There is much discussion going on in America and in other centres of religious devotion, about Evolution versus intelligent design. On the periphery are those who accept evolution but believe it to be the mechanism used by a god to make life. And pointing to leaps in the evolutionary chain and other things, they even…
Month: September 2010
The Older The Better
Many years ago whilst taking a foundation course at school on politics our teacher said of Aristotle that here was a man who could walk into the physics labs at school and do the four years work we were taught in one term (approximately three months). Not only is that an impressive assumption it is…
You’re Right.
This joke was told to me by a painter called Robert Lenkiewicz when I was fourteen, and he explained how the Hassidic Movement tried to impart knowledge and wisdom through the use of humour. “The couple were arguing in street and their Rabbi who was passing with one of his students, came over and asked them…
How Do We Begin
Starting a novel is easy when set aside starting a life. Putting aside the ‘when and where’ of conception and the decisions (or not) our parents make, just the fact that we are born knowing nothing and having to come to grips with the world from afresh puts writing a novel firmly in second place…
Paperweights
All a round our home there are stones. They all have a soft shape, some are multi-coloured and they sit on window sills and mantelpieces and are described as ‘paperweights’, picked up from beaches and walks around the world over the years. I am so used to them being here I sometimes forget they are…
Natural Motivations
People ask about motivation, and indeed look for motives, in all human activity. As if our desire to follow the rules of cause and effect must in some way contribute to why we think what we think, and how our thoughts contributes to our actions. It does after all make sense for a rational animal….
New Generation, Old Style
It is very true when people say nothing changes. It is almost as if the great changes are so fundamental they happened a long time ago and now we are left with cosmetic changes that people think carry vast amounts of significance difference, which they do not. So the difference between the wheeled cart and…
Does Poverty Exist?
I live in what was, two hundred years ago, the poorest dwelling you could find. Two houses put together, one-up-and-one-down with open fire places. Houses built for farm labourers who were expected to spend at least eighteen hours a day in the fields and on the land. The wives kept house and had babies. Yet…
Jacques Cousteau
I always loved Jacques Cousteau and his team when I was a child, growing up with his marine research aboard the Calypso. They always seemed a friendly bunch of people and nothing was beyond them as they investigated what was going on at all the depths and in the all the seas. And it seemed…
Lacking Skills
I love working with painters because my stick creatures never really manage to hit the mark. I recall my mother when she was younger knew the artists Sheila Fell, who tragically died quite young, and she used to pick up Sheila’s charcoal and pencil sketches from the floor and hang them on her wall. She…