Suddenly the shop had a really good day for sales. Bizarre. Then a good collection of fishing books was wafted under my nose - and there I am back in the quandary again - to buy or not to buy? Am I continuing with this enterprise or winding it down? Do I re-invest yesterday's takings (and quite a lot more beside) or shake my head at temptation and take pleasure watching the shelves empty?
I just can't make up my mind.
30 Sept 2009
28 Sept 2009
26 Sept 2009
Shall I compare thee....
It needs replacing but I'm fond of it. I bought it because it was different and I usually dislike spending my money on utilitarian things because they are so dull.
It became especially memorable when my super-cleaner daughter, looking at it in distress, remarked: 'It's everything you are mum - interesting and completely impractical.'
What a compliment!
25 Sept 2009
The teller of tales.
As I chomp my way through Agatha Christie's works a few random thoughts about the development of the popular novel creep in. She sometimes reads like Enid Blyton for adults; sometimes she's a little more literary than that. My feeling is that they were both excellent tellers of tales and that is what a good entertainer should be. Modern fiction writers may be subtler, be better edited, more spohisticated, but they don't always have such intricate and interesting plots. They might be good at dialogue and creating believable characters and hot with the psychology, they aren't always page turners. In the crime genre there is too much reliance on the forensic details and the horrors of decomposition both physically and in the human psyche. The murderer is often not a person we have been at all interested in.
I admire people who can tell a good tale in an engaging way and I'm not too bothered if they are unsophisticated in their style. AC sticks very much to the plot, especially at the end when everything speeds up agreeably. There is very little superfluous waffle, though just enough to cause distraction. The clues are always there for the reader and the cast is all introduce properly so we can get to know them. There is no deus ex machina brought in on the last-but-one-page.
Who did I see being interviewed recently who said that on the last page he writes a 'confession' or a denouement that implicates the wrong person to punish the reader who cheats by looking at the end first?
I watched with enormous pleasure the BBC biopic on Barbara Cartland - missed it first time round. These larger-than-life celebrity figures that we love to mock always have an interesting history and it's often a heart-breaking one. Will I ever be thinking that about Posh though? Or was it the times they lived in?
Barbara was a shrewd operator and knowing director of her own drama so not so flighty and lacking in IQ as her books make her sound. Her tales did what she wanted - entertained bored housewives in their millions and continued the quest for the Holy Grail of perfect love and perfect happiness. It has been claimed that reading too many Mills and Boone can be detrimental to ones health - the disappointment of real life is too much to bear.
In my opinion most readers recognise the illusion for what it is but go along with the fantasy which gives them a respite from reality.
Which could lead me into a diatribe about children's writers who believe children need 'real life' situations to relate to so give them all the heavy stuff like pregnancy, dying parents, paedophilia and so on. What nonsense! They can get all that from their parent's newspapers.
I admire people who can tell a good tale in an engaging way and I'm not too bothered if they are unsophisticated in their style. AC sticks very much to the plot, especially at the end when everything speeds up agreeably. There is very little superfluous waffle, though just enough to cause distraction. The clues are always there for the reader and the cast is all introduce properly so we can get to know them. There is no deus ex machina brought in on the last-but-one-page.
Who did I see being interviewed recently who said that on the last page he writes a 'confession' or a denouement that implicates the wrong person to punish the reader who cheats by looking at the end first?
I watched with enormous pleasure the BBC biopic on Barbara Cartland - missed it first time round. These larger-than-life celebrity figures that we love to mock always have an interesting history and it's often a heart-breaking one. Will I ever be thinking that about Posh though? Or was it the times they lived in?
Barbara was a shrewd operator and knowing director of her own drama so not so flighty and lacking in IQ as her books make her sound. Her tales did what she wanted - entertained bored housewives in their millions and continued the quest for the Holy Grail of perfect love and perfect happiness. It has been claimed that reading too many Mills and Boone can be detrimental to ones health - the disappointment of real life is too much to bear.
In my opinion most readers recognise the illusion for what it is but go along with the fantasy which gives them a respite from reality.
Which could lead me into a diatribe about children's writers who believe children need 'real life' situations to relate to so give them all the heavy stuff like pregnancy, dying parents, paedophilia and so on. What nonsense! They can get all that from their parent's newspapers.
So Philip Pullman is taking up the cause again with 'The Good man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ' due to be published next Easter.
''By the time the gospels were being written, Paul had already begun to transform the story of Jesus into something altogether new and extraordinary, and some of his version influenced what the gospel writers put in theirs.
''Paul was a literary and imaginative genius of the first order who has probably had more influence on the history of the world than any other human being, Jesus certainly included. I believe this is a pity.''
(and how! says Carol)
Pullman told The Times newspaper that the idea of Jesus being the son of God came from Paul's ''fervid imagination''.
He went on: ''The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like a history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.''
Sounds promising.
''By the time the gospels were being written, Paul had already begun to transform the story of Jesus into something altogether new and extraordinary, and some of his version influenced what the gospel writers put in theirs.
''Paul was a literary and imaginative genius of the first order who has probably had more influence on the history of the world than any other human being, Jesus certainly included. I believe this is a pity.''
(and how! says Carol)
Pullman told The Times newspaper that the idea of Jesus being the son of God came from Paul's ''fervid imagination''.
He went on: ''The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like a history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.''
Sounds promising.
Getaway? Nah.
I ordered a book local to this area from a seller in Spain and to my surprise got an email from a fellow bookseller who lived (as far as I knew) about 20 miles up the road. he and his have moved to Spain where they are continuing to sell his huge stock of books in a sunnier location. How sensible!
