Indextinction
I don’t know you, dear reader, and I certainly don’t have anything against you. Now that I’m feeling so avuncular towards you, I feel it my duty to give you a little piece of advice. If you value your health, your sanity, or the health and sanity of those who share your roof, never, under any circumstances, attempt to index the book you’re writing by hand. I only tell you this because I care!
I’ve spent the last three days indexing 30 Years of British Television, and I’ve learned some things about myself. However much you admire and respect the people you interviewed for your new book, no matter how often you’ve praised each and every one as a genius at one time or another, indexing will make you curse their very names!
Here’s the problem. Indexing starts easy enough:
Person A is on Page 3. Noted. We’re certainly off to a good start with this indexing business, aren’t we? And Person A was in shows B and C, also mentioned on Page 3. OK, no problem, noted. Smashing! This indexing business is a piece of cake. Now on to Page 4. Person A is talking about growing up in London…Do we NEED to index the word “London.” Ummmm, nawww. This is a book about British television for heaven’s sake, London is a given, isn’t it? OK, shan’t index that. Moving on.
Now Person A is really on a tear, talking about growing up, cracking up his mates at school when he was a kid…
And then you see it out of the corner of your eye. You can’t believe it! A few paragraphs down, Person A is dropping names like mints out of a tipped candy dish — his influences. Peter Sellers, Frankie Howerd, the Marx Brothers — good heavens, do all of these people need to be indexed separately?! Oh thank you very much, Person A!
My better half suggested getting a bit of indexing software earlier, and I threw out my chest, struck a manly pose, and tutted at such an extravagance. It’s a shame, really. Had she stuck to her guns and insisted, she might not be facing the cross-eyed fellow who now peeks at her from around his computer screen muttering “you little name droppers!”
