Not all those who wander are lost

 

Not all those who wander are lost

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

How true! 

Susannah has just sent me a clip about a drunken Turkish man, B.M. He may have been befuddled by drink but he knew his duty to his fellow man and joined a search party looking for a missing person. The misper – see, all those misspent hours watching television crime dramas have not been in vain! – had been drinking with some friends and wandered away into the woods. His wife, being unable to contact him, called the police.

B.M. and his fellows searched for hours, B.M. not knowing who they were looking for. Suddenly, one of the rescuers called B.M’s name. At this point B.M. realised he was the missing person and had been looking for himself.

How this realisation was received is not recorded. I think there are several reactions that may have been observed:

1: Oh, thank goodness you’re safe.

2: That’s the last time you go out drinking.

3: You’ve made a fool of yourself.

4: You’ve made a fool of me/us/the police.

5: What the blazes were you thinking?

6: How could you be so stupid?

7: How could I have been so stupid to have married you.

8: How could we have been so stupid to let you wander off, drunk.

9: Next time I/we won’t bother to come looking for you.

10: There’d better not be a next time.

I wonder if B.M. had a hangover the next day?

 

 

 

Local interest

 

Local interest

Many of our local roads looks somewhat like this!

Source unknown.

The major topic of conversation, apart from the iniquitous Post Office scandal, is the plethora of road works in the area. At one point recently it was almost impossible to escape the village as every route had cones cutting off road lanes and temporary traffic lights controlling the passage of vehicles. There was a noticeable lack of workmen most of the time and occasionally the traffic lights stopped working altogether. That lead to a ‘dicing with death’ scenario as vehicles hesitantly edged forwards, particularly around blind corners.

Gas, electricity, water, telephone, fibre broadband all had fingers – or spades – in the pie. The road surfaces are still a patchwork of filled-in holes, but that doesn’t affect the pot holes that are so old they are almost of archaeological interest.

Occasionally, a resurfacing project is undertaken. This involves shutting the entire thoroughfare for weeks. Only residents, delivery vehicles, emergency services and maintenance people are allowed access. Commuters have much time added to their daily journeys and all alternative routes or 'diversions' are overwhelmed with extra traffic.      

Tempers become frayed!

The Post Office scandal has a local connection, too. The headquarters of Fujitsu UK are based in Bracknell, almost five miles from here. Fujitsu took over ICL in the late 1990s. ICL was not known for its efficacy in computer systems and the take-over did not improve matters, since many of the same people were still employed there. Who advised the government in awarding such a big contract? 

I imagine the Post Office debacle will become an object lesson in universities to teach systems analysis, business ethics and accountability among other things. As an example of how not to do things it is unsurpassed. It is truly astonishing how criminally badly more than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses have been treated. Between 1999 and 2015, they were accused of theft, false accounting and fraud. Some were jailed, others committed suicide, families were wrecked and still the Horizon computer system was claimed to be without fault.

I doubt whether the real culprits will be punished. After all, our ‘honours system’ seems to reward rogues who lack a moral compass. That degrades awards for genuine people who work selflessly to raise money for charitable causes or work endlessly in jobs that others would disdain.

I take my hat off to those people, like Kevin Sinfield, who has raised so much money for research into Motor Neurone Disease, alongside his great friend and former Leeds Rhinos team mate, Rob Burrow, who was diagnosed with MND in 2019.

There are genuinely good people in the world but they are too often overlooked and overcome by power-hungry, self-serving people. Those people do not stand on the shoulders of those who came before them, but trample over them in their bid to gain the glittering prizes, or, more prosaically, the recognition and the huge salaries.

 I thought the ongoing Covid inquiry was an insight into the incompetence of the government, but the Post Office scandal trumps it one hundredfold.

 

Little things

 

Little things

Little things please little minds, so it is said. In fact, Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) wrote it around 2 AD in ‘Ars Amatoria’, a collection of 57 poems in three volumes. In the first two volumes, intended as advice to men, Ovid advised ‘not forgetting her birthday’ and ‘not asking about her age’. The third volume sought to advise women on how to gain and keep the love of a man. Oh, if only I had studied Latin . . . (Still, I didn't do too badly!)

‘Parva leves capiunt animos’ is translated as ‘small things enthral light minds’ and has been repeated by the great and the good, the simple and the foolish ever since. In 1576 George Pettie rendered it, ‘a little thing pleaseth a foole’ while John Lyly in 1584 wrote, ‘Little things catch light mindes’. In 1845 Disraeli said, ‘Little things affect little minds’ while in 1963 Doris Lessing wrote ‘Small things amuse small minds’. Finally, the Galt toy catalogue of 1973 printed ‘Little things please little minds’ and that, I suppose, settled it!

That was a rabbit hole I had not planned to travel through when I started writing this post. That’s the trouble, you see – no focus!

The little thing that is pleasing me at present is a Kikkerland nail brush in the form of a whale. I am so pleased with it that it will not be employed for any other purpose than to make me smile every time I see it. 

