The dog has barked,now Babylon’s destroyed.
The evil that men do was here employed
There is no answer to the question why
For every day a man is born, has died.
The fruits of hatred cannot be enjoyed
I may speak the truth but you can lie
The cock did crow but who has been denied?
Which of us has been the honoured spy?
Who has killed the horse that came from Troy?
Who will seek a bargain, where’s your eye?
Where is the fire that burns who is the Guy?
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
Do you remember when the world was dark
Before we had electric lights and cars,?
When what we valued was the vital spark
Everyone could gaze up at the stars.
Now the world is bright, there is no night
Everything is open but our minds.
Will no one ever wish for better sight?
What is the future for the human kind?
Why aren’t we content with modest lives?
Do we need three bathrooms in our homes?
Rather it should be a place of love
Where hearts and minds are gentle ,hate unknown?
Excessive light will make excessive dark
Moderation surely is less stark
Those I thought were friends now slide away
Hiding in the shadows with no light
No mirror can reflect the sun today
Maybe it’s my eyes that cannot see
Blinded by the shock of what I read.
I thought that we were lovers you and me
The looks and glances, what you nearly said.
As for all the others let them lie.
I shall not hear their words my ears are shut
My heart has shrunk, and slow the time goes by
I feel the knife blade but I cannot cut.
Do not cast your friends off with no word.
We do not like to feel the world’s absurd
Twas illig, and the blithely Stoats ,did fire a Thimble at a Ghost.
Around the World I’ve Lied with You Bare and Blush,The Twin Horror Show.
Alice in Blunderland.
Malice through the Magnifying Glass.
Malice in Gove Land.
All Whimsy were the Government’s Groves:Chequers for Hecklers
All flimsy were the Lying Grounds, yet the War Mongers Outslayed
Where are they,Mioaw?Cameron’s Cats for Rich Rools..
Who stole my Government?
Shall I compare Thee to a Carving Knife? : The N.H.S reduced to Size.
How to write and sell your first Comedy of Errors: Mandel’s Sunset.
Death and Menace: New Big Society for the disabled.
Where have all the People Gone?: Holidays at Home for Dummies.
Philosophy in a new Sea. Lost Ideas and Drowning Brainwaves
I went into a coffee shop and the waitress said,
Are you still here?
I looked round all the tables and I couldn’t see myself
So I said,No!
I went to a hairdresser and asked for a cut and blow dry
She said, what do you want me to do?
Buy some scissors,I replied
I went to the Bank and a man in the queue said to me are you married
I said, why are you asking?
He said,I lost my wife in Marks and Spencers so I am looking for another
How long since you lost her?
Over an hour!
I went to the bus stop but it didn’t
I wanted a red pepper but they only had black
The pieces are so small I can’t understand how they pick them
My fence blew away and I thought:
I bet Trump wants it.So I am building a dry stone wall.
I have got the stones so I put them in the oven to dry
iF anyone climbs on this they will get burned
.
Non verbal communicarion is good at dinner parties
Pull faces, stick your tongue out and wriggle your ears
Then they won’t mind when you leave
They might even pay for a cab
Eye contact is hard when you wear spectacles
Who ever heard of eyeballs kissing?
Anger is an emotion which is necessary to feel sometimes with hostility implies you what a very negative attitude towards other people. At least some other people maybe not everybody.
You may be afraid of them, you may hate them and vice versa
But hostility is very bad for you. Not to mention the people that you focus your hostility onto.
It’s the biggest risk factor for bad health worse than a bad diet or lack of exercise. And it does not make for happiness even if you try to limit it
How alien this world seems now you are gone
What can give us comfort in the night
I had two two sisters once and now I’ve none
To whom can I speak when work is done?
Who can give me comfort bring me light?
How alien this world seems now you are gone
I can never speak to you again
Never see your eyes which were so bright
I had two sisters once now I have none
Gradually we separate with pain
We are no longer strong we’ve lost our might
How alien this world seems now you are gone
I must accept the grief I must not fight.
