Mumbai has always been the bustling, legal and financial centre of India even when I was last there in 1977 as a teenager. It has changed. Not that there is less bustle, but the whole enterprise here is one of huge modernity, mixed with the same sights that have haunted visitors for centuries. The high…
Flight Plans
All this online book ins with airports is fun because it gives you the impression you are in charge of your own destiny. Where will you sit, what will you eat, choose the time to suit your itinerary. And when you have done all that look – you can rent a car, a hotel and…
The Walls We Dare To Cross
The brilliant and original George Orwell was disenchanted with his own class in English society and thought that the working classes embodied the values he wanted to live amongst. He was disenchanted to find they did not. In fact the values he espoused are not to be found anywhere in a strata of society –…
Vesuvius
Many years ago when I was a child my aunt went to Italy and came back from visiting Vesuvius the volcano (which was and may still be giving off smoke) and in her memorabilia she had a piece of natural glass. It is a misshapen, chunky, slightly pale pink in places, hard lump of glass…
Mummy How Did God Make Me?
God made you out of a puff of air – Somewhere from heaven near to earth – Mingled you with all my dreams Bound with tears left from my youth – Caressed you with truth’s own breath – Washed and pure, wisely blessed – From millions of silver seeds, Purple gems, strange yet lovely fruits…
Positive Misunderstanding
I do have an understanding of the calmly, unpretentious religious people of the world and rather like this joke. The Jews of Rome were going to be expelled and they asked the Pope to allow them to stay and after some deliberation with his Cardinals he agreed to let them stay if they could defeat…
Adult Humour
I am a fan of hilarious one-line jokes. I put a skylight in my apartment recently – the people upstairs are furious. Of course things are always in the last place you look. You don’t find something and then say I’ll just take another look over there. Why do elephants have corrugated feet? To give…
What Is It For a Sentence To Be ‘True’?
Philosophers discuss at length what truth in a sentence means. Not, as you might expect, a circular argument since they are presumably using sentences to discuss the matter. In a way what they are trying to gauge and understand is what, if anything, is assumed in allowing us to communicate at all with words. One…
This Time Of Year
I never thought of using a weblog as a diary but this week has been divided equally between some lovely warm weather followed by a few chilly days mixed with rain. The farmers were our last week spreading nitrogen onto the grass for a quick growth burst ready for cutting in June if the weather…
One-Upmanship
I know we all try to do it one way or another. The subtlest way I know is used by artists of all kinds, who try to promote their own art form over-and-above all others. Perhaps not so subtle now I come to think about it. Musicians who cite the voice and song as the…