A few years ago a British magazine ran a brief and unscientific survey. They took two teenage boys, one who had left school early and one who was studying to go to university and asked them what law they would enact if they had the power. They both, in different ways, replied they would rather…
Month: June 2011
Homesickness
Being homesick can not only be debilitating it can be so extreme as to lead to depression and suicide. Some people are so ill they cannot be travellers or if they are they cannot go anywhere for long. We tend to dismiss this as something to do with ‘feelings’ and many people having no such…
All Fair For Eden
During the age of exploration when Europeans were going out to ‘discover’ the world (one that others had discovered long since) one of the things they were looking for was the Garden of Eden. I am always reminded when the seasons come and go in the UK how much people wanted to find the Utopia…
Best Medicine?
During her menopause my mother took to reading more about vitamins and how the body works than she had done for many years, finding out that some of her symptoms were not just because of her condition but the increased sensitivity it gave her to food additives. It was a very instructive time and one…
Moths
Last night I caught a moth to put outside and until it flapped its wings I didn’t know for sure I was holding it. It is strange to have the sensation that I was holding something without feeling I was touching it. I know the senses have their limits and can be fooled but I…
Images Of Our Shame
There are two amongst the millions that exist, that make me shiver with the ignorance and sickness of the human mind. The first is a short film I have seen of a white man in the African hunting dress leaping from elephant to elephant finishing them off as he decimates an entire heard, every animal…
Now I Know
Thirty years ago the woman in my bed was twenty but now I know I am old because last night not only was the woman in my bed menopausal and suffering from sweat and hot flushes, I slept on the sofa downstairs. Thankfully this passed as a joke between the two of us when I…
I’m In Trouble
When we moved here we put in 54 copper beech trees as a line of hedging across the front gardens adjacent to the road. They actually look very lovely in the summer and cut at the right time they do maintain a lot of their leaves through the winter. I have always cut them back…
The Politics Of Poetry
I don’t think many people – even some artists – understand the role of art in the human mind. There are many fanciful things said and quite a few believed to excuse the behaviour of artists which taken in the round are little more than men behaving badly. On a purely non-academic surmise women artists…
Invitation To a Seance
Houdini famously took part in many seances after his mother died trying to find out if there was an ‘after life’ and being a showman he was able to expose every supposed mystic he met. It doesn’t stop people believing though, as many in this country regularly go to mass meetings where individual’s start telling…