John Berger: From Life by Tom Overton review – a vibrant biography of the pioneering critic

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/aug/10/john-berger-from-life-by-tom-overton-review-a-vibrant-biography-of-the-pioneering-critic?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Att by the author

To sit by Mr Aneurin Bevan

When I die I am going to Heaven
To sit by Mr Aneurin Bevan
We will eat buttered Welsh cakes
Float in hot blue lakes
Oh final thought, how about Devon?

I wonder if I am perverted
For writing my poems with  ten verses
They say we’re post modern
And swearing’s forbidden
So are magic,religion and cursing.

I wonder if I  can be fluid
A man or a woman or druid?
I can be other
Since I have no mother
But what about rats in the sewage?

To economists we are just” Labour ”
We’re units when  once we were neighbours
Gender’s  quite useless
True  love is a nuisance
Capital  makes Money our Saviour

Why not  buy a new winter coat
Decorated with  the fur off a stoat
Weasels are  cheaper
Cats  purr and pierce you
As you sail ‘cross the Styx   in  a  boat

I thought I’d not marry again
I’m a feminist along with the men
But a m\n tried to hug me
And tickled my kidneys
He says I’m charming the snakes  into sin

But I think I am past getting wed
I just want to go straight to bed
Not just for the pleasure
Of getting his measure
No, it’s  just that  my organ’s half dead

I’d gaze into his eyes and feel good
As at last I’d feel  well understood
We don’t need to  chatter
About any matter
Nor scratch like the cat and draw blood.

I think my bed is too small
The headboard is stuck to the wall
The mattress collapses
As do my synapses
Who do you think  should call?

I’ve been untidy  ever since I was born
I lost mother’s breast  and her warmth
I’ve been looking forever
I got rather clever
Now I’ve lost my old man in the corn

Another mind

From time and place and season I am lost, Disorientated ,missing tracks well worn.

Do not suppose I’m unaware of cost,

Nor label me with epithets of scorn. For usual paths lead to the usual place.

The safest way to live and perhaps to die,

But wandering through the woods I find new space

and in wild grasses with the fox I lie.

Through distant trees, I see a way to go

As narrow as a slit in pale limestone.

I pass in silence as if in deep,deep snow.

My courage rises even as I groan. Remember when we’re lost ,we may then find

Another way,a place,another mind.

Writing makes me breathe differently

Sometimes writing makes me breathe differently.
I can feel the silence settle around me,
Like a prayer shawl.
i accept it gratefully.
There’s a thin feeling to the day
As if the sun might have tried harder
to come through
But it had a blue feeling
And the clouds were greedy,
Wanting too much to melt
And shed their moisture.
Some perfume please.I think it was £27.99
Yes,I like that one even more than jasmine oil.
Pour it down over London
Like a blessing.
A black woman laughed and patted my arm,
You’re so funny, she cried.
And I smiled coyly
As if someone hidden was taking my photograph.
Sometimes life’s too sweet
And needs a little pepper.
The chair creaks as I lean forward
Trying to see everything at once
As if it all happened now, not yesterday.

Best writing tips from well known writers

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/10/my-best-writing-tip-william-boyd-jeanette-winterson

Claire Messud

Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee

In fiction, character is (almost) everything. We discuss “the elements of craft” – characterisation, plot, point of view, dialogue, detail, setting, style, and so forth – as if they were separable, as if you could disentangle them one from another. You can’t, of course; but when you filter almost all things through the specificities of character, many questions resolve themselves, almost miraculously.

Each of us is, in any given moment, the sum total of our temperament and experiences up to that point. Our baggage and idiosyncrasies may be suggested in our appearance; but much is invisible to the world. We all know that if there are three people in a room, each will tell a different story about what happened there – so ccharacter determines the story itself. But it also determines what will unfold – the plot.

As a writer, when you create a character, you don’t simply create his exterior (the wispy goatee, the receding hairline, the Liberty print shirt and expensive loafers); you must also come to know who he is (bullied in school, uneasy in friendships, veering between eager to please and cruel; vain but pretending not to be), and what has formed him (a Catholic school in the Sydney suburbs? A comprehensive in Exeter? Born with a silver spoon; or things started off comfortably, but his father’s business failed when he was 11? Raised in the shadow of three older siblings? Or alone with a single mum?). You must know his passions (loves pugs? Bicycle racing? First world war history? Talmudic study?) and his fears.

