When Albinoni was writing his music do you think he thought of himself as Baroque? Or was Michelangelo busy sculpting because he knew that was his part in the Renaissance? It would be amusing to tell Socrates he was living in Classical Greece. None of us know what our classifications will be in the future…
Night Lights
Driving at night brings its own challenges; from the obvious tiredness of some drivers who cannot keep in lane, to those who are blasé and go from one lane to another without signaling – though that happens in the daylight as well, to your own idiosyncrasies. Mine is not being able to see the road…
Radix
Radix is the Latin name for a root, any root, and in English it is used in words that describe the fundamentals, the foundation, the essentials of a particular subject. Everything begins with a root that feeds the rest of the plant, that is a fact of life. The Earth grew out of a Cosmic…
Christmas Spirit
Apart from the rum I put into the Christmas cake – far too much as it happens but I don’t hear the family complaining – this is the time of year one has to remember to take change out to put in the charity boxes in the shops. I wonder what they will do in…
Wikileaks
I am one of those who found nothing surprising in the candid comments made by ambassadors to the State Department, in fact a lack of candour would have been very worrying. However there is a difference between having the sense to know these things are ‘probably’ being said and having the hard evidence set before…
Seasons
As everyone knows by now winter has come early to the UK and far from me at the moment, people are struggling to get through the snow and ice to school and work. In the old days when communities were communities, people just closed the front door and gathered around a fire and kept warm…
Land Rights
There is a movement in the UK as yet small but showing promise because it works, to encourage landowners to let out some land at a small or no fee, to people who want to have well run and productive allotments. The idea of empowering people to grow their own varieties of food, to get…
How To Give Advice
Firstly one should never give advice and if all objections and excuses have failed and you are pushed to it despite valiant efforts to the contrary the best way to proceed is as follows: Always sound confident, as though you have given this same advice before many times and to the best of your knowledge…
Good Luck Charms
There is, along a shelf of books in our house, a series of elephants bought by my mother over the years after she heard they were considered to be good luck in India. Black and brown wood, plastic, ivory (in India generally Elephants’ tusks are cut down like nails to regrow and elephants are not…
Diaries
There are amongst ancient writers names that we know but for whom we have no written works. Sometimes we have a good idea of how they were thought of but all their work is lost and even for the greats we do know, we don’t have all their works. Very rarely amongst the archeology suddenly…