Category: Thinkings and poems

Tiny joys

I’ve always liked the plants that grow in cracks

The weeds between the cobbles in our street

The wallflowers in the cliffs, the weedy tracks

We walked upon warm cobbles with bare feet.

The flowers and weeds grow faster in the heat.

The shrubs burst into growth they feel no lack

Neither do the insects beat retreat

The sun is rising and defeats the black.

To see a weed in winter is a treat

Little children take delight in that

And those who grew up in a mill town street.

The little blades of green will feed the cat.

Do not take for granted tiny joys

These are the humble words that God employs

Illness is designed to slow us down

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Illness is a plot to slow us down

when God sees we are about to catch him up.
His face is covered by a thoughtful frown…
till he bestows with love the poisoned cup.

For speed is alien to the human soul
we have to live as slowly as hearts beat.
If rushing on we may miss our life’s goal.
Running down some long and rain-filled street.

Step by step across the dangerous flood
On stones placed there by patient long gone men.
With care,perception guides us to the good
but haste leads often to a tiger’s den.

Beware impulsive speeding in your mind
For out of this come many acts unkind

All day breakfast

I have got more and more incontinent.

Do stop admiring Europe

Why do the government tell us to eat more fruit and veg?

To help evacuate he Common Market from our bodies

Why do the government not have enough beds in hospitals?

They can’t all go to sleep at once!

Why do we have corridor care in our hospitals?

We have to have care everywhere soon it will be in the toilets and they will say: well you’ve got an ensuite bathroom

Is Britain the best country in the world?

It’s the best one for an all-day breakfast. That embodies the bad logic we English enjoy so much all day breakfast is a contradiction in terms

Doing evil things is bad for you. Is that a surprise?

I don’t think anyone would disagree with this except the people that I’m thinking of

Doing wicked things harms you and the person you injure but also it creates consternation and suffering in a broader circle

Many of us try very hard to lead a good life and it’s difficult to understand the criminal minds of people in power

Killing a young man like Alex Pretti

It’s unspeakable and I’m so sorry for people in the USA living under the present government

I know they voted for Donald Trump but I don’t suppose they imagined it will be like this.

Is being virtuous good for you – or just people around you? A study suggests traits like compassion may support your own well-being

Snowdrops in Oxfordshire

Is being virtuous good for you – or just people around you? A study suggests traits like compassion may support your own well-being https://share.google/K0K3XnhEjz3WxJE5Q

Evensong

It seems ridiculous to post this today after reading the news about Minneapolis but I refuse to totally give in

Even song evokes another state.

A world of beauty, peace and mental calm.

Where all is still and thoughts do not gyrate 

The breath slows down and evil does not mate

Indeed it flees before the holy psalms

Evensong evokes another state.

In the quiet, we each can, happy, wait

Assured by songs of good, of healing balm

Where all is still and thoughts do not gyrate. Soothing rhythms will help the mind create;

To bear the emptiness unfilled and do no harm. Evensong evokes this cultured state

Frantic notes of music irritate.

And minimise all goodness and all warmth

Let all be still and let thought emigrate.

Let us lowly creatures slowly learn

To love each other as we take our turn

Evensong evokes another state

There all is calm and thoughts are sweet as fate

In the English channel

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 to

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, reckless are the horns

Modern Life

People don’t eat at a table now.

We eat on our laps, we have a spoon/fork

The food has got to be easy to eat because we’re all holding our phones in one hand so we can carry on with a little conversations we were having before the  rest of the family came into the house.

Ultimately we won’t need bodies much although it’s hard to imagine sexual intercourse without a bod.

I’m sure that somebody’s going to find a way of doing it on your own!

I’m not sure that means on your own body or in your own mind.

It’s a pity the Catholic church isn’t around now to ban masturbation.

But one could see the point of it today.

But you can’t have love on a screen.

I do hope that you are already out of nappies.

The body does have its limitations along with its joys

What is the mind anyway?

Just a lot of sentences I suppose.

That’s all for now Goodbye, dearest

Now the Devil’s asking for his pay

.

