Oh how I wish I could paint - or sew! These roots are polished by the passage of many feet on their way to the river bank.
31 Jul 2008
The variety of lichens in the woods here must be a lichen hunter's dream. Those little black specks are a sort I have never seen before. I believe they are all good for giving different dye colours.
Whilst Tom looked after the store I spent some time by the river discovering that I have no head for heights these days. The paths alongside the Findhorn at this point are truly scary.
30 Jul 2008
Mr McSeed
Today I take on the health and well-being of Mr. McSeed. A heavy responsibility indeed. Mr. McSeed is a hamster. At least the rabbit is going elsewhere this year. I can't bear to see her in her cage so she eats the furniture in the sunroom. There's no grass for her in my garden and far too many cats. The one time I tried leaving her outside the biggest fattest cat sat atop her cage swinging his tail like the cat in that children's book series about a rabbit? hamster? (Brain's gone dead. I blame the sun.) Hah! 'Olga da Polga.' Hamster. I think.
For reasons made clear in the comments following this passage Mr. McSeed will not be allowed out of his palatial three story mansion during his stay.
Sandy is good at imaginative names. Mr.M started as Hammy - sorry I have been reminded it was 'Mouse' (a name that appealed to Sandy's highly developed sense of the absurd) but soon this wasn't elegant enough. When he was four he got a plastic beetle in a cracker then scoured the house for a box he could put it in (he had been listening to Christopher Robin poems) and his beetle lived by his bed for years; is even now kept carefully in a toy box. It disappeared once and hell, as only a five year old can create it, broke loose. That beetle was called Todhunny Beekle.
His uncle Costa, now a muscular 6'4" 28 year old, can be made to blush when reminded of his imaginary friend Alice and the language they used. A word that sticks in my head is 'Alishka-shloshkan.' As he was a very late talker (two sisters? and anyway Chloe who rarely stopped talking once she started) I began to wonder if he had been Slovinian in a former life-time.
I have these random thoughts.
For reasons made clear in the comments following this passage Mr. McSeed will not be allowed out of his palatial three story mansion during his stay.
Sandy is good at imaginative names. Mr.M started as Hammy - sorry I have been reminded it was 'Mouse' (a name that appealed to Sandy's highly developed sense of the absurd) but soon this wasn't elegant enough. When he was four he got a plastic beetle in a cracker then scoured the house for a box he could put it in (he had been listening to Christopher Robin poems) and his beetle lived by his bed for years; is even now kept carefully in a toy box. It disappeared once and hell, as only a five year old can create it, broke loose. That beetle was called Todhunny Beekle.
His uncle Costa, now a muscular 6'4" 28 year old, can be made to blush when reminded of his imaginary friend Alice and the language they used. A word that sticks in my head is 'Alishka-shloshkan.' As he was a very late talker (two sisters? and anyway Chloe who rarely stopped talking once she started) I began to wonder if he had been Slovinian in a former life-time.
I have these random thoughts.
29 Jul 2008
Keeping cool and keeping it together.
Hot steamy weather again today that the thunderstorm Sunday didn't manage to clear. We don't often get thunderstorms in this part of the world for some reason. It happened whilst I was on my way to the riding stable to pick up Sandy. I stopped off at his house to feed a carrot to his rabbit and the heavens opened, all over me. Bunny was pleased with her organic carrot and fresh hay but didn't fancy a run in the garden. She's not daft.
When I eventually got up to the stables I discovered the Yard empty of children. They had all removed tack, washed off the ponies, returned them to the fields, and then vanished. The adults, too busy with their own horses and their gossiping, hadn't noticed. Yes, the children had been told that leaving the yard without an adult was strictly forbidden, but any child-wise adult would expect such restrictions to be forgotten when no eye is upon them and hectares of cool forest and river bank call out to them on a hot day.
The stable girls chose the one with the loudest voice to yell. I was standing much too close. My ears are still ringing. When the echoes had died there was an ominous silence. Brave attempts at jesting were made: 'I'll ring their necks when they get back.' 'Get in line!' Thoughts of the River Findhorn and its tendency, after heavy rain, for flash floods which cause it to rise from 0 - 10 feet in seconds gave the laughter a tense edge. One of the children, the tiny fierce Marina, could all too easily be swept away and I imagined Sandy trying to save her... It seemed like an age before voices were heard and small figures appeared in the distance plodding up the steep field. We counted. All present. Fear fled, anger followed. We left the owner of the riding stables, a venerable lady of 80 plus who has seen many many generations of children grow up alongside their ponies (and survive) met them first. We stood respectfully aside whilst she verbally, expertly, gave them a dressing down. Eventually a chastened and rather white Sandy joined me with head hanging to say 'Sorry Granny' in a very small voice. As he was by no means the oldest of the pack I decided he had had quite enough chastising and we headed for home in friendly unity. The Famous Five never had this trouble with adults.
Happily for both of us his grandfather had opened a nice bottle of white and got it deliciously cold; he had also bought a set of Asterix and Obelix DVD's so Sandy chilled out with sparkling elderflower in the 'music room' (which is in the cool basement of the house and has the DVD player with an enormous screen) whilst I declenched in the upstairs rooms with sympathetic adults and Gewurtztraminer. Sometimes I remember the French for 'to make tense:' Crisper. It expressed nicely how I was feeling. Crisped.
Yesterday the High Street, though having one of the inexplicable local holidays, was full and the shop did well. I sold the 6 vol Folio Society Proust for someone's light holiday reading and made lots of lesser sales, which is always good. Selling the pricey stuff is nice (I am not knocking it, heaven knows!) but selling a lot of small and easily replaced stock is better in the long run.
Today it has gone quiet again. I started to read the free copy of The London Review of Books sent to me recently to tempt me to sign up. It's full of articles and reviews about books I will never want to read, but there is one on Doris Lessing which looks interesting. I like these sentences: 'She has not, over the long haul, troubled her readers with complexities of design or of language; on the whole she prefers transparency.' That is precisely what I value about Lessing. It's not the fancy footwork one is meant to be dazzled by but the content, or, as the writer of the article says: 'The claim on ordinary readers is not that they should wonder at her virtuosity but that they should consider the truth of what she says.'
I also noticed a letter about a library of books which is very beautiful but seldom read, 'Like beauties no one dares ask for a dance.' The letter writer suggests that part of the problem is the publishers' preference for omnibus editions. 'You might want to read The Princess Casamamissa butit is off-putting to have to take down Henry James Novels 1886-90 Individual works hidden in an omnibus don't take their places in your memory as easily as a particular spine on a particular shelf.' He goes on to say that good thin paper has the virtue of being portable and that portability is a quality to be valued in a book. Making the book large cancels out this attribute . Whilst paperbacks offer easy portage the paper is poor qualty, yellows fast and if often read they fall to pieces, whereas a well-bound hardback is a pleasure to handle and a good investment.
Makes sense to me.
When I eventually got up to the stables I discovered the Yard empty of children. They had all removed tack, washed off the ponies, returned them to the fields, and then vanished. The adults, too busy with their own horses and their gossiping, hadn't noticed. Yes, the children had been told that leaving the yard without an adult was strictly forbidden, but any child-wise adult would expect such restrictions to be forgotten when no eye is upon them and hectares of cool forest and river bank call out to them on a hot day.
