Month: February 2023

British Gas has a new approach to HomeCare repairs – do it yourself | Money | The Guardian

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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/may/17/british-gas-has-a-new-approach-to-homecare-repairs-do-it-yourself

Mary gets a temperature

Mary woke up and found that she had slept all night on the sofa in the living room. This was the first time that she had ever done that and she was very puzzled.

Then she realised she had a temperature she then understood that she had suddenly felt too unwell to go to bed. Mary thought she would have her nap on the sofa but she was asleep for 9 hours. She called for her little cat Emile.

Emil6 ran into the room,oh mother he fried I thought you were dead.

Why did you not go next door and ask Annie to come?

I thought it was too late so I went into my basket and fell asleep and then I ate the cold sausages you left out.

The sausages were not for you. There were for the church bazaar lunch.

Well you won’t be able to go to the church bazaar this now will you? You may have got COVID.

I never had my booster vaccineshe cried thoughtfully. Didn’t have the flu jab either.

Emile said I’ve got something else to tell you. I ate all the stuffed eggs that you made last night and they were absolutely delicious so will you make some more ?

You’ll have to wait. I have used all the eggs that there are in the fridge so unless you can go out and find a hen and see where it lays its eggs you’ll have to wait till I’m well again

Why, are you going to go and find a hen?

No I will order them with the groceries from the Co-op. They do organic ones

It’s a pity that you can’t lay eggs, the cat said.

Human eggs are very small because after the sperm gets into the ovum and it becomes fertile it remains inside the mother being fed through the umbilical cord but chickens don’t stay inside the hen for 9 months the egg is put into the nest and the hen have to keep it warm and eventually it will hatch and out will come the chicken.

So when we eat the egg we are eating the chicken that’s inside it?

Yes although sometimes the egg doesn’t have an embryo in it.

They lay sleepily on the sofa wondering why human beings ate the eggs of hens

And so do all of us

Mary is hit by a can and Annie prays

As Mary stood by the fridge at bedtime, a can of fly killer brought by dear Annie fell off the top and struck her red,orange and brown framed spectacles on the top.The heavy can hurt her nose
I hope nobody thinks a man has done this. she said to Emile
Well,I didn’t do it ,he mioawed cheerfully
It must be an Act of God, she mused.I hope there is no bruise
Ah,well.Are you sleeping on my bed,she asked Emile
No,I think I might go out roaming
Looking for frogs,she teased him
I may return, depending on the weather
Suddenly Annie knocked on the door
Are you all right, she asked anxiously?
Why, what is wrong,dear?
Your nose is blue
It’s that fly stuff, it fell onto me!
I’m terribly sorry.We must put it somewhere else.
Choose between me and the flies,Mary joked.
You are my best friend.I will not bring this stuff again
I am off to bed,Mary cried.Let me lock the door behind you
Annie ran out, and stole The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk.She wanted to discover why Mary liked Wittgenstein.And it covers a dangerous and terrible era in human history from the end of several Empires to the Second World War and beyond
I wonder what the children of Dr Mengele and the other dreadful criminals who committed torture and atrocties would feel like when they learned the truth abou their fathers
So Annie is embarking on some serious study while Mary is reading Woman and Home magazine.What is causing this strange change?
In bed ,Mary gazed at an article on ” How to dress well when you are over 80″
Alas all the clothes were expensive.Very
Does it matter what I wear, she pondered?
I suppose people do judge by appearances, she concluded.But which people?
Maybe I shall dress in one colour from now on.But not black.
Blue is a good colour.From now on if I buy new clothese, they must be blue
Maybe just a blue silk scarf is enough to make a vivid impression
Mean while Annie is crying over “The Duty of Genius” because at least two of Wittgenstein’s brothers took their own live and his sisters were almost captured by the Nazis who had to be bought off by the family wealth unlike Freud’s sisters
So what are we complaining about in the UK, she asked herself before saying some almost forgotten prayers.
And wished her husband were there to hold her in his arms.At least one of her husbands would have been most welcome

And so feel all of us


Listen to the voice that is distinct

Instead of sweating blood I’m bleeding ink

In my dreams I’m writing my best book

I hope the still small voice speaks while I think

Why do spirits rise, why do they sink?

I wrote a poem but was it just a fluke?

Instead of losing blood I’m bleeding ink

Elijah hid and then his courage shrank

God was angry yet he was astute

We hear the still small voice,who says it’ counts?

Light come through a crack or through a chink

Whoever is inspired is rarely thanked

Whose voice was the little voice extinct?

Instead of blood my veins are filled with ink

We’re told that god is dead but he still speaks

I hear the still small voice and then I think

I write it down I want to be correct

I always treat my voice with great respect

Instead of using blood we write with ink

We recognise the voice it is distinct

Sunny joy

My sister came when I was two years old
Born into an icy winter cold
Her little face was full of sunny joy
As we played with dolls and small stuffed toys.

We lined up all our dolls in rows by size
The large ones at the back had blinking eyes
We played with an old dog on little wheels
It had no fur but still held great appeal

Dad lifted her and held her to the sky
My allanah, love you till I die
All too soon the family turned sad.
Mother was not Mother without Dad

We survive and love and live our best
If there is a heaven,we’ ll be blessed.

