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 |   A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
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Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end. So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.     |
| Reflections in a Carnival Mirror - 2 The hardest thing about story writing is coming up with a story. |
| Things to Learn from Cats - Part Two Cats will take on prey only if it is much smaller than themselves. This is not an indication of cowardice. They are built for ambush, the emphasis being on speed and agility with all excess weight stripped away. As a result, they are lightly muscled and fairly fragile, with slender bones that could easily be broken in any tussle with an animal of similar or greater size. In contrast, the dog is made for the chase and has strength and stamina built into its frame. Its preference for hunting in packs also means it will happily take much larger prey. So it has a completely different outlook on life compared to the cat. But the cat’s way is not to be sneered at. It suits the animal and ensures the risk of injury is kept a minimum. In the same way, we need to be circumspect in our meeting the challenges of daily life. It’s no accident that the saying, “Choose your battles well,” is such excellent advice. We may be able to take on enormous opponents when operating in concert but, when alone, we do better to lie in wait, having the patience to stay still until the moment favours us. Word count: 202 |
| Reflections in a Carnival Mirror - 1 Sometimes the gods smile upon us. And sometimes they just laugh and point... |
| Things to Learn from Cats - Part One I’ve often pondered on the uses of cats. No doubt they were first kept around for their rodent catching abilities, thereby protecting humanity’s grain supplies, but there’s more to it, I’m sure. Their therapeutic functions, for instance. It’s no coincidence that, when you’re feeling low or ill, a cat will insinuate itself into contact with you and pretty soon you’ll feel much better. So they have their uses. And yesterday I realised that they have an educational function too. I began to make a list of the things we can learn from them. 1. Cats are predators. But they’re not the top of the tree, the apex predator. We can gather this from the fact that a cat will have many places to sleep and will move randomly between them. This can only mean that they have fiercer enemies to be wary of. The more unpredictable they are, the less subject to ambushes and unpleasant surprises they become. We, however, are omnivores. As such, we are inevitably a compromise, having to be reasonably efficient at both hunting and gathering. The really interesting thing is that we’re the apex predator, as evidenced by the fact that we sleep in the same place every night and don’t care who knows it. Which is an interesting attitude to take when you’re a pink (or brown), naked creature without claws or predator’s teeth or ability to run fast. The only thing we have going for us is that we are good at inventing technology to surpass all those fangs and claws and the like that other predators have. We’re an experiment to see if a compromise between meat and vegetation eater can become the apex predator purely through intelligence alone. And, if we ignore that it looks as though intelligence might be the thing that’s going to bring us to extinction in the long run, it would seem that we’ve been successful. So that’s a lesson we can learn from cats. The reason they stick with us is that they’re betting on us winning the race race. Let’s hope they’re right. Word count: 347 |
| Thanksgiving Today is Thanksgiving in the US of A and my thoughts turn to this matter of being thankful. I guess we all have reason to be thankful and I’m no different; I’m not unaware that my life has been mostly free of terrible disasters and crushing circumstances. In fact, the truth is that I’ve led a remarkably quiet and inoffensive life. There have been moments that seemed earth shattering at the time - you don’t move between three continents without a certain amount of drama, after all - but in retrospect these are no more than fodder for anecdotes to impress any willing ears. So I’m thankful that my life has been so ordinary. I’m told the Chinese have a curse reserved for their worst enemies: “May you live in interesting times.” There is a lot of wisdom in that. Word count: 138 |
| Plough Discs For no apparent reason, I have been thinking of barbies of late. Not barbie dolls but the great cook-out, barbecue, grill and the Australian barbie. To the growing list of names for this activity should be added the southern African version, the braaivleis (pronounced "bry, to rhyme with eye, flays, the ess being soft). An Afrikaans word meaning literally "cook meat", this is frequently shortened to "braai". The braai is conducted in much the same way as in other parts of the world but it does have a few special foods included, most common of which is boerewors (again an Afrikaans word, meaning farmer's sausage). This is a sausage made with coarsely-ground meat and several spices, very similar to the sausages Americans use in the same circumstances. If you are really lucky and the host or hostess of the braai you attend happens to be Afrikaans, you might also be treated to koeksisters after the meat course. These are a wonderful confection that I can describe no better than the Wikipedia's excellent rendering: "a syrup-coated doughnut in a twisted or braided shape (like a plait). They are best eaten cold; koeksisters are very sticky and sweet and taste like honey." But I do not want to be deflected into a long discussion of southern African foods; the idea was to tell you of the barbie of barbies, the king of outdoor cooking, the greatest culinary invention by civilized mankind. It is simple in concept and execution but difficult to describe so bear with me while I attempt the task. For the best barbecue party you have ever thrown, first you're going to need a plough* disc. There is a particular type of plough that consists of a row of discs held by a frame that is towed behind a tractor. The discs are dished and held almost upright, thereby doing a pretty good job of cutting into the earth and turning it over as the disc is dragged along. And occasionally the discs become a bit worn and are replaced with new ones, leaving the farmer with the problem of what to do with the used ones. This is where the braai suggested itself as the answer to at least one Zimbabwean farmer. The disc is about three feet in diameter and needs only to be cleaned and perhaps polished to present itself as a large wok without a handle. All that has to be done now is to build a fire in a slight hollow in the ground and then to place the disc on to the glowing coals that eventually result. Throw the boerewors in first and they will cook in their own