The stable girls chose the one with the loudest voice to yell. I was standing much too close. My ears are still ringing. When the echoes had died there was an ominous silence. Brave attempts at jesting were made: 'I'll ring their necks when they get back.' 'Get in line!' Thoughts of the River Findhorn and its tendency, after heavy rain, for flash floods which cause it to rise from 0 - 10 feet in seconds gave the laughter a tense edge. One of the children, the tiny fierce Marina, could all too easily be swept away and I imagined Sandy trying to save her... It seemed like an age before voices were heard and small figures appeared in the distance plodding up the steep field. We counted. All present. Fear fled, anger followed. We left the owner of the riding stables, a venerable lady of 80 plus who has seen many many generations of children grow up alongside their ponies (and survive) met them first. We stood respectfully aside whilst she verbally, expertly, gave them a dressing down. Eventually a chastened and rather white Sandy joined me with head hanging to say 'Sorry Granny' in a very small voice. As he was by no means the oldest of the pack I decided he had had quite enough chastising and we headed for home in friendly unity. The Famous Five never had this trouble with adults.
Happily for both of us his grandfather had opened a nice bottle of white and got it deliciously cold; he had also bought a set of Asterix and Obelix DVD's so Sandy chilled out with sparkling elderflower in the 'music room' (which is in the cool basement of the house and has the DVD player with an enormous screen) whilst I declenched in the upstairs rooms with sympathetic adults and Gewurtztraminer. Sometimes I remember the French for 'to make tense:' Crisper. It expressed nicely how I was feeling. Crisped.
Yesterday the High Street, though having one of the inexplicable local holidays, was full and the shop did well. I sold the 6 vol Folio Society Proust for someone's light holiday reading and made lots of lesser sales, which is always good. Selling the pricey stuff is nice (I am not knocking it, heaven knows!) but selling a lot of small and easily replaced stock is better in the long run.
Today it has gone quiet again. I started to read the free copy of The London Review of Books sent to me recently to tempt me to sign up. It's full of articles and reviews about books I will never want to read, but there is one on Doris Lessing which looks interesting. I like these sentences: 'She has not, over the long haul, troubled her readers with complexities of design or of language; on the whole she prefers transparency.' That is precisely what I value about Lessing. It's not the fancy footwork one is meant to be dazzled by but the content, or, as the writer of the article says: 'The claim on ordinary readers is not that they should wonder at her virtuosity but that they should consider the truth of what she says.'
I also noticed a letter about a library of books which is very beautiful but seldom read, 'Like beauties no one dares ask for a dance.' The letter writer suggests that part of the problem is the publishers' preference for omnibus editions. 'You might want to read The Princess Casamamissa butit is off-putting to have to take down Henry James Novels 1886-90 Individual works hidden in an omnibus don't take their places in your memory as easily as a particular spine on a particular shelf.' He goes on to say that good thin paper has the virtue of being portable and that portability is a quality to be valued in a book. Making the book large cancels out this attribute . Whilst paperbacks offer easy portage the paper is poor qualty, yellows fast and if often read they fall to pieces, whereas a well-bound hardback is a pleasure to handle and a good investment.
Makes sense to me.
26 Jul 2008
A belly laugh and a bolt for freedom.
I had a flirtation with a dating web site a while back, just to see what it was like and to admire the self-aggrandisement of Mr. T who is still at it, by the bye; thinks he is a mirror wherein, presumably, lucky women can see their souls. He'd need to clean himself up a bit for that IMO, and maybe get re-silvered.
****
About himself Mr T says:
“I'm the card that's so high and wild you'll never need another.”
- Wow!! Irresistable bombast.
About the person Mr T is looking for:
“A woman who feels the need to be more open and honest than she has ever been before.”
- It is to be hoped she keeps her purse closed however.
The three most precious things to Mr T are:
“ Love - that's all there is “
Really? Coming from Mr. T that last has to rate as 'a bit rich.' He's also lost some time as he's now posting as 58. Alien abduction maybe.
It's good for a laugh though, and personally I do value a good laugh above all things, so I suppose he could be said to be adding to the sum of human happiness.
***
Any new friendship at this point isn't interesting to me but part of me wondered nervously if this was a sign of incipient deterioration into Seriously Old Age. In other words I felt I SHOULD still want male friends and dates and the promise of sexual encounter and so on. I stuck at it long enough to find out that I have definitely switched off. It was nice (ish) to find there were still men out there who like talking to me but a great relief to be able to keep them at a distance.
In fact, all round, I have a sense of freedom. Looking back, as one does when there isn't much else to do, I wonder how much of my need for relationship was habit and pride. Habit dies hard, indoctrination or hormones or genetics or - well, I don't know how many excitations there might be to keep this going in ones psyche - they are even harder to subdue. There's also pride. I did hate the image I had of myself as an unwanted woman, an image with no real foundation in fact. Now I see that, even if I had been 'unwanted' in the intersex games, there was a powerful part of me that had withdrawn from the game long ago but didn't quite realise it. A part of me has been looking for this freedom like an alcoholic or a smoker looks for release but hasn't quite got the will power to make it happen. Another part, equally strong, has been sabotaging every attempt because it wanted quite the opposite.
Maybe there's a book about these troublesome sub-personality clashes.
Maybe it would be amusing to write one. It has been really uncomfortable living with them sometimes.
****
About himself Mr T says:
“I'm the card that's so high and wild you'll never need another.”
- Wow!! Irresistable bombast.
About the person Mr T is looking for:
“A woman who feels the need to be more open and honest than she has ever been before.”
- It is to be hoped she keeps her purse closed however.
The three most precious things to Mr T are:
“ Love - that's all there is “
Really? Coming from Mr. T that last has to rate as 'a bit rich.' He's also lost some time as he's now posting as 58. Alien abduction maybe.
It's good for a laugh though, and personally I do value a good laugh above all things, so I suppose he could be said to be adding to the sum of human happiness.
***
Any new friendship at this point isn't interesting to me but part of me wondered nervously if this was a sign of incipient deterioration into Seriously Old Age. In other words I felt I SHOULD still want male friends and dates and the promise of sexual encounter and so on. I stuck at it long enough to find out that I have definitely switched off. It was nice (ish) to find there were still men out there who like talking to me but a great relief to be able to keep them at a distance.
In fact, all round, I have a sense of freedom. Looking back, as one does when there isn't much else to do, I wonder how much of my need for relationship was habit and pride. Habit dies hard, indoctrination or hormones or genetics or - well, I don't know how many excitations there might be to keep this going in ones psyche - they are even harder to subdue. There's also pride. I did hate the image I had of myself as an unwanted woman, an image with no real foundation in fact. Now I see that, even if I had been 'unwanted' in the intersex games, there was a powerful part of me that had withdrawn from the game long ago but didn't quite realise it. A part of me has been looking for this freedom like an alcoholic or a smoker looks for release but hasn't quite got the will power to make it happen. Another part, equally strong, has been sabotaging every attempt because it wanted quite the opposite.
Maybe there's a book about these troublesome sub-personality clashes.
Maybe it would be amusing to write one. It has been really uncomfortable living with them sometimes.
Dog walking and other things.
There's nowhere better than Findhorn Bay on a beautiful day (or any day in my opinion.) Yesterday there were enough people to make it lively but leaving plenty of room for solitary thoughts. My grandson sported in the rough sea and I had the thoughts. I also watched the dogs. Dogs everywhere. I dread the day when the beach is closed to dogs or they have to be kept on a lead. I love seeing them enjoy their day out as much as I enjoy seeing children having a squealy good time. A Chihuahua (spelling?) met a St. Bernard and they seemed to get on. A small herd of Jack Russells (my favourites) met the St. Bernard and friendship flowed. The Jack Russells were a bit nonplused by the Chihuahua though. How often do they meet people smaller than themselves? Maybe they thought they were being upstaged.
I have thought about getting a dog. It would force me to get some excercise. I'm an indoor sort of person and have to be forced out. If I did I think I might risk another jack Russell but I'm put off by the memory of deep brown doggy eyes looking at me reproachfully whenever I left the last one for whatever reason. I hate feeling guilty and can do so at the droop of a whisker.
Then there is the problem of where to walk. I hate walks where the dog has to be on a lead and there are fewer and fewer pieces of countryside left where that is possible even here in the more sparsely populated North. Too many Estates where pheasants are raised for the gun but not for the pleasure of the pet pooch. No law of trespass but - try it at your peril!
