London Calling

World War 1 is featured in Downton Abbey

2012-01-17T12:50:00.000-08:00

Graves at the Arras British cemetery. There are about three thousand graves here.
It took Marilyn, Alice, Emily, Abigail and myself well over an hour to find Williams name on the Lutyens monument. There are 35,000 names of the missing carved on this monument.Here I am reaching up to touch his name.
The entrance to Lutyens monument to the British dead who were killed in the fields around Arras.
A map, showing Aveluy Woods , south of Arras where my great uncle William McGinn was killed.
This picture of soldiers working on the road that passed through Aveluy Woods was taken about a month before my uncle was killed.
A map showing the German advance during the last great Battle of the Somme. The last great battle of this terrible war on the Western Front.
My greatuncle William McGinn, taken in France.
The military camp on Wimbledon Common where many rifle regiments trained before going to France. My uncles regiment, The Civil Service Rifles trained here.

The last postcard my great uncle wrote from France. This is the port of Rouen a great embarkation point for Brtiish troops on their way to the Western Front.
This is what he wrote to my great Grandmother.
All the families of soldiers who died on the Western Front received a message from the King.
William McGinn, before embarking for France. He was 19 years old. He survived in France for three weeks.

WORLD WAR I, AN OVERVIEW OF THE POLITICAL, THE HOME FRONT AND THE MILITARY.

World War I is coming to our screens through the medium of Downton Abbey. The series has reached the Summer of 1914, a time of shifting tectonic plates in the power of nations and Empires, very much like the time we live in now, brought on by the great financial crisis we are all living through. This present series is a reminder to us all.

My own family have been very much part of the terrible traumas of the past two world wars. Close members of my family have died in action in both wars. In 1914, at the start of the First World War, my maternal great grandmother and grandfather, Susie and William McGinn moved from County Limerick, in the South of Ireland, to Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England. The move was to enable my great grandfather to get work in the shipyard, Swan Hunters, on the Tyne. They lived in a three story house,a pigeon loft installed in the roof, at 12 Airey Terrace Walker, close to the River Tyne and Swan Hunter’s yard.

Their son, also called William, was a very bright lad and passed his civil service exams to get him a prized job with the civil service. At the age of 18 he returned to Ireland to work in the post office in Dublin as a clerk. It was the moment the IRA was preparing for the Easter Uprising against British rule in Ireland. Although my great uncle was a true Irishman, born in Ireland, but because he had emigrated to England and his parents were living in England, he and his family were regarded as traitors and he was threatened with the message, “Your next McGinn,” meaning the IRA would kill him. He wrote home and my Great-grandmother sent him the money to return to Newcastle. Soon after this he joined the Civil Service Rifles Regiment and in 1918 was trained at the army rifle training ground on Wimbledon Common and shipped over to France to make up the numbers in his regiment on the Somme waiting for the final German push in 1918. That battle could have spelt defeat for either side. By 1918, after four years of carnage, the war still hung in the balance. On the 1^st of April 1918 he was killed when the Germans shelled Aveluy Woods south of Arras in which his regiment was encamped. A few days later, the 6^th April, the German generals had begun to realise that their offensive was futile. They had driven the French and British back but their lines were overstretched, their resources running out and they were exhausted as a military force. The British were able to counter attack on the Western Front and this time there was no resurgence for the German army. But my great uncle was dead and his body was not found.

By the end of the war, within the relatively short period of four years, military tactics, equipment and the whole way of waging a war had changed. The artillery bombardment of Aveluy Woods had probably vaporised William and his colleagues on that day. Trench warfare was not so prevalent at the end and forces had become much more flexible and moved about. My uncles regiment had moved almost daily from one part of the front line to another and where they had taken a village from the Germans one day and moved on, sometimes they had to return and retake the same village because the Germans had come back. It had become a fast moving flexible war. This is why the British had been able to resist this last German onslaught. They had retreated under the pressure of the first attack, keeping their lines intact using skirmishes and movement effectively and when the Germans ran out of steam they were able to counterattack effectively and what is more,decisively this time.

I have been to Northern France many times. It is just across the Channel for me, and I have seen the War Commission graveyards dotted about the French Countryside, they are beautifully kept, pristine white gravestones in smart rows neatly occupying patches of the poppied fields for tens of miles around. I found my own great uncles name on the magnificent Lutyens memorial in the cemetery in Arras. There are about three thousand headstones in the cemetery for soldiers whose bodies were found in the fields and trenches but, there are a further 35,000 names carved on the walls and monuments of Lutyens masterpiece, commemorating those who were lost. That is 40,000 dead from one small area in France. It beggars belief.

I know this is difficult to comprehend. But I never heard my grandmother complain or express any regrets, about her brother William, who was 19, in Aveluy Wood in 1918, and then lost her own son Howard, who was 18,in a bombing raid over Southampton, in the second world war. She would talk about them and tell me what they were like and about their interests and hobbies and all this was done fondly. She never got upset. It was all said plainly.

The perceived view of the Ist world war is that it was futile, that it was horrific and a tragic waist of life and that life in the trenches was hell on earth and it was all these things. However the responses to the war were far more complex at the time. For instance different meanings came out of the war. It was seen as a miraculous deliverance from an evil enemy; it was seen as a remarkable victory and a cause of national survival. For those who took part there was the horror, boredom, apathy, the frustration and terrible sorrow for lost family and friends but there was also pride in camaraderie. There was a variety of ambiguous responses. Different meanings coexisted. Veterans wanted to celebrate their survival and the camaraderie between mates but many thought this remembrance would upset bereaved families. This presumed emotional need for the bereaved families created a powerful social taboo. People who criticised the war couldn’t express their views easily because they didn’t want to upset the bereaved. To call the war futile meant that loved ones died for no reason. Even by 1928, Sir Douglas Hague, who had been the Commander in Chief of British forces at the first great Battle of The Somme, was still seen as a heroic figure and people lined the streets at his funeral.

So how did this war begin and why?

In the late 1800’s the world was changing. The great Austro Hungarian Empire was waning. The British still had their great Empire intact but because of the Austro Hungarian collapse there would be a power vacuum in the world. The Germans under Kaiser Wilhelm II saw the opportunity to fill this vacuum. Kaiser Wilhelm was forming aggressive policies to create a German Empire on the ruins of the Austro Hungarian Empire and also expand into Africa to counteract the British. In the 1890’s the Germans did not renew their alliance with Russia., they opted instead for an alliance with the ailing Austro Hungarian regime. In 1894 France an d Russia signed a treaty to counter balance this perceived threat from Germany. By 1898 Germany began building a navy to promote its global ambitions. Britain saw this as a threat so they concluded limited agreements with France and Russia. This created two power bases, the Entente Powers and The Central Powers. Simply it could be seen as an autocratic power balancing a democratic power but it never was as easy and straightforward as that. Democracy, in Britain at that time, wasn’t the democracy we know today. Authoritarianism still prevailed even in the so called democratic countries but they were developing in the right direction and the road to fuller democracy in the voting system and landownership was on track.

By the Summer of 1914 Germany was willing to risk war. It had built up it’s strength militarily and politically.When the Archduke of the Austro Hungarian Empire was assassinated in Sarejevo the Germans took their chance. They sided with Austruia against Serbia, who they accused of backing the assassination. It was a good excuse for Germany to go on the offensive. Russia was still rebuilding it’s forces after defeat by the Japanese in 1905 and was still relatively week. Some have said that Germany had been planning a war since 1912. So Germany attacked and advanced into Russia.

One month after the war began Germany was drawing up far reaching plans. Whether they already had these plans formed it is difficult to know. They wanted to break French power and reduce Belgium to a vassal state, which had far reaching effects for Britain. Germany, in a such circumstances could use Belgium ports for it’s new vast navy and so threaten drastically British naval power. They also decided they wanted to carve out a new colonial Empire in Africa. The power base they wanted to make in Europe would be called,” Mitteleuropa,” and create a German dominated customs union giving Berlin economic dominance. By 1917 or 1918 they planned to create a huge Empire based on the ruins of a defeated Russia .

Even at the end of the war in 1918 it was not clear which way the war would go. Both sides had fought almost to a stalemate. However the Germans overreached themselves in their last great attack at the Second battle of the Somme. Tactics and expertise and the machinery of war had developed and finally the British and the allies had a fast, flexible fighting force that could resist a German onslaught and attack back and defeat them with tanks, fighter planes, bombers, machine guns and tactics that took the soldiers out of the trenches and made them a moveable force.

Cue the second world war. Cue our present world crisis and emerging power vacuums. Thought provoking!!!!!!!!!!

My mate Gabriel in Spitalfields

2012-01-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

A rather blurred picture of Gabriel Mesh performing in a room over The Cricketers Arms in Kingston upon Thames.

A very good friend of mine, Gabriel,is performing with his band at Cafe1001 situated in

Spitalfield's Market, near Liverpool Street Station.

Here's an invite to Gabriel's next gig. He's a great guitarist and song writer, acoustic, mandolin and electric.

"Hi All - Gabriel Mesh will be joined by Hans Ferroa on percussion and Fran Okine on bass purveying an infectious mix of rhythm and soul live at Cafe 1001 on Tuesday 24th January on stage at 8.15pm.

It is free entry to this impressive and atmospheric venue in the heart of Spitalfields. Hope to see you there."

OH and here is Gabriel performing his own songs.

He will be so chuffed I posted these when I tell him.

ENJOY!!!

He really is very good. I promise you.

http://youtu.be/BdtYQH-9_q8

For those people who have read or seen any posts I have done about Wimbledon Common, this was filmed on Wimbledon Common.

http://youtu.be/dY3tLOgeMIE

On the website of Cafe 1001 I found this clip of an Eastern European dance artist who is going to perform at the same club. It's brilliant. Play it FULL screen and just sit back and enjoy!!!!!!!YOU could even join in.

http://vjyourself.com/?cont=perf

Recorded in the Goldman Sachs Elevator

2012-01-14T06:05:00.000-08:00

Apparently an employee of Goldman Sachs thinks it's funny to record colleagues talking in the office elevator. He has published their comments on Twitter. It's a BIG HIT!!!!!!!!!!

Try it for yourself.

https://twitter.com/gselevator

"Bores the sh....!!! out of me." I'm quoting that from the Goldman Sachs elevator!!!!!!!(over here we call them "lifts," because that's what they do. I suppose we should say, "a downer," when we are descending though.)

THIS IS NOT MY CAR!!!!!!! I COULD SHAVE IN THAT

2012-01-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's silver.

I could shave in that.

I was at home today relaxing, contemplating all things Jane Austen and other things as you do.

I don't know whether I have mentioned this before but an addiction I have is for running. I run everyday. Well, almost. If I have a broken leg or I'm not well in some way, I might not go for a run. Anyway, getting back to the point. Today the weather was mild. It was not raining, which is always a plus when you want to go for a run and so, about midday, I donned my running gear, not lycra by the way. I can't stand the stuff and I wouldn't look good,believe me. Sweat shirt and baggy tracksuit trousers and an old pair of trainers, that's my style.

I was a mere twenty yards from my front door when I saw this "vision," parked by the side of the road and so I thought I would share it with you.

Dicken's Rooms

2011-12-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

Tessa Hadley talks about rooms and reallity and uses a description of a room in Dicken's novel, Little Dorrit, in this BBC radio series of writers essays.

This is very good!!!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0185ffn/

Remains of Jane's Steventon home.

2011-12-18T11:15:00.001-08:00

During November this year some archaeologists and a few volunteers obtained a grant of £10,000 from The Heritage Lottery Fund to excavate the site of Jane Austen's first home and birthplace at Steventon, just south of Basingstoke in Hampshire.

It was demolished by her brother Edward Knight in 1823 when his son William Knight became the incumbent vicar of the parish. It needed a lot of repairs and it's location, at the bottom of the hill which leads up to St Nicholas Parish church, was a site prone to dampness and the occasional flooding. Edward had a new rectory built, not far away, on the opposite side of the road higher up on the side of the valley.

The site of the original rectory, where Jane started writing some of her most famous novels, can viewed from the junction of the main road leading through Steventon and the road leading up to St Nicholas's. It is a meadow with a couple of large oak trees situated near the main road. The remains of the pump that stood in the backyard of the original rectory can still be seen.