Thoughts annihilate

Postmodern poetry has no formal shape
No sonnet,villanelle or rondeau there
Nor is it true or false that we are apes

A sentence made from curses aggravates
Makes even slight hurts something we can’t bear
Postmodern poetry has no formal shape

This very poem’s ironic , it emotes
Glares with total rage at you who care
If it’s true or false that we are apes

This poem,alas, will offer no escape
If it has no rhymes then I have flair
Postmodern poetry has no formal shape

The forms are hung until we get to break
We shatter and we crack the poet’s lair
I think it’s true and false that we are apes

For a metre I will hang in here
Waiting with no patience for a jeer
Postmodern poetry has no formal shape
Nor is it true that thoughts annihilate

What a wonderful sleep

I have had an interesting experience 4 times in the last 10 days. Each time I felt very tired in the evening and I went to bed early. I woke up and I thought what a wonderful sleep now what shall I do today?

Then I looked at the clock and it was 11:40 p.m. it was not the morning. I went back to sleep. I often do waken up in the night but I have never before woken up feeling so wonderful.

Surprised by grace

My heart was trapped by grief I was too frail

My mind was black I saw no way ahead

My mind was numb I felt I should be dead

I sat with my despair, how hard I failed.

I saw the tunnel black inside my head

The track was going downwards yard by yard

I felt so hopeless, why was I not spared?

The avenues of grief I overtrod

Then I saw and felt a golden light

Caress me with its fire its warmth ity grace

Strong and kind its beauty I embraced

And unexpected was this loving sight

I knew that this was real, so I have learned

That bitter pain and terror has an end

If like patient mourners we attend

Then accept the love we have not earned

Who are you?

I was the beggar in the road,

I was dirty, hungry with ragged clothes.

I am the person you kicked on the head

The filthy black pavement was my bed.

I was the woman you raped and you choked

You thought I was dead, I had my eyes closed.

I was the train driver when you jumped down

I couldn’t just stop, I still see your Frown.

I am the Jew whom you thought was rich.

You knocked of my glasses and smashed them to bits

T,he temple was broken the synagogues burned 

In the cathedrals nothing was learned. 

Everything done is recorded by God.

I am the baby on whose mother you trod

The mystery

About the golden light what can I say

Love is near and we don’t need to pray

Enter into darkness without fear

Another hand will  guide us help us steer

I had lost my faith I was bereft

I could not speak, and sinking was my raft

Then the soft bright cloud embraced me whole.

I felt a presence and I saw the light

Why should I be helped when many die?

The mysteriou.s hand of God, the soul destroyed

Flame

God is not the cold condemning Judge

He is a Golden Light,he loves us much

We meet him in our agonised despair

When doubts have killed us like the lack of air.

He will warm us; we can live again.

Despite the suffering and the intense pain.

He will come to us in tongues of flame.

Mysterious fire,oh love without a name

He isn’t here

He isn’t here

The air rippled like sea

Niarbyll bay and butterflies

I caught a glance

In water

Shining

He isn’t here

Waves blind me

With white heads

Sunlight in the morning

Hit the fridge door

He isn’t here

The teapot glinted

An eye,perhaps.

The warmth is unusual for February

I went to the hospital again

He wasn’t there

He wasn’t there

He wasn’t there

Misdeeds

Every minute you are thinking of evil, you might have been thinking of good instead. Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds. Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.
Evelyn Underhill
Read more athttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/evelyn_underhill.html#DV5jb82YGD1ruisz.99We once went to a village in Essex and walking by one house we felt a lovely feeling emanating from it.Later we learned it was the former home of the mystic
Evelyn Underhill..quite strange

An artist’s canvas stretched, a matricide

Saturday was shopping then a walk
Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car
Reading book reviews and chewing stalks
Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore

Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed
Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed
Farmers working hard,  a harvest, grain
The sky  through mist a cobalt  blue displayed

Standon with its fords and wandering cows
Little rivers,Essex, flowing down
The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound
Water for the Thames  and mossy ground

The earth feels like my body sacrificed
An artist’s canvas stretched , a matricide

 

Keir Starmer’s moat

Great Britain is a nation of sport

Chasing foxes which cannot be fought

Playing cricket in summer

Is Starmer a runner?

I badgered my mother

She knows how I love her

Since she was left holding the fort

The River Severn

Oh brother who darts in Severn

Mellow is your crime

Your income stuns, you are never done

Oh, Earth,sky;oh,raven.

I hear all you say,you are very well read

Lead us by our sensations:deliver us from weasels

Not again

Lead us into creation

Our Father who starts the eleven

We follow all your games

If England wins,our will is done

On earth though we are raving

Letters displayed are mainly read

Forgive us our emphasis, as we forgive those who emphasise yet remain with us

And lead us not into irritation.

Yet again

Send them to Uganda, Rwanda, my veranda. It’s all economics really

It Jesus Christ and his mother Mary and father Joseph had arrived in a dinghy on the south coast the Home secretary would have sent them to Uganda. And if God were there

Would they have sent God to Uganda?

