A friend and I went to Cawdor Castle which was hosting a 'Living Food' event, by which I think it meant local and organic where possible. It was like a big Farmer's Market. There were none of the crafts my friend had promised, unless jam-making counts. Once again I forgot my camera but probably would only have captured people with their mouths full of pork pie or beef burger and hands full of biodegradeable 'glasses' (made from corn starch) holding local ale. There was also a local distillery offering taster tots of whisky. I'm not a beer drinker but my friend is and she is converting me. These smelled wonderful and tasted deliciously smooth, not at all gassy. Sadly I had to leave the whisky untasted because I was the only driver. It would have gone down so well as a chaser too.

For the first time I tasted wild venison carpaccio. I ate a whole pack when I got home. The advantage of living on one's own is freedom for total greed with no sharing.

Slightly better photos of daughter's chapbook. Info for interested parties about to break into the creative writing world: these publishers publish work they like well enough absolutely for free (happily that included Sophie's)

No, it isn't a delicious lemon jelly with bits of fruit in, it's an orgone generator, 4" high, full of copper coils and crystals, and sits behind me in the shop. I think I feel a tiny bit more libidinous...

One year the lakes at Tervuren, just outside Brussels, froze over so deeply that people could skate and some idiot drove a Mini onto one of them. I think the son was still a babe in arms so just his sisters slithered on with me.

I'll bet my son isn't going to be glad I found this photo!!

He has changd a lot and doesn't wear scarves any more. He was about eleven, it was a Robin Hood phase with bows and arrows made of hazel, and neckerchiefs for the band of merry men.

Silence is golden.

The great Victorian agnostic Thomas Huxley in one of the last things that he wrote before he died asked "Is it not better to keep silence about matters which speech is incompetent to express; to be content with revolving in the deeps of the mind the infinite possibilities of the unknown?"

I agree wholeheartedly, but I don't think I can promise to shut up,

Something old, something new.

In the space of 36 hours I’ve sampled the best technology the NHS can provide hereabouts, and one of the oldest treatments in the world, possibly dating back to the Stone Age. The modern machine was a bone density scanner. Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry or DEXA to its friends. That was painless and unfreaky, a nice nice lady put me through it, and it was free. The only thing it will do however is tell me if I’m crumbling, which I expect I am since I ‘ve lost 2” in height somewhere along the road.

The acupuncture was, on the other hand, the most painful thing that has happened to me for a long time and I had to pay for it. I have a high pain threshold. I’m proud of the fact that I don’t yell or cry out in extremis. In the face of my shearers I am dumb. Usually. Today I yelled, and loud. Needles in my ankles sent really agonising tremors through other bits of my feet shooting down to several toes, making me think of tasers and Guatanamo Bay. Then there was a smell of burning and something hot clamped itself to my abdomen where it went on burning for much longer than I liked.

I do feel better though.

New books and old gripes.

I thought I’d break new ground for myself and order books that got good reviews in the Independent. Not entirely a successful exercise. The ‘mystery’ I chose, by D.J.Taylor ‘At the Chime of a City Clock’ I didn’t like at all though it was set in the 1930’s an era that usually interests me. Frankly I was bored. The characters were’t interesting enough and the story dull. The writing is good but there is a wealth of difference between mere style and sparkling entertainment. I do like the cover design though.

The other novel is so far producing more pleasure pheromones, though I feared for it to begin with. “The Still Point” by Amy Sackville. The young (woefully young from my point of view... younger than my youngest child...) writer is acclaimed in the blurb as a sister to Virginia Woolf with a passion for icebergs. For the first two pages I was disposed to dislike it. Too many adjectives I thought. Emperor Joseph II criticised Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro for having too many notes and that has often come to my mind when I’m reading pretentious, poorly written, literature.

Eventually I changed my mind. A narrative began to emerge like patterns of raindrops on a rain-spattered window (see - style is catching!). I was pulled in and now I am enjoying it.

This journal is full of lists of things that annoy me. In my own defence I want to say that I am equally easily delighted by people and happenings. Now I’m going to add to the list. Just as I was getting hooked into the storyline, Amy uses ‘devouring’ where ‘eating’ would have done perfectly well. Devouring is a good word but its place is in figurative usage in my opinion, not in a simple sentence talking abut a child eating a sandwich.

