https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jan/01/ways-to-make-your-life-easier-2026?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Start the new year by misusing a word!

https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/10/15/33-words-people-misuse-all-the-time/?tpid=574839&tv=link&tc=in_content

The future is a story not yet told.

Are fantasy and dream creative acts?

The future is still fiction for the bold

We aren’t like concrete set into a mould

And yet we all must die, that is a fact

The future is a story not yet told.

Some may travel through the realms of gold

Taking in the virtues that they lacked

The future is still fiction for the bold

We’re always moving on, life’s not on hold

Selfish day dreams never teach us tact

The future is a story not yet told

Into my dreaming head such thoughts are packed.

Slipping in the mire of all my lacks

The future is a fiction not yet told

The future is a story for the world

The year 2025  is the first year since my sister was born I have not seen her. She was here for part of 2024 but the worst time for me and maybe for her was the diagnosis which she got just before the queen’s funeral. That is when I wrote this poem below

For so long you loved and imitated me

Then we were students at the university

Without you, I won’t feel like anyone

To whom shall I turn when you are gone?

When you’re the one who shared my infant bed

When you’re the one who treasured all I said

When you’re the one I held in the dark night

When you are gone there can be no more light

When the moment comes,I must believe

For trees shall weep their leaves as if bereaved

Then will my sister heart with sadness heave.

Oh do not do not ,do not ,do not leave

Mary was in the hall watering her rose scented geranium; she decided to move it into the kitchen as the hall might be a little too drafty.Mary was very anxious to make sure that this plant survived because it was a present from her cousin.
Suddenly the phone rang. perhaps it is Annie wanting to go out on some Christmas shopping expedition ,but no it was Mary’s cousin Bob who she knew had been very ill and although he seems to be recovering she knew he was quite anxious about dying
His voice was very faint and weak. Perhaps he is going to die, she thought. he does seemed to be frightened .

Do not be afraid.God is waiting for you and he knows everything
,He knows how you looked after your sister when she had a breakdown and how you used to change the curtains and make the room look beautiful to try to help her and yet she did not thank you .She was very unpleasant but you never gave up ; eventually when she died during her sleep it was both a relief and a loss
God remembers everything and he is full of love for you . I do not know why God allows some people to suffer so much[ which is a constant theme in human thinking since the book of Job was written.]
Now, I don’t say that you are Job ,but I do know what you have endured. I have seen you being humbled in cruel ways, I have seen you being ignored when you knew much more than the people who were talking
You cared your your cat with utmost kindness until it recovered from its ill-treatment at those nasty neighbours of yours.
You have suffered too through cancer and not being able to eat foods that you liked but you have recovered. You have worked in your garden and grown beautiful flowers and vegetables Your fruit trees have been very productive and your whole garden is a testament to the fact that you love every living being, except your brother David, of course.,
There’s always trouble in that kind of set up when the mother prefers one child to another and it has been a constant torment to you throughout your life. I have noticed since you have both been older. you seem to have a more productive life now and I know you make wine and jam and mend all you can
I know that you did win an award when you were in your 20s for your research although you never told anybody. I wonder why you were so shy about telling people. You never did like to boast and I think I am similar to you.
I let Stan have his mistress next door because I know that not every man is interested in Wittgenstein especially when it’s his wife who wants to talk about him when he wants to take her to bed and enjoy her charms, tickle her and laugh merrily and I only wish that you had been able to meet someone yourself who would have valued you as a human being and felt warmth and attraction as well.
I do think you tried to make the most of your capabilities limited as we are by economic,health and political factors alas
Bob said to Mary :you have made me very happy
2 Days Later Mary heard that Bob was much better and the doctor says he will soon be home again
What a disappointment for God meowed Emile, Mary’s little cat. God got everything ready
Well no doubt God had some help,. Mary cried., that’s what I need . need some help ;this house is in a terrible mess as if my fate is to constantly keep trying to tidy up and yet the next day I have to start all over again.
I don’t mind cried Emile I think it’s wonderful I like a mess it makes me feel like playing more and having fun but when it’s all tidy and clean I feel terribly inhibited
Good grief Emile, you sound as if you’ve been to Oxford.
I did once to go on a day trip to Oxford, the the cat confessed .Annie took me in her handbag on a coach
Well all I can say is ,she must have got a very big handbag
Don’t be so rude Emile told her, you have got some big handbags and you’ve got about 50 handbags in the wardrobe even now when you are a widow
That is a woman’s privilege Mary told him like getting a new hat is Easter; a handbag is a very important thing because it enables men to make their wives carry all their wallets and keys so that they could have fun when they went to the seaside
Yes I can remember mother struggling along from Blackpool North station to the beach with a gigantic handbag and a shopping bag full of sandwiches while everybody else ran on in front of her
I don’t know what we saw in Blackpool except the sea; the beach was so crowded you could hardly see the sand.
I guess the airwas cleaner, the cat informed her in a manly way

