certain companies can't get the staff ...

the view towards pilstye farm as you travel from cuckfield towards balcombe

some red lights heading towards clapham junction from queenstown road

sixty-one articles

folowing lucy's introduction to the topic, but without having studied the others' lists ...

http://box-elder.blogspot.com/2010/12/49-articles.html

1                  Let the people who matter know why they matter.

2                  Dare yourself to do things.

3                  Challenge yourself to understand things.

4                  Warm dry comfortable shoes and warm dry comfortable beds will make you happy.

5                  Violence and bombast are futile … I know !

6                  Don’t be a fashion victim.

7                  When in the slightest doubt, seriously consider getting advice or help.

8                  If anyone tries to intimidate you … ask them if that is really their intention.

9                  A spare pair of spectacles is often handy.

10                Clip those toenails regularly.

11                Stop and listen to that bird’s song. 

12                Education will never be as expensive as ignorance.

13                Experiments may fail, but your willingness to experiment is vital.

14                If you can’t write it, see if maybe you can sketch it.

15                You’ve only got one liver.

16                Articulate your ideas … you often won’t know what you think until you’ve said it out loud.

17                Music invokes virtues.

18                What is this life, if full of care we have no time to stand and stare ?

19                How many languages have you really listened to ?

20                Don’t be shy.

21                Seek to experience every kind of harmony.

22                Marvel at the human eye and brain.

23                Try to keep up with new ideas, even though you don’t have to agree with them.

24                George, don’t do that !

25                Get outside and smell that wood smoke.

26                Always kick off your shoes and wiggle your toes in the sand … that’s what they were made for.

27                Rest whenever your body or your mind tells you to.

28                Keep your sunny side up !  Up !

29                Join in sometimes, even if you really can’t dance.

30                Courtesy costs nothing.

31                Travel slowly where possible to explore and discover.

32                There’s often some method in their apparent madness.

33                A little polite scepticism will often be necessary.

34                May the best team win: because the game is more important than the players.

35                Can you articulate your values and your principles clearly and concisely for the benefit of people who won’t or can’t ?

36                It is never too soon to say sorry.

37                Know your weaknesses before others discover them.

38                Render unto Caesar …

39                Beware of slippery slopes, some are longer and steeper than you might suppose.

40                Even a little kindness will go a long way.

41                Beware of biting off more than you can chew.

42                Pilgrimage needn’t be religious.  It can be cultural or intellectual or spiritual or just plain hedonistic … the journey’s the thing.

43                Be slow to anger … count to ten, or some greater number if necessary.

44                Russell: Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

45                Russell: Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

46                Russell: Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.

47                Russell: When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your spouse or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

48                Russell: Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

49                Russell: Do not use power to suppress the opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions may suppress you.

50                Russell: Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

51                Russell: Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

52                Russell: Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

53                Russell: Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

54                Never spontaneously argue with gravity, or with momentum.  When an irresistible force such as me meets an immovable object like you …

55                More haste will often result in less speed.

56                Go easy on the salt.

57                Your personal hygiene is never a private matter.

58                Help others to become themselves, for no one is complete.

59                Never be too proud to say “I don’t know !”

60                Wherever you go you will discover people who are more diligent, more caring, more talented than you can imagine.  Be prepared !

61                Let there be light !

the dog and i ...

... go woodin' ...

... and make a new friend

apropos de nuffinque on sunday morning at clapham junction

3BT

At the vets, a plain woman enters the waiting room carrying a basket containing a Botero cat.  Cat and owner look grumpy.  She puts down the basket on a chair and crouches to speak to the animal … in French, with a voice so musical and tender it raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

Whilst I’m riding home on the bus, the snow is falling so thickly that you can’t see where the roofs end and the sky begins.

Later I get lost in the snowy wood during a short walk.  It isn’t a big wood, but it doesn’t take me long to lose my sense of direction.  Twenty minutes slowly becomes an hour and I begin to wonder what kind of idiots might ever have wanted to walk to the South Pole.  In the dark and silent middle of the wood I find a holly tree, weighed down with snow and bearing just a few handfuls of properly seasonal scarlet berries.

Narayanan Krishnan ... only some people achieve true humanity ... we may be tempted to call them saints

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htVQbc7XnPs

bar room scenes

1                 dominic hurcombe rides his motor scooter into the public bar of the king’s arms in malmesbury one evening, and revs it up sufficiently to do a wheelie and places the front wheel on the bar … we all run out in to the street, choking on his exhaust fumes

2                 the gamekeeper ted horton sings and dances on a scrubbed table top in the carpenters arms at sherston, his bald head bumping on the low ceiling … then pauses with eyes closed and hands crossed on his chest, before opening one crafty eye and muttering “it’s alright lads, its only my heart !”

