Month: November 2013

Anybody can teach!

I just can’t believe it!Are we all mad?

secretteacher6's avatarSecret Teacher

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I wish I could say this was some kind of practical joke; that this had appeared on a whimsical website poking fun at government policy. However this is no joke, and nobody is laughing.

The South Leeds Academy are in need of two maths teachers, but not just any maths teachers. Those with any sort of qualifications to teach are deemed surplus to requirements. Indeed those who have the experience and expertise to assist pupils adequately are going to be immediately overlooked. They needn’t apply. The South Leeds Academy epitomize a worrying transformation in the education system in recent years.

When Michael Gove removed the requirement for QTS in academies, the rhetoric was of professionals such as scientists, engineers, musicians and linguists teaching pupils. I doubt anybody could argue that the above advert isn’t looking for professionals, for professionals are almost always qualified. There isn’t even a mention of a…

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My scruples and other thoughts

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Pray Father,give me a Dressing.It is five Tweets since my last Depression
So what have you done now?
Well,as I’ve done nothing wrong today I am suffering from Pride.
You seem to think about yourself too much…maybe
How much is too much,Uncle?
Well,when we are happy and doing something we enjoy,we forget ourselves entirely.
and that is the best way to be.
But first we need some security.How can I get that.
You need a spam guard for your mind!At the moment you are on automatic which is the default setting of your brain to act like a reptile…
Thanks very much,Father,I never knew I was a reptile.Did they have scruples..
It was kill or be killed.Don’t you see the scruples are an attack on yourself?The reptile is attacking you… as you have frightening thoughts it’s annoyed.
So how do I rebutt these? thoughts
Say,Alright if I’m the most wicked man in the city,smite me and do your worst.I am not afraid any more..I have done my best and if it’s not good enough strike me dead now or forever give me peace,
And what will happen after that?
Well,we shall see.But you have to face this thing head on.Bring it to a head.Lance the boil.
So if God does smite me dead?
Well, do you really think you are so wicked because you stole a half penny from the charity box fifty years ago?
I see it’s a sort of pride… a theatrical display of guilt.
Yes, quite right.Anyway, if you survive your ordeal let me know and I’ll give it a try.
Why,don’t say you have scruples too?
Yes,I have scruples about giving advice to people.If they follow it and it’s no good… it worries me….
Why don’t we do or die together,Father?
I’ll give you a buzz.
Meanwhile am I absolved?
Yes, dear boy.Sometimes I wish I could be dissolved..
Why is that?
I’d like to lose myself.
Why not try reading a good book…I recommend Nicholas Freeling.
But I feel guilty reading.
Now look here,Father,God helps those who help themselves….give yourself a break…
A good novel, a cup of tea and a pussy on your knee,you’ll be transformed.
Thank you,my child.
Don’t mention it,Father.
Don’t mention what?
They never say.
It’s just a phrase or is it a phase?
It’s all Greek to me.
I know some very sweet Greeks or are they geeks?
Just one letter can make such a difference..
Write soon.

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On a light,hairy note

Looking at the two photos of Margaret Drabble

ImagengMargaretDrabbleBW75

I confess the difference surprise me.But I know that feeling at midlife that you are too busy to have long hair… yet it softens the features… so my hairdresser says…mine is short now..but I dream it is long again and feel happy

Is the short hair and plain look part of wishing to be taken seriously?She certainly has been married to two very interesting men

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I am really surprised /pleased about the number of people reading here

Drabble

Margaret Drabble when young

When I moved from books to Philosophy I was not expecting a lot of readers but I have had far more than I thought and so I have continued again after I thought I’d stop.So as I have thought before,people do like serious reading  and thinking about thinking.

I shall try to put on more about books too.I am reading the latest Margaret Drabble this week,The pure gold baby.It seems very light reading after Heidegger and co.Which is nice..

I would like to discover an introduction to modern literary crticism as i find it hard to get into.I am unsure if it needs to be so difficult….

.

MargaretDrabbleBW75
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English Literature: Death of the Author

Wordle: loci similes
Wordle: loci similes (Photo credit: filologanoga)
literary criticism of john ruskin
literary criticism of john ruskin (Photo credit: cdrummbks)
TCLC - Twentieth Century Literary Criticism
TCLC – Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (Photo credit: CCAC North Library)

English Literature: Death of the Author.

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The Flying goose.

