The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day

I sit down here and with my totty pray

Ye cast o’ foolish thoughts, you raped my will

. We’ve each enraged the bureaucratic mill.

Oh frigid purse, I never meant to pay!

The sky ‘s a-spark, the air is warm and shrill

The saturnine demoted knelled their way

With this feathered pounce, my sample quill,

I cite the cheque and date it for next May.

Oh, tit for cat, the tiger’s bed ‘s astray.

Yer life is settled by a harlot’s will

The sky ‘s a shark, the air is sharper still

Artists sensed  the coming ot the war.

If they can’t do this what are they here for?

When defences fail we see with shock

The true state of affairs,no longer blocked

Who will look or listen to bad news?

No one counts the likes nor notes the views.

Long sight is a gift except for whores.

Yet those with short sight see right to the core.

When the bombing starts, words run amok

The speed’s too quick  to measure by a clock.

Politics old crosswords give no clue

The head is missing what’s the foot to do?

Fragmented borders, bodies serve in lieu

There must be separation, old from new

Those who were once holy now are damned

Take the brain out now,thought must be banned

Bodies run like automatic drones.

One by one they fall beneath the stones

In autumn when the leaves burn bright

We used to see the geese in flight

But now the sky is dull and still

The heavy sun sinks without will.

The geese fly out where I can’t see

And so their lives are closed to me

So the city is more bare

Even sparrows disappear

Watching geese gave me much joy

I often stopped to see them fly

I envied them their  spread out wings

The beauty of this made me sing.

But now my mouth is shut and cold

My heart and body grow more old.

The city with its belt of

of green

Is choked by houses small and mean.

Yet in the pavement small weeds grow

To the cracks a life bestow

Sometimes daisies,sometimes grass

There is never total loss

And tbrough the eye within my mind

The image of the geese I find.

Archimedes’ pocket calculator in working order but without the pocket.
Cleopatra’s nightdress fm [washed and ironed]
Aristotle’s chair with footstool and TV remote
Abraham’s hat [unworn]
Isaac’s laughter [ CD]
Euclid’s ruler [plastic]
Zeno’s hair [combed]
Ten live Greek tortoises with name tags.
Book of Numbers [ In Hebrew]
Fifty limericks and Wordsworth’s hair [1 only

Job’s watch (automatic)

Isaac’s belt

Eve’s best apron

Eve’s halogen hob (new,other)

Job’s hanky.

Adam’s apple

Recipes from the Bible.

Jezebel’s handbag (goatskin) . Nearly new in good condition apart from scratches from her nails.

King David’s piano plus keys. Sorry no music as scroll unrolled

Nero’s violin in working order (scorched)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/humor-and-poetry

Extract:

In 1993, I took a left turn one day out of my MFA program and found myself at the National Poetry Slam in San Francisco. There I discovered several poets who were funny for the sake of being funny. Particularly Hal Sirowitz from New York (“don’t stick your arm out the window, mother said” and Matt Cook from Milwaukee (“it was easy to write the Great American Novel, back when there were only five American novels”) Both poets initially delighted me and confounded me: There are no similes, a voice in my head said. What would Tom Lux (my first teacher) say? the voice continued. Despite my resistance, I believe those poets gave me a kind of permission to explore humor a little more vigorously in my second book, The Forgiveness Parade (1998), for “I thought the word loin and the word lion were the same thing. I thought celibate was a kind of fish”. Perhaps in that book there were places where I was too vigorous in my pursuit: looking back there are a few poems that are just a little too jokey somehow, a little one-dimensional.

I am becoming aware of how some humor can set a roadblock for the poetic speaker, making it impossible for the speaker to get back to a serious place. And how some other (less frequent) uses of humor can leave that door open. I want to leave that door open

I remember funny things we did
Peering into windows lit by lamps
Climbing cliffs then chased by geese and dog

Walking down from Redcar, sea so still
After Saltburn Pier, the cliffs high jump
I remember all the funny things we did

Wandering Whitby in a sea grey smog
Eating a pork pie cut into lumps
Climbing cliffs then chased by geese and dog

Old Hunstanton , white sands where we’d sit
The wild spikes of the gorse spread out unclamped
I remember all the colours,scents, and that

