• Jim Brown was in his new conservatory admiring the windows he had just
  polished.His 82nd birthday was coming up in a few days
  Marie,his stunningly attractive yet irritable,nasty and over educated
  wife,a leading authority on Wittgenstein and most likely suffering from
  Asperger’s syndrome into the bargain,….oh a cliche prone author too—!
  had made a huge whole orange cake and planned a large gathering of friends
  to celebrate his survival for so long whilst married to her,not easy she
  knows.
  He heard a sharp tapping on the door.
  There lay Lucy their next door neighbour spying through the key hole.
  “Are you on your own?” she queried tersely yet rudely.
  “No, yet I’m suffering from chronic existential anxiety” Bill lied politely.
  “Well,I just saw Martina on her second hand Raleigh bike going to the
  market or the Charity Shop or possibly leaving home for ever….”
  “Well,I still have the cat here”,he whispered loudly as if he were free
  associating in a dream
  “Let me in and make me some coffee” she asked courteously,
  “She’s an odd one” the cat Emile thought naughtily.
  “Where’s my Carnation cat milk?”
  “Real or instant?” Simon answered suavely yet naturally.
  “Won’t it wash off your brand new coral lipstick from Chanel of Paris?…
  not to mention your factor 60 sunblock.”
  “God’s whiskers” she murmured quaintly to herself.
  “How does he know it’s Chanel?
  Is he a spy or what?
  Is he in M.I.5?”
  John got some instant coffee and debated whether to put in a little LSD to
  add some visions to their morning!No,a short breathing exercise would do
  he concluded after 9 minutes of obsessive anxiety.
  He sat down in his favorite old wooden Habitat chair having poured the
  coffee into some old plastic mugs.
  “Did you know Habitat is going b..b bankrupt?” she brightly stuttered
  turning pink with happiness and the menopause which so far had lasted over
  30 years.
  Suddenly Lucy sat down on Bert’s lap and began to kiss his right eyelid
  “Careful, my darling!” he muttered insensibly.
  He was savouring the annoyingly uncommon pleasure when the chair fell to
  pieces as it frequently did at such times, throwing the elderly but
  versatile and experienced couple down onto the new Mary Quant patterned
  pure New Zealand lambswool carpet.Suddenly they heard the peal of Mary’s
  bicycle bell.Shortly she walked into the room carrying 78 bags of
  groceries for the birthday party.
  “What’s going on here ?” she murmured seductively in a piercing shriek.
  “I’m so sorry, Jenny, please accept my apologies, he has this thing about
  chairs.It’s a fetish ,I believe, according to Sinald Floyd.””
  “Have you got your mobile?” shrieked Tom agonisedly in a loud whisper.
  ”I can’t get up.” he screamed softly.”Am I dead?”
  “What cannot stand up must forever remain lying down” As my old philosophy tutor at Cambridge used to say, muttered Marty.
  “Why, that’s bit extreme,” said Jane uneasily yet gallantly.
  .”MY tutor said “Who cannot speak must forever remain silent.”
  “Oh,who was your tutor?”
  “Elizabeth Ansconbe!” Amy admitted furtively.”She knew Wittgetensin well.”
  “Mine was Iris Murdoch!” called out Alf.
  Later they heard a silent siren.It was the emergency ambulance.
  Dick, the paramedic bounded into the room.
  “It’s this chair” said Marie urbanely.
  “Can you mend it for me? My husband can’t manage without it!”
  “Anything else, madam?” Rick queried anxiously.
  “Any coal to fetch in,tins to open, blocked toilets?”
  “Later maybe.”
  Danny looked at Joan.
  “Your eyes look like two deep pools in the Caspian sea.”
  he whispered into her left ear.
  “Are you on another creative writing course?”she quipped urbanely.
  “Yes, we’re on eyes at the moment; what colour is that eyeshadow you have
  on.”
  “This is called winter teal” She admitted uneasily yet seductively.
  “Did you know I’m a transvestite?” he admitted happily her.
  “Yes”,she replied dishonestly.Kitty like to give an impression of
  omniscience owing to her ontological insecurity and her ignorance of
  theology and also her narrowly trained mathematical mind.
  Unfortunately, that frequently gave men the wrong impression.
  Mamie cried out to Al,
  “Get on with it,my sweetie!” So he took out a big tube of glue from his
  jeans’ pocket and set to work reconstructing the chair.
  “Oh,dear, Stewart looks a bit odd”
  “!No,he looks quite prime to me.”
  “Is he an integer?!”
  “No, he’s a transcendental real number”
  “He’s a number all right.”
  “Never mind, we’ve just got new wheelie bins so I’ll put him out with the
  rubbish,”
  Marty joked on hearing Amy’s remarks to Zach.
  But Simon was not yet dead.He merely had fallen asleep.
  He dreamed of his days at Oxgridge University studying illogic and unreason
  with Rudolphina Catnap, the famous female philosopher.Oh, happy, happy days!
  Danny made the ladies some Ceylon tea in the fabulous oak kitchen with its
  pure linen curtains in raspberry beige. and its black enamel sink with
  matching double oven and microwave.”Why no halogen?”Iris Murdoch might
  have asked.
  “What is a human life,”he pondered.He was studying logic as well as writing.
  He began to tremble like a leaf in the wind to use a freshly recycled old
  cliche.
  “Help” he called,”I’m having a panic attack.Hurry I’m dying,I believe.I
  need a priest“
  “You can’t have a panic attack,” shouted Marianne
  “Paramedics heal themselves.”
  “Does God heal those who heal themselves he wondered as he lay under a pile