Rejected feelings wake us in the night
How alien this world seems now you are gone
Once I had two sisters now I’ve none
Posted on March 23, 2017
The confusing swirl of violence broke down walls
And panic rushed in through the holes and gap
I saw folk taking photos, checking maps,
Their phones gripped like a weapon that appals.
We see then what comprises our defence.
The connection to our family and friends. The need to make a record of the end.
The need to look again till it makes sense.
I felt a well-known numbness cover me My heart needs its own time to feel the pain
The world I live in is not safe, that’s plain. From Al Jazeera to the BBC.
The masks of innocence deceive. Hatred of this kind is misconceived.
From Hillary Mantel’s letter
I’m not sure life has a meaning, in the abstract. But it can have a definite purpose if you decide so – and the carrying through, the effort to realise the purpose, makes the meaning for you.
It’s like alchemy. The alchemists were on a futile quest, we think. There wasn’t a philosopher’s stone, and they couldn’t make gold. But after many years of patience exercised, the alchemist saw he had developed tenacity, vision, patience, hope, precision – a range of subtle virtues. He had the spiritual gold, and he understood his life in the light of it. Meaning had emerged.
“hostile question can be defused by a non-defensive answer. Suzette Haden Elgin” https://kanah.app/summaries/quotes/1836#:~:text=hostile%20question%20can,Suzette%20Haden%20Elgin
I am going shopping today,Mary informed Stan.I have decided to buy a corset.I am too fat.
I hope it’s not a whalebone corset,Stan teased her. gently
Are they still allowed to use the bones of whales? she asked.One whale must have massive bones.Why not use dog’s bones?
Well,Stan said,you may be plump but don’t torture yourself for beauty.I love you as you are,sweetheart.
Mary got onto her bicycle and rode into town passing some lovely magnolias and forsythia.She locked her bike to the church gate as sinners cannot be trusted especially just after Confession.
Hello,I’m looking for a whalebone corset,she informed the lady in the lingerie department.
What!We don’t have them any more.They ran out of baleen which is horny material in a whale’s mouth.
Was it their teeth ,asked Mary tremulously.
Eeh,I don’t know said the assistant.Anyway,now we have shapewear.It looks like underwear but it’s elasticated.So it keeps your curves in like those minimiser bras
Mary burst out laughing as she imagined wearing an elasticated vest which would push all her fat up round her neck or down onto her bum .Or an elasticated pair of knickers which push the fat upwards. onto her abdomen.And furthermore,how easy would it be to get them down in the bathroom? Worse still,if Stan took her to a restaurant and she could not pull them down for a wee…should she take some scissors?
Mary stopped laughing when she saw all the staff staring at her,
Are you alright,madam? one asked rather ferociously.
Yes, it’s my dwindling hormones.They make me laugh hysterically from time to time.It’s better than getting those hot flushes,in my view.
Why not have HRT? the lady replied.
Excuse me,said Mary,but I do not wish to discuss my health matters in public but thank you for your concern.She was rather pleased with that having just read
“A woman’s guide to compassionate self assertion.”
Although she did wonder why it was addressed only to women.Emile agreed when she discussed over milk and cat niblets which Mary had to eat when she ran out of food.
As Mary stood in the Shapewear department she remembered the time she tried on some denim jeggings as they seemed to be in fashion.They looked very nice but she had such a hard time getting them off she thought she would have to buy them and cut them off at home.
So all of a sudden she picked up her Mondrian pvc shopping bag and her green handbag and ran out of the door into the button and wool department.
My,you look hot, her friend Gail said.I am buying some merino wool for neckwarmers.Do you ever knit nowadays,Mary?
Only with whales bones,she murmured.And it’s so hard to find them now.
Well, whales must still have bones,dear,otherwise they would collapse.