I have to say that as a dog owner I lack the necessary discipline. Jenny Russell behaved abominably and undoubtedly that was my fault. I had no idea that it would be so important to establish a pecking order with her so she saw me as leader of the pack and didn't come to feel SHE was.
Business has gone back to being so slow I wonder why I bother, but that's not hard to understand with sun and sand as the alternative day out. I've read a lot, bought and cleaned some William books (Richmal Crompton) and tried to remain philosophical.
There will be two fairs soon, Forfar and Ballater. Hopefully they will bring in some cash.
I have thought about getting a dog. It would force me to get some excercise. I'm an indoor sort of person and have to be forced out. If I did I think I might risk another jack Russell but I'm put off by the memory of deep brown doggy eyes looking at me reproachfully whenever I left the last one for whatever reason. I hate feeling guilty and can do so at the droop of a whisker.
Then there is the problem of where to walk. I hate walks where the dog has to be on a lead and there are fewer and fewer pieces of countryside left where that is possible even here in the more sparsely populated North. Too many Estates where pheasants are raised for the gun but not for the pleasure of the pet pooch. No law of trespass but - try it at your peril!
I have to say that as a dog owner I lack the necessary discipline. Jenny Russell behaved abominably and undoubtedly that was my fault. I had no idea that it would be so important to establish a pecking order with her so she saw me as leader of the pack and didn't come to feel SHE was.
Business has gone back to being so slow I wonder why I bother, but that's not hard to understand with sun and sand as the alternative day out. I've read a lot, bought and cleaned some William books (Richmal Crompton) and tried to remain philosophical.
There will be two fairs soon, Forfar and Ballater. Hopefully they will bring in some cash.
23 Jul 2008
Summer idyll
I've had more luck today with the 'I-only-want-this-particular book' folk and have been able to fulfill four requests. Even the internet order was sittng obligingly obviously in the correct place on the shelves. The heavens have turned, the conjunctions shifted. At least momentarily.
In fact I'm surprised to have any custom at all as the sun is shining quite ferociously. Last week we shivered this week we fry. That is SO Scotland.
I took my grandson up to the riding stable and walked with him through what felt like several acres of fields and woods to catch his pony. She is a very lucky mare. She can wander at will through a web of paths between rocks, along steep banks lined with gnarled, lichen covered trees (excellent for scratching against.) These banks run down to the river Findhorn and to a grassy meadow (not too rich, one has to think of ones' figure and the horrible tendency that overfed ponies have for laminitis, a very painful swelling of the feet.) She and her companions graze hidden, far from roads or human eye. We saw two baby deer with their mother on the way down. They stared, quite unfrightened by us. Star was understandably reluctant to leave this idyll but is a good girl and knows her job so agreed to be haltered and led by her proud little owner back up the hills with me puffing along behind, cursing my open-toed sandals (I hadn't anticipated this treat) slipping into the boggy bits, stumbling ungracefully over th rocky bits. As we passed fields where the more difficult personalities are kept (those who don't quite understand that winter feed has to be earned by a bit of human contact and by allowing their owners to do daft things with them) Star paused for a gossip, indulging in a spot of rebellion and ignoring Sandy's exhortations to 'walk on.' It gave me a chance to catch up.
There has to be a balance even in Paradise and in horsy Paradise it is flies and midges. I was quite glad to escape. Some of the horses are wearing fitted facial midge nets which look like the armour worn by jousting horses. I think Star will be asking for one for Sandy's birthday.
Now I am back at my post. I'm told it is really hot out there on the High Street. The good thing about stone buildings is the slow change in temperature. They don't loose heat to the outside fast nor do they absorb heat readily. The Red Cross shop has its air conditioning on. I can feel smugly ecological in here.
In fact I'm surprised to have any custom at all as the sun is shining quite ferociously. Last week we shivered this week we fry. That is SO Scotland.
I took my grandson up to the riding stable and walked with him through what felt like several acres of fields and woods to catch his pony. She is a very lucky mare. She can wander at will through a web of paths between rocks, along steep banks lined with gnarled, lichen covered trees (excellent for scratching against.) These banks run down to the river Findhorn and to a grassy meadow (not too rich, one has to think of ones' figure and the horrible tendency that overfed ponies have for laminitis, a very painful swelling of the feet.) She and her companions graze hidden, far from roads or human eye. We saw two baby deer with their mother on the way down. They stared, quite unfrightened by us. Star was understandably reluctant to leave this idyll but is a good girl and knows her job so agreed to be haltered and led by her proud little owner back up the hills with me puffing along behind, cursing my open-toed sandals (I hadn't anticipated this treat) slipping into the boggy bits, stumbling ungracefully over th rocky bits. As we passed fields where the more difficult personalities are kept (those who don't quite understand that winter feed has to be earned by a bit of human contact and by allowing their owners to do daft things with them) Star paused for a gossip, indulging in a spot of rebellion and ignoring Sandy's exhortations to 'walk on.' It gave me a chance to catch up.
There has to be a balance even in Paradise and in horsy Paradise it is flies and midges. I was quite glad to escape. Some of the horses are wearing fitted facial midge nets which look like the armour worn by jousting horses. I think Star will be asking for one for Sandy's birthday.
Now I am back at my post. I'm told it is really hot out there on the High Street. The good thing about stone buildings is the slow change in temperature. They don't loose heat to the outside fast nor do they absorb heat readily. The Red Cross shop has its air conditioning on. I can feel smugly ecological in here.
Discovery - bigger images.
I may be slow but I get there in the end. For anyone slower than me - it is possible to click on the photos and see a larger image. The Big Yin and his banana boots show much better.
Or if you should wish to see the tattoo on his chest. Artistic licence it must be assumed.
Or if you should wish to see the tattoo on his chest. Artistic licence it must be assumed.
22 Jul 2008
One of those days!
Everyone wants what I haven't got today. It's amazing. Obviously it's only a small shop and can't hope to have everything, but wouldn't you expect by the law of averages (that I am ceasing to believe in) at least one person would want a title I can provide. No-one is prepared to browse either. I love browsers. They expect to be surprised and seduced. Not this lot. The last cluster of folk were on a bus trip and therefore hadn't much time before being whisked off to their bowl of soup at Brodie.
The only order I've had through Amazon - guess what? It isn't in the shop and so I must suppose it has been sold. Aaaagh!
Sod is having it all his own way today.
The only order I've had through Amazon - guess what? It isn't in the shop and so I must suppose it has been sold. Aaaagh!
Sod is having it all his own way today.
The 60's
John's self portrait is more than just about John - it's about the flamboyant, vibrant 60's Take me back!
The Big Yin
I decided to risk all and publish. This size doesn't really do it justice - sadly the banana boots don't show too well..
21 Jul 2008
Chocolate roulade.
There were some fun elements to my day off like a trip to the Foundation to browse round the goodies in their shop, buy a stripey cotton top, have cofee in the café with a healthy slice of chocolate roulade, not too sweet, not too rich, not too heavy but nice and dense... and finally a turn around the new Art Centre which is very impressive. Their first exhibition is of work by John Byrne, a favourite customer of mine, a nice chap and a real gent. It was no surprise to learn that early in his career he got an exhibition at the Portal Gallery on the grounds of being a self-taught 'naif' although he was a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, was awarded the Newbury Medal and a travelling scholarship which enabled him to study in Italy. Nice one John! He went on to design record covers for the Beatles, Billy Conolly and Gerry Rafferty (who I have never heard of but I suppose others have) and to become a writer of stage and screen productions. His paintings are very large scale and several I couldn't live with, but I definately liked his potrait of Billy Conolly on loan from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. I would put a photo of the catalogue pic here only - well, I'm not sure about copyright. I also liked his more recent depiction of his twins, charming, tangled-haired waif-like creatures of indeterminate age and sex (I'm told they are roughly eleven and roughly male/female) in a very different style to the pop art paintings of the 60's. The twins are the age for being slim, boyish, and half-way-between-worlds but their ambiguity is possibly heightened by inheritance. Their mother is Tilda Swinton who played 'Orlando' in the film made of Virginia Woolf's long love letter to Vita Sackville West. She perfectly, wittily, depicted the ethereal hermaphrodite beauty of the sex-changing, century-striding enigma.