I don't imagine myself ever doing that but admire folk who do. Much as I might like a warmer climate at times, I know from the Belgian years and extended holidays in Greece that I prefer - I was going to say my 'own' country but what with one thing and another, and the Scots wanting Independence I'm not sure it is mine own... Anyway, I do know I prefer living in the North and in a community where my mother tongue is prevalent and mostly understandable. Of course that could be true of whole areas of Spain too by the sounds of it but... hell, what DO I mean? The world has become homogenized.
Maybe I'm just too lazy now to move.
I don't imagine myself ever doing that but admire folk who do. Much as I might like a warmer climate at times, I know from the Belgian years and extended holidays in Greece that I prefer - I was going to say my 'own' country but what with one thing and another, and the Scots wanting Independence I'm not sure it is mine own... Anyway, I do know I prefer living in the North and in a community where my mother tongue is prevalent and mostly understandable. Of course that could be true of whole areas of Spain too by the sounds of it but... hell, what DO I mean? The world has become homogenized.
Maybe I'm just too lazy now to move.
24 Sept 2009
Here be dragons.
The dragon T has landed and Sandy is delighted. He wore it to archery last night. It isn't really that much too big. They must cut them rather small which is why the one I bought for 11+ is already tight. The ones I bought for three-year-olds were also small so the Chillside grandson should be just right any time now. Many thanks for ours. I think I might keep the black on black one when he finally releases it - I shall frame it. Best dragon I've seen for ages and I'm very taken with them mythologically and artistically.
Chillside's reason for taking up smoking for the 'naughty girl' effect reminded me of the day we found my ma-in-law, sitting up in her hospital bed after her first hip replacement, puffing elegantly away at a cheroot. She said it helped to keep her feeling human in the face of the dehumanising nurses! What can we replace this weapon with? Last time I was hospitalised I took a 'protective' Aura Soma oil in with me. It smelled so nice I got more attention from the nice nurses so maybe it worked.
Not much news here except that I won a £15 voucher for meat from a local butcher by finishing the crossword in the local weekly rag. YES! Pity Sanders has decided to go veggie (he's a piscitarian actualy as he is still eating fish.)
I have a fluey cold - is that IT? Chloe has had the same. So far it isn't even enough to stop me sitting in the shop dammit. I should be grateful but - what an anticlimax!!
Chillside's reason for taking up smoking for the 'naughty girl' effect reminded me of the day we found my ma-in-law, sitting up in her hospital bed after her first hip replacement, puffing elegantly away at a cheroot. She said it helped to keep her feeling human in the face of the dehumanising nurses! What can we replace this weapon with? Last time I was hospitalised I took a 'protective' Aura Soma oil in with me. It smelled so nice I got more attention from the nice nurses so maybe it worked.
Not much news here except that I won a £15 voucher for meat from a local butcher by finishing the crossword in the local weekly rag. YES! Pity Sanders has decided to go veggie (he's a piscitarian actualy as he is still eating fish.)
I have a fluey cold - is that IT? Chloe has had the same. So far it isn't even enough to stop me sitting in the shop dammit. I should be grateful but - what an anticlimax!!
22 Sept 2009
Doubt sends custom.
One of yesterday's customers told me that he had read about the closure of my shop on the internet - but because it was on the internet he hadn't believed it so came looking for me anyway!
20 Sept 2009
The Moray Art Centre, Findhorn.
Suddenly I had a rush of enthusiasm for taking photos. It must have been the nice weather. The new Art Centre at the Foundation won a prize for its architect; I'm not sure I've done the building itself justice but it was the outside features that I liked best today, especially the big shiny balls and the illusory window which is really reflective metal. Whilst I was at it I wondered around the rest of the place - see below...
Remembering Frances.
Two years ago Chloë and I scattered the ashes of a very dear friend, Frances De Silva, here in the Quiet Garden and around the little sanctuary. I don't need to go back here to remember Frances, whose caravan was only a pace or two away from the bushes we shook her into, but it was quite nice to sit there today and give her a bit of extra attention. She made many cups of sanity-saving tea for me on difficult post-separation days, whilst she shared tales of her own marital woes - most memorably the day she threw a plate of food at her first husband and knocked him cold. She watched the potato sliding down the wall and wondered how many years she'd get if he was dead! That's the sort of tale to put a bit of iron into the soul and momentary distress into perspective!
I was always jealous that I hadn't had the brio to throw a plate of food...
Barrel housing.
Harley (see below) was in at the meditation to envision this first experiment with new housing for the FF. The idea of making a house in an old whisky barrel was greeted with derision in some (many?) quarters but it succeeded. I believe it took a long time for the whisky fumes to dissipate but don't think the first inhabitant minded too much. The idea caught on and now there are several barrel houses of ever increasing complexity and grandeur. I still think this is the nicest. Most like a cosy Hobbit hole.
Amazing manifestations.
I don't often gt down to the Foundation these days but today it was a pleasant place to walk, out of the wind and into some interesting memories. None of these houses were around when we first came to live here so they have no part in those memories but are a constant source of amazement. Some of them are so huge!!
The New Age Business...
It all started with a few scruffy caravans. Now it's hard to find any caravans at all. The Visitor's Centre started life as a toilet block which was promoted to glory when Eileen escaped into it at night to get some peace from from her cramped caravan shared with small sons and a large husband. It's the place she meditated and received the guidance that got the community started.
Perfectly formed.
Last weekend I went to the 53rd wedding anniversary of some much-valued friends. Sandy took the photos so I didn't get any of this amazing couple but I got one of Cally, the female half, with Nicholas, my ex. They were made for different scale models I think!
The little Wendy house was built by Harley (the male half) to house his studio. He is an artist and a creativity machine. Over the years he has instigated, undertaken and carried through more projects than most people even dream of.
They've been through some tough times together, and apart. There has been some smashed china along the way. I've watched in admiration over the years as they went at the bumpy bits with the same positive and creative energy that they put into all their projects. Their shared journey seems to have brought them lots of happiness and satisfaction, especially nowadays.