The archaeologists have found a considerable number of artefacts that tell us about life in the rectory. Many clay pipes have been found. Smoking must have been an important past time amongst the male members of the family.The Museum of London have a database of all the 18th century clay pipe makers in London. On the base of each pipe bowl where the tobacco was placed is usually found a stamp with the makers initials or emblem on. The archaeologists at Steventon should probably be able to find where Jane's brothers and father bought their clay pipes from. Jane may have smoked herself.Clay pipe smoking was popular amongst women in the 17th and 18th centurys.They got their tobacco from Virginia. I am sure snuff would have been inhaled on more formal occasions.(http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/claypipes/index.asp)

Wine bottle necks were unearthed too. They obviously liked more than a glass of wine. Shards of earthenware pottery have been found.The pottery discovered might refer to certain types of food stored and eaten.As with the pipes,local makers might be identified.

Parts of the foundations of the rectory have been uncovered. This will give us a better insite into the construction methods, style of the house, ground plan and materials used in its construction. Until now we have only had two sketches of the house, which contradict each other.

Here is a link to an article about the excavation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-16002088

JANE AUSTEN'S BIRTHDAY

2011-12-16T06:31:00.000-08:00

The village of of Selborne seen from Selborne Hangar.
Hampshire countryside.
James Austen's grave at Steventon Church.
Steventon crossroads.
Cottage at Steventon.
Steventon Church where Jane Austen was baptised.

Today, the 16th December, is the anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, at Steventon Rectory, in Hampshire. On the day Jane was born,about fifteen miles away from Steventon, , and about five miles from Chawton, in the village of Selborne, the naturalist Gilbert White wrote, "Trees begin to be naked."

(A link to an article about the death of Jane Austen.)

Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath

2011-12-11T01:16:00.000-08:00

TED HUGHES AND SYLVIA PLATH

Ted Hughes has been commemorated recently by having a plaque placed in, Poets Corner, in the southern transept of Westminster Abbey.

Here is a radio documentary about Ted Hughes. What I found interesting is that it includes an interview, about 28 minutes into the programme, with Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. I've never heard Sylvia Plath's voice before. I found it quite exciting and thrilling to actually hear her speak.

I saw Ted Hughes when I was student, training to be a teacher. I heard him perform some of his most famous poems such as Hawk Roosting, Pike, and The Thought Fox.

The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:

Something else is alive

Beside the clock's loneliness

And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:

Something more near

Though deeper within darkness

Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,

A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;

Two eyes serve a movement, that now

And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow

Between trees, and warily a lame

Shadow lags by stump and in hollow

Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,

A widening deepening greenness,

Brilliantly, concentratedly,

Coming about its own business

Till, with sudden sharp hot stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.

The window is starless still; the clock ticks,

The page is printed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0183glm/Archive_on_4_Ted_Hughes_Memorial_Tones/

Tea, just like Jane.

2011-12-03T00:48:00.000-08:00

Having a nice cup of tea in Twinings on The Strand.

Between Saturday the 5th March 1814 and Tuesday the 8th March 1814, Jane Austen was worrying about tea.

She was staying at her brother Henry's house at number 10 Henrietta Street next to Covent Garden.

Writing to Cassandra she says,

" I am sorry to hear that there has been a rise in tea. I do not mean to pay Twining till later in the day, when we may order a fresh supply."

From number 10 Henrietta Street turn right out of the front door , walk along the southern perimeter of Covent Garden Market towards Drury Lane. Turn right down the slightly sloping hill with Drury Lane Theatre on your left and the pub, Nell of Old Drury, an old 18th century prostitutes den, on your right and carry on until you reach The Strand. Cross the road and and turn left along The Strand for about 600 yards until you are almost opposite the Law Courts. You will be at the entrance to Twinings shop, number 216. This is the original shop that Thomas Twining opened in The Strand in 1706. By the time Jane Austen was making her way through the streets of London to the premises on The Strand it was well established.

(Here is a link to an article I wrote about Tea in jane Austen's time. A Cup Of Tea With Austen )

There are more than one reason for taking this journey. First to follow in Jane's footsteps but also to be able to drink and buy tea . There are over 100 Twinings blends to choose from. All Twinings shops have a tasting service. At the back of the shop on The Strand is a tea bar, kettles and percolators , cups and saucers and samples of the Twinings tea range. It's FREE! A rest from the hustle and bustle of London traffic and crowded pavements and a nice refreshing cup of tea to recharge your batteries is a wonderful way to pause and contemplate your London visit so far. You can make the tea yourself or you can ask one of the assistants to help. The assistants in the shop are knowledgeable about all the Twinings blends. They can also give you a lesson in ,"brewing up a nice pot."

So next time you are in London enjoy a cup of tea at Twinings.

Here is a link to tea at Twinings.

http://www.twinings.co.uk/about-twinings/our-stores

SHERLOCK HOLMES!!!!!!

2011-11-15T23:59:00.000-08:00

Here are some recent BBC i-player episodes of Sherlock Holmes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007jlpz/The_Return_of_Sherlock_Holmes_Series_1_The_Empty_House/

Judy Dench

2011-11-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

BBC iplayer does not allow people outside of the UK to access it's television programmes but you can access the radio programmes.

Here is an interview given by Judy Dench that might be of interest to you..

I saw Judy Dench play the part of Titania in A Midsummer Nights Dream at The Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames last year. She was fantastic!!!!!!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01707g5/Front_Row_Interviews_Dame_Judi_Dench/

ALL AMERICAN

2011-11-14T09:26:00.000-08:00

A collection of classic BBC programmes about US culture. Available to watch online.

Many of you may never get to see this series of BBC documentaries unless they are shown on yous PBS. However here is the introductory article describing the programmes that go back to the 1960's and portray an insight into America from a British viewpoint.

I'm looking forward to watching them.

Adam Curtis introduces All American

All American

Adam Curtis is a documentary film maker. He has made a wide range of political-historical documentaries for the BBC. These include Pandora's Box - Six Fables from the Age of Science, The Mayfair Set, The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares - the Rise of the Politics of Fear. Many of these films have told stories about the complex roots of American power - and the often unexpected effect it has had on the modern world over the past 100 years. In telling these stories Adam Curtis uses archive and noise and music in imaginative ways to try and look again at the roots of the modern world. He has also experimented with fusing political journalism about America with music and live theatre in the show It Felt Like a Kiss.

Introduction

Glorious Dreams from the Schizoid Empire

America rose to power not just because of industrial might, or armies or its genius for engineering and invention - but because it possessed our minds. In the years after the Second World War, America told a complicated story about itself to the world.

What gave the story such power was that it had two sides to it. One was a dream of complete personal freedom - an endless, open landscape, and songs and films that took you into that boundless world. A world into which British people escaped in their minds - a true liberation in a declining country still dominated by class and snobbery.

But the other story was dark and frightening. It said that America used its power to ruthlessly exploit the world while pretending that it was good. It was an alternative, hidden universe full of conspiracies, assassinations, drug-running, phone-tapping and paranoia. And the nameless people behind it were the men who were really in charge. Not democracy.

America's genius was to allow both stories to flourish - for whichever story you chose to believe immediately locked you into that world of dreams. It was the true confidence of power, because America allowed journalists and film makers complete freedom to fly in to the country and then go pretty much where they wanted - and tell one or other of the stories.

And that is just what the BBC did - from the late 1950s onwards. During that time the films it made swung back and forth between the optimistic dream and the pessimistic version. Over the last ten years the focus has tended towards the dark and pessimistic, except for the brief moment of President Obama's election. So BBC Four has decided to balance that with a season that celebrates America - along with a collection of programmes from the archives available to watch online.

But collectively the films also tell a story about Britain. About how liberal film documentary film makers in Britain turned to America, and its culture, for solace as their own political world moved away from them - towards the right. They used America to try and recapture some kind of grandeur for their own lost dreams.

The collection begins with a group of films made in the 1960s. They range from a wonderfulPanorama that goes to California, in 1966, to predict what the world of 2000 will be like - to a Face To Face interview with Martin Luther King at the height of the civil rights movement, and a brilliant report by Alan Whicker about the Kentucky Derby - which the civil rights movement are planning to disrupt.

What all these films from the '60s capture in different ways is the incredible optimism for change. Only ten years later those dreams had turned to a pessimism and a suspicion of politics and power in Washington. America became a land of paranoia and corruption - epitomised in the figure of President Nixon.

But not all documentaries looked at America like that in the '70s. As politics went hurtling off towards the right in Britain as well, many documentary film makers in the BBC turned away from making films about politics and turned instead to make films about art and culture.

It is one of the great social shifts of the past 40 years that hasn't been fully recognised yet. As progressive politics failed in Britain, large chunks of the middle class gave up defining themselves through their political allegiances, and began instead to define their identity through which films, or bands, or type of art they liked. Central to this was a new belief - popular culture should be taken seriously. And the one place you could do that in an epic way was the country that had created mass popular culture. America. In the collection are a number of films that show how American popular culture was reworked by British documentary makers to give an epic foundation to this new aesthetic sensibility.

It ranges from a fantastic history of Woody Guthrie to the very strange story of what really happened in the late 19th Century in one American town - Wisconsin Death Trip.

But the one that epitomises this most is a wonderful documentary about the Chelsea Hotel in New York made in 1981. It goes on a tour of the hotel's bohemian inhabitants - from the composer of Tubby the Tuba, playing his Turtle Ballet, to Andy Warhol and William Burroughs having dinner together. Warhol wears the headphones of his new Sony Walkman all the time. The film portrays the Chelsea as a kind of alternate universe, separate from the harsh '80s greed outside. Inside the hotel the world of bohemianism flourishes - and its belief in the absolute value of total self-expression.

It is tempting to look at the film as the record of a lost world of true bohemianism in New York. But that is to misunderstand it - for what the film captured in 1981 was an image of the future. We live today in a world where self-expression and our own individual desires have become the central motor for modern consumerism and politics. The give-away is in a brief moment when the hotel manager is talking about his role in running this little society. He says: "I gear my policy-making to fit the needs of the individual". It is the philosophy of all modern governments and their focus groups.

The world of the Chelsea hotel has triumphed. In a way we are all superstar bohemians today. And we all wear our headphones like Andy Warhol.

These films reworked American popular culture to make it epic. But by the end of the 1990s the dark uncertainties began to peek out again. You can see this in the documentary aboutJackson Pollock, made in 1999. It shows how the art establishment made Pollock a hero because he represented the mythic dream of America - the rugged individualist.

But the problem was that Pollock wasn't like that at all. Underneath he was incredibly insecure, and tragic. He wasn't really an old style American Hero. He was a new neurotic - the new kind of narcissistic individualism whose uncertainties would gnaw away at the confidence of American power from inside the society.

Amongst the more recent films is a Timewatch, made in July 2001, about the construction of the Empire State Building. It tells how in 1945 an American Air Force plane flew into the Empire State Building. The B25 bomber was flown by Lt Col William F. Smith, a hero from the war. Smith had been advised to land at La Guardia because of fog, but chose to continue to his destination in New Jersey. The air traffic controllers couldn't stop him because military pilots were allowed to do whatever they wanted. They had priority in the skies because America was still technically at war.

It is a story about the unexpected and dangerous side of American individualism - the myth that runs through so many of these films. It is the source of dreams of heroism, and also the dreams of self-expression inside the Chelsea Hotel. But that individualism is also the very thing that the Islamist terrorists who flew the planes into the World Trade Centre in September 2001 believed represented the greatest danger to the world.

After 2001 the films made about America changed. After the initial outpouring of sympathy, documentaries started to get dark again. Out of the horrors of Iraq and Afghanistan a new received wisdom emerged that said that America's power was now declining and that power was shifting in the world.

But maybe this is just a part of the complex story that America tells - and still holds us in suspense. Maybe it's the moment when you think everything has gone wrong, and it's all over. Have we really woken up from the American Dream? Or is it one of those spooky moments when you think you are awake, but there's a lot more left to come. After all there is no other society in the world that tells as powerful and gripping story as America - and power isn't just about armies and commerce - it's also about crawling inside your head and seducing you with a story that keeps you wanting more.

Adam Curtis, November 2011

11.11.11

2011-11-11T01:24:00.000-08:00

IT'S ABI'S BIRTHDAY

(She is 11 years old today.)

It is Armistice Day today. At 11 o'clock we will have a two minutes silence to remember our dead.

My daughter, Abigail is 11 years old today. She regrets she was not born at 11 o'clock though. She was born just after midnight on the 11th November 2000. It will be a hundred years before others will be able to say,

" Today is my birthday. I am 11years old on the 11th day of the 11th month in the 11th year of this century."