Once you know this person as well as you know yourself (or better), and once you put him, or her, in a particular place in a particular time, your character can only really act (or react) in a limited number of ways. He will notice only certain things, and those things only from a particular perspective; he will interact with others as only he can. If you’re using the first person, or the third person privileging this character, your diction and syntax – your very writing style – will be shaped by this person.

So much about a character is invisible, in fiction as in real life; but what lies beneath the surface will affect every aspect of your story. If you really take the time to figure out who you’re dealing with, much will become clear.
• Claire Messud is a senior lecturer in creative writing at Harvard

Where do you sleep?

Doctor,doctor,I;m worried

about my coughin’.

What about your coffin?

Well,it’s keeping me awake at night.

Why,are you sleeping in it

I have only one place to sleep.

If you are tired you can sleep anywhere

is that legal?

Of course, it is. Well, can I sleep in the Queen’s bed? In theory,yes… but you might frighten the horses.

Why, do they sleep with her?She must have a big bed.

Don’t be so ridiculous…

Well, she has loads of money; she, could have a bed made for her. She has a bed maid for her

Do you mean someone makes her bed every day?

well,don’t you make yours every day?

No,I bought one in a bed store and it’s well built.

But do you change the sheets daily?

No,i never use paper I write letters on my chromebook.

Which letters? Any letters at all,except French ones. but they use our alphabet. it’s not ours. Whose is it? Possibly the Romans.Tantrum ergo! They are all long gone into their coffins.

Uno,duo tres,quattore…,decem,duodecem,duagessin’.. I knew coughin’ was very dangerous

I think your grammar is bed. What a posh excent you have It’s all I have left of the old palace. Well, never mind you can share my coffin if you like. But is there a bed in it? Just a bed bug as yet… I blame the CIA.. who do you blame?

I blame God and he blames us so it’s pretty much a stalemate. We need the Messiah….. Not again,we’ve not got over the last one yet…

You make him sound like a hurdle… Well,it’s one way of looking at it all.. a big hurdle. It’s all this talkin’ keeps me awake at night… At least it stops you coughin’ Doctor,doctor,the coughin’s keeping me up all night again For goodness sake put the lid on it.

My heart is like a rowing boat adrift

My heart is like a rowing boat adrift
Whose occupant has fallen overboard
The empty vessel drifts through deep sea mist.
And in those pearl filled ears the deep sea roars.
Just as the boat drifts mapless,so do I.
My maps were drawn for quite another sea
My captain’s taken leave and now I cry
As if that drowned soul might just be me.
Yet on the sea bed mysteries abound;
Such wonders and such magic there displayed.
I wonder if it is my lot drown
And to a memory then quickly fade.
Maps are no more certainties than hints.
Between the lines hides gold from other mints.

Putting in the Seed by Robert Frost

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https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems/45684
The Frost couple moved to England in 1912, after they tried and failed at farming in New Hampshire. It was abroad that Frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poets as Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves. While in England, Frost also established a friendship with the poet Ezra Pound, who helped to promote and publish his work.

Putting in the Seed

Robert Frost, 1874 – 1963

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

read poems by this poet

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, where his father, William Prescott Frost Jr., and his mother, Isabelle Moodie, had moved from Pennsylvania shortly after marrying. After the death of his father from tuberculosis when Frost was eleven years old, he moved with his mother and sister, Jeanie, who was two years younger, to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, enrolled at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1892, and later at Harvard University in Boston, though he never earned a formal college degree.

Frost drifted through a string of occupations after leaving school, working as a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel. His first published poem, “My Butterfly,” appeared on November 8, 1894, in the New York newspaper The Independent.

In 1895, Frost married Elinor Miriam White, whom he’d shared valedictorian honors with in high school and who was a major inspiration for his poetry until her death in 1938. The couple moved to England in 1912, after they tried and failed at farming in New Hampshire. It was abroad that Frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poets as Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves. While in England, Frost also established a friendship with the poet Ezra Pound, who helped to promote and publish his work.

