(Extract from my book, "Earth & It's Contents")
Earth & It's Contents
by Ben Franks
The problem with it is...
Many things are wrong with the contents of Earth that cannot be fixed with a simple, one-off viewing of Die Hard 4.0. For example, there is the massive turmoil of disaster that surrounds the problematic subject that is Indian Food.
You may be thinking there are no problems worth reading about regarding Indian food, but you'd be wrong. You see, firstly, it's a lie. Whilst reading the noun, "food", and associating such a noun with the foreign country that is India, some amongst you may relate two and come to an opinionated conclusion (known as a judgement to boffins). To convince you however, that Indian food is a lie, I have arranged a collection of facts that I'm not going to tell you. Instead I'm going to pose to you a small, completely ridiculous and short argument to convince the naive amongst you that such a fact is true.
The reason why Indian food is a lie, is because back in the old days us evil gentlemen that are the Brits had a little organisation called the 'British Empire', which basically meant Britain's red carpet of trade and slave labour. Anyway, back in these days we owned little country called India, built up of rich people and slums. This little country was forced to give, more-so than trade, it's spice riches to the likes of big-man Britain. You may be thinking I have got my sizes mixed up, but you see this could be regarded as a metaphorical comparison if you read into it too much.
In short, Britain piked India of all it's bling.
Any'oo, after nicking India's spices our little Gordon Ramsay-like idiots who called themselves Chefs decided to hook up their obsession with cooking Roast dinners and butchering pheasants to attack the task of making up a plate using these little grain things some Navy boy had brung back from India. The result is Chicken Tikka Marsala. You see, the curries we associate with Indian food are actually made by the British - just using the spices we now trade for, but before, stole. This is the first reason Indian food is a lie.
For Britain, America and the land of French people Indian food isn't Indian and we're all too naive or can't care anyless to notice. So, at the end of the day, it's a lie.
Except before you begin to relax and take in that one sided, badly backed up rant, I must press you for another problem regarding Indian food. You see, I can understand Chicken but struggle to realise the benefits of Fish. I mean I'm not a Sailor, Fisherman, Navy boy or on the pay-roll of Helen Mirren, infact I'm not even Jamie Oliver or on a Sainsbury's advert, but my point stands: Fish goes with chips and peas, LEARN it. To put fish in curry is a crime. Enough said.
So, dear readers, from this I have summarised that Indian food is a lie and Fish curry is a dirty crime. And from a brief flick through of the Daily Mirror and several viewings of Ramsay's F Word, I have decided that I am right. Job done.
- December 2009.
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Canary word: Present
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Anymore wise words?
Haha, thanks for pointing it out Jenthura, I'll revise that.
Thankyou Minister, glad you enjoyed it
This piece was one of the funniest ones BenFranks has ever written. Ever. I thought this was hilarious.
And Ben, it IS a crime to put curry on fish.
Best,
The Minister of High Hopes
Hey Ben, one problem you had (and I'm quite shocked nobody else picked up on it) is your 'it's'.
.
It's means "It is", and you had it in the title and several times throughout the body of your story. You should replace it with Its or Its'(but I'm not sure about the second one).
Anyways, I really enjoyed the rant, nicely written
~Jenth
Thanks Moriah
So this one was not one of my favorites, it was quite confusing at times, and a lot of times I had to re-read paragraphs to try to understand exactly what you were trying to say. Perhaps you could go back through and see if you can get your point across more clearly.
I did however enjoy this line:
Keep writing, you obviously have a great sense of humor. You just need to refine it.
Haha, thankyou and thanks for the feedback!
Ben,
Okay, thanks for the advice and review!
Ben.
Hey Ben! Here as requested.
I actually enjoyed this a lot. You have a nice point here, one that wouldn't go amiss in a newspaper column, and you've got some lovely parts of writing. However, I don't think that it's quite perfect yet.
The thing is, here you don't really hit the spot on the whole 'humorous, ranty column' thing. I think Jack linked you to one above, which is a wonderful one, and a really good representation of what they're generally like. Thing is, you jump around a little here. At times you have the sarcastic humour thing down, but at other times you sound kind of patronising. At other times, the humour sounds forced and it sounds a little silly.
I also agree with the idea of driving your point home more. At the moment, it feels a bit wishy-washy and not strong enough. With a piece of writing like this, you want to grab your point by the lapel and ram it down your readers' throats. It's supposed to be forceful. It's supposed to be over the top. But, at the same time, it's supposed to go to the heart of the issue and make people laugh. It can be a pretty tall order.
I think you've got a nice start here, but you do need to work on some things before it's ready. Nice one!
~Amy
Thanks everyone
Hey Ben,
As requested.
Probably better to just say "the French" as this sentence is clunky as it is.
You've asked for a critique on the style, and if you're going for the informal, rant-based column, then this is the right sort of angle. I'd suggest you read around the web for similar things by professionals (like Charlie Brooker at The Guardian, for example) to find some more ideas.
I'm not actually sure you're that persuasive, really. Your main argument is that the British Empire robbed India of its food and that we concocted a completely new cuisine ourselves. While this makes sense, you don't really press it. I think you could come up with some more humourous anecdotes and points. It's a little on the short side when coming up with reasons to believe your rant, as such. I'm not swayed to your view.
This is what needs expanding -- this is the main part of the column. And it's a bit bare at the moment. Whack in some more jokes, more examples. The good thing about rant columns is you can pile it on, go too far, into hyperbole and it's okay because that's what this medium is based on -- exaggeration.
I imagine a lot of the above reviewers have struggled with the British vernacular throughout the piece, in the same way that I might struggle with a column filled with American references and slang. But the style is fine; it just needs MORE.
Fill it out!
Hi BenFranks. I'm here as requested.
