The erasing of distinctions ,0 and 1
Makes for much confusion and unease
Am I male or female, am I none?
Gender shifts  as sinking sands might seize

The subtle ways  of wisdom are now  ghosts
We fear  we may be wrong and what is where.
The souls of men and women wander lost
How to navigate the deeps without despair.

Swapping places does not end the game
We must  judge from higher states  of mind.
We are not and never shall be same
Yet we fear the words of  blind mankind

“No one is an island” may be true
But how shall I relate my love to you?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/03/sad-summers-over-18-ways-to-keep-the-health-humour-and-happiness-of-your-holiday-alive

4 Take a detour on your commute

Emrah Düzel, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, is studying the health benefits of combining novel experiences with physical activity, particularly in relation to dementia and cognitive decline in old age. Combining physical activity with the exploration of novel environments or novel social interactions – even something as simple as walking around a new city – “stimulates a lot of plasticity in the brain”. Think of this as holiday plasticity, which gets lost when we return to work. But even small changes could help to keep that sensation active and let you capitalise on your “new neurons”. Try walking or cycling to work a different way, or leave home early and break your journey for a walk in a park.

Three poems on peace and war

Poems by Adrian Mitchell

I will get 27 pence if you buy this large book .So  read my blog

Where’s your cursor~
Oh,we all curse here.

Is that a vertical rat?
No it’s a sculpture.
Of what?
A vertical rat

I’ve lost my chromebook
Don’t worry, the library has loads
But are they chromes?
Maybe chromosomes
I can’t  type on a chromosome!
Try a fountain pen then

Why  are you sitting on a laptop?
To show it it is not what it thinks

A laptop is nice for humans as well
But you may need a big one

Through my salt, through my grievous assault
On what?
My dinner
It’s not even human
We’re cannibals here, you know.
I never knew that
You are not our type

Bay, Father.
No, it’s dogs that bay
On the moon!

I went to Whitby and asked for fish and chips with no fish.
Why bother to travel all that way just to to eat chips?
It’s the thought that counts, besides my old man loved fish… that is to eat, not to marry.
Whitby had a smokery where they  made kippers.What they made them from I have no idea but my husband liked them
They also had a wonderful pork pie shop.
When I was a child and we went to Blackpool, we passed cafes with pork pies in the windows and I longed with utter depravity to eat one.But we always took sandwiches.Then when my Dad died, we had little pork pies after the Funeral.But did he really need to die just so I could eat a pork pie?
I don’t see any that look edible these days and I am not going to make one.
Sausages are alright though.

The phone rang and a voice said, is that you?
I said, it’s me.
He said, who are you?
I said,I’ve not figured that out yet.
He said, are you  pulling my leg?
I said, I can’t even see your leg!
He said, do you fancy eating owt tonight?
I said, eeh, you’re from Manchester!
But it was just a spelling mistake.
He was trying it on.
Whatever it is

On “Arrivals” you may   see “Heaven”
Follow not Hell’s flames
Go  sing and hum
When  the manic are dumb
We give will  a wide berth
As it is so self centred
Weave us  new prayers
For our failing hearts
And forgive us our restlessness
As we forgive thus who are restless with us
By rivers and sea shores
On grass and on gravel
On sand and on rocks

Amen
Oh, women
What then?

http://www.oliverburkeman.com/blog/posts/patience-is-more-than-a-virtue-it-s-a-superpower

“And it’s hard to believe this inability to endure discomfort isn’t growing worse, as technology speeds up our lives. It’s more aggravating to wait 30 seconds for a microwave than an hour for an oven – just as it’s worse when a web page takes 10 seconds to load than when the reference librarian tells you it will take three weeks to track down a book. Perhaps it’s because in a world of almost-instant gratification, truly instant gratification starts to seem like our birthright.

Historically speaking, as Roberts points out, patience was a matter of “conforming yourself to the need to wait for things”; it was a way of accepting one’s lack of control over the world. But now we don’t need to wait for most things, patience has become a form of control over the world and, as she puts it, “over the tempo of contemporary life that otherwise controls us”. In this new environment, there’s nothing remotely passive about standing in front of a painting for three hours. On the contrary, it’s a subversive act. On the other side of impatience – if you can learn to wait out that jitteriness – lies power.”

