Stan met Satan in his mirror many times.And it was obvious the poor devil was terribly depressed.He said he was no longer needed as humans were more wicked than he ever was.

Stan wondered how to help without doing anything wicked himself
He went into the bedroom and looked into the mirror.

At first he thought it was empty but the he saw Satan asleep in a ball.
Hi there,he called.Satan woke up.
Hi Satan.
Stan said
I’ve got an idea

How would you like a drive to Sheringham?
I dunno,I feel too depressed.
I think you need a change said Stan.

He picked up Mary’s solid gold powder compact and opened it.What a lovely scent,he murmured,closing his eyes and remembering all the times Mary had taken it out to put on more lipstick or powder her nose when they were out dancing.
Now,see here.I have mirror .If you can get behind this,I’ll put you in my pocket and Emile will sit by me in the car.
Without a pause Satan leaped into the gold compact and Stan could see him in the mirror.He popped it into his front pocket until he realised the devil could not see out.
He opened it and placed it in his pocket but with the mirror sticking out.
They drove off in Stan’s old Triumph Herald which was still functioning well.
Sat Nav,said Satan… is that how to find me…
No.it’s satellite navigation.It gives me a route to the seaside.Wherever I want to go
Bloody waste of money…what is wrong with a road Atlas?
It’s all progress.Stan told him.We must keep up or we will be thought lacking
By whom? answered the old devil
All of a sudden a police car came by and asked Stan to stop.
Why are you sending signals with that mirror?the police officer enquired..
To be continued

Stan met Satan in his mirror many times.And it was obvious the poor devil was terribly depressed.He said he was no longer needed as humans were more wicked than he ever was.Stan wondered how to help without doing anything wicked himself
He went into the bedroom and looked into the mirror.At first he thought it was empty but the he saw Satan asleep in a ball.
Hi there,he called.Satan woke up.
Hi Stan.
Stan said
I’ve got an idea.How would you like a drive to Sheringham?
I dunno,I feel too depressed.
I think you need a change said Stan.He picked up Mary’s solid gold powder compact and opened it.What a lovely scent,he murmured,closing his eyes and remembering all the times Mary had taken it out to put on more lipstick or powder her nose when they were out dancing.
Now,see here.I have mirror here.If you can get behind this,I’ll put you in my pocket and Emile will sit by me in the car.
Without a pause Satan leaped into the gold compact and Stan could see him in the mirror.He popped it into his front pocket until he realised the devil could not see out.
He opened it and placed it in his pocket but with the mirror sticking out.
They drove off in Stan’s old Triumph Herald which was still functioning well.
Sat Nav,said Satan… is that how to find me…
No.it’s satellite navigation.It gives me a route to the seaside.Wherever I want to go
Bloody waste of money…what is wrong with a road Atla.?
It’s all progress.Stan told him.We must keep up or we will be thought lacking
By whom? answered the old devil
All of a sudden a police car came by and asked Stan to stop.
Why are you sending signals with that mirror?the police officer enquired..
To be continued

Stan was standing on the patio behind his bijou home when a sudden heavy  downpour of water drenched him all over.
This is like a monsoon,he murmured to Emile who was also wet and drowned looking
A head  and neck appeared over the dark wooden fence.
I’m awfully sorry,old boy.A pipe has burst in Annie’s loft.I tried to fix it myself.
I don’t believe it.You are Stan Brown.It must be 50 years since I saw you.
Stan was hiding his surprise at seeing Rudolf Hairnet,his former logic tutor at an ancient foundation, in the garden of Annie,Stan’s beloved colourful mistress.
Why not pop in Rudolf,he said.I’ll leave the door open and go upstairs to change my clothes.Be with you in a moment.
Stan went upstairs and removed his clothes.His body was now as thin as when he reached his full height of 6 ft 6 inches but alas it had less muscle and more fat. nowadays.He gazed into his wife’s full length mirror.
To his surprise, he saw Satan looking out.Although he knew this was possible for Catholics he had never met Satan before.Not that he was keen to,exciting as it might be.
How do you get behind the mirror,he asked  Satan gently.
God only knows,said Satan morosely.
Why not ask him?
I’m too proud,the poor devil replied in a bleak voice.
Well,we all have our pride,Stan told him,though no doubt yours is the biggest in the universe.
Yes,indeed,Satan answered.It’s bigger than Everest
Are you here for any purpose,Stan enquired.
Yes,your home seems more intriguing than most and I like to watch you in bed with that flame haired woman… is she your paramour?
I see,said Stan,You are a voyeur par excellence
That’s one way of describing me,Satan said,No woman will come to bed with me so I am trapped here behind every mirror in the world.I can see it all but never take part.
You must be very lonely,said Stan
Yes,the dark spirit muttered painfully
Are there no she-devils about who might oblige you?Stan asked him thoughtfully.
I don’t seem to fancy them so much.They are all as bad a me,I want kindness and tenderness not just lust.After all,one might satisfy that with a vibrator… we have them in hell you know!We have many things but love and humility are not there.
Why,you are beginning to sound almost human,Stan told him.We want love too.If only you would apologise to God I am sure he would forgive you and let you come into the real world of others instead of being trapped in there
Stan heard a noise.He turned round displaying his bony frame and his  drooping organs to Rudolf.
Are you ok? I was worried that the drenching had knocked you off balance.I have out your kettle on the  fire to make you a hot drink and phoned 999 for aid.
But we don’t have a fire,Stan responded. loudly
Well,you do now said Rudolph
Oh,hell, cried Stan

Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall
The words predicted death  and so it came
The mightiest king is not  preserved from falls

Is there  wisdom  in the deep that calls
True scholarship  is hard , to name unnamed
Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall

Even  blatant  evil, none appals
We have no  reverie,  we have no time
The mightiest king ‘s no  safer    with his gold

Counted,weighed,divided, aren’t we all?
The words in Aramaic  were  no  rhyme
Belshazzar saw the grave  there on  his wall

Once old ladies smiled  knit  infants shawls
They had joy  though death  came wandering by
The King  of Babylon  deserved his fall

Being alive seems  near to a  great crime
God may die yet love burns its small flame
Belshazzar learned the writing on the wall
The  humbler people are,  the  less the  fall6th Dec 2019Posted inethics, poetry, reflections, Thinkings and poems, villanelleLeave a commenton We have no  reverie,  we have no timeEditWe have no  reverie,  we have no time

Problem pupils

What shall I do with  a dilated pupil?

a) Send them to the Headmaster

b} Give them a shrinking glance

c) Look away

d) Go to an Eye Clinic

e} is she  having a baby? How can you see her cervix? Are you a doctor?

My glasses are reading  any advice?

A} You have schizophrenia

B} You are a witch

C} You  need an eye test

D) They are a surveillance device.Throw them in the bin

My lenses are plastic

a} You have had cataract surgery

b} You are deluded

c} They are  ruining the environment.Hide them if you can get them out of your eyes

4} You want attention.? Ask for a glass eye next time

Joy sings now in golden light,

Then after day comes deep,black night.

New moon is rising by grey trees,

The earth is where I want to be.
I want the day,I want the night.
I want the dark.I want the light.
I want to see and to be seen,~
And not to lose my precious  dreams

The sun has set, grey clouds turn black,

The day just gone  will not come back.

I’ll rest in quiet reverie

Until the reaper’s scythe takes me.
And then I drop and mix with dust,
Till worms and beetles sate their lust.
And fall into ten thousand motes,
And dance, in sunlight,  music’s notes.

No more striving ,no more ambition

No more fighting,no competition.

Every particle’s the same

Without even  a unique name.
And, side by side, we all are one,
The lusts of life have been and gone.
We dwell with dirt and grain and sand
At last we’ve reached the Promised Land

Mary found a strange garment in her wardrobe

She pulled it out and the label said culotte. I must have got this from a catalogue she told herself

It was made of a very thin fabric so she decided to try it on as the weather was extremely hot

While she was fastening the  zip her friend Annie came into the room  wearingha pink outfit wity matching shoes

Annie burst out laughing

You can’t wear those, she said dominatingly

Why not,  said Mary plaintively?

Much too big for you and they will fall off when you’re walking down the street. It’s odd that you should say that because my lata husband Stan as he was generally known often said in the summer that he was worried that my skirt would fall off

What do you think Freud would have said about that? Maybe it’s a repressed desire.

