OK, hands up - who applied for the BN job?

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

good post carbo and wigan but i think the english language - being the ridiculously elastic entity it is - will almost certainly prove you, me and most of us wrong eventually.
rules of usage are being broken down daily somewhere or other and what is spoken is what the language is.

ian is right, read, read, read then write a little read more.

Absolutley correct harrygreb. English is an evolutionary language and is always changing. There is a movement in the English teaching world to
recognize English as a international language to be on par with american or standard (British) english.

Most communication in english is between non native speakers. especially in places like South east Asia and India. Their influences on the english language will change the language a great deal over the next century to a point where it will be vastly different to the language we speak now.

[Boxingmad]

I wrote some freelance articles for BN and got paid for it too. It was just nice to see my stuff in print. Money wasn't great but I wasn't expecting it to be, so was just chuffed when my name came up in the mag.
Tris Dixon has done some very good articles for them and put in the hours travelling across the US doing the old-timers pieces, so his commitment is there and i think he'll do a decent job.

[dondada]

Read a lot. Write a bit. Read a lot more. Write a bit more.

As David would say, 'Just my take'.

But as a (very good) writer for an international boxing magazine, your words should be taken on board as they have not done you any harm my friend.

Keep up the good work btw.

Best wishes

"T.M.K"

Many thanks, TMK.

I'm also a teacher of English so that helps a bit. Most posters seem to be right - there was a big movement in education to abandon formal grammar teaching which has been addressed in part. But the English language is so weird, teaching rules is soul destroying as there are so many exceptions.

I knew nowt about grammar...until I did French A level and I owe most of my knowledge to that.

But you can't go far wrong if you read a lot! And look at the rubbish that's on the telly anyway...

If you want to improve your English skills (if you are a native speaker), wide reading is a lot more use than learning grammar and is a lot more fun. But it's useful to have that grammar knowledge.

[chesh]

If you want to improve your English skills (if you are a native speaker), wide reading is a lot more use than learning grammar and is a lot more fun. But it's useful to have that grammar knowledge.[/quote]

Very true. The more you read, the better you will write. I studied Latin at 'A' Level and German and French for my degree and still work with grammar on a daily basis as a translator and proofreader. However, whilst grammatical awareness is useful, an obsession with grammar, from which I, unfortunately, suffer, can cramp one's style and inhibit creativity.

[Carbo]

That's true; and I certainly wouldn't advocate obsessing with grammar. By far the best way of improving style is by reading, but familiarising youself with the basics of grammar can help you understand what a great writer is doing and how. It can speed up the learning process.

Lets have a list of great sports journalists/writers who can inspire and improve.

I vote for McIlvanney -- who one could never emulate -- and Mailer. But from the modern lot, Hauser writes beautifully, and Dan Rafael writes in a functional, modern style that many would do well to copy.

[oliverfennell]

Tris Dixon ain't bad...now they need to get rid of that doofus achary Levin.....

They should've brought Mark Butcher back, he was a good writer

I think Levin's very good. He usually tries to find an "angle" on a story, or look at the wider picture, or the atmosphere, or even just how a fight made him feel. Not just straight-up reporting. Maybe some prefer straight reporting, but in a mag choc-full of straight reports, it's nice to read someone with a different approach.

[dondada]

Yes, I've warmed to Levin though the references to reporting from telly are rather irksome.

The other guy they've got who is always telling you his dubious shorthand notes needs to give his head a shake.

"In round eight I wrote 'RH looks like an elephant, JH wobbling'," etc ad nauseum.

[oliverfennell]

Ah yes, absolutely agree with that. Why on earth type up your notes to let us know what you were thinking at the time? Why not just write it normally? Is it some kind of proof he was taking notes, in case we doubted him??

[harrygreb]

sorry, i cant agree with the statement "the more you read, the better you write" thats simply not true. what is true is that if you read a lot (and you are a writer) you will probably pick up useful technical skills and a feel for good prose.

