Today I’m mainly thinking about saving money and I’ve already managed to save some  myself by changing my phone tariff.

My living room faces is North northwest and it’s very cold right now

I have got severe osteo arthritis I have also got rheumatoid arthritis so I can’t move about a lot

I hate it when the air changes to autumn coldness It’s essential to wear socks or stockings. When the weather is really cold wool is the best thing.

And you need to wear at least one more layer of clothing. Even when it’s not a problem to pay for heating it just seemed wasteful to have it on in September in some rooms but sometimes that has to happen and if you’re short of money what else can you do?

Sometimes lightweight fine merino wool sweaters are  good

Covering up your neck and throat is very important especially when you go outside in cold weather. If that area of your body gets cold you are more likely to have a heart attack especially if you already have angina.

Inside the house it also helps. Maybe a lightweight scarf for something around your throat makes a big difference

Now many people wear fleece instead of wool

It’s hard to find pure wool sweaters in places that used to sell them very frequently like marks and Spencers.

And the cost is very high

If you are going to visit somebody their house may be very hot so you have to think about these things nowadays

Cardigans or fleece jackets are good. Partly because you can take them off without causing offense to anybody

It’s what women going to the menopause learn that is wearing  fine layers  idbetter than one very thick layer because you can’t take that off easily and you may very well cause some surprise if you’ve got nothing underneath it or if you’re wearing a zebra striped bra which is a little bit too small for you but you like it anyway

That brings us onto underwear. It’s difficult to find woolen underwear but there is thermal underwear which ones you he ave bought it should last for quite a while

But should you waste your money on zebra striped bras or something else leopard skin print knickers question mark well that very much depends on your lifestyle

If you have a partner who is turned on by you wearing that sort of underwear then maybe you should buy it but if not whatever your fantasies are do you actually need to actually wear it in reality rather than just fantasizing about it?

That’s a difficult question to answer.

But it might be more economical just to wear beige or black underwear especially maybe more sensible if you’re likely to have to whip your clothes off with a hot flush or a panic attack.

I once went to college wearing some red corduro trousers and the zip broke while I was giving a lecture on some boring mathematical topic like pascals triangle

And I was wearing white underwear which is not the best sort but my lecture was so interesting that the students’ eyes remain on my face and nobody looks at anything else.

We had some very nice students

If you want to wear zebra striped trousers I would recommend wearing zebra striped underwear as well or making sure the trousers have elastic waist and not a zip

I’m not sure if you can save money by wearing the zebra striped trousers it depends where you can buy them from. If you have a market that sells them for ten pounds each then that probably is quite cheap although there won’t be very warm but then you could afford to have two pairs of them

This is one of the secrets of warmth.. wearing more than one of the garment

Or it will make more sense to wear some cheap black leggings underneath your trousers.

If you don’t plan to give a lecture on Pascal triangle then I think you will be ok wearing any kind of trousers

Since then I have an aversion to red trousers. And I forgotten what a triangle is not to mention the ellipse and the parabola and the other beautiful geometric forms that we used to study

But my students did very well they were very hard-working kind people

So in other words use your imagination

It’s worth spending money on certain things like wool

Making  our own jumpers is not economical. Wool is very expensive and also unless you like knitting with very fine wool you’re going to produce sweaters which most people find too hot when they have Central Heating. But if you don’t have it knit one for yourself and it will last you for a long time

Knitting is an activity which can bring about peace of mind similar to what you get when you do meditation and you also get a product

I believe it’s caused by the rhythmic movements and the rhythm of the pattern itself for example Shetland layers might be a pattern of horseshoes on the sound and I have done that and I it’s it’s a wonderful thing to do.

