Ripple

I think of our lives as ripples spreading out as we pass briefly through this world - interacting with other ripples, for better or worse. As the ripples spread long after we have dropped beneath the surface, we should strive to send out positive energy, love, humanity.

The Handover - 30 second story

The young blonde woman in the cheap dark suit of an office worker is hurrying down the hill - is it catching a bus that gives her urgency?

Two car lengths up the hill I pass a middle aged woman with a baby clasped to her shoulder and she too is moving briskly but in the opposite direction.

The baby is peering down the hill over the shoulder, pointing arm outstretched, hand clutching air. Though clearly at ease with the woman carrying him swiftly towards an open cottage door, the baby's expression shows both slight puzzlement and worry. If he could speak into the ear beside him he would say "That's my Mummy, why is she going away?"

posted by: Frewin at 13:13 | link | comments (3) |

More English heritage

More pictures from the Skipton Waterways Festival 2008.

posted by: Frewin at 13:18 | link | comments (4) |

Identity, Style and Carnal Knowledge

Have you ever wondered as you see a young (or old) person decked out as a Goth or some skinny Lothario in regulation Rock and Roll drainpipe jeans (black of course) and black T-shirt with shades and pony-tail, just what made them adopt that particular style?

When you come down to it, there are only a finite number of styles to choose from (although that gives plenty of scope) and it seems to me that any "new" styles turn out, upon scrutiny, to be slight variations on past styles. Dandy, Punk, Grunge, Deb, Laura Ashley, Teddy Boy, you name it, they all borrow from past styles or appropriate elements of other looks, the S & M bondage elements in Punk, the Edwardian long jackets of the Teddy Boys (Teddy/Edward) and so on.

Can you escape the confines of style by say dressing eclectically - nah!!! that's just another style! So we all pick some look as we grow up, some uniform by which we want to be recognised. Its all about identity and Style is the skin we can choose for ourselves. A skin we can slough off at weekends and choose an alternative identity, Casual, Clubber, Sportsman, DIYer, Dominatrix, Slave, and there are degrees and wrinkles and a new version of the same style offers the promise of a refreshed or madeover identity hence Retail Therapy.

But to come back to my original question, when a person f tender years first begins to choose their own style as opposed to wearing what their mother bought them, how do they make that choice? How do they know the associations that go with a style? is it idol emanation, well researched choice or blindly following fashion as it spins around the same old circuits?

An old hobby horse of mine is that unlike most animals, the human male gets the drabber choices in clothes and that goes for style too, there have been far fewer ages when mens fashion has been exuberent and colourful - so our choices are limited and thus easier.

How deep does style go? Can we really infer anything meaningful about someone because they dress like a Goth or is it all teenage angst and fury signifying  not a lot as they get older?

I have a similar questin around sex. Does Carnal Knowledge really let you know someone better? Of course when we see someone Hot, we may wonder what they might be like in bed - will they be as hot as they look or might they be diasppointing, selfish or lazy lovers whilst the plainer less prepossessing partner might prove adventurous, generous or downright kinky! Curiosity has killed many a cat I am sure.

The dear friend who first brought me to this site (never a lover), said that sex in England (she is Brasilian) was weird, like jumping over a wall, one minute you are talking to someone at a party, next miute in bed. In Brasil, by contrast, if you fancied someone in your group, you might flirt by siitting on everybody's knee except his! You might hold hands as mere friends do, things would evolve. having jumped over the wall with an Englishman, you never knew what you would find either.

So are we all much more similar than different in the sack? If you were a fly on the bedroom wall of your next door neighbour, would you soon be bored by the essential similarities? Does it matter that we dont have Carnal Knowledge of very many people around us, does it really complete our essential knowledge of a person or is it as superficial as the fashion style they might chose to project?

Answers in a comment box below please...

posted by: Frewin at 17:58 | link | comments (1) |
style, friendship, carnal knowledge

Strange English ways..

A group of Morris Dancers called "The Powder-Kegs". Their rag adorned costumes symblise the strips of rag that farm workers used to line their coats with to keep warm and the blacked out faces were to prevent their landlords from identifying them in their "illegal" dancing activities and throwing them out.
File under English culture...

posted by: Frewin at 09:23 | link | comments |

The answer to better learning?