Don't worry, I found this piece to be quite the little something, so I decided I might as well review a decent piece of work, right?
Alright, first of all. I am indian, born in India and moved to the U.S. so when you said "Indian food is a lie" I honestly felt a bit angry. Ahaha, but don't worry about that part.
Let's start of with a few details.
Most of the nitpicks have been picked already so we're good on that.
I just want to point out your punctuation. You have a couple long sentences that can easily be broken down into two.
This one is an example. I'm sure you can break this down. It's a lot easier for us to read and I think it flows better. But again, that's just my opinion.
Well, everything else pretty much has been said already so I don't think I'm going to go any further than this.
Just watch out for flow really...hmmm sorry! I don't know what else to say
This was entertaining though, I like the way you picked out names like Ramsay and all
See you around,
~Pink
I am here, (sorry for delay)
As a whole I thought it was very good. The paragraphs were pretty well structured. Obviously the main thing throughout is the humor. It certainly doesn't dissapoint. I really love the sentence order. I really don't have much to say, but its hilarious.
Please send me a PM or post on my thread if you post another column.
~DayDreams
Okay...
Don't worry about it... but why - if they don't get the hints - would it go to the extent of bad writing? It might just be a wacky, livened up comment?
Anyway... I'll take in your suggestions as I'm constantly editing this book!
Thanks..
Ben,
Ah, I see now. I have reread it and I can realize your original intentions for this piece. Just ignore me for being unhelpful xD
However, maybe you can add more subtle hints to show that is not meant to be taken quite seriously. I took the piece very seriously because at its base is a very serious topic, and I thought phrases such as "Indian food is a lie" and, "We Brits had a little organisation called the 'British Empire'" were signs of bad immature writing. You're pretty subtle in your hints right now, but I think you could maybe add more while still being subtle so readers appreciate the satire rather then just think of you as a bad writer.
-Elinor
Thankyou for the review Elinor, I appreciate your points and no, don't worry, you weren't harsh atall.
However, I'm afraid there is a slight chance you've mis-interpretted the kind of book this is. I feel this because you've asked me to structure the line "Indian food is a lie." in a more formal/professional way, which is fair enough, however this book is an opinion based ranting column and I think we need to allow some lee-way for immature comments. After all, this is meant to be humourus.
Anyway, Thanks again.
Ben.
Hi BenFranks! Sorry that it was kind of delayed, but here is your review, as promised.
^^
The problem with what? I skimmed over the first couple of paragraphs and it seems very much like an introduction to your book. If so, you should probably explain what
'it' is, but of course it's all up to you. In addition, you should probably delete the 'is' and the ellipsis. It seems kind of corny, like the intended suspense is forced.
Before I continue, I just want to apologise if I'm being too harsh!
What follows is an interesting and original little piece about food from different cultures. It's interesting because what you wrote is very much true. However, there were two minor things that really bothered me.
Anyway, I really liked this piece and I'm anxious to find out what direction this book is headed. PM me if you have any questions, and once again, I'm sorry if I was too harsh!
TTFN,
Elinor.
This merely depends whether your nationality is English or American.
The English use "s".
Thankyou Mo, Yes, very helpful feedback and I'm editing this book of mine constantly to try and make it easier to follow, but still hold it's ranting-style perspective.
Thanks!
Ben.
Hey there Ben, it's Mo, here to review.
Just a heads up, I don't tend to review Non-fiction (as I don't tend to know what to say), and this will actually be my first Non-fiction review.
This was good, and very well written, although I agree with everyone else who has already mentioned that it was a little hard to follow at some times.
I found this quite humorous, so, you did a good job there. It was very interesting. You did a good job of holding my attention.
Good job, and keep writing!
*Hope I helped in some way or another.*
~Mo.
Thankyou for your review Juni!
Hey there, Ben! June here (at last
), and just a heads up -- non fiction is apparently not my strong standing point...
Because this is an extract, I'm not sure how adequate this statement is, but "Many things" is pretty informal-informative way to begin, and I'd prefer "There are many things".
judgement should be judgment. No E. Also! The bolded line sounds confusing; read it aloud, dear.
Moving on, I think you've done a good job here, but there are things that can be improved, such as your sentence structure. Keep the humor; I like it -- very clever, but read your sentences aloud to make sure you've got cohesion and flow, dear.
On the whole, a thumbs-up-worthy piece. Keep trucking.
June
The reason for the capitalized names of foods is just a style to treat them as if they were names of people. It's similar to the style Jack Dee uses in his Auto-biogrophy based column book. However I can see where you're coming from.
Thankyou for the detailed review.
Hallo Ben. I'm Aushy, and I'll be critiquing your work today. :}
Alright, so, here's my nitpicks.
That should be "food," . I know, I thought it was that way too, I've actually had much trouble with that in the past. ;P
'British Empire,' . :[}
I found this slightly awkward. Perhaps try, 'Indian food is a lie because...' But I'm not going to tell you how to write your own story. Just a suggestion. ^.^
Neither chicken nor fish is a name of a person, thus it should not be capitalized. I find it quite humorous how in this place you did capitalize it, but then towards the end of the paragraph you did not.
Mkay, nitpicking is over.
Overall:
As mentioned by Treem, it was pretty confusing yet well-written. I know you know exactly what you're talking about, but we don't. Try to make it simpler for the... how should I put this... common minds?
Alright. With all that said, it was pretty good. It was interesting.
PM me if you ever want anything else critiqued. :}
Love & Blessings,
Aushy
Thanks for all the reviews!
I'll just be picky, I guess.
"realise" is spelled "realize"
this makes the sentence flow better.
I have nothing else, I love the humor and this is great for a blog/whatever you're doing
Love,
Fixed
Well written, a bit confusing at parts but otherwise good. Love indian food though.