2pm. There’s a quote by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) ‘I love deadlines. Especially the whooshing sound they make as they pass by’. But I’m exactly the opposite in that I need to finish a task well in advance so that I can relax.
Thanks for reading, Terry Q.
But for this topic I’m going to take a risk (gulp) and imagine that the Boss has just rung me up and said he wants around 600 words on ‘Deadlines’ by the end of the afternoon. Hence the time at the beginning of the piece. And also these blogs always take longer than an afternoon. My Dead Good Blog colleagues say much the same thing.
2-10pm. So that was thinking about how to approach this week’s blog. Now what? I’m now thinking about what is a deadline. Is it something to do with water, is it the end of a race, a printing term, a broken landline phone? I’m wasting time. Go to Google.
2-26pm. Waded through a lot of stuff with titles of Deadline. So many films and records. There are bands. TV series. None of which interest me. Fishing line? No.
2-35pm. Several articles claiming origin of word is from Civil War. (Note to self: they don’t actually say that it is not the English one).
2-44pm. I’d better include the following although I don’t like it:
The original ‘deadline’ was a four-foot-high fence that defined the no-man’s-land inside the walls around the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp at Andersonville during the Civil War.
After the war ended, Capt. Henry Wirtz, the commandant of the camp, was tried and hanged for war crimes.
Any captive Union soldiers who crossed the deadline were shot. The word first appeared in an inspection report written in 1864 by a Confederate officer, Lieut. Col. D. T. Chandler: “A railing around the inside of the stockade and about 20 feet from it constitutes the ‘dead-line,’ beyond which the prisoners are not allowed to pass.”
2-51pm. Ok I can sort of see that could be an origin but where is the time element? It doesn’t really sound true.
2-53pm. Where to look next? Another trawl through Google and this sounds more up my street.
3-04pm. Well, that was very interesting. I’ll have a coffee and cake and think about how to write it up and read a bit more.
3-45pm. It’s getting a bit tense on the timetable. But here is the subject that rings more true and it is from the printing industry. This is one of the best explanations I found.
‘The literal deadline was the point on the bed of the cylinder press after which the type would get smashed or would otherwise fail to print properly. On an offset press that used metal plates, it was the point on the plate beyond which the image would not print properly. There is a maximum page size for any press and once it is filled, there is simply no more room. One-page newssheets or the front pages of major newspapers would be held for late-breaking news but once the deadline had been reached, that was it: the paper had to go to press.’ (Thanks to Josna Rege in his blog Tell Me Another)
‘The literal deadline was the point on the bed of the cylinder press after which the type would get smashed or would otherwise fail to print properly. On an offset press that used metal plates, it was the point on the plate beyond which the image would not print properly. There is a maximum page size for any press and once it is filled, there is simply no more room. One-page newssheets or the front pages of major newspapers would be held for late-breaking news but once the deadline had been reached, that was it: the paper had to go to press.’ (Thanks to Josna Rege in his blog Tell Me Another)
3-50pm. Now there is the problem that often takes more time than you would imagine. Finding the images to go with the article. Have to have a printing press. Reluctantly the prison. What about the third? Got it, Douglas Adams started this off.
4-23pm now for the poem to round it all off. Luckily I know the one I wanted to use straight from the start of this article. Not always the case.
Parts
(For Maggie)
At the last rehearsal
the actress looks the part
carefully dressed in innocence
flowers on blue cotton
there’s nothing much to do
move that table
take a break
the sleeves of her dress
could be two inches longer
could be must be
there’s nothing much to say
and no one will hear
as you turn on the lights
in the spare room
at the back of midnight
two inches is four inches
of stitching and coffee
an hour an inch
but don’t think about that
because she won’t
and what does it matter
the play’s the thing
this is your part
and you know it well
know as the curtains rise
the audience won’t read
their unwritten lines
and at two a.m.
with one side done
you take a break
wrap your fingers
round a warm mug.
First printed in my collection ‘The Amen of Knowledge’ (IDP, 2013)
(For Maggie)
At the last rehearsal
the actress looks the part
carefully dressed in innocence
flowers on blue cotton
there’s nothing much to do
move that table
take a break
the sleeves of her dress
could be two inches longer
could be must be
there’s nothing much to say
and no one will hear
as you turn on the lights
in the spare room
at the back of midnight
two inches is four inches
of stitching and coffee
an hour an inch
but don’t think about that
because she won’t
and what does it matter
the play’s the thing
this is your part
and you know it well
know as the curtains rise
the audience won’t read
their unwritten lines
and at two a.m.
with one side done
you take a break
wrap your fingers
round a warm mug.
First printed in my collection ‘The Amen of Knowledge’ (IDP, 2013)
Thanks for reading, Terry Q.