The gallery was such an unusual experience for me that I felt as if I had briefly visited another planet and was much better for it.
The gallery was such an unusual experience for me that I felt as if I had briefly visited another planet and was much better for it.
A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Yesterday I read “A Canticle for Leibowitz’ by Walter Miller. Now recognised as one of the classics of the sci-fi genre it’s an early post-apocalypse novel based on three short stories by the author. It was at once an exhilarating and a depressing read. Exhilarating in the way that any novel which, when read for the first time and appreciated as a REALLY good book is exhilarating. Depressing in the predicated cyclical history of humankind. The progress from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance of learning, to the obsession with worldly power, assumption of the possibility of control over nature and the final hubristic acts which destroy almost all sentient life forms.
There have been many post-apocalypse novels written since, (‘On The Beach’ notably) so many that it has become a cliché. Furthermore any child of the 40’s probably had the same nightmare in the 60’s expressed succinctly by Bob Dylan in ‘Talking World War III Blues:’
‘Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves walkin' around with no one else.’
That doesn’t detract from its impact.
Personally I also found the book depressing because he envisaged the Church surviving to be a potent force against the State whereas I’ve always lived in hope that an apocalypse might be a final purging of a (IMO) malign institution!
It had virtually no female characters (except a very weird old lady with two heads who appears in part three.) That was a problem. It made it harder for me to identify with and left me with the thought that perhaps he had left an important factor out of the equation here. I don’t think the cycle of technological evolution and dissolution would be changed in any way; there is a universal truth in the allegory, clearly demonstrated on many levels. So what am I hoping for? That it happens with more emotion and more soul? That there are some voices crying the truth however futile? I don’t know. I don’t have any answer. My personal belief system gives me comfort in the promise of personal awakening (enlightenment?) I see the world-as-we-know-it as a nursery for the growing human soul. An environment which will exist in its present form, providing the classroom into which human consciousness enters and eventually graduates from (freeing itself from the Wheel of reincarnation in Buddhist terms) when certain lessons have been learned. Maybe that’s a pretty fairy tale but it keeps me sane.
Walter Miller committed suicide eventually.
There have been many post-apocalypse novels written since, (‘On The Beach’ notably) so many that it has become a cliché. Furthermore any child of the 40’s probably had the same nightmare in the 60’s expressed succinctly by Bob Dylan in ‘Talking World War III Blues:’
‘Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves walkin' around with no one else.’
That doesn’t detract from its impact.
Personally I also found the book depressing because he envisaged the Church surviving to be a potent force against the State whereas I’ve always lived in hope that an apocalypse might be a final purging of a (IMO) malign institution!
It had virtually no female characters (except a very weird old lady with two heads who appears in part three.) That was a problem. It made it harder for me to identify with and left me with the thought that perhaps he had left an important factor out of the equation here. I don’t think the cycle of technological evolution and dissolution would be changed in any way; there is a universal truth in the allegory, clearly demonstrated on many levels. So what am I hoping for? That it happens with more emotion and more soul? That there are some voices crying the truth however futile? I don’t know. I don’t have any answer. My personal belief system gives me comfort in the promise of personal awakening (enlightenment?) I see the world-as-we-know-it as a nursery for the growing human soul. An environment which will exist in its present form, providing the classroom into which human consciousness enters and eventually graduates from (freeing itself from the Wheel of reincarnation in Buddhist terms) when certain lessons have been learned. Maybe that’s a pretty fairy tale but it keeps me sane.
Walter Miller committed suicide eventually.
19 Jul 2008
A horse and her boy.
One of the distressing things about being a bookshop granny is that I am unable to find many - if any - books about ponies and their boy riders. Little girls seem to have monopolised the market as horse-lovers and it's all 'Jill's Gymkhana.' The Pullein-Thompson sisters wrote almost exclusively about girls adventures with their beloved animals. At the riding stable in the midst of all this beautiful countryside Sandy is the only male animal (a few geldings graze the fields.) When I went to pick him up yesterday he was grooming Star in a stall next to a tiny girl of six or seven years who was shoving a small but strong grey mare around. The two ponies touched noses at some point and decided they deeply disliked each other. There was a whinnying and stomping from both of them. The tiny virago looked accusingly at me and shouted 'Who started that!" I blustered about the mutual encounter but she wasn't listening, she was glowering at both the ponies, at Sandy and at me, making it very clear she wasn't taking nonsense from any of us. The term 'ankle-biter' came strongly to mind. Sandy, Star and I left the stalls hastily and made for the field with as much dignity as possible.
16 Jul 2008
Back on track - hopefully.
Things do seem to be a bit better now on the domestic front although there will be more where that came from, she says darkly. Maybe I should think more positivly but I excuse myself from that particular mind control excecise on the grounds of past experience.
Now I need the shop to flourish a bit. Please. If there is a goddess of books (would Athene do? I'm not sure I trust those muses) please could she bring in some eager customers and make sure that they are eager for something I actually have.
Not much other news; I have missed all my social engagements because I get so knocked about by emotion; No good asking my psyche or whatever to change now - again, not so much negative thought but realism here!
I shall get on with listing books.
Now I need the shop to flourish a bit. Please. If there is a goddess of books (would Athene do? I'm not sure I trust those muses) please could she bring in some eager customers and make sure that they are eager for something I actually have.
Not much other news; I have missed all my social engagements because I get so knocked about by emotion; No good asking my psyche or whatever to change now - again, not so much negative thought but realism here!
I shall get on with listing books.
13 Jul 2008
Upsetting
This has been a very very upsetting weekend, on a personal level because of the behaviour of my grandson's father who is systematically ruining his son's life, preventing him from having any childhood.
Mac have messed with their set-up which includes my email facility which I can't now access. I'm told I need to down load this and up load that and I can't remember any of my id's or passwords from way back when... I just wish they could leave well alone.
(eradicated line that was me giving way to black depression... I don't feel better but not ready to quit!)
Monday. This goes on. Why do I feel as if I've been here before? The Buddhists have it right: karma and the Wheel of Life. It just keeps on turning.
By the way, I wish people wouldn't leave comments and then erase them.
Edited to add: Thank you very much Lesley for your comments. I was a bit spooked by the delete and it was lovely to get your good wishes. Things are still in turmoil and grim but perhaps there are a few glimmers of light. Time - is our greatest gift I remember a wise man saying (can't remember which wise man) and though in the dead hours of the night it doesn't feel like much of a blessing I should be able to look back far enough now to believe that's true. At the moment my rational mind does but the emotional part of me is screaming for instant resolution!!
Mac have messed with their set-up which includes my email facility which I can't now access. I'm told I need to down load this and up load that and I can't remember any of my id's or passwords from way back when... I just wish they could leave well alone.
(eradicated line that was me giving way to black depression... I don't feel better but not ready to quit!)
Monday. This goes on. Why do I feel as if I've been here before? The Buddhists have it right: karma and the Wheel of Life. It just keeps on turning.
By the way, I wish people wouldn't leave comments and then erase them.
Edited to add: Thank you very much Lesley for your comments. I was a bit spooked by the delete and it was lovely to get your good wishes. Things are still in turmoil and grim but perhaps there are a few glimmers of light. Time - is our greatest gift I remember a wise man saying (can't remember which wise man) and though in the dead hours of the night it doesn't feel like much of a blessing I should be able to look back far enough now to believe that's true. At the moment my rational mind does but the emotional part of me is screaming for instant resolution!!
