Walking The Dog

The dust of exploded beliefs may make a fine sunset. It is funny how we sometimes stumble upon something that inspires us to turn detective; to ask questions and then stay up too late researching the answers.  For example, consider the quote above - I had a photograph in need of a quote and I found this one about 'sunsets' (the word I looked up) and exploded beliefs (not what I was expecting). The words are  by Geoffrey Madan, 1895 - 1947, whose father had the marvellous name Falconer (disappointingly he wasn't one) and was master of Brasenose College, Oxford and librarian of the Bodleian. I'm guessing that with such an academic pedigree the young Geoffrey would have been introduced to books at a young age. And that this lead at some point to the compiling of lists of quotes and  aphorisms for which he is or was famous.  *Short interlude here while I remind myself (and you, perhaps... ) exactly what an aphorism is. Think of a phrase or ...

I can't believe I've let #WinniethePoohDay pass without posting something about the bear of little brain who is and always has been my favourite literary character. Were I ever cast away on a desert island, the collected tales of Pooh would be the book or books I would choose to have with me. Alan Alexander Milne created a character who has universal appeal. Whether we are young or old, in China or Dubai or Greenland or a windy village in a wintry England, we all have Pooh days. Days when we 'stop to think and forget to start again.' And days when we fail to 'pay attention to where we are going and without meaning to get nowhere.' I have those days all the time. There is Winnie-the-Pooh thinking or philosophy or whatever-you-want-to-call-it in all of us. For a birthday treat this week, my big children invited me to London. It was one of those 'I'll come down* to London and spend the day with you for your birthday doing whatever yo want to do'...

In a few hours - and fewer hours by the time you get to the end of this procrasti-ramble - it will be another year. 2016 will be in the past and 2017 will open its doors and lie before us. Which is all pretty obvious really. This being 31st December. What perhaps isn't so obvious are the hopes and aspirations we invest in this passing into the New Year. The promises that we wish upon ourselves and that we call resolutions. Brief intermission in the ramble for a picture of the end of a winter's day The New Year's Resolution is a gift in the hands of a procrastinator. Hours ... no, days ... spent planning exactly what to pick; which dissatisfaction with oneself to correct; which dream to commit to; which impossible ambition to clamber towards. Note the words dissatisfaction, dream and impossible and call me a cynic. Or a realist. Or a resolution agnostic. Why do we accede to the annual resolution humiliation? Where and when did resolution-making start? Why do I h...

Whisper to the wind, ' This is how to write.' No, not these inexpertly assembled procrasti-rambles but words discovered in a book that I have been promising myself I would read for many, many months and have now started. My ascent so far has taken me to chapter 4. What a journey those first chapters have been! I am daily transported to India. All its scents, noises, lights, people, traffic, food, grime, poverty, politics, fabrics, fruits, spirits, humanity, hysteria, tragedy, faith, prostitution, drugs, hospitality, bribery, corruption, travel, cosmopolitan enlightenment, tolerances and intolerances in just four chapters; sixty or so pages. A portrait of a place so immersive and with characters so bright that they light up each page with the intense shine of their being. Reality is not merely being created for the reader - this setting and its characters live and breathe (even if some of them are fictional). What a lesson in how to write! I don't remember now ...