Maybe he wanted other men to see his beautiful wife’s naked body

Do you think Prince Charles ever wished  Princess Diana skirt would fall off when she was walking along through a minefield or receiving some illustrious guests from some foreign royal family?

Well no one could ask Prince Charles that now.

A cat could ask him, said Emile Mary s little  pussycat.

Why  it says in my books that a cat may look at a king but it doesn’t say the cat can ask the king a personal question.

Mary decided to make some fresh tea

I am getting rid of a lot of my clothes Mary told the pair because I am planning to move to Dover. Annie was very upset ….planning to move to Dover at what about me and Emile?

I don’t know if it will ever happen but it’s just something to amuse myself with looking at the price of flats and deciding what kind of furniture I would like to have.

Listen,you  are too old to move to somewhere completely new where you don’t know anybody not to mention the fact that Dover is very hilly.

I don’t know sometimes people have to move regardless of their age or maybe I will buy a very small flat to be a second home for me near the sea

But if you got to Dover beach now you won’t hear the strange melancholy roar that Matthew Arnold heard: no you will hear the sound of wet and frightened asylum seekers trying to get out of the small boats.

You might even see riots such as a happening in Epping outside the Bell Hotel. It could be very dangerous.

Well I haven’t thought of that said Mary I was just thinking of three very beautiful holidays in Deal and Walmer.

But that was 35 years ago. You were a young woman then.

You are very pessimistic, aren’t you, Annie? I don’t know if many people in Dover go to the part of the beach with these poor asylum seekers  landing and if they do .. after all Jesus Christ could have been an asylum seeker and where would he go today with all the war in the Middle East? Wouldn’t Dover beach be the sort of place he might come to in a boat with his parents why he might be travelling in a Moses basket as might only be a tiny baby. He won’t have a passport of course

He may already have arrived here and he could be staying in the Bell inb at this moment.

Well I don’t think we can go to Epping to find out but who knows whether the Three Kings are on the way already to worship him in a stable in the forest at Epping.

They may  have left the middle East some time ago. I wonder if they  brought any gold frankincense and myrrh with them?

Well we certainly need a good cup of tea to take our minds off these troubles . and  lf you want to go to the sea you just go and stay an hotel for a few days and I will come with you to make sure that you are okay since your eyesight it’s not as good as it used to be : how would you like to go to Eastbourne?

Mary was silent as she was planning the furniture for her dining room in her new flat in her imagination

I think this time I shall have an oak dining table she mused. And so di all of us

I think I prefer beech myself

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming

Inside my shell, I dream of pearls,
Caterpillars, snails with whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped
With reverie and dream, I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods allow my eyes to see

Oh, sweeter than confectionery
Is my worn old dictionary.
The words whirl round and fall to shape
The sentences, which my world drape.
This furnishing is rich and strange
Yet magically self-arranged.

Oh, sweeter than the love of man
Is reading works of poets long gone;
And feeling deeply their dark tides,
Upon which our boats may glide.
The sea infinite we float on
Is the same warm sea that ancients swam.

Sweeter still is this spring air
And the blossom spreading fair.
We’ll drown ourselves in deep green fields
To the gods of poetry yield.
We’ll rise again and spring up tall
To grow more rich until we fall.

Sweet it is to live and die
And to write my poetry
Touch me with your ardent souls
My mind and yours shall all be whole

https://theconversation.com/writing-builds-resilience-by-changing-your-brain-helping-you-face-everyday-challenges-265188

That means all the children including the better off ones.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/30/study-links-greater-inequality-to-structural-changes-in-childrens-brains?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

• What cannot be imagined cannot even be talked about.
  • Journal entry (12 October 1916), p. 84e
• https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

  What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
  I know that this world exists.
  That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.
  That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
  This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.
  That life is the world.
  That my will penetrates the world.
  That my will is good or evil.
  Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.
  The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
  And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.
  To pray is to think about the meaning of life.

  • Journal entry (11 June 1916), p. 72e and 73e

• To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life.
  To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.
  To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.
  • Journal entry (8 July 1916), p. 74e

• What cannot be imagined cannot even be talked about.
  • Journal entry (12 October 1916), p. 84e
• https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

  What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
  I know that this world exists.
  That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.
  That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
  This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.
  That life is the world.
  That my will penetrates the world.
  That my will is good or evil.
  Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.
  The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
  And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.
  To pray is to think about the meaning of life.

