The Word Cloud

The definition of a word is often misunderstood. For some reason it irks me when corporations abuse powerful words in order to sell their product. It's absurd how they're allowed to harness emotion to turn a profit . . .

Lipstick, false tan, fake-eyelashes; despite what the adverts say, none of this is beautiful - they may help enhance your appearance towards some twisted template of what society deems attractive, but physical attractiveness has next-to-nothing to do with beauty.

And yes, here's where things turn grey and I focus on the negative, it's a rant! Let it be.

In February 2010 I visited Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration Camp, the horrors and atrocities committed there knew no bounds, the guards had free-reign over the inmates, which led to some of the most vivid tortures and humiliations being devised.

Auschwitz was unlike the other nazi concentration camps, they were constructed to profit from slave labour, their workers would fuel the german war effort by providing the army with munitions and supplies; Auschwitz, however, was simply constructed to destroy.

Oskar Schindler was a rich member of the Nazi Party. On one dreary day, he entered Auschwitz alone, intent on 'rescuing' his workforce from the clutches of death. Later that day, he left through those same gates with over a thousand women & children who would have died had he not acted.

Obviously it was not through mere influence that the camps officers allowed him to leave with those people, Schindler paid dearly for each and every one of them. At the start of the war he was a millionaire enjoying the fairest things in life . . . when it ended however, he was penniless.

The man sunk every last reichsmark he had into saving as many lives as he could, he'd given his all, and now he had nothing left, but he would never celebrate on his success. Rather than be proud of the lives he saved he chose to mourn and feel shame for those that he couldn't. He'd often break down in tears: saying how he'd give anything, everything, just to save one more person.

Look at yourself, right now, what would you give to save just one person?

If you can label it, if you can weigh the life of a human against a percentage of your bank balance; then surely you can see the beauty of Oskar Schindler's actions?

The world's largest population of sufferers of Albinism is in Tanzania. Being that it's in Africa, this may surprise some people.

Though at a higher percentage(1/20,000 as opposed to 1/100,000 in most European countries or America) than usual, it's still pretty easy for an albino to feel alone or be the target of bullying and discrimination.

Witchdoctors and practitioners of voodoo claim that the blood and body of an albino will bring good fortune for whoever . . . uses it. It's distressing to read the reports of what happens, they're hunted, butchered, slaughtered in ways far worse than any animal. It's not just adults either, these attacks are happening against women and children too. There was an article about a five year old girl who was humiliated and chased by an angry mob of 30-or-so 'adults', once they surrounded her in a dark alley, they proceeded to hack at her with cleavers and machetes, severing arms and limbs while she was still conscious. They drained her blood in a public place left only a ruined torso, the rest of her body was harvested for the witchdoctors' potions.

A five year old girl running for her life from an angry mob.

A five year old girl.

As part of a sting operation against several witchdoctors, a reporter video-taped her conversation with them, she recorded them discussing the purchase of albino 'potions'. Her identity and actions were sold to the witchdoctors by members of the police, in exchange for discounts on such potions.

She's received threatening texts and phone-calls from gangs of men, she fears for her life. In an article she wrote she professed to knowing she'd most likely die to these men, her knowledge of their influence in Tanzanian society does nothing for her self-confidence, yet she doesn't regret it. The thought that because of her actions, three witchdoctors are now awaiting trial, is enough for her mind to be at peace. That through her actions, so many more will live who would have otherwise died.

This self-sacrifice and acceptance of a horrible fate, for the price of helping others, is beauteous beyond compare. There's so much more to beauty than a pretty plastic face; empathy is beautiful, let it be the force which guides your actions, not a T.V. advert.

Now no one said it was going to be easy. In fact, riiiight from the start I've been told that writing a story and all the trimmings that come with it, will be bloody difficult. So three and a half years ago when I began battering away at my imagination and my computer I was in a lovely naiive place, where all that mattered was having fun and enjoying what I do.

But now.

Now I am actually, maybe, possibly, absolutely, perhaps considering (after more editing and help ofc,) that I might send it off. So I start looking through different parts of this website other than the critique section and start reading the W&AYB 2011 - and then I nearly had a coronary.

I am not naiive (much) and am fully aware it is an agonising, rejected, painful, impatient process, but on top of that, I don't even understand it! I'm not one for sending unsolicited MS' because frankly, I don't see the point in this day and age, but at the same time, an agent?! Me?! You must be joaaaaking.

So ontop of the disbelief that I should be considering contacting agents, I also got lost at the parts where the W&AYB talked about "soundbytes" and "synopses" and "CV's" and "SAE's" - bloody hell!
You simply have to get this process right the first time round, or else risk being doomed to float in publishing purgatory for eternity.


Eek, I'm going to become a Koi Carp keeper.

Here's that word list again, numbered and listed. Even at a glance I can see some old friends I'll sorely miss - 'thinking outside the box' for one. Not so sure about 'wellderly' though.