[Captain Hook]

I really should have got the gob, I'm grammar at brilliant I am ...

Doesn't pay as well as you'd think, it's all about the passion....

Keep up the pole dancing David....

[DavidPayne]

Thanks Captain. It's harder than it looks!

[chesh]

sorry, i cant agree with the statement "the more you read, the better you write" thats simply not true. what is true is that if you read a lot (and you are a writer) you will probably pick up useful technical skills and a feel for good prose.

What I meant is that a lot of reading is the starting-point, the foundation for one's attempt at writing. I would apply this principle to any genre of writing, from poetry to boxing journalism. My statement "the more you read, the better you write" was, perhaps, not totally accurate. Maybe "the more you read, the more tools you will have at your disposal to produce good writing" would be more apt, if less succint. I would then go on to say: "The more you write, the better you will write". As the late comedy writer Johnny Speight once said: "You have to spend a long time writing the crap out of your system and then, eventually, the good stuff will come through!"

[bennie]

I've been a staffer at BN. Trust me: Tris Dixon's life is over.

[jamesmcdonnell]

sorry, i cant agree with the statement "the more you read, the better you write" thats simply not true. what is true is that if you read a lot (and you are a writer) you will probably pick up useful technical skills and a feel for good prose.

What I meant is that a lot of reading is the starting-point, the foundation for one's attempt at writing. I would apply this principle to any genre of writing, from poetry to boxing journalism. My statement "the more you read, the better you write" was, perhaps, not totally accurate. Maybe "the more you read, the more tools you will have at your disposal to produce good writing" would be more apt, if less succint. I would then go on to say: "The more you write, the better you will write". As the late comedy writer Johnny Speight once said: "You have to spend a long time writing the crap out of your system and then, eventually, the good stuff will come through!"

I would agree with that. I read very little relatively speaking, but when I've been at my most prolific, is when I've churned out some real gems.

I was doing five articles a week, as well as writing for a magazine, and working on a children's book for about a 3 month period, and writing has never come so easy.

[oliverfennell]

I've been a staffer at BN. Trust me: Tris Dixon's life is over.

Please elaborate.

[harrygreb]

my point is that you guys are desperate to be precise about grammar and yet you make a completely inaccurate statement like that about "more reading, better writing". thats slack writing in my opinion.
typical academic slack thinking. (although you did make up for it with a clearer, albeit unnecessary, explanation)

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

As a kid, I knew more than anyone else about boxing which made childhood boring because I had no-one to talk to about Frank Bruno,
Najib Daho, Dennis Andries and the man himself... Herol 'Bomber'
Graham. Kids my age were more interested in breakdancing and BMXs.

As a kid, the job I would have wanted more than anything would have been to write for a boxing publicaton becuse hey!.. who knows more than me? But the internet hs been a huge eyeopener. First of all, places like this were the ubitquous meeting place for boxing anoraks like myself and I realized I didn't know half as much as I thought. Secondly I had go at writing... funnily enough for Oliver Fennells heavyweights website on a piece about Lennox Lewis fighting Hasim Rahman in South Africa.

Now, I thought this would be a piece of piss, this is my calling right? I fancied myself as a decent wordsmith. In my defence of the article I got the preview smack on which was the last time a champion who was the overwhelming favourite fought a muslim in Africa for the undisputed world heavyweight title he got knocked out and thats what happened.

Seeing my words up on the screen, it looked clumsy, amateurish and just shite. I also realized that I didn't love boxing enough to (a) Improve my craft (b) Get to a position where I would need to get myself known as a writer of gravitas which would mean writing thousands of words for thousand websites to get my name known, in my opinion the reward was too little for the effort required.

Internet writers do make it. Thats the beauty of it. David Payne is as good as anyone writing today but he has worked at it. He didn't start off being any good as I'm sure he will be the first to admit. But is he as good as the Connollys and Gavin McLeod who write for BN and have plied their craft on the net? In my opinion he is. So there is room for a writer and his dreams.