  • Journal entry (11 June 1916), p. 72e and 73e

• To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life.
  To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.
  To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.
  • Journal entry (8 July 1916), p. 74e

Mary had been reading a new book called,” The Path” by Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh.To her surprise, she saw it reviewed on her phone where she read the guardian news

.She had decided to get out of bed on the other side
When she awoke the next day, she remembered her vow.Unfortunately, she forgot she was inside a fleece sleeping bag with a zip on one side only.Should she get some scissors and cut her way out on the other side?Or was that a foolish idea since nobody but she would know she had failed her to keep her first new promise.
She heard a noise and them her friend Annie came in wearing a long satin nightgown and a green velvet trench coat.
How do you like this, she asked Mary?
Mary was very red yet silent
What is wrong, with you Mary?
I need to pee but I can’t get out of bed on the wrong side.
You have no choice, said Annie.You must not wet the bed or die from a burst bladder. Get out on the right side

But I feel a failure on my first day.
Maybe that is your lesson.Accept you can’t do it and get on with your day.
Mary ran to the bathroom.What a relief passing water can be to poor ladies who suffer afflictions in these regions.
Annie went down to the bijou yet complex kitchen and began to make some toast and boil some eggs.She gazed at the peach walls and melon cupboard doors unable to decide if she liked them.Maybe kingfisher blue might have been better.Too late now.Mary could not afford a new kitchen even if this one was really old.At least it was not orange as was common in the 70’s.
Mary came in with her golden hair standing up on end like candlesticks from the Synagogue.
I just got a shock, she said
I can see your hair is standing on end.Was it the electric socket?
No, there was a man looking into the window and I was naked in the bath.
Perhaps it was King David, Annie joked.Why don’t you have frosted glass?
Stan said it would frost itself in the winter.He was the least practical man in the world.
Maybe we could glue artificial frost onto it?
Who was the man, asked Annie her cheeks pinker than her perky pink lipstick by Licumb ; those lips which were so thick and sensual with a lovely curve.
Mary tore her eyes away from these lips.I didn’t have my glasses on, she said.Maybe it was a man from a hot air balloon?
Maybe someone fancies you at last,saidAnnie.
Do you think I’d go out with a man who does things like that?
No, you could stay in with him, Annie joked, as tears of mirth made her green eyeshadow and red mascara stream down her cheeks like rain after a nuclear explosion.No wonder men ran after her in the street.
You could succumb to his charms,Annie whispered.
I think I’d like a man more sensitive than that, Mary screeched.
Well, Mary, you are so lacking in knowledge the art of flirting you only notice men when they do something really wild or unusual
Like what, asked Emile who had just munched up a bowl of dried cat food and was full of energy.
Well, Stan kept pretending he loved reading Newton’s original writings which he bought from some unusual website thinking it would impress Mary. However as he failed O leve; maths 5 times he could not understand it.He sobbed and cried in the public library and Mary was moved by his grief.Later on, though, he became angry at her intellectual talent and took me as his mistress to get back at her.She never even noticed!
I don’t see how having a mistress is a revenge on poor woman who was given her genes by God, said Emile.
Don’t be daft, she buys her jeans from TK Maxx, Annie answered.
And so do all of us.

I can’t write any more right now!

Poem of the week: Missing You by Miles Burrows https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/nov/24/poem-of-the-week-missing-you-by-miles-burrows?CMP=share_btn_url

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002mlk9

This is a programme about the poet

Rainer Maria Rilke

BBC Radio 4 – In Our Time, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems https://share.google/pvg4XIM6OaWj2lFU8

This is one of Melvyb Braggs

In our Time programnes. It’s very interesting if you can tolerate it why not try?

