Anyone who wants this lot (sight unseen, of course) is invited to submit bids on a £10 note. (I was going to say a £20 note, but we need to clear the hoards of stuff sooner rather than later.) 🙂
Category Archives: personal
Quotes of the Week
A rich crop of thought-provoking and amusing quotes from which to pick this week, so here’s my selection:
The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.
[Tom Bodett]Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since one who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences, or the things of this world. And what is worst, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance, and so do not seek a remedy.
[Roger Bacon]We apprehend time only when we have marked motion … not only do we measure movement by time, but also time by movement because they define each other.
[Aristotle]Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.
[John Ciardi, poet]To familiarize ourselves with the virtue of patience, it is very helpful to think of adversity not so much as a threat to our peace of mind but rather as the very means by which patience is attained. From this perspective, we see that those who would harm us are, in a sense, teachers of patience. Such people teach us what we could never learn merely from hearing someone speak, be they ever so wise or holy.
[Dalai Lama]A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
[Herm Albright]
Erotic Operandus
For various reasons, I’ve recently been thinking a lot about my belief in how we should approach our erotic lives and our erotic selves. The following is how I think our erotic credo/philosophy should work.
- Ownership. No-one – yes, no-one: parent, friend, guru, god – has the right to tell you what your sexuality should be. It is yours and yours alone to share with others or not as you choose (although, of course, the law decrees there are things which must remain at best forever in the realms of fantasy).
- Fear. Don’t be afraid of your sexuality, what other people might think of it, or anything to do with sex. Your sexuality is yours and for you; no-one else. This is all part of liking yourself. If you can’t accept your own sexuality how can you meaningfully engage with someone else’s?
- Answers. There are no universal right or wrong answers. Your erotic is someone else’s pornographic and yet another person’s tedium. There is only what is better or worse for you.
- Communication. Be prepared to talk about your sexuality, anywhere and to anyone – make it a normal part of your life. That doesn’t mean you should flaunt or proselytise your sexuality; just be open and honest about it when appropriate.
- Appreciation. Learn to accept a compliment and appreciate the simplest erotic gesture.
- Nudity. Nudity is a normal part of life; there’s nothing dirty or unnatural about any part of our bodies and bodily functions. Indeed nudity is good for you; even Benjamin Franklin took regular “air baths”. Or to quote my wife’s god-father, “If you see anything God didn’t make, heave a brick at it”.
- Fantasies. We all have fantasies, we all have wet dreams, we all masturbate. Brilliant!
- Masturbation. Masturbation is normal, enjoyable and good for you! Almost everyone does it throughout their life. Where’s the problem?
- Orgasm. Each of us is responsible for our own orgasms.
- Sticky Bits. Don’t be afraid of genitals and bodily fluids. They are the stuff of life. Without them we’d none of us be here. Embrace them; make them yours.
- Sexual Excitement. By all means take another person’s sexual excitement as a compliment. There’s nothing wrong or threatening about an erection in and of itself, just as there’s nothing wrong or threatening about an aroused yoni (it just ain’t so obvious). The erection/arousal makes no demands and requires no attention, although the person attached to it may want some attention. Your erection/arousal is your own responsibility and no one else’s.
- Responsibility. Only you know what’s right for you and you must take responsibility for getting it. Ask for what you want of yourself or of your partner. Not to do so is denying part of your sexuality. Don’t be afraid; most partners love to be asked!
- Cherish. Your sexuality is what you make of it. Cherish it. Make it good and make it yours. Enjoy!
This Week's Photograph: Sky & Corn
The East Anglian sky taken from the passenger seat of the car while travelling up the A11, early-ish on Wednesday morning. Wonderful light and cirrus clouds with ripe corn fields. The best few shots are on Flickr; I think this is my favourite of the series. Not bad for almost random grab shots!
We spent the whole of Wednesday with the house clearance guys finally emptying Mum’s bungalow which is now on the market. All we have to do now is get someone to buy it for a decent price. We dropped in to see Mum briefly on our way home; see looked so much better now everything is essentially done and she can draw a line under the whole thing. But it was one hell of a tiring day we just had to stop for an hour on the way back and have something to eat and (in my case) a couple of beers; we’re still recovering.
Post 1000: Apologia
As this is, as best I can calculate, my 1000th weblog posting, I figured I ought to say something significant.
A few days ago we were in a restaurant with friends and the discussion turned to blogging. One of them asked why people blog, as she had never felt the need to. Naturally this made me think about why I blog.
