Hello everyone, this is Diane Rathmussen, Makati with UK column. I'm really happy to be talking today with author Rosemary Jenkinson. I met her a few weeks ago at this conference called the Academy sponsored by Ideas Mattered, which was a fabulous conference. And actually Rosemary talked with one of my favorite sessions at the conference. So I thought I would bring her on to UK column to have a a discussion with her today. So thanks for joining us today.
Rosemary, Would you like to maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and and how did you end up at this conference? Yeah, great to meet you again, Diane, so soon after the conference. Yes, I ended up there because, well, I'm a writer and I had originally been picked up by the Battle of Ideas and I did a couple of sessions with them about writing and the the publishing industry.
So that's really they asked me because the conference was about language specifically, and my latest novel Memorizers is about language. So that's really why I was a perfect fit to speak at the conference, because it's my obsession, language and the minutiae of it. Yeah, I mine too as well. One thing that I don't talk about frequently, at least publicly anymore because it was so long ago, is that my my first degree was in Spanish.
And one of the things that I learned by learning Spanish, which I started learning in high school and obviously kept going and never stopped by studying Spanish language and literature. It actually improved my English skills and I actually for a while thought about doing a linguistics degree, which I started studying early on as well. And various things led me to down different paths obviously. So language is one of my first loves as well.
So this is a great thing to be discussing with you and, and obviously the conference as well for thinking about what, what language means. And one of the things that I, I want to bring in early into this conversation, because it's something that we both have in common, is that language has both got us into a lot of trouble. You could say that, Diane, but we. Love it it's, you know, sometimes our loves aren't the best things for us, right when it comes to consequences.
So do you would you mind sharing your story? I know it's difficult, but I, I think it's for those of us who have been through these experiences. I think it's good to get this out there as much as possible for people to understand what actually happened to it.
Yeah, uh, I had written an article about Troubles writing and Troubles writers, uh, for a very small, well, so a small Northern Irish publication, but it's a very esteemed one called Fortnite. And umm, so I wrote this and what happened was there was a lot of social media kickback about it. You know, that I had kind of, umm, been rude about Troubles writing and that it was very,
very important. Whereas I, my view was that I want to, to discuss or I want Northern Irish literature to be much more than about the Troubles. Anyway, So what happened as a consequence of the social media kickback? I received an e-mail from, from my then publisher and that was Dura Press in Ireland. And they wrote that they did. They had supported my right to free speech. But the fact was that they thought that it was not going to help them sell any books.
And they said we are rescinding our offer to publish you. And I had I was due to have a a novel published with them. So that was it gone on on the basis, I mean, ridiculously on one tiny article that there was only, you know, it was only a few writers who kicked back against me anyway. It wasn't like a sort of mass, mass sort of, umm, attack on all sides. So it was a very small thing in which to get my work cancelled. And now, you know, so it
affected me very deeply. I was so shocked because they told me they loved my novel and it was like, how can you love something and then just turn your back on that for for something which which wasn't even a terrible, terrible thing to say. It wasn't. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to say. It just kind of slightly ruffled some feathers. And all writers in history, the great ones, I think, have sometimes ruffled some feathers. Oh yeah, absolutely.
I would like to put myself in that category, yeah. You know Diane, you know how? I do. And you know, it's interesting. I wasn't counseled by a publisher, at least not yet. But I was published widely, obviously as a full professor in my field. And once the I'll call it the witch hunt started coming after me for me speaking out sort of in favor of things that I believed in as a professional librarian and a librarian
academic for over 20 years. When I started to not toe the line when it came to things like gender ideology. And when it came to things like, you know, what it was that I believed we should be holding on to, which is, you know, professional standards. And they started to cancel me. I, I know personally like because it, it changed the entire course of my life, which I'm now thankful that I have this wonderful platform with UK column.
But I just want to say for those of us who have been through this, it's a very painful process and you've ended up losing a lot. But you also, I guess if you want to put a positive spin on it, you also learn and grow from it as well. Absolutely, we wouldn't have met each other had this not happened. And and this is the things you meet the better people who stand up for your rights to talk Diane. So I I'm sure you've met so many great people because of this.
Yeah, oh, absolutely. People I never would have met before and, and, and frankly, nobody from my former life even talks to me anymore. And for my former professional life, so. But I now have a whole new network of people and it keeps growing and it's, and it's and it's great. So it's interesting to hear about the publisher deciding to cancel you because it was actually something when I was looking for a publisher because I'm, I currently have a contract to write a book on.
I'm basically driven by what happened to me around ideology driving libraries and how that is impacting our access to knowledge and information and the destruction that is happening within libraries because because of this ideology, what they're and you should be concerned about this as well as an author, obviously, that what they're doing is removing things in grown up libraries and adult libraries and university libraries where they think it's not inclusive,
you know, using that sort of coded language, right? Because we know that in this case it's an inversion, that
inclusion is actually exclusion. And this case, we're excluding people that are, you know, from the history of this country and your country and everything else, because we're, we're trying to be inclusive to the history and, and think of people from other countries, which I have no problem with adding and, and expanding collections as much as possible, but don't destroy the, the, the origins of this country that built this great university system here that we have in the UK.
