... but delirium us from tremens."
I stood behind a jolly drunk in the queue for the Post Office this morning. It was 10.30am. Another chap was buying his first tinny of the day at the shop counter. They reminded me of the above quotation - I've no idea where it originated but I first heard it in Heimat 2.
The other, less lighthearted, quotation that came to mind was from Thoreau:
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
7 Oct 2008
Choices...
... there are always choices. They usually occur to me in the small hours like today when my monkey mind woke me at 4.30. With all the other thoughts came sliding the trip across the hills to visit Bryn and Jane last week. A beautiful day, a wonderful drive and I saw 6 other cars in 1 1/2 hours. Once again I forgot to take my camera which was a shame because a few pics would have brightened this blog. I gave Jane her bookcases, bought a nice little Italian style occasional table for a very reasonable price, gossiped, then we had lunch in the deceptively named Tearoom, now quite a sophisticated licenced restaurant in Dinnet less than 100 yards from the 'Auld Alliance.' We had not-very-sophisticated toasties, with a glass of wine for me.
But to get to the choices. Dave suggested that what I really needed was not to close this shop but a change of commodity, and that he would stock it with goodies, bric-a-brac, objet d'art, etchings, engravings, for me to sell next year instead of books. At the time, full of wine, toastie and bonhommie, it sounded rather exciting. Until I remembered why I am closing the shop - because I don't want to be tied to it any more rather than because I am fed up with selling books. On the other hand.... and here comes the next choice.. I could offer to share the shelves with Jane, even Bryn should he take to the idea. The slow trade might be because my stock has dropped in interest....
Memo to self: The reason for stopping is to free myself from this chair...
.... still... it would use the space and add interest on the High Street.... oh the choices to choose....
But to get to the choices. Dave suggested that what I really needed was not to close this shop but a change of commodity, and that he would stock it with goodies, bric-a-brac, objet d'art, etchings, engravings, for me to sell next year instead of books. At the time, full of wine, toastie and bonhommie, it sounded rather exciting. Until I remembered why I am closing the shop - because I don't want to be tied to it any more rather than because I am fed up with selling books. On the other hand.... and here comes the next choice.. I could offer to share the shelves with Jane, even Bryn should he take to the idea. The slow trade might be because my stock has dropped in interest....
Memo to self: The reason for stopping is to free myself from this chair...
.... still... it would use the space and add interest on the High Street.... oh the choices to choose....
6 Oct 2008
Nick Drake, leys and Ledwardine.
What with one thing and another I am getting some religion shovelled into me recently. I've read Phil Rickman's new book 'To Dream of the Dead' twice now and can say it has lived up to my hopes and expectations. All his books have a different - slant is the only word I can think of just for the minute. The central characters have remained the same, advancing and retreating through the episodes, dancing from front to back stage, rounding, filling out, acquiring solidity as they go. I've felt myself settling into the area ever since 'Wine of Angels' when Merrily, female vicar, arrived with her teenage daughter Jane to take up her ministry in the small Herefordshire town of Ledwardine. Jane was at that point embarassed by her mother's choice of career and angered by the intrusion of God into their lives when she needed her mother to herself. In defiance, and largely as a result of meeting with a woman steeped in earth mysteries, she heads toward paganism and Wicca. After a few salutory experiences she stops short of becoming a practicing Wiccan but she never loses her pagan sensitivities toward the land. The tensions between Christian Merrily and her daughter express quite eloquently, in my opinion, the relationship between the old and new religions in the 'real' world. Merrily comes to understand Jane better as she takes on another role as Deliverance Minister (the new name the Anglican church gives exorcists.) She feels the energies Jane speaks of, sometimes called by other names. In the meantime Jane finds a justification and outlet for her feeling of connection wih the earth through the discovery of ley lines and the work of Alfred Watkins.
Watkins was a real character, an amateur self-taught archaeologist who in June 1921 visited Blackwardine in Herefordshire where he had the idea that there was a system of straight lines crossing the landscape dating from Neolithic times. His findings and conclusions were not generally accepted by the archaeologists of his day but their reasons - that neolithic man was not sophisticated enough to have devised such a complex system - look more and more ill-founded as these sites continue to come to light so thinking on their purpose is beginning to change.
Watkins summarised his findings in 'Early British Trackways' in 1922 then in 'The Old Straight Track' 1925. When writing he omitted most of what he himself must surely have believed about the spiritual importance of the tracks for the people who created them. Arguably he did that in order to make his findings acceptable in the prevailing ethos of his times. I tried reading the second book. Reducing his findings to a strictly pragmatic account, avoiding any spiritual connotations, he has produced a dry and disappointingly boring text.
The folk-lore and legend of the Black Mountains and this beautiful Welsh/English border land, beloved by Elgar, form a back-drop for several (most?) of Rickman's stories. I've visited that part of the world twice now and it holds great magnetisim for me. If things were different I would go to live there. I think my father's family may have come from Herefordshire though I have absolutely no proof of that.