This story is a fascinating account of a man who just may have cracked the mystery of how to learn things and not forget them again! It is also a well written tale of the people and endeavours behind the science of remembering - a tale of heroic feats of memory testing and of the frustration of having onres work ignored. So if you want to remember better...

posted by: Frewin at 06:02 | link | comments (5) |
remembering

Religion and Imagination

An interesting link

posted by: Frewin at 13:36 | link | comments (1) |

Slavery, Conversations and Celestial Music

When synchronicity strikes it is easy to see how those who believe in such things, perceive the hand of fate moving through their world...

Last week, Barbara brought home a couple of DVDs from the library and friday night we watched Amazing Grace- the story of William Wilberforce and his campaign for the abolition of slavery. The film had me wet at the eyes more than once and not just at the denouement when the Ablition Bill was finally passed after years of struggle for moving as this momentous achievement was. it is the relationships between the players which makes this film special. Not mereley a factual biopic but a well crafted story strongly acted of the friendship between Wilberforce and the equally young Prime Minister - William Pitt, the influence of John Newton - ex slave ship captain who penned the hymn Amazing Grace, the kind friends who nursed Wilberforce back to health and introduced him to his wife, Mary Spooner and her picking him up and giving him new strength for the fight.

And the Synchronicity?

Well, you may remember a few weeks ago I went shopping for books and came away with Theodore Zeldin's An Intimate History of Humanity. I have now started reading it and even one chapter in am so excited I simply have to share. With no pre-amble, the first chapter tells the story of a cleaning lady, not merely her history but her aspirations, frustrations, the central relationships in her life and the limits thereof. Moving from this microscopic examination, Zeldin then gives us a telescopic reflection on the nature of - Slavery! The chapter concludes with Zeldin saying that his is to be his method, particular accounts of conversatins, mainly with women, mainly French fllowed by a general examination of a theme. And the themes examined revolve around how humans meet in their lives and conversations and for Zeldin, conversation has a special meaning, he has developed a method which he puts forward as an alternative to the conflict based interactin that characterises so much of human interaction and it is al based on true conversation.

Having read the first chapter I Googled Theodore Zeldin and discovered that he has set up an "organisation" to promote these special conversations and develop other ideas and forums in which more fruitful meetings of minds may occur - The Oxford Muse and whatever your field, your interests, your work - I urge you to check it out. you may hear more from me on this, after all, how many times in these pages have I ranted about say, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and concluded that the only way forward is dialogue and the special forms of coversation which Zeldin encourages would build bridges between individuals as well as leaders of political parties that must surely span the gulf and build an alternative to conflict.

Indeed, I remember hearing a while ago about a unique telephone connection has been set up to allow Israeli and Palestinian citizens to talk to each other, initially as random contacts but, increasingly, as friends. This person by person change is vital to change - Way to Go!

On another tack, Barbara got tickets to a concert celebrating the Centenary of The Steeton Male Voice Choir or as a sign in the next village proclaims it to be (The Home of) The World Famous Steeton Male Voice Choir. I cannot speak for the veracity of that claim but it was a splendid evening of entertainment. The choir was swelled by th addition of threee other male voice choir and by the Yorkshire Building Society Brass Band and sitting in the front row the latter had powerfull impact. Barbara grew up in Yorkshire with a family tradition 0f involvement with brass bands and also the Salvation Army so the evening had powerfull emotional as well as accoustic resonances.

I found myself reflecting on the uniqueness of attending this performance, an experience which no recording or film can ever truly reproduce. Science fiction writers often postulate characters attending events or performances or even natural phenomena and by their observing and experiencing them, creating the "memories of a lifetime". There was a time when our increasing knowledge of the universe and its size made us conclude that by sheer statistics there must be other life out there but now I sense that we understand hw difficult it is for life to form and how cosmically brief is the instance of life on our own planet and as for humanity, it has existed for and may be extiguished in the blink of an eye. Yet whilst our eyes are here, they may watch a performance of a choir and brass band, take in a sunset or espy as far as the end (beginning) of the universe and all the galaxies and nebulae in between. We may never meet r sare our moments of observation with another race r hear their music or they ours which for me, only makes more poignant the act of living and seeing and hearing and remembering for a moment...

posted by: Frewin at 07:48 | link | comments (1) |
conversation, friendship, slavery, humanist cinema, lachrymae, theodore zeldin

A Riddle - the Dot, the Thief, the Ex and the Cheat?