11 Jul 2008
Haiku for today
In Japan, they are considering replacing the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft Error messages with Haiku poetry messages:
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
The Website you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
Windows XP crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
The Website you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
Windows XP crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
email down & Spice/thyme theory.
Message to anyone who wants to contact me: my email is down and has been for 36 hours (maintenance they claim which surely means they are improving it, which just as surely means it will be a guddle when it gets going again.)
In the meantime try this :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A129430
here's some of it:
Much like electrons, chickens come and go from area to area, zipping in and out at the speed of light (or the speed of chickens in this case). One might ask how it is that a farmer is able to keep the chickens that he owns. Again, much like electrons, chickens are attracted to a farm-like environment. While electrons rotate around a central proton, occasionally escaping to another atom, the same is true for chickens. Chickens and electrons are subject to a probability cloud. While the number of chickens at a given farm may fluctuate, it always remains relatively close to a standard number. The exact mathematics which can be used to approximate this chicken population belongs to a special theory of trigonometric mathematics developed by Father Eghed of the Episcopal Churches of Fried Chicken. This special mathematical theory, based on the earlier works of Sir Issac Newton, is known as Cluculas.
This brings us to the ground breaking experimental work of Colonel Finneus T. Sanders of the U.S. Department of Advanced Research of Poultry Agency (DARPA). His use of the underground super conducting super collider facilities in Kentucky resulted in the formulation of his Spice/Thyme theory as well as the release of nearly 40,000 rads of radioactive coolant into the Kentucky ground water supply. Col. Sanders was awarded the Noble Peace Prize for his humanitarian endeavors in the field of chicken acceleration and collision.
In the meantime try this :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A129430
here's some of it:
Much like electrons, chickens come and go from area to area, zipping in and out at the speed of light (or the speed of chickens in this case). One might ask how it is that a farmer is able to keep the chickens that he owns. Again, much like electrons, chickens are attracted to a farm-like environment. While electrons rotate around a central proton, occasionally escaping to another atom, the same is true for chickens. Chickens and electrons are subject to a probability cloud. While the number of chickens at a given farm may fluctuate, it always remains relatively close to a standard number. The exact mathematics which can be used to approximate this chicken population belongs to a special theory of trigonometric mathematics developed by Father Eghed of the Episcopal Churches of Fried Chicken. This special mathematical theory, based on the earlier works of Sir Issac Newton, is known as Cluculas.
This brings us to the ground breaking experimental work of Colonel Finneus T. Sanders of the U.S. Department of Advanced Research of Poultry Agency (DARPA). His use of the underground super conducting super collider facilities in Kentucky resulted in the formulation of his Spice/Thyme theory as well as the release of nearly 40,000 rads of radioactive coolant into the Kentucky ground water supply. Col. Sanders was awarded the Noble Peace Prize for his humanitarian endeavors in the field of chicken acceleration and collision.
10 Jul 2008
Dreich
Very dreich today so it was a relief that Tom was coming in and I could get our for a bit. Too wet to walk far but I toughed it out the hundred yards or so from the car to the Captain's Table in Findhorn. Have I said what an excellent place it is? Should I have the talent I could write a couple of chapters of the next Harry Potter there, sitting comfortably with a good coffee and an 'all day' breakfast for £4.20 with no hassles. I like the bay when there's rain coming down on quiet grey waters. As long as I'm inside of course.
A nasty dusty grubby consignment of books arrived whilst I was away with one or two 'almosts' in the old children's books department - an Angela Brazil, a covetable Brent Dyer and a Billy Bunter, but none of them had dust jackets alas. The first prize went to 'The Morayshire Roll of Honour 1914 - 1918' which is not the be sneezed at, although it's so dusty I can't avoid sneezing.
Now I have to sit and twiddle my thumbs till closing time. The High Street is empty. Yesterday it was noisy with huge articulated lorries because there was yet another fatal accident on the bye-pass and all traffic using the main trunk road between Inverness and Aberdeen was diverted. It was horrible. I remember hearing that many shop-keepers opposed the bye-pass bitterly because they said it would take all their trade away. What rubbish! Who would want to stop in the town with car transporters, timber lorries and huge tankers crawling noisily through, belching fumes and rattling the rooftops with their gear-changes. Fochabers still has this and the High Street is virtually dead, choked to death by carbon monoxide. Some folk just don't like change; they haven't learned that it might be scary but it ain't all bad.
A nasty dusty grubby consignment of books arrived whilst I was away with one or two 'almosts' in the old children's books department - an Angela Brazil, a covetable Brent Dyer and a Billy Bunter, but none of them had dust jackets alas. The first prize went to 'The Morayshire Roll of Honour 1914 - 1918' which is not the be sneezed at, although it's so dusty I can't avoid sneezing.
Now I have to sit and twiddle my thumbs till closing time. The High Street is empty. Yesterday it was noisy with huge articulated lorries because there was yet another fatal accident on the bye-pass and all traffic using the main trunk road between Inverness and Aberdeen was diverted. It was horrible. I remember hearing that many shop-keepers opposed the bye-pass bitterly because they said it would take all their trade away. What rubbish! Who would want to stop in the town with car transporters, timber lorries and huge tankers crawling noisily through, belching fumes and rattling the rooftops with their gear-changes. Fochabers still has this and the High Street is virtually dead, choked to death by carbon monoxide. Some folk just don't like change; they haven't learned that it might be scary but it ain't all bad.
9 Jul 2008
Not a lot happening today so it has been nice to have a pile of books to work through, putting them on the internet, cleaning them, giving them plastic jackets, and setting them on the shelves to try their luck at getting adopted.
There are more tourists around and notably my best customers have been little girls with their grannies wanting nice books for granny to read to them, and teens with their mothers buying for for their departure to first year at University. Both duo's are good business. They exude the pleasure they are feeling in being together on a special expedition. It makes them a pleasure to serve (and they spend happily!)
Other than that... Well, I was nearly mown down by a bus on the narrow pavement along to the Post Office. It flew past so close to me I felt the undertow pull me into it. Then I saw a near accident with one of those mobility bike things. A demon granny pulled out in front of a van on a blind corner and charged obliquely across the road - with her grandchild on her lap!
A very exciting day.
There are more tourists around and notably my best customers have been little girls with their grannies wanting nice books for granny to read to them, and teens with their mothers buying for for their departure to first year at University. Both duo's are good business. They exude the pleasure they are feeling in being together on a special expedition. It makes them a pleasure to serve (and they spend happily!)
Other than that... Well, I was nearly mown down by a bus on the narrow pavement along to the Post Office. It flew past so close to me I felt the undertow pull me into it. Then I saw a near accident with one of those mobility bike things. A demon granny pulled out in front of a van on a blind corner and charged obliquely across the road - with her grandchild on her lap!
A very exciting day.
8 Jul 2008
Crime
It's been a day for crime. People rushing in wanting holiday reading, in too much of a packing frenzy to browse. Suits me just fine. I have the wall of Martha Grimes sitting next to me, now mostly read, which I can recommend to women, and Reginald Hill who can be safely recommended to men. Sexist or what? They grab them happily and go.
Days like today, when there have been more than six people at a time in the shop I long for expanding walls (or my old room back.) Not everyone buys, but at least it feels a bit buzzy for a change.
Days like today, when there have been more than six people at a time in the shop I long for expanding walls (or my old room back.) Not everyone buys, but at least it feels a bit buzzy for a change.
Aaaaagh!! The start of the hols!
