We’re probably tired of trying to save money since brexit the pandemic the increased price of food etc

Sometimes it’s easy to save money for example if you go to a coffee shop every day for coffee which is about four pounds a cup now in London then you could save 120 pounds a month by giving up your habits

Should you do that?

It might be a mistake because it might be the only time you go out if you are not working in a paid job outside the home.

Maybe you could go to one of the local church halls where they frequently have coffee mornings. Unfortunately the coffee is not always very good and you maybe afraid that someone will try to convert you when all you want is some cheap coffee and maybe a chat with somebody.

At the moment with the free bus pass older f people don’t save any money by walking although it might be very beneficial to your health

When I was a child we had no bathroom so I’m sure that’s saved my mother and father lots of money

You could try only having hot water on alternate days of the week so that you save money on your electricity or gas bill.

You could eat cold food most of the time but that’s not very nice really is it especially for the elderly

Someone I know who’s about 86 years old every morning with our free bus pass and she goes  to o the charity shops. She always really interestingly dressed and she said it’s all second hand. She srays out most days until about 4 pm so that she doesn’t have to put her heating on but not many people are quite so fit and strong alto be out of the house for five or six hours in a day in the winter

Of course there’s always the public library that you can sit in and read the newspapers maybe or even read a book and you can use it a computers there as well so you wouldn’t need to heat your home if you went to library for the morning

The other point about all this is that what is regarded as normal now was once a luxury. Like having a shower every day. But if everybody does that you feel embarrassed if you can’t afford it I imagine I’m not sure because I’ve never taken to showers very much but it is very pleasant to have a bath whenever you feel like it.

I suppose we all have things that we regard as essential to our life and then there are other things that we might be willing to give up because they’re not so important

If you are very wealthy person and you’re going to move out of Britain because you’re afraid of paying more income tax then I would say go please go because we are a society. Everybody in the society has to contribute something towards it and clearly the very wealthy are more able to give money than the poor are.

Interestingly the poor give more to charity than the rich. Not such a surprise really is it?

The luxury of not being very poor is that you’re not constantly thinking about money and wondering if you can afford to have a cup of tea while you are out shopping. And that you can afford to have the food that you like

If you are good at shopping you will realize that one of the more expensive supermarkets in Britain has an essentials range which is very cheap

You’ve got to be fairly strong to tramp round several supermarkets trying to get the cheapest food.

So it’s a subject which is painful for many people. Is losing £200 a year winter fuel allowance is worrying you remember that the state pension went up 8% this year and it went up 10% last year which was about 900 pounds for the average pensioner and so losing 300 pounds in the year it’s not so bad compared with getting 900 pounds extra that year in your pension.

But there’s no doubt about it even when you are  not at rock bottom nobody likes to lose some money they’ve been getting and expecting to go on getting for several years

And we were going to be so much more wealthy after brexit weren’t we?

Well  Boris Johnson is much wealthier I think. But he’s done a lot of harm to this country in my view.

I wonder how big the eye of the needle will be for him?

I must remember to tell God that I use easy threading needles and to ask whether that will make it easier for me to get through the eye myself.

I know I’ve lost a lot of weightsk since I was in the hospital but even so getting myself through an easy threading needle will not be much fun

Some of the meals I was getting were very small such as the following

Butterbean stew which consisted of about two or three tablespoons of butter beans in a soup like sauce with the other onion tomato in it .

Save money on entertainment by having a book group in your house once a month also and visiting others for their book group

I have noticed that nobody ever start some mathematics group in their home in the evening

So that’s ruled out

You can save a lot of money by having a a digital subscription rather than buying a newspaper every day.

I think it will be less than half the cost and you can access lots of other articles on the website I’ll also sorts of different topics so it is really good for people who like newspapers and article was on a wealth of subjects

The telegraph is good if you love the royal family very very much but it’s also a little bit right wing

And the guardian is a little bit left wing

It’s good for those who don’t particularly like the royal family. And maybe with a slightly higher reading age. But it’s just been found guilty of being a little bit unfair to Israel in its news reportage. I’m not sure how that is judged

Whenever has  compassion determined pensions or earnings?

It’s well known that more people die in winter than you would expect. About 500 per year in this country.

So it’s possible that losing the winter fuel allowance will increase this number.

These people were dying while in receipt of the winter fuel allowance.