So you can combine benefits from knitting meditation and producing something beautiful as long as you are that you or someone else will actually wear it or that you can sell it because all I’m writing about today is saving money reall whether it’s short term or long term

If you have a friend who lives near you you could save a bit of money by having them to lunch once a week and then the following week the reverse because it will save money on heating and also it might so a little bit on cooking

What’s a pity we can’t live on grass and leaves but there we are m

Kier Starmer v  Che Guevara

Rachel Reeves…. falling leaves

Wesley streeting, plotters meeting 

Job vacancies

Corridor cleaners are paid £20 an hour in the Old Whittington Hospital. Patients waiting in A&E can be taken on in these jobs for all  or part of a day. It’s a good way to keep fit while you’re waiting instead of lounging in a chair weeping with pain drinking hospital tea Where do they buy their tea from by the way? I suppose if the tea was good quality then folk would walk in from the street and pretend to be ill just so they could get a cup of free tea who knows maybe people are already doing that

The prime minister sounds like a mother of young children when he says that he didn’t look at the welfare bill properly because he was distracted by  foreign policy

I know that feeling when you would have loved to make your husband a wonderful dinner but you were distracted by the baby’s potty

My I goodness I’ I’m completely out of date who makes their husband’s dinner now? Who who even has a husband now? And if you do would you dream of making his dinner rather than lying down anything and eating a Mars bar ice cream?

I ate one in alderburgh  I look at Me now!

What with that and the scar from my surgery I could be in the fairground frightening children or men

Che Guevara don’t eat llama

Vote for starmer it will keep you calmer

Work from your bed or you.will go to prison instead

I have lost my shadow, I’m not real

The sun may shine but  I am in the dark.

My eyes are full of tears, but I can’t feel

I eat alone and so it’s not a meal

When I walk my feet don’t leave a mark

I have lost my shadow I’m not real.

I think I know the game but not the deal.

I see no neighbours yet their dogs still bark

My eyes are full of tears but I can’t feel

My mind runs on like clockwork, I can’t heal.

If I climb a hill there is no lark

I have lost my shadow I’m not real.

I tried to hold your  hand, it shook like eels

My eyes are rich with tears but I can’t feel

My father used to hit me there’s no mark

I loved him and he died, my heart’s a shark

I have lost my shadow I’m not real

My eyes are full of tears but I can’t feel

There was an old lady from Britain
Whose love focussed on her cat’s kitten.
She gave it warm milk
Wrapped it in silk.
And now she is knitting four mittens.

Is that literary?

LITERARY LIMERICK?

A philosopher  is a person who thinks
While she washes up at the sink.
She turns over her mind
And lets it unwind…..
She writes all her thoughts down in ink.

CAN YOU TELL LIES?

Some people can’t fantasise
I wonder if they can tell lies?
Reveries  suits  me…
I day dream at tea.
Maybe my friends are  all dangerous spies?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/categories/anger

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/oct/20/gilgamesh-by-simon-armitage-review-an-ancient-epic-is-brilliantly-translated-for-our-times?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Artificial light destroys the night

The stars cannot compete with such a sight

And God himself is just a candle light

The still small voice is drowned by mobile phones.

No one hears the lonely as they moan

And who can hear the voice of heart and bone ?

The titans in their towers of evil scream

Louder than the voice of God in dreams.

And here we are afraid of their new schemes.

We send our little messages each day

Maybe we should all kneel down and pray

Dreaming of new wars, can children play?

Give us back the night lit up by stars.

From our human roots we step too far

A villanelle is like a cable knit
The lines repeated twist ,make strong ,make warm
My mind is held by pattern as I sit

How can we find a subject that is fit
To spend our time to make this unique form?
A villanelle is like a cable knit

1 and 3 repeat while 2 rhymes with
1 and 3 make strong the cabled arm
My mind is held by pattern as I sit

For few escape the glimpsed abyss
Patterns,repetitions, keep us calm
A villanelle is like a holy knit

Who hurts whom and why did Judas kiss?
King David knew the darkness ,wrote his psalms
My mind flows with the patterns as I sit

From life and death and injured pride we learn
That noone who repents will suffer blame
A villanelle from chosen words is knit
My mind dwells in the pattern and the wit.