  of broken china?”

  “Where’s the tea?” called the ladies.
  Ah ,if only Wittgenstein were here,he would know,t hought Emile.
  But I disagree.Only God would know that and He won’t say usually as he
  speaks another language known only to the few.Though sometimes one may
  hear it on the wind deep in a thick forest.
  That’s what I believe.
  Here endeth the first lesson… so be off!

In a private room they’re left alone

With old age and sadness they will moan

Gazing at the pictures on the wall

They see blurs yet,if they walk they fall.

Photographs of loved ones bring remorse

Memories of quarrels taunt and curse

Suffering pain, depression which is worse?

Ice inside the heart will numb the pain

To feel our grief, with sadness

We remain

At some moment will come change of heart

In the black death of the night a new life starts

My heart is like a boat on choppy seas

Directions changing,constantly deceived.

I startle like an infant with no guard.

All burned up.my self is painful charred

Why are the winds inconstant and too strong?

And where on earth does this poor soul belong?

I need a life official to take root.

Otherwise I shall produce no fruit.

Not the barren fig tree Jesus cursed

Save me from a life that feels accursed

Dislocated retina.

Detached shoulder

Broken charm

Split hairs

No heir.

Wandering mind.

Loss of correction.

Waving ears

Dry cleaned tongues

Cloven feet

Lost head

Head shrinking

Short trunk.

Bald facet

Died hair

Lost wig

Katherine poetry, Thinkings and poems, villanelle  August 24, 2016 

Rich deep silence brings pleasures unique
From  peaceful green of  trees where small  birds  hide.
The work within the mind  may be complete

About our souls, we each must be discreet
Even to those  living by our side
Rich deep silence brings pleasures unique

Happy to do nothing,nothing seek
Innocent as  young, beloved bride
The work within the mind  may be complete

Ignorant of Latin,Hebrew,Greek,
The heart needs no such learning to decide
Rich deep silence brings pleasures unique

I listen to the  world around me speak
Underneath the turmoil,love’s alive
The work within the mind  may be complete

In our world  the sensitive may writhe
Yet, by our intuitions, we may guide
Rich deep silence brings pleasures unique
The work within the mind  may be complete

I am floating in the water in my maxi flowered dress

i don’t know where I’m going to,you just have to guess

No,I am not drowning.Nor shall I now confess

The priest was not amused, said my sins were very odd.

I shall not rely on him,I rely on God

He told another woman she was wasting too much time

She was thinking carefully to make her sin’s a rhyme

She was also envious but envy is no poem

Did Jesus die on Calvary because Love is a crime?

Religion is perverted to glorify the Strong

Aint’ it bleeding obvious that is sorta wrong ?