I feel the joy inside my heart is lit
Woe is leavened by old nature’s stamp
Climbing high then chased through mud by dogs

We see in shadows shades are not so stark
In Studland Bay astonished by skylarks
I remember all the humour and the love
Climbing cliffs then caught by geese and God

We were chased by geese in Devon after climbing a cliff.No doubt chased by a man after we peered into his garden

If you were drowning they told me there’s no point  me drowning with you

But I was so sad to take my hand away from yours as the waves washed over us

I hope that you have forgiven me now that you have been dead for so many years

But can I forgive myself, sometimes both evils are equal

But then it wouldn’t matter which you chose and which you let go

But the impulses of the heart are strong

And cannot be denied forever

We are here to live, not to die senselessly with someone else.

Life is strong and must go on

The geese have changed their flight path to the lake
For further to the East a river runs
Once used for milling flour for bread and cake
For making bulbs for lights and wartime guns

The lightbulbs were a fiction in the War
Radar was the secret they researched
An old man in my Art Class once worked there
A physicist who worshipped still in Church

God and radar,guns and shells and tanks
Angels,demons,Jesus Christ we’re damned
Money lenders,presidents and Banks
Evil now seems normal in our land

We saved the world from Hitler but we died
No souls survive nuclear matricide

The lawns of Waltham Abbey are burning, burning brown

Harald’s dust lies here in holy ground.

The river Lea is flowing clear and green

Full of little fishes quite unseen

But there are predators evolve to eat

Tiny fish embody what is sweet.

The bones are fragile, elegant

And neat.

Do such fish have names we cannot speak?

The fish smile on while we play hide and seek

We’re probably tired of trying to save money since brexit the pandemic the increased price of food etc

Sometimes it’s easy to save money for example if you go to a coffee shop every day for coffee which is about four pounds a cup now in London then you could save 120 pounds a month by giving up your habits

Should you do that?

It might be a mistake because it might be the only time you go out if you are not working in a paid job outside the home.

Maybe you could go to one of the local church halls where they frequently have coffee mornings. Unfortunately the coffee is not always very good and you maybe afraid that someone will try to convert you when all you want is some cheap coffee and maybe a chat with somebody.

At the moment with the free bus pass older f peopledon’t save any money by walking although it might be very beneficial to your health

When I was a child we had no bathroom so I’m sure that’s saved my mother and father lots of money

You could try only having hot water on alternate days of the week so that you save money on your electricity or gas bill.

You could eat cold food most of the time but that’s not very nice really is it especially for the elderly

Someone I know who’s about 86 years old every morning with our free bus pass and she goes  to o the charity shops. She always really interestingly dressed and she said it’s all second hand. She says out most days until about 4 pm so that she doesn’t have to put her heating on but not many people are quite so fit and strong alto be out of the house for five or six hours in a day in the winter

Of course there’s always the public library that you can sit in and read the newspapers maybe or even read a book and you can use it a computers there as well so you wouldn’t need to heat your home if you went to library for the morning

The other point about all this is that what is regarded as normal now was once a luxury. Like having a shower every day. But if everybody does that you feel embarrassed if you can’t afford it I imagine I’m not sure because I’ve never taken to showers very much but it is very pleasant to have a bath whenever you feel like it.

I suppose we all have things that we regard as essential to our life and then there are other things that we might be willing to give up because they’re not so important

If you are very wealthy person and you’re going to move out of Britain because you’re afraid of paying more income tax then I would say go please go because we are a society. Everybody in the society has to contribute something towards it and clearly the very wealthy are more able to give money than the poor are.

Interestingly the poor give more to charity than the rich. Not such a surprise really is it?

The luxury of not being very poor is that you’re not constantly thinking about money and wondering if you can afford to have a cup of tea while you are out shopping. And that you can afford to have the food that you like I’m not the cheese paring.

If you are good at shopping you will realize that one of the more expensive supermarkets in Britain has an essentials range which is very cheap

You’ve got to be fairly strong to trump round several supermarkets trying to get the cheapest food.

So it’s a subject which is painful for many people. Is losing £200 a year winter fuel alone is worrying you remember that the state pension went up 8% this year and it went up 10% last year which was about 900 pounds for the average pensioner and so losing 300 pounds in the year it’s not so bad compared with getting 900 pounds extra that year in your pension.

