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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.     |
| Quotation Schmotation Whenever writers start slinging advice around, you can bet that the old Hemingway quotes will come out. Which I’m sure is very edifying for most, but not for me. My problem is that I never liked Hemingway. Don’t like his style or his subject matter or his attitude. Never have and, in all likelihood, never will. So it’s predictable that I won’t take any notice of what he had to say about writing. The strange thing is that the writer of that generation that I admire the most, J.D. Salinger, was a great fan of Hemingway’s, in his younger days at least. I am prepared to overlook this one weakness in the great Salinger, however, and would be happy to listen to any advice he might have given. And the same goes for Steinbeck, even though he was a bit of a one-subject man. Word count: 145 |
| Liquorice My uncle George always seemed to have candy. Thinking about it now, I realize that there was nothing sinister in this - it was really part of his campaign to keep the past alive. The candy he offered was always some weird concoction from a time long forgotten. Like real licorice roots, for instance. Who knew that licorice comes from the roots of a plant? More than that, who would guess that chewing the root like a stick of sugar cane produces the distinctive taste that we know so well? Word count: 90 |
| E-Books It's just occurred to me what's wrong with e-books. They don't have that wonderful new book smell. |
| High Finance! The problem with a balanced budget is that you have to stop buying the things you can't afford. |
| A Laundry Basket Post In our bathroom there is a plastic laundry basket. It is pretty much what you would expect from such a thing - tall, plastic and obviously meant to contain clothes. On its side there is a label and this announces it to be an "attractive contemporary design". Now, I am not about to argue with the first assertion - obviously it has proved attractive enough to persuade its purchaser. And we can stretch a point with the contemporary claim since plastic laundry baskets have only been around for fifty years or so. But what worries me in all this is the apparent need to announce these qualities to us. If the thing is so darned attractive, wouldn't we notice without the sly nudge from a label on the side? And what virtue is there in being contemporary anyway? We would be just as impressed by a claim to traditional or retro styling, I'm sure. It is rather like our instant suspicion of anyone who insists that we should "trust them". I know, I know - I have to stop reading labels… Word count: 178 |
| The Good Old Days How long is it since we heard a real old time protest song? Here's one to celebrate its heyday: |
| Ah Poetry Indeed As it happens, I did read Lilli’s Newsletter entitled Ah, Poetry (https://www.writing.com/main/newsletters/action/archives/id/11924) and I also read the poem entitled Kindness (https://www.writing.com/main/redirect?htime=1682608845&hkey=f5e75d8043e654afb1a8...) that she directed the reader to. Strangely, I had a similar experience to this lady, Naomi Shihab Nye, when she had the poem dictated to her by a voice in the air. Mine did not come to me from quite the same source, however, since it was not dictated but seemed to arrive in my brain in an instant, complete and requiring no effort from me apart from writing it down quickly before it was lost. Even that was entirely unnecessary since I have never forgotten it. At the time, the only way I could describe that moment of its transition to me was that the spirit of William Blake had passed it to me in a moment of madness (his, not mine). Blake has been dead since 1827 so the only excuse for this impression must be that it was the first, and destined to be the last for a long time, rhyming poem that I had written. It is totally unlike my style then or ever. Here it is in its brevity and directness: Plant Oh, deep in thy vegetable heart of matter What humus thoughts grow thou Tomorrow you feed on their rotting flesh Though they may pluck thee now These days I would not have capitalised each line and nor would I have left it unpunctuated. But that is how it came to me so that is how I leave it. Word count: 288 |
| Lollipop Man Everyone takes him for a sucker but he can really stick it to them. |
| Kids I have come to the conclusion that I’m either a brilliant father or so bad that God keeps trying to train me to be better. When the first kid came along, I thought, “Okay, that’s twenty years you’ve signed on for - let’s see if you survive this.” It turned out to be easy (he was a very good kid) and so it wasn’t too horrible a shock to find out, towards the end of the twenty years, that there were two late arrivals on the way. They turned out to be not too bad as well and I was just beginning to enjoy my approaching freedom after another (nearly) twenty years, when God threw an unexpected job at me. This consisted of attempting to educate a bunch of teenagers who had been excluded from school. It was not lost on me that this was a fairly cruel trick to play on me in my fast-approaching old age, but I knuckled down and found that the kids really did seem to gain something from it. I may have been doing something right, most likely as a pure accident. Then came America and the love of my life. I suppose I should have been unsurprised that she came with a couple of kids dubbed, in her inimitable way, the Girl and the Boy. Well, I kept my nose to the grindstone and we all seemed to survive somehow. They came of age and began to leave into adulthood. At the last moment, the Boy brought a friend into our lives. Over time he became part of the family and, today, he is back home with us, on a short break from being a Marine and amazing us with his exploits. I’ve been old for so long now that I have earned the title of Ancient. You might think that I also deserve a rest from kids by this time. Fat chance. The Girl recently provided us with a grandchild… Word count: 327 |
| A Blast from the Past I came across this nugget of apparent wisdom while reading my old blog: if you know everything about one thing, write about it. If you know a little about everything, write about yourself. It might actually be good advice... |
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