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Maybe meandering, possibly peripatetic and indisputably irregular. |
So here it is.. a blog. Repository of some of my present musings and interests. Sometimes things pop into my head that should probably stay there - it is possible I shall share at least some of them here. (Naturally I shall filter out the ones about my sordid obsession with the culinary dark arts, one has to protect the innocent!) Please feel free not to take this too seriously, much of it could wind up being snippets of things that amuse me. Yesterday I came up with this: Few politicians can be considered first class, but not a few are number twos. What can I do with it? Nothing springs to mind, except perhaps blog it. Perhaps in some other life I'm a failed stand-up comedian. I have the beginnings of an idea to introduce another player into the Mr Moonlight story, a nice visual has occurred to me, and a summoning gone wrong seems appropriate. When I finish up here I shall literally put pen to paper. I find writing at least initially longhand helps my ideas flow. When I type up what I've written, I give it a first revision at the same time, and as a bare minimum check my spellings and grammar . I do want to keep tabs on my current reading here. I usually have several books on the go at the same time. Currently I am working through 'Pyramids' by Terry Pratchett. I reread Pratchett's books over and over - usually at work where they provide much needed amusement whilst I eat breakfast. 'The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle', by Stuart Turton was loaned to me by a friend who shares a love of murder mysteries, (especially Agatha Christie's works). It is a new take on the genre and very very clever. The protagonist occupies different bodies - a selection of the guests at the house where Evelyn is murdered. Each day he spends in a different guest, and he has been tasked with discovering the murderer - or maybe saving Evelyn from actually being murdered, it is hard to tell. The book twists and turns and is quite intriguing. 'New Science - Principles of the new science concerning the common nature of nations' is an English translation by David Marsh of 'La Scienza Nuova' by Giambattista Vico, published in 1725. Not far into this yet, I had to find a copy of the frontispiece online, as it wasn't included in the Kindle edition. The first part of the book explains the idea - and uses a detailed description of the frontispiece to convey this. So being without it would have made things somewhat harder. 'The Complete Works of Michael De Montaigne' is again a translation, this time by Donald M. Frame. Montaigne's Essays are famous, I kept reading about them, so treated myself to a nice hardbound copy to dip into - usually just before bedtime. So there we have it - a blog entry - enjoy! (whispers almost inaudibly 'Bon Appétit). |
Despite being English, my reaction to Sunday's football defeat was 'Oh dear, how sad, never mind.' Whilst I'm quite happy for others to enjoy it, football does nothing for me. On Monday the news here was awash with the reaction to our failure to score penalties, and especially that some fans were expressing themselves racially. The England team Manager described the abuse as 'unforgivable'. One of the players, Harry Kane, is quoted as telling racist social media abusers "you're not an England fan and we don't want you". Thinking about football fans, and indeed supporters of sports teams in general, it's not hard to conclude that they exhibit tribal behaviour. They enjoy their sense of belonging to a group, dressing in the appropriate colours, singing the anthems, shouting and chanting. Often they have a hatred of some rival team. This can in some instances express deeper roots than the sport itself, a well known example is the rivalry between Celtic, which has a strong Roman Catholic identity, and Rangers, who are largely Protestant Unionists in their identity. Football fans often enjoy a strong sense of 'them and us', and some part of those that fanatically follow their team clearly exhibit other 'them and us' traits. Their frustration and misery at being defeated has been expressed inappropriately by fixating upon the colour of those who 'failed' them, and this is reprehensible, but also not at all surprising. |
Whilst waiting for England to do whatever it was going to do in the football, (I don't find football very interesting, but I am so tired of hearing that it's been so many decades since we last won something big, (I was 2 when we won the world cup)), I have added to my Mr Moonlight introduction. Despite my computer freezing on me and losing the last couple of paragraphs I wrote, there was enough retained to make an update worthwhile. |
As a fan of the poet Edward Lear, I felt that this news item should be shared. Previously unpublished works have been discovered. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-57699393 |