By the time Frost returned to the United States in 1915, he had published two full-length collections, A Boy’s Will (Henry Holt and Company, 1913) and North of Boston(Henry Holt and Company, 1914), and his reputation was established. By the 1920s, he was the most celebrated poet in America, and with each new book—including New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923), A Further Range (Henry Holt and Company, 1936), Steeple Bush(Henry Holt and Company, 1947), and In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962)—his fame and honors (including four Pulitzer Prizes) increased. Frost served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1958 to 1959.

Though his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England—and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time—Frost is anything but merely a regional poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony.

In a 1970 review of The Poetry of Robert Frost, the poet Daniel Hoffman describes Frost’s early work as “the Puritan ethic turned astonishingly lyrical and enabled to say out loud the sources of its own delight in the world,” and comments on Frost’s career as the “American Bard”: “He became a national celebrity, our nearly official poet laureate, and a great performer in the tradition of that earlier master of the literary vernacular, Mark Twain.”

About Frost, President John F. Kennedy, at whose inauguration the poet delivered a poem, said, “He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.”

Robert Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died in Boston on January 29, 1963.

Selected Bibliography

Poetry

In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962) Hard Not to Be King (House of Books, 1951)
Steeple Bush (Henry Holt and Company, 1947)
Masque of Reason (Henry Holt and Company, 1945)
Come In, and Other Poems (Henry Holt and Company, 1943)
A Witness Tree (Henry Holt and Company, 1942)
A Further Range (Henry Holt and Company, 1936)
From Snow to Snow (Henry Holt and Company, 1936)
The Lone Striker (Knopf, 1933)
The Lovely Shall Be Choosers (Random House, 1929)
West-Running Brook (Henry Holt and Company, 1928)
New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923)
Mountain Interval (Henry Holt and Company, 1916)
North of Boston (Henry Holt and Company, 1914)
A Boy’s Will (Henry Holt and Company, 1913)

Rondeau- a reminder

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/rondeau-poetic-form

 

“An example of a solemn rondeau is the Canadian army physician John McCrae’s 1915 wartime poem, “In Flanders Fields“:

     In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The challenge of writing a rondeau is finding an opening line worth repeating and choosing two rhyme sounds that offer enough word choices. Modern rondeaus are often playful; for example, “Rondel” by Frank O’Hara begins with this mysterious directive: “Door of America, mention my fear to the cigars,” which becomes the poem’s refrain.”

Meeting someone’s eyes is like a touch

Meeting someone’s eyes is like a touch
As if our self extends  outside our skin
With no intention to take hold or clutch

Those who do this , how love must be rich
Rarely will they mortify or sin
Meeting someone’s eyes is a kind  touch

If we are afraid, may we find trust
Let us  try again,  why not begin
With no intention to take hold or clutch?

We are human, do we mind who’s first?
Let our minding weigh  less than  a pin
Meeting someone’s eyes is like a touch

In the end we mingle with the dust
Have we made good use of any gift
With no intention to take hold or clutch?

With love around, we  need not be too  swift
Take your own time  wandering through the mist
Meeting someone’s eyes is like a touch
Gentle, do caress, don’t  grasp nor clutch

 

Short offerings

Wittgenstein
Drank wine.
Like cats
To pat

Alfred North Whitehead
Was very shortsighted
He worked out with Russell
Their minds used to jostle.
Principia Mathematica?
I’d rather wear a catheter

Iris Murdoch
Drank dandelion and burdock
She wrote of the Good
Right where she stood!
In Oxford she dwelled
And all her thoughts jelled

It runs in the family

Oh,yes,I do lovely handwriting

Just like my dad.

It runs in the family

And I like chip sandwiches with butter

It runs in the family.

No, I can’t do cryptic crosswords.

Or enigmatic looks.

It runs not in the family.

I read too many clever books

Instead of earning money.

It just runs in the family.

Yes, we are all music freaks.

We listen to Schubert and Schoenberg all night.

It runs in the family.

We are all impolite.

But we can’t help it cos

It runs in the family.

Yes, we all use four letter words,

It’s a free country, besides,

It runs in the family!

And no we can’t write poetry, you see

Writing doesn’t run in my family.

But, we all practice monogamy,

So far, though, unsuccessfully,because

Adultery runs in the family.

Which puts a slightly different complexion on the phrase

“It runs in the family”

But, alas, all of my ancestors are dead.

It runs in the family!