But that's one of the things I'm speaking out about. And, and people maybe are not aware that this is happening. So what I would like to maybe hear from you about a bit is, you know, how well, first of all, I'm, I'm sure you have feelings about that and opinions on that. And, and I think what we need to do is maybe start to look at this problem together for those of us who are writers and who want to respect our right to free speech and, and to share
our ideas. I mean what's your thought on this as a a well known published author that I highly respect? But well, clearly any, any removal of books because of content, I'm completely against, you know, from libraries. Libraries are the place of that. We trust that we can get fined on everything and every kind of taboo must be covered in libraries. Umm, so I, I have no restrictions on literary fiction or anything or even. Yeah, or fact. There should be no restrictions
as far as I'm concerned. Umm, so I am. Yeah. I'm an absolutist with you there, Diane. And I think, yeah, the whole thing about yeah, nowadays we're just so there's so many taboos that we're not allowed to talk about and it's ridiculous. And the whole thing about even trigger, even books that are lie are allowed to be published, have to have warnings. Now the trigger warnings and it, it's an insane. Where does it end? Everything is potentially
offensive to one person. I there's just no end to it. And that's why we have to stop it. Yeah, and I, I, I just, I'll hold your book up here. It's just so that people can, Oh yeah, recover. I, I will make sure that there is a link to it in the write up for the interview so people can, can, can buy it.
And I believe this is one of the, the funniest things I saw when I started to read your book was that it starts with a government warning, interestingly, and I'll just read it out because I think it deserves it. But the following book comes with a Class A mental health warning. It may propagate deleterious desires for individualism within the reader. Can't have that anymore. It may lead to disaffection
within society. Whosoever circulates this book with a view to undermining government authority will be subject to state sanctions. Very scary, Rosemary. It's, it's actually what's happening. So it's a total reflection of society right now. And those whole trigger warning. So that was my fictional trigger warning, really, and warning against being in a library and everything. I mean, libraries in my book is, as you know, have all been burnt down.
And so, you know, this is where we're heading. And that's the danger. The dictator in my book says unity through language. So they're trying to control everything. And yeah, clearly books are the most dangerous things for dictatorships.
Oh yeah. Well, and, and the, the, the hypocrisy that's that I've been talking about in my reporting and talks I've been doing around the country myself, is that the other side of it that's happening is, and you know, I know that you are, this is a dystopian novel. And I, I've, I've interested myself in dystopian fiction and, and films and, and books as well.
The other side of it though, which is I always refer back to the scene from Brave New World where, you know, this director talked to the children about the unbelievable fact that children in, in the have maybe wouldn't even have relations until they were older than 20 years old and thought it was unbelievable.
And we see this now that the specialization of children for something that I cover is that what's happening is that the libraries are using this argument against censorship to put sexual content in front of children, which I've been covering extensively. But when it comes to people who are, say, over 18 over whatever, in my opinion, they can read anything they want to. Like, I have no restrictions
there. But they're inverting that once again to say, well, it's censorship if we don't put sex manuals in front of children. And this is the thing that I've been speaking about, which will also be in my book. So I think that what we're seeing is an inversion of language. And we're also seeing what whatever is behind this. And I think there's a lot behind this, a lot of big agenda items behind this.
But we're seeing that twisting, twisting it around and, and putting children in danger and exposing to things that they shouldn't be seeing. So we're seeing this very strange twisting around. It's really affecting a lot of things right now. I'm not. I'm not sure if you're aware that this has been happening. I, I never thought of it in terms of that inverse. And it's like a reverse infantilization of adults.
And in a way it's to control us, as you say, in order that they can push that agenda on the children. So if we are controlled, therefore they can give whatever ideology they want to children or sexualization because we're so controlled ourselves. So I guess, I guess that's what's happening. Yeah. And, and, and what I've heard is because I'm, I'm working actively with some, some parent groups and so on that are concerned about what's being placed in front of their
children. That in some cases when they go to the school or to the library and complain about what's being put into the curriculum or being put into the library, is that the parents themselves get cancelled by the school or by staff at the school for speaking out for their children. Oh, yeah. OK, so the authoritarianism is, is totally, yeah, rife in schools now. That's. I didn't know that.
Yeah, and and you know what's what's going on with our our lovely Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary who was mandating a national curriculum. And we, we already, we've seen this going on for some time now for the past few years of not only libraries, but in education.
So saying that children have to learn that because according to the UN and the World Health Organization and the WEF that we've been uncovering and some of our authors that are writing for at the UK column is that because of things like the UN Convention of the Rights of the Children.
And because, and they're, they're basically saying, well, we're doing this because of the fact that, you know, children are sexual beings from birth and therefore we, we can put anything in front of them at any age. And we should be because they're Born This Way. So again, but then adults can't read what they want because they need a trigger warning to read a, a novel because it might hurt their feelings. So it's, it's complete. Everything is completely twisted around.
Yeah, that's ironical completely. And yeah, as you say, yeah, it seems completely twisted. And yeah, I didn't actually know that that children are regarded sexual beings from age zero. I think we develop our sort of sexuality and there is sexual feelings in us all, but that develops and is often taught. I mean that's the whole thing. I mean, I think sex is so much taught and and that's what the dangerous thing is, I think. Yeah, absolutely.
And so, but if we're teaching children, you know, because some of these things are being put into primary schools, which means, you know, that and and, and also in the into picture books that are for children who aren't even in school yet. So a lot of this around the LGBT agenda being placed in front of children in picture books. So there's books like granddad's prides, a lot of famous books I've talked about books where you can even change your species if you want to.