Choice of language exposes people. Women who refer to their uterus as their ‘womb’ annoy me. I haven’t analysed my reaction, I leave others to do that, but to me it sounds sort of coy, earth-motherish and biblical, all of which are euphemisms for dimwittedness in my book. Oh dear.

Then there are the ones who say someone has ‘collapsed.’ Buildings collapse when the contractors use poor cement. Sandcastles collapse; a house of cards collapses; financial institutions collapse. People have heart attacks or strokes, suffer from anaphylactic shock, are traumatised by events or prostrated by grief. They don’t collapse.

It’s not the imprecision that grates, it’s melodramatic and that is never as convincing as more controlled wording.

UFO’s have been sighted above us here. The photo in the local paper was, as tradition dictates for these sightings, grainy, and the kite-shaped object looked to me rather like a - kite; with a tail. The chap who video’d it phoned the RAF later to ask if they had seen it too or could shed any light on the object, and was told that nothing had been reported. Later however he received a phone message, a recorded voice from the RAF station, suggesting that if he spread this around his B&B business would suffer. Who are they trying to kid? I imagine that the B&B’s in Bonnybridge, a small town in the Borders, have been living large on its UFO connections.

A sensible and credible customer told me a couple of months back she had seen something that she had no explanation for when she was walking home one day. With two RAF stations in the area we are very used to planes and helicopters and no-one is going to be mistaking them for UFO’s.

It’s a bit late for crop circles but maybe they are scoping us out so they can make some really good ones next year!

Sinead O'Connor

The best thing the papal visit has done for me is to alert me to this woman who is now on my personal list for beatification! There was an interview with her on BBC 2 between the various appearances of the pope and she spoke so eloquently she even silenced the interviewer!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/10/sinead-oconnor-pope-visit

Voices, size nine.

Daughter Sophie has just had her first book of poetry published: 'Strange Longing for a Monday' and for all those who, unlike me, have the up-to-date version of adobe whatever, it can be viewed at: htp://www.erbacce-press.com/#/sophia-argyris/4543556207

Very thrilling. I’m waiting for my complimentary copy.

No trips to Brittany or Swaledale for me but a very pleasant week-long visit from our Sophs distracted me from making the usual jottings that find their way here. We did things like walking on the beach, visiting the river and sitting about in cafe’s, pastimes that I don’t usually find time for, or simply forget are possible. It was lovely. We even got to visit an archaeological dig which happens once a year after harvest. Over a ten year period the field has yielded several iron-age round houses from different eras, the oldest one was very large and evidently sheltered the beasts as well as the people, the others smaller, probably post-Roman, showing the change in family or social structure that Roman influence brought about. Two coin ‘hordes’ came to light , and evidence of a greater Roman presence in the area than had been expected. The team have recently discovered remains of the elusive Picts who, unlike the earlier inhabitants, built houses without foundations so left very little trace of themselves in the landscape. My camera failed me on that occasion much to my chagrin - or I failed it by not charging the battery soon enough.

Back home and holding the fort behind the counter I began to reread ‘Justine’ by Lawrence Durrell, the first of the Alexandrian Quartet. I can’t remember what effect it had on me the first time through. I was much much younger and disposed to explore novels for style, character and atmosphere, for new departures in technique, for experiments with the novel form - and to find that enough. Nowadays I want a linear story, preferably an unfolding mystery. I find it hard to reconcile myself to reading for a different experience, the unfolding of the characters for instance. Perhaps I am becoming shallow, perhaps I’ve had enough of pretension. Perhaps I’m less interested in people. This time I found it depressed me almost from the first page. Durrell writes so well, so beautifully, his characters walk off the pages, and he describes the city of Alexandria so I can smell the dust and the dirt, feel the lice, and see an old, sick camel hacked to pieces alive.

That was when I stopped reading. I can’t deal with so much reality.

I did note down a few words that I needed to look up and a couple of glorious phrases:

"her phthisic hands' (phthisic = tubercular - not so poetic really, but a wonderful word)

“... dry palpitant air harsh with static.’

