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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.     |
| Getting It Said I actually caught up to the Promptly Poetry Challenge today. A poem intended to be read as a chant, meter all-important, meaning merely incidental and vague. I write more chants as time goes on. Anyway, when I’d finished, I read through the new poem and several of the ones I’d written to catch up. And realised that they were all about the same thing, in spite of the different prompts. I was reminded of Claude Monet, who spent his last few years painting endless pictures of the waterlilies on his pond. I’ve never understood how people can get stuck on one subject (or job) like that but I think I get it now. Old age has a lot to do with it. In the end, we write or paint what we’re thinking about. Word count: 133 |
| Wishful Thinking Here we are near the end of October and it seems only a few days since it was barely begun. This acceleration of time with gathering age becomes ridiculous. Were I able to run as fast as the years speed by, I’d arrive before I set out. True conservation of energy! |
| Rupert QOTD asked recently about our favourite comics. This morning I realised that I’d not answered with complete honesty. In my haste, I’d selected two comics that were both American. The full truth is that this ignores the impact of European cartoons on my development. Although it’s true that, as an adult, I love Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes, more influential on my childhood was a bear known as Rupert. I knew him as a white bear (probably polar as a result) but he was originally brown. More importantly, he was set apart from his fellow bears by his clothing - red sweater, chequered scarf and trousers, white shoes. Rupert was the creation of a husband and wife team, Herbert Tourtel (story) and Mary Tourtel (illustration). He was born in 1920, which makes him older than the other famous British bears, Winnie the Pooh and Paddington (yes, I know Paddington was supposed to be from Peru but he behaved as a Brit). That makes Rupert 105 years old and his longevity is caused by a list of successor writer/illustrators over the years. He began as a regular item in the newspaper, the Daily Express, and has continued thus right up to the present. I never had access to the paper series but was given several copies of the hardback annual of his adventures that was published each year. These had four ways to read the story. At the top of the page, would be a title for the events of that page. Then there would be the illustrations, four to the page. Under that would be two lines of verse describing what happened in the picture. And, finally, there was a block of text at the bottom with a full account given. It was this that made Rupert so special. The title gave you a quick summary of the latest development in the story, the pictures showed it happening (ideal for those unable yet to read), the verses expanded the story in nursery style rhyme and meter (perfect for reading aloud), and the text gave the literate child all the details that complete the story. The illustrations were so very English in style and content. They are completely realistic, not obsessively and exquisitely detailed, like Hergé’s Tintin stories, and without the verve of Uderzo’s work in Asterix, but evidence of a love for the British countryside. The verses were impressively true to their nature as being for the very young, but the stories were delightfully strange and inventive. There was none of that strict attendance to reality as in Tintin - Rupert’s adventures took place in a world of magic and imagination. Yet always with that English country background. So Rupert deserves mention if we’re talking about cartoons. I was always on the lookout for any annuals that I lacked in those days and seized upon them when found. Even today I wish that I still had those annuals I collected and I happily read every word of any new Rupert story discovered. He’s like that other more recent phenomenon, Wallace and Gromit - a British institution. Word count: 513  |
| A Pill for Depression It’s hard getting any sympathy in this household. Just the other day I was feeling sorry for myself, deep in the throes of P.O.M.S (Poor Old Man Syndrome), when I said to Andrea, “What are you going to do when I go doolally one of these days?” ”What d’you mean, ‘Go doolally?’” she says. “You know, lose my marbles, say hello to Mr Alzheimer, whatever.” She looks at me. “What d’you want me to do? Hide your socks or something?” Word count: 83 |
| Procrastination I don’t know about you but I am endlessly unkind to my future self. Whenever a task proves too irritating or annoying, my tendency is to consign it to the future. The expectation is that tomorrow I will feel differently and somehow the task will be more doable. Sometimes, this is even true, but more usually I just find myself in a developing groundhog day of putting things off until the next tomorrow. Strangely, this behaviour is successful in an unexpected way. After being trapped in a procrastination series, I often face the inevitable and admit that I will never manage the task. It can then be given up without remorse or further reflection. It’s an outcome of sorts, after all. Ideally, it would be best to develop one’s ability to assess a task before accepting it, so that only those well within possible range be accepted. That would be worth working on. Word count: 153 |
| Wishes Re Whispering Ghost of C.St.Ann  's post yesterday regarding favourite genres, what genre would you love to be able to write but you don't seem to be capable of?Mine would be detective stories - I haven't the devious mind that comes up with that sort of plot. |
| Something for Chewsday to Chew On I read somewhere recently that Bob Dylan reads his early lyrics and is amazed that he could write such words. He even admits that he can’t write that sorta stuff anymore. That’s quite an admission, coming from him. I would say the same thing except that with me, it doesn’t matter since no one reads my old stuff anyway. But it remains true. And I am left wondering whether, on this sampling of precisely two people, it would be true to say that old age cannot say the things that came so easily to youth. True or not, it makes sense that we should be concerned about different things from the young. If we haven’t learned anything after a lifetime of experience, it would be a sad tale indeed. Kind of negates the whole point of the journey, after all. Word count: 140 |
| The End of the World I think it’s mainly true that, whatever you think of to write, someone will have written it first. Yesterday I had an idea for a short story - nothing brilliant but enough to write a very short piece on. So I scribbled it down quickly and then reflected on how many times the end of the world has been written about. Just about everyone’s had a go at it. And, if you write about it one way, you can bet Bob Dylan wrote it from a very different perspective. In a song called Talkin’ World War III Blues, he says this: Well, time passed and now it seems Everybody's having them dreams Everybody sees themselves walkin' around with no one else Half of the people can be part right all of the time Some of the people can be all right part of the time But all of the people can't be all right all of the time I think Abraham Lincoln said that I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours I said that. I wrote from Bob’s point of view. And yeah, he did it much better than I did. Word count: 197 |
| The Gods If those whom the gods love die young, it's clear they're not keen on me. |
| On Despatch To me it seems that it’s not death we fear so much as the manner of our death. If there’s life after death, then we’ve nothing to fear except consignment to the wrong place. And if death is just that and we cease to exist, we won’t know anything about it and it won’t hurt. But the dying process - that can be a terrible thing indeed. |
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