Day: May 29, 2025
Private firms ran almost all care homes forced to shut for breaches in England
I dream of pearls
Inside my mind I dream of pearls
Caterpillars,snails with whorls.
Inside my mind I dream of pearls,
Caterpillars,snails with whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped;
With reverie and dream I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods open my eyes to see
Oh,sweeter than confectionery
Is my Oxford diction’ry.
The words whirl round then fall to shape
The sentences which my world make.
This furnishing is rich and strange
And magically self arranged.
Oh,sweeter than the love of man
Is reading works of poets long gone;
Feeling deeply their dark tides .
Upon which our boat may glide.
The sea infinite we float upon
Is the same warm sea the ancients swam..
Sweeter still is the spring air
And the blossom spreading fair.
We’ll drown our selves in grassy fields
To the gods of poetry yield.
We’ll rise again and spring up tall
To grow more rich until we fall
À
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Words Ursula LeGuin
And yet so much of our communication today is defined by a rather ungenerous unwillingness to listen coupled with a compulsion to speak.
“Words,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in her abiding meditation on the magic of real human communication, “transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.” But what happens in a cultural ecosystem where the hearer has gone extinct and the speaker gone rampant? Where do transformation and understanding go? What made, for instance, James Baldwin and Margaret Mead’s superb 1970 dialogue about race and identity so powerful and so enduringly insightful is precisely the fact that it was a dialogue — not the ping-pong of opinions and co-reactivity that passes for dialogue today, but a commitment to mutual contemplation of viewpoints and considered response. That commitment is the reason why they were able to address questions we continue to confront with tenfold more depth and nuance than we are capable of today. And the dearth of this commitment in our present culture is the reason why we continue to find ourselves sundered by confrontation and paralyzed by the divisiveness of “us vs. them” narratives. “To bother to engage with problematic culture, and problematic people within that culture, is an act of love,” wrote the poet Elizabeth Alexander in contemplating power and possibility. Krista Tippett calls such engagement generous listening. And yet so much of our communication today is defined by a rather ungenerous unwillingness to listen coupled with a compulsion to speak.
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Emile cries:Where can a cat carry his own hanky?
Source: Kathryn
Source: Kathryn
Source: Kathryn
Stan was sweeping the garden path.He had a stiff broom with a small head that was useful for cleaning the edges of the steps.Emile, his beautiful cat was sitting in the old apple tree gazing down on Stan.
“Is it time for coffee yet,”Stan asked himself.He had forgotten to put on his watch.
Suddenly he heard a shriek.He peered through a hole in the fence.His neighbour Annie was lying on her back in some mud.
“Hang on,I’ll come round!” he called.
There was a gate in the old fence which was rarely locked
since Annie loved to drop in on Stan.
“Oh,Annie,how are you feeling?” he asked her anxiously.
“Bloody annoyed.I’ve only just bought these,”Not your daughter’s jeans” and now I’ve torn them,” she replied politely.
“But you don’t have a daughter!” he informed her loudly.
“I know that.It’s just they are better cut for the mature figure.”
“Your figure is not mature.You are quite slender.my dear,” he murmured lovingly.
“Well,I never feel happy with it!” she said mutinously.
“Whereas I am very happy feeling it,” he responded romantically.
Tears came into her green eyes lined with purple eye shadow.Alas,it was not waterproof and purple rivulets ran down her cheeks across the peach blusher with which she had valiantly decorated herself earlier.
“Can you get up?” he asked tenderly.
“Yes, but it would be nice if you picked me up.”
He leaned over her and licked the purple streams of tears off her cheeks.
“I hope it’s not poisonous,” she murmured.
Then with the aid of Emile,he lifted her to her feet and helped her into her large trendy kitchen.
The kettle switched itself on as they entered and a robotic voice asked if they’d like coffee.
“God in heaven,what the hell is that?” he cried confusedly.
“It’s my new computerised hot drink maker.After that fall I think a double espresso would be good.”
Emile ran in and asked for coffee too.
“Emile,you usually have milk,”Stan reminded him softly.
“Well,coffee is a new taste for me but I like a little.”
the cat whispered sweetly.
“I’ll give you some of mine in a saucer,” Stan replied.
Emile began to sob.
“Why Emile,whatever is wrong?”
“I want a cup and saucer just like you” the cat howled.
But you have no hands,Emile,” Stan reminded him.
The poor cat was crying loudly now.So Stan rang 999.
“Can you please send the emergency ambulance round.the cat’s crying and all his hankies are in the wash.”#
Soon Dave,the transvestite paramedic appeared.
“I love your light teal kitchen,” he informed Annie,
“And your eyes look like two deep pools in a coal mine.”
She slapped his cheek naughtily.
“Have a look at Emile” she ordered him sweetly.
He turned to the cat who was sitting on the dark pine table.
“Here,Emile,I got you some Kleenex for Cats in Sainsburys.” he said gaily.
“I want a real hanky,”cried Emile.Dave took a clean hanky from his own pocket and dried the cats tears.
“What made you cry.Are you feeling bad.”
“Yes,I want to go to Cafe Nero,” Emile mioawed.
“Who told you about that?”
“Another cat down the road has been and he said it’s lovely for people watching.”
“The town is not safe for cats like you,Emile.”