There are no hours and minutes in a day
Whatever Nokia Lumias  might display
Babylonian  clocktowers hover;
Cracked a wall , now built in Dover,
There are     sixty cuckoos to gainsay.

Day and night, or hey, what black and white
People range in hues of  fruits delight
I like  olive  and    Greenpeacers
Wearing  hats  from crowns off steeples
Day and night,oh  shall we take a  flight?

I see the Berlin Wall is coming back
Mexico   has  ordered   ten sick    plaques
Trump has  promised work forever:
Dangerous walls  from Hell to Dover
Even God has  been electro-shocked

No ,these demons cannot get across
They’re stuck in an inferno; what is worse……….
God  now  can’t  be  omnipresent.
He has  high  walls   around Grace Crescent.
Holy Moses,who  can take this flak?

If you miss yer dinner,don’t it hurt?
Same as if yer finger gets a cut
Refugees with their  feet   bleeding–
Christ,we’re underwhelmed in feelings
Get a barbed wire fence, and kick them back.

The Lord’s THEIR shepherd, so we’re gonna pay.
He  watches  US  like  NEVER  from today
We’re   ex-colonial criminals
We’re Self-esteem Unlimited.
Now the Devil’s comin’ out as grey.

Oh,someone jumped the Central Line today
Could not take this life so  full  of play
Oxford Street was blocked by walls
Of vehicles  sent to the Call.
What is my vocation,what my Play

Josephine Klein

Academic and psychotherapist. Refugee from Holland when it was invaded by the Nazis.

As a child she had been a refugee, and in 1999 she founded the Refugee Therapy Centre in London, with Aida Alayarian and others. There they established a course to enable refugees to become counsellors, in line with Josephine’s conception that therapists and counsellors should share language, culture and experience with their patients and help them better to contribute to society.

Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, Josephine was the daughter of Simon Klein, a salesman, and his Dutch wife Marie (nee Norden). The family were of Jewish origin but largely secular. They were living in Amsterdam at the time of the Nazi invasion in May 1940, and fled shortly afterwards, in an open boat. After six days at sea with little fresh water, they were picked up by the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Malcolm, and Josephine never forgot the warmth of the captain and crew. Many of her relatives who did not flee, did not survive.https://f87183ff05e2a4bafd6963d396c3a84f.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

The family moved to Chester in the hope of travelling to the US by ship from Liverpool, but were unable to do so. Josephine did well at the Queen’s school, Chester, which, together with some local people, provided the support necessary for her to go to university. In four years, she gained two degrees, simultaneously, a BA in French at University College London and a first in sociology at LSE.

After her period in youth work, Josephine was a lecturer in social studies at Birmingham University (1949-62), then had three years as a research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and went on to Sussex University, as reader in social relations (1965-70). For the next four years she was director of the course at Goldsmiths’, and then undertook 30 years’ private practice as a psychotherapist. Even after that she continued to supervise trainee psychotherapists.

Friends and colleagues valued her wisdom and warmth on walks and at concerts, sharing highs and lows in other people’s lives and helping them overcome adversity.

She is survived by two nieces and a nephew.

• Josephine Faniella Henny Klein, psychologist and psychotherapist, born 17 October 1926; died 13 November 2018

Why are odd numbers?

Cats listening to Leonard Cohen

I have made an odd number of mistakes . How can you get even? What’s odd about a mistake?

It’s the error

I dream while I’m awake

Better take a sleeping pill after breakfast then The ghost always comes at midnight Even when the clocks change?

The important moments

You might think you would
Recognise the important moments
Of your life,that you made choices
That determined your future as well
As your present.You never imagined
One unprotected scarcely thought about
Sexual act could determine the course
Of your entire life.That one small,to you,
Act of unfaithfullness would precipitate
Divorce,death,agony for ever.
That smiling at someone on a stairway
Could make them fall into unrequited
Love.Surely these moments should have labels,
Capital letters,trumpets blaring.
It’s like undoing just one stitch in a seam
Will make the entire garment fall apart.
Other people’s suicide,accident.love
Hit you like bricks.And you fall down
Like a bombed house in Dresden
Full of refugees.Those you meant to care for,
Who are now long past redemption.
And which moment it is will be quite indeterminate
Until it happens and life is changed for ever.
The river sweeps on,but on a new bed.
Was it meant to be like this?
Someone stole my bike and then I met
My husband.I went out with a lover
And met another on the corner,
Alloa,Alloa,that’s Swedish!
Alloa,Alloa,this is it.Alloa.Remember