Journal. It acts as a sort of (in my case informal) journal for ideas. A way of documenting things I find amusing, interesting or important and which I probably wouldn’t otherwise capture, if only because I’m lazy about writing things down cogently and I’m trying to get rid of mountains of paper, not collect more.
Enjoyment. Yes, this is something I enjoy doing. I wouldn’t enjoy having to write something to order every day, hence the London bus irregularity with which items appear here. I do it when I want to do it, not to some schedule.
Catalysis. As a practising catalyst, blogging gives me a way to spread my ideas, albeit to a small and self-selecting audience (which is fine by me!).
So what’s all this about then?
Noreen and I chose not to have children but to be available to help our friends, family and their children (hereinafter “friend”). This is, to me, part of being a catalyst and a facilitator, and part of why I’m here (assuming there is some “purpose” to life).
Why? Because no parent, however good (and most do a thankless job brilliantly), can ever provide everything their child needs. We don’t live in an ideal world – that would be so boring – so there will always be something a kid doesn’t want to talk to parents about, whether that’s girl/boyfriends, bullying, sexuality, money, dropping out of university, or whatever. (And of course the equivalent applies to adults too!) We offer to be there if any of our friends needs to talk about anything (literally, anything), needs a refuge, needs someone to stand bail – and all in confidence, of course. We always make this offer to our friends’ children as soon as they are old enough to understand what this really means (usually in their early to mid-teens).
Part of this is so the friend has that needed ear/refuge/whatever. But also so that they can have a different perspective on their situation, different ideas, which hopefully will help them resolve their situation and develop. Blogging is another aspect of this, albeit at a slight remove.
Democracy. I’ve observed elsewhere (see, for instance, here and here) that in a (democratic) society, morals and ethics are the consensus of the beliefs of the people, and that progress and change are made by those with differing views challenging that consensus.
As one of the working thinkers in such a democratic society I see it as my professional duty to challenge the consensus view where I believe it to be in error. (Equally when I was working I saw it as my professional duty to challenge management stupidity and misunderstanding when I came across it. Not popular, but for me the moral obligation of a conscientious professional.)
For me this is especially important in matters where I see the repressive moralities of others trying to close down freedom of choice, expression, belief; for example the moral right’s crusades against sexuality, nudity and perceived pornography. This was interestingly highlighted in a recent article in The Register; here are a few salient quotes [with my comments in italics]:
Censorship does more harm than good
…
A moral panic around childhood sexualisation and the dangers of the internet is closing down important channels of debate
…
The real problem, though, is that no one knows what “sexualisation” is: it is a convenient label used to position the child as always the victim, and then to pile every problem imaginable on top, including paedophilia, body image, sex trafficking and self-esteem. Once that particular juggernaut gets rolling, it is almost impossible to have a sensible debate about what’s really going on. [People become so frightened of being ostracised and/or victimised by the authorities that they daren’t speak and free speech disappears]
…
as soon as someone declares an image erotic [or pornographic, or violent], it is then analysed in that context, as opposed to being viewed for whatever it is
…
a major issue was the way in which childhood activity was being viewed through the looking glass of adult eroticism. “Showing your bum” is not a sexual activity for most eight-year-olds and should not be treated as such. [Arguably it isn’t a sexual activity for most 18-, or indeed 88-, year-olds either] “Sexting” is nothing new, but merely a modern manifestation of habits as old as dating and courtship [you show me yours and I’ll show you mine].That was not to ignore the real danger of what happens when an image taken from one context (childhood play) becomes taken up in another (adult sexual interest). [It’s a question of balance and perspective, something we seem to have mislaid]
…
A moralising attitude makes it very dangerous for young people [read “anyone”] to discuss sexuality on the net [read “anywhere”] – and certainly to discuss sexual issues … closing off an important channel for exploration and seeking knowledge to teenagers.
Unless those of us who are more libertarian push back against challenges from the conservative right, society will regress to the more hypocritical behaviour patterns of Victorian Age, with its strict pater familias figures allowing no freedom except their freedom and no dissension from their moralising diktats, while sexuality in all its guises goes back underground thus ensuring more (not less) abuse for the under-privileged majority.
How much better to have everything accepted, in the open, with people free to choose what they do and believe, thus reducing the scope for abuse and improving the opportunities for better (physical and mental) healthcare by making everything visible.
We didn’t fight the revolutionary war of the 1960s and ’70s only to see these hard won freedoms given away again.