A wonderful artist

janetweightreed10's avatarMy Life as an Artist (2)

I leave you this weekend with a flying goose.

Image

 

From the book, ‘The Apple Exercise’

‘Given the fast pace of our lives today, and the fact that so many of us are plugged into technology of one kind or another, our collective sense are being deadened. 

Along with this comes a feeling of loss.    A loss that in many ways we are unable to identify. 

As we constantly try to fill the ever widening holes within us, with more and more frenetic activity and stuff, our frustration levels grow even more. 

Feeding our sense through the creative process, in all its many forms, can produce almost miraculous changes, which lead to a sense of well being and fulfilment.’

 

Next week, more tutorials and information about watercolour brushes and paper. 

Wishing everyone a beautiful and creative weekend.

A Bientôt 

 

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Private blog?

I am probably going to make my  blog private.You will  be able to read it if you fill in your WP name when requested,If you do that I’ll get an email and will let you through.I have too many followers and people I follow…’ll go through blogs I follow and maybe choose fewer then I shall open this blog to the public again.

Thanks to all those who read my work and those I read

That the world is

Ludwig Wittgenstein as a very young child.
Ludwig Wittgenstein as a very young child. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ludwig Wittgenstein in his youth.
Ludwig Wittgenstein in his youth. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystery.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

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I’m finding Derrida de-structured

wittgensteinMunch-studio-Getty95002154

I’m finding Derrida  de-structured

And Levinas‘ face makes me smile

Who would have conjectured

That one day I’d lecture

On  thoughfullness and all its trials?

I  prefer Kierkegaard to Sartre

Who sometimes makes me feel queer.

Who would have expected

That words would be texted

As men smoked cigarettes and drank beer?

Some people like reading Jane Austen

While others juggle with Wittgensein.

Who would have discarded

The notes in the margins?

How sweetly these words recombine

Munch liked to paint people screaming,
his premonitions  were strong
Who else would have expected
The human destruction
Europe brought to the world before long?

Understanding

Carl Jung Quote
Carl Jung Quote (Photo credit: Psychology Pictures)
English: Original Statue of Carl Jung in Mathe...
English: Original Statue of Carl Jung in Mathew Street, Liverpool, UK. Made of plaster, it was vandalised and replaced in 1993. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood.

Carl Jung (1875 – 1961)

An intriguing thought…

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‘ow Ah used te speek

A modern reenactment of a Viking battle
A modern reenactment of a Viking battle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Photo0920 frozen 1When ah were in’t town
Ah met sum folk from up our road.
She sed,you’ve got a verry educated accent
and moreover you luk just like wa daughter in law,
She’s Danish.Am sure you must be related to her.
Ah,sed,the Vikings did get to Ireland..
I expect am descended from them.
Actually i wasn’t talking like that at first
But when they said,you have no accent I suddenly found
If Ah shut mi nostrils and kept my mouth barely open
Ah cud talk just like I used to..
But mi face is configured differently.
When I got home,I wer tellin’ mi husband
but he finds it distressin’ like;
Cud be it reminds ‘im of his dad and mam
And all the uther folk he knew when eh wer growin’ up
Bit it hurts now he’s not got them any more.
Am I putting on an act?
Which is real,what I once was,
or what I became.
Well,luv,ah’ve got numor to say now…Ta ta.
Ooh,it’s rainin’ again and the sheets are out in the backstreet.
Oh,bugger.

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Dark and light

Dark and light

Out of the darkness

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My soul looks for new insight

By a  lonely stone,I wept,for I knew
My hoping tool had gone
My soul was a widow
Whichj  groaned
My whole being was on fire for
My whole had  made him stare,yet
My soul reached doubt in the night
My soul looks for new insight,yet
My stomach was tied up with bots from the computer and I felt very queer

My tears fell like pain
My blundering sole fell out of the ftying pan….
No one undervalues tea
No one true love is perfect
She wore pearls  strung on twine

Hands reach

Hands reach

To be or not to be a hand

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38 Dishonest Tricks of Argument by Thouless

Ancient Greek alphabet
Ancient Greek alphabet (Photo credit: GeoNando)
Solomon
Solomon (Photo credit: Lawrence OP)
Pan(Straight and Crooked Thinking)
Pan(Straight and Crooked Thinking) (Photo credit: danielweiresq)
The first four letters of the Ashuri alphabet;...
The first four letters of the Ashuri alphabet; using the font DavkaStam. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

