I see Gillian likes old queens - I do too, and two of the book-collecting variety just came into the shop. I like that sort even better. They set up a cry of grief to hear that I'm planning to close next year but I'm afraid their visits won't keep me in bread and butter let alone jam and without a bit more incentive I would really rather extend the internet business and peel myself off this seat. I'm looking forward to having more free time. My neighbour asked me what on earth I would do with myself - that really won't be a problem!
Recently my spare time has been spent putting together a family collage of photos for both my grandsons. Now Sandy is boarding weekly he has a space above his desk to fill with pics and cards. Mostly so far it has been favourite shots of his pony but he wanted some family as well. Finlay who is further away but able to shout a sentence or two down the phone at me about his activities ('dogs walk in dunes') is also getting to the stage of wanting some pics on his bedroom wall. It's fun. The last time I did something like this I drew Asterix and Obelix, TinTin, Winnie the Pooh, Moomintroll, Little My, the Snork Maiden and all the other characters that filled my children's childhood and stuck them in between the photos. At the moment I don't have that sort of creative drive and finding images on the net isn't the same thing at all.
Another biography of a Mitford came my way: 'Life in a Cold Climate' about Nancy whose novels I read when I was staying with my mother-in-law many years ago. They made me laugh then and continue to do so. I was delighted when I discovered that as I had suspected the characters were taken from her family life so that once I had read all the novels there were still the 'real life' accounts of these extraordinary women to be enjoyed. It began an interest in the social life of England between the wars which 'The Camomile Lawn' by Mary Wesley illustrates in much the same way, light, gay (I have to use the word though it has been despoiled) way. They were terrible times, not only for the out-of-work lower classes but for the Mitfords themselves, of aristocratic stock but quite poor and with big houses to run. They were cold and uncomfortable, theer mother raising money for much needed help by raising hens and selling the eggs. It's a time that seems to have brought out a defiant frivolity and frenetic desire for FUN. Nancy, before during and after the 2nd war had a difficult life wih miscarriages and faithless partners. She did her bit to help the Spanish refugees held incarcerated in France because the French really didn't want them. She worked on the ambulances as did my own mother and in a Red Cross staion ('writing names on the foreheads of the dead or dying.') Through all this she was determined to find everything she could to laugh at. The six sisters all made it their business to be personalities - anything less than a strong personality would have been a failure in the eyes of the family I think. Unity and Diana became friends of Hitlers and Unity shot herself when war was declared, failing to kill herself but destroying her mind (the bullet remained lodged in her brain until she died some years later.) Diana maried Mosley and was thrown into prison for the duration of the war though she had a eleven month old child. Jessica became a communist. They hated each others politics but they continued to write to each other. Diana forgave Nancy for telling the War Office she felt her sister would be a threat to the country therebye adding weight to their conviction that Diana should be imprisoned.
Love them or hate them the Mitfords were a product of their time and reading about them has given me an insight into my apparently heartless mother-in-law who was always so scathing about my earnest and intense personality. Her generation and social stratum developed a sharp wit,a sense of the ridiculous,and an air of carelessness; an attitude which they never really shook off even after it was no longer necessary as armoury.
23 Sept 2008
17 Sept 2008
42
I’m cheating a bit with today’s post but in my own defense I did tell my daughter yesterday that she should read the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ because it’s one of the most important books of All Times. As ths is Synchronicity Week in Forres I just found out that there is to be a new sequel to THH’sG next year written by Eoin Colfer (of Artemis Fowl fame) It is already titled “And another thing...”
Then, as the third synchronistic occurence, I found the following in the BBC on-line magazine:
<< Following our piece speculating what Douglas Adams meant when he revealed the meaning of life to be 42 in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy here is a selection of your suggestions.
1) If I recall correctly the "Infinite Improbability Drive" was prototyped in a nice, hot cup of tea. Arthur Dent, the last surviving fragment of the Earth project to calculate the answer to life, the universe, and everything, also exhibited a taste for tea. Coincidence? I haven't got the faintest idea if this is the rationale that Douglas Adams had for computing the number 42. But the ideal way to enjoy a cuppa is when you have someone else for company. That's tea for two, and two for tea. Or as Deep Thought may have put it: "For tea, two."
Ian Mitchell, Barnard Castle, UK
2) We are at sixes and sevens about trying to understand life, the universe and everything, meaning we are in a state of total confusion or disarray. The product of six multiplied by seven is 42. So 42 is a summary statement that we will always be confused about the big question.