Here is a piece of art my daughter Emily made for Abigail, her sister. I am not sure what it means but in the top left corner the words "Emily, Abigail," appear many, many times.

WILFRED OWEN

2011-11-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War

The war poet Wilfred Owen was killed in northern France in November 1918 - in the final days of WWI. His last letter to his mother was written at the end of October in the cellar of a forester's house in the village of Ors.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15659821

DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

THIS IS LONDON!!!!!!!!! Yeh!!!

2011-11-03T11:49:00.001-07:00

On Westminster Bridge, looking down river towards the City and St Pauls in the distance.

The V&A museum in South Kensington. The home of arts and crafts. When the idea for it was instigated by Prince Albert in 1852. It has 4.5 million objects. It's mandate was to display artefacts from every culture throughout the world so that artists, and artisans of every type could learn from made things. It always has had an educational purpose. This makes it different from art galleries which are seen as culturally elite.
An old shop in Shoreditch, just north of the City of London and the Barbican. It looks like a Victorian shop front but the building is probably Georgian.

A view form Brick Lane. You can just glimpse the Ghurkin and the City of London banking sector through the archway. Brick Lane is an area where many waves of immigrants over the centuries have lived. Hueguenots weavers came first of all, then it became a Jewish settelment, there are still some synagogues in the area. Nowadays it is home to many Pakistanis. Monica Ali wrote her award winning novel Brick Lane which was based on life and the immigrant community here. It was made into a hard hitting film about Brick Lane's society.

You will all know this one. It's Westminster Abbey. It has been the centre of many important events in the history of this country.

So many people mistake this for London Bridge but it is in effect called Tower Bridge because it is situated beside The Tower of London.

This is Villiers Road leading off The Strand. Charing Cross Station is to the right and The Thames straight ahead. There are many literary connections around here, from Charles Dickens to Rudyard Kipling.
This is the Buddhist pagoda in Battersea Park, next to The Thames. The Dalai Llama requested that one be set up in London and other major cities of the world to help bring peace to us all.

This is Spitalfields Market in the East End. It is being renovated and turned into designer clothes shops, pubs, restaurants and clubs. The area is close to Whitechapel, famous for Jack The Ripper.
Boris Johnson, our illustrious Mayor of London, is trying to encourage more cycling. You can hire one of these bikes. There are dozens of these bicycle racks around the city.

I know it looks like a piece of fossilised dinosaur but its one of the new entrances down into the tube system.
The Houses of Parliament. But you knew that didn't you!!!!!!!!! By the way, it's not Big Ben. It is called The Westminster Clock Tower. Big Ben is the bell inside it. You can hear Big Ben but you can't see it.
This is Marble Arch next to the north east corner of Hyde Park on the Corner of Oxford Street and Bayswater Road. It was originally the gate into Buckingham Palace but it was found to be too narrow for some of the carriages so it was moved to this spot. The site was originally Tyburn, where criminals were hung.
A seagull contemplating Westminster Bridge at sunset.
I was needing a bit of glamour. Here is myself with Deb Barnum, who organises the Jane Austen Society of North America, Vermont chapter. "Chapter," is that the right word? It has religious connotations but also reminds me of the Hells Angels.

Anyway, we are standing outside 10 Henrietta Street, near Covent Garden. It was here that Jane Austen stayed with her banking brother Henry. I think the downstairs section, in those days, was a branch of his bank.
This is the famous ,"Wobbly Bridge." Behind me, no you can't see it, is St Pauls Cathedral and across the river on the other side, is the 1930's coal fired power station that has been converted into The Tate Modern.
A view of The Thames looking west. That clump of flats (apartments) in the distance is Battersea.
From this viewpoint you can see St Pauls Cathedral, the flats in the Barbican complex to the left, some of the banking district in The City to the right and The Thames again, in the foreground.
An alleyway in Holburn, just half a mile north of The Strand.
Yes I know,drunken telephone boxes!!!!!!!!!!
A statue of that great actor, Lawrence Olivier, situated on the South Bank near The National

Theatre.
Inside one of those London Eye, pods. Going round and round and round!!!!!!
This is not in London but I thought you would like to see Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport.
A horse and carriage on The Strand.
Some Henry Moore sculptures in Battersea Park. Nearby is a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth.
Graffitti and skate boarders on the South Bank underneath The Royal Festival Hall.

Well, it was a hot day. A bit of a shock to an Englishman's system. We are not used to hot weather ha! ha!
These are mews houses. They are desirable properties. In Georgian and Victorian times these were the stables for the horses and carriages belonging to the fine houses in areas like Belgravia.
You have got three for one in this picture. That thin looking pedestrian bridge in front is a side view of The Millenium Bridge, also known as The Wobbly Bridge. Southwark Bridge is the next one and then there is the railway bridge coming out of Cannon Street Station. You can see the twin towers of the station to the left.
This is the Hayward Gallery on The South Bank. He's not going to jump. It's a sculpture. About two years ago, life size and life like figures like this started appearing on many buildings all over London. Just another way for us all to relate to art.
St Pauls at night.
The Cenotaph in Whitehall. This is the main national Monument to our British War dead. It was erected just after the First Worlld War. The Queen places a wreath here every year on Armistice Day, November 11th. We all wear poppys to commemorate our war dead.
This is Trafalgar Square last Christmas. The tree is a Norway Spruce.Every year Norway presents us with a Christmas tree to commemorate the help we gave them during the second world war. Denmark, on the other hand, for the same reasons,gave us Carlsberg Special Brew. At one time it could only be sold in England. It's powerful, brain damage stuff.
You are going to laugh at this one. This is George Washington. It's next to The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. In the 1920's the good people of Virginia thought they would like to present the English people with a statue of George Washington.

Then, somebody discovered that in his will he strictly forbade that he should ever stand on English soil again, what, with a little trouble called the Wars of independence and all that.

They thought, we can't go against his wishes. Then some bright spark had a great idea. Why not dig up a load of soil from Virginia and ship it over to England for the statue to stand on. That's what they did. A deep hole was dug in Trafalgar Square and it was filled with soil from Virginia. George was then plonked on top.
A guardsman in Horse Guards Parade.
A stern looking policeman at the entrance to Downing Street.
Somebody beach combing under Waterloo Bridge.
The National Theater. It looks more like a nuclear power station. It has three stages and auditoriums. The central concrete column is a computer operated scenery moving installation for the three stages.
A Thames Clipper, a river bus. One of the best ways to see London is from the river. You can buy a days pass, a Rover ticket, for £12.50. You can go up and down the Thames all day long, stopping wherever you want and getting back on again. You can go up as far as the Thames Barrier, stop at Greenwich to see the Maritime Museum and The Royal Observatory, pop in to The Millenium Dome, see The Tower, look in at the Tate Modern, view St Pauls and embark at Westminster. The views are spectacular and the photo opportunities innumerable.
More graffitti!!!!!!
Buckingham Palace from the lake in St James's Park.
The banking sector in the city viewed from The Tower of London. WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG?
Canary Wharf. Multinational companys viewed from Greenwich Park.
A diplodocus in the entrance to the Natural History Museum in Kensington.
I often cycle around London. That's my bike on the right. No, not the one with the bent wheel.
The Albert Embankment, across the river from The Houses of Parliament.
The Houses of Parliament. Need I say more?
The memorial to SOE outside of Lambeth Palace.Lambeth Palace is the home of The Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England.
A london pub, called The Museum Tavern, opposite The British Museum.
The London Underground.
On the way to an underground platform.
Me, on my way home on the underground. I can't remember which station this was.
The pavement at night outside the Royal Festival Hall.
The Royal Festival Hall. It is the venue for classical music concerts throughout the year. It can hold the worlds largest symphony orchestras.
A London side street.
Street musicians.
ALIENS!!!!!!AAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!
I was about to enter a capsule on The London Eye.
For all you Doctor Who fans. Hamleys toy shop window at Christmas. It's in Regents Street.
A gold Dalek. Blimey!!!!!!!!!
Is it a cave? Is it a load of old rags?
Regents Street at Christmas.
Theater Royal Drury Lane in Covent Garden.
Once in a while I need to sit down and have a cup of coffee.
Covent Garden from the terrace of the Royal Opera House. I went to see The Nutcracker. Yes, I did.
A green house at the Horniman Museum, which I think is one of the best museums in the London suburbs near Greenwich. It has got some amazing things collected from every culture by Frederick John Horniman, the tea trader, from his travels all over the world.
Hans Place. Another house Jane Austen stayed in. This was owned by Henry too. The house he owned was on this site. This red brick building was built in the late 1800's. It's Victorian.
Clive of India. This is just behind Whitehall set between the buildings that comprise the Foreign Office. Clive conquered India and added it too our British Empire.
Chinatown next to Soho, just off Shaftesbury Avenue.
London seen from Battersea Park.
Charing Cross station and Hungerford Railway Bridge. There are two pedestrian walkways either side of the railway bridge. Virginia Woolf mentions in her diaries walking across Hungerford Bridge. Before the railway station and the bridge were built there used to be some stone steps down to the river called Hungerford Steps. It was here that the blacking factory stood that Charles Dickens was employed in as a young child.
Buckingham palace Road and the magnificent French chateau style Southwestern Hotel that served Victoria Railway Station. The Orient Express leaves from here. Notice the Abbey Road Beetles re-enactment society.
Boudica. She was the warrior Queen who routed the Romans and sacked Roman London.
The reading room in The British Museum. Karl Marx wrote his great works here.
This Georgian house is near Trafalgar Square and Whitehall. Benjamin Franklin lived here for about 18 years. He set up a printing press, and carried out many scientific experiments here.
The Science Museum. These are all 18th century scientific instruments.
An aeroplane in full flight inside the Science Museum. It makes me think of the adventures of Tintin for some reason.
A lion in Trafalgar Square. They are made from the melted down guns of many of the ships that took part in The Battle of Trafalgar.
Some Georgian houses. "Upstairs Downstairs."
Looking across the Thames at twilight. On the other side is Chelsea where many of the Preraphaelite brotherhood lived. Cheney Walk, where innumerable literary and artistic giants lived is next to the river.
Battersea power Station. A 1930's coal fired power station that is being converted into everything you can think of, galleries, shops, hotels, theaters, cinemas, and shops.

£1000 WORTH OF BOOKS TO BE WON!!!!!!!

2011-11-03T02:08:00.000-07:00

The Guardian is running a competition ; vote for your favourite book covers. They are doing this in conjunction with the Folio Society.

There are four categories.

TOP TEN BOOKS FOR WOMEN

TOP TEN CLASSICS

TOP TEN BOOKS FOR CHILDREN,

TOP TEN BOOKS FOR MEN.

Here is a link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/folio-society-beautiful-books?CMP=PACSPRTXT9755

Stratford upon Avon

2011-10-30T04:49:00.000-07:00

Plaque explaining that this building was the grammar school that Shakespeare attended.
The side of Thomas Nash's house and the garden where Shakespeare's house, New Place, was situated.
Some Tudor buildings now The Shakespeare Hotel.
The Grammar School that Shakespeare attended.
Harvard House. The founder of Harvard University was born here.
A gentleman I came across walking the streets of Stratford.
A pub in Stratford. NO!!!! it is not falling over.
This garden is on the site of Shakespeare's house, New Place, that he bought after giving up the life of a playwright and returning to Stratford. He died here in 1616.
Stratford High Street.
The house next door to Shakespeare house. Thomas Nash, who owned the house was the husband of Shakespeare's granddaughter.
A church next to New Place.
Some terraced houses in Stratford.

William Shakespeare near The Royal Shakespeare Company theatre.
Prince Hal!!!!!!!
A jester. Shakespeare wrote great humour in amongst the greatest of tragedies, King Lear, for instance.
Shakespeare's birthplace.

Here are some pictures showing where Shakespeare lived at the beginning of his life and at the end of his life, Stratford upon Avon.

HAIKU

2011-10-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

Haiku Inspirations

About four years ago I had to prepare an English lesson on writing poetry. Children like collecting words about, real scenes and real moments in their lives and recalling their own feelings and imaginings. It is always an exciting process.

I decided to try writing Haikus with them. Haikus are nice and short. They are concentrated pieces of writing. A haiku enables a writer to focus on a mood, a feeling, an object,a scene a moment in time. Every word counts.