My grandson is lying on the couch upstairs watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The summer holidays for Scottish schools has begun. I still remember how my heart used to sink on the last day of term for my own children as they joyfully dumped all their paintings and clay figures and wood carvings and etc. etc. on me to display around the house whilst they celebrated and started to ask 'what can we do Mum?' I stared forward glassy-eyed into the mists of six weeks of quality time with the three of them, driving them around, each to different activities if I was lucky, or being stuck indoors with them in wet weather when there was nothing for them to do. The same feeling hit me this morning when Sandy arrived on my doorstep and his mother went off to earn a crust. Happily he has caught the obsession with Buffy from me and on this wet wet wet day she will suffice after a manly day outside yesterday with his Mum's new man, a tree surgeon (or something.) I took him to Findhorn earlier to book some sailing-and-activity days for next week, then his new pony arrives thanks be to Freya. We are VERY fortunate that all these diversions are possible at about a tenth of the cost for parents in the south - even in the Borders of Scotland it's all dearer.
7 Jul 2008
Creating our own reality.
A provocative blog from Chillside has my juices running... and, goodness, it's the end of the day too!
We have always agreed that we have very different experience of male-female relationships. I've expanded and expounded in an earlier entry here on my opinions, but the challenge set today is too great to let slip by. I have never had to work for my living in quite the same way Chilside had to, but nevertheless I have had experiences of being on my own and in need of support.
When the children and I left their father behind (21 years ago now) they were small and I was often knocked out by asthma and bronchitis. We came to live near a 'spiritual' community for various reasons, none of them good ones because I didn't really want to be here but I did want to be in Scotland. I 'knew' I wouldn't get any support from the community partly because I had already had some experience of its attitudes toward people who are really in need of help ('It is inappropriate for these people to be here at this time; they are not what the community needs at this time; they don't have any money or skill or strengths...) and partly, I freely admit, because of my own pre-conceived ideas about life and the way it would treat me. I especially didn't want or expect help from the women and I proved myself so right in that attitude. The women were very happy to talk theory about sisterhood and exhort me to 'find my own power' but when it came to helping with my children, forget it. I had made my bed and must lie on it. Or, in New Age jargon, I had chosen my Path. Help, when I was so desperate I did have to reach out, came through the men. Chivalry is the word I used in a post to Chillside and chivalry is the word I choose here. The men were kind. Chivalrous. They moved mountains for me. They even managed to persuade some of the women to help me.
I'm convinced that our attitudes dictate the way we experience our world. Our behaviour toward others is directly responsible for their attitude toward us. I liked men better than women, I received kindness from men and unkindness, disapproval, criticism and lectures from women.
This is what 'creating our own reality' means. I have a friend who hates the idea of being an incomer to Scotland although he patently is as, just as I am. I don't mind in the least being an incomer. We all are in one way or another. I don't belong anywhere. My father was Welsh; my mother from Cambridgeshire, I was born in Essex. I never felt like an Essex girl! We were considered incomers in the litle village we moved to when I was four. Being an incomer is normal to me. I relish the feeling of not belonging. and I experience only warmth from the Scots. Even when the butcher's wife tried to provoke me by mourning the 'incomers' taking over the High Street her gall irritated me but the accusation only amused me. She's the only person who has been in any way negative about the shop. Other peple have other experiences.
On much the same tack, I had an encounter yesterday that woke me up a bit. I met an extremely positive friend who I hadn't seen for a while when I went shopping in Tesco. She asked me how I was doing and I said I found the weather heavy and the fact I had to cook for people that afternoon irksome and so on. She was kindly about it but when I asked her how she was she said she was 'brilliant. ' I felt a surge of energy, noticed that she looked brilliant and remembered that she always says she's doing well - because she is! There's nothing specially better about her life than mine but her attitude is so much better. I felt very silly indeed. I succumb far too often to ths whingey subpersonality of mine (not so sub sadly!!)
Or to put it in a less self-flagellating way, I get too bogged down in the detail.... which I'm doing again now and will shut up....
We have always agreed that we have very different experience of male-female relationships. I've expanded and expounded in an earlier entry here on my opinions, but the challenge set today is too great to let slip by. I have never had to work for my living in quite the same way Chilside had to, but nevertheless I have had experiences of being on my own and in need of support.
When the children and I left their father behind (21 years ago now) they were small and I was often knocked out by asthma and bronchitis. We came to live near a 'spiritual' community for various reasons, none of them good ones because I didn't really want to be here but I did want to be in Scotland. I 'knew' I wouldn't get any support from the community partly because I had already had some experience of its attitudes toward people who are really in need of help ('It is inappropriate for these people to be here at this time; they are not what the community needs at this time; they don't have any money or skill or strengths...) and partly, I freely admit, because of my own pre-conceived ideas about life and the way it would treat me. I especially didn't want or expect help from the women and I proved myself so right in that attitude. The women were very happy to talk theory about sisterhood and exhort me to 'find my own power' but when it came to helping with my children, forget it. I had made my bed and must lie on it. Or, in New Age jargon, I had chosen my Path. Help, when I was so desperate I did have to reach out, came through the men. Chivalry is the word I used in a post to Chillside and chivalry is the word I choose here. The men were kind. Chivalrous. They moved mountains for me. They even managed to persuade some of the women to help me.
I'm convinced that our attitudes dictate the way we experience our world. Our behaviour toward others is directly responsible for their attitude toward us. I liked men better than women, I received kindness from men and unkindness, disapproval, criticism and lectures from women.
This is what 'creating our own reality' means. I have a friend who hates the idea of being an incomer to Scotland although he patently is as, just as I am. I don't mind in the least being an incomer. We all are in one way or another. I don't belong anywhere. My father was Welsh; my mother from Cambridgeshire, I was born in Essex. I never felt like an Essex girl! We were considered incomers in the litle village we moved to when I was four. Being an incomer is normal to me. I relish the feeling of not belonging. and I experience only warmth from the Scots. Even when the butcher's wife tried to provoke me by mourning the 'incomers' taking over the High Street her gall irritated me but the accusation only amused me. She's the only person who has been in any way negative about the shop. Other peple have other experiences.
On much the same tack, I had an encounter yesterday that woke me up a bit. I met an extremely positive friend who I hadn't seen for a while when I went shopping in Tesco. She asked me how I was doing and I said I found the weather heavy and the fact I had to cook for people that afternoon irksome and so on. She was kindly about it but when I asked her how she was she said she was 'brilliant. ' I felt a surge of energy, noticed that she looked brilliant and remembered that she always says she's doing well - because she is! There's nothing specially better about her life than mine but her attitude is so much better. I felt very silly indeed. I succumb far too often to ths whingey subpersonality of mine (not so sub sadly!!)
Or to put it in a less self-flagellating way, I get too bogged down in the detail.... which I'm doing again now and will shut up....
5 Jul 2008
Nearly my Day Off.
It's been quite good in the shop; better than expected (see earlier gloomy predictions.) I'm ready for a cold glass of white wine though.
Women again!
Well that was an interesting customer. A young Spanish chap who was looking for archaeology and specifically a Spanish female archaeologist whose name I couldn't quite catch because his accent was rather thick. With a lot of hand-waving he told me about ths woman, that it is very hard to find her work because her interpretation of finds (the cast she puts on the past? shut up carol..) is considered heretical amongst her male counterparts and in fact in Spanish society generally. She challenges the accepted view that women were the stay-at-homes, looking after the hearth and the babies. I found a web site that talks in the same way so I suppose there to be a revolution in thought happening in archeology just now, not just in Spain either.
"The absence of the female voice in Spanish archaeologically directly impacts how women are perceived in the archaeological record. A chauvinistic view is persistent and feeds the androcentric, western perspective that states men have always been dominant and women submissive in every matter."
...and from the same site (which does seem to be strongly female power driven but still may have a point..)
