Day: May 14, 2023

So pleased to meet you: why it’s never too late to make close friends

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/may/14/new-friendship-in-my-50s-taught-me-that-its-never-too-late-to-make-close-friend?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

She showed me a very different approach to dealing with a professional or personal setback: she doesn’t fight, she accepts. She regroups to heal and focuses on restoring her inner strength instead of allowing outside forces to suffocate her. At first, I couldn’t understand what seemed like emotional surrender, but as I got to know her better, I began to appreciate and eventually to emulate her Korean ways. She has taught me that everything is not always a battle.

I never believed in destiny…….

Can gimbling with me help?

So uninspired, the vivid moles did fire a thimble on the waves

So crumbly were the unbaked loaves

The home cats all strayed

Come with me my little pal, I’ll take you out and pay the knaves

My Google payment was devised

On the comb I found your waves

So definitely the PayPal loved, uncensored symbols overcame.

The term denied, it was unsafe

In the end we all were crazed.

Symbols thimbles stop and blink till men are kinder and still brave

My phone will not with contact pay

I think it’s better to pray my way.

Stephen Leacock Lewis Carroll put me in and wouldn’t borrow

My heart was filled with God’s own power

We’ll play the lame for half an hour

Annie and Mary discus politics on the beach

Mary and Annie went on the beach at Aldeburgh. The beach is mainly shingle. At dawn they have seen the fishing boats going out

I don’t like walking on a shingle,Mary announced it was a truth as if it was a truth like the discovery of gravity

Well Annie said, we both need some extremely good trainers. But we can’t get them here and anyway we’re going home soon. Why don’t we walk on the promenade instead of on the beach?

Well I like to walk along the very edge of the sea and hear the pluck and knock of the tide.

Do stop showing off. I have read Look stranger on this island now by WH Auden.

So have I said Mary and it’s one of the few poems I can remember by heart.

https://www.best-poems.net/poem/look-stranger-by-w-h-auden.html

That’s fortunate said Annie because you might get sent to prison for plagiarism.

Apart from you no one else has heard me saying the pluck and knock of the tide.

I expect they’ll see it on your blog.

Who knows that I’ve got a blog Mary asked foolishly?

You will be surprised said Anna.

Last week someone in Iraq was reading it. I don’t suppose they have read Auden unless they are a professor of English literature. That’s a possibility. Will I need to issue an apology?

Yes or the Conservatives will put you in jail.

Well I’m definitely not going to vote for the Conservative party at the next election.

And so say all of us

She combed her hair gently

Mary saw the bus was due in five minutes.She applied some sunscreen and combed her hair gently with a cake fork while she wondered why she was going out.She looked into her phone camera to get her hair in order
Alas, the familiar footsteps of Annie were heard on the patio.In she flew dressed in red and brown like a robin in winter except she wore pure wool and nit feathers
How do you like my outfit, she cried girlishly
Mary stared at her, noting the pale beige face makeup from Max Tucker and brick coloured lipstick from Wigan’s Makeup Outlet Store where Annie loved to browse for days on end.
I think the brick coloured lipstick does not go with the scarlet jacket,Annie.
Oh, don’t worry.It’s the in thing now to clash
That might be true but men won’t know it’s a fashion unless they read Vogue.Most don’t.
Never mind all that. I’ve brought Emile a new blanket
He’s not a dog,you know.Do cats need blankets?
If you drove it would protect the seat.
I might go round the bend.If we drive we almost certainly would meet bends
Do fish get the bends,mewed Emile?
We don’t know that.It only proves that a question can be asked in a human language but within that system there is no way of answering it,Mary told him quietly, thinking of Wittgenstein her husband’s former tutor.
First of all, fish probably can’t speak English or understand it.
How amazing, the little cat replied.How stupid can you get?
Well a fish would think you were stupid for not being able to live in the sea.
So true,Emile sighed.Shall I try?
Don’t be so ridiculous,Annie whispered.The sea in not near Knittingham. Mary can’t drive and you may drown.
Then St Peter will be reading out all your sins
Can cats commit sins, asked Emile with surprise
Yes, because you know you have a choice.You can bite my hand or resist the temptation
I don’t feel like biting it now so if I did it would not give me pleasure.
For God’s sake, stop arguing.Anyone would think you’d been to the Synagogue, today Mary shouted
But in a Synagogue men argue about the Torah not about cats swimming,Emile replied
But then it gets to be a habit,Mary finished.
Still many other people argue,Annie reminded her.
But God does not want it,Mary said
How do you know? He/She may love to hear it.It will provoke thought
And it may provoke a Flood or you being turned into a pillow of salt,Mary screamed
Pillar of Salt,Annie corrected her
Why do people not turn into pepper, the cat asked wisely.
There is no pepper in the Dead Sea, the women agreed.~And black pepper/white pepper could be PIC
They have red peppers in the Market.Annie mused.And yellow too
But where does that leave us?Where was Mary going to and why has she not left for the bus stop? Was it something wicked that she was trying to do in secret?
We’ll see tomorrow I expect

From an article in the Times newspaper about NHS waiting lists

Rigged numbers


Let me give Colvile one explanation for the fact that waiting lists have stopped rising. My wife recently saw her GP with a view to being referred to a consultant. She was told that local hospitals have closed their lists for the type of procedure she required, thus preventing the numbers from rising