That shows that they must be living on a very small pension which is not enough to pay their heating bills and to have  a hot meal every day.

Are there other explanations? Even people do have enough to pay their heating bills and food bills are more likely to die in the winter .

In the winter

we take less exercise1 we are not so good at planning and so we may go out dressed inadequately. I have seen with my own eyes that this is true when I observe people waiting at the bus stop. Some of my friends won’t wear hats in the winter because it will spoil their hairstyle.

It’s hard to get real woolen coats now although of course many of us wear padded or quilted coats which are just as warm

Are we less good at planning when we’re older or is it simply just lack of thought?

Of course if you are living on a low income you have less money to spend on clothes and if you are not very mobile you’re not going to go to the sales looking for clothes

Well it’s very sad and if the conservative had done this we would all be angry but because it’s the Labour Party some people feel they have to support it but it’s even though undoes because of it it gives a poor impression of the  care for the elderly

And the media like a nice juicy topic like this.

Although many of us will not get dementia indeed most of us won’t there is something called cognitive decline which means your brain doesn’t function as well as it used to do.

This might be because you don’t use it enough so if that happens that’s likely to affect the decisions you make.

You may not think about  what you can do in difficult situations.

Also if you are married or living with somebody they might have taken the decisions in the household and if they die or leave you may not be used to doing all those things for yourself

And finally two people living in one house would both have  got the winter fuel  allowance. But if one diesls the other person will still be living in the same house but only get one winter fuel allowance.

A sad situation indeed. Living in a very unequal society which this is anyway regardless of the winter fuel payments living in such a society creates a lot of stress for the poor

But also I have seen articles by psychoanalysts saying that rich people who go for therapy are often suffering from moral problems about their wealth but thenmy are not aware of it

I suppose it must be there unconscious mind that is having these thoughts. Because all the news we get indicates that rich people applying to leave the country if we get an increased tax in the budget in October. But we don’t hear about the ones who are not going to do that.

In the past rich people started charities or libraries or other similar things such as the Carnegie libraries

That will be wonderful if some rich people paid to  keep the library’s open in places where they’ve been closed for several days a week.

I think they would have feel better and so would the rest of us so if we can do that on a small scale it might if you have a friend or relative who is quite poor then you could ask them  for hot meals once I twice a week.

Or you could go out with them somewhere else and pay for the meal as long as you agree this beforehands because some people  hate what they call Charity. That’s another problem ….pride

I remember reading how cats went under the hedge as far as they could when they thought they were going to die and indeed it’s true

The last cat we had disappeared one day in January

I couldn’t find her anywhere I my husband was out I knew he would be distressed.

I went out at the front door and I called her name over and over again and then she crawled out from under the deep hedge.

Came into the house and I thought everything was ok but soon she was having problems walking up the stairs. She had cancer and was soon to die.

I wished iheartleft t jer under the hedge.

Do you think human beings can feel like this also because I feel a bit like that in this cold weather as if I want to go to sleep wrapped up in something warm and if I don’t wake up well I’m old. But I don’t think people like it if you do that.

I’ve got to put more warm clothes on and walk up and down the stairs.

Cats can’t read the news so they just do what comes naturally to them

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/29/poem-of-the-week-the-man-in-the-wind-by-anne-stevenson?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I have to go shopping often or I forget my PIN number.Likewise drawing money from cash machines I must do every day or I forget.But they won’t let one put money back inside the machine!
It’s so demanding to be old now.Someone stole my credit card but being ill I didn’t know.They managed to buy some groceries twice before I reported it.I thought that was quite touching.
I forget to worry which is a great relief or it might be if I recalled the fact
I find too I am going downhill in manners and called some one crackling font.Now I am in the mental ward tied to my bed.I feel so cared for as they gave me a Tablet last night and another this morning .I’ve already got several and the hallucinations have got on there and smile from the screen I only wanted a largactil but they can’t find them in the Computer Shop.What did you say your name was?

