OMI: Stuart Delves Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Posted by The Lost Book in One minute interviews.
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Stuart is the writer behind Watson’s voice over at Follow Your Nose. We’ll be uploading Watson’s thoughts on episode 2 this Friday, so thought you might like to hear more about Stuart. As well as writing a lot of the copy for the project, including the website, he developed the tone of voice for The Lost Book and trained Adam and Helen to write this blog in a Lost Book way.

Stuart has over 20 years experience as a copywriter, starting out in one of London’s top advertising agencies in 1985. After seven years at Redpath Design, Edinburgh, he set up Henzteeth in 2002 with fellow writer John Ormston. Much more than just a firm of copywriters, Henzteeth champions the creative use of language in business. To this end they run programmes in developing brand language, they initiated Writers in the Workplace in partnership with Arts & Business Scotland, and they run creative writing for business residential courses under the banner Dark Angels.

Stuart wrote the questions for our One Minute Interview, but we also persuaded him to give us his answers…

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One minute interview: Stuart Delves

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Occupation:
Copywriter

Where were you born?
Farnham, Surrey

Where do you live now?
Carlops, Scottish Borders

How many book are there on your shelves? (Approx.)
2000 at least.

What’s been the most fun thing about this project? (The first word of your answer must begin with L and the last word begin with B!)
Larking around with Helen and Adam – I mean working with Binary Fable to find an apt tone of voice for the communications surrounding The Lost Book.

Do you think that constraints are creative?
Constraints? V. good. Writing whisky labels that say something interesting is great practice.

Who do you think stole the book from the National Library?
Rat Scallion.

Which book would you most hate to lose?
I have a book of family history connected with my distant Austrian ancestry. It’s leather bound and written in High German. I doubt if it’s of any value but if I lost it or if some absent-minded academic wandered off with it I’d be very upset.

Who’s your favourite fictional detective?
Inspector Morse. There’s something strangely comforting about the culture-loving curmudgeon. At least, as depicted by the great late John Thaw.

Who’s your favourite fictional dog?
The detective’s hound Caesar in my father’s seminal but unpublished children’s stories Honey Bunny and Twinkle Toes.

Which book has affected you the most?
Probably Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. The invented language is remarkable and contains worlds of possibilities in the double and treble meanings. It’s a vision of the future that is also a vision of the beginning, corrupted by the lust for power, redeemed by the quest for meaning.

When and where do you read the most?
An hour before bed stretched out on the sofa.

Where’s your favourite ‘booky’ place?
The National Library of Scotland. It’s a text treasure house. With a map, a guaranteed supply of electricity and regular hampers left at the door 17 floors down, one could spend a ‘retreat’ year or two quite happily shut away in its labyrinths.

What do you like most about a book apart from the story: its size, its smell, its cover, its…?
The classic Penguin size is design genius. As is their canon of brilliant covers. Once upon a time I bought some books on the strength of their covers – Titus Groan with Peake’s illustration of Fuchsia being one such notable edition. And the smell. Ah, the smell. That’s something no Sony no Apple will ever be able to emulate.

For you what does a book lack the most – music, moving pictures, …?
A good book unlocks the imagination where all senses are stimulated in a parallel world.

Have you ever used a book as a 1) doorstop, 2) missile, 3) an excuse not to do the washing up?
Yes to all three: also kindling, draft excluder, and as compensation for a truncated chair leg.

Have you ever regarded a book as a friend, or indeed a monster?
I spent six months reading Ulysees and treated it as a companion: it was like spending a little time each day with this extraordinary mind that had a wonderful way with words. Some books are monsters: unpleasant or nasty or awful, pompous bores. I can’t remember their names. I discard them quickly if I catch that whiff of artlessness or vacancy of soul.