The weekend before I had to do the lesson, I was in a bookshop in Kingston upon Thames. I think it was Waterstones in The Bentalls Centre, on the top floor. There, in the poetry section, was a book called, Haiku Inspirations by Tom Lowenstein. Tom had been a teacher too and began to explore eastern religions, and philosophies. Studying these ideas had introduced him to Chinese and Japanese art and poetry. He found Japanese Haikus an aid to Zen meditation and also Zen meditation to be a good source of inspiration for writing his own Haikus. Haikus can introduce imagery, paradoxes and comparisons to children and get them to focus on a tight structure. The book has beautiful, evocative Japanese illustrations and designs. Also it has some beautiful photography . It was just the book for me.

Haikus are made up of very few words. Each word must have its place and be essential to the meaning. They are made of only three lines and have seventeen syllables. The lines go, five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables. There should be a kigo which is a word that suggests a season.Also a haiku should contain a kireji which means a cutting word. A word which brings a statement to an end. The paradox with or contrast to the first statement should then be written. Some writers believed in breaking the rules. Rules have to be broken to progress, adapt and develop.I think, especially in translation, the number of syllables does not have to be exact. The meaning and effect are prime importance.

Chinese and Japanese writing is symbolic. It is picture writing. To translate it into English can never be exact in the purity and essence of the words.

Here is a poem translated from the Japanese. It was written by, Takarai Kikaku, who lived between 1661 and 1707

Twilight

In the middle of a town

A single butterfly

The first line is sparse and exact, one word. We know what twilight is. We have experienced it but where is this twilight? The countryside, a beach, a coastal scene, they have their particular twilights and give us different experiences. This haiku is set in a town.

The second line begins with , in. It takes us into the interior, it creates an entering of the town. The word, middle, is used which is not the same as using the word, centre. It’s not as exact, so we are left with a vague sensation of where we are exactly. The word , the, is a determiner making us focus on the object, middle. The, is used again determining the word, town. The line if it was written like this, In middle town, might be more precise in the sense of the Zen way of thinking because each word is full of the meaning of the poets intention but it would be awkward and not flow well in English. The line sounds better with the determiners. It has a smoother feel and feels more satisfying to say which is probably just as important.

The last line creates a surprising contrast with the twilight in the middle of a town. Like stars, twilight would not necessarily be noticed with the lights of the shops and street lamps. A single butterfly would be different. Wherever the butterfly was,it would be noticed. It’s bright natural beauty standing out, highlighted against it's background. It starts with the indefinite article, A, which emphasises the word, single. This is a reinforcement of the butterfly’s singularity. The butterfly is natural, bright and beautiful in itself . It is not the man made, garish beauty of the middle of a busy town. Butterflys do not belong in the dusty dirty noisy middle of a town at twilight when revellers are coming out. Is this a paradox between the man made, man inhabited, middle of a town and a beautiful natural butterfly,each existing at the same time?

Sissinghurst KENT

2011-10-08T04:20:00.000-07:00

SISSINGHURST CASTLE AND GARDENS

Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, the remains of an Elizabethan manor house, is one of those quintessentially English places. It is a garden and it is a ruin. We English love and worship our gardens. Ancient ruins are so evocative; they connect us with the past. We feel deeply connected to gardens and ruins.

Gardeners are artists in the true sense. With their choice of plants, shrubs and trees they create moods and settings within which we can inhabit and live. A garden has pathways, rooms, colours, textures, light and shadow, large and small spaces. They are full of drama, whimsy, and intensity. Great gardens are theatre settings, painting and drama combined.

The garden at Sissinghurst is all of these things. Created by Harold Nicholson, the diplomat and his wife Vita Sackville West, the poet, novelist and lover of Virginia Woolf, in 1930’s, this garden is their true legacy.

I went there recently and explored the world they created.

There are cottages within the garden rented to those who would like to stay for a while.

A view of the keep.

A garden seat.

Vita Sackville West's library.

The end of Summer in the garden.

2011-10-02T06:31:00.000-07:00

I noticed today that the seed pods at the top of our wild irises, in the pond, have curled open to reveal hundreds of brown polished seeds, shining like little brown jewels in these Indian Summer October days.
Random pieces of slate create shadows and lines of light and dark crevices around our pond.A leaf, sharply outlined on a stone that is beginning to form green algae patches on it's surface that might eventually lead to moss or a form of lichen.
Dry, grey soil with delicate root tracery going across it's surface, delving through it and forming a sort of net like structure.

Cloured plastic pegs on our washing line with a hydrangea in front of it. The colours are beginning to drain out of the hydrangea blooms making pale pastel reds and pinks with some browns appearing.Calm contemplation amongst shadows, stones, leaves, grass and a rosemary bush.

Los Angeles but.............

2011-09-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

Now, I have never been to Los Angeles so I can't really comment. The only local connection around here in South London with Los Angeles is a little chap who was born not far away from where I live, who carried a cane, wore a bowler hat, sported a Hitler style moustache and had a funny walk.

But lets not talk about him.

Here are a few quotations about Los Angeles I came across today.

"Los Angeles is the second-largest Mexican, Armenian, Korean, Filipino, Salvadorean and Guatemalan city in the world."

BLIMEY!!!!!!!

And this quote from that erudite film actor,Russell Crowe:

"I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack."RUSSELL CROWE

PLAYING CRICKET

2011-09-16T07:58:00.001-07:00

A medium pace bowler about to deliver a ball.

Close up of the same bloke!!!!!!

A batter getting ready to face a ball

A wicket

Players warming up before a game.

THE GAME OF CRICKET

TRY REPLACING THE NAME, CRICKET, FOR ANY SPORT YOU CHOOSE.

My father loved sport. He is approaching his 90th birthday in November, but in the 1930's and 1940's he was an athletic powerful little dynamo. He was a very good footballer, a nippy forward who could score goals in the twinkling of an eye, and tackle hard. He was as unforgiving as a lump of oak. He also played cricket. Cricket was his first love unlike the children of today who have to support a premiership football team. Cricket is often a second best sport now. A long way second.

My father was in the RAF, an armourer, during the Second World War. He was based at an airfield near Oxford during The Battle of Britain. As soon as that was won his unit was shipped out to Burma and he spent the following three years stationed at an airfield carved out of the Burmese Jungle. In the lull between action they often played football and cricket in intense heat.

I was born in 1952 and my father was keen for me to get interested in cricket too. For my fifth birthday he bought me a book from the, Play The Game Series," called "CRICKET- HOW TO PLAY." I loved that book. My father often took me into the garden and taught me cricketing skills, batting, bowling and catching but I read that book avidly and followed it too the last, comma and full stop.

I have been looking back at it recently. It is a very moral book. Although it is about cricket and the skills of cricket, it promotes a very moral attitutde to the game which could easily be applied to every other sport and indeed life itself. In "Cricket_How To play, in effect it is teaching you how to live your life. It's very much about how to win with total dedication and fairness.

Morality and sport today are not good bedfellows unfortunately.

The book was produced by the MCC. MCC stands for the Marylebone Cricket Club, which is the headquarters of English cricket in St John's Wood, north London. It sets the rules for cricket world wide.

"THE APPROACH TO THE GAME," could be an approach to living your life honestly and well.

FREE SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND

2011-09-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

David Cameron has visited one, Boris says, “It’s high time we moved beyond the present system. This is a wonderful new approach,” and David Gove, the minister for education, is happy to have opened twenty-four free schools this year on Monday September 5^th. More are to come. The most famous free school, within the short life span of free schools so far, has been set up by Toby Young, a high profile journalist. The free school idea is to enable people, almost anybody; Michael Gove would have us believe, to open their own school. It could be a group of parents, that fact is publicised strongly, teachers disillusioned by the present system of schools and religious and church groups. I would suspect behind the parents groups that are opening schools or who want to open schools, there are some of these education companies showing and leading the way, for a price of course. Parents, generally, haven’t the expertise to run a school.

Michael Gove , the Minister for Education, reading with some pupils in one of the ,"Free Schools."

So what is a free school? It is,”free,” of local education authority control. I don’t think this is a good idea because local authorities know their schools and their respective catchment areas and can provide help and support locally. A school on it’s own could end up with problems and no local support unless they pay heavily for it. Free schools get their budget directly from the government, the department of education. It is given a free hand as far as what it wants to teach in the curriculum as long as it has a core of some fundamental subjects, mathematics, science, history and literacy. These subjects are expected to have prime importance and all else will hang around them. A free school does not have to follow the national curriculum. They are being freed from that burden. They can pay and reward teachers how they like. They are to encourage excellence. Of course as a minimum, they must provide at least what the National Curriculum provides but preferably more. Some of these schools are including the teaching of Latin as part of their curriculum. School uniforms are required. A strong ethos of hard work is important to them. These things are being lauded but most if not all schools do this anyway.

One feature of these schools is that they must have an intake of all abilities and must not discriminate because of background. All this sounds very familiar. Apart from the loosening of a requirement to teach the National Curriculum there does not seem to be a lot different from the description of any other school.

But, here Michael Gove has his BIG IDEA. The Conservatives are great on BIG IDEAS. The free schools must have an ethos of hard work, high expectations and encourage children to fulfil their potential. Sorry, hang on a minute. That is no different from any other school either. Then what is the BIG IDEA, the new revolutionary approach? The big idea appears to really come down to setting up schools that ,"free,” the teacher to teach, remove some of the shackles weighted on the backs of teachers over the years such as the paper work.I don't hear that OFSTED inspections, testing, and assessment of teachers teaching will go though. The pressures are not being removed in those respects.

What I would like the BIG IDEA to mean is the removal of target setting, the abandonment of observing and grading teachers,the removal of the fear of failure, of sometimes getting things wrong. I would like it to mean that teachers could have ,”fun,” teaching. Before the National Curriculum came in during the 1980’s I went on a geography teachers course at the Slapton Lea Environmental Studies Center in Devon with the Surrey inspector for geography. He was a tall, ebullient, quirky, eccentric, flamboyant man, full of warmth and love for teaching and teachers. Socialising, having fun, having a good laugh and getting on together was his idea of a good course combined with learning geographical skills and concepts that we could take back to the classroom. He wanted us to really enjoy ourselves. I remember saying to him, “We are having too much fun here aren’t we?” He replied that happy teachers, having fun with what they are doing, is exactly want he wanted to achieve. If we were enjoying ourselves doing what we were doing then the lessons we taught would be fun and enjoyable for the children we taught. He was absolutely right. If we are inspired then we can inspire others.

Yes, that is what I would like so-called,”free schools,” and every other school, to be about. Teachers have always done their best under the difficult circumstances created by various governments. Children, having fun in their learning are more likely to find that spark of the imagination, of inspiration, which is going to ignite the rest of their lives. It only has to happen once in the thirteen years any child is at school, that one spark of inspiration. That’s all that is needed and it could come at any time. We as teachers in our classrooms just have to provide the fertile ground, circumstances, and situations and experiences that could enable this to happen.

From what I have seen of free schools they have been created by enthusiastic people who want a good education for their children and the children who have been recruited to them are enthusiastic about learning because of their parents. Levels of intelligence and ability do not need to come into it. It’s the ambition, the wanting to learn that is the key element. That is nothing new.Toby Young, journalist. He has written for Vanity Fair, the New York Press, The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator. He co-edited the Modern Review with Julie Birchill. He has set up the West London Free School.

To the detriment of these new free schools, it makes all other schools look as though that is not what they are about. Free schools are divisive in this way.

Instead of setting up free schools what Michael Gove should have done and perhaps this will happen eventually, otherwise it wouldn’t be fare, is free up all our schools. Get rid of the national curriculum, don’t put teachers under draconian pressures and allow teachers to create their own curriculum and have,” fun,” and teach with enthusiasm and enjoyment. Take all the testing and restraints away. I can hear some saying, what about the bad teachers? They do need help and support, to begin with, and then if teaching isn’t for them, help towards another career that is more suitable for their abilities. Our society is too rigid and inflexible when it comes to changing careers.

I think every school should be allowed to confront parents with, “education.” They should be able to say to them, "you have to be enthusiastic about education to enable your children to be enthusiastic too." Most parents and children are like this but a hard core are not, for many reasons. They need to be sold the philosophy. There are so many ways to persuade and influence people’s ideas and beliefs. The advertising industry, television, shops, ways of brand marketing, have been doing it for decades and even hundreds of years. We need to bombard certain areas of society with the belief that education is a vital part of life like eating and drinking. Social support, places to get help and information could all be provided. We need to win them over, with their children and then all schools, with the constraints removed of course, would be like Michael Goves idea of, “free schools.”