Mary sat in her bijou but well-designed blue kitchen reading email on her Windows 13 laptop.She was feeling quite weak after a bout of pneumonia and cystitis despite having Dave the paramedic visit every day with chicken soup
She found a new email from her old friend who has been away
I hate you, so much, Mary, it began ominously as love and hate are closely linked
I wonder if it is something I have done, Mary thought, or is it my essential self he hates and why now after all these years?
You are always explaining things to me as if I am dumb
Oh, dear, Mary thought.The perils of being a keen mathematician and also a foolish woman are many
I have got more and more annoyed with you especially since you threw that brick through my Windows.I am not coming tonight to be with you.You can get stuffed you crackling font.And I shall never forgive you as I never do forgive anyone even if I made a mistake.I can’t bear the shame and humiliation
Does he mean I broke his new Dell Windows 10 computer, she asked herself
Or a window in his apartment?
But he lives on the second floor and at my age, I can’t even carry a brick let alone hurls one so high and so accurately
Still, he is old so someone smashing his windows would be disturbing to him and make him angry
Or is the word BRICK a metaphor? It might mean his self esteem is shattered like shop windows in riots often have been
As for his language, it reminded her that religious people tend to swear more and also commit more sexual offences, or get found out more
Mary looked down at her once beautiful blue tweed skirt which had a few moth holes in it
Oh, well. if he is not coming to visit I can keep wearing this holey skirt.He doesn’t like older women in jeans as he prefers looking at young women’s bottoms despite his religion.So I would have had to wear my one remaining decent velvet winter skirt.I am too lazy to want to change.
Suddenly her late husband’s former mistress Annie ran in
She was wearing a magenta wool tracksuit and green stiletto heels with pink ankle socks topped by a purple velvet trench coat with matching lipstick
Good heavens, Mary cried.You look very attractive, where did you get that coat from?
I got it in a jumble sale at the church, Annie muttered.Those new people are very rich and only wear clothes twice!
I shall have to come, said Mary, look at my skirt!She burst into tears which was a rare event.
Her little cat Emile was terrified.
Don’t cry, mother he whispered
.I will sleep with you tonight if that idiot is not coming
What! Don’t tell me that Peter has broken up with you.He seems so charming,delightful and well educated and his works of art are brilliant and innovative.Still it was better than a text message
Yes, he just sent me an email calling me a crackling font
Perhaps he is mixing you up with someone else.Anyway, if he is heterosexual he should love a nice female organ or two
That’s too rational,Annie dear.Only the gynaecologist loves it.She took some photos again!
Good grief.Did she show you? asked Annie.
No, said Mary.I don’t want to see it but since I’ve been going there for 3 years it seems bigger than before.Maybe the photos to be put into a medical journal.To think my memorial will not be my face but my vulva.Someone said vulva is a rude word and I should say vagina but that makes no sense to me and it is an error anyway scientifically
She’s not done anything to make it bigger?
No, it must be all the attention it gets that makes it feel bigger in my mind
Still , without a boyfriend, it’s not even worth thinking of.
Well, you can DIY, Annie told her but for us women it’s the lying down gazing into someone’s eyes and smiling that matters more than the rest
Emile miaowed: Look into my eyes, mother.Or can’t Annie?
I’ll be getting an Electra complex, Mary told him.You don’t do erotic things with your mother nor with a lady who once slept with your dead husband while he was still alive!
Well we cats don’t know our cat mothers so we might have a good time with them unknowing
If only I were a cat, Mary muttered as she wept again clutching a box of Kleenex for Sad Women
Ring 999, Emile.Annie said.We need help now
Hello, my mum’s boyfriend has split with her by email.Can you send an ambulance for the computer, she hit it with a shoe and broke the screen
OK, will do, the lady replied courteously.Would you like some meringues too?
My goodness, since Brexit the NHS is even better.I should have asked for a steak and kidney pie as well.And mashed carrots.