38 Dishonest Tricks of Argument Thouless

I have  got this book somewhere :Straight and Crooked Thinking by Robert Thouless and it’s very good….Logic is important but all sorts of tricks can be used to persuade us of viewpoint which may be untrue

This is a fascinating website too.. if  you’d like to know more about the Hebrew alphabet and how crucial it is for it Christians to see the importance of  the Hebrew Bible and to understand it…

And look out for my new book

Nerds of the Bible [smile]

with apologies to Solomon

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Dreams may often lie

English: The photographer's wedding ring and i...
English: The photographer’s wedding ring and its heart-shaped shadow in a dictionary. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No sight is like the rising of sun
When promises of dreams seem  clear and still
My heart ,though pained,can fancy  love has come
Without hard times and exercise of will.

No morning is without new dawn of hope
When all our conflicts shall be put aside.
Imagination is  far flung in scope,
Never  noting dreams may fraughtly lie.

No love is like my long lost love for you
Once known,once felt,it settles in the heart.

Yet I do believe love can be found anew
But only when the lost  true love  departs.

So bother me no more with reveried bliss.
Go leave me with my  life,though all’s amiss

National Poetry Month Display @ Forest Hills
National Poetry Month Display @ Forest Hills (Photo credit: mySAPL)
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Beech Trees

Stunning

LensScaper's avatarLensScaper

Yesterday we were blessed with another beautiful, albeit cold, day. Time for a visit to the Ashridge Estate – a favourite area of protected woodland, close to Ivinghoe Beacon and Bluebell woods that have been familiar sites for posts on this blog in the past.

Beech Trees produce a beautiful palette of colours in Autumn, they are one of the most eye-catching of British trees. Yesterday I took images in my usual style – getting up-close to the individual leaves – as seen in the previous post. But today I’m going to show you something quite different.

I was struck by the way light was filtering through trees on the edge of the wood – vertical slices of bright coloured light interspersed between the dark trunks of the trees. I wanted to capture that panoramic sweep of the woodland.

_DS78103_wp

But also at the taking stage I had something else in…

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Acceptance may be the answer

 

free_animal_angels_screensaver-131729-3

This is an interesting article about how acceptance is so important for us in order to live the best way we can. when we have problems,neuroses etc.This website,The Negative Psychologist is one I came upon when reading another blog here.

http://www.thenegativepsychologist.com/2013/02/acceptance/

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Join the ruining

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by Katherine Marmalade

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Please leave the Church when the bull rings.

Please keep off the yawns

Please sleep in your own ruins

Please deceive the women kindlily

No men followed here

Men must  lift their nits as a mine of university.

Please do not lust after sinning.

Sex is not work on Sundays.

No sex until you join the union.

You must pass a breast before driving in the UK

The Government seem very refused over child poverty

Do men love bugging women?

Free blank cheques for billionaires given out daily.

I just can’t scalp it.

It’s chicken or quiver with dumplings.

Do you leak any languages  properly?

Protect your mattress,Sleep on the door.

Why not hang yourself tonight?

She kept men in the wardrobe and clothes on the floor.

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Too chaste?

bathers-or-two-nude-women-gustave-courbet

Too chaste?

That’s a bit personal..I know

Is there an ideal level of chastity?

Can one be 40 per cent chaste?

Are there grades of chastity?

Is there a test for chastity?

If not,why is that?

If there is,hide it!

Is chastity a good idea?

Or just an idea…

Too chaste for whom?

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Capitalism, Part 1

Such fab cartoons

qrparker's avatarWaiting for Satan

In a capitalist society, I think it’s very easy for human emotions to get all out of whack because everyone’s your competitor.

shat1

This starts right from when you’re babies. Before their offspring can even shit without crying, parents are already trying to give their little pink pudgeballs a “competitive edge.” Even fetuses aren’t safe from the melodramatic ramblings of Germans in powdered wigs who arn’t fooling anybody (suck it, Mozart!)

shat2

What ends up being sculpted into the head of these new life creatures is not so much  the overrated compositions of overgrown child piano prodigies (suck it, Mozart!), but rather these children are encumbered by a terrible competitive streak. This demon of Darwinism hangs on the shoulder of capitalists citizens like a very knowledgeable scientist who likes to start fights. I know this because I have one of my own. His provocations are unprovoked, loud, and never appropriate.

Shat 3

.

