Monday, September 19, 2011

by the door in blythburgh churchyard

















surely by the same artist ... i like the way the cherubs' heads incline to one another across that little gap and across all those years

and i like to think that someone like thomas hardy might have filled that little gap with a thousand pages

fresh air ... i must remember to clear the fish and chip wrappers and the salt and vinegar from the bedside table before the loved one gets home from her evening class

at the door of the fry gallery ... lovely place, lovely people .... in saffron walden

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Monday, September 12, 2011

aunt mavis, aged 96 and a half

















...reminding me of that Thomas Hardy poem, Heredity


I am the family face; 
Flesh perishes, I live on, 
Projecting trait and trace 
Through time to times anon, 
And leaping from place to place 
Over oblivion. 

The years-heired feature that can 
In curve and voice and eye 
Despise the human span 
Of durance -- that is I; 
The eternal thing in man, 
That heeds no call to die

Sunday, September 4, 2011

! cih


Travel broadens the mind, some say ...
























I once travelled all night on a train from Paris Austerlitz to Narbonne and then went to a bar just opposite the station to wait for some friends to collect me.

It was just before seven and still dark.  There were two other customers standing at the bar, taxi drivers so burly they made me seem fairy-like.

The barman was of a similar stature to his clients, but had chosen to wear a low cut blouse and a blonde wig which, with an application of copious amounts of theatrical make-up, seemed to signify that he wished he had been born as Brigitte Bardot’s identical twin.

Never again will I be astonished by the Triumph of Hope over Adversity.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

british national costume ... historical evidence, if it were needed, of the utility of red underwear


george collinson and lea velez, man and wife























george has been ill for a number of years

lea posted the following statement yesterday

George sigue en Puerta de Hierro. Tiene varios tumores en el cerebro. Recuerdo cuando montaba en la montaña rusa y el carro subía y subía aquella empinada cuesta que te dejaba el estómago encogido con la anticipación de la inevitable caída

semiotics ! don't talk to me about ...



i'm on the bus !