I think I need a cup of tea said Mary go and get Annie.
She won’t make the tea
No but she can drink some with me while I tell her all my thoughts and my feelings and I couldn’t free associate while she showed off her new makeup and jewellery and her strangely coloured Christmas outfits.She is off to Wigan to visit the make up factory next week.If only it were in Southport I’d go too.
Well I’m in love with Annie. I wish I was a man so I could marry her and make it home for her
I’m sure you would have made a very good husband said Mary but God wants you to be a cat although you are a rather extraordinary cat and it is my good luck to be your owner or shall I say your mistress?
Aand so ask all of us

In black despair when no one  else can help

When we have tried the doctor priest, the sage

What should we do when friends have turned away?

When towards god  himself we feel enraged?

Sitting in the silence in my room

I stopped the search for answers, search for aid

I felt the sorrow deeper than a grave.

I grieved till there was no more grief to pay.

Then I saw The light like a great ball

I felt the warmth surround me as I mourned

A sheet of tears fell from my eyes again

The kindness of the light my spirit turned.

Go back to life with others and your work.

Avoid the darkness, where the demons lurk. 

https://www.writebetterpoems.com/articles/how-to-really-write-a-villanelle

The darkest fortnight of the year has passed

The sky was violent red, that was the dawn

I knew such vivid colours could not last.

I gaze up at the sky so broad, so vast

I see a hungry fox across the lawn.

The darkest fortnight of the year has passed

Where is this world going, will it crash?

We need a saviour no one’s yet been born

I knew such vivid colours could not last.

Now by thoughts of power, I am harassed.

What is this grief for those I cannot mourn?

The darkest fortnight of the year has passed

By the sunrise and the skies we’re blessed

Christ will rise as Easter, a sheep shorn

Despite such vivid colours might not last.

The day begins and ends with sun sunk down.

I sink into myself, a study brown.

The darkest fortnight of the year has passed

I guessed dawn’s vivid colours might not last

Mary picked up her mobile phone to ring for a cab..On it,there was a message
.You have missed a call from home.Mary shivered.
Has Stan come back?
Then she recalled she had rung her own mobile before coming out.Her mind sagged like sheet of rubber suspended between four tall trees in the jungle..
Hello,It’s Mrs Tan.Can you do a me a cab from the dental surgery to my home? It’s right by the doctor’s surgery.
She stepped outside into the warm air which felt like a caress on her poor numb face.
When she got home she found Annie in the kitchen looking at her collection of cookery books.
Do you want to get rid of any of these, her friend queried.
I am thinking of learning some new recipes so I can invite those awful therapists across the road for dinner.But I have to be sure that what I serve has no hidden meaning especially aggressive or sexual.
Well,Mary said,don’t you think that people differ in what they find sexual?
Beats me,said Annie meaningfully.I fancy doing beef in beer with French bread and mustard baked on the top.
I used to do that,Mary said.Why did we stop doing that cooking? Penguin brought a new book every month.I have most of them and ,at the weekend, I’d study them for ages looking for things like apple mousse and different stews.
When we first got married I used a kind of cheap women’s magazine approach and most often as a pudding I did tinned peaches with cinnamon sprinkled on grilled till hot and spicy.Eventually, Stan got fed up with it and so I got into cordon bleu and using real cream not Carnation milk
Her blue eyes gleamed in excitement and were rendered even more remarkable by the teal and turquoise eye shadow Annie had forced her to wear which matched the sea blue mascara she already had.Annie said.
it will be good for us both to meet new people especially educated ones
Mary disagreed.I like ordinary people because a certain amount of education makes some people very conceited and only real scholars or mystics realise that the more we know the more we realise our own ignorance.Will such folk like makeup?
Perhaps one of the psychoanalysts will be a mystic,Annie retorted loudly.
But would such a person want to visit us? Mary bleated childishly.
Why not? They have to eat and they may need a new love interest or someone sympathetic who will know how hard their job is.Someone like me,beautiful funny and willing to look after a man when he needs it.
How about a man who might look after you,Mary said brightly
Well,it’s not quite the same.I like looking after men whereas you prefer reading about Fourier series and infinite integrals.And knitting patterns,she added hastily as if omitting that interest would severely anger Mary.
I think we’ll invite two men and two women ,all single.They can bring their cats for Emile to play with if they want.And we’ll eat in the kitchen to make it more relaxed.
Thank God,said Mary as the dining room was full of paper and books.
Why don’t I have a study,she pondered.Or ,if I slept in the dining room, my bedroom has a lovely view and I have an old desk somewhere.
Mary ,in her younger days, had often moved the furniture around and had even slept on a camp bed on the lawn one summer but she no longer did this as looking after Stan had worn her down to a shred of her former self.
But beds do take up so much room.Without them ,the house would be quite spacious.And how about tables and chairs… her mind ran on as she quite fancied a new start without moving house.
With fewer clothes ,she could ditch a wardrobe… on the other hand ,she could not afford such quality clothes again on her widow’s pension.
To think she might have to stop wear Bowlands of Wrath was a rather painful thought.Still most of humanity have got hardly anything so maybe Mary will think more deeply about donating some to Oxfam.
Suddenly the doorbell rang.Dave the paramedic was outside
Are you both ok?I’ve not heard from you lately,he remarked as he powdered his nose.
Well,I do have an old desk that you can carry upstairs for me,Mary told him thoughtfully.Then we need the floor scrubbing.I’m sure the NHS will pay.After all dirt might make us ill!
And so pray all of us

