tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-268262922012-02-15T19:48:47.572ZA wayfarer’s notes<i>“Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives travelling. There are a great number of ancients, too, who died on the road. I myself have been tempted by the cloud-moving wind---filled with a strong desire to wander.”</i>—Bashō.Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.comBlogger5101100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-8412196694001271832012-02-15T18:05:00.000Z2012-02-15T18:59:14.045ZProphetic words from 1976
In 1976 when I wrote the essay below for a competition, it was already possible to link computers by telephone line, but an international structure, eventually called the Internet, wasn’t established till 6 years later. But its use was limited to academics and technical types keeping in touch till Tim Berners-Lee invented the World-Wide Web, nine years after that. Bill Gates had started a smallVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-81979004282638198872012-02-08T12:51:00.000Z2012-02-08T20:16:35.081ZHitchhiking to Heaven
There are things in my past I prefer not to revisit, as mentioned in comments on the previous post. ‘Cult’ comes from the Latin cultus, worship. In certain contexts it refers to “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister”.
I was involved with a cult for longer than I care to admit. What can I say in a small space like Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-14630150888210007312012-01-29T17:42:00.000Z2012-01-29T21:00:50.570ZThe book as a sacred space
In my last I gave a quirky personal response to Bryan’s request for a piece about sacred places; quirky because conditioned by personal circumstance, geography, history, temperament—and a unique moment. After posting it, I felt a yearning to express something more inclusive, more universal. I don’t think it is possible to express anything universal unless and until you can be deeply personal, Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-20496727921539976002012-01-23T15:23:00.008Z2012-01-25T04:47:00.005ZSacred placesI approach this subject with a certain awe. I cannot simply tell what I know, in an ordinary state of mind. To be properly aware, I need to be tuned in, and I imagine there may be a set of rules to follow. But not having been formally trained in such rules, I have to discover them for myself. It rather reminds me of Ghetu’s story, in my last. His hero wanted to sail in a boat, but first he had toVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-10973954867312233512012-01-16T11:51:00.015Z2012-01-17T05:55:24.801ZDrifting awayI’ve published one of Ghetu’s stories before, Free as a Bird, and written about another, Ghetu Files a New Story.
Ticket to Paradise
© 2012 Anup Roy
(Inspired by Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’)
He stares down at the ticket. The only other thing on his table is a coating of grey dust. Tears roll down his cheeks, splash in the dust. Ticket to paradise, ticket to life.
He sits down with a thud. Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-16064754031069220472011-12-29T13:52:00.005Z2011-12-30T08:44:03.606ZScintillating scotomaIn one sense it’s a little crazy to challenge and defy Plato, the Old Testament prophets, Jesus, scientists, one’s own doctor, and especially friends. Who am I to do this? A nobody. But you see, that’s a great strength. If you are a somebody, you have something to defend. At the bottom of the heap, you are free. You have only yourself to keep alive—or not.
The real strength comes when you are inVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-77472531464629054772011-12-22T10:47:00.004Z2011-12-22T10:59:53.712ZOne Minute, PleaseEvery day I desire to publish some nice little piece here, but unless it’s dictated by the inner voice, over which I have no control, it’s not worth the effort. This voice is silent sometimes for weeks on end—or more likely I haven’t learnt how to listen—and then it may utter a single phrase, as it did on Sunday: “Time is short, so don’t rush.” I made a note of it, marvelling at the paradox. VeryVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-89613049752598047012011-12-15T14:06:00.006Z2012-01-29T18:28:12.623ZIn memory of George Whitman, 1913-2011
I once spent a few weeks as George Whitman’s guest in his bookshop opposite Notre Dame in Paris. Today I heard of his death on the news. I’ve mentioned him three times on this blog: in May 2008, May 2009 and Feb 2011. It has always been difficult to write about the man himself, for I never understood him. Watching the excellent documentary embedded below, I get it at last. The man I encountered,Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-36795921710123503352011-12-12T14:09:00.011Z2011-12-12T14:51:25.200ZWhat is the greatest invention of all time?Click the link above for source (BBC Radio 4 "Today", 12/12/11 @ 8:20) See also this link for more details. In the dialogue below, Sarah is Sarah Montague, interviewing on behalf of the BBC; John is John Humphrys, senior programme presenter (pictured above).
SARAH: What is the greatest invention of all time? Ask that question 20 years ago and you might have a different answer than you would Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-58381631405435787232011-12-04T13:07:00.011Z2011-12-04T21:15:29.359ZJohn Gray’s Straw DogsIn his book John Gray is a demolisher, razing to the ground almost every idea which offers hope, whether it comes from science, religion, humanism or any other -ism. It’s not a long book. You can get through it in a couple of days: easily but not comfortably, unless you’ve already sacrificed all the sacred cows he might possibly want to slaughter on your behalf.
As you work your way through, youVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-73590440427151220342011-11-30T09:55:00.003Z2011-11-30T22:36:49.925ZA cowardly idle foolWhat is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare? W. H Davies, “Leisure”.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Proverbs 6:6
I’ve gone to the ant, considered her ways for the last fifty years, and no longer think her a worthy role model. Sluggardry suits me better now. I’d be the first to admit that I’ve become unfitted for gainful employment. Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-49029740398224033122011-11-27T11:36:00.006Z2011-11-30T10:28:21.901ZIn one’s strengthHEALTH WARNING
As Bryan has mentioned—see his comment below—this post and its predecessor may be so incoherent and lacking in worthwhile point as to cause nosebleed and/or blackouts in sensitive readers. But let it stand, as readers have taken the trouble to comment.