This…

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How to disobey everyone

How to be original by obeying one simple rule:never obey a rule.

How to be chaste by one simple method:Get a phobia about sex.Vomit when it comes into your mind.That will deter others but is it worth it?

How to be kind:Pretend all other people are you.

How to sleep well:Try to stay awake all night.

How to keep calm when drowning:Go with the flow.

How to be happy:Let yourself be sad.

How to get thin:Have a nasty lover.

How to get fat:Never move except on wheels

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Secret destinations

   Image
   “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
― Martin Buber
I think he is talking about our life journeys not our outing to the park.
“When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.”
(
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My life books

Looking  over my life in books I see my instincts drew me  with certainty to certain author/thinkersTillich

The Psalms…King David

Bible stories.

Montaigne

Dante

Blaise Pascal

Soren Kierkegaard

Martin Buber

Simone Weil

Paul Tillich.

e e cummings

W H Auden

T.S.Elliot

I see I’ve not found many women on this journey… they were too busy childbearing I suppose.

And I  think of myself as neither male nor female.I am just me… a unique being.

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Why there are ten commandments

Moses with the Ten Commandments
Moses with the Ten Commandments (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Moses Pleading with Israel, as in Deu...
English: Moses Pleading with Israel, as in Deuteronomy 6:1-15, illustration from a Bible card published 1907 by the Providence Lithograph Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Moses climbed the mountain
And he got to the top,
God was waiting for him,
He didn’t say a lot.
He said, Take my commandments
They are written on this stone,
I have only fifty,
Or was it fifty one?
Moses was very worried
~about the human race.
Fifty one commandments
Would meet with strong distaste.
So he told God his troubles
And God thought long and hard.
He came back with the commandments
Written on a card.
How many have you got there?
Moses politely said?
I’ve got it down to ten, said God.
His eyes were very red.
So Moses took the postcard
And put it on his pad.
He said I’d better get back down.
Oh, and thank you Dad!
When Moses got to earth
He called his people near.
He produced his i Pad.
Look what I’ve got here!
I saw God on the mountain.
He gave me a few rules.
They’re easy to remember.
We are not moral fools.
How many of these rules
Has God given to you?
I got it down to ten.
Let’s see how we can do.
Ten is far too many,
Some of the people cried.
We don’t want these rules.
We hate to feel we’re tied.
But all games have their rules.
They’re what define the game.
If we had utter chaos
This loss would be a shame.
As pictures have their frames,
And lessons have strict times.
We need some good constructions,
Like poems need their rhymes.
So all his people heard him.
And they agreed to try.
They lived as best they could
Until they came to die.
But one part of this story
We will never know–
What were all those commandments
That Moses did not show?
And why did God give in
To Moses’ bargain plea?
Do not ask for Moses,
For Moses name is “ME”

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George Steiner: “In Bluebeard’s CastleSome Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture” 1971 / 2. A Season in Hell Yale University Press © George Steiner 1971

A very great essay

Katherine's avatarHow my heart sings

George Steiner: “In Bluebeard’s CastleSome Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture” 1971 / 2. A Season in Hell Yale University Press © George Steiner 1971.

You can read the whole article from this genius

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George Steiner: “In Bluebeard’s CastleSome Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture” 1971 / 2. A Season in Hell Yale University Press © George Steiner 1971

English: A picture taken on June 27, 2008 in P...
English: A picture taken on June 27, 2008 in Prague, Czech Republic of the former house of Franz Kafka. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?
Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say? (Photo credit: Sol S.)

George Steiner: “In Bluebeard’s CastleSome Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture” 1971 / 2. A Season in Hell Yale University Press © George Steiner 1971.

You can read the whole article from this genius

George Steiner
George Steiner (Photo credit: fieldus)
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Vicious punctuation


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“When spreading vicious and damaging gossip about the private affairs of others, one must always use proper grammar and posture.”
― Scott Rhine

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Did you seep well?

English: Stone chimney breast The only substan...
English: Stone chimney breast The only substantial part of Cottage of Collithie that remains. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Please avoid thrilling people on the road

Please wave carefully
Please weep to yourself and do not bend
Please do not walk on the toad.
Please do not grow balls here.
Please lie off the band
Please tell the youth.always
Please weep quiet.
Please leap off the chimney breast
Please pass your zest and drive yourself round the clown

Please pay the piano on arrival.

No lies enrolled here

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