Some people feel strongly about militarism, third world poverty, climate change or whatever, and hence blog or campaign about that. I feel strongly about the liberalisation of sexuality, body freedom, so-called pornography, free speech and the loosening of the stranglehold of religion and politics. So that’s mostly what I choose to write my more serious blog posts about and a part of why I blog.
I’m not the sort of person who in the 17th and 18th centuries would have had the confidence or money to publish salacious pamphlets – pamphlets were, after all, the blogs of their day. By creating weblogs, technology has opened up pamphleteering for many orders of magnitude more writers and audiences. Using that facility is, to me, all part of being a working thinker. And I choose to do it quietly rather than being out on the streets and “in yer face”.
Vanity. Belatedly I realised that there is also an element of vanity and attention seeking in why I blog. One of the things it seems my childhood has left me with is a need for attention. No, I don’t know why! Maybe one day I will. Or maybe it’s something to do with being male? I suspect this is a subtle reason why I blog, but I don’t think it is the main reason; if it were I would be productive of a whole lot more rubbish.
Would I have analysed this if it weren’t for blogging? No! So there’s another reason: self-discovery. What better reason
could one want?
Cheshunt Grammar School 1st XI 1969
It’s amazing what you find when you start digging in family files!
This is my school, Cheshunt Grammar School 1st XI vs Cheshunt Cricket Club at Cheshunt Cricket Club in 1969. (It must be 1969 as I only played in the 1st XI in my final year.)
In this picture (L to R) as best I can remember: Dave Pettifer??, Steve Dowling, unknown, Keith Marshall (that’s me, in white cap), someone hidden, Alan Pilgrim (captain, in dark cap), someone else hidden, Roger Clark (Games Master at rear), unknown wicket-keeper, Colin Mudge? (almost hidden), Dave Perkins.
I think this must be a copy photo from the local paper, although it isn’t marked as such on the back.
See I was down to fighting weight once upon a time. Scary!
I’ve also posted this on Facebook and Friends Reunited in the hope that someone will add/correct the names for me.
Marsh Days
What an enjoyable day! We’ve spent the day on the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust annual members’ tour.
Wedged between Rye, Hythe, the sea, and the high ground of the Weald, Romney Marsh (information here and here) is an ancient, if man-made, landscape at England’s extreme SE tip. Over the years, roughly from the Romans through to the Reformation, the marsh land has gradually been inned, or reclaimed from the sea. There have been setbacks, storms, the River Rother, which used to enter the sea at Old Romney, then at New Romney, changed it’s course completely (it now enters the sea some miles away at Rye Harbour) with the demise of a major royal shipyard at Smallhythe. Most of the marsh is around 10 feet below high water. Drainage is a constant battle. This is a volatile landscape, made by man and by sheep.
There are 14 churches, plus 4 ruins, on the Romney Marsh. They are all medieval and apart from one (and the ruins) they are all still in use although many have very small parishes. A number of these churches are built on the sites of the earlier Saxon churches; many have seen worship on their site for well over 1000 years. They are important churches and important sites.
The Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust exists to assist with the preservation and restoration of these glorious small country churches which are so much a part of the country’s heritage. With a couple of exceptions they are not grand parish churches in the style of East Anglian wool country or of the West Country. They are small, designed to serve small communities living on the edge – even at the height of the Marsh’s population just before the Black Death, none of the parishes was large. The exceptions were probably New Romney and Lydd.
Every year the Trust organises a tour for its members, usually in July with a repeat in September (both tours easily fill a 50-seater coach). The tour visits three or four of the churches, often to see the results of the Trust’s work supporting their fabric. We’ve been on the tours fairly regularly for the last 10 or so years and have now seen all but one of the 14 churches, most of them of course several times.
This year we visited St Mary, East Guldeford (top); St Clement, Old Romney (above); St Augustine, Snave (the only church not in regular use and for which the Trust has full responsibility); and St Eanswith, Brenzett. The day starts with coffee at the Royal Oak pub in Brookland (right next to St Augustine, Brookland, so the keen can add a fifth church). Two churches are visited by coach in the morning. We return to the pub for a splendid buffet salad lunch and a pint. Then off to do two more churches. And ending the afternoon with tea provided by the Brenzett WI. WI tea is to die for; it is (almost) the highlight of the day: fifty odd people sit down in the village hall and demolish three trestle tables groaning with home-made cake! You end the day feeling like a python which has just stuffed down a tasty gazelle and doesn’t want to eat again for a month.
