What on earth do they mean?

They told me not to go to the hospital because the trains are operating today so when will you go?

When the trains are not running.

So how will you get to the hospital?

I will have to ask for transport.

what will that be?

I wish it were a donkey.

you’re not Jesus you know.

Riding on donkeys was not the only thing that Jesus did

But he did give the Sermon on the Mount.

You are so clever I’m surprised that you are not the Prime Minister.

did you say the Crime minister?

I didn’t know there was a crime minister.

there are plenty of lying ministers.

so true.

If someone ‘slips while crossing the road we might

have a dying minister.

Have you ever thought of writing a crime story?

no it will be a crime were I to do so.

How could it be a crime to write a detective mystery?

if you’re a terrible writer

Someone might kill you

I have got the plot but I’m no good at dialogue

Start with a monologue and then answer in another monologue

Will that be a dialogue?

No but it will look like one

Boris Johnson looked like a prime minister

Say no more

The paradox of humility

Photo by Katherine copyright

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There are exceptions, of course. For the rare public figure or celebrity whose cultivated arrogance and lofty untouchability intersect in just the right ways, it’s still possible to be merely “honored” and “surprised,” in old-school acknowledgment of deserved recognition. (Think of Bob Dylan, who was unable to travel to Stockholm to pick up his Nobel Prize in person because of undisclosed pre-existing commitments.) But it’s tricky. We live in a rabidly anti-elitist society that is also in slack-jawed, slavish thrall to elites, and it’s no joke to try to maintain homeostasis between “Look at me!” and “Who, me?”

For most of us, the choice is simple: We can either let our triumphs and random strokes of luck go unremarked upon, or we can bow our heads and declare ourselves humbled by our great fortune.

It seems worth pointing out, though, that none of this is what “humbled” actually means. To be humbled is to be brought low or somehow diminished in standing or stature. Sometimes we’re humbled by humiliation or failure or some other calamity. And sometimes we’re humbled by encountering something so grand, meaningful or sublime that our own small selves are thrown into stark contrast — things like history, or the cosmos, or the divine.

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Should we wish to be more self confident?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/smarter-living/how-to-improve-self-confidence.html

The “Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology” puts it another way: “If the person lacks confidence, again there will be no action. That’s why a lack of confidence is sometimes referred to as ‘crippling doubt.’ Doubt can impair effort before the action begins or while it is ongoing.”

If you believe you can get your dream job if you apply, there’s a chance, however small, you will.

Patience and how it helps

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/smarter-living/how-to-be-a-more-patient-person.html

The good news is that same study found that patience as a personality trait is modifiable. Even if you’re not a particularly patient person today, there’s still hope you can be a more patient person tomorrow. So if you find yourself getting exasperated more than you’d like, here are ways to keep those testy impulses in check.

The steepness,wildness,blackness darkly sing

Like the water  in a mountain stream
In flood it drowns  the weak and  very young
In drought we can explore its bed  and dream

The limestone all round Alston’s very clean
And in the little river stones are flung
It’s  water  in a new born mountain stream

Dried river beds in Teesdale are  pristine
The dark hills threaten  as they overhang
In drought, we can explore, find stones  and dream

But much of  Pennine land remains unseen
The  steepness,wildness ,blackness darkly sing
Like the  currents  in a flung down stream

In rare heat, bare feet are river clean
The hot stones make a flat seat on the bank
In drought, we can explore or  view the scene

In  love the mind will savour and then thank
The world of nature into which it sank
Unlike the water  in a mountain stream
If our mind runs slower  it better dreams

To the deeper water

In  peaty water,pebbled white as chalk
My feet feel ample pleasure as I walk
The stepping stone of Rothay I have shunned
For to the deeper  water I am won

The silence but for birdsong faraway
Soothes each cell as they vibrate and play
The body like the coat of   cat well stroked
Lies in pleasure, almost seems to float

The limestone pavement   on high Hutton Roof
Grows little flowers of pure and subtle truth
Across we see the  sands of Morecambe Bay
The dragging, shifting sands that suck and sway

The feet in sand and water feel well homed
Yet on the higher crags I long to roam

I’ll keep you in mind

If you go out of your mind where do you go to?

Is there a right mind0?

Aand if you are not in your right mind is there more than one wrong mind?aa

To the mindless the body is a joy until they walk having front of the traffic and get run over.

I had the fastest mind in the university or should speed only apply to the brain?

The heart can break when we are distressed what does it do when we are happy?

What does be mindful mean?a

Fire on the marsh

Burnt to Sienna the grass on the marsh was dry

Suddenly it flamed into fire, witness the sky.

I was reading to you and I saw nothing at all

But I felt the heat in my flesh and the brick wall

Blaze blaze you fires in the earth create

The fires of love burn stronger than the fires of hate

Where’s the electricity going to come from?

Mirror mirror on the wall

Boris Johnson had a fall

Soon he’ll be a millionaire.

Life in Britain is unfair.

We can’t afford to see at night

The nuclear bomb will give us light

Mr Putin’s very kind

I only wish he had a mind

What he reflects on needs deep thought

Or he won’t know just what he’s caught

The deep sea diver find a wreck

Get inspectors out to check

If we have a lot of strikes

We can’t visit their websites

We can’t use our laptops fine

Somebody has to draw the line

Only as a last resort

Get the leaders out to talk.

No that Gorbachev f has died

Sense and reason are defied

The hanky

May I borrow your hanky ?

Why?

I want to blow my nose..

Try hitting it instead

Can’t I blow my own trumpet?

I don’t know I  02never seen you before I don’t even know if you have got a trumpet.

It’s a figure of speech.

Oh I thought it was a wind instrument.