It was also through Phil Rickman that I first heard of Nick Drake, the sad, introverted young song writer/ poet who died of an overdose of anti-depressants without ever realising how meaningful and how acclaimed the few haunting recordings he made would become. One of the most interesting and likeable central characters is Lol, a damaged and troubled sensitive, who was once also a singer/songwriter and greatly influenced by Nick Drake. His career looked ready for take-off when he was framed for something he didn't do, disowned by his puritanical parents and generally reviled so that h descended into a breakdown which lead to him being sectioned. In the 'Wine of Angels' he meets Merrily and eventually they become lovers. Lol regains his strength and sense of self-worth supported by her friendship, whilst in turn supporting her (and Jane) through many chapters of angst.
It may be apparent by now that I am fully absorbed into this - Rickmanverse.
Watkins was a real character, an amateur self-taught archaeologist who in June 1921 visited Blackwardine in Herefordshire where he had the idea that there was a system of straight lines crossing the landscape dating from Neolithic times. His findings and conclusions were not generally accepted by the archaeologists of his day but their reasons - that neolithic man was not sophisticated enough to have devised such a complex system - look more and more ill-founded as these sites continue to come to light so thinking on their purpose is beginning to change.
Watkins summarised his findings in 'Early British Trackways' in 1922 then in 'The Old Straight Track' 1925. When writing he omitted most of what he himself must surely have believed about the spiritual importance of the tracks for the people who created them. Arguably he did that in order to make his findings acceptable in the prevailing ethos of his times. I tried reading the second book. Reducing his findings to a strictly pragmatic account, avoiding any spiritual connotations, he has produced a dry and disappointingly boring text.
The folk-lore and legend of the Black Mountains and this beautiful Welsh/English border land, beloved by Elgar, form a back-drop for several (most?) of Rickman's stories. I've visited that part of the world twice now and it holds great magnetisim for me. If things were different I would go to live there. I think my father's family may have come from Herefordshire though I have absolutely no proof of that.
It was also through Phil Rickman that I first heard of Nick Drake, the sad, introverted young song writer/ poet who died of an overdose of anti-depressants without ever realising how meaningful and how acclaimed the few haunting recordings he made would become. One of the most interesting and likeable central characters is Lol, a damaged and troubled sensitive, who was once also a singer/songwriter and greatly influenced by Nick Drake. His career looked ready for take-off when he was framed for something he didn't do, disowned by his puritanical parents and generally reviled so that h descended into a breakdown which lead to him being sectioned. In the 'Wine of Angels' he meets Merrily and eventually they become lovers. Lol regains his strength and sense of self-worth supported by her friendship, whilst in turn supporting her (and Jane) through many chapters of angst.
It may be apparent by now that I am fully absorbed into this - Rickmanverse.
Absolutely zero inspiration at the moment. The only bright spots in this day are the sunshine and the lovely exhibition pics on Chillsiders blog. I want to add a comment but as usual it is refusing to take my password... what's that about!
Fridays have become my day for going to church. Gasp. Shock. Horror! The prep school at which Sandy is a weekly border has a service for the junior school to which family and friends are invited. It's very nice and not really TOO religious although the hymns and homilies are all undeniably christian. There is also the Lord's Prayer. Sandy's grandad (my ex) claimed he heard me say 'Amen.' I am hotly denying it but secretly wondering if it may have slipped out - old habits die hard and all that.
It's nice to see the children trooping in, all smart in their kilts, mostly not looking like Just William. What I took to be a bruise on Sandy's cheek did turn out to be ink however - he hasn't quite got his new fountain pen under control. I watch anxiously for signs that he is settling in and making friends; happily those signs appear as another boy makes space for him, and then I see his rather nervous hand go up to volanteer for a part in one of the little playlets that the chaplain organises in illustration of the lesson of the week. This week it's Team Spirit and the passage about the parts of the body - the hand that can't be a hand unless it's got a foot to go with it. (Corinthians 12 "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body." It sounded MUCH more sonorous and evocative in the old translation.) Last week it was Helping Others. It's all very lightly done and humorous. The boy who got beaten up by robbers and helped by the Samaritan did an extremely realistic fall which earned him a loud round of applause.
They should get used to falling. Most of them are in the junior rugby team and I'm told there are at least two injuries per match. Sandy is a winger because he runs really fast. He explained that his friend Sam used to have a neck but since he's been in the front line of the scrum it's got shoved back into his shoulders! Both under 13 teams lost their match Saturday and Chloe heard one of the older boys coming off the field muttering 'Raped again!"
Sandy was staying over Friday because of the match, so once grandad and I had downed our tea and biscuit and spoken to his house master we drove him down to the refectory in the car to join his class mates (they must do a lot of walking in the course of a school day, the refectory is quite distance from the junior school building.) This gave us a chance to see the upper school pupils in their mufti - tight torn jeans, scruffy hoodies, they look real chavs although when spoken to they are extremely pleasant and polite. I like them. They have an enviable air of self-confidence. The school motto is: "Plus est en vous" (More is in you.) I hope Sandy soaks that up with his morning cornflakes to counteract other less positive elements in his life.
He doesn't eat the porridge. They make it with honey. Not very Scottish that.
