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Whole Lot Of Shakin’ … Not Goin’ On
And so, dear reader, the day has not only come, but it has gone. The publishing event of the year – or the decade, or century, or epoch, or possibly the most important one since Moses came down the mountain clutching is collection of stone tablets – has happened. After what seems like an indecently…
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Time And Food Wait For No Man
In the late 1950s, the American activist, singer and songwriter, Pete Seeger wrote the antiwar song, Turn! Turn! Turn! It remained a fairly obscure folk song until the Byrds had a worldwide hit with it in 1965. Apart from the refrain, and six words at the end of the song, Seeger lifted the text, almost…
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And The Winner Is …
It must be acknowledged that politicians, as a species, are not only distrusted, but heartily disliked. People express their dislike in all kinds of ways, especially on social media. They use a politician’s ideology as a pejorative term, doubt his or her parentage, accuse them of lying/being greedy/corrupt/self-serving/out of touch simply because they are a…
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Guide Dogs And Englishmen
Given the fact that blindness is mentioned in the title of this blog, it seems reasonable that from time to time, I should write a post which has something to do with it. As I have only mentioned blindness once since I started bombarding you all with my weekly witterings, and then only in passing,…
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Quid Est Veritas?
In 1970, the country music star, Johnny Cash, released a song entitled What Is Truth? A very good question. For an increasing number of people in the dying embers of 2022, the answer appears to be whatever anyone believes it to be. Let me explain what I mean, and point out how utterly absurd people’s…
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Call A Spade A … Shovel
If you have read these outpourings before – thank you for coming back – or if it’s your first time, but you already know me – where have you been? – you will have gathered that I am rather a logophile. Or if you prefer, a lover of words. If, however, this is, by some…
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A Little Vocal Difficulty
For me, one of the delights of producing this blog is uncertainty. I don’t know from one week to the next what I’ll be writing about. I know what my post in forty weeks’ time will concern, but apart from today’s effort, nothing in between. This is deliberate. It means that I have enormous flexibility.…
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The Ugly Game
I believe that at the time of publication, we will be on day 4 of the football World Cup. I’m sure that for those who follow it, it will simply be known as “the World Cup”. But as there have been, within the past few weeks, a women’s World Cup in rugby union, a men’s…
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If Music Be The Love Of Food …
“Music is everything and nothing. It is useless and no limit can be set on its use. Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could devise. Music makes…
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Can We Keep It Simple?
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Gloucester cathedral. Like so many other cathedrals, there is a cafe attached. There, the sounds of shuffling tourists, organ rehearsal, and choristers warming up, combine with the sounds of coffee being ground, machines performing Heaven knows what tasks to produce hot chocolate, and the gentle…
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