Write-Place

  A first page waiting,  clean, virginal yet hopeful. Craving profound thoughts.  BG Nothing Ever Happens - Del Amitri

  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,...

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...

Sometimes, what you are thinking or have thought has already been written down by someone else, perfectly. This is one occasion for me.  "On the day I die a lot will happen. A lot will change.  The world will be busy. On the day I die, all the important appointments I made will be left unattended.  The many plans I had yet to complete will remain forever undone. The calendar that ruled so many of my days will now be irrelevant to me. All the material things I so chased and guarded and treasured will be left in the hands of others to care for or to discard. The words of my critics which so burdened me will cease to sting or capture anymore. They will be unable to touch me. The arguments I believed I’d won here will not serve me or bring me any satisfaction or solace.  All my noisy incoming notifications and texts and calls will go unanswered. Their great urgency will be quieted.  My many nagging regrets will ...

 Thoughts - A Poem My best thoughts come while washing up ...  Perhaps they feel for me, the tedium of the chore, as they wallow in the murky depths, of the sink. They try to  take me by surprise, and send me rushing to find a pen  before the idea disappears, leaving pools of dirty dish water on the kitchen floor. Another job to do.  Perhaps my epitaph will read  "Here lies the makings of the world's greatest poet. Thoughts lost for want of a towel". Brenda

Thank God It's Friday  - A Supply Teacher's Lot  Monday                                                                                                                                                      I'm scheduled to teach "Key Skills" (English, Maths, Basic Information Technology) to a class of   prospective` of  prospective plumbers and painters & decorators - aged between seventeen and twenty   one years old. " I left school to get away from all this,” says one. “I wanna be a plumber not an English  teacher,” says another.  We practise writing job applications an...

A few things happened in British history, on this day.  In 1080 - William Walcher Bishop of Durham & Earl of Northumberland, was murdered. As revenge, William the Conqueror ravaged the area and took the opportunity to invade Scotland and build the castle at Newcastle Upon Tyne. 1727 - Thomas Gainsborough, English painter and founder of the English School of portrait & landscape painting, was born. 1796 - Edward Jenner became the first British physician to carry out a successful vaccination on an 8 year old boy against smallpox. His pioneering work laid the foundation for modern immunology techniques.  1847 - HMS Driver  completed the first circumnavigation of the world by a steamship when it arrived back at Spithead on the Hampshire coast. 1881 - The death of Mary Jane Seacole, a British-Jamaican business woman and nurse who set up the "British Hotel" behind the lines during the Crimean War. She described it as "a mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and ...

  As we are currently having a lovely spell of warm- even hot - weather, I looked back at what was happening in Mays gone by, according to this blog, anyway. Seems I was referring to myself as an old person then, so no further comment needed on that. Apparently in May 2012 it was very warm too, so here are my thoughts from back then, not so different from today, thirteen years later .                                                      It's probably just me, but I don't think I'm so unique.  I am old though and many things get on my nerves, most of the time.   I get on my nerves most of the time, so I do sympathise with everyone else on this.  So, the sun is shining brightly and there's hardly a cloud in the sky and it's definately, hot. Great ! In this country we're always waiting for hot weather, and when it comes we do try to...

 Mind, Brain, Soul - Who we really are ... Most of us prefer to think that we possess something which is greater than the sum of our neurons; something which animates us and makes us the human individual we are. But much of what used to be classed as mind turns out to be brain and some part of all that must surely be the soul.  If we question who we are in these terms, we soon discover that we are not only our minds, but something else - and maybe everything else - at the same time. And is the soul one entity or are we all separate souls ? One of my favourite topics for questioning and discussion is memory, and how we define and recall our memories and many much greater 'minds' than mine have, over millenia, investigated and debated these issues.  A memory, at the cellular level, is a particular pattern of cellular changes on particular spots in our heads. A mood, however is a compound of neuro transmitters and if there's too much acetylcholine and not enough serotonin, t...