You know that there's, you can now, now that you can, there's a book called the the boy who wanted to be a deer, the picture book, you can get it for free on Amazon. And, and it says the boy decided that he would be so much happier if he were a deer. And so his family let him change his species. And now he has antlers and he's so happy and his family loves him. So this is how we see the pushing agenda even to, you know, 2 year olds and. Yeah, yeah.
It's the whole concept of physical change, yeah, that we can physically be anything we that we want, which is quite a sort of quite a leap of imagination. Yeah, but now it's it's in, it's on paper and words. So, you know it's OK, but then when we see the trigger warnings that are out there for the rest of the world, for those of us who should be old enough to make decisions for ourselves about what we read. It's almost like Diana.
It's almost like a a kind of magical realism for children, you know, in a way that, yeah, you are magic, you can change. So it's really strange. It's very strange. Yeah. Yeah. But. So, So what let you down? This, this path of becoming a writer, What, what, what was it that decided to that that made you to speak to decide?
I'm getting writes dystopian satirical novels, like how did you get to the point before the cancellation, like when you were writing and into sort of more proper formats that were approved by the authoritarians? I like that, yeah. I don't think my works ever really been entirely approved, but yes, it was tolerated. And also, yeah, they, they appreciate skill in writing, I think. But I suppose my ideas have always been shaped by the world around me and the politics that are happening.
And umm, yeah. I'd always wanted to write about a dystopian world like 1984 because I did believe that we were kind of moving towards that. But. But originally I got into writing, obviously for love of language, just simply that as we were talking about, I mean, there's nothing more beautiful than being able to express what you feel. And that kind of satisfaction and, yeah, thrill of being able to express yourself on page is, is a beautiful thing.
Yeah. It's it's I think it's difficult to it considering, you know, as the the summary in your back to the book says, the West current involved in free speech and that your truth is the wrong kind of truth, right.
And that we see this in 1984. We see this in a lot of a lot of different the Dopian story storylines and novels where libraries appear frequently, and this is actually something I'm starting to do some research on because it's something I've been recently aware of the more I think about it. There's a dystopian film called Rollerball. Have you heard of this one from? It's it's.
It's, it's from the 70s, I believe, and I won't get into this, the plot of the film, but basically the, the main character at some point has reason to go visit a library and it's all been digitized and somehow something happened. There was a glitch and the 13th century had been deleted. So, so that's the reality of digitization.
And I, I was recently, just a few days ago at a freedom festival and I was asked to speak on the importance of physical versus print of sorry, physical versus digital material. And this is one of the reasons why the physical is so important. That's why it's so great to have your book here physically, because I know that it won't go away, right? That they won't go in and change it because that's something else that's been happening with all of the digital content that's
out in the world. Publishers, vendors can go in and either remove content they can change. They can change it if somebody complaints about it. We saw that with Roald Dahl, who the language in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was changed because it was I think there was a boy that the word was fat describing the fat kid, as you know, And then we can't say that anymore. So changing language of existing novels. But if it's physically in print, nobody can take it away the way
they can digitally. And we we're seeing this constantly with web pages disappearing. And and so it's really important to preserve everything that you can. You put people can see behind me. This is only a small part of my book collection. I have three more shelves in another room. So but whatever I have hopefully will survive. Whatever text it has on it, because they, I think it's just so important for us to have lots of copies everywhere because that's the only way that we can
preserve knowledge. And, and I think that's particularly true with things that for whatever reason, at some point in the future become problematic. I think that's the word they use for. So are, are, are you the same? Do you? Do you have this love of print that you just want to curl up with a cup of tea and A and a couch? Completely, Diane, yeah, I, I, I am for you can't see any bookcases. So they're all actually
downstairs. They have like a huge one right across the living room and everything. So. But yeah, of course, the the most important because you can easily dip into it. It's so much easier than looking up things digitally. It's you can refer between books. Everything is cross reference. I mean, the thing about also the memorizers really is about that she really goes on a mission to find a physical book. And this is really.
That's why I'm kind of yeah. Because I. Know now that if you notice in the novel, there's digital archives that keep being changed. So all this information is constantly being changed, but the one thing that can tell the truth about the past, it's about the Northern Ireland peace process specifically. She goes in to look for this book and finds, finds books on this. So, yeah. So that's how important it is. It is. You cannot change what has been published already.
Yeah. Yeah. And that was actually something that I, I learned in when I did my PhD, which was on photojournalism, looking at the how at this time, you know, this was 20 years ago, but they were, that was only worth trying to convert to digital photography. And so the news photographers that I, that I interviewed were
struggling with as well. Because when something is, you know, sitting in a shoe box in your, in your home, like they had, you know, all of these photos that especially the freelancers that had shoe boxes or the ones that work for major newspapers that had large photo libraries where everything is on
the shelves. And then you know that if even if you need to go back to get something historically, because something in the news happens, you can go and find it and it's on the shelf where it's in the shoe box and, and recirculate it if you need to. But what happens with the digital photograph is that they're harder to find, right?