Dave urbanely replied,
“But when summer come I’ll take you to the out of town
Marks and Spencers.They have a cat’s coffee corner upstairs.”
“Wow,isn’t it amazing,”Stan wondered out loud.
So Dave poured out the coffee and they all sat down and
discussed Ray Monk’s Life of Wittgenstein.
Ray has discovered that Wittgenstein liked cats but as he moved around quite a bit,he never owned his own cat
though Elizabeth Anscombe let him play with her three cats now and then.
We may all be different but most of us value the love of a good cat.Even boiling their hankies and ironing them is very nice.We all have this problem though.
Where can a cat carry his own hanky?
Do cats need shoulder bags?
What would Wittgenstein say?
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Stan is down on his uppers
Source: Katherineb
Source: Kathry
Stan was down on his hands and knees washing and scrubbing at the carpet with a new microfibre cloth and some shampoo for dry hair.He had a bucket of hot water beside him.Happy, as always, when cleaning and scrubbing he whistled “The lark ascending” for his cat Emile, whilst sipping at a big mug of lager.
Mary was down in the town buying some new earrings to match her red dress from Phase 8 Sale.Their granddaughter Flora had also gone to town but she wanted a nose ring not an earring.As she was a girl it was mandatory in the UK.Suddenly,quite out of the blue,the doorbell rang.They always do don’t they.It was their Muslim neighbour Bert.”We’re going away in the caravan.”He boasted gruffly.”Anyroad,the cat ,Nelsonia Mandelinaah, doesn’t want to come.Would you be able enough to feed her over the weekend without any politically correct remarks being issued ,as it were?”
” Certainly” Stan responded jovially.”When are you off?”
“Well we went last week but we need a weekend in bed to recover from seeing Brent Cross Shopping Centre in Kettlewell right next to the old Post Office.[Kettlewell,Yorkshire’s idyllic village]
“Very strange”Stan said,”Mary was in it only yesterday ,she claims,in Knittingham spending all our minute joint pension on new dresses and shoes.”
“I encounter women who have seen Brent Cross down the road all the time all over Britain.Still they’re entitled to believe what they want!” “But what will the consequences be?”Is there a flying Brent Cross?”
“That sounds rather religious,” Bert answered quickly
,”Is it an augury?”
“I’d say it’s an omen,myself”
“But of what?”
“The times we live in?
“But what’s going to happen?” “God knows.” “Well,does he though?”Stan’s hot water had gone cold.In fact it was frozen.”The laws of physics seem very mutable” Stan wrote in his journal,”Also my spelling has deteriorated badly ssince I began drinking laaaaaaaaaaaager.Would whiskey be better?”Meanwhile,he had cleaned only one third of the carpet.
He filled the bath with hot soapy water,stepped in fully clothed and then rolled himself around all over the carpet to pick up all the fluff.
Mary was down in the town buying some new earrings to match her red dress from Phase 8 Sale.Their granddaughter Flora had also gone to town but she wanted a nose ring not an earring.As she was a girl it was mandatory in the UK.Suddenly,quite out of the blue,the doorbell rang.They always do don’t they.It was their Muslim neighbour Bert.”We’re going away in the caravan.”He boasted gruffly.”Anyroad,the cat ,Nelsonia Mandelinaah, doesn’t want to come.Would you be able enough to feed her over the weekend without any politically correct remarks being issued ,as it were?”
” Certainly” Stan responded jovially.”When are you off?”
“Well we went last week but we need a weekend in bed to recover from seeing Brent Cross Shopping Centre in Kettlewell right next to the old Post Office.[Kettlewell,Yorkshire’s idyllic village]
“Very strange”Stan said,”Mary was in it only yesterday ,she claims,in Knittingham spending all our minute joint pension on new dresses and shoes.”
“I encounter women who have seen Brent Cross down the road all the time all over Britain.Still they’re entitled to believe what they want!” “But what will the consequences be?”Is there a flying Brent Cross?”
“That sounds rather religious,” Bert answered quickly
,”Is it an augury?”
“I’d say it’s an omen,myself”
“But of what?”
“The times we live in?
“But what’s going to happen?” “God knows.” “Well,does he though?”Stan’s hot water had gone cold.In fact it was frozen.”The laws of physics seem very mutable” Stan wrote in his journal,”Also my spelling has deteriorated badly ssince I began drinking laaaaaaaaaaaager.Would whiskey be better?”Meanwhile,he had cleaned only one third of the carpet.
He filled the bath with hot soapy water,stepped in fully clothed and then rolled himself around all over the carpet to pick up all the fluff.
When Mary came in she was amazed,”What’s going on?”
“You look as if you’ve been having an orgy on the floor!”
An orgy was something unknown to Stan as yet.”Would you like one?” he murmured.”Yes,”said Mary childishly “Age has not beaten me yet!””Better have it soon before my knees get too bad!”So now Stan is cleaning the carpet again.It’s very soft and thick,just perfect!The list of invitees is posted on his blog.
Well,he’s been told to do something new every week.An orgy this week,the marathon later!
But why is Mary ringing 999?
Does she want to invite Dave,the paramedic or is it more sinister than I can tell you? “Yes,indeed,she wants to invite Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair but she’s not telling Stan!.He’ll be furious.In fact he might kill someone but no,even these people have the right to life.And they did some good in Northern Ireland.But would you want them at an orgy?””Me neither!”
How my heart sings 