(Continued from previous post)
Extract from first day’s transcript, typed up 25th August 2005—a week after the session:
Bart:
I Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-74399539089453334202011-11-25T15:45:00.003Z2011-11-26T12:02:45.711ZInto the Matrix?I seldom have adventures these days. Perhaps that’s the reason why I find it so difficult to write here. Nothing happens. I do many things that absorb my interest, but they could hardly be called adventures, and I cannot imagine them interesting anyone else. In any case, most of my adventures acquire their piquancy not so much for their novelty, or the uncertainty of their outcome; but more from Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-86473383377247414412011-11-11T14:20:00.006Z2011-11-12T18:33:13.304ZThe interconnectedness of all thingsI’m glad I went to the doctor about my backache. I feel much better now. I learned a great truth which I can’t wait to share with you. It wasn’t the doctor who revealed it, quite the reverse. But he was the catalyst—the midwife!—to my realisation.
You don’t want to hear about my aches and pains, naturally, and I don’t want to tell you. Suffice to say he’s referred me elsewhere for a test and Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-75926128065783551232011-10-25T10:57:00.003+01:002011-10-26T05:11:11.533+01:00Unimaginable realityFor several weeks, dear reader, I’ve had nothing new to say. Were this a movie, my wordlessness could be wordlessly conveyed.
The scene opens to a man turning the platen of his typewriter to feed in a fresh white sheet of paper. Surrounding him are bookshelves on all sides. He stares at the blank sheet. After much fidgeting and sighing, he starts to type intensively, one page, two pages.... He Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-36466451837276019502011-10-02T20:01:00.002+01:002011-10-02T20:29:15.316+01:00Becoming AnimalI had thought of writing a review of David Abram’s book, Becoming Animal, but the breadth of its vision, the variety of its original ideas, the density of its poetical descriptions would take a long time to digest, before I could say anything of value. It would have been easier if I didn’t admire it so much. From the dust-cover I read that someone calls it “an original work of primary philosophy.Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-88938187554248939642011-09-25T19:18:00.009+01:002011-09-28T15:35:44.318+01:00Infinite are the depthsSome days are special gifts but it takes something to share them. When I say days, I mean moments within days. And when I say special, I refer to some magic visible only to the inner eye. A day is a torrent of moments which pass us by, whether we attend to them or not. Then they vanish into a hole like a stream into a culvert; they join the great ocean of the Past, now immutable forever. If you Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-81791689398449387152011-09-18T20:35:00.005+01:002011-09-19T07:03:03.455+01:00Falling into placeIntuition is easy to define, absurdly easy: it’s “what comes naturally”. It follows then that following intuition is simply doing what comes naturally. Do you agree? Do you see what I mean? I could write a longish essay explaining what I mean, a book even. I am not saying that what you should do is devote your life to following intuition. I never offer guidance. But the time has come where this Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-66732075149671959012011-09-10T12:30:00.035+01:002011-09-12T07:09:28.171+01:00Mission reportThe story so far:
On 29th July—seven weeks ago—I posted an entry, “A glimpse of Paradox”, about a sense of mission.
It finished with these words:
Disputatious as ever, I question the reasonableness of reasonableness.
We make ourselves blind to the fact that our lives are not actually ruled by reason. They are ruled by pursuing whatever makes us feel all right. We then apply reason to tell Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com42tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-21539907919510503002011-08-30T13:47:00.004+01:002011-08-30T14:59:08.461+01:00Gilgamesh: book for our timeThe Epic of Gilgamesh is the world’s oldest tale, going back 4000 years. (See timeline at foot of this article.) It has survived by virtue of being impressed on clay tablets buried in the desert in “cuneiform”, the oldest known form of writing, which dates back 5000 years. Only with the work of generations of archaeologists and scholars could it be pieced together and translated. Following some Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-29087133719159808362011-08-19T13:52:00.001+01:002011-08-19T14:42:49.824+01:00Special viewpointsPoor blog! Your master has neglected you: deliberately. And taken a vow also to write briefly and more or less spontaneously, as opposed to elaborate literary essays: the better to do other things elsewhere—to be elaborate in a more spacious (i.e. book) format, conducted with an excellent collaborator: sometimes sparring partner, sometimes antagonist. It’s going well. I’ll keep you informed whenVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-68529790699949180072011-08-11T05:55:00.000+01:002011-08-11T05:55:16.245+01:00Capturing the momentI was going to write about Wales. And then I was going to write about child looters rampaging the evening streets of English cities. I probably won’t finish either of these essays though they exist in partial drafts. So here instead are a few photos of a recent camping trip. You can click on them to see larger versions.
But when it comes to capturing a moment, a thought, a feeling, I prefer Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-78872543052840213932011-07-31T11:35:00.005+01:002011-08-04T16:57:48.439+01:00Life-illusionMy last ended with these words:
We make ourselves blind to the fact that our lives are not actually ruled by reason. They are ruled by pursuing whatever makes us feel all right. We then apply reason to tell ourselves that what makes us feel all right is “the truth”.
This thought needs full explanation. All I can do here now is promise to provide one, some time, some place, & meanwhile assign itVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-25189385824988381502011-07-29T16:21:00.013+01:002012-01-20T15:48:53.939ZA glimpse of Paradox
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I confess to a constant need: to have a sense of mission. I don’t Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-42837595012366012422011-07-18T14:47:00.014+01:002011-07-29T09:29:31.039+01:00Reading, and other extreme sportsI’m ashamed to admit it to myself, though shameless in telling you, dear reader: lately I’ve been getting more from literature than from life. “How can this be?” you say, “to read is an act like any other. It’s still a part of life.” Hm. By “life”, in this context, one means that bullring in which each one of us struts like a toreador, dealing with the sharp horns of the Other, showing who’s bossVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-62929905220723789122011-07-16T15:24:00.015+01:002011-07-21T11:25:06.073+01:00Sisyphus & the Rolling Stone - part 4
Le Mythe de Sisyphe: essai sur l’absurde
Albert Camus © 1942 Éditions Gallimard
Translation © 2011 Ian Vincent Mulder
(PS Column showing the original French added 21st July, after the first 11 comments. Paragraph starts should line up, but unfortunately they don’t in Firefox.)