Melvyn Bragg is always worth listening to in my opinion

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dshx3

You can also read the following article which is related

https://www.thetimes.com/article/cac0c83a-2754-445a-a3b0-6daba411b95d?shareToken=98c5c74f58bf82e4f042128b2b21e087

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/poetry/2016/06/love-affair-between-science-and-poetry

Extract

Stan was leaning over, cleaning the new bath.When the doorbell rang,he rushed downstairs and opened the double front door.
“Will you take this parcel in for the lady next door?” The postman asked wearily.
“Oh,fine Stan stuttered.He was trying to avoid Annie but here she was,coming down the road of superior semi detached houses suitable for ex-headmasters ,small businessmen,econometricians,surgeons,pie salesmen and theologians.
She was wearing perfume, and green sandals from TK Maxx,light khaki tencel cropped combat trousers with a purple silky over-blouse, not to mention her matching raspberry and cream underwear .Round her neck hung a miniature grandfather clock on a solid gold chain,and she had three imitation gold and silver watches on each of her three wrists making a total of 333 watches according to Carnap’s theory of logic and Russell’s terrible handwriting. Stanley didn’t know that she had a mobile phone stuffed into her bra—one advantage for the larger sized woman.In fact she had 4 down there in her raspberry coloured glamour bra,as she had a phobia about their batteries running down all at once
The more she had the lower the probability of her being without a phone whilst out and about the town and countryside.So she reasoned in her womanly way. Just then one phone rang.She rummaged around to the consternation and turmoil-uation of Stanley and the postman.She plucked out a pale blue phone.
“Hi,it’s Annie” she murmured.
“Hi Annie it’s Dave the paramedic with carpentry skills. You’ve not rung 999 lately so we were wondering if all was well!”
“Oh,I’m terribly sorry.I’ll try to phone later on.Thanks,Petal.That was Dave,our ex-transvestite converted paramedic”,she informed the men.The postman galloped off on his donkey, his bags full of undelivered males.It’s a tough but interesting life in Knittingham. Would you like a male delivery?Contact Parcel Force without delay.
Annie went into Stan’s house and demanded a cup of coffee.
“Won’t it make you put weight on” Stan quipped ironically.
“Do you think I’m too plump?” she responded anxiously..
“Too plump for what?” he quipped amiably.
“To attract men,of course!”
“No,my angel,you are just perfect”he quacked definitively.”Nor are you an angel,strictly speaking,as I have good reason to know.Thank you,my beloved for services rendered so generously and freely.”
“Oh,my goodness I must get home to render the fat from the beef and to make some gooseberry jam.” Stanley looked uneasy.
“I wonder why babies are left under gooseberry bushes?
The thorns are so big it’s quite dangerous getting them out,or so Mary told me when Lyra was born. She was covered in scratches and wouldn’t come near me for months.”
“Why don’t you come upstairs to look at our new purple bathroom suite.Since the Royal Wedding it’s the in colour.The gold taps were expensive but they do go well.”
“My God,let me out.” she bawled,”It reminds me of the Vatican and that’s no place for a lady”,
“Not even a gay lady?” Stan muttered parsimoniously, as he licked her eyelashes gently.
“Stop that.I’ve got my Yves St Laurent mascara on.”
“I prefer the taste of the Chanel,”he disclosed privately in an internal secret memo.[available in 50 years]
“Why not lick my neck instead?” she enquired curiously as she tripped over Emile the cat, who had slipped into the bathroom as usual to see what they were up to,you know what I mean, you catch my drift?
She fell floppily into the bath and banged her head on the taps.
“Oh,gosh,better ring 999” Stan said to Emile.
“Have you got your catphone warehouse mobile on you?”
“Yes ,it’s in my y-fronts”, the cat amiably miaowed.
“Hi Dave,this is Emile.Can you come quick.Annie is unconscious and what is worse,she has scratched the new bath.”
In fact it was Emile who had scratched the bath that morning but since Stan had not noticed he hoped to, callously, pass the blame onto poor Annie.How cruel can a cat be? Ask any mouse! Still in the end God made all of us and what a terrifying and beautiful world it is.

It might be good to lose weight or to lose your prejudice against certain other people

But it’s not so good to lose everything.

What would it be like to lose everything?

It’s nice sometimes to give up smoking or taking lots of painkillers 

It’s not good to give up completely. On the whole

It’s good to take up a new interest unless it’s gambling

But maybe not so good to take up with the wrong sort of people, whatever that might mean to you

Sometimes they say why not get a new interest like going to an art class

But don’t start stalking somebody however interested you may feel in them.

Sometimes we just long for more things especially on black Friday

But as the Bible says

What’s the point of gaining the whole world if you have to lose your own soul in the process?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/nov/20/rabih-alameddine-wins-national-book-award-for-fiction-with-darkly-comic-epic-spanning-six-decades