my clumsy paraphrasing), ‘genre’ fiction is anything that can be slotted neatly into a pigeon hole – ‘thriller’, ‘crime’, ‘romance’, etc.

Literary is all the remaining fiction that refuses to be categorised, like “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen.

Lee Child gave the somewhat grating opinion that ‘literary’ writers are jealous of ‘genre’ writers, because genre writers could, if they so wished, write literary fiction, whereas literary witers can’t write genre.  He attributed this to the fact that, while genre writers know big words like anyone else, they are able to choose to use smaller, better words.

This made me wonder if his assertion could be tested in any way and so, standing on the shoulders of giants, I had the cunning folks over at CK-Conception knock up a simple tool to test the readability, and verbiositinessitude, of any text you care to drop into it.

You’ll find the tool here: http://www.ck-conception.com/leechild.php

I hope it proves useful, entertaining, educational, and that maybe it will even go some way to alleviating someone’s hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.