19 Sept 2009
Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher.
Red Umbrella's mention of a commemorative bobbin inscribed with the date of Mrs T's re-election brings to mind the excellent TV programme last Sunday on Mrs T's progress in Scotland. She was much hated here for closing pits and destroying industry; cutting off school milk (which I could only have seen as an advantage. I absolutely hated having to drink the stuff as a child.) Mainly I think she was hated for her extreme, 1950's BBC presenter's English accent. The part of the documentary that amused me most was the attempt by her ministers to make her more acceptable up here by bringing to her attention her habit of distancing the Scots in her speeches by referring to them as if they were a breed apart: 'the Scots may think so and so,' 'the Scottish people,' and so on. She took this on board like someone with autism trying to fit in. Her speeches this side of the border thereafter were full of 'We, the Scots,' 'We here in Scotland,' 'We, the Scottish people.' It was agony to watch and those in her entourage must have wanted the earth to swallow them.
However, in the interesting final summary came the opinion that she had dragged Scotland kicking and screaming into the new age of prosperity from sources other than coal and steel, and that the present day Scotland has much to thank her for.
They won't of course - the Tory party up here has never recovered and shows no sign of doing so in the visible future.
Hey! I've broken my 'no politics' rule..
However, in the interesting final summary came the opinion that she had dragged Scotland kicking and screaming into the new age of prosperity from sources other than coal and steel, and that the present day Scotland has much to thank her for.
They won't of course - the Tory party up here has never recovered and shows no sign of doing so in the visible future.
Hey! I've broken my 'no politics' rule..
Still waiting.
Although every ache and sneeze seems to be a prelude to the SF none of the adults exposed to young Sandy have succumbed as yet. Chillside may be right and the asian flu (which yes I believe I did get) has left some immunity, but - there are still at least five days of possible incubation, so better not break out the party piñana just yet. I have Tamiflu on the shelf. Daughter asked the doc if she should stop working. She has been notifying vulnerable patients who mostly have decided to risk it. Doc said - no point. If the health workers all stopped for fear of spreading it there would be no doctors or nurses left on the job.
Sanders is well again with a residual cough. So far he hasn't managed a full week back at school and next week is 'leave out' weekend which means school ends lunchtime Friday, so he still won't be burdened with five days hard grind at the educational coal face.
Not much other news here. Slow week generally. On a whim I started to read 'King Lear' which somehow has escaped me till now. I come across so many quotations from it in general reading it seemed to be time to put them all together. 'Death Comes As the End' has been a welcome light relief intermittently. I think it's one of Agatha's best.
Envy of Chillsider, and all those having short holiday breaks before the winter (our Sophie is off to Rome tomrrow) is almost crippling my spirit. I woke this morning and thought it must still be night but no - 6am already. The weather is lovely. I should try to get to the beach but there always seems to be something else to do. This morning gnomes are coming to tidy my garden and I want to get to the indoor mart first so - off I go for my morning bath. (I read an alarming report about shower heads carrying diseases, especially lung diseases... bit hypersensitive right now to talk of disease....)
Sanders is well again with a residual cough. So far he hasn't managed a full week back at school and next week is 'leave out' weekend which means school ends lunchtime Friday, so he still won't be burdened with five days hard grind at the educational coal face.
Not much other news here. Slow week generally. On a whim I started to read 'King Lear' which somehow has escaped me till now. I come across so many quotations from it in general reading it seemed to be time to put them all together. 'Death Comes As the End' has been a welcome light relief intermittently. I think it's one of Agatha's best.
Envy of Chillsider, and all those having short holiday breaks before the winter (our Sophie is off to Rome tomrrow) is almost crippling my spirit. I woke this morning and thought it must still be night but no - 6am already. The weather is lovely. I should try to get to the beach but there always seems to be something else to do. This morning gnomes are coming to tidy my garden and I want to get to the indoor mart first so - off I go for my morning bath. (I read an alarming report about shower heads carrying diseases, especially lung diseases... bit hypersensitive right now to talk of disease....)
17 Sept 2009
Yellow flag.
A ship's yellow flag, denoting the letter Q for ‘quarantine.’ When flown with another flag, it indicates disease on board; when flown alone, it indicates the absence of disease and signifies a request for customs clearance.
Well, we have disease on board but I'm not sure what the 'other flag' should be so I'm just telling friends by text to stay away - not an option in the days of the great sailing ships.
Sandy didn't seem too bad yesterday. His temperature went down quickly and his apetite never went away. Much food was consumed, many DVD's watched. For the other children at his school it also seems to have presented as a heavy shivery cold. He was, however, taking it like a man, with lots of moaning and a groan after every cough. 'You really don't want to get this granny.'
I don't, but on the other hand I'd really like to get it over one way or t'other.
Well, we have disease on board but I'm not sure what the 'other flag' should be so I'm just telling friends by text to stay away - not an option in the days of the great sailing ships.
Sandy didn't seem too bad yesterday. His temperature went down quickly and his apetite never went away. Much food was consumed, many DVD's watched. For the other children at his school it also seems to have presented as a heavy shivery cold. He was, however, taking it like a man, with lots of moaning and a groan after every cough. 'You really don't want to get this granny.'
I don't, but on the other hand I'd really like to get it over one way or t'other.
13 Sept 2009
Trends in reading
Anthony Trollope must be having a revival because after not selling one at all for literally years I've sold five in the last three weeks. Odd. Not even a TV adaptation to explain it.
Lots of novels and crime going out the door. The onset of autumn has to have something to do with that. The trees are turning, the berries reddening, the nights drawing in. I've been reading voraciously myself, which isn't always the case these days. Yesterday I bought a complete hardback set of Agatha Christie's works in 'as new' condition at the car boot for £20, and although I've been asked for her books in the shop recently I'm going to keep them for myself. They are, like Harry Potter, comfort reading. I got them home at noon yesterday and have read two already. They're a welcome change from WW2.