But there’s no doubt about it even when you are  not at rock bottom nobody likes to lose some money they’ve been getting and expecting to go on getting for several years

And we were going to be so much more wealthy after brexit weren’t we?

Well  Boris Johnson is much wealthier I think. But he’s done a lot of harm to this country in my view.

I wonder how big the eye of the needle will be for him?

I must remember to tell God that I use easy threading needles and to ask whether that will make it easier for me to get through the eye myself.

I know I’ve lost a lot of weights since I was in the hospital but even so getting myself through an easy threading needle will not be much fun

Some of the meals I was getting were very small such as the following

Butterbean stew which consisted of about two or three tablespoons of butter beans in a soup like sauce with the other onion tomato in it .

Say money on entertainment by having a book group in your house once a month also and visiting others for their book group

I have noticed that nobody ever start some mathematics group in their home in the evening

So that’s ruled out

You can save a lot of money by having a a digital subscription rather than buying a newspaper every day.

I think it will be less than half the cost and you can access lots of other articles on the website I’ll also sorts of different topics so it is really good for people who like newspapers and article was on a wealth of subjects

The telegraph is good if you love the royal family very very much but it’s also a little bit right wing

And the guardian is a little bit left wing

It’s good for those who don’t particularly like the royal family. And maybe with a slightly higher reading age. But it’s just been found guilty of being a little bit unfair to Israel in its news reportage. I’m not sure how that is judged

Remember to come through any subscriptions to magazines and newspapers that you no longer want

I was very pleased that we were getting a Labour government after 14 years of suffering with the Tories

I have never voted for the conservatives and I never will.

I am a little worried because of the lack of experience of many of the people now in parliament and indeed in the Cabinet

And I know that they have to save money somewhere somehow without upsetting too many people. Already the Times reports that many of the top wealthy people in Britain are going to leave before or soon after the autumn budget.

They don’t want to pay more tax and they should be sharing wealth . But if they are like that we’re better without them.

In any case it’s an old story that’s always being rolled out by some newspaper and the Times is no longer what it used to be

The winter fuel payments were never part of the state pension but they were introduced by Gordon brown in 1997

Only a labour Government coukd risk changing them

And that’s what they are planning to do. Well no matter how much it saves it seems to have given ammunition to their enemies. As well as that there is a lot of opposition to Keir Starmer himself and his chancellor Rachel reeves from the left wing in the Labour Party who believed that he us no longer a left wing person. They don’t feel grateful that he has won the election at all whereas I do.

So he’s being attacked in two directions. It’s a pity that they didn’t think about this more before it was made public.

Instead of abolishing it for everybody except those on pension credits they could have made it taxable which would mean that the wealthy would pay 40% And moderately wealthy would pay 20% and poorer people would not pay anything at all in to the taxman.

Even this would have been criticized by the conservatives and by the press but it’s defensible

After all  state pensions rose by 900 pounds two years ago and by 400 pounds in the last year

Removing it entirely from people who just are a few pounds of pension credit is very tough it doesn’t look sympathetic at all and I think people do expect labour to be more kind to the poor or the old or the cripples than the Tories are.

There are arguments on both sides which are quite coherent and logical

But if you wanted to give some on a stick to beat you is you either remove something from children or from the elderly.

And it puzzles me because the prime minister is a very intelligent man and Rachel Reeves is a very intelligent woman

I’m not arguing against what they’re doing but I’m saying did they really know what the effect would be in the media. Always looking for bad news.. or for pretending something is bad news when it is not.

What they really need in their team is someone who has worked advertising

And that rules out me.

My speech to text calls the Tories the notorious and that’s quite a good name for them

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/sep/07/elizabeth-strout-all-ordinary-people-are-extraordinary-tell-me-everything-novel-olive-kitteridge-lucy-barton?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

When you’re young and have no secure place

When you don’t know who you are or who you’ll be.

Suffering a great loss is hard to face.

The pain of loss is grievous to embrace.

You look around but no solutions see.

When you’re young and have no secure place

If you feel so low beware the base

The good will show your mercy for no fee

Suffering a great loss is hard to face.

Life is hard and pain gives us distaste

But discipline is needed and is free

When you are young and have no secure space

For sorrow and its friends we feel distaste.

