.:: A Quirk in Time ::.

Fat Gourg

2008-12-08T20:35:00.001Z

What's good just at the moment

2008-02-18T15:37:00.002Z

Here's what's good right now:
1. Working at home today and tomorrow
2. DS back safe from his trip
3. A great walk among the snowdrops on Saturday
4. Hot tea when I'm FREEZING!
5. Booking a hotel for our Silver Wedding anniversary in the wonderful place we met...
6. It's cold but we're not snowed in!
7. Working with my sister
8. Going to crack on and work hard in a minute and today is going to be WORTHWHILE!
9. Classical music on Classic FM
10. Tuna for dinner tonight...

My favourite colour

2008-01-03T11:54:00.000Z

Blue is my favourite colour. That unimaginable blue of the sky – how does it get to be that colour? What is it about the sky that makes you able to look and look and look and never have enough of that endless blue?

Blue is water too. I love water. Water baby, that’s me. Never happier than when I’m floating, sculling gently, buoyed up in warm, preferably bubbly water. They say "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" – well I think I am not quite a fully evolved human because I think I was made to be aquatic.

Mostly you’ll find me in the bath. That’s where I have all my good ideas. That’s where I relax, that’s where I unwind, that’s where I create. A good book, a glass of wine or G & T and bubbly water…

Making your mark

2007-10-08T18:48:00.000Z

In her autobiography "The Little Way", St Therese of Lisieux wrote about the simple spirituality of doing ordinary things with extraordinary care.

Most of us never have the opportunity to do extraordinary things, to make a sacrifice or have an impact on the world in more than a very small way. We cannot all be a Mother Theresa or an Aung San Suu Kyi.

We all, however, have influence on the people around us, even if that zone of influence is just our families, freinds, workmates and/ore neighbours. To dedicate yourself to the benefit and happiness of just one other person is worthwhile.

I have a few people whose lives I aim to make easier and happier, and sometimes the way to that is not some grand gesture or difficult and elaborate action but simply doing ordinary things with extraordinary care.

Mosaic with the theme joy...

2007-10-01T13:56:00.000Z

1. The look of joy, 2. The Look of Joy, 3. Joy, 4. Jump for Joy, 5. Happy Frog...., 6. Jumping for Joy on a College Campus, 7. Poppy - Klaproos, 8. From Cookham, Berkshire, 9. pumpkin joy, 10. FONT JOY, 11. Joy. Say it often, say it loud :), 12. Joy, 13. Joy in a Bottle, 14. JOY, 15. Joy of Youth, 16. Joy Theater sign, 17. He is Our Joy - S3isJoy, 18. The Joy Journey, 19. Maximum Joy, 20. JOY

How we are in Italy...

2007-09-18T14:43:00.000Z

http://www.infonegocio.com/xeron/bruno/italy.swf

A simple but very amusing Flash animation comparing Europeans generally with Italians. To be honest a lot of it could apply to Brits!

GCSE results day

2007-08-23T08:04:00.001Z

Last year it was A-level results we were waiting for, and it was a bit of a fraught day, which ended happily, praise God.

This year, we are waiting on an early GCSE result (most will be next year). It can't have been just me in tears this morning watching the youngsters live on TV having their results read out by the headteacher. The thing about exams is that some people have to fail, and it's distressing to think how young lives could be blighted by missing a hoped-for result.

Still, life is full of pressure, successes and disappointments. You can't go through life without encountering them, so young people have to learn how to cope. A lot of youngsters these days (well, middle class ones) are so coddled they have no opportunity to experience life's ups and downs - and yet there are others who suffer...

Perhaps that should be a curriculum subject - coping with life's ups and downs!

Update will be posted when the result comes in...

The benefits of a holiday

2007-08-21T07:53:00.000Z

OK, I admit it, I have been on holiday.

It wasn't a great experience, for a variety of reasons including that the weather was wet and FREEZING! But at least I got the chance to get away from my computer(s) and relax.