They are not mutually exclusive you knowA

Mutually exclusive. That sounds like love or friendship

But surely you can love a friend. and you could befriend your lover.

It depends on what you mean by love

Yes I understand perfectly

No I’m not.

I would rather be normal

Have you been asked buy a stranger if they can borrow one of your possessions like spectacles?

Could I borrow your Tampax

I’ve only got the one inside of me

That’s alright as long as it’s not full.

I can’t see it.

Oh dear I didn’t realise you were blind.

It’s raining very hard can I borrow your Mac?

What’s rain got to do this computers?l

Have you got Windows 11?

Qq I misheard you I thought you said Widows 11.

You know perfectly well I don’t play football

May I borrow your hearing aid ?

Pardon?

Sorry I thought you were my father. May I borrow your spectacles

Why!

So I can see who you are

May I borrow your spectacles?

A few years ago I was in Argos

I was looking at one of the catalogues when a woman who was also looking at the catalogues nearby came over to me me.and said

Let me borrow your glasses.

I had just got some new ones and they were expensive

So I said why do you want them?

She said I want them to read this catalogue

I said there are varifocal lenses and not reading glasses. And in any case the scripture would not be right for you

She got quite angry And was saying give them to me give them to me

I decided to leave.

When I told one of my friends they said, she was probably going to steal them.

May I borrow your mind?

You’ve got to know your own first

Do you want to keep this television?

Just until it goes off.

Shall I put it in the fridge?

You should get your eyes tested

Shall I get them vaccination? a

Have you got a sleeping tablet?

No I always turn them off

Sara Paretsky interview: ‘I start each VI Warshawski book convinced I can’t do it’

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/07/sara-paretsky-interview-i-start-each-vi-warshawski-book-convinced-i-cant-do-it?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

This is a very interesting interview

The sort of person who

He is the sort of person who

Helps blind people across the road even if they don’t want to. go

Who always crosses the road on a zebra crossing even if he has to paint it himself first.

Goes to confession every year even if she has not committed a sin

Never gets angry even if I phone her at 3 am I’ve got a cold

Always takes the neighbours dogs for a walk even if they have none

Always feeds the neighbours cats even when they would prefer mice.

Always asks his dates if they would like to go to bed with him just in case they are too shy to mention it

Sleeps in the dog’s kennel if the dog wants to sleep on her bed

Has had cat flaps put in the front door and the back door so the cat doesn’t have to walk round the side of the house

Writing poetry

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/may/12/weekend.guybrowning

Poetry doesn’t have to rhyme, but it makes it a lot easier to remember: everyone can tell you what comes after “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright …” If you can rhyme, people will also forgive you for not making sense; after all what is a “forest of the night”? Never start a poem with a line ending in a word that doesn’t rhyme. You may have enjoyed your holiday immensely, but don’t start the subsequent poem with the line, “Across the sky skimmed the wide-bodied Airbus”. You’re then limited to dodgy spelling – “packing your hairbrus” – or 

Anxiety in Grief – Whats your Grief

https://whatsyourgrief.com/anxiety-in-grief/

Many mistakenly think that if they make efforts to avoid their feelings for long enough these unpleasant emotions will be kept at bay or fade away, when in actuality deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts often make them more likely to surface. Avoidance is a large factor in the development and maintenance of anxiety.

…it’s a learned

Albert Bandura, Leading Psychologist of Aggression, Dies at 95 – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/science/albert-bandura-dead.html

Bandura was drawn into the public debate and testified before congressional committees and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, a task force created after the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.

His research did not sit well with the broadcast industry. His findings were criticized in articles commissioned by the networks, and the Television Information Office, part of the National Association of Broadcasters, sent its sponsor stations elaborate rebuttals to his findings. After Dr. Bandura and several other social scientists were excluded from a committee that the surgeon general had asked to evaluate the effects of television violence, Dr. Bandura later wrote, he discovered that broadcast networks had been allowed to veto the nominations of committee members.

“I began to feel a kinship with the battered Bobo doll,” he wrote.

In the end, his work won out, his findings becoming even more relevant in a world where social media and a 24-hour-a-day news cycle have afforded violence models far greater reach.

The Bobo doll experiment became a staple of psychology classes around the world. People mailed Bobo dolls to Dr. Bandura requesting autographs and knocked on his office door in Stanford’s Jordan Hall, hoping to have their photograph taken with the famous psychologist.

In an interview for this obituary in 2018, Dr. Bandura said he had once received an email from some high school students.

“Professor Bandura,” they wrote, “we’re having a huge fight in our class and you’re the only one who can answer it: Professor Bandura, are you still living?”

He wrote the students back: “This email is being sent from the other side. We have email there, but not Facebook.”

Albert Bandura was born on Dec. 4, 1925, in the prairie town of Mundare, about 50 miles east of Edmonton, Alberta. His parents, like most of the settlement’s 400 residents, were immigrants from Eastern Europe, his father from Krakow, Poland, his mother from Ukraine. His father, Joseph Bandura, laid track for the trans-Canada railway and turned a heavily wooded homestead into a working farm. His mother, Justyna (Berezanski) Bandura, ran a delivery service, transporting goods from the railway station to the store.

In the summers, Dr. Bandura helped his father on the farm or worked in other manual labor jobs. When he

God didn’t make the little green apples – Google Search

https://www.google.com/search?q=god+didn%27t+make+the+little+green+apples&client=ms-android-motorola-rvo3&prmd=snvi&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjqqsnvq_b5AhUSXsAKHTf5B2YQ_AUoA3oECAIQAw&biw=346&bih=656&dpr=3.13#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:b1ded124,vid:4IH2s0OYY3E,st:0