Yet we must mourn, the sages all agree

Suffering a great loss is hard to face

Have pity on the young and do not flee

They need our help our aid for we can see

When you are young and have no secure space

Suffering a great loss is hard to face

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jul/02/how-to-be-happy-when-the-news-is-bad-brexit-trump-oliver-burkeman/

Extract

” Stop telling yourself that you need to feel upbeat, and it begins to seem less pointless to make some tiny effort to address one or two of those problems: to take on a small weekly volunteering role here; to make a modest donation to charity there. The solution to feeling so despairing about the news, in short, is to let yourself feel despairing – and take action, too. “One of the great things about everything being so fucked up,” Jensen likes to say when speaking to audiences, “is that no matter where you look, there’s a lot of work to be done.”

Don’t kid yourself that you will single-handedly eradicate nationwide or global problems; instead, define and pursue small-scale goals, like joining a campaign with some connection to the issues that trouble you the most. Focus on activities you enjoy: these will be much easier to sustain. And there is certainly some relief in attending to your own wellbeing. Exercise, sleep, time spent in nature, meditation and socialising are all proven paths to increased happiness; they’re cliches, but only because they really work – and it isn’t self-indulgent to make time for them.

Paradoxically, it’s through taking action, despite not feeling happy about the situation, that a deeper kind of happiness can arise. (That’s certainly the implication of research on the emotional benefits of volunteering, charitable giving, community involvement and political protest.) Jensen has written that people sometimes ask him why he doesn’t just kill himself, if things are as bad as he says. “The answer is that life is really, really good. I am a complex enough being that I can hold in my heart the understanding that we are really, really fucked, and at the same time that life is really, really good. I am full of rage, sorrow, joy, love, hate, despair, happiness, dissatisfaction, and a thousand other feelings. ”

How will I know when it’s my last summer sitting in the open doorway smelling the soft green dampness

Later  suddenly opening the door I see the snails have gathered on the step again

Maybe they are discussing my future as they move on the red tiles.

I can’t go out without stepping on them and my foot is not so cruel today

I close the door again.

Nothing is so important that it could justify killing snails

And can they see us when they stop gluing themselves to the ground?

How would we find out whether the snails could see us?

If I had asked the teacher at school she would have said that I was being difficult or recalcitrant or simply stupid.

Well in the religious lesson we learned something about God but we also learned that God is unknowable.

And I’m wondering whether snails are also unknowable.

Still one snail can know another snail whereas one God cannot know another 

Because there is no other

That means God is very lonely but that must not mean anything.

Just because we can write the sentence down in English it doesn’t imply that it mean something.

But what is pleasant for humans is to know another human

And for snails perhaps that is also the case

Yet God the indivisible has no Other

Is that why he created snails

But how would you know what the snail was when there were no snails?

And how would he have imagined the butterflies and the moths

The ladybirds and the book worms.

I guess he is an interesting fellow. But unknowable to us.

In that case it’s good to be courteous and not to be too proud.

We are just a few steps up from the worm and the beetle and the butterfly

Maybe my words don’t mean anything but I’m thinking

I’m thinking I love snails.

He who has ears to hear let him hear

I believe that’s a quotation from the New testament and of course many of our sayings do come from the Bible and then from the works of Shakespeare and then from other great poets and writers.

But what what does this saying mean?

Everybody is born with hearing via their ears but this saying seems to be implying that there’s some other kind of hearing that not everybody attains.

So it doesn’t matter how wonderful a speech someone makes nor what’s an interesting conversation a friend is trying to have with you if you don’t have the right kind of hearing. And this involves a lot more than just the ears then what they’re saying is lost on you.

Because the senses don’t act independently and when you’re talking to someone it’s not just the words that you’re saying but they are reading your face and your eyes. They are reading your bodily movements.

This is where there could be problems for some of us if we are not familiar with understanding people’s faces and knowing their emotions and so on.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression

I could read him like a book

So there are different sorts of seeing and hearing probably far more than I would know about. So you may have eyes and ears that function normally but it is hard to learn how to hear and to see more deeply and more sensitively and not all of us achieve this. Because we we don’t know what we don’t know, if you see what I mean.