So here are some of the best things about a week in Whitby and North Yorkshire:

Watching the fireworks over the Abbey at the close of Whitby regatta
The view of Whitby from the Larpool Viaduct
The fish and chips - especially the mushy peas!
Lovely jet and amber jewellery to browse
Great fudge too...
Beautiful purple colours of heather on the moors
The fun and fear of travelling along one-track roads when a car appears from the other direction...
The REAL ford ("frequently impassable") at Grosmont
Friendly people and good food in country pubs - also real ale
The unexpectedly interesting and accessible Dalby Forest
Cosy chats with my family - even teenagers - when they didn't have any electronic devices to distract them!

Praise

2007-08-06T09:32:00.000Z

I saw a blog post recently inviting creative and artistic responses on the theme of "praise" in its spiritual sense and I immediately thought - oh that's not for me. At first thought, it conjures a specific image of an evangelical type of church full of people raising their hands in the air and singing jolly gospel songs.

I thought that words like "faith", "caring", "love", "belonging", "community" or even "prayer" would have been easier words to respond to, creatively.

But then I started thinking more deeply. How would a photographer see Praise? So I looked on Flickr and yes there are a lot of pics of people with their hands in the air - and a lot of pics of people with microphones. And then I realised I was looking at more of my own conception of praise - there's praise in nature, of course - and I love to sing and play music in praise. So maybe it won't be so difficult to respond creatively to "Praise" after all - I'm writing a song (hymn even)!

1. In Praise of Idleness..., 2. In praise of light I, 3. In praise of light III, 4. Praise, 5. praise, 6. Praise for mommy, 7. praise of the horizon 1, 8. klimt beethoven praise:praise joy: god descended riproduzione, 9. Song of Praise Rhythm Chart, 10. UIC Praise Night (49), 11. UIC Praise Night (85), 12. IN PRAISE OF THE MOTHER EARTH, 13. PRAISE THE LORD, 14. Praise - Day 11 - 365, 15. psalm of praise, 16. Praise!

A poem in the floods

2007-07-30T12:41:00.000Z

This poem about the recent floods in Gloucestershire

(Extract from) The flood by Alison Brackenbury

We are made of water. But we forgot.
For twelve long hours the sky sank down like lead
Without a breath of wind. Rain’s rush swept slates.
Offices dripped; you broke for home, instead
Of cycling, seemed to swim. Drains gaped like graves
Iron lids askew. Cars breasted tidal waves,

...

read the rest at http://www.myspace.com/alisonbrackenbury

It made shivers run up my spine. Alison's poems are often that good. There are more on her website.

Heroes!

2007-07-24T06:58:00.001Z

Gloucester is susceptible to flooding - everyone knows that - there's even a nursery rhyme about it:

Dr Foster went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain
He stepped in a puddle
right up to his middle
And never went there again!

A team in Gloucester have been fighting to save an electricity substation from the floods caused by this incredible rain we've been having. There were soldiers, sailors, Environment Agency, local council, firemen, etc. etc. Putting up flood defences, filling sandbags, pumping water like mad... Last night, the water came to within 2 inches of the tops of the walls they'd erected, but they prevented 350,000 people from losing their electricity supply for at least a week, probably two.

Now those people are heroes.

I wonder who they'd like to play them in the film?

Flow Game

2007-07-23T08:22:00.000Z

Here's rather an addictive game called fLow - you're a small aquatic creature and you have to eat and evolve - sounds boring but is strangely mesmerising!

The TV phone-in scandal

2007-07-19T09:13:00.000Z

I've always been rather suspicious of those phone-in competition and voting programmes on TV. I wondered why, when TV made huge amounts of money, that they were charging viewers to vote in competitions that I thought should have been free (or at least no more than the cost of the phone call). Using competitions as a way to raise revenue surely is not what making programmes should really be about. As a long-time user of technologies and having experienced many failures of technology, I was also never convinced that the systems worked all the time. I was suspicious of whether the programmes were honest, that calls would be registered, that real people would ever get through. It seemed to me that the odds of getting through to the studio, to be the one person who answered the question, were very low indeed.

Turns out my reservations were absolutely right. The BBC and most of the other channels have been revealed as fake, fraudulent and downright deceitful.