Talking of which and I don't think he will mind me telling you this. Payney wrote an email to Steve Bunce about 6 years ago saying basically he was talking out of his arse, I think it might have been about Buncey saying how great the IBF UK would have been if it had took off in 1986. Anyway Buncey fired off a really passionate email about what he had to go through to become the man on the telly. Which was that he had to work his arse off, he doesn't get that well paid and has to go to shows without expenses for 15 or so years before he reaped the profit, he doesn't have any degrees and he he learnt how to write the hard way by trial and error. Buncey took it personally because he loved boxing. Now my opinion changed of him after I read his email because he obviously loves it more than me and he has proven it. how many of us love boxing more than Steve Bunce? I don't, I used to but I would rather someone who does care about Pretty Boy Floyd and his ego write about it thn someone like me, who has had the superiority complex all arrogant teenagers had well and truly put back in the box.

I couldn't sit and interview some silly little boy with bumfluff on his chin trying to act 'gangsta' telling me how great he is because he has won some inter continental belt. And I'm very happy about it. Good luck to Tris Dixon as his articles in BN have always been first class.

[DavidPayne]

The email in question was an ill-conceived criticism of Buncey to his editor at the Herald.

And it was actually about his reference to Mike Tyson's famous comment about people being willing to pay to watch him masturbate as a way into to discussing, I think, Ricky Hatton's growing popularity.

I thought it was cheap and off point. Something I stick to, and had come shortly after a loud shirted Bunce had appeared on telly getting hyper in Vegas...etc,etc.

It was a storm in a tea-cup between a guy who has done the hard yards over 15 years and some greenbacked wannabe who'd written, as Steve eloquently described it "2000 words of shit" on various sites. Buncey was properly fkked off though. He didn't respond just once, but twice - six hours later the second.

On reflection it was funny but it did completely change my view on this whole 'game', and though I hated Buncey at the time - I grew to 'get' his role. Buncey plays a part and he's very good at it.

And he knows his boxing. He may park his common-sense in the interests of a pay-day - Audley Harrison - from time to time, but he knows his stuff and his always engaging once you understand the job he's doing.

I didn't always get that.

For the concerned I have exchanged cordial emails with Steve in the six years since!

[oliverfennell]

Carlos - I'd completely forgotten about that! Your article wasn't bad. I had edited it a bit, which is something I often did with submissions and which virtually no other websites do, but as a professional sub-editor, I know what I'm doing. But anyway, I think you are being harsh on yourself. The article was fine. No, it wasn't to the standard of a Bunce or a Hirsch, but so what? It was perfectly acceptable and, as you said, we were the only site to carry a Rahman prediction. Coincidentally enough, I put a few quid on Rahman, too!

Dave - Same as you, I used to think Bunce was overly bombastic and attention-seeking in his views and style, but have warmed to him over the years and now consider his personality to be more a case of infectious enthusiasm. And boy, does he know his stuff. His column in BM in particular is unmissable.

[Goz]

Carlos - Spot on, bascially an extended version of my own story there. I also had one or two previews up on a website and when I came to it, it was far far harder than I thought it would be. And they weren't very good either.

[Captain Hook]

Buncey's passion can't be denied, I just wish he'd sort his wardrobe out and take the hanger out of Woodhall's jacket next time he sees him

[Boxingmad]

Are we gonna have Tris on these forums ? He'd be a good man to have.

[oliverfennell]

I wonder if BN would approve of their staff posting on a public forum? Especially as things can sometimes degenerate. Then again, what's to say Claude, Tony and Daniel don't do it under a pseudonym?

[Coco]

Claude has said to me that he never looks at the forums

[m1kee50]

Claude has said to me that he never looks at the forums

I wonder why? (honestly I do wonder) We arent ALL eejits lol