"Are you certain you're certain - your certain?"

Hello

You know that fabulastic, ‘great to be right’ feeling – when you're certain – you're certain?

Well just...

A few weeks ago – I had it.

What happened was:

My wife, Sharon, and I had been to see the movie “The Golden Compass” – the first in a series of movies based on the Philip Pullman trilogy ‘His Dark Materials’.

The first book; The Northern Lights (published in the US as The Golden Compass) had been recommended to me by a close friend as a great read – and so I’d bought the book and burned my way through it in just over a day.

Of course...

I then bought the other two books, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, and likewise steamed my way through them at treble-quick speed too.

And naturally...

I was keen to see how the stories had been translated to film by the director Chris Weitz.

So...

A few weeks after seeing the film it came up in an after-dinner conversation at home. Quite a few family members had seen it and we were discussing the various aspects of the movie: the direction, the CGI, the cast and so on.

Because I’m a ‘speaker’ I’m always interested in voices and how they’re used and as we discussed the cast members I made a comment that was to spin round and later ‘kick me in the rear’.

I said...

Just how brilliant the voice was of the CGI character Iorek Byrnison, the exiled panserbjorn prince and went on to express my general praise of Patrick Stewart the actor who achieved worldwide recognition with his portrayal (amongst others) of Jean Luc Picard the captain of the starship Enterprise in ‘Star Trek - The Second Generation’.

It was at this point...

That one of my sons jumped into the conversation and said; “Dad, the voice of Iorek Byrnison was Ian McKellen not Patrick Stewart”

“No way!” I responded – “I’d know Stewart’s voice anywhere!” A rowdy discussion ensued even to the point of money being offered as a wager as to who was right and who was wrong.

So certain was I...

That even after a suggestion we check on the net – I compounded my error by uttering the now often recalled line: “There’s no need – I know I’m right!”

Alas...

As I’m sure you’ve now guessed – I was wrong! My boys took a degree of delight in showing me the cast list of The Golden Compass and sure enough to my chagrin there in black and white was the clear proof that Sir Ian McKellen was indeed the voice of Iorek Byrnison.

And in...

The lively exchanges, you can imagine, that took place at ‘Dad being wrong!’ I excused my mistake by saying the computer enhancement of McKellen’s voice had made him sound so like Patrick Stewart that anyone could have made the same mistake. This comment of course was delivered with a smile and ‘No!’ I didn’t get away with that one.

Some days later...

I was pondering on my error and realised this was one I’d repeated at other times in my life. Strangely – more certainty was in play when my certainty was misplaced.

In the weeks that followed...

I’ve been careful; perhaps more careful than ever before – to check my premises whenever I’m absolutely, stone-cold, ‘no question about it’ – certain about a fact - to ensure it IS a fact and not some self-repeated notion that by its very reiteration has become hardwired into my brain whereby I can’t tell fact from fiction.

My thoughts for you...

Therefore are:

When you’re certain - make certain you're certain – you're certain.

I will – will you?

Go on then 

Peter Thomson

Editor and Certainly the Publisher of

tgiMondays

Please do email me with any feedback or comments.

peter@tgimondays.com