personal

Reasons to be Grateful: 17

Experiment, week 17. This week’s five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful.

  1. Early Cherry Blossom. I noticed at the beginning of the week that many of the early-flowering cherries were out. Lots of trees covered in gorgeous white and pale pink flowers.
  2. No Dental Treatment. I actually quite enjoy going to the dentist — but then I have a superb dentist with whom I often have scientific/medical conversations. I do not like being abused by the hygienists. But I do like it when my check-up shows that I don’t need anything doing. Thanks, Jonathan!
  3. Butter Beans in Cheese Sauce. One evening this week we had vegetables in cheese sause for dinner. The vegetables included butter beans. I love butter beans, which is just as wel because I ate a lot of them as a kid. I especially love them in cheese sauce.

  4. Daffodils. Friday I saw the first daffodils out locally.
  5. Early Leaves. Also on Friday I spotted that some of the hawthorns were just beginning to open their leaves. Lovely bright fresh green buds and small leaves. And today it is warm and sunny! Spring really must be on the way.
amusements

Dippy

We haven’t had a good cartoon here for a while, so here’s one which amused me the other day …

Click the image for a larger version
people, ramblings

To Be or To Change?

Here’s Zen teacher Brad Warner on becoming something you’re not, but think you want to be. This is taken from his Hardcore Zen weblog.

[T]he effort to be something you’re not always seems to go wrong no matter what it is you want to be …

People who are working on fulfilling some image they have of a “nice person” are usually a pain in the ass. Their efforts to be like the “nice person” they’ve invented in their heads almost always get in the way of actually doing what needs to be done … The kind of forced helpfulness such people engage in is almost never helpful at all. It’s annoying. Sometimes it’s even harmful.

But those of us who realize that we actually aren’t as good as we could be have a real dilemma. What do you do when you recognize that you really are greedy, envious, jealous, angry, pessimistic and so on and on and on?

To me, it seems like the recognition of such things is itself good enough. It’s not necessary to envision a better you and try to remake yourself in that image. Just notice yourself being greedy and very simply stop being greedy. Not for all time in all cases. Just in whatever instance you discover yourself being greedy. If you’re greedy on Tuesday for more ice cream, don’t envision a better you somewhere down the line who is never greedy for more ice cream. Just forgo that last scoop of ice cream right now. See how much better you feel. This kind of action, when repeated enough, becomes a new habit. Problem solved.

Which is really very much how I felt at work, and still feel, about personal development. Trying to totally restructure someone to be different (say, totally embodying that great new sales technique) doesn’t work and is actually destructive of their personality. Indeed it is tantamount to brainwashing.

I need to be told about it, sure. Then I need to notice, in my own quiet way, the bits that work for me and try using them or incorporating them in what I do. That way I build on the existing strength of my personality, rather than destroying it and starting over.

No wonder I never fitted the company mould, and management didn’t like it!

Change not only has to come from within it has to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

photography

The Gallery : Light

2 Comments

This week’s request from The Gallery is for us to post a photograph of something important to all photographers: Light.

So as usual I’ve dug one out of the archives.

A40 Chimney Sunset

This was the sunset on 9 December 2010 which I took from the passenger seat of the car travelling homeward from central London; we were on the White City flyover at the time. This chimney is on a new building on the left going westward; I’ve no idea what the building is for but it seems strange to put such a conspicuous chimney on an office block and I don’t think it’s a hospital — maybe it’s something to do with the nearby BBC?

I love sunsets and sunrises. And travelling west out of London on this particular route, with its elevated sections, often gives good views of the sunset and cloudscapes.

With this shot I like the subtle pinks and greys of the sunset and the cloud patterns contrasted with the darker metallic slab of the chimney.

quotes

On Humanity

Several recently noticed quotes on various aspects of humanity.

One cannot usefully legislate against an attitude or a belief, but one can legislate against criminal behaviour that might result from an attitude or a belief … It is the duty of governments to protect their citizens from harm. It is not government’s task to protect its citizens’ sensitivities, however justifiable and acute, from peacefully expressed views, however bizarre.
[William Saunderson-Meyer at Thought Leader]

When asked What thing about humanity surprises you the most?, the Dalai Lama answered: Man … Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
[Dalai Lama quoted on Only Dead Fish]

To be human is to have a human body. To be ashamed of one’s body is to be ashamed of being human … Nudity is the default setting for all of us. It’s wrong to let ourselves be bullied or shamed into taking the action of hiding behind clothing. A society in which individuals are free to be as dressed or undressed as they wish would be my ideal.
[“Naked Andy” at iNAKED]

For a nation which has an almost evil reputation for bustle, bustle, bustle, and rush, rush, rush, we spend an enormous amount of time standing around in line in front of windows, just waiting.
[Robert Benchley]

We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
[Dr Seuss]

beliefs, current affairs

Logic? What Logic?