And so say all of us

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

God voluntarily turned himself in at one the governments vans asking illegal immigrants if they want to go home.Lawyers are assessing the cost of shooting God up to heaven from the top of Snowdon or Great Gable. God declined to say how he arrived in Britain though his burkha gave us a clue . She signed in for benefits as Jessy Christ and said she had two husbands.At the time she was labelled as border-line schizophrenic but the Father and the Spirit were found in her council house. helping some beggars to cook a nice dinner.To have a council house in Walthamstow is a miracle in itself God will be getting a reduction in her housing benefit He can sleep in one bedroom if the bed is bigger.The judge says he does not accept that each person in the Trinity needs their own room. Why God came here is not known as yet.Why he stayed is even more puzzling given the native dislike of foreigners and illegal immigrants where ever they come from, However God has been a great burden on the Economy as he has so many children that the Social Services can’t count them.Though many do seem to be employed gainfully or helping the sick and elderly His English is ok grammatically but we were told he has a “foreign accent” and had no papers or identity cards though he did have with him an archangel who spoke English with a Lancashire accent. God has asked that all the Mediaeval Cathedrals be returned to the Catholic Church as his son does not like Anne Boleyn very much and thought Henry V111th was a narcissistic ego maniac with delusions… he We’ll let you know more about the drain on the Economy and whether God caused the Recession in the next day or two.He certainly does move in mysterious ways…..that’s why no-one saw him arrive. Watch out and keep your doors barred in case he tries to move into your house or garden shed with a few companions.You can recognise them by the golden glow around them and possibly their wings.Photos accepted. Britain for the British.Have no mercy.Have no love of your neighbour.Everyone for himself or herself.He has to realise it’s a market society and that he needs PR and an advertising agent and a nationality and passport. Keep Britain free from foreign invasions.

William Wordsworth | The Poetry Foundation https://share.google/AeHceqBQGJjm7EAPO

Poetry Complements the Intellectual Life | Better Living through Beowulf https://share.google/7CvUcz6TxoKcRnpnS

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jan/01/ways-to-make-your-life-easier-2026?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Start the new year by misusing a word!

https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/10/15/33-words-people-misuse-all-the-time/?tpid=574839&tv=link&tc=in_content

The future is a story not yet told.

Are fantasy and dream creative acts?

The future is still fiction for the bold

We aren’t like concrete set into a mould

And yet we all must die, that is a fact

The future is a story not yet told.

Some may travel through the realms of gold

Taking in the virtues that they lacked

The future is still fiction for the bold

We’re always moving on, life’s not on hold

Selfish day dreams never teach us tact

The future is a story not yet told

Into my dreaming head such thoughts are packed.

Slipping in the mire of all my lacks

The future is a fiction not yet told

The future is a story for the world

The year 2025  is the first year since my sister was born I have not seen her. She was here for part of 2024 but the worst time for me and maybe for her was the diagnosis which she got just before the queen’s funeral. That is when I wrote this poem below

For so long you loved and imitated me

Then we were students at the university

Without you, I won’t feel like anyone

To whom shall I turn when you are gone?

When you’re the one who shared my infant bed

When you’re the one who treasured all I said

When you’re the one I held in the dark night

When you are gone there can be no more light

When the moment comes,I must believe

For trees shall weep their leaves as if bereaved

Then will my sister heart with sadness heave.

Oh do not do not ,do not ,do not leave

Mary was in the hall watering her rose scented geranium; she decided to move it into the kitchen as the hall might be a little too drafty.Mary was very anxious to make sure that this plant survived because it was a present from her cousin.
Suddenly the phone rang. perhaps it is Annie wanting to go out on some Christmas shopping expedition ,but no it was Mary’s cousin Bob who she knew had been very ill and although he seems to be recovering she knew he was quite anxious about dying
His voice was very faint and weak. Perhaps he is going to die, she thought. he does seemed to be frightened .