A beautiful photo Mike Flemming

On Monday morning Stan had to go to the shops in the centre of town to buy some special easy threading needles for his visually-other wife Mary.Somehow,most puzzlingly,she had lost all of the eight packs he had bought for her in the last year.He had suggested letting his mistress next door do the hemming and stitching.But Mary was determined even though sometimes she took 14 minutes just to thread a needle.But she was very patient.One might almost say she was saintly but he did not want her to get conceited so he kept his thoughts to himself. Now what will I wear.Stan thought over-anxiously.. People no longer dress up to go down town instead they dress down to go up to the town,in a very real sense. The art of living is to choose the most simple solution to any problem and Stan recalled he only had some navy trousers,some white and a few coloured shirts and one light teal colored jacket. He chose a coral coloured shirt and looked in the mirror.. I look wonderful, he thought very humbly. Why has God kept me so youthful? Surely not so I can seduce more women? We know God may be merciful to scissors,or is it sinners?Well,let’s just say God can be merciful but for some reason,we never know till it’s too late whether it’s to us. More haste,less speed,he conjectured. Or is it, More paste,guests feed? He stood in the hall combing his hair with a tortoiseshell comb and brushing it with a large nail brush He looked again at his image. His amber eyes glowed like neon lights on the main road to Knittingham in winter. His dark hair looked very full for his age. His teal jacket had been well pressed by the dry cleaner, Jacob Weissmann. And his coral shirt was new as Mary had been out buying him more clothes lately.She had grown tired of seeing him in one solid color,especially grey or brown. His navy trousers were a bit old but quite alright for Knittingham. As he gazed into the mirror he began to feel odd.Then he saw Emile who was standing on the chest of drawers behind him performing a dance.. solo! Why are you dancing,Emile? Stan asked politely. I am amused by seeing you gazing into the mirror for so long, If you don’t hurry it will be lunchtime before you get to the Needle Shop. Alright,growled Stan hoarsely.At least I don’t wear make up! Now there’s a thought…maybe I’d look better…what shade of foundation would suit me?Would I need lip balm and perfume? Hurry up,said Emile unkindly.More taste less greed. What does that mean?asked Stan. If you taste the food and eat slowly you will enjoy it more and thus need less. Very clever,Emile.Shall I buy you some cough sweets in the pet shop. No,I want some codeine linctus,Emile answered. I want to go high,high. I want to reach the sky. what will I do when my love is away Will I be happy on my own? Lend me your ear and I’ll sing you a song I’ll try not to sing out of tune! My God,Emile.Whatever has happened to you? I blame the old chalk and opium medicine someone spilled on my breakfast. Well,go and lie down but drink some milk first.At last Stan got out…it had taken him two hours to get ready At the bus stop there stood Anne their neighbour. Hi,Stan,where are you going. I’m buying sewing needles for Mary. I can lend her some,she shrieked. Well,she has to use special ones nowadays. Oh,so she does.I forget as she looks normal but is in fact suffering constant trouble since her Vitreous-vasectomy.. or was it hysterectomy or vivacity?. Well,never mind.You know she’s not normal. Who is normal? Let’s just assume we will recognize it when we see it,he whispered warningly. This bus is very late.I wish there was a proper seat here..my knees hurt. I hate this plastic seat.Why has the wooden one gone? Apparently the council are afraid of homeless people sleeping on them. Well,everybody is at risk of homelessness with this economic crisis, Anne shouted in a fury. No,beggars can’t be losers,he responded. Very true,she replied, As they have nothing so they can’t lose it.The more you have,the more you fear losing it. This bus is very,very late,I wish I had a horse or is it an horse? A goat would be o.k.Speed bonny goat like a word someone flung.. Over the page to Fly.Anne burst out laughing so her face was as red as her coat from Artigiano.Her blue tights were a perfect contrast and also matched her lipstick uncannily.Where she bought it was a mystery. At last the bus came.They got on board and the driver called out, You both look very merry! Too many looks create more wrath,Stan replied warningly. Well, why dress up if you want no attention.the driver gloated. Hello,darling, he said to Anne,Are you free tonight,babe? Why? she murmured. I have two tickets for the Rolling Stones and no woman to take! he replied boastfully. Now,if it were the Rolling Bones,I might be interested. Your wish is my command he muttered, I have my smart phone here,I’ll see what’s one elsewhere. He kept trying but the virtual keyboard was playing up again. Eventually the passengers got annoyed and asked him to start the bus. As I’m half an hour late,I should be coming back now so I’ll do a U turn and go back But we want to go into town,every one howled. There’s many a blue word spoken as a jest,sang the driver. Stan said,Please open the door,we shall dismount here. Crikey,you don’t half talk posh,said the ,driver. He leaned over and gave Anne a French kiss. Now look here,Stan said,leave her alone.She’s my mistress. Cor blimey said the driver,who are you,King Henry the Eighth? I say,Stan,I can see Mary.It must be tea time. Stan ran into the house and put the kettle on..then he made a pot of tea. Hello! said Mary. Did you get my needles,Stan? I’m so sorry,Mary.I ‘ve had such a busy day,I never got into the town. And where is my supper. In the womb of time I see,it’s chick pea dahl and brown rice again or egg on toast. But I’m not complaining.Keeping house is a big job.I know it only to well. So they sat with Anne and Emile,who even had his own cup and saucer now.They were weary and soon ,despite the tea, they were all fast asleep. Like you.

