Saturday 24th February - Important News

(I know the day and date, because they've just told me on the 'Today' programme, on Radio 4. What a useful broadcast that is. However I've switched it off before they start annoying me with too many opinions and speculations. I know shouting at the 'Today' programme is part of my cultural identity but I didn't want to disturb the peace this morning)

The Really Important News is that I have just this moment discovered the sound recordings on www.thepoetryarchive.org

Radio 4 again. This is what we pay our license money for, and what makes it all worthwhile.

I was dipping into Clive James'  'Poetry Notebook' (too many ' ' marks in a row, but I don't know how to do that differently) and came to the chapter called

'Poetry Archive Tour'.

This is a list of poems, and his comments on the poetry, and how the poet reads them, BUT NOT THE TEXT. so, I reached for the gadgetry to find the text, and discovered www.poetryarchive.org

I've given the web address twice. For two reasons. So I don't forget, and to give you a chance to remember it.

So far I've listened to the first four poems in his 'tour' of the archive, and another along the way;

'Mayflies' by Richard Wilbur (which lead to by accident to the - to my mind - even more startling 'Barred Owl' - but who am I to disagree with Clive James?)

'The Whitsun Weddings' by Philip Larkin, which I encountered a few years ago; it reads like the outline plot for a novel or a short story. I'm tempted to have a go.

'A Subaltern's Love Song' by John Betjeman. Joan Hunter Dunn is how everyone knows it - rather charmingly JB can't find it in the book because he can't remember the real title. (Another ready-plotted novel?)

and then I listened to/read

'Jerusalem' by James Fenton, which needs a good deal more reading and thinking about before I go further.

Stone cries to stone,
Heart to heart, heart to stone,
.....
stop me here before I write out the whole poem. But the lines seem to fly off the page with the force of a video documentary or news photography. here come a few more snippets;
.....
this is the cistern where all wars begin
.....
Jerusalem itself is on the move.
It leaps and leaps from hill to hill
....
This is us and that is them,
This is Jerusalem.
These are the dying men with tattooed wrists.
Do this and I'll destroy your home.
I have destroyed your home. You have destroyed my home.

Now I shall go and do something useful about war, or religious intolerance, or poverty, or refugees, or something, anything, because Jerusalem is everywhere, leaping across boundaries, continents, seas...

Someday in April - The Company Plan/Statistics/Elections

I hate the months before elections. It seems to be just a long slanging match with people becoming increasingly shrill and extreme, and every newspaper and television interview and tweet becoming more full of

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

(a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point.
The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli's works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death. Several other people have been listed as originators of the quote, and it is often erroneously attributed to Twain himself.
copied and pasted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics)

I remember this one doing the rounds when I worked at **** many, many moons ago. A friend sent me a copy recently.

The Company Plan

In the beginning was THE PLAN

And then came The Assumptions

And The Plan was without substance

And the Assumptions were without form

And the darkness was upon the face of the Workers

 

And they spoke amongst themselves saying

"It is a crock of shit and it stinks."

And the Workers went unto their

Supervisors and said,

"It is a pail of dung,

and none may abide the odour thereof."

 

And the Supervisors went unto their

First Engineers saying, "It is a container of

excrement, and it is very strong

such that none may abide by it."

 

And the First Engineers went unto their

Managers, saying "It is a vessel of

fertiliser, and none may abide its strength."

 

And the Managers spoke amongst themselves

saying one to another, "It contains that

which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."

 

And the Managers went to the

Directors saying onto them, "It promotes

growth, and it is very powerful."

 

And the Directors went unto the

Chairman, saying unto him, "This new plan

will actively promote the growth and

vigour of the company, with powerful effects." 

And the Chairman looked upon the Plan,

and saw that it was good.

 

And The Plan became Policy.

 

I remember reading this book as a teenager, and being simultaneously enlightened and outraged:

 

 

The cartoon appears to be in tune with the times.

Wednesday 6th November - Pay Attention in future...

This was really, really annoying.

I'm making another strip for the Tunisian crochet blanket, in a boucle yarn which was chosen for the blue colours that remind me of the water above and below the Niagara Falls.

I laid it out on the table to admire my progress...

and instantly spotted that it has lost a substantial amount of WIDTH.

To rip it out, or not to rip it out? The difference in width is actually nearly an inch.

So, I ripped. Ow! It hurt, really badly. All that work, gone, gone, gone.

About half of the strip returned to a single strand. It would have been a good idea if I had checked what I was doing more often.

At least, with Tunisian Crochet, you only need to pick up ONE stitch.

BUT, tempted as I was to pretend that "it will be all right when I sew the strips together", I knew that it wouldn't work out. So I'm glad I managed to take the path of righteousness, earlier rather than later.

Moral - PAY ATTENTION to what you are doing!

Saturday 11th May - Did I just say that in my "Outside" Voice?

Ooops.

I did.

And me a school teacher too.

Today day started well.

Sunny.

When I woke up, I realised that I had slept through the whole night (I am usually woken by something or someone at around 4:40 am most mornings - our neighbour works shifts).

I carried on dozing for another half hour or so, almost unaware of the clammy embrace of the oxygen tube.

Breakfast and real coffee.

The Saturday morning pupil, a pleasant young man cramming for a Grade 5 theory exam, had done some homework, and got most of it right too.

