The Rolling English Road Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; A merry road, a mazy road, and such as…
John Masefield
Cargoes Quinquireme1 of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amethysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and…
Louis MacNiece
Bagpipe Music It’s no go the merrygoround, it’s no go the rickshaw, All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow. Their knickers are made of crêpe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python, Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with heads of bison. John MacDonald found a corpse,…
NASA
I remember as a young writer of twenty-two writing to NASA. They had a policy of looking into the feasibility of sending a journalist into orbit as they could write about the experience with a better understanding of words than their astronauts. A policy that died or was shelved. I wrote to them as a…
Happy New Year
In the new Year prayers the supplicant asks god to take care of their enemies. It is a strange request that is born out of the Hebrew love of life, one of the great pillars of Judaism and two thousand years ahead of its time in the Western world. When you love life, you respect…
The Philosophy of Antangonism
It is well known that huge advances in technology and sometimes in science occur during wars. Inventiveness takes off because a war brings about a whole different feeling in society. Instead of people vying for personal space they are all pulling in the same direction, and governments eager to remain viable give money to every…
Hidden Behind the News
Recently in the UK a major provider of residential care went bankrupt. The news reported accurately that the company plan to sell off their houses and rent them back backfired in the economic climate. But no one in the news pointed out that every care home in the UK applies some form of salary subsidy…
Bling Or Animal?
My friend and I were discussing dogs and she said in her opinion they are the ultimate bling. For the most part dogs today should not exist as we have bred them to look the way they do and in nature there are only three wild dog types from which we have over-bred so many…
Café Our Way
I was recently sitting talking to an artist about her work in a café, supposedly we were having lunch though I don’t think I finished the lentil soup or the glass of water for that matter, when it became obvious the place shut at 5.00pm and we had to leave. On a very wet day…
Abuse
I was surprised, though I really should not have been, when I started chatting to people around the world on the Internet, at how many women have faced deep physical and emotional abuse from men. Not only that but the very men closest to them, the very men one assumes (and that shows how dangerous…