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width: Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-17757768166205232912011-07-13T10:58:00.004+01:002011-07-13T16:05:29.640+01:00Being unreasonableFrom time to time, I ask myself here “why do I blog?” and since most of my readers, or at any rate the ones who emerge from invisibility by appending comments, are bloggers too, it seems a popular topic with them. Not that I court popularity. Sorry, dear reader. I don’t get up in the early hours to sit at this keyboard just to entertain you and build up a fan-base. That may be the dynamic of “Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-72534817457253806532011-07-04T12:12:00.003+01:002011-09-10T06:48:47.806+01:00Homer’s OdysseyIt matters a lot which translation of a book you read. I confess to being super-fussy about these things. I hear a piano concerto or symphony, for example, and compare it unfavourably with one which impinged on my consciousness years ago, perhaps in my teens. (You’ll have to trust me on this. It’s the impinging, not the nostalgia, which counts in these evaluations.) That shows how much style is Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-11897398675840939002011-07-02T18:11:00.000+01:002011-07-02T18:11:31.218+01:00For Fox SakeWaterperry Garden is reached by a country road with a few sharp bends, one heralded by this sign, placed there by Oxfordshire County Council.
One attraction was an exhibition of Zimbabwean sculpture, by several artists.
This one is called "Too many burdens" and is perhaps a self-portrait, representing illness and pain. Visitors are encouraged to touch the sculptures.
I think this one is Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-9129250275521977542011-07-01T10:18:00.004+01:002011-07-01T10:46:14.545+01:00By bus and canalWhen I take a bus ride, I journey to the past. Subconsciously, this is my intended destination, for I could have taken the car instead, and “saved time”. I have no reason to save time any more. Now is my invitation to spend it freely; to use if I wish to sift my past, like a prospector panning for gold in a flowing stream, that stream of which Heraclitus says you cannot step in twice and still Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-54355397708806662212011-06-26T12:23:00.003+01:002011-06-26T12:34:07.908+01:00For the sake of it“Why do I write, if I can’t write any better? But what would become of me if I didn’t write what I can, however inferior it may be to what I am? In my ambitions, I am a plebeian, because I try to achieve; like someone in a dark room, I’m afraid to be silent. I’m like those who prize the medal more than the struggle to get it, and savour glory with a fur-lined cape.” (Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-51799341671580738112011-06-15T17:24:00.013+01:002011-06-20T17:16:09.241+01:00Dreaming spiresOxford is everything that my own town is not, and it’s only 30 miles away. I decided Park and Ride was the best way to enter in triumph, using my new electronic bus pass, on a superb day in June, discovering that the students are in exams and the streets are a motley of tourists. Oxford is impressive, but that’s the whole point of it. Much of it was built when a king, or other potentate, Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-29215430733617941902011-06-11T18:38:00.016+01:002011-06-12T17:18:32.322+01:00Accounting for tasteI step out the house for the daily ritual of meeting K from work. My route involves shortcuts through alleys. A perfect ritual has no practical purpose, no sense of obligation. It’s done for joy alone. Its sacredness within the rhythm of daily life increases on every repetition. Its tendency to sameness draws attention to the variations: the passing of seasons and stages of life, the remembrance Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-83481567807234743232011-06-04T08:03:00.020+01:002011-06-06T22:39:11.218+01:00In the thistle field, at dawnI lie in bed watching dawn’s rosy fingers light up the house opposite, creeping lower as the hour advances. This street is narrow, its houses joined together (‘terraced’) in a continuous chain on both sides. You’d think there’d be scant room for the low-slanting rays to penetrate. But our house is near the street’s eastern end where there’s nothing but a derelict school yard beneath a big sky, asVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-2621341787167161012011-05-27T06:39:00.077+01:002011-05-27T15:12:45.670+01:00LisbonTo mark a double celebration, we took a few days off in Lisbon, a city of beauty and charm which I’ll try and convey in snapshots rather than words.
Click on any picture to enlarge it.
Our hotel was not far from the great Praça do Marquês Pombal, above. I didn’t discover who the Marquess of Pombal was till I could look him up in Wikipedia.
He was as important to Portugal as his monument Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-20475356526895661822011-05-17T15:41:00.006+01:002011-05-17T20:31:15.362+01:00Possessed by a god
Suppose I took it on myself to explain what a blog is, to someone who’d never encountered the idea. How would I go about it? Is there a common root to which all blogs are connected? I’m not thinking so much of topics, which are clearly as diverse as the authors themselves. But I wonder whether, if you dig deep enough, you might find that they have a similar intention.
I propose that a blog is Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-69767398794552509572011-05-10T19:15:00.009+01:002011-05-16T06:48:30.204+01:00Your diaryBy way of distraction from the mind-blowing world of Friedrich Nietzsche, I’ve been adding new functions to the diary mentioned in an earlier post.