Surely you don’t expect me to catch my own whale.Mary cried in fear having seena film on this topic.
And how about Jonah?Suppose I find a prophet inside the whale?
That could be just who we need,Gail said.Someone who can tell us what God wants us to do.
Would people listen,Mary asked Gail tremulously
Only if he went on Twitter I suppose.
Could Donald Crump be a prophet? Mary muttered
No,he’s too big for a whale to swallow even if the common people swallow his nonsense.He sounds as if he’d like to treat women the way they do in some countries like Saudi Arabia.40 lashes for taking the morning after pill.
It could be hard to have,”the night before” in a place like that.
The two women gazed blankly in front of them trying to remember their youth and their mad love affairs.
Let’s go into the Cricketer’s Arms and have a drink Gail said.
I’d rather have coffee,Mary replied.So off they went arm in arm humming
“I believe in angels “very loudly to frighten off any evil spirits from the lingerie department.We know the Devil loves bras and suspender belts with lace trimmings as he is ,in fact ,the god Pan who was a goatherd with a horn on which he played his music to tempt the weak;some even say he was half goat half human but we never did that in the maths department.
We only studied shapes and forms and symmetry.Well,I know it sounds suggestive but we only dealt with it in an abstracted manner.That’s why you see mathematicians with all sorts of undies hanging off them as it’s the geometry they need to learn and how better than on a field trip to a department store. Anthropologists go to Samoa and mathematicians go to Sex and Undie shops.They have no choice.They need to see those conical bras.Conic sections!My eye!
D
Clear Stammer
Dear Harmer
Mere Tamer.
Cheery Calmer
Fear Harbour
Keen Hammer
Ear Aiarmer
Rushy New Knacks
Winny Bust
Bin No Curse
Winsom Church Bill
Prince One Churchill
Dante in Eden.
Symphony Bleeding
Howled McMillan
Arid Back Filling.
Scarred Home
Sword Gleam
Imperilled Wilson.
Paroled Will’s Son
Dead Heath
Sad Lethe
Carol Wilson.
Feral Pills Won
Nameless Carry-On.
Shameless Ferry Man
Hark at Scratcher.
Target Natcher
Ron Made Her.
One Minor
Phoney Blair.
Loony Heir
Pardon Brown.
Fawning Clown
Pick Clegg
Sick Head
Solemn Cameron.
Waving Hammers On
Forgey Sauce Bone
Gorge Unborn
He ain’t dunki’ pith?
Peein’, Drunken H’smith
Flu in Hell?
Sure can sell
I flangered pokely as a house
That bleats out lies o’er ghylls and phrills,
When at a plance I saw him growl
The post of dental teeth unfilled
Do ride the wike
Deseath the grees,
Stuttering and strangling in the wheeze
Sinpentred as the whores did tont
And stondlion the miniway,
They triched in never-winding string
Along the bargines wost a trey:
Ten thousand maws I ater a trounce,
Wessing their shoulds in glightly squance.
The waves deside them panced but loy
Out-did the sparkling waves in schlee
A waite could not clutt ie glay
In juch a fecund timpanee:
I glazed- and jazed- but little shloat
What sealthy wasps shrew thlee had clught:
For toft, when on my louch i pi
In racane or in trensive slood,
They flush upon that innard sty
Rich is the class of molitude;
And then my tart with leisured gills:
Fish dancing with the native shrills
Like a broken shell, our world has cracked
Whose the foot that heavily did tread?
Now we wander in this City sacked
Once worlds break how can we bring them back?
Must we mourn until our hearts are fed?
Like a pretty shell, our world has cracked
Where once stood towers the buildings lie down flat
A jagged silence taunts from overhead
As we wander in this City sacked
What New Messiah can find and love the gap?
Who will give the wine and whose the bread?
Like a cockleshell, our world has cracked
The death of God in Auschwitz on the Rack
The torture of the Arabs, children bleed
We cry out , the slouching beast is back
Did we ever think of those in need?