‘Her aniline beauty.’ (I’m not at all sure what he intends here but ‘anil’ means indigo in French, from Arabic and Sanskrit. Again, it has a musical sound so maybe it’s unnecessary to question further.)

“... meaningless dead level of things, entering no climate, leading us nowhere... trapped in the gravitational field of Alexandria.’

It’s hard not to be affected by a writer’s style, especially one like Durrell. If I have something I want to write I have to be sure not to be in the middle of reading anything by authors with such a strong stylistic flavour or it overpowers my own weak attempt to find a voice.

I looked for some light relief with Le Carré, read ‘A Most Wanted Man’ which wasn’t exactly a jolly romp but was linear and unfolded as required.

Today it was Saki, and the social witticisms of the 1900’s.

“To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in the evening.’

“Her frocks were built in Paris but she wore them with an English accent.”

“Miriam takes nines in voices.”

Nines in voices. I know people like that. It really embarrasses me being in a restaurant or on public transport with someone who takes size nines in voices.

Finally, I am thoroughly enjoying the hooha of the Popes visit. He has covered himsef with glory again by likening atheists to the Nazis. A quick sorti to Wikkipedia would have reminded him that Hitler was a Catholic until he died - he was never excommunicated. That Adolph claimed, when it suited him, to be Christian, believed in an ‘Aryan Christ’ and in a statement about the National Government 1933 said: “It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.” Ratzinger mght also remember that the RC Church in Italy, and other countries, handed Jews over to the Nazis.

I suppose he has to get in a few low blows as his church has such an attrocious record of immorality over the millennia ,and more recently it’s visible failure to follow the words of the man they revere as God about never harming children.

I’m truly sorry for the hurt and the disillusioned, but I do think it’s good that the hypocrisy, so often hiding in self-righteous religious garb, is exposed. It will cut the churches down to size, pull their teeth and along with them the teeth of horrors like Sarah Palin and her chimpanzees' Tea Party in the dangerous hotbed of religious nuttery that is the USA.

Later: Well, I have to add that I spent the last hour watching the Pope take Mass in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow and I was, as always, moved to tears by the ceremony, the singing, and the ages old tradition which has accumulated so much power. Sometimes I can't think why I'm not a fully signed-up member of the oldest church in the world.

Because I am SO strongly against religion but enjoy the emotion I found myself deciding to align with Buddhism which is not a religion in the restrictive, proscriptive, dogmatic sense of that word, is a Way which can guide ones path through life, and which also has centuries old, deeply moving ceremonies full of emotional, transformative power that can temporarily overcome the mind.

Finally I have to admit that my head is stronger than my heart. I always imagined myself to be ruled by my emotions but it isn't the whole story. I can't be convinced by something that is fundamentally unconvincing on a wave of emotional manifestations alone. I've had a few experiences in my life that for many would count as mystical or oceanic, or even spiritual, but they haven't convinced me for one moment that there is a monad at work out there. And maybe that is how it should be. I have the capacity to understand how people get aroused by great events and by the deep, real, emotions shared by thousands, millions, at the same moment, inspired by some event, but not be swayed by it myself except briefly. It's an upsurge of feeling that can be caused by good or evil and has to be tempered by eventual rationality. What the Buddhists might call Equanimity. The crowds at Nurembourg felt the same ecstasy as the Catholic saints.

Stream of consciousness?

There hasn’t been much on TV lately but last Saturday I happened upon the ‘Sword of Honour’ dramatisation of Evelyn Waugh’s semi-autobiographical trilogy by the BBC. It was so good I missed most of Saturday watching it. The weather was bad I think, so not much loss there. BBC's series of 20th century British novelists included an interview with the hideously reactionary old goat, Evelyn Waugh, but it didn't put me off his books. They gave my ex and I much pleasure and amusement back in the 60’s and I’d had it in mind to look out for some early editions to add to my library (the greatest pleasure of being a retired secondhand bookseller is being able to buy exactly what I want for myself with no thought to resale potential!) Saturday evening I ordered the DVD and shelved the book project for another day.

Amazon have this way of landing suitable flies on the water to tempt the prized catch and their automated fly for me was Anthony Powell’s ‘Dance to the Music of Time’ so I bought that too.