Snow clouds hang like canopies forlorn,
Tinged with grey from lack of proper care,
While from the Channel sing the dread foghorns

Sailors in the night long for new dawn
Fear boats of refugees may still sail there
Snow clouds hang like canopies well torn

A dinghy holds the Saviour lately born
There is no space on earth safe from great fear
From the Channel sigh the families drowned

From maternal space, Jesu is torn
His father holds his arms around those dear
Snow clouds hang, are lacy wings no more

The hearts of British ” natives” have turned sour
Into Jesu’s side we thrust our spears
Tune the channel.Requiems need scores

All lives now, and all of time is here
Do not mistake the song of silent choirs.
Snow clouds hang like canopies forlorn,
While in the Channel, stuttering are the horns

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/27/the-books-to-look-out-for-in-2026?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

How poetry can sustain us through illness, bereavement and change https://share.google/KRpQNzfsa8b8svI2x

D

https://archive.philosophersmag.com/susanne-k-langer-a-snapshot/

O

In her Philosophy in a New Key (1942) her intent was to authenticate a new notion of the “rational,” but how she does it is of fundamental importance. The classical tradition, Langer claimed, generally identified the rational with the “logical,” with discursive thought and objectivity. It then had the difficult task of explaining, or explaining away, such important human concerns as art, ritual, myth, and religion. Langer showed that these forms of meaning-making were embodied in vast sets of symbols and symbolic practices with their own distinctive “logic,” a non-discursive logic, quite different from the discursive logic of language and mathematics. They belonged to the domain of “presentational forms,” not “discursive forms,” a key distinction of her work. Presentational forms, Langer showed by an examination of their logic, are not mere effusions of an irrational subjectivity but articulations of the felt sense of things to which they give us unique access. They orient us in the world in the deepest existential manner, effecting participation in vital values and giving us visions, embodied in symbolic images, of our place in the cosmos. Langer, prior to extensive developments in semiotics, showed that they are worthy of philosophical study in their own right. Her work compares favourably in heuristic power with, and complements, C S Peirce’s great attempt to avoid logocentrism. We are a symbolic species at every level and not just language-endowed animals, although Langer held discursive symbols in the highest regard, as did her intellectual companion, Ernst Cassirer.

