Sub-editors: how can I avoid killing them?

people are still sending me this :)

(also: that twitter thing is fucking genius.)

AHAHAHAHA. This is some rapid-cycling mental health disturbance that hits overentitled hacks as karmic payback for advertising frozen food: TWITOSIS.

As I wrote to the friend who sent me this, you have to be seriously oblivious or plain disingenuous to assert that your extremely famous dinner guest isn't going to get both your asses kissed for you at a restaurant six blocks from his own house. DUHHHHHHH.

(that's re: one of his other hiss-e fits sent to rival critic mentioned in the Guardian).

two more e-mails linking to this today. i feel like writing a giles coren-style letter back.

once a sub changed "that's a bold claim" to "them's fightin words" in a review I did. one friend who read it texted me to tell me this as he knew I would never write that.

the wonderful david marsh replies to coren; explains, gently, why subbing matters.

xpost: hahahah what the FUCK? what paper was that for, the cactus valley hollerer?

hot press magazine....never worked for them again.

I you put "them's fighting words" ronan into Google, there are only nine hits and one is from ilx.

one thing I would say, on that note is, if this keeps happening and you're pissed off, or worse, doubting yourself, just stop working for that magazine.

if there's no way to sort out subbing you feel is really gutting your work unnecessarily and leaving you scanning your piece with a fine tooth comb, feeling annoyance rather than joy or a sense of achievement as your piece finally appears in print, then this is INCREDIBLY SHIT.

if you can at all afford it write for somewhere you get along with, it's so much less stressful.

x-post probably all me telling this story

I got 17,400 hits when I just put it through Google.

I admit it, I start every piece with it.

I keep getting into fights by responding to innocuous comments with it.

I dunno if Pipecock's comments are innocuous.

Ding: Results 1 - 9 of 9 for "them's fighting words" ronan

Results 1 - 3 of 3 for pipecock neckbeard. (0.24 seconds)

Your search - "them's fighting words" pipecock - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try fewer keywords.

Only 2 results for "them's fighting words" + "Hot Press" and both of those are from the same blog.

erm...are you saying I made this up? you can't search for hot press online because you need to have subscribed.

I bet that's a real moneyspinner.

yeah it's a proven business model

erm...are you saying I made this up? you can't search for hot press online because you need to have subscribed.

-- Ronan, Monday, 28 July 2008 10:54 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, wtf?
Fake marcello?

Someone's being overly paranoid here.

"Overly paranoid" is redundant.

No, you're mixing up overly paranoid with the British economy.

q - i have to do a 'subbing test' for a job im applying for. but on the actual document (called subbing test incidentally) with the text it says 'write two listings', not SUB two listings. so im guessing id be wrong to rewrite the entire thing right?

Not sure I understand: do you mean there's some copy to sub, then there's an instruction telling you to write some copy in the style of the stuff you've been subbing?

If so, maybe stating the obvious, but don't just rewrite the stuff you're meant to be subbing. Sub test documents are often there to trip you on fact-checking, house style, consistency & the little things: double spaces, en dashes, date styles etc. It's really an attn to detail test; only rewrite where necessary, and lightly.

Other subs may disagree.

well the document is called 'subbing test' but in the instructions it says to 'write an appetising listing' for two programmes, for which there are 2 bits of blurb, one from a production office, one from a publicity office. the one from the prod office is about the right word count theyre asking me to write a listing for, so not sure whether to really write my own one, or to just try and reword the existing one slightly. if thats the case, theres not much there to change really.

maybe it is there to trip me up, not sure.

Ah, ok. So it does sound a sort of writing test. Ignoring me might be best.

who knows. thanks tho.

i mean, one listing has the title in all caps, the other is sentence case. doesnt even seem to be a house style to stick to!

Sometimes it only takes one.

Having begun working as a sub the last couple of years, I'm astonished, ASTONISHED at the state of some of the copy I have to work on. As a writer, the thought of sending in a piece of copy that hadn't been rewritten and reread enough times to be immaculate is akin to walking around with my balls hanging out of my fly. It appears a lot of writers, however, do not feel this way.

I can see why y'all start blogs. To avoid killing editors.

if any london ilxors know of any part-time sub editor jobs currently available this would be fun and useful (i'm one of the good ones that no one wants to kill) (probably)

based on what a friend told me who worked here, the spec always needs temp sub-editors, and they're informal enough that they could probably be cold-called

(disclaimer: i may be totally misinformed)

ooh that sounds interesting (lol also er challenging), thank you!

I'm not sure how to link to it, mark, but the subs_uk yahoogroup is a good source of work offers

cheers stevie, i will hunt that down on monday :)

i got my gig at heat via the group and now work there pretty much every month!

mark s, Dominic Wells - former Time Out editor - was looking for a London-based sub recently on Facebook. Caveat: I think the work would be on advertorials for The Times and Sunday Times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp7RDqY1S1o

cheers WF :)

Caveat: I think the work would be on advertorials for The Times and Sunday Times.

doubtless £££s tho

the closest i've ever been to working on a title i was ideologically unsympathetic to was a fill-in week on r3d p3pper when it first started -- and it wasn't the politics, which i was broadly aboard with (otherwise wouldn't have bothered replying to the ad), but the in-office banter abt pop culture: no one present had a clue

also i did a few days at WOUND CARE magazine once, despite myself being WOUND? DON'T CARE

should apply at The Wire for maximum pathos

https://i.imgur.com/mPgfVXT.jpg

:D <3

Just before I moved from London to Glasgow I did a few fill-in shifts subbing The Sun's TV mag. This was at the News International compound in Wapping - have never worked anywhere else with such tight, oppressive security arrangements. It was of course interesting in all sorts of ways, and yeah, the rates were pretty good - the Murdoch shilling basically paid my relocation expenses.

So you're saying when the revolution comes it will be difficult to storm in there and smash up all their computers, which was my revolution plan

I'm sure the security guards will recognise their common revolutionary cause with you and assist with the smashing of the presses.