ALICE SPRINGS

2011-08-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

"Alice (the town in Australia's Northern Territory also known as Alice Springs) used to be called Stuart."

Well that's a bit of a downer. I feel quite upset now.

FEZ on holiday

2011-08-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Marilyn has always wanted to go to Morocco. I don’t think her inspiration is provided by the Humphrey Bogart film Casablanca , it’s more Kate Winslet in Hideous Kinky. Also, I think the generation we come from, both of us have at the back of our minds some of the hippy philosophies still rattling around and thoughts of all things eastern; religion, philosophy, art, music and way of life.

A three hour flight from Stansted!

Stansted Airport is the worst airport to get to from where we live in Wimbledon, South London. There is that great metropolis called London stuck between us and Stansted which is thirty miles north of London. It’s very difficult to get to, for us anyway.

Fez airport. It's very hot here.

We arrived at Fez flying low over a brown landscape with the Rif mountains sharply outlined in the background. Acres and acres of olive groves came up to meet us as we descended towards the airport, their round spherical branch systems stretching out in evenly separated straight lines like so many afro hair styles, mile upon mile. Dark clouds lowered overhead and we thought this can’t be? Rainy London to rainy Fez. As soon as the door of the plane opened, the heat hit us. Overcast, but 35 degrees centigrade and then the lightening crackled and split the skies over the nearby mountains. A few drops of hot rain splashed and immediately evaporated and then we were in the terminal building. It was 5.30 pm in Morocco and we had arrived during Ramadan. We were lucky to find one white, beat up, Mercedes taxi to take us the five miles to our hotel. It rattled and swerved along empty roads through the French built Vielle Nouvelle and the palace area, called Fes el Djerid, until we got to Fez el Bari. It was driven by a smiling, happy driver who did not understand any English. However, he knew the Batha Hotel when we showed him the name. The Hotel Batha, in the Fes el Bali, is famous for having Winston Churchill stay there when it was the British Consulate. This part of Fez is situated amongst the medieval kasbahs, souks, mosques and medersas. The hotel is a wonderful example of Moroccan architecture. To the outside world it has high blank walls but its interior is a combination of mosaicked courtyards with fountains and luxurious Mediterranean palms and plants. There are ensuite rooms off blue railed balconies overlooking these richly coloured and patterned courtyards.

So we had arrived in Morocco in the middle of Ramadan. During the day people fast. This means no eating, smoking, drinking or sex during daylight hours. Once the sun has set they are permitted to eat and drink and presumably have sex. Marilyn, Emily, Abigail and I saw the Moroccans only eat and drink at night-time. This is a month long observance during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. The fasting promotes patience, spirituality, humility and submissiveness to God. As far as we could see everybody kept to this fast in Fez. It is humbling to see how important religion, worship and prayer is to the Muslims when we compare it to our secularised society. Christians fast too, during Lent. This has been reduced to making another attempt at dieting or rather bland promises about not drinking alcohol or smoking or not eating sweets for children. Our physical health rather than our souls health appears to be more important to us nowadays. Lent used to have a more important and serious meaning which seems to have been lost for a lot of people.

As far as we could make out then, everybody followed the rituals and rules of Ramadan. Probably in the Victorian period and certainly during the Georgian period, Christianity was followed in a similar unquestioning fashion here in England too. To many free thinkers that might sound like a draconian way of life, something ancient and part of history. I think this strict approach does have a lot of benefits though. I was taught from the age of five years old until I left school at eighteen, bound for university and a teaching career, by a French order of brothers called the "de La Mennais Brothers" from Brittany. Brother Paul, a very intelligent individual, a tough thinker and a muscular Christian, used to say ,”why all this questioning? It just makes you flabby and weak minded and indecisive and will lose you your faith.” He had a point. Brother Paul had his doubts I am sure, we all do. It is only human nature but he kept his faith and continued through his doubts. He achieved a high moral integrity. Keeping to a faith does free you, spiritually and morally and creates a stable healthy state of mind and being. It can be argued if you have a laissez fair attitude to life or what may be termed an open view of everything,unless you are careful and I doubt most of us are strong enough to resist, greed, pride and other nasty traits that can enslave us. We can look at the riots in this country recently and see what amorality achieves. It achieves greed . An acquisitiveness of things, enslaves us to those things, cars, computers, i-pads and the list goes on, which rot, rust and break. The Moroccans can achieve a spiritual, moral and personal freedom from greed by following their religion. You could almost say that they have a better quality of life and a higher moral understanding than us, by following a religion. However, just seeing religion as a means to be a more stable human being would diminish religion in the sense that you are using it for a personal purpose. Believing in a God is a bit like saying life is more than the sum of its parts.

One thing that is very noticeable is that Morocco is a male dominated society. After sunset,during Ramadan, when people are allowed to eat and drink again , it is the men who are out on the streets or sitting at the restaurants together. It is the men who sit at the shops and stalls in the market doing business during the day.The women are not seen nearly as much. Many women decide to cover their bodies completely in public, hands, arms, legs, heads, every bit of themselves even covering their eyes with a piece of netting. Some are less strict and leave their eyes,faces and hands uncovered. Others are more liberal still. Two waitresses in our hotel had their heads completely uncovered. There seems to be an element of choice to how much they want to do. I once saw two women in Wandsworth, South London, not far from where I live, completely covered with only their eyes visible, trying to cross a busy road. I really wondered how much they could see of the cars racing around them.

The Muslim religion has a belief that a woman belongs to her husband and that no part of her body should be seen by another person. This seems to be about possession and ownership. I am not the one to be critical at all. I have little understanding of Islam and the Muslim religion. I am sure there are things about Christianity which confuse Muslims.Women are gaining some rites and the country is becoming more liberal towards them; for instance a man cannot marry a second wife without permission of his first wife. If a woman wants a divorce she is allowed to divorce without the agreement of her husband.There are nowadays some places in Parliament for women.

Morocco is a Kingdom situated on the north west coast of Africa. The Atlas mountains begin in Morocco and the southern part of the country includes the north west corner of the Sahara Dessert. The population is mostly made up of Arabic Berbers, there are some true Berbers in the country and much of the population is Sunni Muslim. There is a small population of Jews who are on the decline.There are about five thousand Jews left in a total population of thirty five million.

The main languages are Berber and Moroccan Arabic. There has been a powerful French influence in the country so most speak French too and a little English to cope with us tourists from England. Many of the people we met were keen to talk to us.. They are very friendly people, really lovely, smiling and keen to be of help. They are shocked by the European and world reaction to all of North Africa because of what has happened in Libya,, Tunisia and Egypt. There was a rare bombing in Marrakech market last year. The tourist industry was stopped dead in its tracks. Where we were in Fez they had to close the markets for a month because there were no tourists.. Tourism is an important part of their economy. Fez is a friendly peaceful place.

There are some clashes between Algeria and Morocco over the Mahgreb region of the Sahara.Both countries claim the area. The people who live in the area, the Sahrawi, want autonomous status. The Moroccans are working towards this for them..

Moroccans are generally contented with their political system. They have a monarchy in which the King holds important and powerful executive powers but they have a two house parliamentary system with free elections and the parliament and majority party holds executive and legislative powers too. It is not permitted to criticise the monarchy in the press or in public life. Press freedoms are seen as liberal for North Africa and some French magazines are sold. However, journalists generally sensor themselves to stay the right side of the law. There are rumours but also some evidence, especially from detainees from Guantanomo Bay, that they have been tortured in Morocco to gain information about terrorist activities. It is said that the CIA have some of their ,"Black Sites," in Morocco.There are religious freedoms. Christians are allowed to practice but they must be a member of Islam too.The country is aided by the world bank and the international monetary fund to help develop it’s industry’s and infrastructure. The economy is based on agriculture to a great extent, too great for the amount of rainfall it gets and it has a small but growing telecommunications industry and information technology industry. It is also the world’s third largest phosphate producer. There is less likelihood for an uprising and revolution on the Libyan model.

The people are not well off. We saw poverty on the streets of Fez but not an exceeding amount.They are much less well-off generally than we are in Europe or North America. Literacy levels are at 50% of the population. They have universities and colleges of further education but only a few. Education is only required to the age of twelve. Here in England it is sixteen at the moment but most people carry on to eighteen so they can take A levels to get into university or go on to a continuing course of education in a trade or skill. You get the feeling and sense when you are in Morocco that the people are working hard towards a better more prosperous life. They are keen to meet Europeans and anybody willing to visit them.

Moroccos electricity power is supplied mostly from coal fired power stations at the moment but there is a big development in solar energy going on. When we were walking around the narrow alleyways of the ancient market in Fez we saw some roof tops with large solar energy installations. Many new buildings are being provided with solar energy panels. I must say that is happening in England too. Many new housing developments being built here are being made of recyclable materials, solar panels and better insulation to reduce the carbon footprint of the building.

From the Hotel Batha we walked out each day and got ourselves lost in the hustle and bustle of market life. We found the Karouaine Mosque where prayers during Ramadan were being said each day. We saw the medersas which are, in effect, universities mostly teaching theology. The oldest university in the world is in the Fes al Bari district.

What distinguishes Moroccan buildings from European buildings are the beautiful tiled courtyards with intricate Islamic designs and the fountains and the importance of water demonstrated niot just in the courtyard fountains but also in all the beautifully coloured tiled water fountains found throughout the market area. Water is spiritual in the sense it is cleansing of the body and soul and it is life giving too. Floors and walls inside many buildings are coveredwith intricate tile patterns.Islamic art is very much connected with the Muslim religion. It is about mood and setting and creating a meditative atmosphere. Colour has strong religious significance. Green is the colour of Islam and other colours have other significance. It is wrong in Islam to portray living things, portraits of people, and pictures of animals and plants, although plant like designs can be found. It is sacrilegious to portray living things. This has created a situation where Islamic artists have focussed on the meaning of colour and pattern using geometric designs and because of this patterns and designs made today are very similar or identical to patterns and designs made centuries ago. It is almost that there is no development in Islamic art. I am sure I am wrong and somebody might put me right but that is what it appears to be. Western art has developed from religious christian art, the telling of Ancient Greek myths and legends, the interpretation of different political beliefs, scientific theories, history, the way we interrelate with nature in the countryside and on the sea, the way we view people, using the subconscious, interpreting every day life, experimentation with materials and so on has created a diverse and ever growing creative body of art. Islam has not had this.

The market in the Fez el Bari is dusty, with narrow alleyways and many shops huddled either side as you walk through it’s labyrinthine maze. Donkeys and mules barge through, laden with goods. The butchers stalls have camel heads hung up and much of the meat on display is camel meat. Stalls with bags of pungent herbs and spices assault your senses. Mounds and pyramids of dates and figs with syrup flowing over them glisten before you. Jewellery, carpets and leather goods are sold everywhere. People call to you from their market stalls but we found that they do not hassle you too much and make you uncomfortable. They are friendly. One morning as we approached one of the gateways into the market a woman came out from under a tarpaulin next to a market stall, her long wavy black hair hanging roughly over her shoulders and down her back. She was wearing a dirty and grimy nightshirt. She scrabbled about in the dirt and rubbish about her. She eventually held up a torn piece of newspaper and with her wrinkled old face and narrowed eyes she proceeded to read something out loud to the world around her and then cackled, laughing hoarsely over its contents. Something amused her.

We found leather shops where beautiful Moroccan leather bags and shoes were sold. One leather goods owner deep in the market area took us up onto the roof of his shop to show us the dying and tannery vats. It was like a scene from the middle ages. Men stood in these giant stone and brick vats,the size of small swimming pools, full of different coloured dyes and tanning substances which had a strong ammonia smell. They used pigeon droppings to create the ammonia. The shop keeper gave each of us a handful of mint to hold to our noses because of the smell. These men, tanning the leather, earned 30 drms a day for this smelly and dangerous work. Thirty drms is equivalent to £3.

