Today on my lane they were hedge cutting. Before the second world war and before the advent of tarmac country lanes everywhere, they used to apportion one mile of roadway to a man and it was his job to keep it trimmed back. Usually local farmers or farm workers did this as part of their…
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Judo For Smart People
I took judo lessons when I was fourteen partly because it was the 19070s and everyone wanted to learn kung-fu and partly because it was fun bounding on the rubber mat that covered a third of the gym. Having been taught the most important part of all, how to roll after a throw, it seemed…
A Certain Kind Of Animal
There was a youtube video on a few years ago about two men who adopted a baby lion and had to let it go back to the wild after a year or so. The experts said the lion would never recognise them and might be dangerous to them but they still went to the nature…
The Limited Limitless
From what we know Ozymandias was a king of kings. After him men like Alexander, the generals of Rome, Genghis Khan were all men on the road to conquering the known world. In the great age of exploration when trade routes were being established countries were expanding into the unknown, to bring new wealth and…
It’s Easy If You’re Not Doing It
I was watching some street dancers doing their somersaults, splits and acrobatics and it occurred to me that when we watch athletes or even just dancers we are not watching excellence but participating in an imaginary world where we can in some symbiotic form, dance and run as they do. It goes further than this…
What Am I Offered
I keep getting sales pitches from all sorts of people these days. I am almost at the point where I won’t buy on the Internet unless I can sign out as a guest and not give my email because even when I check the ‘I don’t want any offers’ I still end up getting offers….
We Live Our Ignorance
I was struck forcibly many years ago thinking about history. Thinking that using gunpowder in the middle ages completely changed warfare and I thought of the generations before the discovery, how people fought and all the time gunpowder existed, we just did not know. It’s a thought exercise you can do for anything from disease…
Shänne Sands
Fidelity Is For Swans is the first selection of poems by the finest unknown poet of her generation. Shänne Sands has lived and worked in Cornwall for most of her life. She studied at the Guildhall School in London penning her first poems when she was seventeen and publishing her first book when she was…
Eeni Meeni Miini Leader
The news today is all about Libya. The UK and the USA have finally managed to get revenge on Gaddafi for Lockabie and the killing of Yvonne Fletcher on London streets. On the forty second anniversary of his coup Gaddafi is no longer recognised as a leader. So now a new leader is being proposed….
In The Land Of The Blind
Milton observed, along with many others, that power is relative. The actual power of any person is derived from the people around them and their own power or lack of power. Depending upon where you look to draw your comparisons people may be very powerful or weak. For Milton if you can see through one…