Don’t put a comments box on your post because if people put comments on you’ll have to reply to them and that will take up your precious time.
Never read blogs written by other people. You have read all the great writers so why bother?
Don’t allow “likes” either because people might “like” things that they’ve not read
Then the only statistics you get will be the number of visitors and their countries. You don’t even need to bother to look at that
So why would you continue to blog once you put all those restrictions on your blog?
Well you just have to try it. You are still writing and someone might read it possibly but you will never know and you’ll certainly won’t know who they are or whether they are interested in the same things as you etc
Maybe you want to show your friends or your family that you have a blog but you don’t want anything negative written on it although as a matter of fact most people are very courteous and dont write really horrible comments like the following
Do you consider yourself to be a poet? You must be very conceited.
These poems are getting worse month by month so this is my duty to tell you that you’re wasting your time here. You’d be better off going for a walk.
Do you consider these to be short stories? Even children wouldn’t bother to read them and they normally like stories are some cartoons as well it might help but I can’t guarantee that unless you improve the quality.
Well if only you would stop writing it would free up 45 minutes of my time every day and I could stay in bed longer in the morning looking at the clouds go past my window.
Of course I could ignore your blog but you might think that was rude
Perhaps you could write an article about why people like to stay in bed longer in the morning. And is it true when you are getting older?
Personally I’m sick and tired of being in bed and I’m in bed because I’m sick and tired.
Mary was in the teal coloured kitchen of her almost detached house making a jam sponge pudding when the doorbell rang.She wiped her hands on her new purple trousers because she didn’t want to dirty a clean towel.
She found her colleague Dr Rosa Benchez standing nervously outside shivering
Come in , Mary cried.
Would you like a cup of tea? You need to sit by the fire and get warmer
I’d love that, Rosa said politely but distantly
A few minutes later they were sitting looking out of the bay window watching a blackbird sitting on the fence;they hoped it would start to sing
May I talk to you,Mary? I have got rather more agitated than ever before
.I am wondering if I need counselling or maybe shooting, she joked morosely
OK,said Mary cautiously.Has anything unusual happened ?
Yes, my sister has had her driving license taken away because of big panic attacks she had crossing the Humber Bridge …. you know how huge it is.She got out of the car and screamed,Help! Help!
That was dangerous with so much traffic about
She is furious and says we live in a Nazi state and is writing to the Times
Well, it can happen that you lose your licence,Mary said,but when she has learned to deal with the attacks she can re-apply and get her license back.Simple things like not eating and being tired can bring that on so I have heard.And fear of fear, too.
As well as that,Rosa said,my son has got a recurrence of cancer and is going onto some new drug-type chemo.My ex husband is very distressed and so am I as it was unexpected.
And even worse my new fiance Prof. Charlie Blogge has broken off our engagement with no reason.I can’t think of any at all.Shall I ever trust a man again?
He said I can keep the ring which is a blue sapphire ,supposedly, but when I had it valued they said I was mistaken and you can buy them on amazon for £57 and less.
So she took off the ring and hurled it into Mary’s coal fire where it looked very nice as it got hotter and hotter glowing like a lighthouse off Portland Bill in a sea storm or a banger about to explode
Good grief, said Mary.No wonder you are agitated.We may have to phone Dave the bisexual lovable paramedic available on the NHS 24 hours a day.Or we could have our hair permed and dyed red instead, she murmured to herself
Which of these events bothers you most,Rosa? She continued gently while hoping she would cope.
It is my own feelings that worry me most.I wake up feeling very sad and nervous;I wonder if I am having a breakdown.Then I feel worse as I turn it over in my mind trying to decide what to do.Then I get up and get food into me and think it all over and over again while drinking my tea.
Well, you know it is normal to feel sad, anxious or distraught when bad things happen,Mary told her.
But most people look happy when I see them in the town , Rosa shouted angrily
That is because being outside they put on a mask.They could be feeling worse than you.Anyway, why bother about that? We are all different.Some people think I am very calm but they don’t see me when I’m not.I go stiff like a piece of wood.Then I pass out
So what do you do? Rosa asked her nervously,twirling a golden ringlet around her finger as she watched her engagement ring melt in the fire.
I don’t do anything,Mary said.This is one of the fundamental errors in our society that action is needed for so many things and especially for negative feelings.But it’s usually part of life.Things pass.
I pretend I have a big round box inside me and I let the anxiety live in there nice and cosy until my mind has absorbed and dealt with the pain.Once my box was quite small but it has grown bigger now and so it has room for mad or bad feelings.I do little tasks and listen to music.
Then if I feel really bad I listen to Leonard Cohen and tell myself, he had it worse.But he made money out of it! Not that you can make money out of yours. though it’s worth musing about
Well,Rosa replied.Thank you,Mary.I am glad I am not the only one who feels so anxious sometimes.I shall try to get a box like yours.
You are welcome,said Mary jovially.Come round on Sunday for tea.Emile is out hunting but he loves to see you and so do I
The women hugged cautiously and Rosa went out looking less cold and nervous as she bravely carried her box away .It was invisible to the people walking nearby
I am sorry that going to the pain in my hands at the moment I cannot do copying and pasting but this article is very worthwhile and it includes a video
It’s hard to find something at the right level and it does not make you have to memorize lots of long names that you will never really find useful in your writing
Because what matters is to write not to fast examinations about writing although it’s obviously very useful to know as much as you can manage of techniques even if you don’t want to use them.
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
Oh, lidded kettle boil me water fast I cannot live without your heated blast Your spout is small but perfect for its use And, as your lid is hinged. it can’t get lost
An electric kettle made by Russell Hobbs A teapot with a spout and lid with knob Are what the Britons need in times of storm If crisis comes, we need tea hot,not warm
I don’t object to diverse kettle brands. We had a coal fire once with kettle stand. Its metal black from soot and burned by coke We made our neighbours tea which seemed to smoke.
Ah,kettle ,instrument of civil life We cannot boil our water on a knife
Are bring and buys considered decorous,Emily fretted.
Give help immediately to Jackie’s kittens,Lorna.
My name often passes quotidian testing.
Why X-rate your zoom?
And buy cameras down Eastside for Greta.
Have I Jolted Klaus’s lot?
My number often precedes quantities rendered silent.
To understand videos we x-ray your zapper
As boys create dens essential for growth ,her inner Joker laughed merrily
Need often precedes qualitative results so theory uses watery.X rays
Yonder zodiacs are better counted down each Friday given her inept jangling locks.
My needs often pessimistically quell roosting turkeys.
Use version Waterman.X, yes,zero.
Amwell ,because Christmas Day exists for gaging her inner judge.
Lend me no open papers,questions rated summarily tested when?
Your X zapped Anna.Be clear,darling,
Enjoy framing geese,hens, joked Larry,
Men need only present quarry sent to Wigan.
X Y Z
Shall I miss the journeys that we made
Up sheer cliffs and through deep muddy yards
Chased by geese and then in heather laid?
I cannot catch you now, it is too far.
You cleaned my boots back in the cottage sweet
On the bed, you covered me in coats
Tenderly you stroked my crooked feet
And hot and sugared tea you once more brought
A dog stopped by and held out its clean paw
It shook your hand and gazed with amber eyes
Remote and cold, the Hartland Cliffs we saw
Where have you got to now, my love, disguised?
Danger and delight then drew us on
I cannot find your face, where have you gone?
You may never have read a poem in your life, and yet you can pick up a volume of Mary Oliver say, or Neruda, or of Rumi, open it to any page, and suddenly find yourself blown into a world full of awe, dread, wonder, marvel, deep sorrow, and joy.
Poetry at its best calls forth our deep being. It dares us to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind; it calls to us, like the wild geese, as Mary Oliver would say, from an open sky. It is a magical art, and always has been — a making of language spells designed to open our eyes, open our doors and welcome us into a bigger world, one of possibilities we may never have dared to dream of.
This is why poetry can be dangerous as well as necessary. Because we may never be the same again after reading a poem that happens to speak to our own life directly. I know that when I meet my own life in a great poem, I feel opened, clarified, confirmed somehow in what I sensed was true but had no words for. Anything that can do this is surely necessary for the fullness of a human life.
Autumn rust,red,gold,so gay.
Drystone walls, edging fields,
Apples gathered,holly berries
Flash so brightly
Look like flowers
Sun shines sideways,shadows long
Of trees appear I dwell among
Woods of gentle beeches sing
Swaying with the sideward wind.
See their roots, all intertwined.
Feel their geometry in the mind.
Look up now into the sky,
See the V formation high.
Geese fly home at end of day.
My heart is moved by patterned dance
In this peace and great silence
My mind opens like the sky
And in this moment I would die,
So I could stay with this still vision
Of geese set out on autumn mission.
Snails in rain pools slither near
My feet upon the terrace here
And look,upon their whorled backs
All the sense of life is packed.
And yet so easily Life’s destroyed,
When blind foot steps into the void.
According to Hopkins, its intended effect was to reflect the dynamic quality and variations of common speech, in contrast to the monotony of iambicpentameter. His own poetry illustrates its use; though there have been few imitators, the spirit and
In my dreams I travel deep and low
Into the loving world of long ago
The jacket on the chair ,it smelled of smoke……
The funny tales, he sang, he laughed, he spoke
So faint the memory, strong are its remains
Security and love in our domain
The brushes and the stipplers all stood by
For no-one told his tools that he would die.
On his shoulders, like a queen I rode
So safe and happy on the path he trod.
His voice was clear and he could whistle too
In those days men were used to do
And love shone from him on my mother dear
She smiled and made us cakes for Sunday tea
What tragedy to leave his children five
But in that distant space ,he is alive
The fire as red as any glowing rose
We were dressed so well in home made clothes
Too happy, needing no words to relate
Our sense of being in this generous space
I can’t get back to them, I cannot swim
The passages too wet , the light so dim
Yet I feel it in my body faint and clear
Death is not the end of those so dear.
Deep inside our minds, ancestors live
And to out hearts a depth and breadth they give
Yet missing him,I hover near the place
Where I might dive into his dear embrace
The table where we banged our little heads
The chairs so close together like a bed
The teapot always full, the sugar bowl
The fire, the kettle , pussy cat and coal
The fireplace had its oven nice and warm
Looking at hot coals made me feel calm
The children seem to play in that far space
And all around is love and on and on I gaze
While there is life there is hope because while we’re alive we can change our perception and if we change our perception we will see new things that we’ve not been able to see before and one of those might be what we need
But if we are certain that we are right then we will not change our perceptions and we will try to inflict our views on everybody else.
The wisdom of these old sayings is very interesting and it shows that most of the things that we know where discovered by ordinary people not by academics
Of course there are some wonderful academics but sometimes I wonder about this
Do you think it might be a urinary tax inspection ?
You have to tell them how much urine you pass in a day. I’m not sure what are the rate of tax is
If you have sepsis you stop passing water and so getting sepsis could be aware of avoiding tax although it may only be for a very short time before you die and then you would not have to pay any kind of tax
Do you mean that we are allowed to die in this country without paying any tax?
Yes if it’s a sudden death.
When we have assisted dying then you can notify the tax office of the date you’ve chosen and ask them are you liable for tax? If not you could die twice for the same price. That is free
When they say that they’ve got a virus what they mean is that a virus has got them
Viruses that kill people are not very sensible because the viruses will die when you die or soon afterwards. Is that why they put you in the fridge?
What is this sense of humour you’ve developed today? I blame it on the doctor.
I thought she was going to diagnose me with cancer and all it was was a bloody infection.
If it’s bloody you might have crystals in your urine.
That sounds promising can I sell them to anybody?
You see everything is transactional now even friendship.
So I’m offering my friendship on the following formula
One for the price of two.
In other words I will be your friend if you pay me double the normal rate and anyway who tells us what’s the normal rate for friends to be paid or to pay?
Of course we all pay the price of our sins but that is in a metaphorical sense… sin diminishes us. It limits our perception and therefore our behaviour based on that perception. So anything that improves perception changes the world that we see and then our own actions will change it more for other people.
We don’t hear the words sin much nowadays. But that doesn’t mean that there is none.It is a cunning trick.
By the way some parents in Germany have been forbidden to call their child Lucifer. The judge said it might limit the child’s job opportunities in adult life
Do you think that I’ve made that up? No it was in one of the leading newspapers in Britain
And where are they leading us I wonder in this confusing and dangerous era?
Time will tell but there’s a lot of disaster around
Mary was in her bedroom which once had been a study.There were books every where all randomly arranged
Shall I toss away “Functional Analysis “by Riesz-Nagy?I can’t remember it but it’s a classic text.She looked at her other books and found three rhyming dictionaries…. and Strunk’s guide to style.
Is American style the same as English ? she asked herself.I’d better read that.
When she opened her desk drawers hoping to find a ring she had lost she was thunderstruck by how dirty the white bases were.She sat there on her folding chair musing on this and wondering about Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas.
A whole jar of nail scissors and pens stood ,previously unnoticed, by the window.So that’s where they went,Mary thought.Things seem to appear and disappear disconcertingly at random.Perhaps she had never achieved what is called object constancy by Freudians which must not be confused with objecting to constancy.That is something quite different. that some men like to do
Mary had some clear polythene bags by her and Emile watched as he hid inside the open wardrobe under Mary’s dresses and cardigans.She found some shoes under her desk so put then into a green bag; the socks she collected in a white one and the pens and art stuff went into a box.
What chaos there was in the room with face cream and books on the bed and boxes of tissues and cotton wool balls strewn about.
Emile came out of the wardrobe stretching and yawning as only tom cats cam
Shall I ring 999 , you look tired, he said mellifluously.
Oh,how kind, she responded politely in her delightful way
Soon Dave the transvestite paramedic appeared wearing a maxidress from Marks and Spencers’
Does that need ironing,~Mary asked him
No, it drip dries really well, he answered gracefully
I wonder if I should buy one,she muttered cautiously
If you go to your GP you might find you can get one on prescription
Do you think so? I’ve never heard of that before,she responded
Well, you could say it will cure your depression and grief from losing your dear old man
He will say that no double blind experiments have been done to prove dresses help women to feel better. when bereaved she told Dave cautiously
How about a double bind operation,Dave asked scientifically
What do you mean? Mary said philosophically
We tie ourselves together with string and then kiss and hug and see how it goes… one never knows when old
Well I don’t see why we need string.Someone might think we are a parcel and post us to China or even North Korea.
How about Israel?
Why do you think we’d end up there?
They have some great museums.And we could Wail at the Wall.
I could do with a good Wail,Mary replied as tears ran down her pink and cream cheeks.But I am unsure if one wails there out of grief or is it something more? Like sorrow about the Temple being destroyed.Why do they not get over it?
Well it’s rather like England and the Tudors… all those films and books as if Henry 8 th deserved such fame for ever
I’d prefer the Temple to him, said Mary fastidiously.That was a place of worship and beauty
I’d love to see the Temple.If only we could go back in time,Dave informed her.But the main point is Mary I love you so I must leave your bedroom before I die of repressed desire and lack of your tender touch
I am sorry Dave,I never knew you felt that way about me,Mary told him .Perhaps we should go to the kitchen and make some nice hot tea.And I just bought some biscuits from Marks and Spencers which are much better than any others I’ve had
So they sat at the pine table drinking Ceylon tea and eating custard creams as they watched the sun through the Acer next door.Why the neighbours had a laptop hanging from a tree nobody knew.Was it to make themselves seem superior?Was it going to be connected to the electricity so it would be like a Xmas decoration?Time will tell.Or it may fall off and kill some slugs and snails… isn’t life interesting
There is a paradox about individual life. That someone can die but everything goes on the same. So it seems an individual life is not important and yet if we said this of every individual we would be finding that nothing is important. So the paradox is that we are very important and at the same time we are not important
When we lose someone we love we suffer the agony of pain and grief and we know that our world has changed dramatically and can never be the same again and yet for most of the people in the world this is not true it doesn’t matter to them.
Anyway that’s fortunate because if we had to grieve for every human being who died we would never stop grieving for a moment.
We ourselves matter to some other people but also because we are part of the human race and if nobody matters then life would be meaningless
But we only grieve deeply for those we know and yet with a modern news media we learn about the terrible suffering going on in other parts of the world and it seems that we can also grieve for those people who died today the same day that my sister died.
And death is necessary. Like leaves fall from the tree and become part of the soil eventually from which new trees will grow or flowers.
If only we did not have blood:if only we could fall like a flower and gently become dust but we have not green sap but we have red blood and when we are wounded we bleed. And it’s a terrible thing to see
And a lot of blood is being shed today all over the world in places where it just not seen necessary.
The reasons for allowing other people to be killed don’t seem good enough. What reason could be good enough?
Well, we might have thought it was a good idea if someone had killed Hitler in 1933 or at any time during his reign of Terror
But even then there would have been arguments about whether a human being could take such a decision and about another person
Taking even one life is a very serious event.
That’s why we pretend that certain groups of people are not really human so it could racially based for it could be that certain children born with certain defects will be better off dead. It wasn’t just the Nazis thought that.
Well we saw the horrors of their path.
Everyone is of value.
That’s why it’s wrong to treat the poor and the disabled with cruelty.
In Victorian times they said that the children in the working class didn’t feel the cold that’s why they didn’t wear shoes because they didn’t feel the cold.
The fact that their parents couldn’t afford shoes for them was ignored. This is of course the defense mechanism of denial.
We all use these defences at times. Especially when it serves our interest so the wealthy could enjoy their wealth because the poor don’t need shoes, a good dinner, decent housing.