Mary cakes and fuzzy logic

Mary had made a Christmas cake with marzipan but no white sugar icing.Stan was diabetic so she had opted for a middle way.Like some Zen Buddhists.You don’t either cut it completely nor have a 6-inch layer of icing.No, you find a middle way.Like 5 inches of icing!
Mary like almonds so she went for marzipan with her home ground almonds and some sugar.The raw egg part was worrying but so far nobody had died after eating her cake.

Still if you are dying, enjoy the cake while you can!
Annie arrived for a cup of coffee.
Wow, that cake is large.You will get fat if you eat it
I am not planning to eat it all myself, Mary said merrily.
In fact, if I could find a way of cutting an infinitesimally small piece I could have one every day forever.
Would the cake not shrink ?asked Annie with a puzzled smile
No, because a real number times an infinitesimal is itself infinitesimal Mary answered.
So it must be zero, Annie decided.
No, said Mary.All of the calculus is based on the idea that they are not zero.Then, at the end, we pretend they are zero and cross them out.It’s like magic or sleight of hand
I thought maths was logic, Annie said in an angry voice, tossing her purple hair over her shoulder.Alas, it was a wig so it fell off and Emile the little cat, bit it!
Gosh, Annie why are you wearing a wig? Mary asked.
I am involved with a Jewish man so he won’t make love unless I wear a wig.
Surely if he is Orthodox he should not sleep with you unless you get married.
We can’t get married, Annie said boldly.
Why not?
He is already married….Annie muttered
Well, that seems wrong.
What, being married?
No having an affair.I know Stan is old.Can’t you find a single man?
Women can’t go running after men.Men enjoy the chase.They despise women who run after them.
Well, can’t you ask them if they are married?
No, it seems too cheeky, Annie smiled.Anyway, in fuzzy logic you are not either married or single.You are married to the extent of some decimal number in between 0 and 1
Some folk are 0.999 married and some are 0.34 married.Others 0.1
But who measures it? God ? It’s not much use.
You have to guess, said Annie.

I like Jewish men
How many do you know, Mary asked.
Three, said Annie triumphantly.
You can’t generalise from three, Mary said.
If I test a larger sample I shall never get to find one till I am 99, Annie wept.
Think of the fun, though, Mary said teasingly.And you’d have to travel a lot as many live in the USA, France and other places including Israel.How do you fancy Bibi Netanyahu?He is married actually!
Annie was silent, then burst out: life is not science nor technology.It’s an art like watercolour painting.Why do you call him Bibi? Do you know him?
Not biblically, Mary said humorously.I’ve never even met him.He’s just been in the News more because of Trumpelstiltschein
Does Bibi know Donald is half German?
No, but the Queen is too.
Where does that take us logically?
Off to Boots to buy some expensive makeup and then to have a manicure and tea in a cafe
If only politicians did this life would be much easier and kinder.
And so say all of us!

Let’s lose our minds

The garden’s now a Wood ,where dwell three wolves The maple red is now the president And all the laws and rules have been devolved. For the sake of other residents This green country gives heart like mine no grief

For hidden are the houses standing near

And as the wolves dance, I watch with r were leg

Though ants and beetles stand around and stare For wolves are never seen in suburbs tame

And maples are at home in foreign lands .

It may be that the satyrs play new games

And smuggle in some creatures contraband..

Let explanations die their long due death

Let’s lose our minds and dance in happiness.

There was an old lady in York

Three cats by author

There was an old lady in York

Whose appearance made  little dogs bark she dressed in  wild silk

Covered up with a quilt

Underneath that she was usually stark

Jokes of all sizes like bones

Dogs do not love being alone

She took hers to work

Reluctant to  shirk

So who has a bone for this crone?

The history of  Trump

STEPHEN HAWKING ANGERS TRUMP SUPPORTERS WITH BAFFLING ARRAY OF LONG WORDS LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—The theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking angered supporters of Donald J. Trump on Monday by responding to a question about the billionaire with a baffling array of long words. Speaking to a television interviewer in London, Hawking called Trump “a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator,” a statement that many Trump supporters believed was intentionally designed to confuse them. Moments after Hawking made the remark, Google reported a sharp increase in searches for the terms “demagogue,” “denominator,” and “Stephen Hawking.” “For a so-called genius, this was an epic fail,” Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said. “If Professor Hawking wants to do some damage, maybe he should try talking in English next time.” Later in the day, Hawking attempted to clarify his remark about the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, telling a reporter, “Trump bad man. Real bad man.”