We live in a world where new technology must sometimes struggle to compete with the tried-and-tested. I’m very fond of fountain-pens. It is easy to be sentimentally attached to the flow of ink down the nib, and the squiggles you can make on a sheet Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-62578500208849487772011-05-07T23:19:00.007+01:002011-05-08T11:25:54.433+01:00Free spirits of the futureReading Nietzsche is like having a guide show you round your home town—perhaps your own street. He takes you to a familiar blank wall, and shows you cracks in the smooth surface. “So what?” you think and then he takes your hand and you go through the crack to an unfamiliar vista on the other side. In this way, you realize that your thoughts had hitherto never strayed from the highways; but now Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-63763151288521498882011-05-04T13:25:00.003+01:002011-05-04T13:52:49.651+01:00VariousA dear friend asked me what I thought, as a ‘common Britisher’, of Bin Laden’s recent death. I responded as follows:
I'm more of an uncommon Britisher, but I’m pretty sure there are others who think like me. America deliberately chose its fight with Islam after the end of Soviet communism. America it seems has to have an enemy otherwise it eats itself (as it has been doing in its ‘liberal vs Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-3900921925214503232011-04-27T12:36:00.012+01:002011-06-06T13:26:25.009+01:00Groping blindlyForgive me, but I’ve been in a ferment, a witness to a veritable cascade of interconnectedness, from which it is surely possible to construct an overarching meaning—but I won’t try, and that is an instance of laziness (or what-you-may-call-it) which was a theme in my last: something which seems to me like a great creative principle. In Nature, or perhaps natural philosophy, known these days as Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-76896544974158184462011-04-20T09:58:00.004+01:002011-04-20T13:51:02.086+01:00Not trying too hardI left the car at The Fox and Hounds in Christmas Common, and made my way down Hollandridge Lane, which has never been more than a cart-track, but offers glorious vistas on a perfect spring day. Not a farmhouse in sight, not a fellow-wayfarer or dog-walker, not even a sheep till I reached Pishill, and saw some huddling in the shade, under a curved shelter of galvanised iron. But the bluebells Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-7665594228229486622011-04-18T08:55:00.002+01:002011-09-09T10:45:08.807+01:00The momentI went out to the backyard on Sunday morning. Purpose: to hang washing out on the line. The sky above was blue. There are trees beyond the fence, growing in the children’s playground, and on one of them I saw a little bird, insistently repeating the same note: “Tweet; tweet; tweet” as its ancestors had done perhaps for a hundred thousand years. Behind its monotonous song was a hush, a wide Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-49874682429630408902011-04-15T09:53:00.004+01:002011-04-16T11:08:28.665+01:00The search for meaning (the mystery of being human 3)I had a gift token to spend at the only bookshop in town, and frankly I didn’t see anything I wanted. But then I was drawn to a certain book. I looked at it the first time rather idly, and thought to myself, “No, this is written by a Viennese psychiatrist. I have had enough of them.” I had been attracted to this profession at the beginning of my career, but joined a computer company instead. ThenVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-67259520569469363392011-04-09T12:50:00.017+01:002011-04-10T07:36:50.118+01:00The Keeper of Souls (The mystery of being human 2)I usually attach a picture, one or more, to each piece. It’s a kind of comfort thing, something to cling to when your eyes glaze over the text uncomprehendingly. Today’s picture is itself principally text, its message an explicit offer of comfort.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: yea, it is even he that shall keep thy soul.
(Psalm 121.)
I took the photo whilst passing through the Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-73401432431772741302011-04-06T10:52:00.001+01:002011-04-06T11:09:31.961+01:00The mystery of being human (1)I live in a valley, in one of the Victorian workers’ cottages that fill up the space between the small factories in which they worked. It’s a fold in the Chiltern Hills and unless you follow one of the rivers, upstream or down, you have to go up a hill to get anywhere.
So at the end of my street, I went south, past the traffic lights and up, till the road ends at a small nature reserve.
Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-63958900788607085902011-04-01T11:49:00.045+01:002011-04-09T19:49:26.735+01:00UnfetteredWhen you have a computer with Web access, you can find photos of almost anything, taken by better photographers with better cameras than you and yours.
But it doesn’t stop us, bloggers and Flickrs and just plain snappers, from indulging in the global festival of digital photography, that celebrates “I woz here!”—though mainly in the sunshine. In my outdoor shots, it’s usually sunny, just as in Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-88483108802651177552011-03-27T20:30:00.004+01:002011-03-27T21:42:35.957+01:00Touching the Absolute?Commenting on my Wittgenstein post, Steve said “I bring up the topic of ‘The Absolute’ because it seems to me to be the subject of your writings.” I regret my foolish argument with you, Steve, and want to give due credit to what you say, and be open-minded about it. Of the definitions in the OED, the one which seems to fit is this one:
Absolute (noun, often with capital A): “That which exists Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-90498069415867767312011-03-22T14:34:00.022Z2011-03-26T06:00:04.843ZLost in a world of booksI haven’t been writing because I’ve been reading so much. One book leads to another and the Kindle Reader has a lot to answer for. Snuggled in bed late at night, cradling the thing in its handsome leather case and its own light just bright enough to illuminate the page of black and white e-inks, I reach the point where my brain can no longer process the sentences, but I’m not ready to fall asleepVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-6369680184507889272011-03-16T13:38:00.003Z2011-03-16T14:29:57.834ZAuthor reviews II – Ludwig WittgensteinThe other day I was writing about being nineteen and somehow feeling the same way fifty years later. But it was a mysterious feeling because I could not adduce a single instance of nineteenhood to illustrate my point. So it is a coincidence that I first discovered Wittgenstein at that age. Discovered is hardly the right word, for the vivid awareness of Ludwig Wittgenstein that I obtained was likeVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-30745388663826313592011-03-12T09:40:00.002Z2011-03-12T11:14:43.025ZAuthor reviews I – Annie Dillard“In blogging, less is more. Discuss.” That could have been an essay topic in the days of my youth, had blogging then been a word.