It reminds me of a young man proposing to a woman he loves but she remains

Deaf to his entreaties

Similarly Audi self might send us messages about the deeper needs of our self. But we may not hear these we may not notice anything.

How do we learn to hear?

It’s partly through contact with other people and through school,studying works of art and literature.

Maybe some people are more likely to notice these things.

If you’re living in a very unsafe country then you don’t have any space in your mind or how to take in more than what’s essential.

But it’s interesting there is always more to see a more to hear a more to learn if we learn how to be open to it

This is another say8ng6 of my mother. I think the meaning is obvious.

And moving from what happens in the UK into what happens to people in other countries it’s obvious that in many countries it really is true that many people live on the verge of start version

27 years ago the chancellor Gordon Brown introduced the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. This amounted to £200  for a person under 80 and £300 for those above 80.

Assumption is that many pensioners cant afford to pay their heating bills.

Our new government announced recently that this payment is going to be abolished and it’s causing a lot of controversy.

But I think a lot of people can’t afford to heat their homes to an ideal level

And who decides on that level? If you are over 70 it is recommended your home is heated to at least 18 C but there is no recommendation for the average person although it’s obvious that babies and young children will need warm bedrooms.

I think the right wing press are using this issue to attack the government an exaggerating the effect of the cut but on the other hand I’ve already said that I think it’s a mistake owing to a lack of imagination.

Even with this payment many pensioners will be afraid of the winter.

Food has gone a lot more expensive than it was before the pandemic. Brexit has probably influenced that

The mood in the country is poor many people feel very angry and unhappy.

So is it right that some people are paid very low wages waste is not possible to heat the home or eat the food that’s most desirable?

There are two main definitions of poverty in Britain. There is absolute poverty which means that you can’t eat properly buy suitable clothing and keep your home warm.

You may not have a home if you’re living in absolute poverty.

Then there is relative poverty. This means that you cannot afford things which are regarded as important by most people. You can only buy what’s essential and you may not be able to afford to buy your children a computer or a smartphone. You may not be able to dress in the way that you would like or the same applying to your children, I’m not sure where to place a problem of you can’t afford enough beds for your family so several children are sleeping in one bed or even sleeping on a chair, that sounds like absolute poverty but people in that position are not usually helped by the government or the local authority.

It’s been reported that school teachers are buying clothes for children or taking in food to give them breakfast and some teachers are providing laundry services for children’s school uniforms. This seems to happen when someone’s washing machine breaks down and they can’t afford to replace it

And taking a lot of close to the laundrette to wash is expensive. That is it’s expensive for the poor as the wealthy and the middle income people would be able to use a launderette if they wanted to.

So what indeed is essential. And what is a luxury?

I wonder whether anybody ever thinks about this in the government.

My grandfather was a coal miner for 50 years but I never heard him complain. I suppose his neighbours and relatives were in the same position and nobody had more heating than a coal fire in the living room. The rest of the house was not heated unless somebody was ill when possibly you might have a paraffin heater in the bedroom.

I can remember having a high temperature and lying in my mother’s bed with a Tilley lamp warming the room.

As I was delirious it seem to take on a threatening sound  so I lay there frightened

I can’t remember whether the room felt warm.

So people didn’t expect much. no there is more knowledge and more awareness of what other people are earning and  how they live. That makes it harder for the poor

Why do we have an appendix just like the Oxford dictionary and does this mean that I am a dictionary?

Aristotle invented logic but wouldn’t you have to know what it was before you could invent it?

The truth must have been that Aristotle gave a name to a certain use of language which already existed.

It seems very simple as in the argument

If all  A are B

And if this is an A

Then it must be a B.

It doesn’t seem very productive does it?

I am jealous of the Greeks because they could invent things that were quite simple since nothing else have been invented previously or at least nothing else have been given a name

So in a sense they were like gods because God invented the world or by naming the different parts.

So naming is extremely important

I’m frequently impressed when I remember sayings adages, things my mother used to say which are often related to bodily states

When I couldn’t find my glasses I was searching nervously or frantically and only found them when I gave up…..

I remembered my mother saying

You can’t see, for looking.

This is very interesting because like language itself and the developments from it these are coming from the lips of ordinary People. And they’re recognisinhg something which is only in the last hundred years been scientifically described I believe.