My husband was so funny when imitating other people’s faces that once I woke myself up laughing at his performance in a dream So at least I’ll get more sleep now he’s gone and I can cry all day He used to bring me tea in the morning.Now I get more exercise having to do it myself He once bought me lavender furniture polish for my birthday. I’ve never been given that by anyone else.Such imagination. Before he died, he was asleep near me.He woke up and said You’re not very house proud,are you? I’d only had major plastic surgery on my face for cancer 2 days before he collapsed,  and I had got advanced arthritis and lost the sight of one eye. [ maybe under the bed] Still it showed he was still of sound mind. How many dying men would say that to their wife? It did make me wonder why on earth he married me. I shall never know now.

 

 

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

 

 

“MEANINGLESS WORDS. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning(2). Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality’, while another writes, ‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness’, the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains several patches of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full translation. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations — race, battle, bread — dissolve into the vague phrases ‘success or failure in competitive activities’. This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing — no one capable of using phrases like ‘objective considerations of contemporary phenomena’ — would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase (‘time and chance’) that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first. Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. I do not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes.

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier — even quicker, once you have the habit — to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for the words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry — when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech — it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash — as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot — it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip — alien for akin — making further nonsense, and several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase put up with, is unwilling to look egregiousup in the dictionary and see what it means; (3), if one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one could work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In (4), the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have almost parted company. People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning — they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another — but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. The will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.”

The gravity of loss brought me to earth
Beneath the rotting leaves, I lay with worms.
I wondered if I were of any worth

No more to be enchanted by love’s mirth,
I  with unnamed particles was turned.
The weight of loss bears down the heart to earth.

The weight of  love has readied us for birth
The fragments moulded with the love that burns.
I learned we need  not wonder  over  worth

My sorrow brought no guilt nor fear of wrath
I am both  sharp eyed eagle ,twisted worm.
In my little grave, I  loved the earth.

Like the adder, shocked into rebirth.
I from silent underworld had learned
Not to judge my soul nor think of worth.

I shall not  fear the flames of hell that burn.
When blackness is accepted, may one learn?
The weight of loss breaks down the soul to earth
With dusty shredded leaves, we then converse

I see you in my minds eye, golden light

Unexpected, warm and tender friend

.

I’d like to see you now, give me the sight

You don’t come on demand until the end.

We should not ask for what can never be

You are always here but we seem blind

Believing only in that which we  can see

In calculations logic, reasoning mind

I wonder how I saw you that dark night

In the sunless darkness of despair

In those deep black times we see the light

Glowing screens destroy our darkness fair

So now I  see not God but Instagram

Is Jesus Christ on tik tok with his lamb?

.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/09/the-guardian-view-on-the-two-cultures-bridge-the-divide-starting-with-a-levels?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

As we lay together in the night
Open to the other and their gaze
We saw the spirit and its loving light

Now I dwell alone and out of sight
I miss  my other and his different ways
Did we rest together in the night?

Where’s the spirit,  I’m alone distraught?
Who can be the other to my face?
We saw the spirit, now I’ve lost its light.

God is  not a fish that can be caught
May contemplation  help  to loss erase
Did we dream together in the night?

Grace  to find one’s path as comes midnight
Dies irae, requiem  sauvage.
We saw the spirit and its loving light

What is night and where are my own days?
Can I  endure its  piercing  mental pain
As I lie alone at  dead of night
Send the spirit, enfold me in   light

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 horn

Gently dancing in the sun Wildflowers grow; they bloom, are gone.

With no thoughts,they have no cares;

Yet their lives are gentle prayers. May I walk in such a way

That I am alive to this day.

So I see with widening view, And joy and sorrows embrace too.

Then my time will come like yours… And of us nothing shall endure..

As to the earth our bodies go,

All are one;it shall be so

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/23/hilary-mantel-magic-metaphor-life?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Oh,light bulb foreseen by our God

Save us all from darkness’ rod

You are our Saviour as foretold In prophecy by ancients bold.

