Life in Six Words

Have annoyed the heck out of scribbly pals by pointing out the Daily Telegraph piece on describing your life in six words.

Outwardly scoffing, they have rushed off to meet the challenge which is of course consuming all their time.

Tell someone to write their life story in no less than 25,000 words, they will tell you they don't have the time. Offer them just six words and they will sit down and take just as long honing their mini-autobiogs.

Those fancying themselves as good on haikus are particularly prone to this one, and I'd hazard a guess that Wells sahib would try something on the sly - and be rather good at it. If Lord Sedition wasn't in purdah, and decided to toss something into the ring, he too would deliver the goods. But enough taunting the literary lions ...

So ... your life in 6 words, and they quote Hemingway's bid to win a $10 bet:

For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

On being told this was the shortest poem, Muhammad Ali is said to have come up with, "Me? Wheeee!"

I didn't really like any of the Telegraph's examples but these caught my eye:

Bad brakes discovered at high speed

Fancied self as haiku. Was clerihew

I still make coffee for two

Anyway, I thought this might irritate or amuse, and hope it doesn't distract too many folks from their magnum opus.

Speaking of which, I've remembered a Martin Amis quip that made me laugh. We were at some literary party and Martin was surveying the pack and asked me, as someone working within the book industry, wasn't I eternally bombarded with dud manuscripts? I said that, as a mere publicist, I didn't have much say on the front end editorial process, also none of my scribbling pals ever seemed to have anything to actually hand over.

Amis nodded with grim satisfaction: "Whenever anyone tells me they're working on their Novel, I reply 'Yes, neither am I'"

How about something between "Writing a novel? Neither am I" and "Working on that novel? Me neither".