There are two kinds of seeing

Very focussed seeing.. narrow purposive vision… This is when we’ve got some thing which our mind is pinned on to and we ignore everything else apart from that very narrow bit of the world that we see very intently. We can also switch into this when we’re under stress, severe stress sometimes.

Then there is the way that the owl must look when it is looking from the tree for something to eat

Wide vision where you’re not focusing sharply on any individual spot in the landscape but your eyes widened and you’re scanning the whole at once. When the owl sees something then he or she must switch into the sharply focused mode and swoop down to catch the little beast that was spotted so the owl could have something to eat

I think artists also will be familiar with this. The eye muscles have to be relaxed which  will happen spontaneously when necessary or sometimes you can do it deliberately. There are breathing techniques and relaxation techniques which can switch into this mode

Going back to the adage

You can’t see for looking.

See refers to broad vision with the eye muscles relaxed

And ,cleverly, looking refers to sharply focused vision

So if you’re looking too hard you can’t see

Well it took me 48 hours to find my glasses

I had taken them off in my bedroom to put some sunscreen on my face and then I couldn’t find them

I was looking in the bedroom for them

But when I found them they were downstairs in the sitting room

I wasn’t even trying to find them them and I’d given up completely

My old ones are adequate for most purposes but nevertheless if you if you wear glasses you know that having the ones you’re used to especially for reading is really very important and some of us feel incomplete without them.

I’m always grateful when I find something and I often look up at the sky and say

Thank you.

And thank you to all those human beings that came before us and left us wisdom in these sayings. And this was long before they were schools and universities and other learning organizations.

I sometimes think that we are getting less intelligence as time goes on.

https://bigthink.com/business/5-ways-to-escape-survival-mode-and-reduce-stress-at-work/?utm_source=rejoiner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weeklynewsletter&utm_content=09%2F05%2F24+Smarter+Faster&rjnrid=gVk7OA6

The prophet Elijah heard the still small voice when he was hiding in a cave on top of Mount Sinai

This was during the iron age which is a long time ago.

But when I was thinking about the story one day I suddenly felt a strong kinship with this person who is on the mountain fleeing from Queen Jezebel who wanted to kill him and then he heard the voice of God speaking to him but it was not a strong or violent or  loud voice. No only when the tempest had gone and the fires had gone and everything was quiet that he heard the still small voice which is sometimes translated as a whisper.

I am not particularly religious in the conventional sense but ever since I heard this story possibly when I was a child I’ve always liked the idea because I think when we create things or when we looking for answers to a problem we often have to be patient and quiet so that we can hear this little voice inside us and I don’t think it’s just  the voice of conscience. I think it’s the Voice of creativity

When someone is brought up in a very religious home  it is quite frequent that they have a cruel conscience.

And one which does not whisper but shouts at them if they do the slightest thing wrong that they’re become afraid they’re going to go to hell and are very frightened

That kind of a conscience does not lead to creativity.

Because there’s another voice inside us just as there are other voices in our dreams and our day dreams. Are these little whispers helpful ideas or guidance on the path we are following that’s what I think they are.

But there is one important condition… that if we use them for egocentric purposes that the result will be no good. In other words the condition is selflessness. Just not egocentric if we can manage that but we can try not to do it things purely for self gratification or to become famous or wealthy or dominating

Our world is very noisy now ;once I went into a hairdressers and it was very quiet and peaceful so I was pleased but while my hair was being done the hairdresser apologised for the lack of music because something was broken in their system. When I said I preferred it like that she was very surprised.

It’s almost as if we’re trying to drown out the voice of God or whatever you like to interpret these things as.

And when we are alone we put the radio on or the television or we look on the computer for something to interest us.

I wonder how if we’re starting from the beginning how would we be able to encourage our inner self and begin to develop this little voice which helps us and to learn to hear it when it speaks. And although it’s quiet like a whisper it doesn’t mean it’s not important.

But it’s not going to use force on you because if you’re forced to do something or to listen to something you do not wish to cooperate. I would say that’s true for the majority of people. But if someone whispered the suggestion in your ear you’re much more likely to pay attention and to think about it as long as you’ve got a bit of time and space

And that’s the problem now for many people just trying to get a house pay the rent or more with have enough money for food and build and to encourage your children it’s very difficult even with our modern conveniences

Expect you’ve noticed that once we get a new machine like a washing machine instead of using it to help us we create more work by deciding that we can wash everyone’s clothes more frequently and that will take up the time that you saved

We have to keep some of that time for ourself even if other people think we’re being selfish. It may only be half an hour. But if we have half an hour every day quietly listening and waiting gradually we will change and notice things that we didn’t notice before.