Do not be afraid.God is waiting for you and he knows everything
,He knows how you looked after your sister when she had a breakdown and how you used to change the curtains and make the room look beautiful to try to help her and yet she did not thank you .She was very unpleasant but you never gave up ; eventually when she died during her sleep it was both a relief and a loss
God remembers everything and he is full of love for you . I do not know why God allows some people to suffer so much[ which is a constant theme in human thinking since the book of Job was written.]
Now, I don’t say that you are Job ,but I do know what you have endured. I have seen you being humbled in cruel ways, I have seen you being ignored when you knew much more than the people who were talking
You cared your your cat with utmost kindness until it recovered from its ill-treatment at those nasty neighbours of yours.
You have suffered too through cancer and not being able to eat foods that you liked but you have recovered. You have worked in your garden and grown beautiful flowers and vegetables Your fruit trees have been very productive and your whole garden is a testament to the fact that you love every living being, except your brother David, of course.,
There’s always trouble in that kind of set up when the mother prefers one child to another and it has been a constant torment to you throughout your life. I have noticed since you have both been older. you seem to have a more productive life now and I know you make wine and jam and mend all you can
I know that you did win an award when you were in your 20s for your research although you never told anybody. I wonder why you were so shy about telling people. You never did like to boast and I think I am similar to you.
I let Stan have his mistress next door because I know that not every man is interested in Wittgenstein especially when it’s his wife who wants to talk about him when he wants to take her to bed and enjoy her charms, tickle her and laugh merrily and I only wish that you had been able to meet someone yourself who would have valued you as a human being and felt warmth and attraction as well.
I do think you tried to make the most of your capabilities limited as we are by economic,health and political factors alas
Bob said to Mary :you have made me very happy
2 Days Later Mary heard that Bob was much better and the doctor says he will soon be home again
What a disappointment for God meowed Emile, Mary’s little cat. God got everything ready
Well no doubt God had some help,. Mary cried., that’s what I need . need some help ;this house is in a terrible mess as if my fate is to constantly keep trying to tidy up and yet the next day I have to start all over again.
I don’t mind cried Emile I think it’s wonderful I like a mess it makes me feel like playing more and having fun but when it’s all tidy and clean I feel terribly inhibited
Good grief Emile, you sound as if you’ve been to Oxford.
I did once to go on a day trip to Oxford, the the cat confessed .Annie took me in her handbag on a coach
Well all I can say is ,she must have got a very big handbag
Don’t be so rude Emile told her, you have got some big handbags and you’ve got about 50 handbags in the wardrobe even now when you are a widow
That is a woman’s privilege Mary told him like getting a new hat is Easter; a handbag is a very important thing because it enables men to make their wives carry all their wallets and keys so that they could have fun when they went to the seaside
Yes I can remember mother struggling along from Blackpool North station to the beach with a gigantic handbag and a shopping bag full of sandwiches while everybody else ran on in front of her
I don’t know what we saw in Blackpool except the sea; the beach was so crowded you could hardly see the sand.
I guess the airwas cleaner, the cat informed her in a manly way

I think I need a cup of tea said Mary go and get Annie.
She won’t make the tea
No but she can drink some with me while I tell her all my thoughts and my feelings and I couldn’t free associate while she showed off her new makeup and jewellery and her strangely coloured Christmas outfits.She is off to Wigan to visit the make up factory next week.If only it were in Southport I’d go too.
Well I’m in love with Annie. I wish I was a man so I could marry her and make it home for her
I’m sure you would have made a very good husband said Mary but God wants you to be a cat although you are a rather extraordinary cat and it is my good luck to be your owner or shall I say your mistress?
Aand so ask all of us

In black despair when no one  else can help

When we have tried the doctor priest, the sage

What should we do when friends have turned away?

When towards god  himself we feel enraged?

Sitting in the silence in my room

I stopped the search for answers, search for aid

I felt the sorrow deeper than a grave.

I grieved till there was no more grief to pay.

Then I saw The light like a great ball

I felt the warmth surround me as I mourned

A sheet of tears fell from my eyes again

The kindness of the light my spirit turned.

Go back to life with others and your work.

Avoid the darkness, where the demons lurk. 

https://www.writebetterpoems.com/articles/how-to-really-write-a-villanelle

The darkest fortnight of the year has passed

The sky was violent red, that was the dawn

I knew such vivid colours could not last.

I gaze up at the sky so broad, so vast

I see a hungry fox across the lawn.

The darkest fortnight of the year has passed

Where is this world going, will it crash?

We need a saviour no one’s yet been born

I knew such vivid colours could not last.

Now by thoughts of power, I am harassed.

What is this grief for those I cannot mourn?

The darkest fortnight of the year has passed

By the sunrise and the skies we’re blessed

Christ will rise as Easter, a sheep shorn

Despite such vivid colours might not last.

The day begins and ends with sun sunk down.

I sink into myself, a study brown.