                                             Look at the grain!

It is handmade from beechwood and wears a light smile. The grain is attractive and I wonder if it would be enhanced by an application of linseed oil.

                     Seen from above - '♪ Me and my shadow . . . '

                 Here you can clearly see this cheery cetacean's smile

I cannot say that I am entering my second childhood. Something (many things) tell me I never departed my first!                        

Karl Marx

 

Karl Marx

Karl Marx statue, Highgate Cemetery (East)

Most people have heard of Karl Marx. Some may even have read his writings, the most well-known of which are ‘The Communist Manifesto’ (1848) and ‘Das Kapital’ (1867-1894)

Marx and his wife had seven children, of whom only three survived into adulthood. One rather endearing trait was that all his daughters were given the first name of Jenny, in honour of his wife.

His imposing tomb in Highgate Cemetery in London, in an area reserved for atheists, bears the engraved message, ‘Workers of All Lands Unite’, often misquoted as ‘Workers of the World Unite.’ 

From left: Chico, Harpo and Groucho (seated).

Above two images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Though he was one of nine children there is no truth in the belief that Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo were in any way related to him. However, he had a sister who is remembered at the start of every race in the Olympics, indeed of every race ever run. From early childhood, children will have been apprised of her name. Like her famous brother, Onya will never be forgotten.

The North wind doth blow . . .

 

The North wind doth blow . . .

 . . . except that it dothn’t. True, the wind was ‘from the North’ at one mile per hour or something ridiculous. That was fine by me. It was quite cold enough without it being shunted along at speed, and I was indoors, for goodness’ sake. The house isn’t hermetically sealed but most of the draughts have been denied access.

. . . and we shall have snow

Well, yes, we have had snow, not enough to write home about, but snow nonetheless. It came down in big, soft flakes, quite impressively, for a while. I noticed from my Reolink camera that it was settling abjectly and rather sulkily on the cars on the drive, as though it would rather be somewhere else.

 . . . and what will the robin do then, poor thing?

He’ll sit in a barn

To keep himself warm . . .

. . . well, he would, if he could find one that hasn’t been snapped up and converted at vast expense to make a desirable property for a human, but if he manages to find a vacant barn being used for its original purpose . . .

He’ll sit in a barn

To keep himself warm

 And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

There are four more verses to this rhyme. The second one asks,

And what will the swallow do then, poor thing?

Oh, do you not know

That he’s off long ago,

To a country where he will find spring, poor thing.

The third and fourth verses speak of the dormouse and honey bee, both of which hibernate until the spring, and the final verse refers to children.

When lessons are done

They will skip, jump and run,

Until they have made themselves warm, poor things.

Much is made of the joy to be had in the snow – tobogganing, building snowmen, snowball fights, making snow angels. All such pursuits are great fun, but the cold! Who can forget the frozen fingers and the agony of warmth returning to icy hands and feet, the face flayed by bitter wind, nose pinched and cold, drawing arctic breath into aching lungs?

Snow is lovely, in small amounts, for a short while, for those who do not have to travel.

Today the wind is from the East-North-East at 4 miles per hour. The sun is shining fitfully and blue tits are busy in the garden.

Is there a poem that starts, ‘The East-North-East wind doth blow’?

Petticoats

 

Petticoats

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons 

Chris’s blog post on ‘Always smiling’ pointed out that it was 89 years ago that Elvis Presley was born on 8^th January. She mentioned petticoats and that brought to mind the ones we used to wear.

To make them stiff so that they made the skirts over them stand out, they were starched in a mixture of sugar and water and left to dry. My patient mother spent much time starching my petticoats. I remember going to a youth club proudly wearing my sugar petticoat, (or was it paper nylon?) relishing the crackly feel of it. My recollection is that it didn’t stay stiff for long, soon wilting to limpness after a short while.

I’m sure that Beverley Rhodes, younger sister of Dame Zandra Rhodes, went to the same youth club. I didn’t know her very well. Zandra was well known then but not as famous as she was to become later, creating designs for Diana, Princess of Wales and rock stars like Freddie Mercury.

I think they lived on Chatham Hill, a steep hill leading from Chatham to Gillingham. Certainly, it was steep enough that when I cycled to school I always had to get off and push my bike up it. Going home was wonderful, though, freewheeling at speed down the hill.

Microfiction

 

Microfiction

Source unknown

The objective of microfiction was to create a story in 140 characters or fewer, including punctuation. A picture would be provided by the organiser to act as a prompt.

It was fun to do and a challenge to wordy individuals like me. The following two efforts are from January 2011, prompted by the illustration above.

Horrified, he discovered that he had drawn from his scabbard not a sword but a parasol. Valiantly he battled on, blocking his enemy’s blows. (140 characters)

 

 

Forensic pathologists were astounded. Cause of death? Microscopic samurai hidden under cocktail umbrella.  The victim never saw his killers. (140 characters)