This is what I have come to believe over the years and I have come across other people with the same perception.

It won’t make you famous or rich but it might make you more happy than you were or you may feel that you have to do something that might be difficult but that is your journey that is your vocation

Probably you won’t be happy unless you do that. But everybody’s got to find their own way. So if you don’t like what I say or you disagree with me that is very good.

Our opponents are our co-creators.

I’m not sure who said that but I think there’s a lot of truth in it.

Our opponents are not enemies.

I wish that more people believed that

My dear sister was sometimes critical of me because I have a lot of books. When I was ill someone decided to tidy it up and took my books out of the bookshelves: put them into boxes in a different room and told me,Your sitting room looks a lot better now that it’s  in order. Then I was very distressed even angry. I couldn’t find anything.

That’s the conventional view that a room which is half empty with polished furniture and neat sofas and chairs is the perfect home however order to me is not about constant tidying up to the extent that you are not allowed to eat drink or almost breathe in someone’s living room because they’ve just cleaned it.

And of course I knew where all my books were and I knew where all  my art books were

And I knew where the cookery boots were as well but it’s taken me a long time to find the books I need again.

I’m not finished the job yet.

So the deeper sort of order  is where the owner of the room or the house has an internal map of where everything is which may not be apparent to a stranger or even to a sister.

Interestingly, there is an article today in some of the newspapers saying that experts have found that the desire for total orderliness and minimalism is driving some people crazy when they’re already busy with looking after their family working in a demanding job or a boring job or tiring job.

Because being judged is very painful and if you feel that everybody who comes to visit you is going to judge you on the number of possessions you have and the state of your house then you won’t be able to relax and enjoy  their company

I expect one should follow the rule of

Do not take it personally

Yes we need a certain amount of order of the traditional kind. We need to wash our clothes we need to cook and wash up we need to make beds even to change the sheets but where’d you draw the line,?

I must confess that I was shocked when I was a student living in a bed sitter when one of my friends said she only changed sheets once a month.

At that point I was still doing what my mother did which was changing one sheet following the rule of top to bottom. As I got older and more tired and realized that if you are a clean person you might not need to change your sheets every week then that’s what I did… change them once a fortnight. And it’s nice to have clean sheets. So it’s a pleasure which might be worthwhile doing more frequently as long as it doesn’t make you ill and tired

In any case all the cleaning and tidying and washing used to be regarded as women’s work and of no value.

But in fact this work is of value despite my criticism of people who are over orderly and over  clean.

As I said to my sister,

A rich person like the author Michael Frayne can afford a big house with lots of bookshelves and so tidiness to some extent is linked with money

For older people and  thisr with asthma and other chronic conditions it may be very important to have a dust free and very clean home.

But it should not be regarded as a moral necessity.

I don’t know why some people feel impelled to judge others constantly.

Someone in my family criticizes another person if they get new furniture but really it wasn’t their business

It wasn’t causing any trouble financially so if this person wanted to have any furniture every five years or 10 years rather than waiing till it fell apart then to me that seemed a reasonable choice because life is not very long and if you don’t like your furniture to get worn out and dirty and you want to get a new sofa or whatever that is your choice and you are entitled to it if you can afford it. And that’s one of the problems about poverty that peopke are not only short of food and heating bills are frightening but also they they have no choice about whether they want a new bed or a fridge or freezer because they can’t afford it anywhere even if it’s necessary.

There’s a lot of pain in being poor and it is not acknowledged by many of us. And it’s not surprising that mental illness is more common in the poor.

And if you were a powerful person people will not criticize you for being untidy because they’ll be frightened or you.

Still I would not wish to live the way that I the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch lived because you have to recognize that if your floor is covered in rubbish you are at risk of getting rodents etc

So I’m not advocating for complete ignoring of dirt and mess but saying that having a few piles of books in your living room it’s not really something to be ashamed of.

If I went into a room like that I would long to look at the books and be interested in the person.