I will still buy the books - honest!

The other new DVD in my collection (not tickled up by the previous searches needless to say) was ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.’ I’ve watched it twice already and am puzzled by the need for an american version. This seems to be a faithful rendering of the novel and the casting is excellent. I like hearing the original Swedish language though and I know some folk can’t be bothered with subtitles. I’m ready to be scathing about the Hollywood effort - bet it’s sanitised, that Salander is merely pretty (the actress looks that way) that they entirely miss the subtleties of her character.

Neither of my daughters will watch it because of the violent rape scenes. I completely understand their feelings; although the scenes are not more than a minute long there is no mistake about what is happening. They aren’t for titillation alone - the criticism of most who haven’t read the novels or seen the film. They are essential to the story (the whole story, not the first novel/film alone) and very necessary to the creation and revelation of the complex character of Lisbeth Salander who has been badly damaged, has developed a hard shell, but remains somewhere quite able to tell good from evil and is, in her own way soft hearted, unlike some anti-heroes who become merely harsh, ugly and unlikeable. Because she’s who she is she gets her own back in wonderful ways that have me out of my seat cheering.

What is and is not acceptable reading or viewing for one person and not for another is interesting in itself. I can’t abide ‘action’ films with lots of gratuitous, cheerful, even funny, violent deaths and virtually no story. I hate romantic comedy - it makes me squirm. I couldn’t watch ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ knowing the truth to be so much worse. I dislike jane Austen. Now there’s a thing. Our Jane? What’s to dislike? Well, it’s the spiteful women. They give me the creeps, the shivers and the nightmares. I consider them so much worse than rapists. They ruined other women’s lives in a way that a rapist could only do if the raped woman had to return to the cruelty of her judgemental sisters (it’s not only men that condemn such women). Jane A shows the very tip of the hideousness that was a woman’s lot in her day and it gives me asthma just to think about it.

I hated one film so much I’ve forgotten it’s title. It’s the only film I can ever remember not watching to the end. One of my daughters can watch it with interest and it got good reviews. It starts quite pleasantly with a child’s fantasy world in which she meets the usual characters, then suddenly becomes the real world in which her mother dies and her stepfather is revealed as a Fascist.. I think that’s how it goes. A freedom fighter was imprisoned then killed in cold blood along with his mother who had tried to hide him ... and I switched off.

So, to go back to my defence of the Millennium trilogy (or myself) I like to be able to identify with a character who is going to get retribution, as Salander does in spades. It isn’t pretty but I need justice to be done, and if possible to be seen to be done. If I were to identify with any of the Greek Olympians it would be the Eumenides, the Furies, who follow wrongdoers until such time as they pay for their evil one way or another. In my fantasies I might hunt down those who prey on the innocent. Salander is a brilliant creation. Without her weirdness and courage and focused intelligence Blomkvist’s story would be good but it would lack all the fire that makes it individual and unrepeatable.
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How many shop assistants.....

..... have been asked to check if their oatcakes are orang-utan friendly today?

....... for the comparative sizes of the carbon footprint of the shampoos on their shelves today?

..... if their cinnamon is REAL cinnamon and not cassia....

And finally .... how many lucky shop assitants met someone who is hoping to make mini orgone energy accumulators*, ‘squeezing’ crystals to milk the energy into layers of - something, I’ve forgotten what - which will filter it into the atmosphere.

* For those who need reminding about orgone accumulators look up the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who once moved in the same circles as Freud and believed, along with Freud, that a “healthy psychological state derived from uninhibited libidinal flow.” (Wikkipedia)

No man for mere theories Reich got out there and did something about it, building contraptions to conduct and direct this universal energy into people and also into clouds to make rain. He may have been onto something because the FDA banned him and all his works, and eventually threw him into prison. A sure sign of success I would have thought.

Quotes for the Day:

“The two leaders have certainly proved revolutionary in their use of buffoonery as a weapon of mass distraction” ... of Gadafi and Berlusconi.


“After a certain age my dear, a little lipstick is a kindness to others.”
Attributed to an unknown eccentric Cambridge academic (female - I think).


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