In Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography he talks briefly about his poverty in England and his upbringing and he mentions his mother being taken away because she was sick. He doesn’t go into great detail about her mental collapse but when she is lucid she tells him she would have been alright if he had made her…
Category: Quotidial
The Sweep Of History
I was talking to my friend Beverly in the USA today and for some reason began to explain British history from Alfred through to the Civil and the modern day from the point of view of British royalty. Taking in what makes kingship, what it is and the artificiality of the crown. Afterwards, and by…
Nature’s Intentions
My aunt Polly sent me The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands in which Mark tells the story of living with a wolf for eleven years. Apart from the fact that he discusses this as a profound experience, as all people who have loved anything that is non-human will concur, he writes about how…
Different Loves
The human mind has to come to terms with an entire world as it develops in childhood and adulthood. If you think about how different we are from day one to year thirteen it should not be a surprise that it takes a while for us to understand our own feelings once they kick in…
Kon Tiki
I remember well looking at the black and white television watching Thor Heyerdahl and his team crossing some part of the pacific in a reed raft to prove that people could have sailed the Ocean to populate the Polynesian Islands. It was a practical demonstration as his first raft sank, proving that only some of…
Happy New Year
As my next ramble through my head will be in 2011, I thought I would say goodbye to 2010. Not being a businessman to start a new venture is more a creative shot in the dark and FootSteps Press is very much a ‘creative collective’ taking advantage of the digital publishing revolution which has brought…
Language Is Not Always Meaning
Of course the creation of languages by animals is one of the immense evolutionary steps in the development of the earth-bound brain. I recall reading a bit about what it is for a sentence to be ‘true’ (correct) and how truth and meaning go hand-in-hand and have noted where people think we limit our understanding…
Science Affliction
I have to admit I love the ideas in science, even though the mathematics leaves me failing badly, the whole idea that things are related at the particle level, that there are laws and rules to chemical actions and physical objects no matter how large, is fascinating. Like many people I do not think it…
Snow And Life
Well the week of icy weather has abated for a while at last, and the hill on which I live is now passable again. Not that during the snowy weather people didn’t try to drive along it including me. I found a week ago I couldn’t reverse into my parking bay so I parked outside…
Myth-Making
I write for children and like most of the world love the ancient myths of people from different countries but I think we often forget how much we live in a mythical creation of our own even as adults. Perhaps this is what gets us by in life, I am not sure but I am…