‘There is a sense of things careening towards a head’: TS Eliot prize winner Karen Solie

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/21/there-is-a-sense-of-things-careening-towards-a-head-ts-eliot-prize-winner-karen-solie?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Pater noster

Our Father,Aneurin Bevan,

Exploded is thy game; Why,Kingdom come, Before thy will be done.

No N.H.S.No Heaven. M

Give us fair pay,our daily bread;

Don’t leave us with PTSD

As we confront those who legislate against us.

And feed us not with deprivation, But deliver us from Weasels.

For thine was the Fair Game,the Hour and the Story

Maybe once but will it be ever again? …

Oh,Prime minister

My own art

Oh Starmer, this is not heaven 

Please beat trump at his game 

This Kingdom is dumb

Should your will be done 

Some curse, but earth is not heaven 

Give us each day our daily bread 

Forgive us our trespasses so we will forgive yours against us

For you have no power or glory 

You have a hard job and it will seem to last forever 

‘I was told I wouldn’t walk again. I proved the doctors wrong’: the bike-obsessed pensioner who broke his neck and started afresh

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jan/19/pensioner-cycling-accident-never-walk-proved-doctors-wrong?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Mary wishes she was organised

From my art class

Mary woke up feeling gloomy and tired.She drank her tea which Stan used to bring her.It’s a real nuisance for a woman having to make her own tea in the morning I am fed up, she told Emile.I miss my bicycle but it’s too dangerous now.And walking hurts. Sitting by her bed she viewed all the clothes she had recently washed and dried which were manifold.What to do with them.Well,Mary thought ,with our ideas we have to categorise them and so I will apply the same principle here. She divided her clothes into groups.Then into subgroups. Why, it’s a science she thought.Then she folded her underwear neatly just the way it came in the packs from M and S the famous Jewish, British and EU department store. She put all the odd socks into a clear polythene bag and put the remaining ones onto a shelf in her white wooden wardrobe.She admired her teal coloured tights which Stan had loved and put them with the black ones she wore most often in winter Suddenly she heard a dog bark.What’s that? she shouted in alarm Emile giggled. I did it.he said, you were not listening to me.So I barked. I am sure God will not like that.What did you want? It’s time for coffee, he announced. Alright, Mary said.I’ll leave these polo necks till later.They want downstairs into the teal and cream coloured kitchen/breakfast room and Mary filled the kettle and took her Nokia off the charger. It seems to run down too fast, she thought.Even when I never used it.I only got it for emergencies and £5 a month from BT seems a good offer.But like many of her gadgets she really bought them to see how they worked; as she had a good sense of direction; she did not really use the maps. She picked up the post.There was the dreaded bank statement and Credit Card Bill. from M and S Hello,Barclays here. Hello,I have not had a statement from you lately. You never use the card. That’s true, said Mary, I forget to buy anything.I forget I am a woman In her purse she found a cheque for £60 from the Inland Revenue. Look Emile.I’ll buy you a new basket.And some cat toys. Thanks purred Emile.You are so sweet,mother. I’m not your mother, Mary informed him wildly Well, you are like a mother, kind and gentle… most of the time. You little flattery battery, she giggled. Looking at the bank statement she was relieved not to be over-drawn.Stan had expensive tastes and she always bought him too many clothes, the best food and other delightful things.He was not greedy, she had enjoyed spoiling him and so did he! Well,two horrible jobs done she thought and her mood rose as she realised things were better than she had hoped. Even finding the cheque was out of date did not worry her.She phoned the Tax Office who said they’d send another one. We all know how nice it is to get a little money we didn’t expect. She went upstairs and decided to change her outfit.She took off her comfy old jeans and put on a black needlecord dress with blue and green flowers all over with a pair of smart black shoes. Why are you all dressed up,asked Emile. To give pleasure to the human race, she murmured as she put on her red wool winter coat. I am going out to take some photos she said.The magnolias are out and the bluebells. Which camera shall I take,she pondered.. I’ll take this Nikon one, she decided; Because I like the name. Is that a good way to choose a camera, asked Emile. Well, what do you suggest? Well many are called cameras but few are chosen , the naughty cat replied. I know I have several she said.People give me their old ones and as I am ignorant they all seem ok to me.They are my toys. And how about that new wok and the ceramic milk pan? I’ve been taking notes, Emile wittered on Are you going to be a detective, Mary laughed. Can’t a woman buy a new pan?I keep burning the non-stick ones so I decided to try ceramic. I hope you don’t stir fry my cat food, Emile chortled. No, I have not yet got a wok cookery guide. But you have got an electric egg boiler, which surprised me, he miaowed. It’s because it switches itself off, she told him.I get engrossed in my study of enjambent and forget the time. Thinking is bad for you,Emile told her. And so say all of us. Thinking is bad for the brain I’ll never do it again. I’ll be a girl again Ignore all fine, handsome men. I’ll got out and play in the rain

