{"id":987,"date":"2014-08-01T08:07:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T20:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=987"},"modified":"2014-08-01T08:07:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T20:07:18","slug":"quelle-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=987","title":{"rendered":"Quelle surprise!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=986\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-986\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-986\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Produce-300x258.jpg\" alt=\"Produce\" width=\"300\" height=\"258\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Produce-300x258.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Produce.jpg 426w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Many years ago, I wrote what I thought was a pretty polished piece about the opening of a new hardware store.\u00a0 I handed my copy into my editor and, 15 minutes later, she was standing by my desk.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I read the first couple of sentences,\u2019 she said, \u2018and I knew exactly what was coming next.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Is that good?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n<p>She shook her head.\u00a0 \u2018What you\u2019ve written is \u201cdog bites postman\u201d.\u00a0 Readers want to be surprised, informed, entertained.\u00a0 They want to read about the postman who bites a dog.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>I was about to protest that my piece had nothing to do with dogs or postmen, but I could see what she meant.\u00a0 My report was predictable and it was heavy with clich\u00e9s.<\/p>\n<p>Christine has long-since retired.\u00a0 But some of her successors would do well to remember that readers still want to be surprised, informed, and entertained.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the opening of a piece I came across earlier today.\u00a0 It started by saying that a certain person <em>\u2018is passionate about healthy and delicious food that is quick, simple and easy to prepare.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>She is a cook, for goodness sake.\u00a0 A celebrity cook.\u00a0 She\u2019s trying to sell cookbooks and attract viewers to her TV show.\u00a0 Of course she\u2019s passionate about healthy and delicious food.<\/p>\n<p>We are then invited to \u2018<em>Follow her as she takes off on a culinary journey \u2026 celebrating the abundance of fine food along the way.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Clich\u00e9 upon clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n<p>Finally we are told that this celebrity cook<em> \u2018will put to use the best local ingredients she can find to create her own delicious dishes which are guaranteed to make your mouth water!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Well, we certainly don\u2019t expect her to be using the worst local ingredients she can find.\u00a0 And make my mouth water?\u00a0 Hmm, perhaps.\u00a0 But isn\u2019t that up to me to decide \u2013 even without the unnecessary exclamation point?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many years ago, I wrote what I thought was a pretty polished piece about the opening of a new hardware store.\u00a0 I handed my copy into my editor and, 15 minutes later, she was standing by my desk. \u2018I read &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=987\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions\/988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}