We will worship you at night

When sunken is the sun so bright. We’ll watch TV and Kindle fire

No more to play shall we aspire. We’ll wear ourselves out watching screens, As from a can we eat baked beans We’ll send for pizzas with our phones

With which we never feel alone. We might talk to our partner dear Though to text is easier. .

We see the neon street lights gleam

Where once we saw the moon’s cold beams

And in bed we read our books With a kindle or a nook .

We put beneath our pillows fair

i phones which we long to hear

Can one have too much new light? From technology some take flight For gone are seasons, and their fruit

As our computer we reboot.

New potatoes all year round Avocados once quite rare

Now are seem here everywhere. Melons,grapes and fresh green peas

As the birds sing,life’s a breeze.

Oh light bulbs,fluorescent tubes.

Electric candle, light is cubed.

We thank you for extended days Maybe we’ll find time for prayers. God is great in mystery

No light bulb can help us see.

In silence,darkness, meditate

Wonder what will be our fate.

As retribution for our wrong

Satan stabs us with his prongs

He needs no more light in hell .

The fiery furnace cooks as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/oct/15/how-to-start-writing-a-book?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Flowers by virtue of design
Appeal to both the heart and mind
First, perceive and then dwell on
Beauty, truth and thus reason

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

What to you may be a worthless weed
Bears its little flowers to make its seeds
Thus it spreads itself as Love requires
Humble speedwell,hear of our desires.

In the pavements cracks were home to grass
The sidestep slabs were broken like thick glass
When deep frost came, rain made frozen pools
I trod in them as I tore up to school

The crackling ice, the mist dropped on the park
Our ginger cat, the trees, the dog that barked
A woman in the kitchen making tea
The oven by the fire, the big door key

Little signs spark tender memories
The future fiction, past a lost abyss

A bird taps on this window every day,
Frail as flying leaves are in a gale.
But now he perches on the potted bay.
He feels the weather like the blind do braille.

This bird is faithful and I hold him dear.
He’s fearless as he pecks upon the glass.
We hope he has a modicum of fear,
For who knows when a sparrow hawk will pass?

I see him like a human soul forlorn
Struggling to discern his fateful way.
For soon he may be taken by a storm
But blithely he will eat, and after play.

The smallest bird has trust in the Unknown
By his example, our own way is shown

What is fratricide? Oh,Cain and Abel What is deicide? Wasting the only time we have ? What is a syllogism? Something to do with erotic love? What is a neologism? Maybe a syllogism that failed

What is logical positivism? Seeing only the good in others What is a pancake? A cake that won’t rise. What is a logical error? A feeling. What is mathematics for? Designing knitting patterns. N.

What is a neurosis? I d d d d d doubt my answer will be right.

What is an axiom? An atom with Ki What is a borderline personality disorder? When you can’t manage to have a full personality disorder.

When you keep building walls till you spent all your money and die of starvation .

When you have like geometry and being tidy?

What is starvation? Invasion by a star? Invitation to be a star?

Won’t you come back
Through the crack, that silence
Between what is and
What can be said?
It’s so peaceful there
Under the roots of the grass
And the flowers.
Tree roots dig tunnels
They mine, looking for new
Places to  connect
And we see the light in the gap
See people from underneath
See their shoes’ weathered soles
Want to be held
Not seen but touched.
Want to meld.
I imagine we  meet
In this place underneath
Flat like dried bats
Inching our way to the light
Out of the night
Quite out of sight

Random apples

Fall silently

On unknown Newtons

The face that was familiar is no more Lost like butterflies that wind destroys And I sit alone by this closed door From this anguish take me,I implore Hoping that my prayer will not annoy.

The face that was familiar is no more All the years have vanished from my store

With the empty future ,love destroyed .

As I sit alone by this closed door As days pass by, truth and pain conjoin .

Love is never evil but conveys

The face that was familiar is no more With nature’s rhythm, we touch on the benign Loss and even sin are cast away

As I decide to open this closed door

So I travel down the path of each new day

Good will and toleration come, I pray.

The face that was familiar is no more.

Kindness, care and time might me restore.