When the policeman came

When the policeman came I was in the kitchen

I heard the front door opening and then his voice

Your son is in the infirmary, he was knocked from his bicycle by a large wall that fell down as he was passing.

Every hair on my head stood up like a bristle

Next we were at the Royal infirmary

Mam runs in and sees my brother; she starts hitting him

That’s all I remember but it was lucky in a way because the people responsible gave him a new bicycle

No one in our family ever had a new bicycle even myself when I was teaching at the university I had a second hand bicycle.

Was I waiting for a wall to fall on me? Well it’s too late now because I can’t see but I can’t stand up easily but if someone lifted me I could ride a bicycle.

There was some law that we couldn’t have anything even when we needed it and we stuck to this law most of our lives but never worked out why.

Christ,we’re underwhelmed in feelings

There are no hours and minutes in a day
Whatever Nokia Lumias  might display
Babylonian  clocktowers hover;
Cracked a wall , now built in Dover,
There are     sixty cuckoos to gainsay.

Day and night, or hey, what black and white
People range in hues of  fruits delight
I like  olive  and    Greenpeacers
Wearing  hats  from crowns off steeples
Day and night,oh  shall we take a  flight?

I see the Berlin Wall is coming back
Mexico   has  ordered   ten sick    plaques
Trump has  promised work forever:
Dangerous walls  from Hell to Dover
Even God has  been electro-shocked

No ,these demons cannot get across
They’re stuck in an inferno; what is worse……….
God  now  can’t  be  omnipresent.
He has  high  walls   around Grace Crescent.
Holy Moses,who  can take this flak?

If you miss yer dinner,don’t it hurt?
Same as if yer finger gets a cut
Refugees with their  feet   bleeding–
Christ,we’re underwhelmed in feelings
Get a barbed wire fence, and kick them back.

The Lord’s THEIR shepherd, so we’re gonna pay.
He  watches  US  like  NEVER  from today
We’re   ex-colonial looters
We’re Self-esteem Unlimited.
Now the Devil’s comin’ out as grey.

Oh,someone jumped the Central Line today
Could not take this life so  full  of play
Oxford Street was blocked by walls
Of vehicles  sent to the last Call.
What is my vocation,what my Play?

The friendship secret: why socialising could help you live longer

CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), quality = 90?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jan/12/the-friendship-secret-why-socialising-could-help-you-live-longer?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

A potential smile crossed her lips

She gave him a potential smile. Thar meant if he behaved himself he would get a real smile later in the day. Unfortunately he did not know how to behave himself after 30 years with her but surely one day the marriage will be consummated.

When the potential becomes actual

The real world?

The world of physics is essentially the real world construed by mathematical abstractions, and the world of sense is the real world construed by the abstractions which the sense-organs immediately furnish. To suppose that the “material mode” is a primitive and groping attempt at physical conception is a fatal error in epistemology. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason,