Born in 1954. Chequered career including Lecturer in English, Social Worker and Lecturer in Social Work. Had breaks related to mental health that also meant I worked in social care. Now retired.
Tomorrow, the 29th November 2024, the House of Commons debate the Assisted Dying Bill. Already the media is full of hand-wringing MPs commenting on the ‘difficulty’ of the decision. We are meant to empathise but in doing so, we have to remember that the Bill is an attempt to increase the degree of autonomous decision-making … More The hardest decision is yet to come.
Good is such a loaded word. But to be ‘good at’ is not considered as loaded. Its synonyms are pretty obvious, as these, from one online dictionary: Synonyms and examples: skilful (UK) She’s a skilful driver; skilled He’s a skilled mechanic;, able She’s a very able student; gifted She’s a gifted musician; talented He’s a … More Good at it! Or good enough together!
‘Stop saying words, my sister whispered back. I want to hear the story’.[1] The paradox may be that we express our identity in words and names not in the process of telling and hearing our stories. I think Ali Smith thinks that may be true of the configuration of sex/gender too. This is a blog … More ‘Stop saying words, my sister whispered back. I want to hear the story’. This is a blog on Ali Smith (2024) ‘Gliff ‘.
My dear husband is after just over a month and a quarter beginning to emerge from a bout of double pneumonia but is left with a disabling lung condition (bronchiectasis) which leaves him open to its resumption and by rarer & more resistant infective agents that affect those without that chronic condition. He will have … More Cause for Concern for Queer Carers?
The idea that the surest thing on earth is that night follows day in indubitable sequence is so often invoked that it is the stock-in-trade of politicians, especially those involved of the hubris of building and defending nation states within expanding imperial boundaries and in the belief that might is right: note the words of … More If mine own self contains multiples then night does not follow day, they are simultaneous and not necessarily in contest.
The entry in Merriam-Webster for ‘wear’ even for just its use as a transitive verb shows that ‘to wear’ is polysemic: Here is the relevant list: transitive verb 1 : to bear or have on the person (wore a coat); 2: a : to use habitually for clothing, adornment, or assistance (wears a size 10) or (wear glasses) b: to … More ‘To Wear’ is a polysemic verb
They say that it will snow tonight;Full sixteen centimetres cold in snow,And yet today it’s mild in morning, Insisting that it all continues, beatsOut the bells of continuum in changeLike Tennyson’s ‘wild bells’, ringing the oldOut to welcome the new into our lives.But slow down wild bells, immoderatelySwelling with pride too soon. Let me still … More They say that it will snow tonight, my husband’s very ill, yet the Bishop’s Park will be AGLOW this very night too.
What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals? I found this strange poem inside a copy of a bedraggled book entitled A Forgotten Cuisine: The Wild and Strange Tastes of the Bete-Sauvage Family’: French emigrants in Boston during the early years of the American Revolution by an anonymous author published in 1904 but appearing in … More From: (anon.) ‘Forgotten Cuisine: The Wild and Strange Tastes of the Bete-Sauvage Family: French emigrants in Boston during the early years of the American Revolution’ [1904].
My husband lies in bed, breathlessNot with excitement but wonderingFrom where the next breath will ariseTo quell his mortal fear.Thinking of him, I recall a poem he loves:Where dreaming stands for Whitman’s needTo believe in lawless love ‘tween boys.Boys who will be men pose momentlyTo model men who still desire toBe boys, who as they … More A love poem to Geoff to get us through dark days of illness. Based on Geoff’s beloved poem by Walt Whitman [below]
What a choppy sea of a world we live in when such a question as this prompt makes sense, if it does, to anyone? I have difficulties with the idea of ‘favourite’ as a descriptor of ‘people’, especially given the plural form of the thing favoured. Are we asked to list individuals or nominate a … More Refusing to be just the label means redefining your worth beyond any one label! Or is that only true for the privileged classes? A blog informed by Madian Al Jazerah ‘Are You This? Or Are You This?: A Story of Identity and Worth’.
The Parade website contains a page (use that link to see it yourself) listing 75 potential ‘pet peeves’/ It defines this strange concept thus: “What is a “pet peeve”? Dictionary.com defines a pet peeve as “a particular and often continual annoyance; personal bugbear: This train service is one of my pet peeves.” They tend to be behaviours … More We need to defend ourselves, not peevishly from others, but from our ‘pet peeves’.
The Sleep Foundation (at this link and not related to the commercial ‘infographic’ above) gives seven reasons why we need sleep. They are given below without the trusted sources of information that their web page does have (I have given a link above) to the scientific evidence behind some of these claims. Sleep is needed, … More If I didn’t sleep, and sleep off unregulated fantasy and vision, I might create. I might!!!!!!! But that is not for many: so I enjoy my sleep instead.
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