An old friend who used to post as Rob and later Bob did it for the interaction rather than the self-expression or self-revelation, in which genres he was reticent. His most popular post, measured in number of comments, merely said “Boo!” I think I can claim the creditVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-49154442830009984242011-03-03T11:13:00.000Z2011-03-06T10:36:32.131ZReason to celebrateToday I celebrate a milestone. It is exactly fifty years since I reached the age of 19, a special number for many reasons, and the last year of one’s teens. This morning I was given a mug bearing the words, “Today is all about YOU ... and there couldn’t be a better reason to celebrate!” with a card bearing the words, “Today’s a special day A time for doing all the things you love to do, relax, Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-89566401103157493102011-02-25T05:36:00.011Z2011-02-28T10:44:10.121ZBack on the trailIt was the most spring-like day this year and the urge to be out in it without delay overcame lengthy consideration of where to go. I considered the Phoenix trail to be unfinished business (see post before last) because I hadn’t walked its full length. Still haven’t, as a matter of fact. But there are more pictures to share and tales to tell.
As the springboard for mystical flights of fancy, it’Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-87514464642912996762011-02-23T14:06:00.011Z2011-02-23T16:14:16.819ZOur common pilgrimageI’m on this path. I don’t know how far I’ve been, I don’t know where I am on the map. I hear planes criss-crossing distantly above the fog. I’m on the crest of a slope, looking out on rows of stubble, which bristle in parallel stripes over the curved surface of the fields. The landscape is wild, hardly a human habitation to be seen, yet deeply scored and shaped by human purpose: for example this Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-27836567212723441872011-02-17T14:47:00.000Z2011-02-17T14:47:58.914ZThe Phoenix Trail (railway track reborn as cyclepath)
Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-3174438019525979572011-02-15T17:47:00.006Z2011-02-28T10:53:05.591ZSeven stylish thingsBryan M. White, that onlie begetter of Nuclear Headache, has burdened me with an award nomination as a Stylish Blogger. Never fear: if you are already in my blog-list below, and have taken the trouble to read this far, you’re ipso facto stylish enough. There is, as always, a catch. You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket. In this case you have to follow certain rules. I’ve included themVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-87081029974766144212011-02-14T15:14:00.004Z2011-02-14T15:32:49.644ZA momentOne thing that language can do, and I think it only possible in written language, is to unwrap the content of a moment of consciousness, to examine and share it. Not every moment, of course. Rare moments.
Such a one occurred today as I crossed a car park to enter the supermarket. Perhaps I caught a glimpse of my own face in a car mirror, I’m not sure. It was a thought, rather than any of those Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-82277978952563330022011-02-12T18:47:00.002Z2011-02-12T18:56:38.292ZPreface Mark III
Pic from idunn_itI still haven’t given up on “the book of the blog”. When I do, this place can become “the blog of the book”, but don’t worry, it will be the same blog, going off in the same haphazard directions. In December last, I dashed off a Preface followed by a Preface Mark II", both of which were enough to quell a reader’s interest stone dead from the first sentence on. Now I’ve had Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-71567750588376711852011-02-07T04:40:00.002Z2011-02-07T08:34:09.573ZThe yet-to-be-invented eWriter
The 1980 Microwriter. Source: Wikipedia There is more to inventing something than having the idea. I had the idea of the eWriter in 1978 but never did anything about it. Never mind my inability to build a prototype. I lacked the skills even to write about it coherently. Let’s see if I have improved at all since then.
But I was able to compose a mental specification then, and it hasn’t Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-42129574153810293542011-02-05T19:49:00.002Z2011-02-05T19:54:16.372ZReading, writing and publishingLet me confess that I’m a conservative of the deepest dye. When some new-fangled thing—a gadget, for example—comes along threatening to oust its traditional equivalent whose pedigree goes back hundreds or even thousands of years, I form an immediate prejudice against it.
One good reason for loving books is the antiquity of their provenance. To replace them by gadgets is a foolish idea, I used Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-77325495439290644442011-02-01T17:02:00.004Z2011-02-04T22:12:54.656ZThe walk to MarlowI’ve never taken this trail before, this walk to Marlow on the last day of January, on a cloudless frosty day. How often it happens, on my wayfaring, that something triggers a memory, perhaps of a single second in my life, usually in childhood, for it was then that I most frequently encountered something for the first time, and entered openheartedly into——that experience. That second expanded Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-81319677130833224282011-01-18T14:54:00.012Z2011-01-19T08:10:49.206ZGod begins with a wordI was brought up to treat God with respect, regardless of what I might think personally. In my country there was and possibly still is a law against blasphemy, which demonstrates a legal as well as moral imperative not to attack the thing that someone else holds most dear, even with words. To me it is self-evident that books with titles such as The God Delusion and God is Not Great put themselvesVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com101tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-26796445482554306442011-01-15T19:48:00.002Z2011-08-16T05:53:42.825+01:00The worm in the appleI’m pleased to announce that I’ve finally answered the God-question. Whether I’ve solved it for the world, or just for myself, is for the world — I mean you — to decide. As to what I mean by “God” — wait and see.