Also a welcome relief from the crime authors I was reduced to by the end of the week. James Paterson 'The Quickie.' Not recommended!
And then there was that Lee Child book. A nice but pushy customer is an admirer - a groupie even - of Lee Child. He has corresponded with and met his hero, has lots of signed first and every time he comes to town he pops in to see if I have any in stock, not to buy, just to talk about them, and to find out if I've read one yet. Because I was stubbornly refusing to try a title so we could have a proper conversation about the style and general excellence, this non-buying customer finally shoved a small pile of LC's through the letter box and told me he would come back in five days to check out my progress. Grumpily I tried one. NOT my taste. I didn't think they would be. Anyway it's never good having to read a book when you're not in the mood. (I couldn't be a Booker judge even if they went down on their knees for my opinion.) When he came back in as threatened I confessed it wasn't for me and sugared the pill (needlessly) by saying that they were probably 'men's books.' He objected to that excuse. Statistics have shown that 65% of LC's readers are women. OK. I'm abnormal. Furthermore, he told me crossly that he didn't like the book I had recommneded for HIM the last time he came into the shop. The subtext was clear: 'You don't like my favourite, I hate yours.'
Oh dear! I really must stop being so honest.
Lots of novels and crime going out the door. The onset of autumn has to have something to do with that. The trees are turning, the berries reddening, the nights drawing in. I've been reading voraciously myself, which isn't always the case these days. Yesterday I bought a complete hardback set of Agatha Christie's works in 'as new' condition at the car boot for £20, and although I've been asked for her books in the shop recently I'm going to keep them for myself. They are, like Harry Potter, comfort reading. I got them home at noon yesterday and have read two already. They're a welcome change from WW2.
Also a welcome relief from the crime authors I was reduced to by the end of the week. James Paterson 'The Quickie.' Not recommended!
And then there was that Lee Child book. A nice but pushy customer is an admirer - a groupie even - of Lee Child. He has corresponded with and met his hero, has lots of signed first and every time he comes to town he pops in to see if I have any in stock, not to buy, just to talk about them, and to find out if I've read one yet. Because I was stubbornly refusing to try a title so we could have a proper conversation about the style and general excellence, this non-buying customer finally shoved a small pile of LC's through the letter box and told me he would come back in five days to check out my progress. Grumpily I tried one. NOT my taste. I didn't think they would be. Anyway it's never good having to read a book when you're not in the mood. (I couldn't be a Booker judge even if they went down on their knees for my opinion.) When he came back in as threatened I confessed it wasn't for me and sugared the pill (needlessly) by saying that they were probably 'men's books.' He objected to that excuse. Statistics have shown that 65% of LC's readers are women. OK. I'm abnormal. Furthermore, he told me crossly that he didn't like the book I had recommneded for HIM the last time he came into the shop. The subtext was clear: 'You don't like my favourite, I hate yours.'
Oh dear! I really must stop being so honest.
10 Sept 2009
Rhetoric
The historian Arthur Bryant wrote 'Our Notebook' for the ILN during the war years. It gave him a wonderful soapbox for his opinions. He may have been right of centre but he was probably, like Churchill, what was needed at the time. I was interested by a 1944 entry which focused on lessons that had been learned during the hard years, chiefly, he sees a loss of illusion:
"The biggest of all our pre-war delusions was the delusion of materialism. It was the belief held by men and women of the most varied kinds that the possession of things was somehow a desirable end in itself.... It entirely lost sight of the fact that men and women, being bodies animated by and dependent on souls, could not acquire virtue or happiness by the mere acquisition of things as things, for unless the latter could add something to their spiritual stature they were manifestly of no use to creaturs with such pathetically short and transient lives."
"Are we" he continues further along on his dissertation " going to do the work of reconstruction like mechanics or like craftsmen? - to follow set rules blindly and servilely or to fashions freely with the artists eyes God gave us fixed firmly on our fellow man, his needs, his capacities, his immortal soul? Are we going once more to allow any statistician to argue us, in the name of wholely illusory realsim, into accepting as inevitable the slum, unemployment, the slavery of an unthinking mass-production, the destruction of soil fertility, industrial conscription or any of the other vile and inhuman prctices which offend against the eternal laws of man's nature? The master machine on which all our other machines, laws, systems and institutions depend is man: starve or warp his intricate living nature for the sake of these inanimate and servient things and before long they will cease to work."
One of the laws of humanity seems to be that we never learn from experience unless the experience is directly our own - so, yes, we did once more plunge into an orgy of materialism - and how! I'm the last person to want to do without my creature comforts plus a few luxuries so no homily from me on this one, it's just rather depressing that there probably were thousands upon thousands of folk who had discovered what really matters, yet we still insist on going to war and spending unimaginable amounts of money and resources in so doing.
"The biggest of all our pre-war delusions was the delusion of materialism. It was the belief held by men and women of the most varied kinds that the possession of things was somehow a desirable end in itself.... It entirely lost sight of the fact that men and women, being bodies animated by and dependent on souls, could not acquire virtue or happiness by the mere acquisition of things as things, for unless the latter could add something to their spiritual stature they were manifestly of no use to creaturs with such pathetically short and transient lives."
"Are we" he continues further along on his dissertation " going to do the work of reconstruction like mechanics or like craftsmen? - to follow set rules blindly and servilely or to fashions freely with the artists eyes God gave us fixed firmly on our fellow man, his needs, his capacities, his immortal soul? Are we going once more to allow any statistician to argue us, in the name of wholely illusory realsim, into accepting as inevitable the slum, unemployment, the slavery of an unthinking mass-production, the destruction of soil fertility, industrial conscription or any of the other vile and inhuman prctices which offend against the eternal laws of man's nature? The master machine on which all our other machines, laws, systems and institutions depend is man: starve or warp his intricate living nature for the sake of these inanimate and servient things and before long they will cease to work."
