Posts

Dear Jake Richards MP ... ... Kier Starmer etc

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 Dear Jake Richards, I am among many constituents who have signed a petition to cease and desist from undemocratically imposing Digital ID (Britcard) on British Citizens. My passport is my identity and is safe under lock and key. It won't disappear when the battery runs out on my phone or when electricity goes down, or when the signal is poor. The same with my driver's license. I can prove my identity with my British Passport and therefore confirm my National Insurance number. In every job I have had I have proved my identity in person to my bank. The bank should not require any further identity and certainly not Digital Identity. The same goes for my Driving License. I totally reject any need for a paperless, easily hacked digital identity. My bank account, purchasing records or my medical details are not for state consumption which have nothing to do with any state official. Not a single person on this planet should have power over my privacy.  My life is my own and I will n...
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A Cup of Coffee - Plain and Simple

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  An online friend has blogged about changing the coffee that she usually drinks and the place that she drinks it.  She feels like she has been cheated ( auntagnes.wordpress.com) Good luck to her, I say. Change the place you drink your coffee every day and tell me when you find somewhere that serves coffee - just that, plain and simple coffee.  I  know I'm speaking in the vein of the "grumpy old women" here but it is a fact of life that you can not go into a cafe these days, ask for a cup of coffee and get it without a barrage of questions about the type you want. I can handle Cappucino and Espresso and Latte. I think I even know what an Americano is.  But when they start on Doppio and Macchiato and Frappe then my mind wanders.  They even seem to have little biscuits that go with the coffee that you are having. They ought to have a list of what goes with what because I like those stick ones with the chocolate inside but am not so keen on the wafery ones....
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Seasons of the Sea

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  Seasons of the Sea   Springtime found me by your shores in the stubbly marram grass. I picked cowslips, ladies’ fingers and clover, holding the stems so tightly that the sap oozed from the stems leaving my hands wet and sticky. The sound of your waves lapping on the beach, close and comforting,helping me in my task. The deserted stretch of cliff top pasture above gives refuge to the thousands of sea birds homing here. When Summer came, it brought with it the invasion of fair weather trippers with their swarms of children making incessant noise. I resented their intrusion and scorned their excitement as they ran to your water’s edge, screaming as you touched them if they dared to venture too near. I kept to the secret places – the caves and niches which were ours alone and waited for the twilight to have you to myself. Then, I could be engulfed by your swell and float, undisturbed, in and out of the rocks.   As the weather changed and Autumn’s chill kept visi...
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These Days

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"I don't really ask for much. I don't dream of big changes in my life or crave for anything extra. To sit with myself and feel thankful for what I have, for the peace that's slowly finding its place in my heart.  I used to feel restless, in m any ways wanting more and trying to fix things in my life. But lately I've realized that peace doesn't come from having everything, it comes from accepting what you already have and making the most of  it ".  Not my own words, but the words of Sthitipragyan  Mohanty, who I came across online this morning.  I don't have any info on the writer but found that this resonated with me today, as much as any day.  No particular reason or no more than any other day when I feel the need to write down my own thoughts - for no particular reason. Anyway, last night was my youngest grandchild's "Prom" - the event that celebrates the year elevens, some who are leaving school to work, some to go on into the sixth fo...
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Haiku

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  A first page waiting,  clean, virginal yet hopeful. Craving profound thoughts.  BG Nothing Ever Happens - Del Amitri
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The Beginnings & Beginnings - Kipling (1917) Gunning (2008) D-Day 2025

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  I came across this poem in a discussion online and was not as familiar with this as other "War Poetry", so looked into it's background. The discussion was a debate on the topical and political climate as it appears to the "public" in the UK today and the current Prime Minister's statement this week that "We are on a war footing". And today, on  81st anniversary of the Normandy landings,  D-Day.  The Beginnings It was not part of their blood,     It came to them very late   With long  arrears  to make good,     When the  English  began to hate.   They were not  easily  moved,      They were icy-willing to wait   Till  every  count  should  be proved,     Ere the  English  began to hate.   Their  voices  were even and low,     Their eyes were  level  and straight.   There was  neither  sign nor show,...
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Resurrected by Write Place's Dear Reader - "Brooke, Browning and Ward (Clifford T )" - Posts From the Past

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Recently I have been reposting some of my long ago posts from this blog, with a view to remind myself of them and also to see how, my views/observations of life in general have changed, if at all over the years. It seems that I am being helped along with this by those who have not only read and commented on the re - posts but have also been reading other posts from the past, which is very nice. Thank you. Here is the post from 2011 which I had certainly forgotten I had written, and my comment for today is only that I am now only just over two years away from the "three score years and ten" that I mentioned back then, as though it were a lifetime away : "One day, Clifford T Ward will be mentioned in the same breath as Rupert Brook and Dylan Thomas, for he is as quintessentially British and poetic as they were. Like them too his life was tinged with great  sadness and unfulfilled promise and was ended far too soon."  So reads a comment on You tube on the link to a per...
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