(First published in Guardian Weekend magazine. Photo by Lux & Jourik on Flickr.)

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/29/marriage-could-help-reduce-risk-of-dementia-study-suggests

https://notjohnkdp.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-wide-image.html#comment-form

If I make my book  into a paperback printed on demand the price will be £16.99.
£9.97 is for the printing and cover.
Of the rest, I shall get 27 pence

The fields that once held buttercups are gone
Giant furrows pattern that  long land
Made by huge machines   whose time has come

Precise as  old account books , now forlorn,
As  moving as are waves on desert sand
The fields that once held buttercups have gone

Nothing human-sized remains untorn
Nowhere for dear  lovers hand in hand
Killed by huge machines   whose time has come

But young folk do not court, they hurry on
Annihilating what we elders understand
The fields that once held buttercups have gone

All too rapidly our world’s undone
To the deserts of the heart we’re sent
Dragged by by huge machines   whose time has come

Can no passion change the way nor lend
Creative means to pacify  and  mend?
The fields that once wore buttercups have gone
Ground by huge machines,death times have come

I went to bed with Eamonn.But she wasn’t
I lay down with a lion.What a lamb
I went to the Ladies.What a gent!
I went to an all female college but I’m not
I  thought  I was going mad but it’s only paranoia.It’s normal
I sometimes say to myself, are we still here? Then once I heard  a voice saying,No!
I bought a book.It’s  in invisible ink.What a relief!
The hairdresser said, is it you, again? I said , no, it’s me.
I went to the coffee shop but it was full of foreigners.People from Blackburn,Worcester,Bath,Wells and Bristol.Send them back, London is full.
As for the Irish, send us back  free and then I shall kiss the Blarney Stone
What do you mean,I’m a foreigner? I’m half Viking.
I bought a pen but it has no nib.So what do I dip into the inkwell?
My Anglo Saxon roots are showing

Cats, Doris Lessing, and Me

Cats, Doris Lessing, and Me

“Although it remains the lifelong need of these cats not to accommodate me, neither can they bear for me to long forget their existence. They are always with me. Wherever I am, they are. If I am working, one or the other plops herself down on the desk between me and the computer. If I lie down to read, they are both soon sprawled or curled on the bed beside me. Then again, if I’m watching television, there they are: curled on the couch or sprawled on a nearby chair. Of course, they do not remain stationary during the many hours we are together. Sooner or later, one or the other runs into the kitchen for a quick bite of dry food, or circles the room as though on the prowl, or sniffs insistently at her sister’s rear end; whereupon the attention is either accepted or rebuffed and both cats instantly fall to licking and purring or hissing and spitting. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life wondered as much about the mercurial motivation of a living creature’s behavior as I have watching the cats. It runs constantly through my mind: Why do we do what we do when we do it? Why does Cat One lick Cat Two madly for a few seconds, then sink her teeth into her sister’s neck, then raise her head looking wildly suspicious, and flounce away as though she’s been attacked? Why indeed. It’s just like sex, I sometimes think. How many times has a man said to me, ‘Why now, why not an hour ago?’ A question for which I have had as good an answer as the cats would have, should it be asked of them.

I still envy the people I know whose cats drowse in their laps and sleep in their beds, but (to quote the famous alley cat, Mehitabel) what the hell.”

*

https://aeon.co/videos/what-can-73-homes-arranged-by-household-income-say-about-their-residents

Apparently, there was a young man who was speaking to his rabbi and

he says, “Rabbi, why does the Torah tell us to place the Holy Words on

our hearts? Why doesn’t it tell us to

place the Holy Words in our

hearts?” The rabbi responds, “Well, because as it is, our hearts are a

little closed and we cannot place the words inside our hearts so we

place them on our hearts and there they stay until one day the heart

breaks and the word

s fall in.” That’s really what we’re doing. We’re just

placing these words on our hearts and one day, the heart will break

and the words will fall in