Just like animals have been treated a lot of the time but animals are not human beings and it’s far worse to treat human beings that way
Unfortunately it seems that the people in power don’t have this mentality on the whole. They want to become rich and they want their friends to become rich and if there’s a few pennies left after that then give it to the disabled as long as you’re absolutely sure that they are really disabled and not just faking it
For Winnicott, aggression is the infant’s natural exuberance and assertion, its motor activity, a ruthlessness without the intention of destruction, and it fuels creativity and the self’s coming into being (becoming alive, having a sense of self). Aggressiveness, as such, is part of who the infant is
Mary was admiring the rowan tree outside her window when she saw Annie running down the street
Well Annie I didn’t know that you could still run so fast:why are you here in such a breathless state?
Oh it’s my New Year resolution: don’t you know that running is very good for you?
Wlell in theory that might be true but when you’re over 80 is it a good time to start?
I have no choice because I didn’t start when I was younger and time doesn’t go backwards.
Would you like some breakfast? I have some very nice bread here from the bakery and some lovely honey from Devon.
They at down at the kitchen table.
Where did you get your running shoes from, Mary asked her friend?
Oh I think they belonged to my husband. They were in the wardrobe and as I like the colour blue I thought what’s the point of buying new ones?
Well,stone the crows I am amazed you never needed an excuse to buy new shoes before even though you have 78 pairs already.
How do you know tl I have got 78 ,,?
Well I like the number 78 because it’s divisible by 13. So I counted your shoes to see if they would fit the pattern as I have got 65 pears.
And did Stan have 52 pairs ?
Of course not he was a man: men don’t have so many shoes. It dates back to when shoes had to be polished. No man would like to polish 52 pairs of shoes nor come to that would have liked to polish 13 If you have 13 pairs of shoes that will be one pair each for the 12 disciples of Jesus and Jesus himself at the Last Supper although if there were any folk serving the food there would not be enough for them. Why am I saying all these ridiculous things?
And any way how does being divisible by 13 help you or the world or in particular Sir Keir Starmer?
It’s hard to explain it but it just pleases me somehow maybe it’s a distraction from reality.
What is reality anyway Annie asked her rudely
Why it’s just like being back at Oxford with iris Murdoch as our tutor
You seem to forget that I did not go to Oxford; well I have been to the station of course but I never was matriculated there nor anywhere else for that matter. I did go into Marks and Spencer’s there though
Well you’re in good company because 99.99% of the world did not matriculate at Oxford. Most of them don’t even speak English and would not know what matriculation means. But they would all love to go into Marks and Spencers
Words are very interesting because sometimes we read words that we’ve never heard anyone say and we are likely to misspeak
Well I don’t know what anything means, to be honest.
Do you put a comma after means; it’s because if you don’t it’s a completely different sentence?
I see that you don’t know what it means to be honest Is that what you’re trying to tell me?
As long as you don’t use the term fake news I will be quite content with whatever you say whether or not I’ve ever heard the words before.
Give me some examples please
Mishap and awry
You have to see them written down and imagine you’ve never seen them before nor have you heard anyone say them and then you realize the problem unless you are very stupid in which case you won’t know if and your life will go on like a wide river flowing down slowly and gently into the sea with no great waves to drown any animals or people who are not being careful
Now I feel sleepy I wonder if I am awake or asleep. Am I really writing the story or am I just imagining it
How could I know?
How would you know that you know or that you knew,?
Do you know something Annie I think I’ll get married again because when you’re married to a man you don’t have conversations like this do you?
You are so right Mary.
I am so sorry that I am not a man. Evening by try to pretend to be a man I don’t think now my mind would change sufficiently to please you by a totally different kind of conversations not to mention other things that men and women might get up to in private.
Well I think it’s getting a bit late now so why don’t we stop here and then tomorrow we will make a new start
Can we make some new year resolutions ?
Well we can but we should think very carefully first and then we should think even more carefully afterwards.
Oh this is getting on my nerves why do we have to keep thinking all the time?
Do cats think;do eagle think?
Isn’t it wonderful that there are so many questions that don’t have any answers in the system in which we are enmeshed?
Now just stop that We’ve already had one Wittgenstein. I’m not sure if the world can take another one.
The best thing I’m going to do tomorrow is making a cake from a very old recipe that was handed down to me from my grandmother. And it’s got lots of ground almonds in it which are very nutritious as well as being delicious
That’s the best idea you’ve had tonight
My New Year resolution is to start to make cakes again at home and then to invite our friends around on Sunday afternoon to eat them
How my heart sings 