So if you don't have the appropriate words, the language once again to search for those photographs that are associated with it so that, you know, you covered this rally on this day and and these people were present. And then if you need to bring that book back later, you know, how do you do that? If the words haven't been assigned to the photos, there's no way to find them again. The problem is that photography and language are like any other
medium. There are are different languages and there's translation that needs to occur, right? So the language has to be precise that it can be found again. But then again, we all use different words to describe things that are not words, if that makes any sense. Yeah. We do, we do. And, and quotes can be misquoted over the years and everything. And, and the thing that mean just the basic thing about digital is it can be deleted. Whereas books can exist in
libraries for centuries. And that's a completely different reality. Really. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And with the, the library books, you know, even if you have, let's say you have a, a book like a printed book, but it gets converted digitally, or if it's what we call born digital, which is published digitally, you can still search the word.
So if you know a few words that are in the book and you can search the text and things like, you know, the mainstream search engines like Google are pretty good at searching text and they can match word for word. But how do you match word for image, right? You can't search an image the same way you can use a word to search.
And so then you get into a whole different issue of textual language versus visual language, which is also something that's really fascinating to me. Like, you know, if you look at the cover of your book, this tells a whole story in itself. Just looking at the photo. The the was this a painting? Was this a photograph? What was what was that? And then also the back cover as well, which is also very interesting. So what? What stories were you trying to tell with those visuals?
Yeah, it was interesting because it was an AI image and obviously I was looking. There was a futuristic novel and it was something that I put in to ChatGPT and this was, and a friend did the one in the back cover. But The thing is about that, yeah, it was. I had the idea that the whole image of the novel was, was that kind of man without fused with a woman.
I mean that the the character is really very much, she lives in a very masculine world in a way that that there is war all the time and she's out at the front line with soldiers. So it's she lives in that and also she meets the soldiers. So it's very much the fusion of their relationship, but also it's the image of the grand commander. And the grand commander wants to be all things to all people so that there is no need to ever replace them.
So they want to convey, even though he's a man, he's a man in his 50s, he wants to convey this image of two sexes and youth and vitality. And so that was really an idea of that. But it's up on the like the Big Brother in 1984. It's up on the exactly. Yeah, exactly. But I was thinking myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is interesting to me because, you know, it's kind of like, you know, to me, this looks like female on one side, male on the other side, right.
And, and, and so that's telling, you know, there's sort of all the blending of identities and this is kind of what we're seeing now as well. And, and I don't even know if you intended this, but that's what I got out of part of this. It's sort of the, the, the lack of individualism, right? So we're all sort of blending together. We're all supposed to be kind of the, the theme entity that believes the same things and thinks the same things that we
can't think for ourselves. And maybe I'm reading far too much. That's what I got out of it, actually. Right. You know, I guess we all see different things when we read that. I guess that's kind of part of, of experiencing in any particularly good, well written literary piece of work is that we all see different things in it. But that's what I thought was kind of this, the way the individualism sort of leaves the room, right. And, and now we're just kind of
doing what we're told. And that's kind of how we're expected to live right now. And that goes into the the cancellations and the freedom of speech is that you're not, you're not acting with the, the oneness that they're expecting us to act with. And yeah, and I, you know, I, I don't know how we kept, this is not something that we've discussed previously, but I believe this is something that happened in 2020 when they all locked us up.
And I think this was part of the plan at, in 2020, you know, sort of this technocracy took over. If you think about it, we, we lost our ability to communicate. We lost our ability to just go for coffee. We lost our ability. Everything was supposed to be done, you know, in the on the screen if you did anything. And, and that cut off our ability to communicate, our ability to share ideas, to even see our families, all those things.
And, and I think, I don't think we've quite recovered from that. And it was really been when I started to see this, this whole thing sort of taking over this oneness of, well, we no longer exist as individual stay at home, do as you're told, do everything online, which wouldn't have been possible 20
years before that. So you didn't have the infrastructure in place that I think this has all been part of it. And people seem to have lost their ability in some cases or feel they no longer have the ability to, to speak up. And I, and I really think in the last five years this has been something that has happened, is that we are now just supposed to stay quiet. And I don't know if that was your experience of the 2020 era, but that's one of the things that I saw happening.
Definitely, that's what I was saying that I think it is. I call it the langdemic instead of the pandemic because our language was policed from much more than ever before. At that point. They realized the authoritarian governments realized that they could completely control us and that we wouldn't come out of our houses. Uh, so is it? It was a shocking reality to realize how quiescent and submissive we are to the state. And that is still following now. Yeah, our language was
controlled from then. So I feel I I do feel that. And I also feel that the digital, exactly as you say, that was the point that they realized that they could really control us digitally. Yeah. Yeah, and, and, and the language, you know, like there was a meme I shared a few days ago on on Facebook with sort of like they were talking to a group of Amish people in this little cartoon. And it said, are you worried
about climate change? And they said no because we don't have TV. Yeah, they're. One of the fews. Few aren't controlled. Yeah, they're not. Told that they're supposed to be controlled, but you know, it's, it is interesting though, because the language was one of the things that I noticed in 2020 was, you know, the if you think about the term social distancing, the the word social does not imply we have to stay away from each other because we might kill each other with a
so-called deadly virus, right? It's social. It's we're not supposed to socialize. And so that that message was everywhere. I read a lot about the I forget where this comes from. You might know, using things in groups of three. I think it was Doctor Vernon Coleman that wrote about this originally, like the the hand space, space kinds of things that they were repeating over and over again, everything in trees that that somehow that is something that sticks in our
minds. So we think hands based and all of those little, you know, save the NHS, protect all of these things that were, I can't think of them now, but they were sort of all over, not only on TV and on the Internet, but even if you were allowed to go into a grocery store and you would see them all over Tesco and wherever you manage to get out to at the
time. And so that language was really important, as well as the behavioral psychology that Brian Garish at UK column was one of the ones who uncovered this idea of behavior modification through increasing the fear, increasing the threat, the personal threat that was meant to be perceived by the public to control us, to make us stay home and and do these things. But that's all that all comes down to language, doesn't it? Yeah, and. I didn't think of that thing about 3.