As I watch the funeral of Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church from 2013 to his death on Easter Monday 2025 play out across the world, I am drawn to the Vatican Obelisk in St Peter's Square. One of thirteen ancient obelisks of Rome, it is the only one which has never fallen.  Made of red granite it is 25 metres high and together with the cross and the base composed of four bronze lions, it reaches almost 40 metres. It is of Egyptian origin though hasn't any hieroglyphs and according to Pliny, comes from the city of Heliopolis - seat of worship of the sun god Re -  on the River Nile. Before coming to Rome in 40 AD it stood in the Forum Iulli of Alexandria. Emperor Caligula then had it placed at the centre of the Circus Nero, site of the modern day Vatican City. It was moved almost 800 feet in one day in 1586, at the behest of Pope Sixtus V.  The obelisk functions as a massive sundial, and each morning its shadow points towards one of the twelve Zodiac signs embedded i...

Which came first - Easter, the egg or the chocolate ? T he egg has long been a symbol of renewal and rebirth. Though the feast is a moveable one, Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon which occurs on or after the Spring Equinox. Lambs and rabbits are born, chickens and birds are hatched and new plant life growth is showing  after the cold dormant winter. Easter is a Christian celebration today, but has been adapted from older traditions. Symbols of rebirth and traditional sacrifice come from the Norsemen's Easyat, Ostara and Ostar and the pagan goddess Eostre, all involving the time of the growing sunshine and new birth. Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians and Hindus believed that the world began with an enormous egg, and so the egg as a symbol of new life has been around for thousands/millions of years. The Easter Bunny most likely arose  as a symbol of fertility due to the rapid reproduction of rabbits. But what of the chocolate ? Painted and decorated eg...

  Posts From the Pasts - 20th November 2014 Three things have moved me to resurrect this blog today which has not been posted on since February this year. It's not that I have not been "moved" (insert as appropriate -  shocked, angry, happy, joyful,  thankful, grateful, upset, furious, insensed  ) for the last 9 months because believe me, I have. But the rapidly diminishing brain cells have often prevented me writing it down.  The other blogs / pages that I post are specific to a theme so that leaves me with  Write-Place  to well, write other stuff. I have checked back to the original gumph of what I said in 2008 that I intended posting on it and am pleased to be reminded that I said almost anything was appropriate, so here we  are.  I was brought up in a family culture that listened to and discussed the weather forecasts on the radio and then television and "lighting up time" was noted faithfully. Not that we ever had a car but cycling was a...

Sorting through my bookcase yesterday, I came across "The Golden Treasury of Longer Poems - selected and edited by Ernest Rhys" published in 1939 and reprinted in 1950.  This book is my Dad's copy, purchased for "3 and 3" (3 shillings & 3 pence) on  8/4/55 and is suitably annotated throughout in his neat, tiny handwriting. I think that if it was a font on a computer 'app' it would be size 8 ... without magnification of the screen or document. How he managed to write so clearly and accurately amazes me ; mainly with a fountain/cartridge pen and ink and only much later with a ballpoint or 'Biro', as we called them. I still do. My grandfather's handwriting was even smaller than this and I remember him clearly using a magnifying glass as he wrote - but this is a post for another time. Of course, once the Longer Treasury was in my hands it stayed there a while as I refreshed my mind on Gibson, Binyan Byron and many other of the "greats...

Since this post in 2012, many things have happened worldwide which could suggest that we are still in an end of days age.  Astrologers maintain that an astrological age is a product of the Earth's slow precessional rotation -    the 'gyration of the rotating axis of a spinning body about an intersecting axis' - and that this lasts for 2106 years, on average (a 25,920 year period period or great year, divided by 12 zodiac signs Astrologers maintain that an astrological age is a product of the Earth's slow  precessional rotation  and lasts for 2,160 years, on average (one 25,920 year period of precession, or  great ye ar , divided by 12 zodiac signs equals a 2,160 year astrological age) The  Age of Aquarius , in astrology  is either the current or forthcoming astronomical age  depending on the method of calculation. Astrologers do  not agree on when the Aquarian age will start or even if it has already started.   C...