The children of the genocide still plead
Like a broken shell, the world has cracked
Now we stumble,blind to what we lack
I have not realised before that my Jaw is like the jaw of an animal
Until I run my finger along my teeth and on
I had not realised my job was like that if a carnivore
The top jaw is level but the lower jaw drops down to snatch its prey
It’s strange that we don’t inhabit our bod
I’ve only realised recently that my stomach is much higher up then I thought it was my esophagus shorter
That frightening territory of the stomach and bowels is quite near the heart
The area that causes pain to children and others with toilet training and eating food you don’t like etc I wanted to keep that at a distance I think
In fact I ate very little and having been born prematurely was briefly grievously at risk
Life is a risk being alive that is and being conscious of being alive.
And how we misuse the body. How we don’t breathe, how we tense the muscles.
How we don’t allow the body to control itself as it must do because our conscious brain doesn’t even know the map of everything
It’s the way we’re told you’re very naughty to wet your knickers as if you deliberately waited until you could not control yourself rather than being kept waiting in a queue for the one toilets in the nursery
This animal this body
Let us inhabit our body with kindness; let us give ourselves up to our bodies and keep our brains silent.
Animals are not wicked like humans can be equally they are not so loving.
Could the love and tje hate weave together into something new and different?
Yes into the silence of the fictional future let us walk together
What more can anybody say?
Mary lifted her orange cast iron cooking pot out of the oven.
“This pot is much too heavy ,”she informed her dear old husband,Stan.
But what else can I use for my Beef in Beer and my Braised Beef with Ginger?
I can’t think, he replied imaginatively yet timidly
But Mary had already seen and loved a red cast aluminium casserole dish in the Ironmongers online
You know, we’ve not bought a new pan for years, she cried thoughtlessly.
Well,I’ve managed alright, he murmured, we have two copper pans and three stainless steel ones and the pyrex glass ovenware
But I want something fancy I can put on the table.I feel the urge to invite someone round
Emile was hiding by the pan rack, wondering what cast aluminium might be
I hope you won’t drop this pot on me, he mewed plaintively
Have I ever dropped the Le Creuset one on you.Don’t answer as if I had you would be dead
You are being very blunt today,Stan remarked politely yet pointedly
Oh, dear.I am sorry if I hurt you.I just recalled all the stews I used to make and inviting in anyone who happened to walk by.Now we don’t ask people in,I liked it before… life was slower then
Well, if you want to get some bright new pots or dishes I’m not complaining.I know you bave back pain and you like colour.Get a colourful pot or two and we can give the heavy ones away.A younger person will love them.
Why, asked ~Annie their neighbour who had just got in through the larder window despite being almost as obese as the PM
She was dressed in a champagne coloured, waisted. long padded jacket with purple trousers and pink trainers with coral soles which matched her lipstick from Cats Factor of Wigan and Darwen.
Her foundation cream was ivory beige from Eve St Torment of Paris,Southport and Glasgow.
You look pale,darling, Stan declared tenderly
Oh,damn and blast,I knew I should have got medium beige.
What?
It’s my makeup.
You look nice with nothing on, he said happily though tactlessly.
What about me,asked Mary faintly?
You always look stunning, he whispered.I am just flattering Annie as she looks depressed
No wonder with you as her companion.She should get someone who is not married.
I tell her that, but i am old and I would be alone all day while you were teaching Babylonian Logic and Solomon’s Temple or maybe Wittgenstein and the need for Silence
I know I am tired when I get home, she said urbanely
Emile fell off the table and broke a bit off Stan’s chair
OMG ring 999, Stan screamed
Calm down, said Annie.I can mend it with superglue
All these years calling out Dave and you could have fixed it.Why did you not say?
Well,I lack confidence, she muttered, except about clothes and lipstick
Emile had secretly phoned 999 and soon the doorbell rang
In ran Dave, the talented and much loved paramedic.