Emily had been waiting for her chance to barter. One of her aims, coming to Morocco was to buy a leather bag in the souk. In the leather workers shop she bartered and bartered. I think the shop owner had met his match. He asked for 1200 drms and Emily guffawed. "200 drms,” she said. The shopkeeper thought this a derisive offer. He said," a thousand.". Emily said 200drms again. The shopkeeper thought it much too low and offered 900 drms. Emily said ,"400," but he was having nothing of it. "500," Emily retorted but the shopkeeper still thought this too low. Eventually Emily said, “Well that’s it then. I’m looking somewhere else.” Marilyn, Abigail and I were mortified and embarrassed. As we went to leave the shop the shopkeeper called us back and agreed 500 drms. Emily got her bag. It is a very good quality leather bag. Moroccan leather is famous and sort after. Probably,the man got what he wanted all along but don’t tell Emily.

Next door to our hotel was the Batha Museum. It is an Hispano Moorish palace dating from the 19th century. Like all grand Moroccan buildings the outside looks austere with high walls but once inside it was like an exotic palace from the Arabian Nights. A large courtyard planted with figs, dates, giant palm trees, limes and oranges filled the centre. Around the edge of the garden, like a massive cloister, were cool white rooms with beautifully painted ceilings with exhibits from Berber culture exhibited. Wedding costumes, jewellery, cooking pots, knives and swords.There are carved wooden panels and beautiful ceramics. To remind us that Islam has produced great scientists there are magnificent brass astrolabes on view.Things that a desert people and a sea going people sophisticated in design and trade need and have made.

Marilyn, Emily, Abigail and myself knew we were not going to get a,"luxurious beside the beach," style holiday waited on hand and foot. What we did get was a deep and thought provoking cultural experience with sounds, sites and smells thrown in. We met and talked to Moroccans and learned about their hopes and fears. We will remember this for the rest of our lives.

A piece of camel being carried in the market.

The Blue Gate. One of the main gateways into the Fez el Bari.

A gateway with the Rif Mountains in the background.

A doorway in a secluded spot in the market area.

POST IT WALLS TELL A DIFFERENT STORY

2011-08-17T06:08:00.000-07:00

Since the terrible riots in this country last week many people are finding ways of expressing their love for England and the areas they live in.

POST IT walls are a rising phenomenon.

Here is an article that explains this outpouring of feeling.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14548710

FAMILY! Is this the answer?

2011-08-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of an 18th century family. Normally you expect a picture displaying family life from this era to be rather ,"starchy," and formal ,but not this one.

The eldest daughter is staring at her father, willing him to make a wrong move on the draughts board. The youngest sister rests against her older sister's arm wanting to be in on the action. The mother sits with a relaxed, contented baby on her lap looking on lovingly. The baby is being loved and included.

This is what a stable loving family life looks like in any generation. They will argue and fight, of course they will, but they will forget and forgive and what is very evident from this picture they give each other time, love and include everybody in their activities.

Love, being included, giving each other time, forgiving, these are all the traits missing from many of todays fractured families. This picture is what family life should be all about.

Nobody in this picture will go out and loot and steal and burn their neighbourhood.

You might say, but this is idealistic and I would be the first to admit that my own family is quite a way from the family portrayed above. The pressures of life and this world are immense. However the picture enables us to observe what would be good to aim for. It makes us aware of what is good.

ENGLAND RIOTS

2011-08-09T00:29:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night a young man was shot dead by police in Tottenham, North London. Whether the police felt threatened, the dead person was carrying a gun, or overreacted, we will have to wait for the investigation into his killing. This provoked a peaceful demonstration by his family members and friends who marched to the local police station to get answers to the killing. The police were slow to react and communicate with the family.

Later that night, apparently disaffected youths went on the streets burning and looting shops in the Tottenham area and this escalated in a full blown riot. At first it seemed a reaction to the killing but it has turned into mindless violence throughout London over a number of nights and other places in the country, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. What is a feature of these riots is the imitation of violence that is occurring.

The family of the shot young man have appeared on televison to say that they do not condone the violence. They want answers about the killing of their son but did not expect and do not want this terrible destruction and further injuries and deaths in response.

The police have struggled to contain the violence and destruction. The groups of youths and gangs involved move quickly and swiftly from one area to the next ahead of the police. What was very worrying at first was that these gangs seemed immune to arrest. It seemd nothing could stop them. BB communication, (the use of Blackberry phones), Twitter and Facebook helped them organise quickly and warn each other of an impending police presence. The police have now joined these Twitter and Facebook groups and I am sure are hacking phones, so are able to predict areas where the violence might break out next.

Some youths have been interviewed and on some television coverage you can hear them shouting to each other. They are saying things such as,

“Nobody can stop me. I’m showing the rich and the government I can do what I want.”

“I’m going back to get more stuff.”

"I'm going to keep on taking stuff until I get arrested."

The word ,”stuff,” rather obviously means getting things from looted and smashed shops. What is it they want? Phones, trainers, designer clothes with the right labels, computers, I-pads and so on. These are the desirable things of our consumer society that are held up to our youth as what they need to be part of their culture. These things define them.

What it has boiled down to is greed fuelled by a consumer society and an amoral code of living.

How have we got to this amoral society we live in?

Many of these youths come from poor backgrounds but they are offered the same education system the whole country gets. They have a National Health Service which provides all their health care. It seems they have the opportunities to get on in society. If they want to make something of themselves they can but they are rejecting these things.

Many families are broken. There are no moral codes left to teach or live by. Religions are generally put to one side by the majority and nothing but amorality has taken their place. There are many fractured families who can’t cope. Generations of broken family life is now endemic for many in this country.

It’s not just the poor who suffer this moral collapse, many of the rich too are just as amoral in many situations, it’s just that they have money.

Consumerism has fuelled this. Maybe the economic downturn in the world might create a more balanced view of consumerism and bring back higher moral values but I’m not expecting too much.

At the moment we have to contend with burning and looting in Tottenham, Croydon, Sutton and Colliers Wood, which is only two miles from where I live. I was in one of the sports shops in Colliers Wood a week ago that was looted and burned on Sunday night. That is a chilling thought.

Police cells are full throughout London. Magistrates Courts are working twenty fours a day. Although London was reasonably quiet last night, Birmingham and Liverpool were alight again. When is it going to stop and what can we do about it?

BBC quotes of the day!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-08-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. SCOTT ADAMS.

The first commercial chewing gum appeared in 1871, after Thomas Adams (1818-1905) had previously failed to make car tyres from the same ingredients.

THESE SUMMER DAYS

2011-08-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

Summer evening over South London.Hydrangea

Wild blackberries
The trampoline is for Abigail,who is 10 years old. Oh! and for me after a beer.
Crab apples. They make great cab apple jelly.
The seed pods on the ,"Flags," in our wild pond.
Marilyn likes to plant out pots and various other containers.
Somewhere to chill out with a glass of wine in the summer.
Pansies.
A certain garden in The London Borough of Merton, south west London.

OK, I admit it, it's my garden.

Windsor Castle

2011-07-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

THE IRISH GUARDS AT WINDSOR CASTLE

I visited Windsor Castle recently. It's not far, about ten miles round the M25 from where I live in Wimbledon.

It was a sunny day. We drove past Runneymede and stopped off to see some of the monuments commemorating the Magna Carta but Windsor Castle was our main aim of the day. Here are a few soldiers during the changing of the guard. They are the Irish Guards who are based at Victoria Barracks in Windsor itself.

Bath Ales

2011-07-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

I was in our local Waitrose this evening when I saw a new beer on the shelves in the wines and ales department. It was called, "Bath Ales GEM."The label looked rather bland and , to be honest, not really trying to sell itself.A mat orange background , not the sort of in your face orange, bursting into bright glaring flames in fron t of your eye balls but rather a mustardy orange like a pool of sick. But the name Bath in the title intrigued me. Must be a new brewery in Jane country, I thought, quizzically.So I bought a bottle. And when I got home I poured it into a pint glass and tasted. Well, not bad. A malty aroma with a gentle hoppy taste. Yes, quite palatable. I decided I could drink it. However, before the pint of Bath Ale disappeared down my parched gullet I took a picture of the bottle and my pint glass full with the delightful amber liquid.

What would Jane have made of this brew? Well there were pubs just off Milsom Street. I don't think she would have gone into one herself though. Near Steventon and Chawton there are some excellent pubs and some would probably have been there in her day. English country pubs tend to be old. I'm talking 13th and 14th century.Jane would have visited some as coaching inns on her way to London, or Winchester, or even in the short distance to Alton from Chawton. Her brother Edward is thought to have built and owned a pub in the village of Farringdon, a mile from Chawton, a place Jane often walked to. He would have employed a landlord to manage it. Jane had friends in Farringdon so she would have known her brother's public house.

Just in case you are interested here is a link to the Bath brewery.

http://www.bathales.com/brewery/index.html

Jane Austen Born 16th December 1775 -Died 18th July 1817

2011-07-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

Every one of these pictures is connected with Jane Austen.

Membury Services M4

2011-06-26T01:34:00.000-07:00

Wing walker above the Membury Services in West Berkshire.

Yesterday, Saturday 25th June, Marilyn, Alice, Abigail and myself drove west along the M4 across England to Wales.We needed to go to Newport where Alice is at university doing fashion design. She is very good. I know, that's her dad talking!!!!!

Alice is moving out of her halls of residence this year and moving to a small Victorian terraced house in Newport with three friends for next year. She needed help in moving. Her mum, dad and youngest sister were roped in to help.

The M4 is an iconic motorway slicing across England from London, in a virtually straight line, over the Severn Estuary Bridge and into South Wales and it keeps going as far as Camarthen in the western tip of Wales. It is a 300 mile cross section of the country.

I must admit at my age, I need motorway stops,often, to use the loo and dose up on strong coffee, to keep me going.

It was a lovely day yesterday and our first stop was at the Membury Service Station in West Berkshire, the beginning of the Cotswolds, about 80 miles west of London. It is situated amongst a miriad of villages and historic sites. The White Horse at Uffington is just north of it. Straight Soley, Chilton Foliat, Whittonditch, Crooked Soley, Great Shefford, Froxfield, Ramsbury and Knighton are all villages nearby. As we parked, there was a roar overhead. We looked up and caught sight of a yellow biplane zooming past, low above us with a,"wing walker," standing erect, arms out in cruciform style atop the uppermost wing. The plane and man swooped, circled, climbed and dived around a circular course, all about us. I whipped out my camera and took as many pictures as I could.

All the best.

WRITERS I HATE TO LOVE.

2011-06-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

Mark TwainMark Twain famously lashed out with vehemence against Jane Austen in a most startling and shocking statement.

"Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

However he had a down to earth , solid view of life and helps all of us to perceive our situation better.

Here is one of those life maxims you can find peppered throughout Twain's work. This comes form Tom Sawyer.

"He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."

So true, so true!!!!

WALT WHITMAN

I must apologise. Raquel has pointed out to me that I attributed the above salacious, damnable quotation by Mark Twain to Walt Whitman. However I like this Whitman poem so much I don't want to remove it. So, in honour of that snowy bearded, gentle looking, old man in the picture above, Walt Whitman, towards whom I hold no grudge, hatred or dislike here is one of his marvellous poems.

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE
by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

N the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

TED HUGHES

Some say Ted Hughes killed Sylvia Plath. He didn't, she killed herself but his womanising could possibly have pushed her over the edge. She was prone to suicidal thoughts and yearnings. The great majority of us would not have committed suicide in the same instance no matter how shitty life was. His poetry is the best poetry I have ever read about wildlife and nature.

Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

ERNEST HEMMINGWAY

Ernest Hemmingway was a drunkard, an alcoholic, a mysogynist, a liar, a wife beater,a self promoter with a massive ego and he wrote some of the most intense novels I have ever read. Stories that reached deep inside my consciousness. In them I recognised the essence of true human endeavour and life. The Old Man Of The Sea and For Whom The bells Toll.Our world would be a much much poorer place without them.

"Now is the time to think of only one thing. That which I was born for."

(The Old man of The Sea by Ernest Hemmingway)

"I will learn from Pilar what I should do to take care of a man well and those things I will do," Maria said. "Then, as I learn, I will discover things for myself and other things you can tell me."...

(For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway)

William Cowper

2011-06-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

William Cowper was the favourite poet of both Jane Austen and her father the Reverend George Austen. Cowper wrote about highly religious themes and was very sermonising in his tone. I can imagine The Reverend George Austen quoting from Cowper in his sermons in his little church in Steventon.

Here is a short poem by Cowper. I wonder if Jane used sentiments from this poem when she invented the character of Elinor in Sense and Sensibilty?

