Write-Place

 In a couple of hours I, along with my 20 year old grandson, will be standing in line to receive our "vaccination" for Covid 19. He, because he had Non Hodgkinsons T Cell Lymophoma aged 2, and me because I am over 60 years old. Over the past year I , as well as millions of others have been thinking about one thing and  one thing only - Covid 19.  It has been very difficult not to think about it as news and developments of this Corona Virus gradually increased from snippets of news and anecdotal stories to full blown panic and what seemed to me to be hysteria and culminating on March 23rd 2020 as full blown "Lockdown - a term which I had previously associated with riots in US prisons. The media participation became almost manic along with the "Daily Briefings" from Government and the 3 word slogans which soon became  an essential part of our lives.  Weekly decrees announced the next round of restrictive "measures" which soon became "laws" to ...

                                                                            Preface   If there is but one thing that you take from me, one piece of advice that I can give, that you will receive without question let it be this – don’t go back. Whether in your mind or in your physical being, for whatever you remember is not there. Perhaps it never was. Perhaps memories do not exist and those thoughts we keep preserved behind a protective film of the past are but wild imaginings of an ageing mind  For I know that your mind will cruelly twist your carefully kept images. It will turn the roads you knew to dead ends, cul de sacs to your truths. It will obliterate the landmarks you knew so well and rebuild them in a way that is un-recognisable to you. You may have been torn down and rebuilt, ...

  Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) Matisse he was an artist of the nineteenth century He painted thoughts and feelings for all the world to see Some said his work was ludicrous, not inspiring or smart Some said he was a madman, this could never be called art. He started off in pencils drawing pictures of still life And then went on to portraits of his mistresses and wife The artists there around him called their work Impressionist But Matisse’s attempts at this were more inclined to Realist. Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) Matisse he was an artist of the nineteenth century He painted thoughts and feelings for all the world to see Some said his work was ludicrous, not inspiring or smart Some said he was a madman, this could never be called art. He started off in pencils drawing pictures of still life And then went on to portraits of his mistresses and wife The artists there around him called their work Impressionist But Matisse’s attempts at this were more inclined to Realist. Then col...

Dystopia :   a community or society that is undesirable or frightening.                 :  an antonym o f Utopia  a term coined by  Sir Thomas More   and figures as the title of                      one of his best known works , published in 1516, which created a blueprint for an                           ideal society with minimal crime, violence and poverty.    Wikipedia Dystopias are often characterised by   tyrannical  governments, environmental disaster, dehumanising  or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Dystopian societies appear in many  fictional works  and artistic representations, particularly in stories set in the future and some of the most famous examples are  Aldous Huxley 's  Brave New Wo...

 Ten months since I last posted on here.  Ironically, writing that I ought to have been keeping a daily diary since the beginning of the year 2020   Write-Place March 2020   Looking back at this blog since I started writing it in 2008, there have been a number of times that I have returned to writing a more regular, sometimes daily post, with various reasons for being inconsistent previously and also various reasons for making a pledge to be more consistent.   I realise now that it is irrelevant whether I post weekly, monthly or 6 monthly. The important thing is that I write - however diverse the categories, length or form the writing is.  Not that I have not been writing, this past year. Erratically, over the the weeks and months I have worked on numerous ongoing projects - a novel, a follow up biography, poetry pieces and travel writing - but never quite finishing one piece.  Editing and publishing a family member's biography was a pleasan...

Write-Place: Dear Diary - Mother's Day - 2020 : I knew weeks ago that I ought to be keeping a daily diary on here or elsewhere of events, appointments, thoughts, feelings and opinions.  I...

I knew weeks ago that I ought to be keeping a daily diary on here or elsewhere of events, appointments, thoughts, feelings and opinions.  I knew way back in August when I purposely declined to buy a 2020 diary even as my daughter was purchasing a selection of these items in a range of sizes and styles. I merely flicked through the pages and returned the books to their display shelf, muttering "I'll not write in it".  I realise this is a shocking thing to say by someone who purports to "write" and my only excuse is that ... oh wait, I don't actually have an excuse. Needing to write things down has become imperative due to my increasingly decreasing ability to remember anything at all for longer than a few hours, let alone days and although this is not a recently acquired inability (see numerous posts on this blog on this theme over the past 12 years or so) it seems a lot more important in this unprecedented  situation, namely  the Corona Virus (Covid19...