About Me

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

life lessons that are priceless – the gift of the gab



«Little girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way.
Never trust a stranger-friend;
No one knows how it will end.
As you’re pretty, so be wise;
Wolves may lurk in every guise.
Handsome they may be, and kind,
Gay, or charming never mind!
Now, as then, ‘tis simple truth—
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!»


Little Red Riding Hood, from Perrault's fairy tales (and The Company of Wolves, great film, but, at the time, a more or less surprising hit. Neil Jordan, director)

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

the soundtrack of long life



Childhood living is easy to do 
The things you wanted I bought them for you 
Graceless lady you know who I am 
You know I can't let you slide through my hands 
Wild horses, couldn't drag me away 
Wild wild horses couldn't drag me away 

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain 
Now you decided to show me the same 
No sweeping exits or off stage lines 
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind 
Wild horses, couldn't drag me away 
Wild wild horses couldn't drag me away 

I know I've dreamed you a sin and a lie 
I have my freedom but I don't have much time 
Faith has been broken tears must be cried 
Let's do some living after we die 
Wild horses, couldn't drag me away 
Wild wild horses we'll ride them someday 
Wild horses, couldn't drag me away 
Wild wild horses we'll ride them someday


Wild Horses, Keith Richards and friends

Proof, if proof were needed, that even reprobate old geezers can keep making great music, in between Organ Recitals

life lessons that are priceless – the wrong side of the hill


«When two or three old people are gathered together in the name of lunch, you can be sure of the subject of conversation to start the ball rolling. Illnesses of all shapes and sizes are the thing and the Organ Recital begins. Heads, bodies and legs are dissected; noses, throats and ears, skin and bones, arteries, liver and lights, and […] hearts and minds. Once you start on minds you are in for a basinful. Of the two it is better to stick to hearts and whether or not you are allowed to walk upstairs.
Hips and knees lead to bones. Stomach, teeth and gums, closely allied as it is not much use having one without the others, can lead to a dissertation on dentistry. Impacted wisdom teeth are good, but there is a trick called root canal treatment that takes almost as long to describe as the lengthy treatment itself, with your jaws jammed open till the cows come home. There is a strong sense of competition, even as to the waiting time at hospital (length of); tales of woe are capped and re-capped as the Organ Recital progresses.»

«The Organ Recital», in Home to Roost and Other Peckings, Deborah Devonshire

sporting life (4)


And then, on orders from another doctor, to complete the triumvirate of activities the Fool’s body is still deemed capable of performing without too much risk of further injury, there came on the scene another «sport» – and its name it is Walking. That we should be calling it a sport at all is fair indication of just how far standards slide once you stumble onto the wrong side of the hill.

 Whatever. Sport or no sport this walking caper is, at least, a bit higher than the other two on the social scale. Certainly you are likely to meet a better class of person out doing it. And the dress code, you will be relieved to hear, doesn’t require the wearing of lycra (unless you really want to wear lycra, in which case I wash my hands of you).

So you needn’t be ashamed of being caught down by the riverside, running shoes on your feet and a spring in your step (for the doctor recommended «a brisk pace»). 

Until, that is, you find yourself being overtaken left, right and centre by mere slips of girls – legs up to their armpits, hips swaying, arms swinging, mouths gabbing, gliding by at warp speed.

It’s humiliating, and one would be tempted to just chuck it all to hell if it wasn’t for the fact that it really is good for you, even if your brisk pace is these babes’s snail pace. It won't make you recover lost abilities, you understand, or even stop you from losing more of them. But it will slow the slide, and at this age one is grateful for small mercies.

No one, however, likes to be humiliated, so it becomes a question of saving face for the short while that your path crosses their path.

My advice? Always take a camera. That way, you can top it the sensitive photographer, out for a stroll in the beautiful glow of the setting sun, when the slanting light sharpens contrasts and lengthens shadows, and the day is winding down, and the overworked anonymous masses are being ferried home to the consolation of family and hearth and TV dinners. Nothing to do with exercise, dears, I don’t do exercise. I meditate on the meaning of the Universe; I watch the stars come out and the river ripple its way into the sea; the birds scurrying along the sea wall, scavenging for food; the ships bravely preparing to brave the uncertainties of the open ocean …

That kind of shit. 



Ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres), called rola-do-mar, sea dove, in this country,
possibly because its back plumage vaguely resembles a turtle dove's


Ferry terminal

Saturday, March 9, 2013

the soundtrack of long life



Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Little Jackie paper loved that rascal puff,
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff. oh

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee.

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail
Jackie kept a lookout perched on puffs gigantic tail,
Noble kings and princes would bow whenever they came,
Pirate ships would lower their flag when puff roared out his name. oh!

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee.