"The roles women play in archaeology cannot be easily dismissed. Although often marginalized and not accepted as "real" archaeologists, women working in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia are making great strides in giving women a voice in the archaeological record. That gendered voice, the voice that looks beyond the idea that only men made contributions to prehistory and history, will not stay silent as long as women continue to examine the data with a eye towards recognizing the accomplishments of the women who came before them, both in the field of anthropology and in the distance past of humanity."
"The absence of the female voice in Spanish archaeologically directly impacts how women are perceived in the archaeological record. A chauvinistic view is persistent and feeds the androcentric, western perspective that states men have always been dominant and women submissive in every matter."
...and from the same site (which does seem to be strongly female power driven but still may have a point..)
"The roles women play in archaeology cannot be easily dismissed. Although often marginalized and not accepted as "real" archaeologists, women working in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia are making great strides in giving women a voice in the archaeological record. That gendered voice, the voice that looks beyond the idea that only men made contributions to prehistory and history, will not stay silent as long as women continue to examine the data with a eye towards recognizing the accomplishments of the women who came before them, both in the field of anthropology and in the distance past of humanity."
Reginald Hill
I received 9 Reginald Hill novels this morning from ebay, all from one seller and cheaper than I would have found them in the charity shops. I'm still wading my way through the wall of Martha Grimes so RH will be a nice change. After five stories MG's American idea of the Englishman gentleman, the English pub, the English village, the English eccentric etc. etc. is wearing just a tad thin. She has the village locals saying 'gotten' and eating Hershey bars too. Tsk-tsk!
The plots are good though.
Reginald is an intelligent and literary writer (I am supported in that opinion by my friend Donald who likes his books and Donald has good taste in literature) He also sounds like a Good Bloke. I found an interview with him (Grauniad I think) in which he replies to the uninspiring question: What advice would you give to new writers?
"When I was young, I was full of good advice. Then after a while I realised I knew nothing. The only bit of advice I would give is: when you finish that first manuscript and send it off to a publisher, start your second immediately. It will be infinitely better and you will have it finished by the time you get a reply about the first."
"Is there a secret to writing?"
"It's just perseverance and hard work. If you've got something to say or a good story to tell then the greatest problem is writing to the end of it. If you can do that, then even if it's not that good you have got something to work at."
The plots are good though.
Reginald is an intelligent and literary writer (I am supported in that opinion by my friend Donald who likes his books and Donald has good taste in literature) He also sounds like a Good Bloke. I found an interview with him (Grauniad I think) in which he replies to the uninspiring question: What advice would you give to new writers?
"When I was young, I was full of good advice. Then after a while I realised I knew nothing. The only bit of advice I would give is: when you finish that first manuscript and send it off to a publisher, start your second immediately. It will be infinitely better and you will have it finished by the time you get a reply about the first."
"Is there a secret to writing?"
"It's just perseverance and hard work. If you've got something to say or a good story to tell then the greatest problem is writing to the end of it. If you can do that, then even if it's not that good you have got something to work at."
Highland Games
It's a glorious day today and that's noteable because it is also the Forres Highland Games when statistics (my own) show that more often than not it rains.
People will come to the town for the spectacle and the fun but sadly they will not come down this end. The Games are in the park at the east end. My shop se trouve at the west end. A world away.
Oh well. At least I am not travelling nine hours in my car as it goes to Peebles and back to view a new pony for Sandy, the last naughty mare being 'light on her feet' (i.e. given to rearing, a sin it is extremely difficult to break the equine breed of once they have taken to it.) It will do the car good to get a proper outing. These days the trip to Cullen and last week to the auction in Dingwall is as good as it gets.
People will come to the town for the spectacle and the fun but sadly they will not come down this end. The Games are in the park at the east end. My shop se trouve at the west end. A world away.
Oh well. At least I am not travelling nine hours in my car as it goes to Peebles and back to view a new pony for Sandy, the last naughty mare being 'light on her feet' (i.e. given to rearing, a sin it is extremely difficult to break the equine breed of once they have taken to it.) It will do the car good to get a proper outing. These days the trip to Cullen and last week to the auction in Dingwall is as good as it gets.
4 Jul 2008
Poop Poop!
Good grief Mr Toad claims he has been head/heart/body hunted by a woman in Yarm who wants him to run a bookshop for her. Lets hope she understands that he has already bankrupted one shop, that he is on the run from the police and has a custodial sentence hanging over him.
And let's hope - fervently - that the Durham police catch up with him before he has time to part her from her cash.
Or, better still, that he's making it up. That way nobody gets hurt.
And let's hope - fervently - that the Durham police catch up with him before he has time to part her from her cash.
Or, better still, that he's making it up. That way nobody gets hurt.
3 Jul 2008
Nice bindings.
I've never seen blind-stamped gilt edges to a book before - impressive. The chap who brought them in, a two vol. Complete Works of Byron circa 1870's, didn't want to sell them, only to find out how much they might be worth.The decorated gilt edges certainly would put the value up for me, they were the most attractive feature of the books which were otherwise quite heavily foxed, the half-calf binding OK but not brilliant. If I had bought them I think I'd want to put them edge-side out on the shelves. I wish I could have taken a photograph but didn't think of it at the time.
Then I did buy 'The Critical Edition of the Life and works of Burns' in a handsome single volume with raised bands and lots of gilt decoration. It has been reprinted as a 'print-on-demand' boook so if someone only wants the content that is what they will go for, but this book is an impressive piece of furniture for the true collector!
I went to see Tom in Cullen today, a 60 mile round trip on a heavy hot overcast day. It wasn't the most enjoyable outing I have had but as he was loading books into my car for me he saw two rather splendid looking sets, blue cloth highly decorated with gilt, worth absolutely nothing, that I used recently to even off the back of the car when I was moving boxes of books. His enthusiasm for them was such that I gave them to him and he gave me an antique pair of ear-rings.
I think I got the beter deal.
Then I did buy 'The Critical Edition of the Life and works of Burns' in a handsome single volume with raised bands and lots of gilt decoration. It has been reprinted as a 'print-on-demand' boook so if someone only wants the content that is what they will go for, but this book is an impressive piece of furniture for the true collector!
I went to see Tom in Cullen today, a 60 mile round trip on a heavy hot overcast day. It wasn't the most enjoyable outing I have had but as he was loading books into my car for me he saw two rather splendid looking sets, blue cloth highly decorated with gilt, worth absolutely nothing, that I used recently to even off the back of the car when I was moving boxes of books. His enthusiasm for them was such that I gave them to him and he gave me an antique pair of ear-rings.
I think I got the beter deal.
Good old Harry.
More cheerfully, I started the day with a nice expensive order for a 1st edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Not a 1st/1st but an early enough printing to improve the look of my bank balance.
Now all I have to worry about is the Spanish postal system delivering it safely. To insure or not to insure? The usual quandary.
Now all I have to worry about is the Spanish postal system delivering it safely. To insure or not to insure? The usual quandary.
Genetics
In less than three weeks the gull chicks on the roof opposite my bedroom skylight have turned from fluffballs on cocktail sticks to the compressed grey matter from my Dyson on stilts. I have tried to get a photograph of them but when I open the skylight far enough to put my head out, or at least the camera, to get a clear view the adults react like the birds in the tops of the trees when Alice grew huge. Anyone within a mile radius can hear them yelling 'Serpent!' No-one would be interested in my ornithological observations except me anyway as gulls are considered a nuisance in the town, but I've watched the parents snuggling up to each other long before any eggs were laid, exchanging what look like tender jabs of the beak occasionally, and since the eggs hatched I have seen what caring parents they are, deterring the adventurous one from standing on the edge of the flat part around the chimney when it was still wobbly on its feet, falling onto its beak every other step.
Seeing such rapid growth and watching too many X-Files gave me the uncomfortable notion of a DNA on-off switch gone wrong. We could have gulls the size of Nimrods nesting by our chimneys.