The fact that some people have spent hundreds of pounds trying to get through to TV programmes (I won't call them by the American name "shows") is a sad reflection on the way the TV companies have been profiting from greed. I guess it’s another of those “taxes on gullibility”, like the lottery.

TV companies though do not have the incomes they once had – not only are there many more channels fighting for the viewers and the advertising revenue, but the advertising world is undergoing a sea change – the Internet is much more important than it used to be and it is taking . In September 2005 Unilever, Britain's largest advertiser, said it had cut its television ad budget by 20% over the past five years - a decision that removed about £60m from the television market. Last August a study by McKinsey & Co. confirmed the news of the decline of TV advertising efficacy, reporting that by 2010, "traditional TV advertising will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990."

So in the past two or so years TV companies and channels have become increasingly desperate for new sources of revenue and this is what has transpired.

May I suggest they just make really good programmes that people want to watch (and let it NOT be reality TV programmes, please!).

Miksang contemplative photography

2007-07-12T21:08:00.000Z

Miksang is a Tibetan word that means 'Good Eye', and is based on a particular school of Buddhist meditation, specifically teachings on the nature of perception.

The "good" part is that our world, just as it is, is inherently beautiful, rich and vivid. The "eye" part is that “contemplative photography” can be used to tune into these qualities of our world. It is really quite simple – we need to see with our eyes wide-open, be present in the moment, with our awareness right there – and capture it in order to communicate and share that moment of fresh perception, vivid and clear. If the photographer’s eye and mind are naturally synchronized, then the experience of seeing can be undistracted and present. It means that you are photographing just as you clearly perceive – a complete, unfiltered, and fully appreciated perception. Avoiding visual prejudice, the world can be perceived directly, without the burden of usual kinds of likes and dislikes, associations and memories, all of which obscure clear perception.

It all seems to come back to that “tranquillity” state that I aim to achieve this year. This mental state of viewing with a “Good Eye”, seeing clearly, being totally in the moment, is one that transcends activities. It’s a calmness and a clarity of mind. I suspect it is a lot to do with the phenomenon of “flow” as described by Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi

Reminds me of the beautiful Desiderata text:

I am a child of the Universe, no less than the trees and the stars.
I have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to me,
no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive him to be.
And whatever the labours and aspirations
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham and drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be careful, hope to be happy

For anyone with elderly relatives (or elderly yourself)

2007-07-11T12:12:00.000Z

At last, some good news. Or at least it looks like it to me.

Some initiatives for getting money to needy folks backfire dramatically. I know people who are in huge debt directly as a result of the Family Tax Credit, because they were overpaid and now owe back to the Government more than they earn in a year. You could say they shouldn't have spent it - but the Credit is paid to those who are struggling with costs anyway, and how were they to know how badly the agency had got it wrong in their case?

Anyway, this is good news for elderly people who need work doing on their homes.
"Elderly or disabled people who need to repair or adapt their homes in order to stay in them may be eligible for help - although many do not know it. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/6280508.stm

I know a lady who is gradually less mobile - there must be hundreds of thousands like her - and if she could get a stairlift installed, for example, she might spend many more years in the home in which she has been happy all her married life.

That really is good news.

Monday mornings

2007-07-09T07:41:00.000Z

My Monday morning always starts on Sunday night when I can't get to sleep because my head is full of plans for the week ahead. I suppose that is good - but I ought to try to relax more! Still - there was a Grand Prix yesterday and the cars always put me to sleep (and Lewis Hamilton wasn't doing as well as we hoped), so it was a relaxing afternoon!

On Monday mornings it isn't always easy to wake up at 6.30 am and get out to work. Finding clothes to wear is always a bind - and getting some lunch together. I always tell myself that I should get my clothes out and prepare my lunch on Sunday night to save trouble in the morning - that would be the organised thing to do. But I already spend far too much of Sunday worrying about Monday and I don't want to think about it any more than I have to!

So what makes Mondays palatable? Thinking about the little things...