I suppose wevwomen don’t always 1 realise what stress we are suffering instead we feel guilty because our home is not perfect like the ones on the television programs we’ve been having recently.

Since my home was tidied I found it much harder to write because my hands reach out for a book in a shelf but it’s not there. I spend time trying to find it and its fellow books which used to be so near me all the time.

If you want to help another person don’t assume that they want their house to be tidy in the way your house is tidy. That they want all their kitchen utensils in a jug on the windowsill because what looks disorderly to one person is actually the order of somebody else. That’s somebody else is different from you. That they are entitled to their own way of life

And also you may need to tell them that you cannot just borrow books from the public library because they do not have books that are only readable by a small group of people about things like philosophy history poetry music art. It’s become even more true in recent years when governments have cut back on money and the local council is running out of money and so they closed the libraries or they buy fewer books.

And if you want the book as a reference book as you might do if you are a writer or an academic or an artist then borrowing it from the public library is not really sufficient. That’s why people steal sometimes. And that’s selfish but on the other hand is understandable if you can’t afford to buy something that you really need badly.

Extract from the book by Marion Milner

An experiment in leisure

But if man’s salvation depended on his capacity to see the facts, both about himself and the outside world, and if the poets were the pioneers in this, what were the conditions under which poetry could grow? For a long time I had been puzzled by the continual recurrence of images from the Bible in my thinking. Then I find this note in my diary: Just supposing this is what the Gospel story is partly about? All this year it’s been growing in my mind, the possibility that the Gospel story is concerned, not with morals at all, not with what one OUGHT to do, because someone (God, father). expects it of you, but with practical rules for creative thinking, a handbook for the process of perceiving the facts of one’s own experience – and, of course, in this sense, with ‘salvation’, for it is ignorance and blindness which lead to the City of Destruction. And the central truth, is it that only by a repeated giving up of every kind of purpose, plunging into the void, voluntary dying upon the cross, can the human spirit grow, and achieve those progressive fusings of isolated bits of experience which we call wisdom, truth?

Why did Jesus walk on the water?

To escape from the quicksands

Why did Jesus feed the 5,000?

That was the biggest number they could think of when writing the New Testament

Why did Jesus cross the road?

Because the other side was flatter.

Why do we learn arithmetic in school?

Because it would be boring in school with nothing to do

Why do we have to learn to read in school?

So you can go on the internet on your phone and get into trouble arguing on political forums.

Who could have been the first person who learned to read?

It must have been the first person who invented writing because until there was writing there couldn’t be any reading

Did Adam and Eve have a library?

Nobody could read what God had written.

Did Cain and Abel go to a comprehensive school?

Well it didn’t teach comprehensive morals did it?

What would God think of  VAT on private school fees?

Jesus didn’t need to go to school.

Why are rich people averse to paying more tax?

Because they don’t want to get through the eye of the needle.

If you are forced to give money to the poor it’s not an act of virtue.

Well it still helps the poor though.

It’s not the winter fuel allowance,it’s the disparity between the rich and the poor.

Many people are criticizing the government for deciding to stop paying this extra two or three hundred pounds once a year to pensioners.

Some of the more right-wing newspapers are publishing pathetic stories about old people probably dying of Cancer or other diseases who will be badly affected by losing 200 pounds a year.

But nobody mentions the fact that they enormous gap now in this country between the rich and the poor it’s got wider under the conservative government. And there are many people but elderly and young and middle aged who are very poor and cannot afford enough heating in the winter.

If there was more equality of income and in particular less gigantic bonuses for people at the top of companies such as water and electricity and so on then nobody would need the winter fuel allowance. And if you are a really poor pensioner then even

£ 200  extra is not sufficient to pay to heat even a small flat for the long British winter

But of course it is an error by this government because it can make headlines.

It seems to be a lack of imagination, did they not realize how the right wing press would use this?

I hope this is not a sign of some weakness of imagination and some lack of intelligent thought about how such decisions will play out in public.

We dont want the prople at the bottom of my society to suffer like they did when the cConservatives won the election and defeated Gordon brown. Too much suffering already.

So I am glad that we’ve got a new government of a different sort but I hope they will be able to take advice about choosing rightly how to get more money to do what needs to be done.

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.