DNA and hormones. So vital and so strong - and so fragile. I am thinking now of Mr Toad, on the run. He will always be on the run, if not from the police then from himself and the disastrous life he creates for himself, constantly living in some vision of future projects and loves; congenitally incapable of being satisfied with his present situation, however much promise that might hold. It is never enough. He has to reach beyond what is physicaly available to him in money or in attention. Situations get boring. People get boring, not bringing enough challenge, or enough glory. Nothing can give him what he searches for. It's difficult not to feel sorry for him. How much of that complex, arrogant warped mind is DNA and how much a chemical imbalance? He can't find a place to rest or be at peace.
Then I remember that I know others on lithium because they are bi-polar and the condition has never caused them to be amoral. They know right from wrong. They know when they are culpable of crossing the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. They don't use people ruthlessly to get what they want.
Then my sympathy drains away..
Seeing such rapid growth and watching too many X-Files gave me the uncomfortable notion of a DNA on-off switch gone wrong. We could have gulls the size of Nimrods nesting by our chimneys.
DNA and hormones. So vital and so strong - and so fragile. I am thinking now of Mr Toad, on the run. He will always be on the run, if not from the police then from himself and the disastrous life he creates for himself, constantly living in some vision of future projects and loves; congenitally incapable of being satisfied with his present situation, however much promise that might hold. It is never enough. He has to reach beyond what is physicaly available to him in money or in attention. Situations get boring. People get boring, not bringing enough challenge, or enough glory. Nothing can give him what he searches for. It's difficult not to feel sorry for him. How much of that complex, arrogant warped mind is DNA and how much a chemical imbalance? He can't find a place to rest or be at peace.
Then I remember that I know others on lithium because they are bi-polar and the condition has never caused them to be amoral. They know right from wrong. They know when they are culpable of crossing the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. They don't use people ruthlessly to get what they want.
Then my sympathy drains away..
1 Jul 2008
Male and female created he...
Nothing book- related to occupy my mind just now so I’m thinking about Chillside’s blog on women’s suffrage and the lack of interest many women show toward the hard-won privilege nowadays.
It continues, for me, a conversation I had with my daughter yesterday about the role of men and women. That conversation started in an oblique way during the early morning coffee exchange about the well-being of her son, soon to be ten years old and already interested in getting ‘dates’ (usually just a bike trip round the local park as far as we know...) Chloë was waxing worried about his future experiences and the unkindness of schoolgirls, in fact the horridness of girls who will soon be tormenting her son. I must say I join her in that worry. Unlike Chillside I have a jaundiced view of women and see them as the stronger sex, very manipulative and overbearing toward their male counterparts. These days especially, young women are hurtful and bitchy toward the lads who they taunt, tantalise and string along, then make fools of.
Chloë remembers herself coming on to men when she was quite young - jail bait in fact. It’s wrong to say young girls don’t know their own power - they do and they glory in using it. I remember how much fun certain girls got in my Grammar school from trying out their charms in order to make the young maths master sweat and stutter. We were twelve years old.
We thought about the marriages we know that seem to ‘work’ and generally there is not only mutual respect between the partners but a sense that the male is strong and in charge. He will have the last word in any decision making. Chloë doesn’t want any more weak men; she wants one she can respect and put into a conventional role of provider and protector, even though she is herself very strong and is doing the providing very well just now. Unfortunately I don’t think boys these days have much chance of learning that role since so many of their fathers have had their testosterone derided and their masculinity despised.
I think my son has managed to survive being the one male in a household of females for many years of his life and still emerged essentially masculine. He had some good friends wth strongly masculine, intelligent fathers. He had his own father, at a distance but still present in our household in many ways, who is also strong and male in an intellectual way, very confident and very able to find his way about the world. I hope I also did my bit to give him self-respect and to make sure his sisters showed him respect as a human being, even when they were having problems with the whole sexual identity thing and finding his male energy hard to endure. He in turn learned a lot about the emotional roller-coaster women ride, hagridden by their hormones.
(As an aside I think that self-respect is the key to any good upbringing. If a child isn’t given that by the close adults in its life, and hasn’t been able to see those adults respecting themselves and each other then life is much much harder for them along their own journey.)
Getting back to the question of suffrage. Could it be that more women than care to admit actually WANT the world to be run by men? There is a joke about the wife who takes all the decisions on how to spend the money, where to go on holiday, how to bring up the children etc. etc. whilst the man sees the world to rights by keeping an eye on politics and world affairs. It’s all about division of labour and I feel I am cut out for a different purpose to men. I never wanted to rule the World. I like to rule my own world which is a not the same thing at all. I wanted my husband to be strong. Mostly he was and I respected him at those times even when it frustrated my whims.
Like most of the human condition the roles and relationships of men and women will never be fully defined because we are all individuals and what’s good for one isn’t good for the other. Furthermore we all have the ‘corpse in the cargo’ (as Ibsen called it,) our own unique inherited mix of nature and nurture.
Ouch. Too many thoughts. My head hurts.
It continues, for me, a conversation I had with my daughter yesterday about the role of men and women. That conversation started in an oblique way during the early morning coffee exchange about the well-being of her son, soon to be ten years old and already interested in getting ‘dates’ (usually just a bike trip round the local park as far as we know...) Chloë was waxing worried about his future experiences and the unkindness of schoolgirls, in fact the horridness of girls who will soon be tormenting her son. I must say I join her in that worry. Unlike Chillside I have a jaundiced view of women and see them as the stronger sex, very manipulative and overbearing toward their male counterparts. These days especially, young women are hurtful and bitchy toward the lads who they taunt, tantalise and string along, then make fools of.
Chloë remembers herself coming on to men when she was quite young - jail bait in fact. It’s wrong to say young girls don’t know their own power - they do and they glory in using it. I remember how much fun certain girls got in my Grammar school from trying out their charms in order to make the young maths master sweat and stutter. We were twelve years old.
We thought about the marriages we know that seem to ‘work’ and generally there is not only mutual respect between the partners but a sense that the male is strong and in charge. He will have the last word in any decision making. Chloë doesn’t want any more weak men; she wants one she can respect and put into a conventional role of provider and protector, even though she is herself very strong and is doing the providing very well just now. Unfortunately I don’t think boys these days have much chance of learning that role since so many of their fathers have had their testosterone derided and their masculinity despised.
I think my son has managed to survive being the one male in a household of females for many years of his life and still emerged essentially masculine. He had some good friends wth strongly masculine, intelligent fathers. He had his own father, at a distance but still present in our household in many ways, who is also strong and male in an intellectual way, very confident and very able to find his way about the world. I hope I also did my bit to give him self-respect and to make sure his sisters showed him respect as a human being, even when they were having problems with the whole sexual identity thing and finding his male energy hard to endure. He in turn learned a lot about the emotional roller-coaster women ride, hagridden by their hormones.
(As an aside I think that self-respect is the key to any good upbringing. If a child isn’t given that by the close adults in its life, and hasn’t been able to see those adults respecting themselves and each other then life is much much harder for them along their own journey.)
Getting back to the question of suffrage. Could it be that more women than care to admit actually WANT the world to be run by men? There is a joke about the wife who takes all the decisions on how to spend the money, where to go on holiday, how to bring up the children etc. etc. whilst the man sees the world to rights by keeping an eye on politics and world affairs. It’s all about division of labour and I feel I am cut out for a different purpose to men. I never wanted to rule the World. I like to rule my own world which is a not the same thing at all. I wanted my husband to be strong. Mostly he was and I respected him at those times even when it frustrated my whims.
Like most of the human condition the roles and relationships of men and women will never be fully defined because we are all individuals and what’s good for one isn’t good for the other. Furthermore we all have the ‘corpse in the cargo’ (as Ibsen called it,) our own unique inherited mix of nature and nurture.
Ouch. Too many thoughts. My head hurts.
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