So everything is 3, stop the boats, adult female, human, everything is. And I didn't actually think of that before. And I totally agree that there was. I remember I went about the climate of fear. I went to the shop and I was in the shop. There's nobody else there. The radio was on. It was like, get home now the radio presenter was saying, and I thought it was in the War of the Worlds. And and this was, it was like fiction. It wasn't a real world at all.
To be, to be under that threat that I was a dangerous person, you know, suddenly by being out there. And it was like, I'm just doing my shopping. Yeah, I'm the ultimate criminal here. Well, and then, you know, thinking about the language of even the the thimbles, right. So when we think about symbols as language, that all of the arrows, the one way arrows on the floors, remember those where you know you can. Get the. Feet, the stand here, the circle around it. You know, that's all.
That's still all the symbols, but it's still language of like, stand here, walk this way, don't go that way down the ketchup aisle. You know what it is. And so somehow this was supposed to save us, right? You know, even even the language of, of wearing a mask, right, is still, it's a symbol of fear, right? So even the, the symbol of, you know, first of all, you're removing your individuality by hiding your face. But also if you can't. So we've lost our individuality.
We're also looking at each other, thinking, oh, it's really terrifying to breathe. Can't even breathe anymore safely because we're going to die of a virus, right? That all of these things all tied together. It was really funny. I owned one cloth mask that I only wore when I was really forced to. Eventually I got one of those lanyards that were like, said you had an exemption and I would wear those just so people would
leave me alone. But I had one cloth mask which had its own bit of language on it which it said enjoy the silence. Great. I love some of those sort of like, yeah, thematic masks and looking like the Joker mask and things like that. There was a lot of comedy actually with that.
Yeah. But. But it was still, I mean, it's still completely, I suppose people personalize and individualize their masks, but it's still, it's still completely dehumanizing no matter what you do. Yeah, yeah, it was a crazy time. And umm, also I, I want to say that out of that time, I think that wars began. Certainly Putin saw that. Probably there wasn't as much attention on him. Everyone had gone inwards. There was no out of work, you know, because every country was the same.
There was much happening. This was a global pandemic. Nothing was happening that we were looking at Russia and the build up. He managed to make the build up on the border without a lot of international attention. Of course, that was 2022, but there was still the hangover from the pandemic that we had become more insular. I feel so, umm, so that I, I think, yeah, so I think everything, yeah, things could happen wouldn't have happened
normally but for the pandemic. Politically, it wouldn't have happened, right. And. And, and things needed to be in place before that could happen. So we can see that this was planned, that we had the delivery services and the, you know, order your food, order your Amazon stuff, whatever, whatever you want to buy.
But if you think about it, even prior, even in 2010, we we didn't have that level of technology for any of this to be able to happen to, to tell everyone to do absolutely everything sitting at home on their laptop. It just, it just would not have been possible.
But funnily enough, the people who did have to go out to work so that the Amazon drivers or the the Tesco workers or whoever was that, you know, and part of the food supply chain for, for whatever reason, appeared not to have dropped dead. And so, yeah, that was a sign. Yeah. So I feel like it was, in a way, an attack on the middle class.
So those of us who do have jobs, we can work at a computer may or may not need to go to an office once we have the technology to be able to communicate remotely with each other, as we're doing right now, unfortunately. But, you know, this would not
have been possible for people. So when I talked to tradespeople, for example, that we're still out, you know, fixing people's electricity or making sure the plumbing works, a lot of them that I've talked to did not buy into it because they were still out there in the world, right. So they, they maybe did not have the ability, well, couldn't do their job if they stayed at home until they were considered key
or essential workers. But they were they were they also just anecdotally, I don't have any statistics for this appear to be 1 to refuse the vaccinations because they were out saying, well, nothing's happened to me for the past year I've got, but now I'm fine. Why should I put something into
my body? And a lot of them actually were that I've talked to anyway were once he refused to get the vaccination, whereas the middle class who were sitting at home getting afraid to leave the house for getting these messages that we're talking about. What's the language saying, oh, I better get vaccinated or I'm going to die.
You know, even though they were, you know, we were still locked up for a while after after the the vaccination program was in place, which should have told somebody something, but it didn't for some people. So I think it's that those media messages are are so influential in people's decisions, obviously to do whatever they think they're supposed to do to save their grannies or whatever they thought it was going to do for
them. Yeah. And I, I yeah, I think it was a middle class, as you say, the working class were out serving, really serving the middle classes in that kind of way. Ridiculous. But they were having. I was jealous because as a writer, yeah, I couldn't get out at all. All the theaters were close. It was a disaster for anybody who is sort of in that artistic world worlds. So yeah, yeah. The things that the.