One of the laws of humanity seems to be that we never learn from experience unless the experience is directly our own - so, yes, we did once more plunge into an orgy of materialism - and how! I'm the last person to want to do without my creature comforts plus a few luxuries so no homily from me on this one, it's just rather depressing that there probably were thousands upon thousands of folk who had discovered what really matters, yet we still insist on going to war and spending unimaginable amounts of money and resources in so doing.
The Illustrated London News - the war years.
Following on from the previous entry.. The news from the war years had me in tears at times. Not that it was grim - oh no! Perish the thought that any of our losses should be mentioned in detail. No body count like there is today as the soldiers come home in coffins from Afghanistan. The only casualties shown were the enemy and then they were mostly grinning with happiness at having been captured and therefore out of it all (honestly.)
It's just the hard fact of what people had to go through. There was a report of 130 people being killed in an accident that happened as folk lined up to get into the tube stations during the raids. A mother with a child tripped and fell and the people behind her toppled over her and all those underneath the resulting pile-up were crushed to death. It was claimed 'there was no panic' amongst those trying to get to safety so that panic wasn't the cause - a likely story. This was, strangely, the only report I found that could be in any way called negative.
On the whole, whilst feeling cynical about the gung-ho tone and determined emphasis on bravery, heroism under fire, and the Nelson's eye attitude to the pain and trauma of it all, I rather wish newspapers today would concentrate a bit more on the positive achievements of human nature.
It's just the hard fact of what people had to go through. There was a report of 130 people being killed in an accident that happened as folk lined up to get into the tube stations during the raids. A mother with a child tripped and fell and the people behind her toppled over her and all those underneath the resulting pile-up were crushed to death. It was claimed 'there was no panic' amongst those trying to get to safety so that panic wasn't the cause - a likely story. This was, strangely, the only report I found that could be in any way called negative.
On the whole, whilst feeling cynical about the gung-ho tone and determined emphasis on bravery, heroism under fire, and the Nelson's eye attitude to the pain and trauma of it all, I rather wish newspapers today would concentrate a bit more on the positive achievements of human nature.
Bit brighter here
Well Sanders is back at school with a doctor's note of confidence in his healthiness and ability to withstand the onslaught. That makes him happy as he was just getting enthusiastic about the rugby again, and is less of a headache for his mum who has to organise his timetable.
The pony has a chip of bone floating abut from an old injury which might need costly sugery but might not, and anyway isn't nearly as bad as a fracture, even hairline. Phew!
There has been sunshine.
Yesterday I spent most of my time looking through copies of 'The Illustrated London News' from 1942, 1943 & 1944. They've been bound together but unfortunately not all the issues from those years are present otherwise it would be worth a great deal I think.
What is there is still very interesting. The article that I found most relevant to this blog, with Chillside in mind, was about the war efforts of the WVS - sewing 3D 'maps' for the RAF out of burlap and thread with supporting materials for wooden buildings, haystacks, walls, trees and so on, working from aerial photographs. It was thought to be a quicker and more serviceable solution than building models. The burlap was foldable and the wooden buildings etc. could be taken apart for transportation. We were not allowed to know the purpose of these collages (pretty obvious really as they were for the RAF, but the protocol had to be observed I suppose.) I wonder where they went after they were employed as maps for bombing and parachuting purposes? Surely someone kept them safely after the war. They looked wonderful from the photos - and what fun to do!
The pony has a chip of bone floating abut from an old injury which might need costly sugery but might not, and anyway isn't nearly as bad as a fracture, even hairline. Phew!
There has been sunshine.
Yesterday I spent most of my time looking through copies of 'The Illustrated London News' from 1942, 1943 & 1944. They've been bound together but unfortunately not all the issues from those years are present otherwise it would be worth a great deal I think.
What is there is still very interesting. The article that I found most relevant to this blog, with Chillside in mind, was about the war efforts of the WVS - sewing 3D 'maps' for the RAF out of burlap and thread with supporting materials for wooden buildings, haystacks, walls, trees and so on, working from aerial photographs. It was thought to be a quicker and more serviceable solution than building models. The burlap was foldable and the wooden buildings etc. could be taken apart for transportation. We were not allowed to know the purpose of these collages (pretty obvious really as they were for the RAF, but the protocol had to be observed I suppose.) I wonder where they went after they were employed as maps for bombing and parachuting purposes? Surely someone kept them safely after the war. They looked wonderful from the photos - and what fun to do!
8 Sept 2009
No vaccine available yet for the porcine pestilence so if I get it it's the Tamiflu for me.
We're trying to get the school to take Sandy back by getting him clearance from his doctor, if not he will be away for as long as it takes for the virus to romp through the school (a month?) then another week for good measure. By which time he will have missed all the social interaction he so much needs. The teachers have mostly had it during the hols. Summer School students brought it from all corners of the world.
I don't think Sanders guardian angels are looking after him very well. His pony is lame and possibly has a hair-line fracture in her hock and will have to be on 'box rest' for up to 4 months.
They're not looking after his poor mum either - she is facing vet's bills which even with insurance will be horrible, and then there's the extra livery for being stabled... seems like everything we do for the best turns out for the worst.
Difficult not to see through gloom-coloured lenses today.
Perhaps a cream doughnut will help lift the mood. Might as well try it.
We're trying to get the school to take Sandy back by getting him clearance from his doctor, if not he will be away for as long as it takes for the virus to romp through the school (a month?) then another week for good measure. By which time he will have missed all the social interaction he so much needs. The teachers have mostly had it during the hols. Summer School students brought it from all corners of the world.