I had half an hour to catch up with lesson reviews - I had a backlog of lessons to write up (all my class music lessons have to have planning and then reviews written up and sent in to the relevant schools). With some fast work on the computer I knocked it back to just three.

Then time to go and get my mother home from the Care Home where she has been all week while my father had a break.

Well, I work hard at being an optimist, and keeping my glass half full rather than half empty, and looking on the bright side, and staying cheerful and positive, but half full is only half full, when all is said and done, so it doesn't take much of being of the receiving end of a mile of complaints, and yards of criticisms, and metres of recitations of wrongs, and sheaves of instructions to do this, and that, and stand here, and look there, for my glass of well-being to be drained to the last drop. Smile. Take it on the chin. Respond with grace and patience and positivity and helpfulness. It's a stressful and emotional time for everyone. Don't add to it.

I let fly with my own verbal response once I was on my own in the room; I won't repeat what  said - I was using a very limited and repetitive vocabulary. Suffice it to say that the bedroom door, held open by a floor catch, suddenly slammed shut of its own accord!

Kicking hell out of a poor inoffensive lamp-post on my way to the car sort of helped, although I don't recommend it as you can hurt your toes if you are not precise with your aim.

We didn't stay long once everyone was back in their proper place - things to do, errands to run, jobs to finish. It seemed a good idea to let everyone get on with what they wanted to do next. Anyway I was in no mood to socialise, chat, discuss, or even TALK to anyone. Now I needed some time and space  to work at getting a grip of myself, and pull myself together, and find some way of refilling my glass of cheer.

We went into town for lunch and grocery shopping and getting the banking done and other bits and pieces on the list.

I took my "before meals" pill in the car park, swallowing it down without water. It stuck. It tastes dreadful if it starts to dissolve in my mouth - very bitter - very ugh. "Bugger" I said, and then realised I'd said it out loud, and the couple walking past us, much our own age looked totally surprised. I explained that the pill had got stuck, refused their kind offer of water, and succeeded second time round with the help of a boiled sweet.

So yes, ooops. I really did say it out loud. In my "outside" voice. Oddly enough, my glass of optimism began to start the process of refilling itself.  

Saturday 9th March - Love and Temperament

We've been married for long enough now to get used to each other.

I try and view our natures as "complementary", rather than as "opposites".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boutet_1708_color_circles.jpg

So, in trying out certain kinds of ideas, such as home improvements, rearrangements of furniture, new colour schemes, my approach tends to be "let's give it a go!" I tend to plunge in, and do an experimental dry wet run. I reckon to try it all out using cheap approximations of what I am aiming for in order to get a feel for how it works. A quick trip to the shops, chuck everything that's in the way into the empty bath to clear a space, push, shove, pull, rip, cut, stick and hey presto. Then leave the debris everywhere because I'm plumb tuckered out. Let's go out for fish and chips tonight.

Once I've done it, I'll then know how it should have been done, and will be in a good position to go for the final solution. Makes perfect sense to me. I need to touch and feel and see the change in order to know what it is I really wanted.

The major, major, and insuperable flaw in this approach is, that having created the bodged together, string-and-sealing-wax solution, rickety-tickety oozy-woozy version, I will lose interest, and just let everything stop there. Somehow, I won't have significantly improved the situation. Let's be truthful. Everything is a thousand times worse than if I had left things well alone.

So what's his approach? It takes time. It involves asking and considering answers to lots of questions. It involves patience and research and investigation and measuring, lots and lots of measuring. There's all that visiting different shops WITHOUT buying anything. Pieces of paper. Plans. MORE measurements.

Then, in a weekend, or a day, or even a few hours of intense activity, the solution is implemented, in one go, everything is tidied away, and IT WORKS and is pretty near perfect.

After 35 years, I'm beginning to go with his methods. The waiting around, and the delays drive me insane with impatience, but I'm learning. His way is much better.

Usually..... 

   
 

A month of weather - 18/10/12 Blessed are the peacemakers

The week just gone has been a real up-and-down-and-up-and downer. With a lot of downer, to be truthful.

When I took this photograph, it was first thing in the morning, I was emerging from a "downer". The sky seemed to speak to me of renewed hope for the day. Although the black rain clouds were massed on the low horizon, the sky above was bright blue, and criss-crossed with white aeroplane trails. It made me think of journeying away from the dark times into a new, bright place.

As I drove about, the sky changed in appearance as I changed direction. At one moment I would be facing ominous grey clouds, threatening rain and storm and floods. Then I would turn a corner, and the sky would be a uniform, clear, luminous, deep blue, like a summer's day. Turn again, and there would be pale, thin, fluffy white clouds traced against the blue.

It made me consider how one's point of view changes one's perception of a situation. It's the same situation, but it can be interpreted in so many different ways. If I had only faced one way, I would have set off with umbrella, waterproofs, wellington boots. Looking in a different direction, a light jacket and sandals would have been fine.

This has became an important thought to hold on to. When black clouds of doom are coming towards me with what seems to be a scary inevitability, (which, at the moment, they are), remembering that we all see things from different points of view, and with different perspectives is vital. It is all too easy to be overcome by a rising tide of blind, sick panic. Finding an honest, truthful, sincere, humble way through the approaching storm, respecting other people's views and keeping unhelpful emotions in check is the only sensible way forward.

He who sows the wind, will reap the whirlwind...

Blessed are the peacemakers......