juices. The juice then serves as the oil in which to cook the remaining meats and whatever else you want to add to the mix. I know this is essentially frying the food rather than grilling it but the aroma of the burnt wood enters the equation and results in a taste treat beyond your wildest dreams. After this barbie of barbies, you will pine for the real thing at all subsequent barbies, especially those awful gas-fired things we have today. You can tell me that there are regulations against open fires these days but that surely is just one more argument against the proliferation of rules and regulations in modern life. Give us back our real barbies, I say! Incidentally, after slaving away at my description of a plough disc I found lots of pictures of them. I could have saved myself the trouble, therefore, but I leave the description in so that you can see it is all true... * There are just a few words that I cannot bring myself to spell the American way and this is one of them. It is entirely illogical that I should feel this way about the word "plough" so I have devised an excuse for myself and it goes like this: We all know that the word-ending "ough" has so many variations in pronounciation in English that it is the natural choice if you want to trip up a foreigner. I have not been able to think of another example apart from "plough" that uses the letters to make the sound "-ow" and this makes "plough" an endangered species. As such, it deserves protection from encroachment by the American "plow". Word count: 724 |
| Seeing is Believing I was asked recently about the coolest thing I ever saw. Having had a quick think, I answered something that I can’t even remember now - it wasn’t that important. Today, I realise that, whatever my answer was, it wasn’t the right one. The coolest thing I’ve ever seen was a rocket going into space, coming back, and being caught and put back in its launch pad. Now that is recycling! Word count: 70 |
| Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Whatsaname Jayngle Bells  is currently running The Daily Poem and her latest prompt concerns Lethologica. Which, as I’m sure we didn’t know, is the temporary inability to retrieve a specific word. Apparently, it’s also called “tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.”This is something that I have an increasing familiarity with, especially when writing. I can know exactly what I want to write and then, seconds later, when I come to the point of typing the most important word, I find it’s gone. It matters not that I knew the word mere moments ago, somehow it has departed my brain and refuses to return. Of course, I can think of plenty of words that mean approximately, or even almost exactly, the same. But that won’t do - not while I know that the precise word exists and has to be used. I’m picky like that. At that point, I usually resort to Andrea, defining the word to her and waiting while she cycles through the possibilities. Sometimes it’s possible to get Google to do the same. So it’s not an insurmountable problem. Just time-wasting, that’s all. But it’s as nothing compared to Andrea’s experience of the phenomenon. Hers is very different from my sudden absence of the word. She finds that some other word has pushed its way in front of the chosen one and now insists on being said before the right one can be said. With her, it’s a matter of speech, not writing, and she cannot use the chosen word until she has spoken the imposter. So she might ask someone how their refrigerator is doing, instead of enquiring about their grandson’s health. And the use of the wrong word immediately releases the original choice and it can be said. Which means that she can then explain that she didn’t mean “refrigerator” and understanding is restored. It seems that this lethologica is a complex thing and can take many forms. The fact that it happens most often when I’m writing should have made me aware of the fact. But Andrea’s experience shows that it can be entirely the other way round as well. Certainly worth further investigation, methinks. Word count: 356 |
| On Tininess I was watching a video on YouTube when I noticed a tiny speck making its way across the screen. At first, I thought it was a flaw in the video but, when I reached out to touch it, it took flight and wove a haphazard path through the air and into the darkness beyond the screen. It was so small, right on the edge of human vision, and I marvelled that it could survive with winter coming on so swiftly here in the northeast. We refuse to resort to heating before November at the earliest. But back to the little flying insect. The tiny creature was far too small for any details to be made out. So I have to surmise it was an insect with wings. What else could it have been? The really remarkable thing about it, however, was its demonstration of life in so infinitesimally tiny a speck. How can life cram all those complex organs and instructions into so miniscule a body? Legs (it was walking when I first saw it), wings, presumably even eyes of some type. It doesn’t seem possible. Which is a silly thought that was a bit ridiculous, when we consider the existence of microscopic forms of life - bacteria, single celled creatures and the like. But, even so, my tiny visitor has so much more contained within his minimal allotment of space. How endlessly amazing is the world. And how difficult it is to find so many different ways to say, “small.” Word count: 247 |
| The Truth One of the strange things about me is that I like answering questionnaires. Actually, I’m probably not alone in that, seeing that most of us like talking about ourselves. A questionnaire is just my excuse for doing so. It’s not normal for me to talk a lot about myself - I need an excuse. And that’s why I have made a habit of answering Lilli’s Question of the Day. Sometimes I wonder whether it’s wise to be so free with information about myself. In these paranoic days of identity theft and the like, it may seem better to keep things hidden. And I do, to some extent. I don’t always answer with the truth, for instance. Humour is an excellent way of hiding the truth while keeping folks entertained. It’s also a way of disguising things that you’re not comfortable with being known completely. In vino veritas maybe, but many a true word said in jest. So you won’t be able to assume that, when I make a joke, I’m lying. It might be that I’m just telling the truth in an indirect way. The net result is that my answers to Lilli’s questions are a mixture of the truth and fabrications of one kind or another. I do try to be honest but there are times when it wouldn’t be a good idea. And, if anyone’s storing all my answers for some nefarious purpose, they’re wasting their time. They’re all a massive contradiction of each other. But I had fun telling them and I hope you do too. Word count: 258 |
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