We’ll come to the answer later. It’s much easier to tell you how I arrived at it: through wayfaring. Wayfaring is freedom bought at a price, or more likely granted, like a scholarship.Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-27557248252391546822011-01-10T14:27:00.003Z2011-01-15T22:47:28.041ZThe anointing of SaulHow shall I approach this Bible reading exercise? I’m glad I chose the First Book of Samuel because I last read it fifty-eight years ago, so it doesn’t blind me with the reflective glare of familiarity. Yesterday BBC Radio 4 decided to celebrate the quadricentennial of the King James Bible by devoting much of the day to readings from it. Their purpose was not to help bring the scattered sheep Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-50689163841365166822011-01-07T06:02:00.002Z2011-01-07T06:12:06.837ZThe boy SamuelOne doesn’t just read the Bible. One does so within a context. It’s very plain to me that I would not be undertaking it now, except as a process of retracing my steps: to revisit the ten-year-old Vincent and see through his eyes. It helps me see what I am now, and also how the world has come to be what it is. For the First Book of Samuel (my starting-point for this exercise) didn’t just spring Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-53982685219937816252011-01-06T11:43:00.006Z2012-01-29T15:28:41.880ZOn reading the BibleWhen I read, I like to make an orgy of it, especially on a rainy winter’s day, curled up in my armchair in front of the glowing embers of a log fire. One book is not enough, I want to be surrounded by them, drawn into their world where time and space are condensed into bound pages. I want to be immersed, to find treasure, to transmute my mind from base metal into gold. In fact, my reading is moreVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-70813857884300710922010-12-24T21:08:00.001Z2010-12-24T21:11:47.504ZOn Christmas EveThe Christmas spirit is a special thing. What is this “Peace on earth, goodwill to all men”? It’s tangible, that’s certain. I always feel that I receive it from others, never that I impart it to them. Or if I do emanate any of the glow, I feel it has been ignited first from a spark which comes from others.
In one way or another I have written about it here several times at this season and of Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-69979801917514543942010-12-23T14:45:00.003Z2010-12-23T15:56:38.260ZHappiness machineMatt Lowe of the blog “Liberal Jesus” wrote a post pointing to an article in the New York Times. Matt admitted “I can’t figure out quite what I think about it. I need a little goading I think.” This inspired me to append a hasty comment which I had completely forgotten about, till I recently revisited his site, several months later.
So I went back and read the article again, quickly because I’m Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-41897258685024495192010-12-21T14:32:00.010Z2010-12-22T07:07:47.174ZPreface Mark IIThe soul is feminine, I mean passive. It initiates nothing, does nothing but feel. It seems helpless to assert itself against will and intellect; like a slug on the sidewalk after rain, defenceless against accidental or deliberate squashing by human feet; or like a majestic brooding silence, the silence of a wilderness, defeated by the roar of machinery or gunfire. Is it possible to speak for Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-72865177445165211642010-12-18T15:41:00.006Z2010-12-23T11:53:15.515ZPrefaceThe soul is feminine, I mean passive. It does nothing but feel.
Will and intellect are the masculine elements, delighting in action and creativity for their own sakes. In young men is a naturally warlike instinct: to fight, regardless of the cause espoused, the yin to their yang. To me—and this gives enlightenment as to the dynamics of my psyche—the masculine is properly subservient to the Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-36744892850702870802010-12-07T16:08:00.008Z2010-12-08T08:22:18.993ZManageable pretensions
See PS, below
My life is full of half-formed ideas and mothballed projects. Far from being a self-pitying lament, this is a grateful realization. For in discovering who I am, by means of observation rather than vain wish, I can devote myself to it wholeheartedly, to the general benefit.
Sometimes I’m a conscious exile from the Forties and Fifties. The past is a spacious realm, an Eden from Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-21992565893101693052010-11-17T14:47:00.009Z2010-11-17T15:51:47.202ZLambs and us All you need to be a philosopher is to ask “Why?” By this standard, most three-year-olds are philosophers. When he hears the obvious answer, a philosopher thinks, “I’m not satisfied with this. There must be more to it!” The three-year-old responds to every answer with a further “Why?” until the adult tires of the game. Most of the fun in reading The Myth of Sisyphus is to think, “I’m not Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-37865305327553753562010-10-26T05:42:00.006+01:002010-10-30T19:07:07.194+01:00My creation myth In the beginning was the void. How big was it? How long did it last? It’s impossible to say because time and space had not yet been created. Let’s imagine it as an empty matchbox. The Prime Mover, impatient for things to start, opened the box and the void escaped like a genie from a bottle. Time, space, matter, energy all came into existence.
Matter divided into elements, gases at first, Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-10808035604713389122010-10-21T10:19:00.021+01:002010-10-30T19:13:16.234+01:00The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker According to Ernest Becker, the wellspring of human action is the fear of death: correction, the denial of the fear of death. In his Preface, he actually says that the “prospect of death . . . is the mainspring of human activity” (my italics). He makes short work of the real fear of real death, that natural and necessary instinct which man shares with the other animals. He mentions it right at Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-74951568910958644142010-10-17T20:19:00.005+01:002010-10-25T03:24:37.640+01:00The Joker Chuang TzuRaymond Sigrist, by doing nothing and making no recommendation, finally got me to start reading Chuang Tzu.
When I write about books, I adopt the same strategy as an unscrupulous professional reviewer: read a few pages, then rush headlong to the typewriter. Not that I can’t be bothered to read it through, but there’s nothing more effervescent and heady than initial enthusiasm. Read it doggedly Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-24563319690793848952010-10-05T14:29:00.009+01:002010-10-30T19:16:31.635+01:00AngelsA propos my newly-confirmed belief in the existence of angels, Ashok says in his new post: “He will not believe in anything easily unless he has very sound proof of it.”