I liked the explanation of how shingle on a beach is sorted by size (Letters, 10 July). The same effect occurs in a box of muesli when the raisins and nuts find their way to the top. Surely this can’t be down to longshore drift?
Joanna Rimmer
Lambley, Northumberland

←
I wonder who thinks calculus is part of geomorphology?

Topology, a branch of mathematics, is sometimes called rubber sheet geometry.
It’s a sad world when mathematicians have to study the sheets of those of us who have leaky bladders.
However, if Tracy Emin’s bed is a work of art it extends the possibilities for scientists and mathematicians.And this needed because with all academics having to publish very frequently they might run out of topics.
So we might have a study of duvets and the different shapes they might assume when they are covering just one person, two people, three people and since we are mathematicians, we could study their shapes when covering an infinite number of people.
Alternatively how about the effect of one person being covered by an infinite number of duvets?
Would it be aleph-null the infinity of the rational numbers or aleph 0ne [the infinity of the real numbers]?
Aleph one is the bigger of the two .
Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet… and it is used because mathematicians already have used up the Greek alphabet.
So now we use the Hebrew one which is slightly different.
If you learned calculus you will recall all those delta x’s and delta y’s.
This makes me think calculus is part of geomorphology and I do believe that geomorphology which studies the surface of the earth is linked to the love and study of the mother’s face and body by human infants.
So calculus is linked to the studied love of babies.Can it be that if you had a disturbed infancy you will find mathematics very hard? Plastic geometry and plastic surgery will be dealt with later but obviously again it is linked to love or hate of the body though our bodies are not usually made from plastic but who knows the future?

Before he died he criticized our phone

If you go to Oxford buy a comb

If you see a brush then bring it home

The carpet’s full of crumbs, what is your name?

I don’t want to die he whispered plain

Let me be reborn to try again

I went over once with Ronald Knox

He was very holy See his socks.

He loves Jesus walking with his flocks

Don’t open your front door, God never knocks

My husband bore a grudge against my mind

He asked me to remove it for a time

But where is it situated I enquired

Behead me if you must,I am no liar

If without my head I please a man

On all ladies heads should be now banned

Of course without a head we cannot think

Nor be alive to wisdom, nor men’s winks.

Can we live forever with no brain?

If you cannot speak be dumb again

)

My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.

. . . I still hold two truths with equal and fundamental certainty. One: the British did terrible things to the Irish. Two: the Irish, had they the power, would have done equally terrible things to the British. And so also for any other paired adversaries I can imagine. The difficulty is to hold on to both truths with equal intensity, not let either one negate the other, and know when to emphasize one without forgetting the other. Our humanity is probably lost and gained in the necessary tension between them both. I hope, by the way, that I do not sound anti-British. It is impossible not to admire a people who gave up India and held on to Northern Ireland. That shows a truly Celtic sense of humor.

John Dominic Crossan

sadly, the book of Job was but a speed bump on the Deuteronomic superhighway. The delusion of divine punishments still prevails inside and outside religion over the clear evidence of human consequences, random accidents, and natural disasters. This does not simply distort theology; it defames the very character of God.

John Dominic Crossan, How to Read the Bible and uStill Be a Christian:l

The boots up on my feet made many dread

To see my body without any head.

Who was allowed inside the Tower that day?

With her life the lady had to pay.

The adults in her life had a feet of clay.

Is there any humble person who can pray?

I would like to write a book instead.

Light a fire and find out who is dead.

God preserve the humble from decay.

Why did Shakespeare write so many plays?

Would you wish to be the Lady Jane?

At risk of being murdered if she fails

In truth she had a short and trying reign

Her tears fell down like clouds of steady rain

When Mary Tudor caused a fearsome gale

Would you wish to be the Lady Jane?

Her emotions hurt an agile but strange brain

As the Queen she had been sometime hailed

In truth she had a short and startling reign

She was valued less than turgid drains

There are no photos but her face was pale

0h,would you have liked to meet the Lady Jane

She should not have married Guildford in disdain

Better to await the holy grail

She had an almost non-existent reign

They did not let you from the Tower on bail.

Nor provide a boat in which to sail

They made the Lady Jane into a clown.

How much further could you travel down ?

I’d like to have good memories of you

If you have to go before I do.

