The alchemy of choice is fascinating; what makes one person become a career criminal and another fear to even steal a penny? Yes it has a lot to do with influences of other minds as one grows up but it is also about strength and weakness of character and that comes from many places; including…
Category: Quotidial
Investigative Journalism
There have been many notable, and even more simply recorded, moments when politicians and businessmen have been caught out by speaking candidly to journalists working under-cover. There are those who say the resulting exposure is in the public interest and those who say these are sting operations inveigling people into ruining their careers. Even more…
Growing Up
It is a strange business to become aware as we grow up, for our minds to be developing all the while and for us mostly to be unaware of it. I am not the first to wonder how learning a language, and following examples of those closest to us in order to survive lays down…
Magical Science
I am sure we can all point to thing in our thinking that at first glance appear to be opposites, but none-the-less we have an affection if not a high regard for both. For me these two things are an deep love of the magical from the childhood spells to the adult awe in the…
To Past Laughter
I see so much of human activity as an attempt to fill up the hours, days and weeks with anything that stops us thinking about how short life is, that sometimes I forget the simple joy of shared being. I heard a story on BBC Radio 4 which made me smile and I thought I…
Winter Wonderland
The snow which now has the village pretty well cut off continued yesterday and though the days temperatures are warmer it looks like it is here for Christmas. Which of course would normally be wonderful except for the fact that I have a cold – or at least I am fighting off some bug that…
Filing
I know there are things which define character very accurately, from those who are tidy in the home to those who are fusty; those who look after their appearance and those who don’t really care. There are many observations on the character traits in the human race and what types we all are. But having…
Lions And Lambs
I am surprised that people universally seem to think animals are stupid. I am sure this is to do with the fact that we have an immeasurable sense of our importance – we have created religions in which we are just off centre of most important beings in the Universe (we have to put god…
Farmer Fisher
In 1976 a wonderfully amusing and amazingly musical book was voted Children’s Book of the Year. The book is Farmer Fisher, a 48 page romp through the mind of Jonathon Coudrille who re-designed the famous Old MacDonald had a farm favourite, upgraded it to the modern era and delighted a generation of children. The book…
Reciprocal Behaviour
Humanity loves to create tools with which to carry out tasks assigned to us by nature or ourselves. In fact tool making is one of the definitions of what it is to be a a human being. And whilst it is obvious to see how tools help us to do what we want to be…