Well since God is everywhere he’s already in Uganda.

But 2000 years ago aeroplanes did not exist

Why,is it a long way to Uganda?

Where do you think it is is?

I thought it was one of the Shetland Islands.

In that case why are people from Uganda black?

Well it can get very hot in Scotland.

Is it doesn’t make sense because we are further South than Scotland and we are not all black

And Africa is further South than England and most of them are black.

This form of argument is clearly not very satisfactory. A lot of people in Britain believe that Uganda is an island off Scotland that might be why Suella Braverman gets away with her proposals. But I don’t think she really thinks Uganda is in Scotland.

I didn’t know she went around making proposals. I thought she was already married. Does she come from Uganda do you thinj?

What a racist remark. My newsagent came from Uganda because they were afraid of idi Amin

I’m sorry but I didn’t realise it was racist to mention Uganda

What about Uganda?

Strangely before the Germans killed the Jews they had wondered about sending them to Uganda. It’s understandable but Jews are not black. And Uganda was and probably still is very dangerous place to live for anybody.

Some Jews are yellows and they live in China.

What a remarkable coincidence. Can they speak Chinese

Yea they realised that’s Hebrew is not spoken by many Chinese people.Nor are Jews born speaking Chinese even when they’re living in China yet Chinese babies speak in Chinese. It’s all very puzzling

Well the Hebrew alphabet is easier to learn than the Chinese alphabet.

It’s one thing learning the alphabet but it is another to speak the language.

Just think most people in Britain didn’t know the alphabets until the last 200 years. They could communicate with each other really well. They could speak English perfectly

And when they learnt the alphabet they could read the Sun and the Mail.

What a great step forward for humankind. They couldn’t read the Moon though.

Don’t start talking about horoscopes.

Surely it’s the planets that count.

I can’t!

Very intelligent people can’t always count

Perhaps they were born before numbers were invented

I never knew numbers were invented

Well have you ever seen a number when you been out walking or when you been at home with your beloved.

Are you telling me that numbers are not real?

They are a product of our imagination starting off from the need to count your goat so sheep when the human race we came agrarian rather than Hunters gatherers.

But even Hunters would need to count the number of animals that they had caught unless it was only one or two

So the development of a number system which took hundreds of years then became something that anybody could use The symbol 0 zero is believed to have been invented by Indian mathematicians and I believe that when they traded it wasn’t only spices and silks and all sorts of goods but also ideas will travel. Maybe that’s why Marx believe that everything was economics.

In a very real sense everything is economics

zero

By  love enacted falsly, some are raped

Shoild we write in form to make a shape
Or let our mind run free, associate?
Such tangled webs within the mind  are draped

Oh, to run as free as antelopes
But from sharp tigers noone will escape
Can we  control , disarm  within a shape?

Love’s enacted falsely , making rape
Inside our  hearts shall we recover hope?
Such tangled webs the curtained mind  creates

Round the  marbled minds we  half dazed traipse
Wherever we go hunting, we’re too late
Can we  control  our fear  within a shape?

Collapsing faith cracks ,can we concentrate
Or  from the deal , do we dissociate?
Such tangled webs  of mind  make ripe our hate

Now sex  compels but will can’t procreate
Can kindness smile  and friendship instigate?
Shoild we write in form when we love shape?
Our mingled maps  of  mind   might mangle  fate

We learned definition and precision.

What was so wrong with me asking
About your absence from this world
And trying to grab you back
holding onto your coat tail
Eternity’s long enough already
We don’t need your vapour trails.
Was it a wicked thing to do
As you floated  far away
To reach out to touch once more?
I admit I never knew you kept a score
Were you already packing bags
to throw out the door?
I knew it was the real thing
But some folk never do.
You have your expectations
And your tests and rules
But we never learned those
In our lessons  at  high school.
We learned rigour and icy vision
We learned definition and precision.
But what use are they in loving?
What use are  they in life?
I didn’t know how to travel with no maps
And you were off anyhow.
The orchestra stopped playing
When they saw the gap.
You can’t fly forever
But I  am leaving you.
In these  circumstances
What  does a woman like me do.
You can smile and squeeze your eyes tight
Suck in those cheeks and hide your love.
What’s coming after you ’s an eagle or a crow
Not a dove…it’s black I know
When you toss it all away then
Seems like it’s long past time
and emotion to call it a day.
Come again…..you must be crazy.
Love is clear to me  now like the face of a new born daisy

Into a little crack  a seed may fall

Hiding in between two  garden shrubs
A little  fruiting tree has grown unseen
Now it’s filled with blossom humbly borne
That decorates the patient garden green

I see it with delight from up above
The window gives me visions ,maps of space
I see the blackbirds, hear them sing at dusk
Now all nature finds its proper place

Into a little crack  a seed may fall
A tree grows up and cracks the paving stones
Thus are the mighty broken,scattered, scorned
All they leave are  heaps of whitened bone

The humble may be raised  without request
The proud  are filled with hatred of the rest

‘Keep your eyes open – and leap into the future’: 100 centenarians’ 100 tips for a life well lived

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/18/100-centenarians-100-tips-for-a-life-well-lived?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other