1.     Across-the-piece

2.     Actioned

3.     Advocate Agencies

4.     Ambassador

5.     Apportionment

6.     Area based

7.     Area focused

8.     Autonomous

9.     Baseline

10.  Beacon

11.  Benchmarking

12.  Best Practice

13.  Blue sky thinking

14.  Bottom-Up

15.  Brain dump

16.  Can do culture

17.  Capabilities

18.  Capacity

19.  Capacity building

20.  Capturing

21.  Cascading

22.  Cashable

23.  Catalysts

24.  Cautiously welcome

25.  Centricity

26.  Challenge Champion

27.  Citizen empowerment

28.  Citizen touchpoints

29.  Client

30.  Clienting

31.  Cohesive communities –

32.  Cohesiveness

33.  Collaboration

34.  Commissioning

35.  Community engagement

36.  Compact

37.  Compendium

38.  Comprehensive Area Assessment

39.  Conditionality

40.  Connectedness

41.  Consensual

42.  Contestability

43.  Contextual

44.  Core developments

45.  Core Message

46.  Core principles

47.  Core Value

48.  Coterminosity

49.  Coterminous Cross-cutting

50.  Cross-fertilisation

51.  Cross-sectoral

52.  Customer

53.  Customer insight

54.  Customer journey

55.  Deep dive

56.  Delivery chain

57.  Democratic legitimacy

58.  Democratic mandate

59.  Dialogue

60.  Direction of travel

61.  Disbenefits

62.  Distorts spending priorities

63.  Double devolution

64.  Downstream

65.  Early Win

66.  Econometric

67.  Edge-fit

68.  Embedded

69.  Empowerment

70.  Enabler

71.  Engagement

72.  Engaging users Enhance

73.  Evidence Base

74.  Exemplar

75.  Extensible

76.  External challenge

77.  Externalities

78.  Face time

79.  Facilitate

80.  Fast-Track

81.  Flex

82.  Flexibilities and Freedoms

83.  Framework

84.  Fulcrum

85.  Functionality

86.  Funding Streams Good Practice

87.  Future of place

88.  Future proofing

89.  Gateway review

90.  Going forward

91.  Gold plating

92.  Goldfish bowl facilitated conversation

93.  Governance

94.  Guidelines

95.  Headroom for change

96.  Hereditament

97.  Holistic

98.  Holistic governance

99.  Horizon scanning

100.                 Improvement levers

101.                 Incentivising

102.                 Income Streams

103.                 Indicators

104.                 Informatics

105.                 Initiative

106.                 Innovative capacity

107.                 Inspectorates

108.                 Interactivity

109.                 Interdepartmental

110.                 Interdependencies

111.                 Interface

112.                 Iteration

113.                 Joined up

114.                 Key asks

115.                 Knowledge bite

116.                 Knowledge hub

117.                 Learning outcome

118.                 Level playing field

119.                 Lever

120.                 Leverage

121.                 Lifetime neighbourhood

122.                 Local Area Agreements

123.                 Local Strategic Partnerships

124.                 Localities

125.                 Low hanging fruit

126.                 Lowlights

127.                 Mainstreaming

128.                 Management capacity

129.                 Meaningful consultation

130.                 Meaningful dialogue

131.                 Meaningful reusable interactivity

132.                 Mechanisms

133.                 Menu of Options

134.                 Multi Area Agreements

135.                 Multi-agency

136.                 Multidisciplinary

137.                 Municipalities

138.                 Network model

139.                 Normalising

140.                 Outcomes

141.                 Output

142.                 Outsourced

143.                 Overarching

144.                 Paradigm

145.                 Parameter Participatory

146.                 Partnership working

147.                 Partnerships

148.                 Pathfinder

149.                 Peer

150.                 Performance Network

151.                 Place shaping

152.                 Pooled budgets

153.                 Pooled resources Pooled risk

154.                 Populace

155.                 Potentialities

156.                 Practitioners

157.                 Predictors of Beaconicity

158.                 Preventative services

159.                 Prioritisation

160.                 Priority

161.                 Proactive

162.                 Process driven

163.                 Procure

164.                 Procurement

165.                 Promulgate

166.                 Proportionality

167.                 Protocol

168.                 Provider vehicles

169.                 Public sphere

170.                 Pump priming

171.                 Quantum

172.                 Quick Hit

173.                 Quick Win

174.                 Rationalisation

175.                 Reablement

176.                 Rebaselining

177.                 Reconfigured

178.                 Resource allocation Resource efficient

179.                 Revenue Streams

180.                 Re-weaving

181.                 Risk based

182.                 Robust

183.                 Safeguarding

184.                 Scaled-back

185.                 Scoping

186.                 Sector wise Seedbed

187.                 Self-aggrandizement

188.                 Service users

189.                 Shared priority

190.                 Shell developments

191.                 Signpost

192.                 Single conversations

193.                 Single Point of Contact

194.                 Situational

195.                 Slippage

196.                 Social contracts

197.                 Social exclusion

198.                 Spatial

199.                 Stakeholder

200.                 Step Change

201.                 Strategic

202.                 Strategic priorities

203.                 Streamlined

204.                 Sub-regional

205.                 Subsidiarity

206.                 Sustainable

207.                 Sustainable communities

208.                 Symposium

209.                 Synergies

210.                 Systematics

211.                 Taxonomy

212.                 Tested for Soundness

213.                 Thematic

214.                 Thinking outside of the box

215.                 Third sector

216.                 Thought shower

217.                 Tonality

218.                 Toolkit

219.                 Top-Down

220.                 Trajectory

221.                 Tranche

222.                 Transactional

223.                 Transformational

224.                 Transparency

225.                 Trialogue

226.                 Under-capacitated

227.                 Uplifting

228.                 Upstream

229.                 Upward trend

230.                 Utilise

231.                 Value-added

232.                 Vision

233.                 Visionary

234.                 Wash-up session

235.                 Webinar

236.                 Wellbeing

237.                 Wellderly

238.                 Who blinks first

239.                 Wicked issues

240.                 Worklessness

241.                 World café