Who could we be talking about?

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was described by President Robert Mugabe as a mere dot in the world for his earlier attempts to criticize him and his refusal to accept defeat in the recent elections. Will he still think him a dot after telling the UN Security Council that everyone "believes he has stolen the election"?

Of course, nobody is noticing Gordon Brown's presence in New York much what with a Papal visit an' all whereas EX prime Minister Tony Blair has timed his visit to the Big Apple for next week - no competition.

And the cheat?
Well Robert Mugabe's Ambassador in NY has said - nobody in Britain commented on the endless recounts in Florida or shouted Cheat at the eventual election of President Bush...

posted by: Frewin at 06:25 | link | comments (2) |

Religious Separation from State

Its ironic that the two Democratic candidates should have submitted themselves to a public grilling about their religious beliefs in a country where there is a Constitutional separation between Religion and State.
Contrast this with the former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair who has only revealed the depth of his religious convictions since leaving office. He has converted to Catholicism and is launching an organisation to promote inter-faith dialogue. Yet during his time in office he captained some legislation that did not best please the church.

In England we hear more and more often, ministers of the church complaining about the secular state we now live in yet Members of Parliament still vote on moral matters in numbers that suggest they are more proportionally religious than the number of church attenders in the country as a whole - either that or they are looking hypocritically over their shoulders and voting in fear of the religious disapprobation. We still have Bishops sitting in the upper house (House of Lords) where they can exercise some influence on the progress of Bills through parliament. Yet I sense that by and large, religion is less influential in politics than it is in America despite that Constitutional provision.

I could not help wondering, as I lay awake listening to an account of the two candidates being hit with questions like " Do you think God wants YOU to win?", what their true religious convictions are and whether they would allow them to influence their actions if elected. It strikes me that to own up to being less than religious in America would be political suicide - even for a Democrat but did they have to submit themselves to such a grilling?

posted by: Frewin at 06:27 | link | comments (1) |

Travels in search of Freedom

Freedom was once the Summer holidays,
Stretching boundless and unimaginably rich after the end of term
But the reality, constrained by over-protective mother,
Grew into a desert of boredom till I longed to be back amongst the society of school.

When I was fourteen, in 1968, we went to Australia and returned again by ship
And reassured by the bounded world of decks and rails
My mother granted us the freedom of abscence from her side
But to a young mind even the novelty of oceans and landfalls palls after five weeks.

University was the great bid for Freedom
Yet faced with a surfeit of opportunities others had long since been jaded by
A full diary bursting with commitments
Left no room for even the F!

A live in relationship
Full of the promise of pleasure on tap
But replete with ready made family
Soon became a web of shopping and bills and complication.

And when the tap seemed suddenly and permanently dry
Affairs offered new freedom
But soon enough proved to be
Double trouble, twice the binding.

We joined a Naturist camp
Spent weekends free of clothes with the sun and breeze on bare skin
But a barbed wire fence circled Five Acres
And at the end of the day you still had to dress to leave.

Time passed and I surpassed my father
Who also never left Her side
For any solitary reason other than work
But I - I went flyfishing in a concrete bowl at Walthamstow!

Twelve years in we went to live in Ireland
Where I tasted moments of freedom
In the hills, by the rough sea
But moments only because even in Paradise you have to earn a crust.

I never lost the habit of moments though
Drinking in the landscape wherever I llive
Striking out across country, up hill and down dale
Going to work as the crow flies.

So at the end of the day
Still seeking freedom
I arrive here
open a blank text window, engage the mind...

Where shall I go today?

posted by: Frewin at 21:21 | link | comments (2) |

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