Langer was a devoted lover and practitioner of the arts, especially music, which she had studied in detail in Philosophy in a New Key. In 1953 she published Feeling and Form, a masterful generalisation and application to all the arts of the theory of music elaborated in that book. Its key idea was that feeling had a distinctive “morphology” that is exemplified in different ways in the different genres of art. Art works, she claimed, give us knowledge of or insight into ways of feeling the world in every shade of its expressiveness. They articulate feeling and are not mere expressions of personal feeling. They are presentational symbols and their meaning-contents are the “primary illusions” peculiar to each art form: virtual space in the pictorial and visual arts, virtual powers in dance, virtual experience and virtual memory in literature, virtual time in music, the ethnic domain in architecture, and so on. Langer showed art to be an authentic symbolic form and her notion of a “morphology of feeling” exhibited in the artwork is a permanent contribution to aesthetics.

In the last twenty-five years of her working life Langer attempted to develop the notion of feeling as a term to cover all the manifestations of minding. The result was Mind (1967-1982), published in three volumes over a fifteen year period, and which remained incomplete, due to her advancing age. It anticipated many of the current concerns in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of mind. Its central idea is that feeling is an emergent property of natural processes but that its paradigmatic manifestation is the rise of symbolisation and the proliferation of cultural forms and their attendant conflicts and permutations. Central chapters in this book carry out and reformulate Langer’s central insight and claim: symbolisation and the power of abstraction are the keys to what it means to be human. In a return to and deepening of her initial proposals in her first philosophical work, Langer distinguished between generalising abstraction and presentational abstraction, the two fountainheads of all those frames of meaning in which we live out our lives. It was the working out of the implications of this distinction, present at the beginning of her intellectual journey, that forms the connecting link of her whole remarkable philosophical career.

Robert E Innis is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and author of Susanne Langer in Focus: The Symbolic Mind (Indiana University Press).

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Across the road I see a Tudor wall
In its cracks defiant flowers grow
The modern traffic sounds out a loud wail
From the East a freezing wind still blows

In between the natural world and man
The space provides a habitat,retreat
Ancient yew trees grow without a plan
And in each little bird a heart still beats

Concentrating on the green and ancient views
Ignoring the red buses as they pass
Ignoring strident music , find the clues
Down comes peace and joy, our Holy Mass

Reversal of the figure and the ground
Brings out a new world where love is found

The pain and beauty of the wild North sea

The coast of Norfolk where we used to be

The grief that rips the heart out from its cave

Throws it on the sea to ride the waves

The loss of you and love and all it means

With my inner eye I see these  scenes

The snow that fell on Cromer Easter Day

The lifeboat on the pier, the words to say

Ancient churches guard the holy place

Hidden in the lightest inner space

Eagles do not live here but the birds

  Sing  from yellow gorse and know the words

What names might small bird  call us as they  watch?