The enemy may well be us

Oh, mother, father take me back
I’ve lived the pain, I ‘ve felt the rack
I wanna see Jesus.
Take me to that wall they built
Let me see where blood’s been spilt
I wanna see Jesus.
Oh, take me back to where I was
The enemy may well be us,
Not Jesus.
What did all those sermons do?
Did they say he was a Jew?
Oh, Jesus.
Did he want the First Crusade
It is his blood the priest creates
Lord Jesus.
I don’t like the way things are
I am getting tired of war
Kill Jesus.
What has human wisdom done
From Wittgenstein to Abraham?
Cripes, Jesus!
Does research improve our lives
As for grants, the scholars strive?
Ask Jesus.
We may have chemotherapy
Radiation, history.
Where’s Jesus?
You’d think that after all the years
We’d have used up all our tears
Sweet Jesus.
Love your neighbour as yourself
Give 10 % of all your wealth
Aye, Jesus.
Do what’s better, not what’s worse
I see another fragrant hearse.
It’s Jesus.
See the plastic Crucifix
See him dying with dry lips
Bend your knees, confess your sins
Otherwise, the Devil wins
Not Jesus.
We destroy the good we hate
Envy writhes and with pride mates.
The progeny will wreck the earth
Eden’s burning as drones pass.
No, Jesus.No Jesus.
Know Jesus.

Dust motes dancing

I saw the dust motes singing in soft air
The yellow grey, the light where nothing’s clear
The silent chorus hurts me as I stare

The heart feels unprotected, as if bare
Only when we’re lonely are we here
I saw the dust motes dancing in soft air

The little things we don’t see till we care
The eyes that signal bring to birth our fear
The silent chorus gabbles as I stare

The Essex fields are huge like mass despair
Yet summer poppies bright make them so dear
I saw the dust motes dancing on fresh air

Life is like a vehicle we steer
Yet unseen hands in wisdom change the gear
I heard the dust motes singing in soft air
The small still chorus tells me what to dare

But a prayer could ascend to its height.

Great Bardfield and Dunmow by meadows  of blue
Linseed and poppies delight
Narrow lanes curving  are leading us to
The Essex  of Constable ‘s sight

At Manningtree swans  jostle near the  stone edge
I recall we have seen them in flight
Like a god might descend  to fulfill an old pledge;
A humbling  and marvellous sight.

In Dedham,  all’s still and wisteria  hangs
From a house with the door painted white.
The church was  quite empty and no bell was rung
But a prayer could ascend to its height.

After the quiet of the village out here
The A12  was revealed as a blight
We crossed it then  turned down a lane that was near
We drove home  in the  cool of the night.

Windmills not turning and churches not used
Yet  a  beauty to charm and delight
No mills  as in Yorkshire,no  hills  to denude.
Long Melford and Eleigh ,oh wait!

Yes, the Trent flows up one side and down the other.

lake

Pray Father give me your blessing
Good grief, a real Catholic at last
Why, are there artificial ones?
No they just have terrible memories
Of trauma?
No, they don’t know what a sacrament is.
But surely how we act is more vital
I don’t know, it’s so long since I was in the cemetery
Do you mean the cement factory?
Why would I mean that?
Don’t ask me,I’m just a human being
I mean the seminary, of course.I remember now.
Do you know the seven deadly sins?
Not biblically
They are in the Bible… murder.envy, hatred
Yes, I was joking.I am celibate officially.
But what are you really?
I am asexual.
Do you have no desire?
I love people but I have no need to go to bed with them
No, we do it on the floor at home
Are you married?
Yes,definitely.She is a red head.
I thought you might say Red Indian
We have very few living in Stoke on Trent.
Where is that?
On the river Trent.
But that goes through Nottingham
So?
I thought Stoke was West of the Pennines
Yes, the Trent flows up one side and down the other.
That is a lie
Thank you.
Since my last Confession I have lied twice
What was the other lie?
I am not a Catholic
So why come here?
I am lonely and it’s bad for me so I thought Saturday night Catholics go to Confession
It’s not exactly fun.Why not go to the pub and pick up a woman?
Are you really a priest?
No,I was feeling lonely too
What a pity we are not bisexual
Well, we could learn
I thought it was genetic?
Do you mean generic
I don’t know.You mean like,buy paracetomol not panadol?
Genetic is totally different.
Am I a generic human or a dressed up, artificial and stunning person?
Why artificial?
I can’t act natural.
Try!
But if I try it’s not natural.
Was that my penance listening to you?
It could have been.Say a little prayer for me as well
So you do believe?
Why not? It’s better than dying of meaninglessness
You so seem very clever
How kind.
I’ll see you next week.