2 Comments

Reports and comment on two recent pieces of appalling logic.

Firstly on the Roman Catholic Church’s stance on same sex marriage: Cardinal Sins against Logic. What can one do but agree with one commenter who says There is no such thing as ‘a great theological mind’. The term is an oxymoron.

And secondly on the attitude of some American mothers towards other teenage girls taking the Pill: All Kinds of Weapons.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

books, quotes

History of English

I’ve just finished reading Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English by John McWhorter. It’s a very interesting, although slightly confusing, book about the history of English. That’s English as in the language “what I speak”.

Interesting because in it McWhorter tries to demonstrate that the early (as in mostly pre-Medieval Old English) history of the English language is far more complex but understandable than most scholars are prepared to admit.

Confusing in that as a non-linguist and someone who was never hot on the technicalities of grammar (the one probably because of the other) I don’t easily appreciate the niceties of some of his argument and examples. I would undoubtedly benefit from re-reading it.

It’s a short book but it covers an immense amount of ground. McWhorter starts with the argument that English was moulded by interaction with the Welsh and Cornish languages (all display features found nowhere else in the world). He ends with the suggestion that Proto-Germanic (the root of all modern Germanic languages including English) is a bastard off shoot of Proto-Indo-European made that way by interaction with Phoenician language(s). His concluding paragraphs give you a flavour:

English … [a]n offshoot of Proto-Indo-European borrowed a third of its vocabulary from another language. That language may have been Phoenician … Its speakers submitted the Proto-Indo-European offshoot to a grammatical overhaul … they could not help shaving off a lot of its complications, and rendering parts of the grammar in ways familiar to them from their native language. This left Proto-Germanic a language both mixed and abbreviated before it even gave birth to new languages – and meant that it passed this mixed, abbreviated nature on to those new languages.

One of them was Old English, which morphed merrily along carrying the odd sound patterns, vowel-switching past marking, and mystery vocabulary from Proto-Germanic … Old English was taken up by speakers of yet another language … Celtic ones. As Celts started using English more and more over the decades, English gradually took an infusion of grammatical features from Welsh and Cornish, including a usage of do known in no other languages on earth.

Not long afterward … Vikings speaking Old Norse picked up the language fast, and gave it a second shave … English’s grammar became the least “fussy” of all of the Germanic languages …

The result: a tongue oddly genderless and telegraphic for a European one, clotted with peculiar ways of using do and progressive -ing – with … a great big bunch of words from other languages. Not only Norse, French, Latin, and Greek, but possibly Phoenician …

The vanilla version of The History of English will live on. But its proponents have not had occasion to engage with the underground stories I have attempted to share with you, or, having done so briefly, have opted to sweep them under the rug …

… English is … Interesting.

Interesting indeed!

personal

Reasons to be Grateful: 16

Experiment, week 16. This week’s five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful.

This week has been full of food and family history!

  1. Fish Display. I just love the displays of fish at our local Waitrose. These are just a couple of photos I took earlier in the week.

    SpratsFrosty Fish

  2. Joan’s Cherry Cake. Our neighbour across the road is in her late 80s and is beginning to lose her sight. So several of the neighbours keep half an eye on her, help her with errands and do bits of shopping for her — as much as she’ll let us because like all “old ‘uns” she’s fiercely independent. Every so often she insists on making us a cake. It’s very sweet of her and entirely unnecessary, but she enjoys doing it. This week she made a very nice cherry cake which was much appreciated for afternoon tea.
  3. Trout. At the same time as taking the fishy photos above we bought a couple of gorgeous large trout for dinner yesterday. Very simply baked in foil parcels in the oven with a bulb of fennel and lemon juice; served with plain steamed new potatoes and mushroom sauce. Yummy!
  4. Naval Family History. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve continued to investigate the naval connections of my family (for the start of the story see here). It’s proving immensely interesting to see what ships the guys served on and where they went. I’ll probably write more details about it when I’ve done more research and (hopefully) tied up some of the loose ends.
  5. Prawns & Pasta. Another simple but satisfying meal tonight which took minutes to prepare and cook. Here’s how (you can do the quantities!). While preparing everything else, cook the pasta; when done drain it and keep it warm. Sauté some finely chopped onion and garlic in olive oil until going translucent. Add a quantity of thawed, uncooked king prawns; sauté for a minute then add some sliced mushrooms, tomato paste, half a glass of white wine and the juice of a lemon; plus a dash of chilli and/or chopped herbs if you wish. Mix together and cook for 5-6 minutes with the lid on to ensure the prawns are done. Near the end season to taste and add a bit more tomato paste if desired: the sauce should be thick and almost non-existent. Add the pasta and toss together for a minute or two. Serve with Parmesan (optional) and devour greedily!