Things that happened to the any, any, any creative spaces, you know, the music concerts, book talks, you know, anything that you, that you would want to do in, in the creative world.
It was all, it was all gone. I, you know, I was, I was living in Edinburgh sort of towards the end of that time period and in Glasgow. And so Denver Festival being such a major event in the calendar for so many people, and that just going away was quite devastating to the economy makes us. Realize how much we're sort of perilous and a luxury product in in the world, you know, under
those sort of circumstances. And yet I would also say I am keeping going back to the Ukraine war because I think the memorizers is based on that. The world in it is based on that. But art is one of the most important things for them to to uplift themselves from the war. And The thing is, we completely forgot that or it was completely removed from us. The art, the the that uplifting thing. I mean, we were expected to batter our cutlery against our pants for the NHL, make our own
music. You know, It's just so it was just sort of like, yeah, again, like childish stuff, but it wasn't art and everything. So, yeah, that's what shocked me. I think that we were removed from society. Yeah. Yeah. And it's still, I wouldn't say has come back completely. And then I was quite disappointed in the artists who started once they started to open up for events again to say, well, you have to show proof of vaccination to come in. And there were some that did
that. And these were the people that I thought were the the pre spirited creative types that which is let's, you know, just get together and make use of the whole thing. You have to have your vaccination cards get in. You have to, you know, not safe otherwise. I was quite disappointed to see some of that happening. We had a. Big furor in Northern Ireland with Van Morrison going up against the health minister. So he was like very dangerous, very dangerous. He kept like parroting these
kind of words to ridicule them. But that was interesting because he was under so much attack at the time. And yet, yeah, I think, you know, that time is shown that, you know, he was pointing out the government autocracy at the time. So so. Artist did. At least one artist spoke out, but the majority of us didn't. I, I didn't either because I probably didn't have that voice that he had Van Morrison. But I think, yeah, I think it shows how conservative artists are. And yeah.
That's interesting because I, I would have thought or before this, I would have thought that they were, that a lot of them would be quite the opposite, you know, But I, I was still in the university system at the time and I just didn't say anything.
It was, it was very difficult for me to, to not say anything because I was, I'd be on these, you know, these committee meetings or whatever with my colleagues and they would be sharing their vaccination stories and actually planning to take off sick time because they knew that they would be sick after they got the jab because they were, everyone was, you know, sick. So they said, well, that it's I'm going to give it a few days for it to work.
So I need to plan sick time, obviously working very well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there was flu. I definitely had a flu symptoms after, but I don't think I needed a few days off. This is kind of like, yeah, I know. Everyone had their own expectations, different reaction. Whatever. But some people, if they heard other people were getting sick, that even if they hadn't had it yet, they were planning days
off. Because I think partially because university life was so demanding, it always is, but it was really demanding after this all started because we were doing everything online and in a very different way. And, and so again, language became even more complicated because instead of having a conversation with a student in our office for a few minutes, we with all emails or it was all, you know, very much more, but much more demanding of time.
And so if you have any reaction to anything, it, you would have been completely worn out, exhausted from any effect that it had on, on your immune system if, if you chose to take one. So I personally didn't take them, but I was constantly covering for people who did take them and were taking off time. And then so added to my workload, which is already heavy because I wasn't getting sick. And, and so it was, it was the a
very, very difficult time. And looking back, I'm, I'm just kind of glad that I'm out of the system now because I think maybe that was, that was a sign for me before, before I got thrown out, that maybe I could not have been there. Oh. It's interesting what you're saying also about the whole your online experiences during that time and how hard that was. I mean, this is something that we should all be saying to tech companies. Online is more time consuming. It's more exhausting for our
eyes, backs and bodies. You know, we don't want to be controlled this way. I don't want this life. I want to be in person doing things. It's far better for connectivity and networking. We were at the conference, as you said, and we made a friendship. We would never been able to do that otherwise. It's in person is the most important thing in life and we need to be kicking back, all of us united against these big corporations and saying no, we're not living our lives like that.
Well, it's. But it's, again, they use the language to to push this on us, right? They say it's convenient, it's fast, it's unique, but they, yeah, they. But again, it's the inversion, right? They say it is, but we're all frustrated and, you know, like, you know, I don't want, I don't want to set up an account just to buy something, right. Yeah, I. Know it takes ages to buy
something in an account. Yeah, and, and everything, even booking flights and things Yeah. And oh, I can't remember what what strange password I had for that. My computer hasn't saved it. You know, all of this stuff, it's just, it's just problematic and all I want to do is just go down a shop and buy it in the same Rd. I'm living in when I'm going out for my groceries there and.
I remember when I was doing all this teaching at home, you know, because I was online with my students if, well, I, I'm assuming they were there, a lot of them turned off their cameras. So I didn't know if they were there, if they just like logged in to say they were there and went to sleep like I. They were. Refusing to turn on the camera. So like frequently talking to,
you know, 30 blank screens. But then because I was at home with my dogs and then so a delivery would come or the the post would come and then the dogs would bark as they do. And, and so if we got through a whole hour and the dogs didn't bark, they would say your dogs OK, because we didn't hear from them. Like, yeah, they're fine, just didn't have any deliveries for that past hour. They're that's how you know they're listening. That's it. Yeah.
That's the only way. They're not interested in what you're saying, but they they did. Want to see the dog? So I always put dog photos in my in my lecture slides just to like keep them away. Oh dear. Yeah, yeah.
