Comedy, Payscales and Lickable Words

This newsletter is brought to you by the words comedy, money and licking.

Comedy Workshop Nearly Full

The Speak Up Comedy workshop is almost full for this Saturday, thanks to the efforts of powerhouse Deborah Somers. There may be the odd place left, which you can claim for €20. Contact Deborah on speakupwaterford@gmail.com.

Arts Council Pay Policy Toolkit

The Arts Council is preparing a policy toolkit to help arts organisations determine a fair rate of pay for artists, which is a welcome development. The facilitators of the policy toolkit project are giving workshops on Tuesday 22 July. Two of them are for arts organisations and one is for individual artists; I've registered for that one. To find out more about the toolkit and the workshops, click here.

Waterford Music Arts Grant

Speaking of the Arts Council, Waterford Music was awarded its annual music bursary this week. I mention it here because I wrote this year's application form. This mostly involved rewriting and updating answers compiled by Waterford Music chairperson Elizabeth Twohig.

Elizabeth also cast her eagle eye over my answers and suggested lots of edits. It's quite satisfying to know that I've played a small role in securing Waterford Music's finances for the foreseeable future.

WordNerd: Licking Into Shape

The WordNerd was charmed to discover the origins of the phrase 'licking into shape' recently. It was once thought that when a baby bear was born, it had no shape, so its mother would keep licking it until it took its own shape. What a delightful idea.

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

Here’s a baby brown bear leaning against its mother, who no doubt licks it into shape.

The WordNerd particularly enjoys the contrast between the rather stern meaning of the phrase, to improve someone or something through discipline, and its soft, loving origins.

And finally – welcome to new free subscriber burkther8, who subscribed through the Substack app.