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 |   A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
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Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end. So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.     |
| Apocalypse Now Another snippet of wisdom from the sage, Andrea: Most people don't have their apocalypse survival gear delivered by Instacart. I'm not quite sure why it's funny but I know it is. Isn't it? |
| Isn't it strange that, to find out that we have a temper, we have to lose it? |
| In Any Other Tongue A few days ago, Andrea and I had a conversation ending in speculation on what Shakespeare would sound like in Australian (Strine). Just try speaking Hamlet’s famous soliloquy in your best Ozzie impression and you’ll understand why we found the idea amusing. And that’s in spite of admitting that it’s entirely possible that Strine may be pretty close to how the Bard himself would have spoken. Much of the English spoken in former colonies has preserved some of the speech patterns of earlier ages. But the matter reminded me powerfully of something that was reported during my time in southern Africa. It seems that the play, Hamlet, was translated into Afrikaans and then staged in some posh theatre or other, probably in Johannesburg. All was going along swimmingly until the following line was proclaimed: “Omlet, Omlet, Ek is jou papa se spook!” The audience collapsed in uncontrollable laughter. Word count: 148 |
| Rhyme Time In all my time before joining WDC, I think I wrote only one poem that contained rhyme. For me, rhyme had degenerated into the stuff of advertising ditties, nursery rhymes, and bawdy, badly written doggerel. It had been overused to the point of uselessness, in my opinion. But then WDC dragged me into areas and genres that I wouldn’t have touched with a bargepole (whatever that is) in my younger days. And one thing I found was that rhyme was useful when you wanted to write a comic poem. It was great for the task and, besides, it came so easily! Rhyme began to appear in more of my poems, especially the short ones that I had to produce daily. And living with the thing brought familiarity, so that I began to see other possibilities in it. I couldn’t resist and began to experiment. I found that it’s more than good at comedic stuff; it can hide a deeper meaning in an apparently harmless little ditty. And there came times when it was just more appropriate than my elephant gun, good old free verse (I know it’s really blank verse but habit insists). Sometimes I went really weird with it, using it in unexpected ways like jostling with prose to make it perform like poetry and internal rhymes and such. So this is my apology to the past and a brief tipping of the forelock to rhyme. It ain’t so bad after all. Word count: 243 |
| Morbid Alert I find myself writing about death quite frequently these days. At the same time, it has dawned on me gradually that Americans really don’t like the subject. Not that anyone does really, but Europeans have a somewhat more stoical and accepting view of it. In America it is definitely not a subject for polite conversation. That’s perfectly understandable, considering how much more optimistic and active Americans are - death is the last thing they want to think about. But Northern Europeans especially are much more depressed about life (I would say “realistic”). And death is, after all, a part of life. It’s why the Danes are the happiest people on earth; their pessimism means that they are never disappointed. As far as I am concerned, this thing about death is the natural addendum to my interest in ageing. I’ve always chased some imaginary benefit in the process, things like wisdom, having something to say, and the time to write, for instance. So the details and changes that age brings are fascinating to me. I am, in effect, my own scientific experiment. And old age brings the consideration of how it all ends, of course. This might, as in my case, be speeded up by some brush with the grim reaper like a heart attack, but it’s always going to happen sooner or later. The interest, I mean - the event itself is obviously inevitable. So I write about it. Not so often in article format but my poetry these days is positively steeped in it. Which means that I have to apologise to those readers that might be offended by too much harping on such a morbid subject. There’s no way I want to rub anyone’s nose in it. You see, it’s my death I’m always considering, no one else’s. And, though there are a few who might notice my disappearance, the rest of you are not really going to be affected much, are you? So be of good cheer, happy readers. There’s no need to get too wrapped up in my doleful maunderings. There are plenty of days left and most will be filled with sunshine, I’m sure. Rejoice and be merry for tomorrow we… Oops, sorry about that. Word count: 368 |
| Toddler No More It’s nearly five years since I joined WdC. I know this because I checked the date under my Account details. And I remember very clearly why I joined. My oldest son, Mad, was the cause. He had suggested that I write a blog to document my experiences in America and he, being a web designer, built that first blog for me from scratch. Together we set off into the net, me providing the content while he honed and perfected the blog mechanics and look. I’d been involved in internet chat for many years and my friends there provided an instant readership to begin with. Some of them were writers too and a few decided they liked the idea and started blogs of their own. Very quickly, we formed a little group, writing, reading and constantly commenting on each other’s blogs. Most comment systems became forums for long discussions that wandered from the subject of the post to matters wide ranging and multifarious. When chat began to collapse under the weight of trolls and idiots, it mattered not to us; we had already built a refuge of conversation that formed the centrepiece of our days. And then it fell apart. First one member disappeared without explanation. Andrea found out what had happened but it was such a sorry tale that I won’t repeat