I don't think Sanders guardian angels are looking after him very well. His pony is lame and possibly has a hair-line fracture in her hock and will have to be on 'box rest' for up to 4 months.
They're not looking after his poor mum either - she is facing vet's bills which even with insurance will be horrible, and then there's the extra livery for being stabled... seems like everything we do for the best turns out for the worst.
Difficult not to see through gloom-coloured lenses today.
Perhaps a cream doughnut will help lift the mood. Might as well try it.
It's a start.
I found this in the BBC Scottish news section today. Parents should be given control over their children's education funds to allow them to choose school places, the Scottish Conservative have urged.....
The Scottish Conservatives want to go one stage further and give parents control over their child's personal education budget from the state.
A school's income would then depend on its ability to attract pupils.
The party argues this scheme would encourage poorly performing schools to do better.
They're probably doing it for all the wrong reasons but it looks like a move in the right direction to me. Might be forced to vote Tory for the first time in my life.
The Scottish Conservatives want to go one stage further and give parents control over their child's personal education budget from the state.
A school's income would then depend on its ability to attract pupils.
The party argues this scheme would encourage poorly performing schools to do better.
They're probably doing it for all the wrong reasons but it looks like a move in the right direction to me. Might be forced to vote Tory for the first time in my life.
7 Sept 2009
Plague!
The dreaded swine flu has arrived - at Sandy's school of course. Following protocal, as they must, they asked for him to be picked up because he occasionaly gets asthma and is therefore 'vulnerable.' Unless the local doctors will agree that he isn't all that vulnerable, at which point he can go back and get it over with, he will be off school for as long as it takes to work its way through everyone there. It's in the larger community so he'll probably catch it anyway. What a mess.
Does this bullet have my name on it?
Does this bullet have my name on it?
5 Sept 2009
Revenants
An interesting couple of days full of flashbacks to the past. People always return to this area, even if just to check out it’s still here, but more likely to revisit a sense of hope or expectation that the place once gave them. When I say ‘here’ I mean specifically the Findhorn Foundation. They leak out into the neighbourhood whilst visiting that institution though so I come across them.
I very rarely go down to the main FF campus nowadays except to raid the shop for goodies I can’t get in Tesco, but when I do I nearly always see a returnee or two. This time I followed my shopping with a visit to the café to have coffee and a slice of the chocolate roulade (I’m sure I have mentioned that delicacy in this place before) and there met J who first arrived in the area about 18 years ago and has been blipping in and out ever since. He is, he claims, a pensioner now but seems as rootless as ever. Looks the same. Talks the same. I always enjoy having a conversation with him, he’s a good listener, his opinions make so much sense and he is a fluent orator. He would strike a newcomer as a frood who really knows where his towel is.* This hasn’t save him from getting thrown out of the place for inappropriate behaviour (don’t know what that meant in cold hard fact, the word ‘inappropriate’ is grossly overused in these parts) or from having to sleep in his car between rents.
On my way back to the town I picked up an ageing hitchhiker and wished I hadn’t because he turned out to be someone I happen to dislike very much only I’d failed to recognise him because I don’t see him often. He and his wife (who I do like) are around the FF a lot, mostly harvesting cash from his expertise at spinning a line of guidance from the stars. I believe they always house-sit for people whilst they go on holiday, looking after cats, dogs, plants and so on, thereby dodging all sorts of boring things like rent and council tax. They winter in warmer climes doing the same thing. I could have that wrong so don’t quote me, but he did once call their way of life ‘living lightly on the planet’ which I silently translated as living heavily off those who actually work for a living. Sour grapes? Maybe.
Then M appeared in the shop. Now she was a pleasant face to see again. She was at first completely baffled at my unsurprise, but I explained about everyone who has ever lived here returning and as I have been seeing her face on the High Street lately (it seems there’s a flicker of clairvoyance going on in my synapses) I was totally prepared. She was only here for the day so we went for coffee and caught up on children. M bought the caravan I lived in for the first six months of our move away from Brussels and her two boys, the eldest about the age of my second daughter, went to the Steiner School until M got exasperated with all the folk stories about oxen (I can still remember her indignant, heavily accented and very attractive voice railing about the absence of oxen in everyday life and what good was it doing her sons to be reading about them?) She was also unconvinced by the lack of any useful learning of the basic reeling, writhing and fainting in coils.
Though M is from the Tyrol and claims Italian heritage, she married a German and until he died and she moved to Scotland her boys spoke only German, so quite apart from anything else they had learned a foreign language fluently (with a Scottish accent) by the time they were eleven. That has to count for something surely. The eldest lad got a place at Oxford but declined it on the grounds they are all snobs there. He went to Heidleberg and Harvard instead. No snobs at Harvard I bet.
We talked about writing. She asked me if I was still ... how it was going.... ? Nothing to report of course. Her tutor at a recent writing course claims that a person has to write 100,000 words before they can even begin to think they are any good. Hm! Do these words have to be coherently joined together? Did J.K.Rowling write that many before she launched Harry on the world? I believe not. Still it is a skill, and the lack of skill does show in some works. J.K.Rowling got better at it as she went along. Luckily she is a born story teller. I’m not. It would be nice to reel off a few books before I shuffle off though so - winter is coming.
M has always had extreme views - is passionate about things. She embraced NLP , which personally I think is brainwashing by another name and used for very dubious causes, but each to his own. She has been a social worker in Germany I believe, and an educationalist, says the German system of schooling is atrocious - can this be true? The Germans bad at something? She’s now working in a University in Berlin giving courses to adults; she tried to work with the students but when one day she was telling them about how she got her very laid-back and education-shy second son to buckle down to learning by locking him with her into the house for three hours at a stretch, they threatened to call the police - in fact I believe they did call the police. Knowing M as I do and knowing how much she cares for her sons, this just made me laugh, but it can’t have been much fun for her.