The northern hills

I wish I were in Arkengarth again

The fierceness of the sheep, the ancient dale.

I want to be with you and it will  rain

I want the pale gold sun, I want the gales.

The earthen privy with  its own two seats

The herbs and flowers growing all around.

The music in the pub, its⁰ Northern beat

It’s good to set the feet on Northern ground.

We went across the Pennines in the car.

The Western side is fiercer in its threat

Here we are in Kendal with its stone

Where’s Penrith with Ullswater beside?

I’d like to sail by steamer waterborne

I’d like to see  Helvellyn, but not stride

Here I am in London in the sun What is ending here up there began.

Before my husband died he kept wanting to see the sea or the northern hills and could not be comforted.

He had a very peaceful ending despite that lack

Menu for mad native of UK

Art by Katherine

Fried frogs on a bed of lice with free desert and Bedouin prisoner
Scottish moles and salad with hot flatbread from Gaza & strip
English Enema with free water and wafers and Syrian Refugee
Welsh Wrabbit grilled on West Bank of Thames plus Binoculars and Gun
Scottish Sausage with alimony tossed in lemon juice and oil
HP Sauce on Macaroni in butter with Russian Cheesefake
Fried Fish with chip on boulder of Galilee with boat
German Green Goose with mesh of potato free to engage
Grumbling Grand Gorse with spikes and dressing and free Baptism
Spanish Hamlet with chunky chips and a pack of cards with Joker
Linear Equations of Spaghetti with photo of salad Macbeth
Matrix of Pasta in green gauze with free wound and needle
Hindu Blessing and free food for all who smile
Cherry Tree blessed by God plus Rice and Nuts and free Tea
Irish plight and potato free to all

Hamlet: Important Quotes Explained | SparkNotes

https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/hamlet/quotes/page/5/

Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,—
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action

The West Pennines

Hennetwistle has a railway stop
The name is Viking now it’s usually spelled
Entwistle, where reservoirs fill up
Manchester wants water, here it’s held

Too Thirlmere is an artificial lake
For tea in Manchester, those thirsty folk
How much more d’ye think that they will take?
Hamlets drowned, dull cypress trees that cloak

I once passed through Darwen on a train
On the way to Ilkley with my aunt
No memory of bliss with me remains
Except the flowers so wild, their ghosts still haunt

Yet nowhere else gives me the feel of home
This landscape is my body and my soul

Mary wonders what to wear in the heatwave

I don’t know what to wear in this hot weather Mary said to her friend Annie who lived  next door.qr 80

I don’t have many cotton dresses and in any case they don’t seem to be fashionable now even in the summer

What about wearing very low rise jeans with a short top so that the wind will blow onto your midriff and cool you down?

That’s a good idea said Mary I’ll just go upstairs and get dressed would you mind putting the kettle on to make us some tea when I come down again?

Mary went upstairs and wondered what underwear to wear with her low-rise jeans

When she went downstairs her friend admired her navy blue top with polka dots and her chambray trousers

I think it’s a great idea to wear black knickers with your jeans in case you bend over and they become visible

Yes these are my incontinence pants;you can get them in black or white now and I expect in a few years or a few months you’ll be able to get red ones.

I do hope that when you havec had your surgery for your kidney that you will no longer be incontinent.

So do I said Mary balefully. Still it says me from washing and ironing seven  pairs of knickers a week

Did you iron your knickers asked her friend in amazement?

Yes because I was told it could kill any bacteria living there which might cause infections but the bacteria were coming from inside my body from the stones in my kidneys

I’ve always thought it’s a pity that if we have to have stones in our kidneys old gallbladder that there’s no gold or silver among them at least we went some money from our condition;

Oh, said Annie I thought you could wear a pair of red knickers over the top of your black incontinence pabts although it might make you look fat. And you still have to wash the red ones even if you didn’t need to iron them

0y next you’ll be suggesting I put a red bra over  or under my black one

Marks & Spencer’s profits would rise if women started wearing more underwear butb

it will be very hot

Oh I had  better go to the kitchen and make the coffee said Mary hospitably..