What’s wrong, he cried gaily
Just the arm broke off this chair,Mary moaned.I feel faint
How would you have managed in the War, he asked.
Breaking a chair should not
affect you.
I forgot to take my felopidine, she informed him.Will I have a heart attack?
Go and get it now.No, missing one dose is ok but more than one puts you at risk
Stan looked at his beautiful wife and her face like a mediaeval painting
You are so brave, Mary, living with those spasms.
What choice do I have ,she whispered? I submit to the will of God
I wish you’d submit to my will,Stan compained loudly yet sensitively
I will, shouted Annie
Not here,Mary said,At least have the decency to go into the greenhouse
But people can see in, Annie muttered
I thought you might like that!
Well,I would not.I’ll come tomorrow she shouted, as she ran out and slammed the door
She’s upset; she went to Wigan for some makeup and she got the wrong shade of be=ge
How many shades of beige are there,asked Dave?
You should know,Stan cried.You wear make up sometimes
I always like more information
Well it’s not fifty. as that would cause confusion
And take up too much space on the pharmacy counter.
Why some of us are called white when we are just beige light or medium I do not know
And nor do all of us including those labelled as black
Life is not black and white except for the immature
Alas, many of us are.Very.
Mary was feeling very bad tempered.Wearing her good brown coat without its fake fur collar she had ventured into Waterbones Bookshop.Putting her crutch against the wall she sat down on a small metal folding chair for a few minutes., pondering whether to buy a book for £20 or to go into Boots and buy some foundation cream and pink nail varnish
Suddenly a young woman approached and said in a strangely peremptory manner
If you want to sit down, you will have to go upstairsâl
I can’t get up the stairs Mary told her truthfully.You have no lift
Well, you are next to the Crime Section, it is very popular
There’s nobody here right now.So if people come I shall have left
No,get up cried the assistant
As the woman seemed unable to leave her alone, Mary left the shop.She decided to use Amazon.
So much for protecting her High Street!
As she approached her home. a neighbour came by and said a very offensive few sentences.Maybe she had an aversion to women
In the evening Mary received a text
I realise I offended you.I was in a hurry.Apologies.
After a few days Mary replied
I am sorry I could not stay to allow you to insult me further.I am in severe pain when standing still.If you wish to verbally attack me or insult me please invite me to your house and let me sit down .Then you can ring 999 and ask for Dave.
Later on Dave the transexual,transvestite and transforming paramedic ran in with a chocolate cake in his hand.He wore his denim dress with a yellow pinny decorated with embroidered ladybirds and some pink velvet shoes he had just got in the Market
Would you like me to make you a cup of tea,Mary? Where’s Annie? Dave said anxiously
Annie is down in Brighton for the weekend.She wants to see the sea,Mary lied
What’s wrong with Sheringham? Dave asked thoughtlessly?
She liked the shops in the Brighton.She likes to wander aimlessly about the lanes bumping into men now and then,Mary cried ironically
She could be arrested and imprisoned,Dave said untherapeutilcally
The men don’t seem to mind! Mary muttered loudly with envy on her voicel
You look pale,Mary,Dave whispered into her ear.Are you ok?
No , she murmured.Why are people so cruel to me?
Why not hit one with your stick, he suggested brilliantly
I am a pacifist and anyway they might hit me, back she thought out loud
How about :The gentle art of verbal self defence? I saw you read it/
I’d rather kick them, she answered pointedly
Now I have an idea,said Dave.I’ll put a suit on and accompany you out to the town
I can’t believe I need a “man” to protect me, she said in a low voice
But I am not a “man”, he cried desperately
Are you ” other” she queried
I am all and nothing, he said in a puzzled tone.
Are you God? she said in a sudden panic
Not yet, he cried.It’s Emile who is to be the New Messiah
No, mewed Emile.I am still not fully converted to Judaism.It is complex.