But. It, it is about that, it's about when we're talking about communication that I really did find that it became more complicated because there was not only the recording, there was not only the, how do I explain this, just kind of that different presence that you have to have when you're online versus when you're in person. There's just a different feel about it, right?
And then we started to find out that we had to create transcription because if there were, you know, students that had disabilities, where they, they had hearing difficulties that we had to learn how to do transcription. And it's, it's all very automated now because again, this has all progressed so quickly in the past five years, But in 2020, it wasn't that way. So we had to find different alternatives to do all this. And people think, well, this, this is not to do with my subject area.
You're making me do all these extra things that are not even part of it. And the university at the time was actually saying, well, if you don't have a laptop with a camera, record your lectures on your phone. Like how personal is that, right? And, and, and students are paying fees of thousands of pounds per year to have a lecture recorded on their phones. So all of this language, again, was meant to, I believe, suppress us, meant to suppress, you know, everything that we were doing.
And the language was all central to all of it. And, and I think that is still, well, sort of demonstrated in your book. And I, I really hope that people read it so because I don't want to give, I don't want to give it away because then they nobody will buy the book. But yeah, I really hope that people read it because it does have some really important messages in it and it's very entertaining as well. So we just have a few minutes
left. I don't know if you want to maybe talk a little bit about your book, kind of do your own promotion for it, or if if you want to leave it as a secret for people or No, no I. Don't want to leave it as a secret really it is about there's so many ideas in it and it's impossible to cover it. But there is the whole idea, the memorizers, even the title is about memory and how that is removed, how it can be removed by authoritarian governments.
And of course, I have a physical de memorisation as well, which is interesting in it. But I think also, I think the world in it. I want to talk about the that whole kind of thing. We were talking about messaging and when I was in Ukraine, one of the things that when you're on a train, you see you're given this thing about nuclear war and what you do in it and how you undress and and get washed and
everything. And all of these things were being pumped out and they terrified me, you know, So it's quite amazing, you know, the control that can be the terrifying. And then we knew that from COVID. But this is even a more extreme one that you're all yeah, OK, yeah, fevers or or viruses are really bad, but this is like a nuclear war is now being.
So that's really also how I got the idea that there would be a nuclear war in our I, I, I believe that's totally possible, umm, because of escalation in the Ukraine war and between America and things like that. So, but it's, it's that fear. So I felt a lot of fear and the sound of sirens really frighten me in Ukraine as well. That is a real if you, if you're subject to that all the time, it is a hysteria that grows in you.
And, and I know it's to protect people, but it's still, you feel controlled because, yeah, because these are signs that you kind of automatically flinch at. You know, it's very upsetting to your central nervous system to live in Ukraine right now. And I think that was partly to relate it back to COVID. That's what happened to us. Yeah. We're kept. No wonder the new generation is so anxiety Written. Written they are they.
Are Yeah, I, that reminds me of the early 90s when I was a teenager and the the first Gulf War was going on and my mother had CNN on all the time, right. And they were doing this coverage of the invasion and, you know, when they were supposedly covering the, you know, they, they have all the air raid sirens going on all the time.
And I'll try to find this leak. If I remember it, I'll put this in the write up for people to watch that it turned out that some of that was fake, that they, they're showing the air raid sirens and saying, oh, and then they then they would like think the camera was off. And then they, they actually got some of the footage of them showing them. Oh, this is not they're, this is actually a background.
They're not really in Riyadh. They're not really getting blown up, but they're using this to to create the fear. And, you know, Brian Garish on on UK column has done an amazing job of the past few years of explaining exactly what's going on in Ukraine and how devastating it it truly is. But then all of the propaganda surrounding it that we get over here and it's create, you know, kind of what that's all creating
for everyone. And as well as the amount of money that gone into it. Unfortunately, the lives have been lost, lots of money has been wasted, lots of propaganda to support all of this. So again, that goes back to language, right? And and kind of how we're being manipulated. Yeah, yeah, certainly. I mean, yeah, that, yeah, it hasn't all the billions haven't worked out, even though I, I believe we should support Ukraine in this because Russia is a terrible part, but it
hasn't fully worked out. And The thing is that, yeah, we're still in a terrible situation, situation with it. Umm, and I, another thing I wanted to say about the whole digital thing in Ukraine is that you have this, umm, you have an app that shows you when, uh, Russia is launching aircraft with missiles and but you don't. This is things that people constantly look at because obviously they're frightened.
They want the information, they want to know if they should go in shelters, But the trouble is that this is going on like 24 hour 7 this. And sometimes when the aircraft, you don't know where they're going. They could go to your city, they could go anywhere. So you're on not, you're at an unnatural height of fear all the time without knowing. No information can tell you
that. So the apps can be a kind of productive into absolutely terrifying you, you know, So sometimes I feel that technology can give you information, but it can give you unnecessary overload that can totally wear you dine. Yeah. It's all the the phone notifications that come in
constantly, right? That you have to continuously turn off on any app that you download where it's just the constant reminders and trying to sell you things and all, all the stuff that you have to sort of actively go in and turn off if you don't want to be constantly interrupted by your phone.