The world is re created in a snatch

Stan was polishing the windows again with his blue cloth.The computer was on and as soon as he finished the sitting room windows he planned to look at a google document he was co-writing with his girl friend Annie.She only lived next door but they both liked sharing new techniques of various kinds .He sat down in front of his computer and looked at his mail.
There was an email from Annie.
“Hi Stan
I didn’t really want to keep some of those remarks you made at the bottom of our documents when we were both online having a chat,so I have deleted them. They were not related to the topic we were discussing so I know you won’t be interested.
with my love,Annie
Stan felt angry and cross. He went very red.What was so dreadfully wicked about his remarks?He had only asked Annie if her dead husband George might have been bisexual.Stan had once seen him kissing a man round in the park.Annie didn’t seem bothered last night.She never gave the impression me she didn’t like it.
Anyway she should not have deleted it completely without asking me first.
He sent her an email saying he was very angry with her for attacking his freedom of speech.It was unethical.It was too powerful .He must assert himself
So he was not going to work simultaneously with her on any more documents ever again nor chat on IM or Google chat
.
When Annie got the email she was stunned.She apologized to Stan immediately but her refused to accept it.Nothing she said could change his mind.So they were both feeling utterly dreadful.
Why did he want to know if George was bisexual?She wondered.Was he saying it to try to turn himself on or me?Or is he just interested in sex of all kinds like most people secretly are?
But it was not concerned with the document which was about ill treatment of prisoners in India under the British Empire
We have so little time together, with him being so busy.I wanted to talk about us,not poor dead George.Whatever George’s sex life,he’s dead now.So leave him in peace.
Meantime.Stan was thinking about how women were always interfering in his life,correcting him and improving his grammar.Making him cups of tea when he wanted brandy.He liked talking about bisexuality.
It made him feel a sense of wonder at the differing habits and desires of humans.Why couldn’t she just go along with it or at least say something then rather than deleting his words secretly when he was off-line?
He was a man .He was not going to let a woman ride over him like a steam roller. Annie must learn her place in the scheme of things.
Where is that,asked his tom cat Emile.
I’m not sure but it’s not above me.It’s either the same or lower.
Can’t you forgive her.she may be in another dimension,another space,another universe of discourse?
Certainly not no way.Stan answered,
But you love her,you said many times in here.I heard you
All the more reason to maintain some boundaries!Love is not the be all and end all of life
Next she’ll be cutting bits off me with her pinking shears,he cried in horror!
She’ll castrate me.She’ll turn me into a woman.
She won’t,she’s a woman,said Emile.She wouldn’t ever harm you.she’s very gentle.
She has invaded me,she has crossed my boundary.
Some people would be glad,mewed the cat.He was always hoping a lady cat would come by.
Meanwhile Annie was sitting sobbing wetly in her bedroom.She really enjoyed co-writing documents and letters with Stan.Now he won’t do it anymore,she whispered softly to herself
She had not cut anything from the document,just the little chatty remarks they had been indulging at the end, but still he was really mad at her.He must be feeling truly upset and aggravated beyond human endurance.She had assumed too much and now she was paying the price.She cried and sobbed loudly for a while.Her eyes were bright red and bloodshot. not attractive at all.She was so sad she had unwittingly distressed dear old Stan.Life is so tough she thought reluctantly.I wish I were somewhere else.
Still,there were those new neighbors who had just moved in across the road.Two brothers,both very handsome.I wonder if they like writing on the computer,she thought.That cheered her up a bit,though she was very fond of Stan.In fact she loved him greatly and had kissed him gently yet thoroughly many times though she had never actually gone to bed with him ;never known him in the biblical sense.Was that the problem?Too late now either way,she muttered balefully
So in her mind she was moving from loving and adoring Stan to being puzzled by him.Was he afraid of being dominated by a woman?What would he be like as a lover?
But why try to talk about bisexuality?Could he not have thought of something else?
There was a new book by Betty Dodson teaching women how to have orgasms.Would he have enjoyed discussing female anatomy and pleasuring her naked female body and its organs of love and all the rest,[she always liked a kiss on her throat]?
Well,she would never know now.That was certain.Definitely.
Thank God I’ve found out what he’s like before things went any further.He might be a little too dominating or perhaps not enough?
In fact she was so upset her thoughts began to turn towards women.
Would it be better all round to love a woman.Especially as I could show her how to have an orgasm having being studying this book for some weeks?Though she may already know,I guess.Still,a change is as good as a rest!
How do I find a woman who’s into other women, she thought.Can I find one on the internet?Will there be a club we can go to?How exciting!
So Annie grew more optimistic.A woman wouldn’t mind a few words deleted from a chat either.So a feeling of mild joy came over her and her sobbing died down.
Stan was sitting in his kitchen feeling superior and dominant.Except Annie had not come for coffee so it was hard being dominant all by himself.He began to feel depressed and morose.Should he change his mind?Would he lose his window of opportunity
Why is life so trying.Why are women so manipulative, why do they all turn out fakes,he asked Emile.
It’s partly one’s own character,Emile replied.
Hearing this Stan lost his temper and threw a cup at Emile.Luckily it missed but Emile stalked out and went off to the shed leaving Stan more alone than ever.
How hard life is Stan shouted. I feel like topping myself. i”ll jump off the roof.I’m going to ring the fucking Samaritans.
Just then his wife Mary walked in.What’s up Stan?
Nothing dear.I just dropped a brick on my toe
Why have you got a brick in here,in the lounge?
I was playing with it.
With a brick?
Well,it has a certain cold masculinity,he replied.
Shall I make some drinks?
Yes,please.
Oh,look there’s Annie walking past arm in arm with a woman.
I knew George was bisexual but now I see she is also or maybe she’s gay!Were they both gay?Is that why she only kissed him and never went further?
Well,it’s not our affair,said Mary quietly.
Aha,thought Stan.That’s what you think.If only you could see inside my mind.
Inside his mind though ,he was wondering if Annie would ever see him again.But I will not forgive her,I won’t.I won’t!
What he might have said more truthfully was “Can’t”
For indeed,it is hard to forgive people for trampling into one’s sacred space even if it is an accident or misjudgment not a deliberate attempt to dominate.but if not ………
Such is life,alas.
We are such fools as dreams are made of.