3                 in a bar in ornaisons in the south of france, the scornful wife of a drunken farmer makes a huge folded paper hat from the local broadsheet newspaper and places it on his head … he parades around the bar like napoleon … and whilst everyone is distracted she goes to the bar, buys some matches, and then when he sits down again, she walks up behind his chair unnoticed ... and sets it on fire

4                 in a tiny spanish village on a hot night during a september fiesta, just before a rock concert there is a sudden thunderstorm and the rain pours down … everyone runs in to a tiny bar and just as we are crowded shoulder to shoulder the lights go out … candles are soon lit and soon after that the people are singing ancient songs that the whole village has known for generations

5                 in a chinese restaurant in madrid, I realize that our sangria tastes of curry powder not cinnamon … and everyone slowly agrees, “but what the hell !  we’ll drink it anyway !”

6                 the bar in the borough arms in malmesbury is in chaos, furniture is overturned, broken glass litters the floor, roy the landlord and several customers are bleeding … sergeant burgess walks in only about half an hour after the emergency call went out and asks, “is anything wrong ?”

7                 six old men line up seven wooden chairs on the parquet flooring in the middle of a public bar at lunchtime and form a train for a three year old girl who sits in the foremost chair and “drives” whilst the old men “choo-choo” and “whoo-whoo !”

8                 at closing time on new year’s eve, the regulars in the carpenters arms at sherston kneel and then march out on their knees in single file singing “hi-ho, hi-ho, its off to work we go !”

9                 in the window seat of the smoking dog at malmesbury after the carnival procession, two men in wedding dresses and high heels discuss foundation cream

10              on a summer day, the infant Tristan is carried in to a small dark bar in his father’s arms, and marvels for the very first time at the brilliant rich colour of beer in straight glasses when illuminated only by the light from one small window 

two bts in one

besides clapham common, backlit in the late afternoon sun, two young wimmin with long ginger hair pass one another as they briskly cross the road in opposite directions

eight o clock on a saturday morning at the top of lavender hill

i just need a dozen russian ballerinas lined up right here right now for my babes in the wood calendar

ashdown forest late this morning ... its chilly in them thar hills

now look what she's gone and bought ... she keeps wasting her money in charity shops when she should be saving every penny for my presents

a thaw sets in

Setting forth on my Saturday errands, I see movement at the bus station and I run seventy yards and leap on to the bus, thrusting the closing doors back with both arms held straight in front of me.

It seems evident that even whilst the snow lay all about, the grass has continued to grow beneath it.  The snow thaws quickly in the sunlight and a thin mist forms so that you only see the tops of the trees across the common. 

The dog loses sight of me when she stops to converse with a small terrier whilst I continue to circumnavigate the bandstand on Clapham Common.  She runs up the ramp and then catches sight of me just as she steps on to a steep bank … and then slides down the icy slope on her bum with legs akimbo … and an expression on her face which suggests that one half of her brain may be shouting “WTF?” whilst the other half already cries for “Help!”

three beautiful things ... well, moments, really

Driving out of London towards Gatwick every morning involves a gentle but tedious ascent to the gap in the North Downs at Hooley, where the Brighton road at last turns into a motorway, and then swoops down to the left to face the morning sky.  This morning is as deeply cold as any I can remember, minus nine degrees, and in a crystalline sky the brilliant  planet Venus dazzles low in the south east.  But even lower than Venus, directly beneath it and almost couched on the horizon, is an apparently enormous yellow crescent moon.  In the next hour, the distant planet slowly ascends a little way from left to right, whilst our sharp crescent moon turns silver, gradually lagging further behind, until both are obscured in a freezing fog.

In that same fog, towards the late morning, I glance away from the snowy road through a tall hedge towards a descending vista of ancient oak trees, still bronze and leafy but snow laden so that each twisted bough declares its own long fading history until that vista of ancient sunlit trees fades into a seeming eternity of frozen mist.

Back in London and slumping homewards on the bus in mid-afternoon, I listen to an African woman with a mobile phone conversing in a language I’ve never heard, but I cannot fail to enjoy the universal syntax of her husky laughter.  Glancing up occasionally through the dispersing clumps of fog into the pale blue yonder, there are glimpses of shining aircraft on their inch-perfect glide path into Heathrow, brilliantly under-lit by the sinking sun like herald angels.

three beautiful things ... also

at dawn, a big airliner lands during heavy snow and hurtles unchecked along the runway at gatwick for some distance ... until the pilot turns on the reverse thrust and whips up an enveloping cocoon of whirling snow

despite a previous week or more of deep frost and then snow, finding bags of miraculously clean and flawless charlotte potatoes in the supermarket

at dusk, emerging with those potatoes onto a street along which the snow is blowing almost horizontally in an icy wind, but in which the ambience is "tropicalised" by that marvellously ecstatic smoke that comes from roasting coffee

just messin' around

stop press: local dog wins due diligence award after discovering secret lair of clapham common meta-wabbit

questions, questions, questions!

what can you call the band of colour in the sky that's half-way between the turquoise and the orange?

it seems sort of almost greeny sometimes but mostly its a silver-grey.