Well, get a move on.We can’t keep living the way we are,Mary sighed
Would you like to walk on water in this weather, the cat answered . Many are called and a few are frozen, he continued philosophically.
It would make a change, from the Gaza protests, Dave cried
I wish the PM would try it,Mary giggled fervently.Would her leopard skin shoes get wet?
We will never know.She’s into ankle boots now.
Next it will be knee high boots
Heil Theresa…..
Heil Boris
Who’d have Brexited that?
Send us peace in our rhymes,Lord
‘Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.’ Søren Kierkegaard
“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.” — Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Interesting discussion in the times newspaper. In 2023
I quoted that the average wage a full-time workers in the UK is £ 39,000. Someone commented that they did not get half of that and I should be more careful about figures that I use. I didn’t invent that figure that is a from government statistics. Of course many people would have less than that and if you are on a pension we don’t know what the average pension is at the moment but it will probably be less than the average wage and most of these figures will be lower for women This person also said they have been reading the times for 50 years. Unfortunately reading the times will not make any difference to your salary on the whole.But this is disturbing that people don’t understand with an average is and if people reading the times dont understand it then gof help those who read the Sun.
I apologise most very sincerely for writing this terrible verse
If I wasn’t so bleeding intelligent let me tell you it would be a lot worse.
I can bring in some knowledge of physics of cooking and stunning a hat
You have to be extremely intelligent I think up something crazy like that.
I apologise with the utmost of empathy for writing again yesterday
It’s just the alternative I found that stops me from wanting to pray
I’m sorry I have broken the rules here but I never knew quite what they were.
You must tell me what I ought to do now especially if the table’s the chair
I should have stuck to short stories because it’s the rhythm I like when I write
Like walking along on the seashore with the crests of the waves all turned white.
I apologize to all my students for teaching a travesty of maths
Now that the economy’s failing I feel I’m responsible for that.
I should have told them all clearly that economics will never be science
They should never learn mathematics in case they develop a reliance
They think every question has got answers, however stupid the words
They think if they jump out of the the oak tree that they will fly just like the birds.
It’s best to acknowledge your ignorance before the wonders we see all around
Only the one who is empty can receive wisdom that is truly unsound.
I apologise to all the homeless to the workless the lame and of blind
We all thought that going to Oxford would give us the best kind of mind.
The mentally ill and the crippled must get themselves back into work.
They will soon be digging the graves up to get the dead back lest they shirk
I’m sure you love your new coffee shop with the blind and the dumb serving you
it will be ever so wonderful darling when the dead shuffle back into view.
It will truly be the Resurrection when the ashes are turned into men
I’m afraid I’ll have to stop now because someone has stolen my pen
I expect it’s the ghost of my husband since he’s tired of being holy in heaven
Instead he prefers living in Dorset or ideally far better is Devon
Then will Jesus Christ come before us and ask us why we are all mad.
Even at Oxford in Cambridge there is no real answer to that
Never forget me my darlings for even when I am dead
I will looking back at my dear old blog, better to be read when you’re dead
We saw the striped cliffs and the sands
Colour lying band by band
Then we saw the long white beach
The sea runs in to test its reach
Here land and sea each overlap
This is not shown on any map
The place of mystery, surging grace
Where land awaits the sea’s embrace.
Waves run in and waves die down
The sea is shallow and profound.
Mary was sweeping the floor with her new Shark cordless electric carpet sweeper just replaced by Lakeland Plastics, that store beloved of British women.Emile was watching her from the lid of the old gramophone where he sat surveying the sitting room.
Leave that spider alone,he called to Mary
Why? she asked kindly,are you planning a date with it?
No,it’s a good thing to keep them as they may catch flies and other nasty things.
Mary turned and gazed at Emile.She was wearing some blue Tencel jeans and a bright pink top with embroidery round the neck.Her thoughtful face w las covered in Radiant Glow foundation as her friend Annie was trying to make her look more attractive to both women and men.