Not sure if you've been aware of the recent, well, they did this the first time a couple of years ago, the emergency sirens that went on that, you know, if you go off at any time and if we need to alert you to something, your phone is going to start screaming at you in the middle of the night kind of thing. And that's, that's just here. So I can't imagine that because that that sort of the reaction that people get sort of that that people feel like they can't constantly need to be checking
out. We get, we get in some cases that have been researched, the dopamine reaction, for example, by playing online games that people get this they they need that dopamine fix because it makes them feel better. And that's what gets people going back to playing online games. I can't imagine what that would feel like to constantly be checking an app to see when the planes are coming. I I just, I can't imagine it as well as the real life fear of the the threat that is actually
happening on the ground. And then you have the app and you can check and see. We don't where's the plane now? How how far am I away? That just sounds unbelievable to me. Yeah. It certainly is and and but the whole this yeah, apps are so intrusive with store MO and did you have one at store MO and did you have a one of the those beeps on your phone? No, I had. Mine turned off.
All right, yes, Yeah, That was another sort of terrifying moment because I didn't know actually what was happening. So you're thinking, could this be a 3 minute warning for a nuclear bomb? Yeah. Exactly. So we. Just have a few minutes left. I've really enjoyed this conversation. I hope you have as well. But yeah, I wanted to make sure, you know, is there anything else? I always give my guest the option to talk about anything else. Is there anything else that we haven't covered?
So is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience? Well, yeah, I'm just going to keep talking about the book, Diane, because absolutely it. Is it's what I'm here for? I'm gonna, yeah, Promote it to the hilt, of course. Yeah. The fact is, yeah, it it it's a human story. I mean, The thing is, you know, we know about dystopian fiction can sometimes be a little bit over.
You're kind of thinking more about the technology and how in the future, because drone warfare is a huge thing in the memorizers, of course, because that's what we've, the technology has changed for that. But I think the most important thing is the human aspect. I mean, it's 1984. It's Winston and Julia. It's the kind of thwarted love affair that sounds like Romeo and Juliet to Winston and Julia. But it is there is that kind of. To.
Humanize the future is a kind of really important thing and I think it's this quest of of my central character Joe Elliot, a journalist who wants to find out why she was on the front line, why she was injured, all of these things that make us human and our quests in life what of discovery. And I think now I think particularly in this society where things are crazy and I think we need to discover things and and speak out about them. And that is really the impulse
inner, you know. And, and yeah, I said that came from my own cancellation. We discussed that earlier. And all of those things is about being able to freely speak out and not repress your own thoughts in society and words. And I think that is the most important thing. So that that that was the main propulsion for the book is to say I'm tired of being controlled. I need to break free. Yeah.
And. And, and I think that this has come out through our, our whole discussion because we've seen how this is like permeated every aspect of life. And, and I think that your book does such a great job of sort of encapsulating all of that. I, I just, I really can't recommended enough to our audience.
So I do hope everyone runs out and buys a coffee after they've listened to this conversation because I, I think they think that maybe people realize how much they're being controlled, Even those of us who are kind of awake to it. When you see it coming into every aspect of, of life in 2025, you and I have been exposed to it to the extreme and to the fact that impacted our careers. But just in everyday decisions that were being manipulated by,
by words and language. And, and I, and I hope that when people read it, not if people read it, but when people read it, that they will maybe start to consider as much as possible to kind of just, I would encourage everyone to take a step back and think about how this is just infiltrated every aspect of our lives. And even if we don't, even if we don't think we're affected, we still are. So yeah, I, again, I want to encourage everyone to read it.
So again, I'll just hold it up one more time. This is with my Jenkinson. Here's the back. Yeah, Yeah. All about freedom. About freedom, yeah. And liberty from, from what we're going through right now, yeah. Absolutely, and art is such a powerful way to express is the. Best way to express it? There's no other there's no other medium that could possibly express this because words actually are the thing that control.
People think it's images, but actually the words are much more, even though I think they are, because they can be manipulated more. I mean, I suppose we have things like AI that can manipulate images now and deep fix, but I think words are the ones in which it it comes from us. We control the words and that's what is so frightening if we become controlled and we can't control those words. So therefore word control is a lot more dangerous for us.
Yeah. So it's really about being conscious about the words that you're using, but yet not being obsessed about it because the words that you use can be used, right. We take offence much more everything today. So therefore the words are more important than that we use. So I. But but yet don't police yourself. And it's that balance. So how do you do the words that you aren't going to offend too much, but without policing
yourself? And that is there's so there's so many balances going on that we're all checking and our brain, even when we're having conversations, we're checking that. I, I'm checking it with you. Sometimes, you know, I can't help that because I'm so conditioned now, right? Right. No, yeah, no, that's a really good point. And to end on, I think because, but let's just yeah, let's all just take a moment, take a step back, think about are we being
controlled? Yes, we are and and and what what can we do differently in this world about it? Because I I always say that strength in numbers that the more of us that realize. What's happening there are of us that that make steps against that in whatever ways that we we can in our own lives. And there are so many ways to do it. And and so, Rosemary, I think I want to thank you again for writing such a brilliant novel
and it's been a treat. It's been a treat to be on with you and and have an open an open and free spirited discussion. Well, you know, and I think that this all comes through in your writing as well. And thank you to everyone who's who's joined us today for this conversation. Thank you, Rosemary, for your time. Again, this is Zion Rasmussen Mcatty with UK column. Thank you, everyone, and have a wonderful day. Thank you.