I’d like to see you smiling at the cat.

I’d like to see you wearing your straw hat

And smiling on the terrace as you eat

How you loved the garden and herbs sweet.

You smiled so well I did not realise

That you were giving me your last goodbye

insecurity
[in-si-kyoo r-i-tee]
Spell Syllables
Synonyms Examples Word Origin
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
noun, plural insecurities.
1.
lack of confidence or assurance; self-doubt:
He is plagued by insecurity.
2.
the quality or state of being insecure; instability:
the insecurity of her financial position.
3.
something insecure :
the many insecurities of life.
Origin of insecurity Expand
Medieval Latin
1640-16501640-50; < Medieval Latin insēcūritās. See insecure, -ity
Synonyms Expand
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
2. precariousness, shakiness, vulnerability.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2016.
Cite This Source
Examples from the Web for insecurity Expand
Contemporary Examples
Bridges talks to Caryn James about his insecurity —and how acting is like being born again.
December 11, 2009
Nor can the hardening of positions in Israel can be attributed to Israeli insecurity.

Reading Lustick Carefully
Jerry Haber
September 19, 2013
Never has indecision, infidelity, and insecurity seemed quite so tangible.
July 18, 2012
In addition to insecurity, those arriving in refugee camps cited forced recruitment as one of their main concerns.

Islamist Group Al-Shabab Retreats From Somali Stronghold
Laura Heaton
September 29, 2012
Her daily missives chronicle the longing and insecurity that often befall long-distance relationships and eventual breakups.
December 17, 2012
Historical Examples
It was this sense of doubt and insecurity in the nation that gave significance to trifles.

The Age of Pope
John Dennis
This ignorance of the foe’s whereabouts carried with it a sense of insecurity.

A Set of Six
Joseph Conrad
Argenson saw the storm coming, and feeling the insecurity of his position, wished to save himself.

The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete
Duc de Saint-Simon
This ignorance of his adversary’s whereabouts carried with it a sense of insecurity.

The Point Of Honor
Joseph Conrad
In times of insecurity the Kai used to build their huts for safety among the spreading boughs of great trees.

The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3)
Sir James George Frazer

Word Origin and History for insecurity Expand
n.
1640s, from Medieval Latin insecuritas, from insecurus (see insecure ). Specific psychological sense is by 1917.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/safety/online-privacy/avoid-phone-scams.aspx

 

 

“Avoiding technical support scams

Cybercriminals don’t just send fraudulent email messages. They might call you on the telephone and claim to be from Microsoft. They might also setup websites with persistent pop-ups displaying fake warning messages and a phone number to call and get the “issue” fixed. They might offer to help solve your computer problems or sell you a software license. Once they have access to your computer, they can do the following:

• Trick you into installing malicious software that could capture sensitive data, such as online banking user names and passwords. They might also then charge you to remove this software.
• Convince you to visit legitimate websites (like http://www.ammyy.com) to download software that will allow them to take control of your computer remotely and adjust settings to leave your computer vulnerable.
• Request credit card information so they can bill you for phony services.
• Direct you to fraudulent websites and ask you to enter credit card and other personal or financial information there.

“Remember, Microsoft will never proactively reach out to you to provide unsolicited PC or technical support. Any communication we have with you must be initiated by you.”

Below is more information on what to look out for with telephone and web pop-up scams and how to report them:

On this page:

Telephone support scams – What you need to know

Scam Pop-Ups: What You Need to Know

How to report tech support scams

How to protect yourself from tech support scams

What to do if you already gave information to a tech support person

Microsoft does not make unsolicited phone calls to help you fix your computer”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-big-question-what-are-israeli-settlements-andycvyy-why-are-they-¹coming-under-pressure-1692515.html

Why do the Palestinians and now the US see that as a problem?

