Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
a sunny sunday morning, and i'm refractorily olfactory and f-f-f-freezing !
Even on the coldest night, although they are blackened and are drooping up to their necks in deep frozen drifts of snow, you can still smell the lavender.
A shrunken old man, in freshly ironed clothes that are now two sizes larger than himself and wearing improbably shiny shoes, gets on to the bus … and he’s reeking of mothballs.
Hungry and returning from a freezing hour on the Common, walking through a wide empty space between some anonymous tenements, I am taunted by the smell of bacon being wantonly fried by invisible sociopathic housewives.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
any resemblance between me and father christmas is purely superficial ..
brrr !
the last few weeks at work have been hectic and exhausting
and somehow, i failed to send a single christmas card
of course, each of you was top of my list ...
love and best wishes to you all xxx
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
from today's edition of the world's best newspaper ...
... had we known sooner, we might have sent one to each of our customers
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
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
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 !
Saturday, December 18, 2010
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.
Monday, December 13, 2010
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
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