Au contraire, my dear Ashok. (I seem to be starting each sentence in French.) There is no need for proof when the experience is by its nature subjective. To quote from dear departed blogger Jim, “Some things I just ‘know’ and Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-62354355307617387882010-10-03T11:34:00.008+01:002010-10-05T15:24:08.402+01:00Making a startHayden commented on my last with some excellent remarks on how to start a story, including the following:“I love broadness and specificity in a beginning. A sense of mystery that isn't addressed by the ample facts stated. The facts situate the event in a time and space, anchor it if you will. The mystery, still unaddressed, is the reason for reading. The sense that there is a story here, Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-55003336083772229632010-09-30T13:21:00.017+01:002010-10-01T07:41:27.690+01:00Pygmalion & GalateaSaid Lehane, commenting on my last: “Would it also be sad to say that, through you, I’m kind of infatuated by this girl? Maybe on the way to falling in love with her.”Therein lies a phenomenon not unknown in the world of fiction. If a reader may fall in love with a character in a story, what about the author? Certainly: just as Pygmalion fell in love with the statue he carved.You may have noticedVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-32536962976732148862010-09-18T11:02:00.009+01:002010-09-20T08:31:43.349+01:00The secret life of strangersI wrote a piece about a visit to Gerrards Cross on 27th July. But something occurred on that visit that I never told you about. It seemed too insubstantial, yet I see it vividly still. How is it possible to remember a moment when nothing happened? Some major construction works were in progress on the railway line. These works affected the bridge above, where the village’s main street passes over.Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-30073583680147367222010-09-17T12:46:00.006+01:002010-09-17T13:17:36.489+01:00Priesthoods at warThe Pope is here, complaining of aggressive secularism, not without reason. His state visit is seldom mentioned on BBC radio news without the mention, in the same breath, of sexual abuse by priests. It’s no coincidence that the world’s leading aggressive secularists, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, are English. Even Stephen Hawking has amended his position and declared that cosmology Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-76507246016855965752010-09-14T08:15:00.016+01:002010-09-14T09:52:12.500+01:00The Golden Ball On Sunday we went up the hill to see St Lawrence's Church and the Dashwood Mausoleum.The tower was open to visitors for a few hours. We climbed the tiny staircases inside, unchanged since they were built about 1760. We could lean over the railings to see the view on all sides.The Golden Ball, as seen from just below. The Dashwood Mausoleum, where the ashes of Sir Francis Dashwood's family are Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-37382025988489591822010-09-05T20:58:00.014+01:002010-09-06T22:33:29.839+01:00Invest and improviseSaid Hayden, in a comment on my last: “I continue to think about your comments, Vincent, on your “magical” experience and the whisper in your ear. I'd love to hear more about it directly. Not the abstract philosophy that flows from it, but what you remember of the experience itself.” I didn’t know which experience she may have been talking about, but I promised to write more, taking as an exampleVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-65628161828369861732010-09-02T15:45:00.011+01:002010-09-04T09:45:05.808+01:00Views of the ChilternsThis is specially for Ashok, for comparison of the Chilterns with his real hills at Nainital. Here, the height above sea-level is never more than 200 metres. These vistas are all within walking distance of home, which is pretty much in the middle of town, in the factory district.St Lawrence's Church & Dashwood Mausoleum, photographed yesterdayView of Bledlow Ridge (on horizon)Sawmill House and Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-87944631885242742572010-08-30T12:14:00.007+01:002010-08-30T13:07:31.045+01:00Meditation on deathThis sky is my paper, asking me to write on its clear blue surface, perhaps in sepia ink with my new fountain-pen. But it doesn’t tell me what to write. I don’t care, for my pleasure is in the writing more than the content.Gazing at the blue sky, I welcome the little clouds. Uninterrupted blue is nothingness. It only becomes beautiful by virtue of the clouds, their varied brightness, their Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-16958550087545773742010-08-23T11:52:00.024+01:002010-08-23T22:07:07.439+01:00Existential angst Cobstone Mill, Ibstone Turville from Cobstone Mill Cobstone Mill from TurvilleUnless I feel something with senses or emotions, I resist getting involved intellectually with an unfamiliar abstract idea. So when Raymond proposed that existential angst is a universal experience, it left me unmoved. I could only see circumstantial angst, the temporary distress that comes from everyday events. Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-59279811462313895722010-08-17T11:10:00.000+01:002010-08-17T18:31:08.591+01:00Panspermia Scene of the great fight: Richard Dawkins v. Deepak Chopra. * Click pic to watch.Ashok in a blog post called Heaven, Scientifically Speaking refers to a theory called Panspermia. He thought I would be interested, or in his words, “excited”. I was in fact curious to ask myself why I am not excited.First his title. To me, Heaven, which featured in my recent post Aylesbury walkabout, is a Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-71118443622295210832010-08-17T11:01:00.026+01:002010-08-17T18:33:36.644+01:00Panspermia (link only)Er, never mind. Just keeping this post for Luciana's comments & reply.Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-26934580384446103202010-08-16T17:38:00.013+01:002010-08-19T08:45:34.909+01:00Short short story competitionCottenham Post Office, originally uploaded by daveharrisphoto.co.uk.I’ve agreed to help publicize DBA Lehane’s competition, which is to help publicize his website. I don’t normally do much to publicize anything. Perhaps I just want to show you my own entry. I’ve never written a short story before, never mind a short short one. It is exactly 500 words and the title had to begin with the letters Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-70513721423830317542010-08-12T12:46:00.018+01:002010-08-12T18:09:39.118+01:00Aylesbury walkaboutI’m on a section of the “Round Aylesbury Walk”. If you go clockwise, the town is on your right and level countryside is on your left. I talk to myself as I go, into this digital recorder (edited below). ‘Suppose everything is just as it should be, already? Suppose everything goes on being just right, no matter what? So that no matter what the creatures do—mainly man, for the other creatures don’tVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-24017734521411634352010-08-06T08:50:00.004+01:002010-08-06T13:56:49.676+01:00Not understanding muchPicture credit: towhee.netA BBC magazine programme about science, Material World on Radio 4, reports an ongoing study into the possible homing instincts of snails. I was interested, as a regular reader of this blog would not be surprised to learn. They are marking the snail shells with white correction fluid for identification; moving the snails somewhere else; seeing if they return to the point Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-45767094975796111422010-08-01T21:41:00.010+01:002010-08-02T03:25:05.262+01:00Let them beI’ve been interested in the conversations of birds since a day in March 1971, in the churchyard of Hinderwell, a village in North Yorkshire. I had chewed a small square of wallpaper, which had been soaked in LSD. I learned the language of the rooks, almost. But that is a story for another day.This morning on my way to the supermarket, I became aware of a wheeling seagull above me. We have a lot Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-16133285253189108182010-07-31T13:27:00.008+01:002010-07-31T18:26:52.680+01:00GraffitiFurther to my last, Rebb and Ashok doubtless speak for a majority in their negative attitude towards urban graffiti. I’ve evolved a different view, as expressed in several posts—see excerpts below. The illustrations are taken from this post on 27th April ’07.But where do the people walk? Yesterday in the drizzle I stepped carefully on rain-sodden narrow grass verges, recently disturbed by Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-82516809098525668362010-07-29T13:46:00.009+01:002010-07-29T14:31:29.781+01:00Seek and findAt the weekend, K and I went walking on a hillside meadow, full of wildflowers, that you can see across the valley from many vantage-points. Amongst the blooms was lots of ragwort, notorious for being poisonous to grazing mammals. I looked carefully for any sign of the cinnabar caterpillar, but none were to be seen.Then yesterday walking back with K from her office at the hospital, and taking ourVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-1167659990712064092010-07-27T09:34:00.019+01:002010-08-01T08:49:27.881+01:00Gerrards Cross and the wayfarerI spent the morning engaged intensely in ‘writing’, if you can call it that. Needing a break, I revisited Gerrards Cross, keen to capture a photograph of the Odeon, to confirm that it hasn’t changed since the photo (from the Sixties) that I published the other day. Ahem! I must be living in a fantasy world. In my last post but one, I showed the same photo and remarked, “I remembered going there Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-27411740898637367412010-07-21T19:11:00.002+01:002010-07-22T10:32:10.724+01:00To Hayden, on petsI think Hayden is my longest-serving, faithfullest blogging friend. But when she writes about Jake, my empathy isn’t immediate. I prefer a cool relationship with wild animals who go their own way at their own pace, and don’t beg from me with soulful eyes. Slugs spring to mind, or rats. I’ve written here several times about both. Digging deep in my psyche, I may have found an equivalent love to Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-778904522835195272010-07-18T12:25:00.019+01:002010-07-18T16:06:42.465+01:00Gerrards CrossMy wanderings usually take me through wild footpaths and unpretentious housing estates. I’ve had no occasion to visit the village of Gerrards Cross, which “has a reputation for being very upmarket and exclusive, with house prices being considerably higher than average. Located in the commuter belt of London, the village is the most expensive postcode to purchase a property in the country outside Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-63471316440908041942010-07-10T10:57:00.008+01:002010-07-10T13:51:59.083+01:00The visionary eyeReality and imagination are forever intertwined, and it’s from their potent combination that magic is concocted. Modern scientists are often against this. Richard Dawkins has felt a vocation to keep reality and imagination apart, for the mischief they can cause when entangled. It’s rather like saying, “We know what boys and girls can get up to, so let’s segregate them, and make the girls keep Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-84205639845641246842010-07-09T08:25:00.018+01:002010-07-09T09:43:21.649+01:00Cornfields, near Amersham Old TownDedicated to Joanne (Serenity) because she is an artist and may appreciate the colours and textures. I'm in the process of writing and editing something else, so not many words today.Click any photo to enlarge.From Chalfont St Giles, looking towards AmershamThe colours are at their most seductive before the barley is ripeThis is even truer of the unripe wheatLooking southwest from the South BucksVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-79044304194849126372010-07-01T05:42:00.025+01:002010-07-03T19:32:08.543+01:00KinI felt pleased on finishing my last piece, on Everything. What else was there to say? Much as Thomas Aquinas must have felt trying to wrap up his great work, Summa Theologica, but in a tiny way. But then in his latter years, Aquinas saw things in a different proportion, and said one day to his faithful scribe “I cannot [continue dictating], for all that I have written now seems no more than strawVincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-20619126161224444782010-06-26T10:13:00.025+01:002010-06-27T22:35:56.520+01:00Everything (but the kitchen sink)I do feel the urge to philosophize, if only the Muse will allow. She says I must not try the patience of my readers. Oh well, here goes, I’ll start with a sweeping generalisation: “Religion is about perfection, while science and engineering are about trial and error.” Before you have the chance to say “I don’t care much for religion” or “I don’t care much for science”, let us broaden the Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26826292.post-15336912543377316112010-06-17T07:19:00.049+01:002010-06-19T19:58:39.017+01:00Glimpsing eternityWhen we speak of God or gods, it’s to express the otherwise inexpressible. This is something that atheists and materialists seem to wilfully misunderstand, when they say that it’s irrational to believe what you cannot see. As you’ll see from various entries in this blog, there are two kinds of immortal I can’t do without when trying to make sense of experience: the Angel and the Muse.The angel’s Vincenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com13