Simply put,

consciousness is simply hubris.
More discursively,
it is just the addled, ill and composite illusion
of the brain's trillions of connections
that they form one whole - and unique - self.
So human consciousness resists
its own invented sense of reason
in a desperate attempt
to prove unto itself that it actually exists.

We wear shoes

to protect our soft feet
and keep them soft.
We wear socks
to protect our feet from our shoes:
a cultural solution
to anti-evolution.

Astérix on the Mummification of Cats in Ancient Egypt

Tombs are sunless.
Cats are funless.

Astérix

My kind and loyal readers

seem to be mostly in the USA.
There are none in Ireland
from which slurry-green isle
I am an exultant exile.

                          Дякую ! 

                  谢谢

Mathematics.

All numbers
No qualities

All solutions
No compromises

All puzzles
No wisdom

Googly-eyed Stubby Squid.

I think it's hoping for a quiet cuddle.

How stupid the names and two dates.

How stupid the tombstones.
How lovely the rot
and the worms
and the bones.

The wonderful thing about paintings

is that they are wordless
and have no beginning or end
except for the changeable
oft-inappropriate frame,
and are not static, but phatic,
and, though fading and flaking,
are as timeless as graveyards.
Paintings don't run out of words.

I would forgive

a dog anything,
but a human not much.

The beginning and the end of a poem.

Words are the flesh and the bones of thoughts,
and life for us humans is a holocaust of words.

A few words on Art.

It gets ever harder
to appreciate
than to create.

Paws for Thought.

A vacuum
is a space
without a dog.

Long-eared Jerboas.

My problem with 'democracy';

is that it is an expensive and easily-corrupted method
of giving The Vote to far worse people than mere litter-louts,
tax-fraudsters and sugar-refiners.
The most sensible solution for Representative Government
would be parliamentarians selected by lot. 
It would cost almost nothing,
there would be no crap about The Will of The People,
and the resulting random selection would not be worse
than what we have got.  Parties could then be abolished, too.  What bliss ! Perhaps one or two dogs could be co-opted into parliament
for occasional stroking and reality-check.

It's always the poor who suffer.

'Giant python swallows Indonesian farmer whole.

Body of missing man, who vanished while harvesting his crops,
found in belly of seven-metre long snake...'

We need more giant pythons

in (or under) seats of government.

All we need to know about the expansionism

of European 'Christians'
is contained in this talentless but revealing
(if not revelling) hymn:

The Son of God goes forth to war
  A kingly crown to gain:
His blood-red banner streams afar;
  Who follows in His train ?
Who best can drink His cup of woe,
  Triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears His Cross below
  He follows in His train.

"He saved others,

but himself he cannot save!"
Precisely.
Because he knew the human self
is worth no more, no less,
than water in a wave ?
Deeply countercultural
and not without defect
he was like the best of us,
I guess, in that respect.

In my Next Incarnation

I fancy being an Emperor-

Tamarin 

- presumably so-named because it vaguely resembles

an Emperor of China...
I love its ears.

I think I might be an animal-ears fetishist.

Some lovely lines

from John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany:

"Of course, there is no heart, however serious, that finds the death of culture entirely lacking in entertainment."

"Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves!  And Americans know absolutely nothing about any other country."

"She must have thought it a pity that some poor fools had to waste their lives writing in order for us to have sufficient reading material."

Although Politics is not like Bridge nor even Poker,

the "Far Right"
unlike the "Far Left"
almost always
"declare their hand".

A mathematical thought.

Infinity = Never  ± Always

This morning I heard a cuckoo

for the first time this spring.
Tomorrow the swifts and swallows will arrive.
Or maybe the day after.

There's rarely an empty moment

that someone does not fill
with hypocrisy - or worse.
(is the Big H the greatest curse ?)

My dog says

that to a dog
humans are extraordinary
and extraordinarily unpredictable
chimpanzees.

Another great book-title:

How to endure people
and have no need of friends.

Almost everybody

has more money than sense
- for money eradicates
sensibility.

This Incredible Spring

the flowers in bloom simultaneously
here in south-west France include:
violets, primroses, periwinkles (major and minor),
cowslips, lesser celandines, ladies-smocks,
poppies, lilac, wisteria,
judas-tree, iris, toothwort,
tormentil, scabious, service-tree,
lungwort, larkspurs, scillas,
grape-hyacinths, wood-anemones,
quinces, apples, plums and cherries,
devil's milk or greater celandine,
chionodoxas, magnolias, japonicas (chaenomeles)...

You might puzzle over the difference between InformANT and InformER,

but have you ever thought about this ?

Cosmetic labels.

There is, of course,
no difference between
an informant and an informer,
whatever you are told,
however you are sold.

There is more god in a dog

than in all the churches,
mosques and temples
in the world.

The lower down the social heap you are,

the more accepting and cheerful
you have to be.

Perennial Fool.

No mammal is weaker than the human,
hence technology.
Whereas all other predators prey upon
the very young, or very old, or sick: the weak,
the modern human prides himself
on preying on the strong -
especially impressive males. Man is a freak.