EDITORIAL | New Look CV, What’s That All About?

The Culture Vulture gets a new look; CV goes CCCP says PHIL KIRBY

As you may be able to tell The Culture Vulture has had an overhaul. A revamp. A rejig. A rebrand even (I’ve always called it the CV to be honest, the other is a bit of a mouthful, don’t you think?) So this would seem to be an opportune moment to restate what TheCV is all about, and how to get involved.

We honestly believe TheCV has a role in promoting peace and harmony across the Pennines, reintroducing the wolf to the North York Moors, granting Alan Bennett a Nobel Prize, bringing Channel 4 to Leeds, and getting Teesside to hand back Middlesbrough, with a grovelling apology from the Boundary Commission . . . fair enough, this doesn’t exactly help. Let’s be serious for a minute.

TheCV is a website based in the North, about the North. The North is as much an attitude as a latitude.

Above all, TheCV is a conversation among friends. We always tell our contributors to imagine something like this; you are sitting at a table with the people you are writing for – maybe it’s a pub table and they’ve got a round in if that helps (ok, it helps me) – and they want to know what you think. Really, genuinely, actually, properly think. We are all locals at this table, you don’t have to be evasive, or artificial, or gushing. We are grown ups up North and we can handle plain, honest truth.

We’ve called this being a “critical friend” – and there’s a long overdue explanation of that phrase, but this isn’t the place. Simply, it means you are free to form your own opinion and deliver it as vigorously, volubly, and voluminously as you like. But you must be able to stand by your words, and be open to changing your mind if you come to see you were mistaken. It also means that if you are smart, super-cool, and positively pulsating with your own sense of richly deserved superiority, then please, take a look around you. Are you sure you’re in the right place? There are other websites where you may be more at home.

TheCV makes no pretence to objectivity, neutrality, or balance. This isn’t pretend journalism. You don’t need any qualifications to contribute to TheCV. We are in a different game. You can be as personal and provocative and prejudiced as you like – you can even be passionate, though that’s such a wizened, feeble, gutless word, knackered through overuse by corporate appropriation, that we tend to hit delete whenever we find anyone using it.

We are biased towards building up, not knocking down. Doing and not just reviewing.

We don’t think culture divides into neat, straight edged, pre-packaged categories. You don’t have to just do food or theatre or tiddly-winks or minimalist Scandinavian ’80s techno. Culture is everywhere and it’s ok to be into lots of stuff. Even artisan cupcakes. And it’s great to try something new. You don’t have to be a specialist or speak from a position of authority. Beginners can have interesting things to say too.

You don’t have to write either. Contributions can be podcasts, videos, photos etc. The medium isn’t important. You could semaphore from the roof of York Minster using a couple of old pairs of Geoffrey Boycott’s cricket whites if you like – that would probably make a featured article – but there is only one rule. If your personality packs the punch of yesterday’s mug of Mellow Birds, then don’t expect technological wizardry to save you. A bore with a MacBook Pro and the latest editing software is still a bore.

Size really does not matter; it’s what you do with it that counts. Don’t be embarrassed if your post is not as big or performance as impressive as some others on the site. Small can be beautiful. Sometimes a quicky is just right.

If you submit a written piece we think 750 words – plus or minus 250 – is generally enough. Any fewer and there’s a suspicion that you are struggling for something to say; more and chances are that you’ll start waffling somewhere after the fifth paragraph and you’ll lose the reader soon after. If you really need more than a thousand words consider writing two posts, or even three. The only real rule is carry on until you get boring. For many people this occurs the instant their laptop boots up. Contributions to The Culture Vulture must not be boring.

Don’t be afraid of long sentences, full of windy digressions, back-tracking conditionals and a thicket of subclauses. They add rhythm and variety to your writing, and they show that you trust your reader to have outgrown Janet and John. But if you stagger and slur like a drunk trying to give directions to a long forgotten pub then prepare to be given smelling salts and sent home for a lie down.

Preferably keep paragraphs short.

They are easier to read and look better on the screen.

If you are contributing your first post for us it would be nice if you sent a hundred words or so of introduction. Who are you, anyway?

Not every submission can be published. If the post is unsolicited and doesn’t meet our criteria we will be polite. If we commissioned the piece and for some reason it doesn’t quite work then we will give constructive, friendly criticism. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try again.

If your piece is about an upcoming event it makes sense to get it to us in plenty of time. We know that’s obvious, but some people!

If you send something at midnight expecting to be published by five past, you are having a laugh. We don’t share your whacky sense of humour. We have a life. Emailing, texting and tweeting every twenty minutes to enquire about the progress of the post will, of course, speed things up enormously . . . and if you believe that refer to the previous comment about sense of humour.

Do send new material only. We don’t do sloppy seconds.

Don’t just send a flyer or a press release or a bit of marketing guff. If you are genuinely enthusiastic about your event prove it. Don’t be lazy. Make us not want to miss it.

If you’re writing a review or a thought piece or just having a good old rant then imagine that you are with an old friend. Remember, we’ve already been through this. You don’t need to impress anyone. It’s a conversation so spare us the snarky. If you reread your own prose and realise that you sound like a dick then that’s what other people are likely to think too. And clever dicks are the worst. Save the piled up polysyllables for your PhD supervisor. They get paid to read that stuff.

Remember, it’s a conversation. We may have mentioned this once or twice. Conversations have a habit of going round and around, don’t they. Your individual post is just a move in the verbal dance. It doesn’t have to be perfect, definitive or decisive. You can always come back to the subject, change your mind, write another post with further thoughts, or comment on someone else’s post.

We encourage you to be imaginative, inventive and playful.

All the above are not rules, they are merely tools that might help, and you don’t have to behave . . . but if you choose flout any of the guidelines it had better be for a good reason, and not that you couldn’t be bothered or are simply a bad writer. The delete button is only a microsecond away.

Hope that helps, and looking forward to hearing from you.