Iced water falls from the sky in beads

Leaving  just the space

for fragile butterflies to court between the drops.

The geometry of love

fits any space

The butterfly is  braver than the tiger.

.  From time and place and season I feel lost,

Disorientated , missing tracks well worn.

Do not suppose I’m unaware of cost,

Nor label me with adjectives of scorn.

For usual paths lead to the usual place

. The safest way to live and perhaps to die.

But wandering through the woods I find new space

And in wild grasses with the fox I lie. Through distant trees, i see a way to go

as narrow as a slit in pallid stonm

This is my destined way, I seem to know And courage rises even as I moan.

Remember when we’re lost , we may then find

Another way,a place,another mind

Art by autho r

Mary went upstairs to the bathroom to wash her dirty hands after she had been repotting two spider plants. When she looked at the pale blue sink, she could see a bar of soap but she could not see the nail brush.
Mary felt cross because Stan did not like nail brushes and he would hide the nail brush in different places so that Mary could not find it
In fact they now had 13 nail brushes but despite that, Stan had managed to hide all of them.. Stan himself did not care if his nails were clean or dirty, although Mary cared a great deal .He could not seem to understand the connection between using a brush and having clean nails
Of course there are other ways of getting clean nails; for example handwashing your underwear in detergent or shampoo would also get the nails clean at the same time. however Stan did not wash clothes by hand very frequently. In fact the whole subject of washing and cleaning seems alien to his mind
He said to Mary one day, “my jumpers smell funny”
That is why we have a washing machine, she told him kindly
All clothes get dirty either from sweat and bodily fluids or from dropping tomato sauce onto one’s lap while dining.
She could have said “if your jumpers smell funny, why don’t you laugh ?” but she was no longer a school girl unfortunately.
We may not like being school girls, but when we look back we realise that playing with balls and mercury in the physics lab was better than cleaning the kitchen floor or even one’s nails. If you are a school girl you’ll probably have someone at home who will make your dinner for you and maybe wash your blouse while you concentrate on writing an essay on the uses of the past irrational tense in Hamlet ,that great play by William Shakespeare.
Mary looked round the bathroom, where is the nail brush she cried to Emile her cat
Why, Mother, it’s on the window sill next to your deodorant
My deodorant ; how do you know that’s what it is, can you read?
Not yet purred Emile but I saw you putting it underneath your arms I mean in your armpit mother
I don’t think that you should come into the bathroom when I am getting washed, Mary told Emile in a kindly tone of voice. Why I never even knew you would have heard of deodorant
Actually I have also heard of antiperspirants, Emile told heer graciously but I would not like to use an antiperspirant because the sweat or the odour from our bodies is what attracts other cats to us for mating ;well actually, it’s usually a female smells lovely and then the male cat is attracted by this beautiful scent and with a bit of luck they might mate and a produce a family of kittens
So see what you are missing ,mother
I don’t want to smell beautiful and then have 6 kittens to look after.
No you would have human babies to look after
But would I have to have 6 said Mary I don’t think my body is big enough to carry 6 innocent babies.
Well you seem we cats are superior because we can have 6 or even 8 kittens at once and we can soon build up a large colony of cats in any neighbourhood and it’s all down to sweat, really
That is fascinating muttered Mary as she took the nail brush and put it under the hot tap before getting the soap and applying it to her fingernails
Can cats have nail brushes? the cat asked her
What, you don’t have nails!
Could we have claw brushes?
I suggest that when Stan comes home you ask him to give you a bath and put some fairy snow into the bath and then your talons or claws will be cleaned as you soak without you exerting any effort
I want to make an effort, cried the cat ,I want to look very good tonight
Why asked Mary ,it will be dark when you go out so the female cats will not be able to see your claws
I’s a bit like you cleaning your teeth before you go out in the evening I know it’s not just for hygiene it’s in case you want to kiss somebody and you don’t want them to taste your Weetabix from your teeth
Good heavens, are you into French kissing, Emile?
I’ve never heard of it ,he said. I didn’t know there more than one way of kissing. You see cats don’t kiss very much so we don’t know a lot about it
You should consider yourself lucky said Mary as there are very unpleasant men who will offer me a lift home in their car after a meeting and then before I can get out they plump their large and ugly lips on my lips and seem to think I will enjoy it
Yes it must be very difficult so then especially as you can’t scratch them because they will probably call the police
I doubt it now ,muttered Mary they will be afraid of being accused of sexual harassment
My goodness that’s another thing that cats don’t have, we don’t have much choice really our Feelings come over us and if there’s a willing lady cat nearby then we will enjoy ourselves no wonder there are so many cats in Knittingham how many of them are you the father of?
I have no idea
Just think that if I walk down the street and see 6 cats they could all be your children Mary told him
And on the other hand, they could be the children of any tom cat within 5 miles
Yes you are right said Mary it’s a pity that you can’t write and keep a diary so that you would know roughly how many female cats you may have impregnated in the last 6 months
Why, is that what you put in your diary, the cat asked her with a naughty expression in his eyes
You know perfectly well what I put in my diary