Hmmmph !

if God loved philosophers (s)he'd have put clearly written labels on every thing.

red

stuck on page seventeen ...

... what insomniacs do.

my lips are sealed

a fabulous new cheese under development at a top secret research establishment somewhere in the south of england

never ...

... eat anything that's bigger than your head

might be the shortest train journey in the south of england ...

... unless you include this one ...

balcombe viaduct from the west

a handful of beautiful things

in the space of twenty minutes ... a kestrel hovering in a sunbeam, an old-fashioned bi-plane making a high circle beneath some raggle-taggle clouds above some raggle-taggle oak woods, and then a red helicopter following the line of the hills between reigate and dorking, followed minutes later by a yellow one

letters from two dear friends laying side by side beneath our letterbox

the loved one steps in from a long day at work, delves in to her bag, then flourishes aloft a brand-new re-print of posy simmonds' subtle masterpiece, "tamara drewe", winner of the grand prix 2009 de la critique bande dessinee

mirada del mendigo

the boy done good ... again !

http://esmola.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/do-courel-o-bierzo/

a burning issue ... trumble's reputation tied to the stake

i really am enjoying angus trumble's new book, "the finger"

BUT

having rejoiced when discovering therein lay a chapter on gloves, my hopes of finally finding a cogent exegesis of david des granges' enigmatic 1636-ish group portrait of "the saltonstall family" were disappointed

http://thenewemotionalblackmailershandbook.blogspot.com/search?q=saltonstall

botheration !

now i'll have to beg admission to the national art library and do my own bleedin' research

THREE MORE BEAUTIFUL THINGS

Driving through the woods in the early fog which is rhythmically striped and punctuated by veering sunbeams as the road winds around the hills, and is frequently perfumed with different kinds of wood smoke from domestic stoves and from invisible bonfires smouldering in gardens and coppices.

As night falls, the loved one is filling the building with the sweet aroma of baking cookies whilst the Beach Boys Greatest Hits are playing.

Another twenty page letter to a wonderful friend is finally sealed up and addressed, ready to be posted after a whole week of hesitantly laboured paragraphs and too many lip-biting crossings out, and some unbelievably childish spelling corrections.

seven in the morning, chez micawber ... even now in a laboratory near you, teams of dedicated scientists are working on a twenty-first century cure for feminine snoring

has any one mentioned christmas yet ?

dear diary, went to work in the dark ... and came home in the dark ...

.... although you can never really call London dark

dashboard photographers club

pat and her highly trained guard dog at a cheese smokery somewhere in the south of england

i am too weak-willed to resist the temptation of offering you this gratuitous juxtaposition

... having just collected the book from battersea library and chuckled more than once on the journey home

drafting my own obituary ... "among the poet's earliest influences ... hearing these verses created a life-long allergy to work, even though he was only eight years old at the time"

Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spendin' cash
If you don't scrub that kitchen floor
You ain't gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Just finish cleanin' up your room
Let's see that dust fly with that broom
Get all that garbage out of sight
Or you don't go out Friday night
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

You just put on your coat and hat
And walk yourself to the laundromat
And when you finish doin' that
Bring in the dog and put out the cat
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Don't you give me no dirty looks
Your father's hip; he knows what cooks
Just tell your hoodlum friend outside
You ain't got time to take a ride
Yakety yak (don't talk back)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0hQ7SwL-I&feature=related

I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler 
About a workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar 
Every time I call my baby, and try to get a date 
My boss says, "No dice son, you gotta work late" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues 

Well my mom and pop told me, "Son you gotta make some money, 
If you want to use the car to go ridin' next Sunday" 
Well I didn't go to work, told the boss I was sick 
"Well you can't use the car 'cause you didn't work a lick" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues 

I'm gonna take two weeks, gonna have a fine vacation 
I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations 
Well I called my congressman and he said Quote: 
"I'd like to help you son but you're too young to vote" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeWC59FJqGc

l'apres midi des cherubins chez micawber

a simple amusement ...

before it started raining, very early this morning while it was still dark, i filled a cardboard box with dry leaves and took it on my round, offering it to gullible, troublesome, and abusive customers, as a free sample

the way people respond to the offer of a free sample tells you a lot about human nature

the first shook his head and said rarther grimly there was nothing about free samples on the print-out for the day

the second was straight in to the box with the enthusiasm of a child on christmas morning

only one asked what kind of weirdo would bother to stuff dry leaves in a box