Someone once told me that if you read anything or hear anything in the political sphere, before answering one should ask the question, ‘Who benefits?’ Who benefits from me knowing this, who benefits from this happening, who benefits if this becomes law etc. So when people criticize the Climate Change science I always ask this…
The Politics Of Nonsense
Even a cursory glance at the history of all countries shows us that there are links between the thinkers on all sides of the political spectrum, what we broadly term left, right and centre. It is interesting to note that despite the links shown by cross-country co-operation between political parties of similar persuasion, people do…
This Mobile Living
There is a scene in the book ‘How Green Was My Valley’ (I believe) in which the protagonist walks with a girl from another village and gets home late to find his male relatives sitting with their boots on waiting for trouble. The reason being that the girl comes from the next valley and they…
Wind In The Willows
My mother was asking for a copy of Wind in the Willows to read and of all the books written for children in the twentieth century (it was published around 1908) it is one of the few that speaks to adults as much if not more than young children. Not just because Kenneth Grahame used…
Achieving One’s Goals
I am sure from sometime during school onwards we have all set ourselves goals to achieve. I also recall from my years fund raising how the first thing we used to write was the ‘aims and objectives’ of the project, goals not there for the individual, but for the group. And in a way individual…
Chilled Spring
This past week Snowdrops (Galanthus) started to appear in the garden amidst the hard frosts and very cold days. They are the first flowers of spring and are often seen coming up through snow. The Dogwood (Cornus) and Honeysuckle (Lonicera) are giving the tiniest leaves. On my walks there is one long bank that every…
Cries In The Dark
Some days when my mother’s illness surprises even me and she screams and talks and calls out for twenty hours at a stretch I wonder about the fragility of the human mind, a collection of impulses and chemicals modern science is only just getting to grips with and about which it still lacks a good…
Once More With Passion
I remember reading all my Shakespeare at school and being taken to Stratford to see two plays and watching videos of various productions and being struck by the whole ‘ethos’ that has arisen around the plays. Every generation must realise them anew, and some new productions are startlingly good though most are drab and uninventive…
Men’s Fashion
So today I bought online pair of jeans for the princely sum of £120. probably the most expensive trousers I have ever bought but I plead the rip I didn’t know about in my old trousers, which I have been walking around in for a few days. Wearing the same clothes for three days in…
Where Stories Come From
For generations there was a strongly held belief in the Music of the Spheres. In Hindu beliefs there are states of mind when one can actually hear the music, but in the original Pythagorean concept there was an order to the planets that was mystical. There is an allied belief in Judaism about the states…