A Comparison. Addressed To A Young Lady

Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade,
Apt emblem of a virtuous maid
Silent and chaste she steals along,
Far from the world's gay busy throng:
With gentle yet prevailing force,
Intent upon her destined course;
Graceful and useful all she does,
Blessing and blest where'er she goes;
Pure-bosom'd as that watery glass,
And Heaven reflected in her face.

He also wrote poems about nature which would appeal to a country girl like Jane. Jane would feel empathy for this goldfinch caged and out of it's natural environment. The same thing was to happn to her when her father suddenly removed them all to Bath.

William Cowper

On a Goldfinch, Starved to Death in His Cage

In a letter to the Rev. William Urwin, Nov. 9., 1780, William Cowper explains

"I wrote the following last summer.

The tragical occasion of it really happened at the house next to ours." (82)

Time was when I was free as air,
The thistle's downy seed my fare,
My drink the morning dew;
I perch'd at will on every spray,
My form genteel, my plumage gay,
My strains forever new.

But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain,
And form genteel were all in vain,
And of a transient date;
For, caught and caged, and starved to death,
In dying sighs my little breath
Soon pass'd the wiry grate.

Thanks, gentle swain, for all my woes,
And thanks for this effectual close
And cure of every ill!
More cruelty could none express;
And I, if you had shown me less,
Had been your prisoner still. (632)

Paul McCartney and Jane Austen, both!!!!!

2011-03-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sir Paul Mc Cartney and Jane Austen are to be honoured at the opening of the newly refurbished Liverpool Central Library. Paul McCartney will have his name placed on a plaque alongside the names of other famous Liverpool writers, on the side of the building.

On the pavement, outside of the library, will be placed bricks with the names of books found inside the library. These will include Pride and Prejudice.

The library will also have inspirational quotes by John Lennon on display.

Paul McCartney honoured

at Liverpool Central Library

Sir Paul McCartney will appear on the Liverpool Literary

panel outside the city's Central Library

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A list of Merseyside writers to be immortalised in a special panel on Liverpool's Central Library has been revealed.

Sir Paul McCartney was the most popular choice to be added to the Literary Liverpool panel.

Other names to be displayed include Lynda La Plante, Willy Russell and Frank Cottrell Boyce.

The panel will be displayed on the rear of the William Brown Street building following its £50m redevelopment.

Finalists were selected by the libraries and archives team as well as members of the public.

Pavement engravings

Sir Paul said: "I would be very happy for my name to be used on the external cladding of the redeveloped Liverpool Central Library and Archive. Thank you for doing me this honour."

The tribute to Sir Paul comes after the library discovered a prize-winning essay written when he was 10.

Written in 1953, the work for the Queen's coronation had lain undiscovered in a scrap

book for over 50 years.

Engraved on the pavement will be titles of books which can be found in the building including Pride and Prejudice, Educating Rita and Peter Pan.

Famous quotations such as "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans", by John Lennon, will also have their place in the new library in an area dedicated to inspirational quotes.

The library will also house the Liverpool Record Office with its 14km (8.7miles) of archives. Computers will allow visitors to download music and books onto MP3 and MP4 players.

Liverpool City Council's Head of Libraries, Joyce Little, said: "The redevelopment of Liverpool's Central Library is a huge project and will make the venue one of the best public libraries in the UK."

The newly refurbished library is scheduled to reopen in Spring 2013.

Hey!!! you Americans are becoming English.

2011-03-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

You really MUST stop watching films about Jane Austen.

Can't be doing you any good.

The next thing, you will all be buying silver encased dance cards. When you want to dance, or chat to somebody of the opposite sex, you will have to sign their card and wait in turn. God forbid if you renege on your appointment.

All the best,

Tony

Three new BBC items

2011-03-04T23:43:00.000-08:00

Just having a leisurely jaunt through the BBC website this morning and came across these three gems.

For the new Olympic Park in the East End of London, a line from Tennyson's poem Ulysses has been chosen as the maxim for the games in 2012.

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield", from Ulysses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12648407

AND THEN I came across this unbelievable story from North Western University. I'm not sure where that is but I was gobsmacked when I read this.

I've been a teacher for 34 years and I thought I knew every teaching strategy and possible teaching aid going. But no...... have a read of this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12642898

Could be a run on batteries. I wonder if teachers can get a discount??????

"Student feedback for this event was uniformly positive," Prof Bailey said.

AND FINALLY: It is World Book Day and publishers over here are giving away a million books. A request went out ages and ages ago in the newspapers for volunteers to help give away the books.Each volunteer has been given 24 books to give to friends . I didn't volunteer but I hope somebody I know did. I might get given one. I just hope, if I'm lucky, to be a recipient.As long as it's not a Jilly Cooper, or something crass like that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12647600

All the best,

Tony

And the OSCAR goes to the microphone!!!

2011-02-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

The BBC have an archive, not just of sound recordings and television recordings over the decades but also of equipment.

Here is an article about the microphones King George VI used and yes they still do work, perfectly.

Have a listen to two presenters using it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12591587

How Colin Firth Are You?

2011-02-26T13:28:00.000-08:00

I've succumbed to the OSCAR hype.

HOW BLOODY AWFUL IS THAT!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a BBC QUIZ.

I'm sure you can all do it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/comedy/2011/02/interactive-quiz-how-colin-fir.shtml

Going for a run

2011-02-26T01:03:00.000-08:00

A VIEW OF TENBY HARBOUR

Marilyn, Emily, Abigail and myself have been staying in Tenby for a few days this week.

Tenby is a beautiful Georgian Town on the rugged Pembrokeshire coast in South Wales. Marilyn comes form Tenby and we were visiting her mum and dad.

The weather in Wales is mostly wet. Last week there was a lot of sea mist and fog rolling in from The Bristol Channel and The Irish Sea.

Tenby itself is set within the Pembrokeshire Coastal National Park. The park comprises 300 miles of rugged, wild and beautiful coastline. It is the haunt of many wild sea birds, dolphins, small sharks, puffins and cormorants. Like Cornwall, the Pembrokeshire coast has traditionally been an area for fishing.

During the Georgian period Tenby was regarded as an elegant place to visit and take seaside holidays. Nelson and Lady Hamilton stayed here. George Elliot lived here for a short while. Jane Austen wrote in her letters about friends staying in Tenby. It is thought the Austen family probably stayed too. Well known famous artists and actors have visited. Augustus John and Gwen John, his sister, were born and brought up in Tenby. Dylan Thomas used to visit Tenby from the boathouse at Laugharne just along the coast.

Last Wednesday I got up early, pulled on my NIKES and started out through Tenby town to the South Beach. Tenby is surrounded by beautiful beaches backed by rugged cliffs. There is North Beach, Castle Beach, yes it has a castle and South Beach. I chose South Beach because it is a mile of curving golden sand ending in tortuous pathways leading up onto rocky rugged cliffs .

The scene from here, on a clear day, shows a great stretch of blue sea with Caldy Island and it's whitewashed Cistercian Monastery and other smaller islands that are inhabited only by sea birds. The view is magnificent. On Wednesday though, everything was shrouded in mist. A mysterious,Gothic scene. It felt dramatic running along the beach and up on to the cliffs. The smell of the sea and the strong wind made it feel wild and close to nature. It was an exilerating experience.

Here are some pictures from my run.

Oliver Twist's WORKHOUSE

2011-02-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

A Victorian Workhouse.
Dr Ruth Richardson discusses her findings with Dr Paul Schlicke, editor of The Dickens Companion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9401000/9401431.stm

I couldn't access the radio interview on it's own but here is a link to the BBC website that will allow you to listen to the interview.

So, they think they have found the very workhouse Dickens used as his source for Oliver Twist.

For all those about to............

2011-02-18T01:39:00.000-08:00

For all those about to travel by air
Enjoy Kate Nash's latest song.

Have a good flight!!!!!!

Tony

Bath, Nicolas Cage and Johnny Depp

2011-02-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

Would you believe it. Yesterday the Guardian had that article about Georgian pornographic poetry and now, today, the Independent has an article about Bath. But not just any old article. Did you know Nicolas Cage and Johnny Depp live in Bath? Nicolas Cage lives in The Circus no less. What is the world coming to!!! Bloody Hell!!! (Sorry about the expletive.)

Saucy 18th century poetry article

2011-02-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

This article was in today's Guardian. I thought you all might be interested.

Click on the article to get full magnification.

OUTNUMBERED

2011-02-04T11:32:00.000-08:00

There is a TV series over here called OUTNUMBERED that is ostensibly a comedy series but there is no comedy in it.

It is played totally straight.

The everyday life of ordinary middle class parents "outnumbered," and confused by their three young children. If this does not have you choking with laughter you must be dead.

All the best,

Tony

Oh by the way, the little girl in this series plays one of the two princesses in the oscar nominated film, The King's Speech. She is a real star.

Here are a couple of taster clips of the series.

LONDON 1927

2011-01-30T14:49:00.000-08:00

This is absolutely amazing. It's a compilation of colour film showing London in 1927, between the two great wars.

Thank you, Mary, for sending me this film clip.

Robert Burns's Birthday

2011-01-24T22:56:00.000-08:00

It is 250 years since the birth of Robert Burns. He was born on the 25th January 1759.

ADDRESS TO A HAGGIS

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect sconner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer, 
Gie her a Haggis!

Twist and Shout!!!!!!!

2011-01-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

Twist a little closer now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With thanks to Vic.

You might notice that, The Beatles, are dressed just as elegantly as the gentleman in the picture.

Viva la Vida TWICE!!!!!!!!!!

2011-01-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

Here is Coldplay singing their song Viva La Vida.

Recently, Lady Gaga, was being interviewed on Radio 1. She was asked to sing a song live on the programme. She chose to sing Coldplay's Viva la Vida.

REGENCY POWER AND BRILLIANCE

2011-01-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

Self portrait of Thomas Lawrence

The National Portrait Gallery are presenting an exhibition of Thomas Lawrence's protraits.

Here is a link.

http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2010/thomas-lawrence-regency-power-and-brilliance-minisite.php

Some Recent Pictures Of Kingston upon Thames

2011-01-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

In many ways we are very lucky living in South London. Being close to the centre of the metropolis and having all that that offers is just one benefit.

London is made up of towns, villages and boroughs all joined together to make the greater metropolitan area that is called Greater London.

In The London Borough of Merton, where we live, we are spoilt for choice when it comes to shopping. We have the centre of Wimbledon close by. Four miles in a westerly direction we have Kingston upon Thames. South of us, three miles away, we have Sutton and Croydon towns.Usually we use Wimbledon Town centre but often we go to Kingston upon Thames and occasionally shop in the other centres, just for variety.

We did some shopping in Kingston upon Thames just before Christmas.

Here are some pictures.

The High Street looking east.
The high street looking west.

The coffee shop in the John Lewis store.
This is the Bentall Centre. I took this on my mobile phone. The security here don't like you using cameras around the shops.

Christmas cracker jokes!!!!!!!!!!

2010-12-26T02:41:00.000-08:00

Christmas day.The crib at our local church.
I don't know about you lot, but as we are eating our Christmas dinner here at the Grants we pull crackers and read each other the jokes found inside. They are the most awful jokes you can imagine.

But, as the sparkling wine gets imbibed and the turkey goes down, we tend to find them FUNNY!!!!

Oh my goodness, have a read of some of these that came out of our crackers yesterday.

1. What do you give a sick pig?

Oink-ment.

2. How do you get two wales in a car?

Over the Severn Bridge.

(You need to be Welsh to understand that one. The Severn is the river that separates South Wales from England.)

3. What's sweet and swings through the jungle?

Tarzipan.

4. Why does a giraffe have such a long neck?

Because it's feet smell.

5. Why can't you play cards in the jungle?

There are too many cheetahs.

HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH YET???

Oh well, just one more then.

6. What goes woof - woof- tick?

A watch dog.

So what do you think??????

The Snow is back!!!!!

2010-12-17T23:53:00.001-08:00

As you can see it snowed here yesterday. We had some heavy snow in the South of England a couple of weeks ago but then it thawed and life got back to normal. The temperature rose a couple of degrees and we got back to our normal dark, slightly cold, dampish, English winter. Over the last couple of days the temperature has dropped to freezing and below again and yesterday afternoon the snow came back.

When I arrived home, Sam, my eldest, had decided to leave his mark.