A beautiful morning (haven't had a lot of those in the rainy season!).
Lots of worthwhile tasks to fit into the week ahead.
A new start, with a whole week ahead to get those jobs done that didn't make it into last week.
Loooking back on an enjoyable weekend.
Leaving the family safe and comfortable and organised for the week.

Alan Johnston freed

2007-07-05T13:33:00.000Z

I am so delighted to hear that Alan Johnston has been freed.

"I am immensely grateful. It's just the most fantastic thing to be free.
"It was an appalling experience as you can imagine - 16 weeks kidnapped, sometimes quite terrifying, and frightening always because I didn't know how it
was going to end...
"It was like being buried alive really, removed from the world and occasionally terrifying... It became almost hard to imagine normal life again.
" I literally dreamt many times of being free, and always woke up back in that room. And now it really is over, and it really is indescribably good. "

But it's sobering to think how many people are still waiting for news of their loved ones who are not such headliners. One who is, is Madeleine McCann. I can't begin to imagine how tortured her parents feel. And just today there is a story on the BBC of the kidnap in Nigeria of the daughter of a British expatriate worker.

I can only keep in my prayers those two little girls, and their families, and all the others missing, whose names I don't know.

Floods

2007-07-01T15:41:00.000Z

I feel so sorry for all the people who have been flooded out this last week.

It must be dreadful to be stuck in your home knowing so much of your life is destroyed: cars, carpets, electrical goods, furniture. They can’t even use their bathrooms and are often too frightened to leave their homes for fear of flooding. An elderly couple in Ludlow were taken back to their house which someone had filmed collapsing.

I don’t understand why people don’t have insurance though. If they have a mortgage it’s mandatory to have bricks and mortar insurance. I know it costs a lot to have contents insurance but not as much as rebuilding your life after a flood! But then I’m a great believer in insurance, of all types.

There are the irreplaceable things too, photo albums, keepsakes, memories. It makes you look over your own stuff and think about what really matters to you and to keep it safe.

Free Alan Johnston

2007-06-25T07:29:00.000Z

I just signed the petition calling for the release of Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter held captive by Palestinian factions in Gaza for 105 days. I can't really think why I didn't sign before, but hearing him today on the news - in an extract from the latest video, in which he is shown wearing an explosive belt - still powerfully reporting even though it's about himself, I just had to acknowledge his courage. He has such compassion for the Palestinian people. He is not a person who should be held captive. He can do more good for their cause free. I pray that they realise this and release him soon.

The BBC's Gaza correspondent was abducted in Gaza City on 12 March. Wednesday 20 June marks Alan Johnston's 100th day in captivity. An online petition calling for his release has over 170,000 signatures. Click on the button above to go to the petition.

Korean Heaven and Hell

2007-06-19T08:35:00.000Z

There is a tale about the Korean heaven and hell.

A man was granted a wish to have preview of Hell. It was a very plesant place in fact - there was a huge table piled high with all the most wonderful kinds of food, forever replenished and freely available. However, the chopsticks were three feet long, so that it was impossible to get any of the food to one's mouth.

People were dropping food all over the place and screaming with frustration at not being able to to eat. It truly was Hell!

Then the Korean was shown Heaven. At first it looked exactly the same. There was the huge table piled high with all the most wonderful kinds of food, forever replenished and freely available. There were even the three-foot chopsticks. But in heaven, the inhabitants were using the chopsticks to feed one another. Everyone was satisfied and enjoyed everything on the table. It was wonderful.

I love this story. It says so clearly what the difference is - purely attitude. It's so similar in this world. The only difference between a hellish place and a heavenly one is the attitude of the people.

Sony annoys the Church of England

2007-06-10T13:05:00.000Z

The BBC have reported that the Church of England are particularly upset that Sony have set part of their PlayStation 3 game 'Resistance: Fall of Man' in a virtual cathedral that appears to be identical to Manchester Cathedral.

It's inappropriate enough that a Christian church should be used as the setting for a violent and bloodthirsty computer game, but it is particularly offensive in Manchester which has a gun crime problem.