Tim Lee, Hertfordshire, UK
If you take A as one, B as two, C as three, and so on, then add up D Adams it comes to 42. Also, if you want wine gums (as I often do) in our canteen you press 42 to get them. If, as Adams suggested, the entirety of the universe can be extrapolated from fairy cake, perhaps wine gums can provide a more teleological counterpoint.
Nicky Westwood, Birmingham, UK
There’s always one who takes the fun out of it isn’t there? Here she comes.....
3) Matthew 1:17: "All the generations, then, from Abraham until David were 14 generations, and from David until the deportation to Babylon 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon until the Christ 14 generations." All things lead to the Christ. An obvious answer to life, the universe, and everything.
KaTie, Watford
Now this is the answer that gets my vote...
4) There you all go again, the answer is simple. Look at the number of whiskers on a mouse.
Churchill Hornstein, Wilmington, Ursa Minor
Then, as the third synchronistic occurence, I found the following in the BBC on-line magazine:
<< Following our piece speculating what Douglas Adams meant when he revealed the meaning of life to be 42 in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy here is a selection of your suggestions.
1) If I recall correctly the "Infinite Improbability Drive" was prototyped in a nice, hot cup of tea. Arthur Dent, the last surviving fragment of the Earth project to calculate the answer to life, the universe, and everything, also exhibited a taste for tea. Coincidence? I haven't got the faintest idea if this is the rationale that Douglas Adams had for computing the number 42. But the ideal way to enjoy a cuppa is when you have someone else for company. That's tea for two, and two for tea. Or as Deep Thought may have put it: "For tea, two."
Ian Mitchell, Barnard Castle, UK
2) We are at sixes and sevens about trying to understand life, the universe and everything, meaning we are in a state of total confusion or disarray. The product of six multiplied by seven is 42. So 42 is a summary statement that we will always be confused about the big question.
Tim Lee, Hertfordshire, UK
If you take A as one, B as two, C as three, and so on, then add up D Adams it comes to 42. Also, if you want wine gums (as I often do) in our canteen you press 42 to get them. If, as Adams suggested, the entirety of the universe can be extrapolated from fairy cake, perhaps wine gums can provide a more teleological counterpoint.
Nicky Westwood, Birmingham, UK
There’s always one who takes the fun out of it isn’t there? Here she comes.....
3) Matthew 1:17: "All the generations, then, from Abraham until David were 14 generations, and from David until the deportation to Babylon 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon until the Christ 14 generations." All things lead to the Christ. An obvious answer to life, the universe, and everything.
KaTie, Watford
Now this is the answer that gets my vote...
4) There you all go again, the answer is simple. Look at the number of whiskers on a mouse.
Churchill Hornstein, Wilmington, Ursa Minor
16 Sept 2008
Victor Frankl
I came across my notes on Victor Frankl's book: "Man's Search for Meaning" last week, looked for my copy to read it again but found I had sold it. That evening over a meal in a local hotel a friend started to tell me about this chap who was in Auschwitz and survived because he decided his goal, his raison d'etre, was to make a record of human reactions to extreme circumstances. He survived the holocaust and along with his own survival his observations led him to believe that human beings can survive almost anything if they can dscover meaning in it. Of course my friend was talking about Frankl. She was also celebrating the having of goals. Which is something I am questioning at present.
I'm reading 'The Black Swan' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Rather slowly because after a while it doesn't grip me, but the original premis does. All swans were white in this hemisphere so the fact that a swan was white was a 'given' and swans could be used to epitomise whiteness in literature and poetry until the black Australian swan was discovered in the 19th century, at which point adjustments had to be made in thinking. He uses this as a demonstration of his own observation that most of the really life changing events have come from left field and are entirely unpredictable. Despite this fact the tendency persists in human beings to try to learn from the past, to amass information and statistics so we can gain forewarning of what will happen in the future. It's the need to control and the need for security that chiefly drives us, but there is also the need to appear to have knowledge and to be important.
Taken from N.N.Taleb's homepage: "My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the courage to sometimes say: I don’t know...." (You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race).
It was this book and more wrangling about religion/creationism in a chat room that lead me to look up Frankl again. Religions provide the ultimate reason for existance t and it was most often those with faith that survived the horror of the camps.
