Brexit: a touch of indexing

24/06/2021

I finished writing the revised edition of The Great Deception in early February, allowing time to include a comment about the immediate effect of the end of the transition period.

Proofing a book of this length and complexity is a long and arduous process. It starts with a proof reader going through the typescript, marking up the errors and sending them back to the author for comments. At this stage, the author adds his own corrections and the sets are amalgamated to produce a final typescript which is then send to the typesetter.

Believe it or not, our typesetter is in India and, with Covid affecting operations there and in the UK – with most UK staff working at home – there were some delays in getting the typeset copy back.

This is known as the "first pass", which must be proofed again, yielding another raft of corrections which are passed back to the typesetter who is then able to produce the "second pass", carrying the final pagination. It is this copy which is used to generate the index. Corrections can also be accepted, but they mustn't change the pagination.

For reasons best known to the publisher, the second pass was late getting to me and, for some inexplicable reason, my "first pass" corrections had not been processed, some of which quite definitely impact on the pagination. Thus, I've had to re-do the corrections to avoid any such impact.

You can do them semi-automatically on the computer but I find such indexes soulless and unreadable. Writing a good index is a creative art. The author has to get inside the minds of potential readers, aiming to anticipate what they might need to find, so I do it old-school, the hard way.

Just as an illustration, here are my entries on the European constitution and the Lisbon Treaty:

Constitution (European), Blair enthusiastic for, ix, federal, 16-17, Spinelli, 23, Hague Congress, 34, Europe's first, 55, Treaty of Rome as, 73, ECJ confirms, 204, calls for, 261, Commission argues for, 328, Fischer promotes, 355, 361, existing treaties amounting to, 369, Hague 'hell-bent' remark, 372, Fischer repeats, 376, University Institute in Florence draft, 376, Schröder and Chirac propose, 377, Blair rejects idea, 380, 381, 382, proposed by 2005, 385, decision at Laeken, 385, Schröder Plan, 386, 387, Prodi announces, 393, Blair 'stranded', 394, Laeken Declaration, 395, Spinelli 'crowning dream', 396, Convention, 396-402, 409, summit plan, 414, is it necessary?, 417, 418, positions 'deadlocked', 419, work unlikely to resume, 420, accelerated adoption, 421, warnings about rejection, 422, treaty agreed, 425, Blair refuses referendum, 426, not 'constitutionally significant', 427, agrees vote, 428, text not complete, 429, new members 'bribe'; France agrees referendum, 430, leaders sign; Howard promises referendum, 431, Lithuania first to ratify, 432, Spanish referendum, 433, becomes best-seller in France, 436, French and Dutch vote 'No', 441, ratification 'dance', 442, kicked into long grass, 444, 'pause for reflection', 446, Plan D for dialogue, 448, Commission publishes, 452, 'covered in snow', 460, treaty 'dead', 461, 'Sound of Europe' conference, 462, 'back door' implementation, 464, rebranding; 'mistake to call it a constitution', 465, Merkel 'firmly convinced' of need, 467, decision to revive, 468, transformed into 'reform' treaty, 468-469, Britain on 'collision course', 469, new treaty by 2008; Blair and Balkenende join forces against, 470, new treaty being assembled, 470; 'presentational changes', 471, Blair passes 'poisoned chalice' to Brown; 'substance' of original preserved, 472; IGC convened, 472-473, constitutional concept 'abandoned', 473, leaders decide document to be 'unreadable', 474

Lisbon Treaty, 474, Giscard d’Estaing attests to similarity with constitution, 475, Cameron promises referendum; final draft signed; 476, calls for swift ratification, 477, not a 'fundamental constitutional change'; motion for referendum defeated, 478, Irish referendum: 'No', 479, Irish have to vote again, 480, UK ratifies, 481, German constitutional court, 483, Cameron: 'not let matters rest', 486, Commission's first task, 487, Irish voters say 'Yes', 487-488, Václav Klaus signs, 488, treaty comes into force, 488, Cameron pledges renegotiation, 489, MEPs allowances increased, 490

They'll be in smaller type in the book, so they'll take a lot less space.

I had reckoned on spending about two weeks (14 days) on the work – Booker did the original one - but I've found it much harder going than anticipated. It's basically the same length as the original book, but with half as much again material written into it.

Thus, by Monday last – my original self-imposed deadline, I'd spent two weeks getting just over halfway through the script, with no chance of meeting my own (I thought) self-imposed deadline. It was at this point that the publisher informed me that the absolute deadline was midday Wednesday (yesterday), leaving me two days to finish the other half of the index. My squeals of protest, however, have bought me extra time. As a special "concession", I now have until Friday midday to complete the work.

Having spent 14 hours at the keyboard on Wednesday, with the expectation of longer today, I'm not really in a position to write up the normal blogpost. This will have to do instead.

I'm sure, though, that the labour is good for the soul, and it is good to be reminded why we needed to leave the EU. Just the outline of the way we were treated on the constitution, and the Lisbon Treaty, shows the utter contempt the political elites had for us, especially in palming off the constitution as a 'reform' treaty after it had been rejected in two referendums.

There is a direct linkage between the events here and Brexit. Foisting upon us a constitutional treaty without a referendum made it a "treaty too far". The pent-up demand for a referendum became unstoppable and, as they say, the rest is history.

I'll try to do a short blogpost tomorrow night, but it'll be Friday before normal service (on my part) resumes.

Also published on Turbulent Times.