Settlements have already made it considerably more difficult to envisage a Palestinian state, not least because the huge apparatus of roads, military infrastructure and protected land that services them – an estimated 40 per cent of the West Bank in all – which helps to cut the occupied territory into separate cantons and often swallows up Palestinian farmland. Second, opponents of settlements argue that they have had a profoundly negative effect on the peace process, put at its most extreme by Amos Elon, the Israeli writer who died this week and in 2002 wrote: “Imagine the effect on the peace process in Northern Ireland if the British government continued moving thousands of Protestants from Scotland into Ulster and settling them, at government expense, on land confiscated from Irish Catholics…”

Inevitably that effect is magnified the more they are allowed to grow. Which is why Palestinian President Abbas, who saw President Obama yesterday, has been arguing he won’t negotiate with Israel until there is a freeze.

When first I came to London town
They said I did not fit
My accent was too foreign
And I had no English wit.

My ancestors were Viking folk
Celts and Saxons too
And possibly I’m Roman
And possibly you are too.

Why the wish to classify
To control and to divide?
A lot of insecurity
A handful of false pride.

If England is divided
We need an enemy
.Who shall be the enemy?
Is it either you or me?

Democracy can break and bend
Democracy can fall.
Perhaps we were all misled
By the Berlin wall.

Hidden in defences now
We cannot see too well.
We see the shadows flickering
The cave’s a prison cell.

Blinded by anxiety
By insecurity
Let’s take off our eye masks now
To see what we should see.

The leaves are almost black against the sky

The sun is very bright but hidden by

The branches of the trees the twigs awry.

The breeze in humid air contains a sigh.

I have loved you and I’ve held you.

Many years,you have been mine;

If the time has come for parting

Let us embrace for one last time.

You know you have to leave me,

Though you desire a longer stay.

Let me hold you in my arms now

For tonight and one more day.

Then I’ll watch you travel on,sweet.

We seem take the last step quite alone.

I’ll be here beside you watching.

I shall sense when you are gone.

May you accept, may you surrender.

I hope you reach the promised land.

Into this earth my tears will fall, love,

As I recall your tender hands.

Moorish I hope you are keeping well I’m not finding marriage very interesting.

Food food and moorfield every day

Why are men so greedy!?

Being too critical as a wife

I need to get teac1h yourself domestic slavery in 6 weeks.

Or how to become a nonsense worker I’ll make plenty of money

Trying to be humorous but it doesn’t seem very funny really to me so why didn’t you finish you. Why is sex funny

Loving daughter

Annette

1

The River Lea starts in the Chiltern hills

Its lower banks are filled with daffodils

On nearby downs folks  glide to whipsnade zoo

I wonder if if the tigers see them now

And if the amber tigers would  be pleased

To eat a man when he’ d been over teased.

Since my lover died I’ve stayed away

what would I do if he was  on eBay

Being sold as used for £20

I’d rather keep his ashes underground

Can we refurbish men we used to love

When they have flown away to heaven above?

By Kathryn Braithwaite. Copyright 2012

I didn’t abuse you, it was a snap-dragon next to me
Please give me peace,lily.
Roses can be read by those in the know
Where’s the menu? I ate it? I need solid food
Polyanthus is a name I abhor.I can’t even spell it.
What’s the bill? A piece of paper .That figures
Lupins are my favourite form of life
I’d hate to read a paper on quantum theory.That’s why we get the Sun.We know what to expect.Probably…. about 96% sure
Why do people eat ducks’ legs? Seems so cruel.I know ducks swim but……
This is my mobile home.What, a tent? No, it’s a headboard
A pity gold was discovered.Mud is less contentious
Satan is my fiend today.Let us pray/play.prey

Late November,trees still shed burnt leaves

They gently swirl and fly tossed on the breeze

The birds pretend alarm and fly about.

Play the flute and entertain no doubts

This woman died before w gave her a bed.

Stop giving beds away+We are running out.

Don’t know how you can run in bed.

You just feel you are

This man lived in a Greenhouse

Maybe Greenwich

Are there green witches?

You can’t live in a witch.

Only in her cottage

I thought you said Corset.

Ah Freud

No that was a slip!

This lady died in her sleep

She is going green

Only since she died.

This man had acute coronary syndrome.

Is he better?

I can’t tell He’s dead

It must have been chronic then

I had a heart attack in the doctors office

What on earth did he do?

He said, next time go to the hospital.

We can’t always time such things unless we live in the hospital.

Are you allowed to?

Not unless you rise from the dead

So only one room,then?

Probably.Unless there’s a a Second Coming