At each church there is a short talk from an expert – very often the indefatigable Joan Campbell who is the leading expert on these churches – and chance to look round and take photographs. Every time there is something new to discover: newly researched information about Richard de Guldeford, benefactor of East Guldeford; the effects of 13th century storms and the Black Death on the Marsh; church furnishings which quietly move from parish to parish over the years; major restoration work, often (part) funded by the Trust, this year to the Tudor brickwork of East Guldeford.
These are not neglected and forgotten little churches being propped up by a tiny interest group: the Trust has over 1000 members. Film director Derek Jarman is buried at Old Romney (he lived his last years at Dungeness). Children’s author Edith Nesbit is buried at St Mary-in-the-Marsh. Lydd and New Romney regularly stage concerts and other events. These churches are still important parts of their communities.
And I’ve not mentioned the delights of the Marsh: the ever changing patterns of sheep and arable, sky and earth; the views of the scarp to the north which once upon a time was the old shoreline; or the distant vista of Rye nestling atop its hill. Neither have I mentioned my distant ancestors who lived on the Marsh and the surrounding area – in fact I spent some time today looking for gravestones on the off-chance of discovering something new. And we always seem to have good weather, whatever the forecast.
All in all it’s a superbly delightful day out!
Don’t Assume
In interacting and communicating with other people we make a lot of assumptions about the other person. Sure, we have to make some assumptions to even begin to communicate (for instance that the other person can understand our language); if we didn’t we would have to start every conversation by asking a complete set of detailed questions – so many we would end up never communicating anything. But making too many, and too deep, assumptions, and not testing those we must make, is highly dangerous. Along with not listening to what the other person actually says, is in my experience the root cause of the majority of misunderstandings.
So I decided to set out those things which it seems to me we assume about the other person or the situation at our peril:
- Any one person speaks for everyone
- Anyone is right about anything
- “Culture” or “society” is the same everywhere and for everybody
- Someone else’s ethics and morals are the same as yours
- How young or old or young the person is
- Someone else is of a given race or nationality
- What someone else’s religion or spiritual belief system is
- What someone else’s first language or nationality is
- What someone else’s politics are
- What someone else’s personal values are
- What someone else’s economic class is
- What someone else’s financial situation is
- What someone else’s level of education is
- What someone else’s level of intelligence is
- What someone else’s experiences or background are
- What someone else’s life history is
- What the person’s family or home background is
- What someone else’s sexuality is or that someone else’s sexual ideals or ethics are the same as yours
- Someone else has the same body or beauty ideals you do
- Someone else has the same values, desires, interests, likes and dislikes as you
- All things have the same effect on all people
- Anything is universally yucky or universally yummy
- What someone else’s skills and aptitudes are
- What you find easy or hard they will also find easy or hard
- What worked for you will work for anyone else
- Someone else is better, worse, the same or different to you
- Any given word means the same thing to everyone
- One kind of learning works for everyone
- Your logic is someone else’s logic
- What they think is the same as you think
- Someone else’s common sense is the same as your common sense
- What is right for you is right for anyone else, and vice versa
- Anything is possible or impossible
Yes we often can (and do) make pretty good guesses at many of these and we base our initial communications on them, but we’d better be prepared to test our guesses and change our position accordingly. I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where we’ve made an assumption about (say) someone’s education only to find we’re totally wrong – haven’t we all come across someone with a doctorate doing a job we wouldn’t expect (driving a taxi or a bus, dealing in second-hand books, selling insurance). Or we’ve spoken to a colleague on the phone and then been surprised on meeting them to find they’re a Sikh, a Muslim or Afro-Caribbean.
Beware quicksands! … Orator caveo.
Zen Mischief Website Updated
At long last, and after three days solid effort, I’ve completely updated my Zen Mischief website. And not before time either! I started the revision over 2 years ago and got as far as completing the design before I was rudely interrupted by work. Only now have I made the time to complete the job. Although at the moment the content – essentially a static backup to this weblog – is largely the same, all the text has been revised (some pages more than others), all the links checked, dead links removed and many new ones added, and all the images have been overhauled. I have ideas for new pages and I hope they will be along over the coming weeks – there’s a lot that gets an airing on this weblog but isn’t covered on the website, an omission I hope to rectify.
Whatever Next?
I went past a building today. When I was a kid it would have been called St Bloggs’ Junior School. Today it is called St Bloggs Children’s Centre. Hmmm ….