The boast of the FF used to be that it was a place where ‘change could come in the twinkling of an eye.’ I’m sure that’s why I was so attracted to the place. I really wanted not to be me any more. 25 years from my first contact I don’t think I have changed. Only become reconciled to me. The folk I have met and re-met over that time - it seems that they have gone through the same process of not-change but are more settled in themselves.
I suppose that’s something.
*’Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ for the illiterati.
I very rarely go down to the main FF campus nowadays except to raid the shop for goodies I can’t get in Tesco, but when I do I nearly always see a returnee or two. This time I followed my shopping with a visit to the café to have coffee and a slice of the chocolate roulade (I’m sure I have mentioned that delicacy in this place before) and there met J who first arrived in the area about 18 years ago and has been blipping in and out ever since. He is, he claims, a pensioner now but seems as rootless as ever. Looks the same. Talks the same. I always enjoy having a conversation with him, he’s a good listener, his opinions make so much sense and he is a fluent orator. He would strike a newcomer as a frood who really knows where his towel is.* This hasn’t save him from getting thrown out of the place for inappropriate behaviour (don’t know what that meant in cold hard fact, the word ‘inappropriate’ is grossly overused in these parts) or from having to sleep in his car between rents.
On my way back to the town I picked up an ageing hitchhiker and wished I hadn’t because he turned out to be someone I happen to dislike very much only I’d failed to recognise him because I don’t see him often. He and his wife (who I do like) are around the FF a lot, mostly harvesting cash from his expertise at spinning a line of guidance from the stars. I believe they always house-sit for people whilst they go on holiday, looking after cats, dogs, plants and so on, thereby dodging all sorts of boring things like rent and council tax. They winter in warmer climes doing the same thing. I could have that wrong so don’t quote me, but he did once call their way of life ‘living lightly on the planet’ which I silently translated as living heavily off those who actually work for a living. Sour grapes? Maybe.
Then M appeared in the shop. Now she was a pleasant face to see again. She was at first completely baffled at my unsurprise, but I explained about everyone who has ever lived here returning and as I have been seeing her face on the High Street lately (it seems there’s a flicker of clairvoyance going on in my synapses) I was totally prepared. She was only here for the day so we went for coffee and caught up on children. M bought the caravan I lived in for the first six months of our move away from Brussels and her two boys, the eldest about the age of my second daughter, went to the Steiner School until M got exasperated with all the folk stories about oxen (I can still remember her indignant, heavily accented and very attractive voice railing about the absence of oxen in everyday life and what good was it doing her sons to be reading about them?) She was also unconvinced by the lack of any useful learning of the basic reeling, writhing and fainting in coils.
Though M is from the Tyrol and claims Italian heritage, she married a German and until he died and she moved to Scotland her boys spoke only German, so quite apart from anything else they had learned a foreign language fluently (with a Scottish accent) by the time they were eleven. That has to count for something surely. The eldest lad got a place at Oxford but declined it on the grounds they are all snobs there. He went to Heidleberg and Harvard instead. No snobs at Harvard I bet.
We talked about writing. She asked me if I was still ... how it was going.... ? Nothing to report of course. Her tutor at a recent writing course claims that a person has to write 100,000 words before they can even begin to think they are any good. Hm! Do these words have to be coherently joined together? Did J.K.Rowling write that many before she launched Harry on the world? I believe not. Still it is a skill, and the lack of skill does show in some works. J.K.Rowling got better at it as she went along. Luckily she is a born story teller. I’m not. It would be nice to reel off a few books before I shuffle off though so - winter is coming.
M has always had extreme views - is passionate about things. She embraced NLP , which personally I think is brainwashing by another name and used for very dubious causes, but each to his own. She has been a social worker in Germany I believe, and an educationalist, says the German system of schooling is atrocious - can this be true? The Germans bad at something? She’s now working in a University in Berlin giving courses to adults; she tried to work with the students but when one day she was telling them about how she got her very laid-back and education-shy second son to buckle down to learning by locking him with her into the house for three hours at a stretch, they threatened to call the police - in fact I believe they did call the police. Knowing M as I do and knowing how much she cares for her sons, this just made me laugh, but it can’t have been much fun for her.
The boast of the FF used to be that it was a place where ‘change could come in the twinkling of an eye.’ I’m sure that’s why I was so attracted to the place. I really wanted not to be me any more. 25 years from my first contact I don’t think I have changed. Only become reconciled to me. The folk I have met and re-met over that time - it seems that they have gone through the same process of not-change but are more settled in themselves.
I suppose that’s something.
*’Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ for the illiterati.
4 Sept 2009
The day it rained for ever?
It's raining again. Very unusual for this part of the world to have the same weather day after day. There's flooding in local towns and people being evacuated. I feel so sorry for them. Some will have been through it before. the measures taken to avoid a repeat never seem t be quite enough. Living as I do on a sand dune and quite well above the water line I think I'll be OK but it doesn't pay to feel too smug. Goodness knows how depressed the farmers must be feeling.
3 Sept 2009
The time for fiction.
I'm always reading the books that Chillsider read last year - or even the year before! With all the rain and the tangible onset of autumn I've suddenly been getting through them in gulps. Another Paretsky adventure with the fierce and feisty (and rather irritating) Warshawski, then another of Paretsky's which was quite different and seems to lend truth to the theory that writers get taken over by the characters they create because freed from the demands of V.I.Warshawski she has written a much more interesting book, 'Ghost Country' Although it has her usual speed, force and angry characters it's in the 'Magical Realism' genre. She probably enjoyed the excursion. I enjoyed reading it. Now I'm catching up with the end of Rebus in 'Exit Music' although I note he has been promised walk-on appearances in the new series. I also re-read Doris Lessings' 'Briefing For a Descent into Hell' in a bid for madness provoked by the Hubble images. This time it didn't hold me. Not nearly mad enough.