It's difficult to understand what kind of mind could think that using a real cathedral interior in that type of computer game was acceptable to anyone, let alone the Church. If it is a fantasy then there are plenty of fantasy locations that could be invented and used. It's sloppy game design and a failure of imagination. Quite apart from crass, offensive and naive. Sony are in the wrong here.

It's probably true that if it had been a mosque there would be far more of an outcry. Christians seem to be fair game in this country at the moment, and while the church does have a dreadful history of oppression that is nothing to be proud of, the Christian belief is basically about love, and it's time more people realised that.

Meanwhile, I wonder how the Church found out?
Some deacon's teenage son or a choirboy was playing a computer game and suddenly noticed he was somewhere familiar? What a coincidence of worlds.

Technorati

2007-06-10T12:05:00.000Z

I'm joining Technorati.
Technorati Profile

Trash the wedding

2007-05-25T11:19:00.001Z

Here's the latest "fashion" in wedding photography.
Trash the Dress

Sorry I just don't get it.

If someone wants to have stunning adventurous photographs taken of themselves, that's absolutely understandable. I do think, though, that a wedding is something different - it is a solemn occasion - it's about two people dedicating and committing themselves to one another in the presence of witnesses.

In what way do these kinds of photos illustrate that? Of course it is all about celebrating love (although in many of these photos the couple don't even look particularly happy, or together, they're looking in different directions even!). A wedding is much more than that, however. These kinds of pictures are just not appropriate to the event. Destroying such a strong symbol of commitment doesn't seem to me a good way to start your life together and is a shocking waste of money to boot that only the materialistic West could invent!

If that kind of formality doesn't suit a particular woman or couple, then these days you don't have to do it. When weddings come AFTER living together and having children it isn't the same kind of event as when you are starting out on life together. So celebrate whatever you want in your own way. Break the mould. Wear a red dress! Why wear white and then trash it when you don't believe in what it means? It just offends those of us who do.

Also if a bride doesn't want to keep the dress she can donate it to some girl in Eastern Europe who can't afford her own, or sell it in aid of charity.

Just don't get me started on the inappropriateness of strapless dresses for 10 months of the year! Apparently you can't GET straps these days, let alone sleeves (I love dresses with Edwardian mutton sleeves!).

Celebrity

2007-05-25T10:41:00.000Z

"The Australian version of the TV programme Big Brother has come under criticism for deciding not to tell a contestant that her father had died."

What a strange world we live in when the pursuit of celebrity is more important than the ties of family and the cultural rituals associated with dying.

I know that if anyone kept from me the fact that my parent was gravely ill and then had died I would be devastated that I had not had the choice of seeing him to say goodbye. Probably the contestant will also miss his funeral and the important steps in the process of grieving that it facilitates.

We ignore these cultural imperatives at our peril. Such rites of passage have evolved over centuries (millennia even) in response to emotional needs. And now it is all swept away by the importance of a reality TV programme. Reportedly the father himself, as he lay on his deathbed, asked this daughter not be disturbed from her self-imposed exile.

Of course, I wouldn't ever be in Big Brother anyway - it's an ambition I can't hope to understand.

Can you explain it? How would you feel if it were kept from you that someone had died, for a trivial reason?

Making history

2007-05-17T08:23:00.000Z

I never thought that I would ever listen to something Ian Paisley said and cry with joy.

But I did.

Whatever people say about Tony Blair, he is a true statesman, and he deserves his place in history for what he has done in Northern Ireland, even if for nothing else. My son, who is studying "The troubles" in GCSE History, said that it's not often in a history lesson that you are studying what happened the previous day.

I truly hope this leads to lasting peace. Whatever the outcome in the future, people who had nothing but hate for one another before are now genuinely attempting to be civil and to make peace. They don't have to like each other, as a man in a pub interviewed on the radio said: "I don't like them, but...". Once people open their minds to the humanity of others, it is the beginning of compassion and not hate.

Cards on the table here: I'm an English Catholic of Northern Irish heritage. That's why, whenever I've heard Ian Paisley's voice (or any other Northern Irish Protestant accent) I've always winced and turned the radio/TV off, not wanting to hear the hatred. That's not something I will ever do again.