Reading buyers’ reviews (as I do, often after rather than before buying a Major Item, I came across this comment on the now-considered-basic fridge-freezer which I bought online – but of course not from amazon.fr – perish the thought !
idéal pour une personne seule ou un couple fonctionnel
ideal for
someone living alone or a functional couple…
so…to be avoided, I guess, by dysfunctional
couples.
Below is a Météo-France weather-alert graphic
indicating nothing-worrisome weatherwise
on two Caribbean islands,
Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy,
one-and-a-half of which
belong to France. The other half (in blue)
is the Dutch colony of Sint-Maarten,
for which the French meteorological service
wlll not provide predictions.
used to authenticate medieval indulgences
which were a profitable way of reducing penance for sins.
According to The Guardian,
each indulgence authenticated by such a seal
reduced the buyer's time in Purgatory by one year and forty days.
Of course, one's time in Purgatory might last hundreds if not thousands of years...
The metal stamp or matrix is shown on the right.
 |
| Found after spending 500 years buried in a field. |
and certainly not waving,
I am swimming in a sea
of human stupidity.
The only lighthouse
is a glimmer.
I always was
a hopeless swimmer.
pre-dates Bette Davis.
I'm sure that Henry Ford was not the first
(by a few thousand years) to declare
that The greatest thing in life
is to keep your mind young
– maybe a greater thing even than becoming
a greedy production-line millionaire.
When and where the mind goes, you go, too.
There may or may not
be lots of time to sit and stare.
admired my paintings
yesterday.
I got an uncomfortable feeling.
It's probably just as well
that few admire my writing.
I drink cow's milk
sheep's milk I
used to drink goat's milk I
have drunk Bull's Blood I
don't think I ever drunk
my mother's milk
maybe a wet-nurse's
maybe a bottle I
was farmed out for a year
pasteurised not sterilised
I have on occasion drunk
Liebfraumilch and
as I said Bull's Blood
and cock's milk
which may or may not be
of human kindness
but as far as taste goes
is a bit of a dud.
in this insane world
may be to behave
as the only sane person
on a space-ship of fools.
from Shakespeare's As You Will
(alias Twelfth Night, because it was first performed
on the Feast of Fools at the beginning of the 17th century)
Infirmity that decays the wise
doth ever make the better fool;
Methinks I have no more wits
than a Christian or an ordinary man has;
For I myself am best when least in company.
“I think we need to start another movement.
This one is so simple: Stop Ableism. That’s it.”
- Rosie Jones, comedian.
‘Most of the sex I’ve had, I wish I hadn’t bothered.’
I think millions would agree with you, Ms Saner.
Most of the 'sex' I've had wasn't worth the emotional effort.
But erotic games are something else: they are fun.
Alas! playmates are hard to find; impossible when you're old.
 |
| Dahlia flower preserved in formaldehyde. |
She photographed everything she owned.
'This is the way the world ends...'
Where dogs are concerned
the more you give, the more you get.
This is too rarely the case with humans.
or the slowing-down :
when it takes more than two seconds
to find the word or phrase
the conversation dies.
is an insulting term
that seems to have fallen out of use.
I propose a new one: RedBull-neck.
Something that you will rarely hear
Normal People say
is that they are blocked
and terrified of giving themselves away.
Capitalism,
the quasi-religious system of Demonic Possession
based on the anti-Christian concept
of material success,
is a failure by its own economic reckoning.
It is will inevitably fail,
marching to environmental ruin
and dictatorship through divisiveness.
Note: Two million citizens of the desirable USA
don't have running water in their homes.
One million are in jail.
never happened. What we've had
was the Dictatorship of dictators
and Dictatorship of the Product-
manufacturers and marketers.
And Socialism was a little blip, a fad.
One of my double-x chromosomic friends
asked me which had been better for me,
sex with women (xx) or with men (xy).
I didn't hesitate to say that the lovemaking I had
with the One Woman In My Life was more fulfilling,
but the best frolics I had with
maybe half a dozen men
were more exciting.
I visited a friend from 1965 in Ireland
who built himself a stark, half-million euro/dollar
mansion which looks like an old Police Barracks,
the windows too high, the bleak rooms mostly too large;
ugly and shapeless outside, the inside comfortless
with random, clashing clutter.
Over the years he had cadged over 15 of my paintings
which look like sore thumbs where they've been placed
on walls. Some had long since been put in the loft. I asked
for one to include in a small show in my French village.
Titled Lecale Landscape, The Ulster Way,
it features a derelict cottage (long since demolished),
a modern bungaloid monstrosity,
the Mountains of Mourne under cloud - and a crucifixion
of a refugee wearing a crown of horns.
He declined.
Not my best painting, I would, of course have improved it
as I have done with many I have kept. Only yesterday
I made little alterations to one I painted in 1989...
And the portrait of another friend at breakfast.
to print a very limited
and elegant
English edition
of the King James version of the
Old Testament of the Bible,
on rag-paper,
in which every instance
of God is replaced by Dog.
This would be known (of course)
as The Dog Bible,
and would become immensely valuable.
"Dear Mr Musk...
...Looking forward to hearing from you.
Dissident Editions
publisher number 9520451..."
My teenage interest in painting
was ignited by the self-portraits of Van Gogh,
followed by those of Rembrandt.
I have daubed several myself.
Good photographic self-portraits are,
I think, much rarer, because technology
often gets in the way of originality.
(The more complicated the equipment
the less interesting and 'authentic' the result.)
This modest example is by
famous American photographer Eve Arnold.
It can be compared with this one by the great Vivian Maier...
...though neither is half as interesting as a Rembrandt, Van Gogh
Otto Dix or Alice Neel self-portrait.
go mad – some very quickly.
This is the best argument for democracy,
or at least for regular autocrat-replacement.
was a word (used in a 1938 song by Lead Belly*)
meaning aware, vigilant. It now, like fascist,
has been debased to signify
almost anything and nothing.
*Huddie Ledbetter,
whose recordings I listened to in the 1950s.
I am one of the wokest people on the planet,
keenly aware of the inherent evils of Civilisation,
Big Religion, Big Capitalism, Big Agriculture...
that, since the 1960s, thousands of films
have had pumping, heaving, moaning sex-scenes
(though, admittedly, not in penetrative detail)
– yet very few have shown men pissing discreetly
or women sitting on a water-closet seat.
Prof essor Stuart Russell says that the technology could result in
‘fewer teachers being employed – possibly even none’
And thus will come totalitarian education.
Teachers, arise!
* * *
Also from today's newspaper:
Disasters that we once called Biblical
are now normal.
Sufferers of fronto-temporal dementia
may experience a decline in personal hygiene.
That means that they are too apathetic to wash
or change their clothes,
and thus they start to smell.
To counter this I suggest sprinkling two or three drops
of essential oil (such as fennel, chamomile, patchouli
myrrh, vetiver) on the smelly bits of clothing.
Their aroma will blend nicely with old-body smells
and avoid embarrassment for one day, at least.
especially in Abrahamic cultures,
are asked or made to strip naked,
they immediately and automatically
hide their genitals behind
their hands, a towel, or a sock.
I, on the other hand,
have always folded my thin arms
to hide my chest,
because I never had pectoral muscles,
but (it seemed to me)
an unexceptionable cock.
Most new technologies
increase inequalities.
Then come schisms,
new mentalities,
social unrest, power-grabs
(usually called Revolutions)
and the imposition
of new inequalities.
When you thank an American for something,
s/he will say 'You're welcome'.
In French one will courteously say Je vous en prie
or, charmingly, A moi le plaisir.
But the BritIrish have no response other
than to mindlessly parrot Thank-you,
not even emphasising the you.
Purposiveness + proliferation
= Catastrophe*.
*Or if you prefer it, Devastation...
In English
the word digital implies
nimble or caressing fingers.
The French word, numérique
lets us know that we are controlled by numbers.
want what other people have.
Many people want
what others do not have.
A lot of people have
what others do not want.
Some people have almost nothing.
A few people want nothing much.
Even fewer want for nothing
– apart from such-and-such.