The darkest fortnight of the year has passed

I guessed dawn’s vivid colours might not last

Mary picked up her mobile phone to ring for a cab..On it,there was a message
.You have missed a call from home.Mary shivered.
Has Stan come back?
Then she recalled she had rung her own mobile before coming out.Her mind sagged like sheet of rubber suspended between four tall trees in the jungle..
Hello,It’s Mrs Tan.Can you do a me a cab from the dental surgery to my home? It’s right by the doctor’s surgery.
She stepped outside into the warm air which felt like a caress on her poor numb face.
When she got home she found Annie in the kitchen looking at her collection of cookery books.
Do you want to get rid of any of these, her friend queried.
I am thinking of learning some new recipes so I can invite those awful therapists across the road for dinner.But I have to be sure that what I serve has no hidden meaning especially aggressive or sexual.
Well,Mary said,don’t you think that people differ in what they find sexual?
Beats me,said Annie meaningfully.I fancy doing beef in beer with French bread and mustard baked on the top.
I used to do that,Mary said.Why did we stop doing that cooking? Penguin brought a new book every month.I have most of them and ,at the weekend, I’d study them for ages looking for things like apple mousse and different stews.
When we first got married I used a kind of cheap women’s magazine approach and most often as a pudding I did tinned peaches with cinnamon sprinkled on grilled till hot and spicy.Eventually, Stan got fed up with it and so I got into cordon bleu and using real cream not Carnation milk
Her blue eyes gleamed in excitement and were rendered even more remarkable by the teal and turquoise eye shadow Annie had forced her to wear which matched the sea blue mascara she already had.Annie said.
it will be good for us both to meet new people especially educated ones
Mary disagreed.I like ordinary people because a certain amount of education makes some people very conceited and only real scholars or mystics realise that the more we know the more we realise our own ignorance.Will such folk like makeup?
Perhaps one of the psychoanalysts will be a mystic,Annie retorted loudly.
But would such a person want to visit us? Mary bleated childishly.
Why not? They have to eat and they may need a new love interest or someone sympathetic who will know how hard their job is.Someone like me,beautiful funny and willing to look after a man when he needs it.
How about a man who might look after you,Mary said brightly
Well,it’s not quite the same.I like looking after men whereas you prefer reading about Fourier series and infinite integrals.And knitting patterns,she added hastily as if omitting that interest would severely anger Mary.
I think we’ll invite two men and two women ,all single.They can bring their cats for Emile to play with if they want.And we’ll eat in the kitchen to make it more relaxed.
Thank God,said Mary as the dining room was full of paper and books.
Why don’t I have a study,she pondered.Or ,if I slept in the dining room, my bedroom has a lovely view and I have an old desk somewhere.
Mary ,in her younger days, had often moved the furniture around and had even slept on a camp bed on the lawn one summer but she no longer did this as looking after Stan had worn her down to a shred of her former self.
But beds do take up so much room.Without them ,the house would be quite spacious.And how about tables and chairs… her mind ran on as she quite fancied a new start without moving house.
With fewer clothes ,she could ditch a wardrobe… on the other hand ,she could not afford such quality clothes again on her widow’s pension.
To think she might have to stop wear Bowlands of Wrath was a rather painful thought.Still most of humanity have got hardly anything so maybe Mary will think more deeply about donating some to Oxfam.
Suddenly the doorbell rang.Dave the paramedic was outside
Are you both ok?I’ve not heard from you lately,he remarked as he powdered his nose.
Well,I do have an old desk that you can carry upstairs for me,Mary told him thoughtfully.Then we need the floor scrubbing.I’m sure the NHS will pay.After all dirt might make us ill!
And so pray all of us

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 horns

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/27/the-books-to-look-out-for-in-2026?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

How poetry can sustain us through illness, bereavement and change https://share.google/KRpQNzfsa8b8svI2x

D

https://archive.philosophersmag.com/susanne-k-langer-a-snapshot/

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In her Philosophy in a New Key (1942) her intent was to authenticate a new notion of the “rational,” but how she does it is of fundamental importance. The classical tradition, Langer claimed, generally identified the rational with the “logical,” with discursive thought and objectivity. It then had the difficult task of explaining, or explaining away, such important human concerns as art, ritual, myth, and religion. Langer showed that these forms of meaning-making were embodied in vast sets of symbols and symbolic practices with their own distinctive “logic,” a non-discursive logic, quite different from the discursive logic of language and mathematics. They belonged to the domain of “presentational forms,” not “discursive forms,” a key distinction of her work. Presentational forms, Langer showed by an examination of their logic, are not mere effusions of an irrational subjectivity but articulations of the felt sense of things to which they give us unique access. They orient us in the world in the deepest existential manner, effecting participation in vital values and giving us visions, embodied in symbolic images, of our place in the cosmos. Langer, prior to extensive developments in semiotics, showed that they are worthy of philosophical study in their own right. Her work compares favourably in heuristic power with, and complements, C S Peirce’s great attempt to avoid logocentrism. We are a symbolic species at every level and not just language-endowed animals, although Langer held discursive symbols in the highest regard, as did her intellectual companion, Ernst Cassirer.