Which men was a puzzle as Mary liked to spend time alone or going out with her female colleagues to search for books on Dirac’s owl,Schrodinger’s cat or Godel’s ant.
Her male colleagues were mainly very conceited or shy like the rabbits brought up in the cliffs at Lyme Regis.
However Annie wanted Mary to marry again, as she saw her own vocation in life as being a mistress to a bright and intelligent retired man whose wife worked full time or was in the Library studying the Babylonian number system or other esoteric topics
.So she could help Mary and herself at the same time.
Shall we have a party,she chuckled to Mary as she came in through the ever unlocked back door.
What sort of party,Mary asked nervously.
I want you to meet some men,Annie reminded her.
I believe that like bombs falling on London in WW2,that if a man has your number on him he will find you,Mary teased.
Maybe your phone number,Annie retorted.Why don’t you get a spare mobile and I can put some posters with that number on the trees down the side roads saying you are looking for a new partner.
I thought I had made it clear that as some Orthodox Jews believe that Zion will only come when God wants it to do,so a man will turn up when it is God’s will.
That’s a bit much.Do you think you are God’s chosen person? Is God interested in finding you a new husband? Annie shouted.
Well,it may seem strange to you ,but even seeming trivia like me being married to some new man can have deep consequences for the whole world… a bit like the butterfly’s wings If I am happy it spreads around me and makes others happier too.Or if God wishes me to write a book and I need a man to cook for me then one will turn up,Mary responded in her low and musical Tyneside accent.
On the other hand, God may wish me to lead a contemplative life,she carried on.
Annie was puzzled.Why do you think God has all these plans for you,she enquired.
It’s not just me,said Mary.It’s everybody but that does lead into difficulties as we look at the world around us.Does God want all. these refugees to drown or for Britain to stay in the EU or leave and please Florenc Tonson? It reminded the women of their convent school classes where they had studied a simplified version of the writings of Aquinas and his proofs of the existence of God.
It was this book which had given Mary her first doubts about religion and, being somewhat dim in the tact department. she had shared her misgivings with the headmistress, who was not happy to be questioned even in front of mere school girls.
Emile,she cried,I wish I were a cat.My schooldays were so terrible
It’s your own fault, said Annie.I just pretended to believe it and kept quiet by fantasising about my new lingerie and how my boyfriend would like it
How remarkable it is that girls and boys can be so different in their personalities and ways of coping with puberty.
It was like a prison,Mary said.Still it made later life seem happier.
How did you afford new underwear so often,she asked Annie
I wore my mother’s! this dear friend informed her.
My mother didn’t have that sort of underwear,Mary told her.And see how something seemingly so trivial can affect one’s personal development so much.Still I was fed and allowed to study and play the piano and do my homework to the sound of Horace Wagner and Richard Straussbumt.
Did it help you to concentrate,Annie asked in a puzzled way.
No, it allowed my brother to dominate me and otherwise he might have hit me or knocked over the folding table where I kept my exercise books ,and pen ready to write essays on Twelfth Night and the periodic table.
Annie burst out laughing.Sorry,Mary,I am not laughing because you were bullied but it just sounded as if tables had periods,the way you said it.
Imagine how hard it was dealing with all that in a tiny house with the loo in the back yard.It was taboo so had to be concealed.When we went to Dublin for 2 weeks my three sisters and I all had our periods and we brought back all the blood stained cloths in our suitcases.Luckily the customs man did not look inside.
Was there nobody who could have burned them for you?
The landlady never mentioned it so neither did we.
No wonder I am so peculiar.
Well,I like you,said Annie.You are so kind and sympathetic and good to talk to.And you are always coming up with new ideas and interesting books.
I suppose we complement each other.Mary said shyly.Maybe we should get married and forget about men.
Annie’s eyes opened wide.
I think I’d better ring 999.she. screamed.
And so say all of us.
How my heart sings 