She found Emile in the kitchen watching a frog which was trying to get water from the draina goodness me z it’s one interesting difference between cats and human beings cats can kill other living creatures without guilt or fear although some human beings do have that psychopathic ability

If every animal or bird had a birth certificate then it would be possible to register death for them but since there are so many it would be a great strain on the economy of the country

Well I am thinking Emile said that it will not be possible because most animals and birds can’t read and write

Oh how I envy them said Annie because it took me so long to become literate in any case they don’t use a common language like English. Each species has different sounds that they can make but it’s not the same as having words

So true, said Mary and she drank her coffee

How difficult life would be if all the birds in your garden could speak English and talk to you when you go out to fill the bird feeder in the winter crying out that they want roast beef and Yorkshire pudding  not bird seeds.

Well let’s just be grateful that apart from Emile most animals cannot speak read or write do not have a common language and do not require houses schools public transport etc

What is the conclusion we can draw from this Mary said to her self

Was the world a better place where most people  were illiterate? And they did not need barrel or carrot leg jeans v nor the latest fashion in shoes

And they would keep warm with open fires

Then there would be no company is making millions out of our heating bill wonders noe wondering what to wear

The fading limericks

There was an old lady from Chester.

Who did not allow wounds to fester

When stung by a bee.

She charged it a fee.

So now all the insects detest her

This lady was said to be bright. 

So we used to meet up in the night 

She was no use to me 

For I could not see. 

So I gave her away for a light .

Although I had tried to be free 

She had a deep tie just to me 

I tried to back out 

I was right, have no doubt

But she tormented me with trained fleas

I suppose it is guilt that destroys

Without any sign or much noise.

We lose our own souls

We’re no longer whole

This makes me feel ultra annoyed .

Kindness is not always best

The world is designed as a test .

God will mark it at night

To our mind’s  great delight

When do we get a right rest?

Eternal the rest may not be.

I always long to be free

Eternity’s  short

That’s not what we’re taught

From lessons and lectures I flee 

When we get to the end of the road 

The fountain will have overflowed. The road will be wet.

Goodbye etiquette

Poor poetry is always a goad

‘Every time I write, it’s like the first time’: Joyce Carol Oates on her 61 novels, Twitter storms and widowhood

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/01/every-time-i-write-its-like-the-first-time-joyce-carol-oates-on-her-61-novels-twitter-storms-and-widowhood?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Be your own saviour

Musing

A man who fond of lemons is
Cares not how he gives a kiss.
‘T is a proof that he would rather
Have a lemon than a lover.

A child who never was embraced
Will not marry in much haste.
It’s a hint that she would, maybe
Be afraid to have a baby

.A heart which mean with kindness is,
Will rarely feel true friendship’s bliss.
‘T is a proof that some would rather
Be correct than be a lover

A student who so clever was
Cannot match the wit of God
Tis a proof that she would rather
Be unknown than be a saviour

The impertinent restaurant

Main course

Codswallop in batter with nude potatoes and peas
Roast teeth and Yorkshire pudding with speaking broccoli
Rascal’s Lamb with Hint Sauce
Lasagne with chips,tea bread and butter thrown in.
Corned beef smash and cabbage
Beef stewed in Wales with French Bread and roast tomatoes

Pudding

Roly poly jam with steamed air.
Lemons on mice.
Oranges sliced and baked in a stone dish with marmite [You keep the dish]
Full flat yoghurt with fruit of the day
Christmas Cake pudding and bustards
Minced lies and branded nutter

Israel, Gaza and Jordan

Afghanistan, Iraq,Iran

Can “Democracy” be “forced” on them

Somalia,Yemen,Pakistan

The war on “others”,Rights of Man

The  grief of  infants, men fire on

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran

Made in Britain,  torture ,gun

Electric, fearsome,profit, spin

Somalia,Libya,Pakistan

Europe, Jesus ,Vatican

Where does Revolution win?

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran

Israel, Gaza and  Jordan

Old Man River, baptism sin

Libya,Yemen,Pakistan

From five or six  or maybe ten

The Arts of War, the nuclear span

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran

Somalia,Yemen,Pakistan