Two days after my conversation on Frankl a customer came in to ask me to order a couple of books for the prisoner on death row she has befriended. One of them was 'Man's search for Meaning.'
How's that for synchronicity?
Since I started to read 'The Black Swan I have tried to be aware of where and when I am spinning a story for myself. I think I've already stated here somewhere that I can live without religious belief but I need to make my life into a story. There's nothing wrong in that - only that it is another red herring.
Probably.
As a side thought: past events have not served to avoid the catastrophic crashes going on in the financial world. Presumably the wrong conclusions have been drawn, the wrong precautions taken. I don't understand enough about the world of finance to know if there have been unforeseen circumstances but in the aftermath no doubt there will be heads rolling from the necks of those who claimed they DID 'know' what would happen.
I'm reading 'The Black Swan' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Rather slowly because after a while it doesn't grip me, but the original premis does. All swans were white in this hemisphere so the fact that a swan was white was a 'given' and swans could be used to epitomise whiteness in literature and poetry until the black Australian swan was discovered in the 19th century, at which point adjustments had to be made in thinking. He uses this as a demonstration of his own observation that most of the really life changing events have come from left field and are entirely unpredictable. Despite this fact the tendency persists in human beings to try to learn from the past, to amass information and statistics so we can gain forewarning of what will happen in the future. It's the need to control and the need for security that chiefly drives us, but there is also the need to appear to have knowledge and to be important.
Taken from N.N.Taleb's homepage: "My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the courage to sometimes say: I don’t know...." (You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race).
It was this book and more wrangling about religion/creationism in a chat room that lead me to look up Frankl again. Religions provide the ultimate reason for existance t and it was most often those with faith that survived the horror of the camps.
Two days after my conversation on Frankl a customer came in to ask me to order a couple of books for the prisoner on death row she has befriended. One of them was 'Man's search for Meaning.'
How's that for synchronicity?
Since I started to read 'The Black Swan I have tried to be aware of where and when I am spinning a story for myself. I think I've already stated here somewhere that I can live without religious belief but I need to make my life into a story. There's nothing wrong in that - only that it is another red herring.
Probably.
As a side thought: past events have not served to avoid the catastrophic crashes going on in the financial world. Presumably the wrong conclusions have been drawn, the wrong precautions taken. I don't understand enough about the world of finance to know if there have been unforeseen circumstances but in the aftermath no doubt there will be heads rolling from the necks of those who claimed they DID 'know' what would happen.
In came Gregory...
... a nice old chap (probably not mch older than me but never mind) who is a bit of a misfit living in DSS accomodation in an ertshwile hotel which he calls his 'club.' He is highly intelligent and well read; a Christian Jew with leanings toward being in a monastery but somehow he wouln't fit there either. His heavily featured lined face and rather shabby appearance has caused rumours of the worst kind to proliferate about him in the town. The locals are quick to condemn what they don't understand. If he looked as he does but got drunk nightly he would soon blend in, as it is no-one quite knows what to make of him and crass invention is the result. Once we had established that I wasn't going to go out for the occasional walk or drink or meal with him (I have had to make this clear to a few lonely men lately which is ironic because once upon a time I would have loved to be asked out, now I am simply too switched off to be interested) he simply comes in for a chat. He is a perfect gentleman and quite quite harmless. He rarely buys a book but often gets me to order some obscure title for him and as a reward, from time to time, he brings me a polished stone or a crystal that he claims reminds him of me.
Vis-a-vis..
... swooping gulls and talk of sunshine on Chillsides blog, there was a recent enquiry into the poor health of the Scots and lack of sunshine was held to blame. Vitamin D defiency is common amongst dwellers of northern climbs and it isn't only the Scots who sufer from more of natures nasties per capita than people in sunnier places. It makes sense and I will stop blaming the indigenous sweet tooth and liking for fatty baking. Since I have lived up here my dietary tastes have changed. I can hardly be bothered with salads though once I loved them. As autumn settles in I find my longing for hearty stews (and even casoulet once in a while though I still baulk at the amount of fat a good french one has in it) increases. This in turn puts weight on which is bad but I feel the cold a lot less than my skinny daughters. Whilst I was just visiting here from Brussels I couldn't understand how folk in these parts (not only Scots) could allow themselves to get so fat. Over the years I've stopped noticing. Townies tend to be thinner. Maybe it's also the discipline of wearing those business suits that holds the tummy muscles tight.