I was asked to do some supply teaching yesterday at Thames Ditton Junior School. It's a lovely school I have done some work in before. During the afternoon the snow started to fall, quite heavily, for a short time. When it was time to go home we had a winter wonderland again.

This is Thames Ditton Station. I had to wait twenty minutes for a train BRRRRRRRRR!!!!

The train was lovely and hot though.
Somebody, like me, must have got bored waiting for a train. They should have had a camera with them. I always find aerosol cans too bulky to carry around.

JANE AUSTEN'S BIRTHDAY POST

2010-12-14T14:23:00.000-08:00

A BIRTHDAY CARD FOR JANE FROM ALL OF US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Many famous writers have commented on Jane Austen’s writing over the centuries. I thought I would review some of these comments today, 16^th December, Jane Austen’s birthday.

I’m sure Jane herself would have loved the comments her work inspired and even laughed at the brutish criticism of some. She would most certainly have been able to reciprocate in high fashion.

I have made a poor attempt at replying to some of these comments on her behalf. I say poor, because my comments lack her rapier wit and sharp waspish sting. While her reposts would surely have been fine tuned and delicately deadly, mine can only be boisterous and blunt.

She was born in 1775, exactly 235 years to the day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"One doesn't read Jane Austen; one re-reads Jane Austen."

William F. Buckley, Jr

I wonder what “two,” does????????

J.K. realising she has just made ANOTHER £100,000,000. (I wonder how many noughts her bank account has these days?)

"My favorite writer is Jane Austen, and I've read all her books so many times I've lost count ... I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen. Being able to sit at home at the parsonage and your books would be very famous and occasionally you would correspond with the Prince of Wales's secretary."

J. K. Rowling, 2003

No! no! no! A famous writer doesn’t do that. You’ve got it all wrong J. K.

They write a popular series of books, using the same characters each time, and persuade children, and adults alike, to read them. Of course you must put an adult appropriate cover on the adults copy so they won’t feel stupid on the train in the morning. Then you must jolly well get a Hollywood studio to buy the film rites, but still allow you to have the final say, help market, cauldron loads of merchandise and make a billion pounds.

Now that is what a famous author really does Miss Rowling.

Didn’t you know that????

SILLY!

Good old Rudyard.

Jane lies in Winchester—blessed be her shade!
Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made!
And while the stones of Winchester, or Milsom Street, remain,
Glory, love and honor unto England's Jane.

Rudyard Kipling, 1924

WOW!!!!!

Rousing stuff. It makes me want to stand up straight and salute the flag. Ah!!The Empire. Do or die. I’ve got a stiff upper lip already.

"There have been several revolutions of taste during the last century and a quarter of English literature, and through them all perhaps only two reputations have never been affected by the shifts of fashion: Shakespeare's and Jane Austen's... She has compelled the amazed admiration of writers of the most diverse kinds."

Edmund Wilson, 1944

True!!!!!!!!!

"Also read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!"

Sir Walter Scott, 1826

Well Walter, you liked her. But I nearly fell asleep reading this. What was your point? Oh, and please remind me what you wrote yourself?????????

The house of Henry James, Rye, Sussex.

"The key to Jane Austen's fortune with posterity has been in part the extraordinary grace of her facility... as if she sometimes over her work basket fell... into woolgathering, and her dropped stitches... were afterwards picked up as... little master-strokes of imagination."

Henry James, 1905

Henry James, although an American, lived most of his life in England.The last years in Rye in Sussex on the South coast of England. The house he lived in is a beautiful Georgian brick town house, of ample size, tucked away in a corner of the town next to the church.

Henry James must have had a bracing walk by Rye harbour, taking the sea air, a salt marsh away these days, and breathing in the ozone to clear his brain before he wrote this lovely perceptive metaphorical piece.

"...Jane Austen, of course, wise in her neatness, trim in her sedateness; she never fails, but there are few or none like her."

Edith Wharton, 1925

“Wise,” “neat,” “trim,” “sedate.”

No she bloody wasn’t!!!!!!!

"To believe (Jane Austen) limited in range because she was harmonious in method is as sensible as to imagine that when the Atlantic Ocean is as smooth as a mill-pond, it shrinks to the size of a mill-pond... Look through the lattice-work of her neat sentences, joined together with the bright nails of craftsmanship, painted with the gay varnish of wit, and you will see women haggard with desire or triumphant with love."

Rebecca West, 1928

Oh yes. “haggard with desire or triumphant with love.” That’s more like it.Lets get some powerful feelings into these comments.Lets get the blood pumping.

"I am inclined to say in desperation, read it yourself and kick out every sentence that isn't as Jane Austen would have written it in prose. Which is, I admit, impossible. But when you do get a limpid line in perfectly straight normal order, isn't it worth any other ten?"

Ezra Pound, in a letter to Laurence Binyon, 1938

OK Ezra, I think, I know what you mean.

Jane Austen? Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.
, Robert Underwood Johnson

A little understanding and compassion is required towards Robert Johnson. It takes a lot of courage to tell the word that you are illiterate.

Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
- Following the Equator

Mr ,”Following The Equator,” if that is truly what you are doing in life, you must at some point have got very wet walking through vast oceans, sweaty to the touch and eye, in heated tropical forests, cracked on your skull with falling coconuts on far flung tropical islands and got savaged by marauding lions and perhaps bitten by venomous snakes. Your brain has anyway.

Walt Witman thinking over what he has just written about our Jane.

I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

She makes me detest all her people, without reserve. Is that her intention? It is not believable. Then is it her purpose to make the reader detest her people up to the middle of the book and like them in the rest of the chapters? That could be. That would be high art. It would be worth while, too. Some day I will examine the other end of her books and see.

Mark Twain

One day,” it would be worth while,” if somewhat repulsive and repugnant, to examine your “other end,”Walt, and spank it mercilessly with a smashed and splintered plank of wood, toothy with bent rusty nails.

And finally:

Jane Austen, uncertain and in need of fortitude in her bodily life, had a mind that moved swiftly, certainly, like a powerfully launched arrow shaft, splitting imperceptibly the air around it, flying straight to it’s bulls eye inside all our imaginations for ever and ever.

Tony Grant 2010

A few, ripe quotations from Jane herself.

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal."letter of December 24, 1798

[At a ball, where being introduced is a prerequisite before a gentleman can ask a lady with whom he is unacquainted to dance:]
"There was one gentleman, an officer of the Cheshire, a very good-looking young man, who, I was told, wanted very much to be introduced to me, but as he did not want it quite enough to take much trouble in effecting it, we never could bring it about." letter of January 8 1799

"He seems a very harmless sort of young man, nothing to like or dislike in him -- goes out shooting or hunting with the two others all the morning, and plays at whist and makes queer faces in the evening." letter of September 23, 1813

[On arriving in London:] "Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted." letter of August 1796

[At a ball:] "Mrs. B. and two young women were of the same party, except when Mrs. B. thought herself obliged to leave them to run round the room after her drunken husband. His avoidance, and her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing scene." letter of May 12 1801

You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me." letter of June 15, 1808

[On the Peninsular War:] "How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!" letter of May 31, 1811

"Kill poor Mrs. Sclater if you like it while you are at Manydown." letter of February 9 1813

"I am sorry my mother has been suffering, and am afraid this exquisite weather is too good to agree with her. I enjoy it all over me, from top to toe, from right to left, longitudinally, perpendicularly, diagonally; and I cannot but selfishly hope we are to have it last till Christmas -..."- letter of December 2 1815

Phew!! Who said Jane Austen couldn’t be sexy?

JANE'S Birthday on Thursday 16th December.

2010-12-11T16:18:00.000-08:00

I HOPE EVERYBODY CAN FIND TIME TO LOOK AT MY BLOG ON THURSDAY 16TH.

I've got something special planned.

It might make you laugh. It might make you cry.

All the best,

Tony

Handels MESSIAH "The Hallelujah Chorus"

2010-12-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

Mary Simonsen, wrote a post mentioning Handel's Messiah. It brought back fond teenage memories when I was made to listen to The Messiah by a teacher who was a Handel fanatic. He got all of us 16 year old lads totally addicted to it.

Here's The Hallelujah Chorus.

Try it FULL VOLUME.

Kings College Cambridge

2010-12-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

ESPECIALLY FOR CHRISTMAS.

PLEASE ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!

Here's some information about Kings College Cambridge.

All the best,

Tony

http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/

http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/choir/

A Local Shopping Precinct Experience

2010-12-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

Of course this sort of thing happens all the time in our local shopping precinct in Wimbledon.

All the best,

Tony

A MILLION BOOKS TO BE GIVEN AWAY

2010-12-02T05:01:00.000-08:00

For WORLD BOOK NIGHT a million books are being given away in the UK and Northern Ireland.

Here's a link!!!!!!!! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11897425

Might be worth getting a flight over to get armfuls of freebees!!!!!!!!!

Alan Bennett and Nigel Slater are amongst the authors having their books given away.

We have snow in the South 2.12.10

2010-12-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

SOME RANDOM PICTURES TAKEN THIS MORNING .

Recently Britain has been affected by heavy snow in the North of England and Scotland. Now it's hit the South, with a vengeance.

The weather forecast for the whole country shows a white out.

Here are some pictures from this morning.

A cosy corner in our garden where we sit out and drink wine on a Summers evening.
Taking Abi to school this morning we went via our local train station. Here are commuters listening to announcements about cancelled trains. On the Southern Region network, about fifty years ago, they designed a system which uses a third rail. This rail carriers the electrical power line. The trains pick up the power through pads that contact the third rail. Of course in extreme weather conditions like heavy ice and snow the third rail does not work efficiently. Other parts of the country, The Northern Region, use overhead cables. These tend to work better in adverse conditions. And again, other areas use diesel powered trains, which keep going the longest. Deep snow drifts on the tracks are the only thing that stop diesel trains.

My road, outside my house, at 6.30am this morning. I went outside to clear the snow off the car.Our house in the snow. 6.30am!!!!!!!
Our back garden.

Looking down our road in one direction.The weather forecast on the telly this morning. The whole of Britain is looking decidedly,WHITE!!!!!!

Our road and some poor bloke walking to work down the middle of the road.
Abi on the way to school.
Abi feeding the guinea pigs before she goes to school. The guinea pigs are very comfortable outside. They have plenty of straw, wood chippings and after Abi has finished, fresh food and water.

The Importance of Parks

2010-11-27T03:00:00.000-08:00

I was on Wimbledon Common yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours. I usually go running on the common but yesterday I cycled there and did some walking. I hurt my right heel running the day before and it's giving me ,"jip."

If you look at a map of London you will notice that there are a lot of parks; green spaces. English towns and cities and all local communities have their parks, commons and recreation grounds. The emphasise is slightly different for each but fundamentally they are the same, they are large areas of trees, open grassland, ponds, lakes, recreation facilities and sports facilities provided for the enjoyment of the population and they are free. They are what make big cities, towns and communities human places to live. Parks keep us sane. Walking in a park, taking in the wildlife, the changing seasons, or perhaps playing a sport, keeps us healthy in mind and body.They are places where you can go and be silent within yourself, get in touch with your inner being before you once more enter the fray.They almost have a spiritual quality.

London has it's famous parks, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regents Park, Green Park, Battersea Park, St James's Park, Primrose Hill and Battersea Common and these are just the well known ones. Every community has it's local park. Where I live in South London, The Sir Joseph Hood Park is my local. More famously there is the royal park, Richmond Park, two miles in one direction from me and two miles in the other direction is Wimbledon Common. I visit both regularly to walk, run and cycle.

Here are some pictures from my walk on Wimbledon Common yesterday.

AND here is a link to the common website: http://www.wpcc.org.uk/

The windmill in the centre of the common.Trees and shadows.

Wide open spaces. There are two golf courses on the common, London Scottish and The Royal Wimbledon Golf Club.
Gates and fencing.
One of the park keepers cottages. Park keepers or conservators are employed full time. They ride on horse back around the common and wear a fetching dark green uniform.
Christmas must be on the way.
Swans on Queensmere pond.
A walk in the woods.
Autumn yellowing leaves.
Light through the foliage.
A dead tree or a dinosaur as my youngest daughter used to call it.
A frosty morning.

La Mer by Charles Trenet

2010-11-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

Now before you listen to it Mary, get your ball gown on, take your husband in your arms and when the songs starts ,"float and glide, float and glide." It does the heart good.

Close your eyes and think of a sunset glimmering on The Channel , the coast of France in the ditance . You know, it's the 1940's.