Langer was a devoted lover and practitioner of the arts, especially music, which she had studied in detail in Philosophy in a New Key. In 1953 she published Feeling and Form, a masterful generalisation and application to all the arts of the theory of music elaborated in that book. Its key idea was that feeling had a distinctive “morphology” that is exemplified in different ways in the different genres of art. Art works, she claimed, give us knowledge of or insight into ways of feeling the world in every shade of its expressiveness. They articulate feeling and are not mere expressions of personal feeling. They are presentational symbols and their meaning-contents are the “primary illusions” peculiar to each art form: virtual space in the pictorial and visual arts, virtual powers in dance, virtual experience and virtual memory in literature, virtual time in music, the ethnic domain in architecture, and so on. Langer showed art to be an authentic symbolic form and her notion of a “morphology of feeling” exhibited in the artwork is a permanent contribution to aesthetics.

In the last twenty-five years of her working life Langer attempted to develop the notion of feeling as a term to cover all the manifestations of minding. The result was Mind (1967-1982), published in three volumes over a fifteen year period, and which remained incomplete, due to her advancing age. It anticipated many of the current concerns in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of mind. Its central idea is that feeling is an emergent property of natural processes but that its paradigmatic manifestation is the rise of symbolisation and the proliferation of cultural forms and their attendant conflicts and permutations. Central chapters in this book carry out and reformulate Langer’s central insight and claim: symbolisation and the power of abstraction are the keys to what it means to be human. In a return to and deepening of her initial proposals in her first philosophical work, Langer distinguished between generalising abstraction and presentational abstraction, the two fountainheads of all those frames of meaning in which we live out our lives. It was the working out of the implications of this distinction, present at the beginning of her intellectual journey, that forms the connecting link of her whole remarkable philosophical career.

Robert E Innis is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and author of Susanne Langer in Focus: The Symbolic Mind (Indiana University Press).

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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

The pain and beauty of the wild North sea

The coast of Norfolk where we used to be

The grief that rips the heart out from its cave

Throws it on the sea to ride the waves

The loss of you and love and all it means

With my inner eye I see these  scenes

The snow that fell on Cromer Easter Day

The lifeboat on the pier, the words to say

Ancient churches guard the holy place

Hidden in the lightest inner space

Eagles do not live here but the birds

  Sing  from yellow gorse and know the words

What names might small bird  call us as they  watch?