it here. Then Harry went and died, and that was really the death blow to the group. Without Harry, the fun had gone and we all wandered off in despair. The years passed and I had no incentive for the blog anymore. It became hard work and eventually petered out, leaving me exhausted, dispirited and fed up. I needed the companionship of other writers and the spur to write that they gave. What saved me was the realisation one day that maybe what I needed was prompts. That would provide something to kick me back into action - the initial spark from which I could build a fire. And I knew where to find prompts. I googled “Writers’ Group.” WdC was the first name on the list. I had a look, liked what I saw, and joined up. That was in May 2019. It took me a while to find my way around its complexities but there was so much here that I kept at it. I never did find a list of prompts (I’ve since found them in other sites on the net but they’re so putrid as to be almost unusable) but I stumbled on something much better. Contests attracted me and, before I knew it, I was writing like fury again, occasionally winning, and building a portfolio in record speed. It wasn’t long before I realised that I was writing more than I’d ever written before. With a never-ending supply of prompts, spurs and temptations, I was not only producing lots of short stories but the demon of poetry was reawakened. I found myself being dragged into genres that I had never before considered (thanks, Schnujo) and even enjoyed some of them. Angus helped me a lot in those early days, giving lots of good advice on WdC and persuading me to give horror a try. And there were plenty of others that offered friendship and conversation. In time, I found that it was WdC that was keeping me alive - literally. In allowing me this place where writing matters and everyone cares about it, I have truly found a home that I was needing desperately. Without writing, I have nothing and I know from experience that, without it, I fade away and die. Which would not be the end of the world, I know. Everyone dies sooner or later. But I feel as if I’m in a hurry now, that I need to get things said that have waited all my life for expression. It would be a pity to leave without emptying most of it over your unsuspecting heads. So now you know that I’ll not shut up until life shuts up for me. Enjoy it while you can, folks - I’m 75 years old and there’s no guarantee of much more left in this old body. Word count: 692 For I Heart WdC Contest, February 2024 Prompt: Write your remembrance of WdC. |
| Archaeology I was asked the other day about which aspect of writing I liked the best. There was an answer that suggested itself immediately and so I wrote it down and moved on to other things. But today I’ve found that there is another answer and it’s nearly as good as my first. What I really love doing is reading through a bunch of my old stuff and finding something I’d completely forgotten. The best ones are those that don’t even stir a faint flame in the bottomless pit of the forgetory. Most enjoyable of all is the feeling as one reads that, “Hey, this is really good, wish I’d thought of it - wait a minute, I did!” Word count: 117 |
| You’re Okay, How Am I? Listening to yet another Jordan Peterson video the other day, I realised something that has struck me many times in the past. It’s the kind of thing that makes a big impact for a while but then drifts away in the busy-ness of life until something happens and it’s enormously apparent again. Jordan was in the middle of one of his complex explanations of something psychological and deep when it occurred to me. Psychologists are just rediscovering things that writers have known for hundreds of years. And it’s because they’re Johnnies-come-lately that they invent new names for everything and dress things up in such complex language. I know it sounds big-headed but there’s truth in it. Do you think Freud knew anything that Shakespeare didn’t? And Jung wiser in the ways of humanity than Aristophanes? No, they just used different language to muddle their way through to the same understandings. Humanity has been the study of humanity since the invention of language. And its our own complexity that makes it endlessly interesting and variable. There are more schools of psychiatric thought than there are denominations of Christianity. And all that in not much more than a hundred years. Making up new words is a task that can go on forever. Which is not to belittle psychology or Mr Peterson. They make a lot of sense at times. But let’s not forget who got there first. Word count: 235 |
| The Eternal Hunt I would join in the hunt for the TV controller but people say I get this remote look in my eye... |
| Tiny Snowflakes Interesting weather we're having. You may have read that the northeast is having a bit of a snowstorm today. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. It's just that it reminded me of a snowfall we had several years ago that was rather special. It was a fearfully cold day when the snow started to fall. The flakes were so small and cold that they fell more like rain. At first we were uncertain whether we were watching snow, freezing rain or weird hail. Anyway, Andrea happened to be wearing a black coat that showed the flakes really well and I noticed that these tiny flakes were all shaped like six-pointed stars. Except for those that had clubbed together for the descent; those were more like globs of snow or ice. Now, I know some bright spark is going to tell me that all snowflakes are shaped as six-point stars (and that they're all different in detail). But usually it takes a microscope to see them. And our tiny snowflakes were quite visibly star-shaped and, apparently, identical to each other. So my conclusion is that we received abnormally large snowflakes as individuals, instead of the clumps of snowflakes that we normally see. It is still the only time that I've been able to see snowflakes as the scientists tell us they are. I must presume that it was something to do with the intense cold that made them large enough to see with the naked eye. Word count: 252 |
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