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!
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
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].
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.
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can? … to sleep, / To Sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub! Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1, lines 72 – 73). [1] Iris Murdoch had long before written her wonderful novel based on the model of Hamlet, The Black Prince, … More … to sleep, / To Sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub! (‘Hamlet’, Act 3, Scene 1, lines 72 – 73) – and a prompt question!
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)? So cool that it was mintWhen found, my hand lost warmth,Until in sharing heatThe feel of it was hot.Nothing ever will keepIts cool so long withoutSome cold sad heart to seepIts freezing thought intoMutual desire,andLeave it at last alone. The temperature of loveWill never be its … More ‘So cool that it was mint’ but you can’t EVER keep it.
A beach is but a plateau on the edgeOf mountains in the sea, whose base extendsDown falling slowly through the upward forceOf water into deep chasms of time.A poet praised raised beaches because theyStood up to mark an earlier surfaceOf time’s causation of interactiveTardy play between dry solid ground and wetFluidity of chance and Change. … More In honour of MacDiarmid’s standing on a Raised Beach on Raasay. (1)
What podcasts are you listening to? I desperately want to see this production A late evening in the future.THUS THE STAGE DIRECTION READS.To show you that the podcast to which IListen is probably that I’m making,Is probably that I hear in my playIn that future, where the true present lies. Krapp listens hard in the … More ‘Krapp’s Last Podcast’, with apologies to Samuel Beckett.
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