I very much feel the need of a holiday not having been away for 18 months. not a sunshiney one, just a change which will come when the next grandchld arrives and I soldier south. In the meantime I'll buy some Vt.D supplement which I will feel good about then forget to take!
I very much feel the need of a holiday not having been away for 18 months. not a sunshiney one, just a change which will come when the next grandchld arrives and I soldier south. In the meantime I'll buy some Vt.D supplement which I will feel good about then forget to take!
11 Sept 2008
Hell is....
Today everyone is selling and no-one wants to buy except the chap who wanted Frankenstein. I have three but I just don't have the right edition for him. He declared himself shocked: 'I thought you'd make an effort to have that in stock.'
Why?
Happily Tom could give me a few hours away from this, which was just as well for the customer's sake really. I spent part of the time doing my bit toward equiping Sandy for a trip up the Amazon, a plastic cup, plate, bowl and a smart set of stainless steel eating gear, though in our day it was a whittled hazel stick with which we speared sausages and stirred the beans. After that I set sail for the Captain's table, which was crowded. I had hoped to sit in solitude reading 'The Black Swan' and having Thoughts but one of those Women Who Like to Talk joined me and Talked although I did my best to ignore her, fixing a yellow and black striped 'keep out' aura around myself. I did manage to snatch a sentence or two from my book. One in particular seemed apt: 'We are social animals; hell is other people.'
Note that it is all one sentence. I think it's neat.
Why?
Happily Tom could give me a few hours away from this, which was just as well for the customer's sake really. I spent part of the time doing my bit toward equiping Sandy for a trip up the Amazon, a plastic cup, plate, bowl and a smart set of stainless steel eating gear, though in our day it was a whittled hazel stick with which we speared sausages and stirred the beans. After that I set sail for the Captain's table, which was crowded. I had hoped to sit in solitude reading 'The Black Swan' and having Thoughts but one of those Women Who Like to Talk joined me and Talked although I did my best to ignore her, fixing a yellow and black striped 'keep out' aura around myself. I did manage to snatch a sentence or two from my book. One in particular seemed apt: 'We are social animals; hell is other people.'
Note that it is all one sentence. I think it's neat.
10 Sept 2008
Alternative realities.
After two really stupendous days in the shop the High Street has turned its back on me again and I am slipping into a black hole of boredom. So many things that need doing and they are all just - things that need doing. Nothing sets the pulses racing. Nothing grips the imagination. Nothing keeps me awake. A prospective customer came in at 11.38am to ask if I had a book on butterflies. I stared vacantly at her for all of a second (that's a long time if you are Photon Fred racing round that 27km particle collider this morning) before I could remember what a butterfly was. We should be able to put ourselves into cold storage, a semi-cryogenic state that carries us through the dull bits of life and preserves us bright eyed for the interesting bits.
Instead my mind mulls over the Photon Olympics. '...and 1 second into the race it's Photon Fred in the lead at 111 circuits being lapped as I speak by Photon Phil on his 115th circuit and now Photon Fred on his 222nd circuit has just edged into... on no there goes Phil... oh damn it all... bring on the Black Hole someone... for god's sake... oh sorry there is no god... What? You ARE god? You came here today to ask what the hell's going on? Well that's a damn silly question. What do you think is going on oh all powerful and omniscient one.. If YOU don't know, who does... You made it all, we're just trying to see how it works so we can make a better one next time.. Well don't get huffy at me, you have to admit there are a few flaws... I could show you them if you have the back of an envelope handy... meet you in an hour or so? Meet you where? The restaurant at the end of the Universe ... fine if you're paying, but I bet it's all booked up on a day like today...
Instead my mind mulls over the Photon Olympics. '...and 1 second into the race it's Photon Fred in the lead at 111 circuits being lapped as I speak by Photon Phil on his 115th circuit and now Photon Fred on his 222nd circuit has just edged into... on no there goes Phil... oh damn it all... bring on the Black Hole someone... for god's sake... oh sorry there is no god... What? You ARE god? You came here today to ask what the hell's going on? Well that's a damn silly question. What do you think is going on oh all powerful and omniscient one.. If YOU don't know, who does... You made it all, we're just trying to see how it works so we can make a better one next time.. Well don't get huffy at me, you have to admit there are a few flaws... I could show you them if you have the back of an envelope handy... meet you in an hour or so? Meet you where? The restaurant at the end of the Universe ... fine if you're paying, but I bet it's all booked up on a day like today...
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