Writing
I’ve been for a walk (I’ve been for a walk) On a winter’s day (On a winter’s day) – California Dreaming We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness – Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows Komorebi is a Japanese word meaning […]
We have formed a firm decision that Odysseus has waited long enough. He must go home – The Odyssey Susan Sontag’s On Photography is an old but important book. She explains how to understand photographs as you do with a poem or novel. How they are constructed, what is the message, how do they make […]
What we may well believe has the power to cut and shape and hollow out the dark form of the world surely if wind can, if rain can. But which cannot be held never be held and is no flower – Cormac McCarthy Know the strength of man, But keep a woman’s care – Tao […]
The same leap of the spirit carries me up. God or no god, I am fey again – Nan Shepherd Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it – Tao Te Ching The Welsh word Rhinog means threshold, and the hills […]
What we may well believe has the power to cut and shape and hollow out the dark form of the world surely if wind can, if rain can. But which cannot be held never be held and is no flower – Cormac McCarthy There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray, love, remember. And there is pansies, […]
I’m thinking of meadows after reading about them. These are the best, they say in The Times, for good summer walks. Different parts of England, Scotland, and Wales. The person who wrote it is not speaking from experience but finds them on the internet. That means two things. There will be better meadows inevitably, and […]
There is something about winter which pares all living things down to their essentials – Moya Cannon It learns…something – Lex Fridman talking with Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI) Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet, and envisaged it as a utopian democratic space. We all did, excited with the new technology. Talk to anyone, reason together, […]
In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public […]
But I think if any song can touch the heart, then one should value it – Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong I’ll ask the interweb – Lance, Detectorists A few years ago I read about Amy Liptrot when she lived on Orkney, was preparing a book, and using a GPS sky app. I investigated and found there […]
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we! – William Shakespeare I watched the Detectorists for the first time a few months ago. Then again, and a third time, and I’ve now watched the Christmas Special twice. When the jokes arrived I smiled on two levels. At the joke, and with the recognition. I laughed […]