Fridays have become my day for going to church. Gasp. Shock. Horror! The prep school at which Sandy is a weekly border has a service for the junior school to which family and friends are invited. It's very nice and not really TOO religious although the hymns and homilies are all undeniably christian. There is also the Lord's Prayer. Sandy's grandad (my ex) claimed he heard me say 'Amen.' I am hotly denying it but secretly wondering if it may have slipped out - old habits die hard and all that.
It's nice to see the children trooping in, all smart in their kilts, mostly not looking like Just William. What I took to be a bruise on Sandy's cheek did turn out to be ink however - he hasn't quite got his new fountain pen under control. I watch anxiously for signs that he is settling in and making friends; happily those signs appear as another boy makes space for him, and then I see his rather nervous hand go up to volanteer for a part in one of the little playlets that the chaplain organises in illustration of the lesson of the week. This week it's Team Spirit and the passage about the parts of the body - the hand that can't be a hand unless it's got a foot to go with it. (Corinthians 12 "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body." It sounded MUCH more sonorous and evocative in the old translation.) Last week it was Helping Others. It's all very lightly done and humorous. The boy who got beaten up by robbers and helped by the Samaritan did an extremely realistic fall which earned him a loud round of applause.
They should get used to falling. Most of them are in the junior rugby team and I'm told there are at least two injuries per match. Sandy is a winger because he runs really fast. He explained that his friend Sam used to have a neck but since he's been in the front line of the scrum it's got shoved back into his shoulders! Both under 13 teams lost their match Saturday and Chloe heard one of the older boys coming off the field muttering 'Raped again!"
Sandy was staying over Friday because of the match, so once grandad and I had downed our tea and biscuit and spoken to his house master we drove him down to the refectory in the car to join his class mates (they must do a lot of walking in the course of a school day, the refectory is quite distance from the junior school building.) This gave us a chance to see the upper school pupils in their mufti - tight torn jeans, scruffy hoodies, they look real chavs although when spoken to they are extremely pleasant and polite. I like them. They have an enviable air of self-confidence. The school motto is: "Plus est en vous" (More is in you.) I hope Sandy soaks that up with his morning cornflakes to counteract other less positive elements in his life.
He doesn't eat the porridge. They make it with honey. Not very Scottish that.
1 Oct 2008
American pie.
The world may be interested to know that the American nation has risen a long way in my estime since I watched an episode of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. That was the best satire I have seen for a long time. A small extract that sticks in my mind was the graphic illustration of what a 700 million (or billion.. no-one seemed quite steady on that) dollar bail-out (the one that didn't happen) would mean in real terms for the tax payer. His share would buy him 2000 Macdonald Apple pies. Bill Clinton said there had never looked so good a time for buying apple pies.
Christmas bling.
I bought my Christmas cards today. The Red Cross shop was selling them last week but I held out until it was at least October. The local garden centre has had most of its indoor sales room roped off for the last three weeks or more, ready for the opening of the Christmas stock so I suppose that by now the artficial trees, lights, baubles and knee-high santas are available in their full glitsy glory. The whole thing gets more and more silly and leeches all the pleasure out of the festivities by such over-exposure. There's still th glories of autumn colours to enjoy - we don't need tinsel and coloured lights to chase away the dark quite yet.
And the silly thing is they will have missed Hallowe'en completely by starting 'Xmas' so early.
Inspired more by the thought that these will be my last few months so I had better sell some of the stock than by any seasonal thoughts, I've started putting the nicest children's books in the window, ones that would make good gifts, but I refuse to add coy little signs like 'Christmas starts here!' Or helpful suggestions (for idiots too dim to think for themselves?) like "Why not buy him/her/it a BOOK for Christmas?' Bleur!
Grumpy old woman here.
Although I do think that the best Christmas gift is a good book. Chosen by me for me preferably.
There is a serious possibility that I will forget I have bought those cards and I'll buy more from elsewhere. Maybe that's the ploy.
Maybe I don't have the right marketing spirit.
And the silly thing is they will have missed Hallowe'en completely by starting 'Xmas' so early.
Inspired more by the thought that these will be my last few months so I had better sell some of the stock than by any seasonal thoughts, I've started putting the nicest children's books in the window, ones that would make good gifts, but I refuse to add coy little signs like 'Christmas starts here!' Or helpful suggestions (for idiots too dim to think for themselves?) like "Why not buy him/her/it a BOOK for Christmas?' Bleur!
Grumpy old woman here.
Although I do think that the best Christmas gift is a good book. Chosen by me for me preferably.
There is a serious possibility that I will forget I have bought those cards and I'll buy more from elsewhere. Maybe that's the ploy.
Maybe I don't have the right marketing spirit.
Erratum (or corrigendum)
Oops - wrong about Borders banning the Northern Lights. They just aren't 'promoting' it along with the banned, sorry censored, books of the past. I was a bit tired yesterday - is my excuse!
Today I have as much energy as a gutted haddock. I think it's something to do with the drop in temperature outside. Or delayed reaction from the excitements of the weekend. My life is normally so dull.
Today I have as much energy as a gutted haddock. I think it's something to do with the drop in temperature outside. Or delayed reaction from the excitements of the weekend. My life is normally so dull.
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