The world is re created in a snatch

Stan was polishing the windows again with his blue cloth.The computer was on and as soon as he finished the sitting room windows he planned to look at a google document he was co-writing with his girl friend Annie.She only lived next door but they both liked sharing new techniques of various kinds .He sat down in front of his computer and looked at his mail.
There was an email from Annie.
“Hi Stan
I didn’t really want to keep some of those remarks you made at the bottom of our documents when we were both online having a chat,so I have deleted them. They were not related to the topic we were discussing so I know you won’t be interested.
with my love,Annie
Stan felt angry and cross. He went very red.What was so dreadfully wicked about his remarks?He had only asked Annie if her dead husband George might have been bisexual.Stan had once seen him kissing a man round in the park.Annie didn’t seem bothered last night.She never gave the impression me she didn’t like it.
Anyway she should not have deleted it completely without asking me first.
He sent her an email saying he was very angry with her for attacking his freedom of speech.It was unethical.It was too powerful .He must assert himself
So he was not going to work simultaneously with her on any more documents ever again nor chat on IM or Google chat
.
When Annie got the email she was stunned.She apologized to Stan immediately but her refused to accept it.Nothing she said could change his mind.So they were both feeling utterly dreadful.
Why did he want to know if George was bisexual?She wondered.Was he saying it to try to turn himself on or me?Or is he just interested in sex of all kinds like most people secretly are?
But it was not concerned with the document which was about ill treatment of prisoners in India under the British Empire
We have so little time together, with him being so busy.I wanted to talk about us,not poor dead George.Whatever George’s sex life,he’s dead now.So leave him in peace.
Meantime.Stan was thinking about how women were always interfering in his life,correcting him and improving his grammar.Making him cups of tea when he wanted brandy.He liked talking about bisexuality.
It made him feel a sense of wonder at the differing habits and desires of humans.Why couldn’t she just go along with it or at least say something then rather than deleting his words secretly when he was off-line?
He was a man .He was not going to let a woman ride over him like a steam roller. Annie must learn her place in the scheme of things.
Where is that,asked his tom cat Emile.
I’m not sure but it’s not above me.It’s either the same or lower.
Can’t you forgive her.she may be in another dimension,another space,another universe of discourse?
Certainly not no way.Stan answered,
But you love her,you said many times in here.I heard you
All the more reason to maintain some boundaries!Love is not the be all and end all of life
Next she’ll be cutting bits off me with her pinking shears,he cried in horror!
She’ll castrate me.She’ll turn me into a woman.
She won’t,she’s a woman,said Emile.She wouldn’t ever harm you.she’s very gentle.
She has invaded me,she has crossed my boundary.
Some people would be glad,mewed the cat.He was always hoping a lady cat would come by.
Meanwhile Annie was sitting sobbing wetly in her bedroom.She really enjoyed co-writing documents and letters with Stan.Now he won’t do it anymore,she whispered softly to herself
She had not cut anything from the document,just the little chatty remarks they had been indulging at the end, but still he was really mad at her.He must be feeling truly upset and aggravated beyond human endurance.She had assumed too much and now she was paying the price.She cried and sobbed loudly for a while.Her eyes were bright red and bloodshot. not attractive at all.She was so sad she had unwittingly distressed dear old Stan.Life is so tough she thought reluctantly.I wish I were somewhere else.
Still,there were those new neighbors who had just moved in across the road.Two brothers,both very handsome.I wonder if they like writing on the computer,she thought.That cheered her up a bit,though she was very fond of Stan.In fact she loved him greatly and had kissed him gently yet thoroughly many times though she had never actually gone to bed with him ;never known him in the biblical sense.Was that the problem?Too late now either way,she muttered balefully
So in her mind she was moving from loving and adoring Stan to being puzzled by him.Was he afraid of being dominated by a woman?What would he be like as a lover?
But why try to talk about bisexuality?Could he not have thought of something else?
There was a new book by Betty Dodson teaching women how to have orgasms.Would he have enjoyed discussing female anatomy and pleasuring her naked female body and its organs of love and all the rest,[she always liked a kiss on her throat]?
Well,she would never know now.That was certain.Definitely.
Thank God I’ve found out what he’s like before things went any further.He might be a little too dominating or perhaps not enough?
In fact she was so upset her thoughts began to turn towards women.
Would it be better all round to love a woman.Especially as I could show her how to have an orgasm having being studying this book for some weeks?Though she may already know,I guess.Still,a change is as good as a rest!
How do I find a woman who’s into other women, she thought.Can I find one on the internet?Will there be a club we can go to?How exciting!
So Annie grew more optimistic.A woman wouldn’t mind a few words deleted from a chat either.So a feeling of mild joy came over her and her sobbing died down.
Stan was sitting in his kitchen feeling superior and dominant.Except Annie had not come for coffee so it was hard being dominant all by himself.He began to feel depressed and morose.Should he change his mind?Would he lose his window of opportunity
Why is life so trying.Why are women so manipulative, why do they all turn out fakes,he asked Emile.
It’s partly one’s own character,Emile replied.
Hearing this Stan lost his temper and threw a cup at Emile.Luckily it missed but Emile stalked out and went off to the shed leaving Stan more alone than ever.
How hard life is Stan shouted. I feel like topping myself. i”ll jump off the roof.I’m going to ring the fucking Samaritans.
Just then his wife Mary walked in.What’s up Stan?
Nothing dear.I just dropped a brick on my toe
Why have you got a brick in here,in the lounge?
I was playing with it.
With a brick?
Well,it has a certain cold masculinity,he replied.
Shall I make some drinks?
Yes,please.
Oh,look there’s Annie walking past arm in arm with a woman.
I knew George was bisexual but now I see she is also or maybe she’s gay!Were they both gay?Is that why she only kissed him and never went further?
Well,it’s not our affair,said Mary quietly.
Aha,thought Stan.That’s what you think.If only you could see inside my mind.
Inside his mind though ,he was wondering if Annie would ever see him again.But I will not forgive her,I won’t.I won’t!
What he might have said more truthfully was “Can’t”
For indeed,it is hard to forgive people for trampling into one’s sacred space even if it is an accident or misjudgment not a deliberate attempt to dominate.but if not ………
Such is life,alas.
We are such fools as dreams are made of.