Whilst this has been going on the fiction shelves have been emptying so I have to suppose others are also feeling the need to curl up with a book. The real world out there is rather depressing.
Whilst this has been going on the fiction shelves have been emptying so I have to suppose others are also feeling the need to curl up with a book. The real world out there is rather depressing.
Snippets.
Very dull day in the shop yesterday. Schools all back in England now as well as Scotland. Sandy went back, returned flushed with success from several tests they’d been given - even a maths test hadn’t fazed him it seems - full of excitement, tales of amazing design projects involving generators, an explosion in chemistry lesson and his new rugby boots with aluminium studs which received full marks from the games teacher.
On the other hand, as I said, I had a very dull day, so it was good that the paper was full of interesting snippets.
*Baby Oliver born after a new genetic screening techniques had selected him as a potentially Good Egg thus giving his mother better than her original 7% chance to become pregnant.
*Poland and Russia trying to become friends whilst still claiming the other was responsible for WW2. More amazingly perhaps, Germany claiming responsibility for WW2. Chancellor Angela Merkel: “Germany triggered the second World War. We brought endless suffering to the world.”
*Unseen sections of the Codex Sinaiticus have been found in an Egyptian monastery where it had been reused for bookbinding, the antique parchment being strong and parchment anyway a scarce commodity in 18th century Egypt. The portion coming to light, slowly and carefully, seems to be Joshua Chapter 1 verse 10. It will be interesting to hear what it says. The Codex Sinaiticus 350 AD is the oldest known version of the Bible hand written in Greek on animal skin. It is giving the established churches a bit of a headache as it contradicts their teachings from time to time.
On the other hand, as I said, I had a very dull day, so it was good that the paper was full of interesting snippets.
*Baby Oliver born after a new genetic screening techniques had selected him as a potentially Good Egg thus giving his mother better than her original 7% chance to become pregnant.
*Poland and Russia trying to become friends whilst still claiming the other was responsible for WW2. More amazingly perhaps, Germany claiming responsibility for WW2. Chancellor Angela Merkel: “Germany triggered the second World War. We brought endless suffering to the world.”
*Unseen sections of the Codex Sinaiticus have been found in an Egyptian monastery where it had been reused for bookbinding, the antique parchment being strong and parchment anyway a scarce commodity in 18th century Egypt. The portion coming to light, slowly and carefully, seems to be Joshua Chapter 1 verse 10. It will be interesting to hear what it says. The Codex Sinaiticus 350 AD is the oldest known version of the Bible hand written in Greek on animal skin. It is giving the established churches a bit of a headache as it contradicts their teachings from time to time.
Hubble Trouble.
The unimaginable vastness of the phenomena photographed by the Hubble Telescope make me crazy. What is the point of this tiny life here when the Trifid Nebula exists out there 9000 light miles away spinning out new stars? A gigantic mindless process as far as we can understand. Belief in God wouldn’t help - why would a deity create this tiny planet with its struggling blobs of consciousness amidst the scarifying immensity of this universe and the next? Makes no sense (no sense that satisfies MY understanding of the word 'sense' anyway.) I allow that our consciousness is limited by our experience; even our imagination is limited by the data fed into it: what is known, what is possible, and what, by extrapolation, is impossible but just about conceivable.
I can imagine an entity like ‘Q’ from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I can imagine beings of consciousness who are gaseous and don’t need the life support system we need here on Earth. I can, with some difficulty, understand Steiner’s teachings on the beginnings of life as we know it, with insubstantial beings of consciousness (the First Hierarchy) forming the planets and the first vestiges of human life from gas (which isn’t yet quite even gas) by their will. Of course his cosmology still begs the questions - where did these beings come from? Neither does it explain why they should take on all the hard work of making the planet on which we now live and the rest of our solar system - in fact it doesn’t answer any questions at all it just creates more...
Nevertheless I find all that cosy compared with the Hubble photographs. Those ideas pre-existed in someone else's head and he translated them into words which are handed to me as concepts, however extreme, ideas I can take or leave. I can find words for them. I can debate them. They remain (for me if not for Steiner) ideas, safely differentiated from from actuality.
Those photographs are reality. I haven’t words for them, only inarticulate gasps and grunts. They send me back into the Stone Age.
I can imagine an entity like ‘Q’ from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I can imagine beings of consciousness who are gaseous and don’t need the life support system we need here on Earth. I can, with some difficulty, understand Steiner’s teachings on the beginnings of life as we know it, with insubstantial beings of consciousness (the First Hierarchy) forming the planets and the first vestiges of human life from gas (which isn’t yet quite even gas) by their will. Of course his cosmology still begs the questions - where did these beings come from? Neither does it explain why they should take on all the hard work of making the planet on which we now live and the rest of our solar system - in fact it doesn’t answer any questions at all it just creates more...
Nevertheless I find all that cosy compared with the Hubble photographs. Those ideas pre-existed in someone else's head and he translated them into words which are handed to me as concepts, however extreme, ideas I can take or leave. I can find words for them. I can debate them. They remain (for me if not for Steiner) ideas, safely differentiated from from actuality.
Those photographs are reality. I haven’t words for them, only inarticulate gasps and grunts. They send me back into the Stone Age.
1 Sept 2009
Images from Hubble (or places I haven't yet visited.)
A friend sent these to me with others as a slideshow of the photos voted Hubbles' Top 10. They are so awesome they make me feel rather weird, especially snippets of information like 'the distance across this is 2.5 light years - 23 million return trips to the moon.' The names the boffins have given them don't do them justice so I haven't included them.
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