went to the dentist with a broken tooth

went to the chemist to buy a nail brush

Went in coffee shop and had a cup of tea

struggle to the bus stop and onto the bus

crossed on the zebra crossing

came home and burst into tears

Yes I do understand this,mewed Emile,lt is very difficult for you now with all the pain you suffer but you are very brave and you don’t complain a lot but when Stan comes home I shall tell him and ask him to buy you a beautiful silk scarf and a necklace from the Royal Academy gift shop like he used to do in Times Gone By.He must have forgotten lately

So he must , murmured Mary

What a very lovely man Stanley is.

Yes but we haven’t seen him for a while ;has he gone on holiday?

Well that’s one way of describing it. Mary said

. We never know whether he might be on his way home or if there’s someone else who has a prior claim on him

It puzzles all of us!

The sea has frozen off the Isle of Wight
So we don’t  need boats to get across
It’s just that there’s a shortage of street lights.

In the day time it’s been very bright
And on a cold,cold sea there is no moss
The sea has frozen off the Isle of Wight

There is a problem on a moonless night
Walking on the sea with thick ground frost
Because there’s a dearth of  yellow neon lights.

And there are no cafes  for a bite
I got a  dreadful feeling,I am lost
The sea has frozen off the Isle of Wight

My wellingtons  have turned a dirty white
Walking free, the fresh  air is a feast
It’s just that there’s a shortage of street lights.

My face with vaseline I have well greased
On a lead I have my wildebeeste
The sea has frozen round the Isle of Wight
Why are there no glaring neon lights.?

Too old for cold,I stand, now ,against the hedge,
Watching the snowflakes in the glare of neon street lights.
Darkness has come early,and I think of country uplands and huddled sheep.
On Salisbury Plain,shepherds watched their flocks
Just as in Bethlehem two thousand years before,
And then,exactly when?
“Between the wars”,it stopped. Now we know there is no “Between the wars”.
And who decided
To cull the sheep and shepherds and the space for kindness ?
Now that same Plain still exists,but banned
And closed to human-kind,
For bombs ,not wombs
Nor for birth of lamb ,nor gypsy child ,nor Saviour
Where would He go today?

I have a wife, now male,I’ve been expecting her.

  I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter Near the Peaks and Pennine landscapes high

I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her

I married but never yet had sex with her

For she is cold and frosty ,can’t say why.

I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter She said that she was moving down to Exeter..

She’d changed her gender, good grief so must I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her.

Since I turned a woman.I’ve detested her She’s a man but tell me, does he lie?

I dreamed I escaped to Uttoxeter

I got my phone and told her, so bizarre

I’m a woman, hot with sultry thighs. I have a wife, now male, I’ve been expecting her.

I rarely tell the truth unless I lie. In the Peaks I love the Blakean sky

I want to liven up Uttoxeter

I have a wife, I feel much taxed by her.

I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter
Near the Peaks and Pennine landscapes high
I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her

I married he

R but never yet had sex with her
For she is cold and frosty ,can’t say why.
I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter

She said that she was moving down to Exeter
She’d changed her gender, good grief so must I.
I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her

Since I turned a woman.I’ve detested her
She’s a man but tell me, does he lie?
I dreamed I escaped to Uttoxeter

I got my phone and told her, so bizarre
I’m a woman, hot with sultry thighs.
I have a wife, now male, I’ve been expecting her.

I rarely tell the truth unless I lie.
In the Peaks I love the Blakean sky
I want to liven up Uttoxeter
I have a wife, I feel too stressed by her

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/23/the-guardian-view-on-the-festive-season-a-suffering-world-needs-messages-of-peace-hope-and-goodwill?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other