• Stan was cooking the Sunday dinner.As usual up North it was roast beef and Yorkshire puddings.Stan was very good with  Yorkshire puddings.
  They ate them with gravy before the main course just to maintain tradition.Even Emile,their talking cat, loved a pudding soaked in thick meaty gravy..Suddenly the kitchen door burst open and in rushed their neighbour Annie… covered in blue paint.
  What’s happened to you,hinny,Stan enquired naughtily.Surely you are not house painting on  a Sunday?
  No,I never paint  thee housemyself,she responded.I was in the shed and a stray cat was up on the top shelf.It leaped off  and knocked over over this  old tin of paint.I’m wondering how to get it out of my hair?The paint,not the cat!
  What type of paint is it?
  It’s emulsion paint.
  Well,I’m afraid you can’t get it out!
  I can’t go around town with blue hair,she cried hysterically..
  Well,all I can think is,I could cut off a little of your hair.
  OK, if that’s the only way.she said,being keen on Stan’s touching her even if only on the head.
  Can I stay and eat with you?
  Of course,sweetheart.Now here are some pinking shears.
  Have you no ordinary scissors?she screeched fractiously.
  No,we lost them.But pinking shears will give a layered effect.
  Stan began cuttting the left side of Annie’s hair.Then he went around to the right.
  She looked in the mirror,The left side  is a bit longer than the right.
  OK I’ll cut off a bit more on the left.
  Oh,my God.The shears slipped,it’s gone really short!
  All Stan could do was cut the remainder of Annie’s lovely hair so it was only 2.54 cm long all over.
  Suddenly Mary came in,I didn’t know you were a hair dresser she said sardonically to her husband.
  Well,Annie got paint in her hair so I’ve trimmed her hair.
  Trimmed it..it looks like she won’t need a cut for about two years.
  Annie began to sob noisily ,terrifying Emile who was hiding behind the flour bin.
  Well,Stan answered, it will be easier to wash and dry and no need for rollers etc
  I think it looks charming.
  Why pinking shears?Mary whispered.You could have used my dressmaking ones.
  Well,.too late now mioawed Emile sarcastically.
  Well,I think it looks sweet,said Stan bravely.
  Meantime,you have burned the puddings again
  Just like King Alfred and the cakes.Men are only good at savoury and meat dishes.
  It takes a woman to cook puddings and cakes.But Yorkshire puddings are savouries.
  I wonder how Wittgenstein would have classified them ?   cried Mary enthusiastically.
  Not Wittgenstein again,moaned Stan,can’t you move onto someone else?
  Whom do you suggest?
  Try Carnap for a while.
  Oh,he’s more of a logician,Mary said defiantly,You see I love Wittgenstein as a human being..
  Are you committing adultery ?Stan demanded  dominatingly That’s an exaggeration,He’s dead i believe.
  That’s what they all say,shouted Stan angrily.
  But what about you and Annie?
  Well,I get lonely with you lecturing and researching all day long.
  Surely you could wait till I come home?
  I suppose so,though a harem has always been my dream!
  I think you are past it,said Mary rudely.
  That’s not what I see, said Emile quietly.
  Meanwhile Annie had washed her hair an it dried in tiny uneven curls all over her head.
  It looks quite fetching,they decided as they sat down to eat the charred yorkshire puddings.
  What an exciting Sunday especially for Stan who enjoyed touching and playing with women’s hair.
  I wonder if it’s a mental illnes?
  I’ll have to look on the internet.Still, better than panic attacks, he thought consolingly as he carried the roast beef into the dining room where the women were discussing religious topics including a curiousity about why Christians were so anti Semitic despite Jesus’s wish for people to love each other.and besides Jesus being God,he was also a Jewish person too on his mother’s side.
  That’s interesting,Stan thought,Here people think he’s English!What a weird world it is,to be sure.
  Little children,love one another,as someone once said many years ago but humankind is still in the toddler stage of development I fear…. and going backwards too.

The Writer’s Workbench: 50 Tools You Can Use | Poynter’s News University

Improving Your Poetry | eHow.com

10 tips to improve your writing.

 Watercolour by William Turner,the great English painter

 I have mislaid the author’s name but  click on the link “Back to contents”and you will be taken to his excellent  site

General Needs

To take up watercolour painting you will need Paints, Brushes, a water container, Mixing palette, a board, a pencil, watercolour paper and a putty eraser. The general rule is to buy the best you can afford as you will get better results with higher quality equipment and materials. Back to contents

Paints

Watercolour paints are manufactured in Student Quality and Artists Quality. They are available in either pans (cakes of colour) or in tubes, both in various sizes. They are manufactured specifically for ‘watercolour’ painting and are fundamentally transparent. There are other water based paints which are designed to be opaque i.e. Gouache (sometimes called Designers’ colours) and Chinese watercolours which are generally unsuitable for traditional English watercolours.
Tubes are more convenient when painting large areas, they cause less wear on brushes and save time. They allow fresh, uncontaminated colour to be used at the start of each painting.
Pans are more compact and easily transportable.
My preference: TUBES
Student quality paints are OK for beginners and improvers (some professional artists use them). They are relatively inexpensive and can produce good glowing watercolour paintings. The cost is standard throughout the range. Student quality paints usually use substitute pigments for the more expensive pigments used in Artist Quality paints (The description ‘Hue’ after the colour normally indicates this). Student quality paints may not be as transparent and/or light fast as artist quality. Winsor and Newton call their student quality ‘ Cotman’, and Daler Rowney’s are called ‘Georgian’
Artist quality paints are normally grouped into categories which designates a cost band as the pigments used to produce different colours vary considerably in price. e.g. Series 1 to series 5 for Winsor and Newton. There are many other brands available such as St. Petersburg, Michael Wilcox, etc.
Paints are packaged in boxed sets of pans or tubes or sold as separate colours.
Start with at least Student Quality – don’t use lower quality than this i.e. watercolour boxes intended for children’ as it will be difficult, if not impossible, to produce glowing pictures.
It’s better to start with a few colours and mix others rather than have a large number of ready made colours.
Buy separate colours, this way you will be able to select the colours that you want. (Colour is part of an artists style)
A good starting palette of student quality paints is:
Essentials: Ultramarine, Cerulean Blue Hue, Cadmium Red Hue, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue, Lemon yellow.
These six colours, Warm Blue / Cold Blue, Warm Red / Cold Red & Warm Yellow / Cold Yellow, enable the mixing of a wide range of colours.
Useful additional colours are:
Light Red, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Payne’s Gray, Cobalt blue, Winsor blue, New Gamboge Hue.
Ready made greens are not essential for landscape and flower paintings as a wide range of greens can be mixed from the colours

the poet’s glance « the awakened eye

I once had a doctor called Parkin

 who was given to humour and larkin’.

When I took of my coat

He made a swift note

Until my old dog started barkin’.

I said,doctor you are very precise

But is taking notes always wise?

I don’t want to forget

The first time we met.

I always felt you were so nice!

But I’m here because I am in pain.

He shouted out,No,not again!

I said,keep your voice down

It’ll be alround the town.

And I don’t want to harm your old brain.

I tried self hypnosis and calm,

I tried pain pills and unguents and balm.

I had chinese massage,

And was assessed for triage.

At least hypnosis doesn’t harm