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie paper came no more
And puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain,
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.
Without his life-long friend, puff could not be brave,
So puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave. oh!

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee.

Puff, The Magic Dragon, Peter, Paul and Mary

A song of early fatherhood, when life is still full of wonderment and illusion

life lessons that are priceless – children

«They are wheeled in perambulators or dragged about by nurses in a pleasing stupor. A vague, faint, abiding, wonderment possesses them. Here and there some specially remarkable circumstance, such as a water cart or a guardsman, fairly penetrates into the seat of thought and calls them, for half a moment, out of themselves; and you may see them, still towed forward sideways by the inexorable nurse as by a sort of destiny, but still staring at the bright object in their wake. It may be some minutes before another moving spectacle reawakens them to the world in which they dwell. For other children, they almost invariably show some intelligent sympathy. “There is a fine fellow making mud pies,” they seem to say; “that I can understand, there is some sense in mud pies.” But the doings of their elders, unless where they are speakingly picturesque or recommend themselves by the quality of being easily imitable, they let them go over their heads (as we say) without the least regard. If it were not for this perpetual imitation, we should be tempted to fancy they despised us outright, or only considered us in the light of creatures brutally strong and brutally silly; among whom they condescended to dwell in obedience like a philosopher at a barbarous court.»


Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers, Robert Louis Stevenson

wild life (4)


What’s with little boys and dinosaurs? The unimaginably old enchanting the new. Or perhaps natural-born machines of destruction instinctively recognising each other across the millenia.

One thing I’ll say, though. Makes it easy to come up with birthday presents for them.





Friday, March 1, 2013

the soundtrack of contemporary life



Hung by the old field

The night in his eyes

And the road by his side



He's trying to show me


Who's alive in both cities

Barely on fire



What's this scarecrow


Caught in my mind

Scarecrow not made for these times



Clear as a diamond


The light reads plain

In the back of his eyes



We'd never know


He still dreams of a bird

Of a terrifying size



What's this scarecrow


Caught in my mind

Scarecrow not made for these times

Cruel moon



Trying to weigh him down

To soon

Glad to have him with me now



Death cold pecked bare


Red collar bled white

No black heart there

No bark and no bite



Just this scarecrow


Caught in my mind

Scarecrow
 not made for these times

Scarecrow, The Veils


Cool song, from one of the coolest bands to appear on my radar these last few years.

life lessons that are priceless – spring


« “Jeeves”, I said.
“Sir?”, said Jeeves. He had been clearing away the breakfast things, but at the sound of the young master’s voice cheesed it courteously.
“You were absolutely right about the weather. It is a juicy morning.”
“Decidedly, sir”.
“Spring and all that”.
“Yes, sir.”
“In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove.”
“So I have been informed, sir.”
“Right ho! Then bring me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the old green Homburg. I’m going into the park to do pastoral dances.”

The Inimitable Jeeves, P. G. Wodehouse

life on the hill (III)


Spring has sprung – though you wouldn’t think it from looking out the window.


But if you take a stroll outside the signs are everywhere – have been, in fact, since late December, when one of the small oaks sprouted some new leaves before it had even shed all its old ones. 
Little oak
(The Fool is as sceptic about climate change as the next rabid denialist, but there are times when I wonder).


Come mid-February sprouting is widespread, led, as ever, by the big ash – the first tree to have been planted on the hill, a descendant of the one at Grandmother’s house, nursed in the city for a couple of years, transplanted to the Hill when it was about 5 foot-high, and now a 20-foot beauty. Its roots will, in time, threaten the foundations of the adjacent terrace, and perhaps of the House itself – as did those of its ancestor, which had to be cut down before it completely uprooted the granite pond. I knew that when I planted it, and blithely did it anyway, confident that any future problems won’t be for me to deal with.
Ash


Box

One of the Princess' cactii. What's with girls and cactii?
Do their spikes remind them of the spikiness of their own hearts?
Do they feel an affinity?

Ice plant, originally from South Africa, now common to seafronts
all around the Med and the Atlantic

Plum tree, planted a year ago

Bay laurel, essential for the kitchen

Tulip tree, originally from North America, the latest tree to have been planted
on the Hill, and another descendant of one from Grandmother's place, 
itself a descendant of one still extant at the ancient family seat.

Virginia creeper. "A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only
advise his clients to plant vines.",
Frank Lloyd Wright
I don’t really like Spring – a brash, windy, disagreeable season when compared to the sweetness of Autumn or the cold crispness of Winter. But since having become a gentleman farmer (yeah, right) even I sometimes find a degree of enchantment at the “rebirth of Nature”, as they say, and have to acknowledge that some few balmy days amidst the turmoil do make one glad to be alive.