This week’s mix …

Mother Parrot’s Advice to her Children
Never get up till the sun gets up,
Or the mists will give you a cold,
And a parrot whose lungs have once been touched
Will never live to be old.
Never eat plums that are not quite ripe,
For perhaps they will give you a pain:
And never dispute what the hornbill says,
Or you’ll never dispute again.
Never despise the power of speech:
Learn every word as it comes,
For this is the pride of the parrot race,
That it speaks in a thousand tongues.
Never stay up when the sun goes down,
But sleep in your own home bed,
And if you’ve been good, as a parrot should,
You will dream that your tail is red.
[Ganda, Africa; translated by AK Nyabongo; with thanks to Nick Birns]

In the little moment that
remains to us between
the crisis and the catastrophe
we may as well
drink a glass
of champagne.
[Paul Claudel; with thanks to Nick Birns]

Truth has nothing to do with the number of people it convinces.
[Paul Claudel]

Before using your potato baking dishes make sure that the potatoes you use are clean and ready to cook and that you follow the manufacturers guidelines for cooking potatoes for the cooking method you propose choosing.
[‘Ere God, you didn’t send the manual with my spuds!]

Tweeting by post made me appreciate the online and the offline. Brevity is a good thing, but there’s no reason we should only be brief on Twitter. The internet is a marvellous thing, but so is cheese, so are close friends who know your opinions and respect them, so is a glass of fine English ale. So is getting postcards from interesting people, because it makes your letterbox come alive.
[Giles Turnbull, quoted at The Next Web]

For malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
[AE Housman, A Shropshire Lad]