No news is good news, they used to say. And this is a no news day. Perhaps I shall have something more to say for myself tomorrow. Just now, Dolly is flopped in a big patch of sunshine in the living room and I’m thinking of moving in there to flop in my armchair with a book until Graham demands: ”Is it lunch time yet?”
Hope your day is as quiet, happy and sun-filled as mine.
Posted in Uncategorized
I woke in the small hours from a strange, nightmarish dream in which I moved from writing an early novel on a borrowed typewriter in a back office of the government building in which I worked on leaving the RAF, through an all-night walk through an antique, quasi-Victorian London, all sleaze, grime, and hidden menace, to the back-streets of an Athens which exists only in my imagination.
And, somewhere in it, my walk was in the company of an older version of a young man I once knew, with his wife and two near-adult children I never knew. We were comparing sports jackets. I wanted a traditional Donnegal tweed rather than my coarse-wove Harris and he was just about to inform me of a good supplier when I was forced out of bed and into painful wakefulness with an urgent need to visit the bathroom.
Hot coffee and a bit of time-shifted TV documentary on the computer and I was calm enough to go back to bed where I slept easy and thorough, right through to 09:30. And even then I woke only because we’d been hit by torrential rain, roaring down the gulleys and drumming on the pavement.
A funny old night, then, and the day so far has been equally odd and disjointed.
Not unpleasant, though, not even in my vivid dream where my wits were sufficiently gathered to pull out a battered old Leica from my pocket and record the never-London through which I roamed on a strangely warm early colour film process.
And now that I’m fully awake again, it’s good. Rather damp, somewhat confused, but good. There’s sometimes a feeling of grateful surprise on waking to find that another day has dawned and that you’re still around to enjoy it. The older I get, the stronger that surprise becomes, and the deeper the gratitude to go with it.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve heard things right, or if my understanding of what has been said is faulty.
Like when, this morning, a commentator on the radio stated that the cause of the world banking crisis was that people borrowed more money than they could repay. I drew in my breath sharply and waited for the other participants in the programme to disagree or, at least, to seek clarification. Not a word was spoken.
Now, it may just be me but I think that this statement completely reverses what happened. If a person borrows money and fails to repay it, the goods or securities against which the loan was made are forfeit.
I feel deeply for the borrower in such a situation. His pain is real, and human, but it’s his problem. Sure, he may have borrowed too much, or failed to insure against his inability to pay, but the story needs to end there, when the bailiffs call.
I cannot bring myself to believe however that, should the value of the forfeited goods fail to repay the loan, I should somehow add to the borrower’s pain any personal responsibility for harming the interests of the lender. It’s the lender’s business to manage his affairs better, up to and including carrying insurance against loss.
If, by some twist of logic that I fail to understand, it is right that blame is parcelled out in this way, with the customer always being at fault, then I can’t help but to conclude that there’s a basic flaw in the system and that those who’ve held all along that capitalism holds the seeds of its own destruction are, finally, justified.
Perhaps, after all, the t-shirt slogans are right. Property is theft.
But, what do I know? I’ve always held the belief that a philosophy which can be expressed in a nutshell rightly belongs there. If it turns out that the inmates are running the asylum then we all of us need a new t-shirt.
Posted in personal
I was a bit hasty with my reference to a ‘Tufty Badge” yesterday, giving rise to a degree of puzzlement. Puzzle no more:
It’s funny how these old things stick around, becoming an essential part of family tradition.
Other than that it’s a lovely sunny day, which should never happen in Wales on a Sunday, there’s a nice little chicken sitting in the fridge all stuffed and dressed ready for the oven, and all’s well in our green and pleasant valley.
Iechy dda!
Posted in Uncategorized
‘Flu jab or digestive problems, I’m fully over it now, and at no time was I anywhere near what you could call sick. Just a tad under par, is all. This is my twentieth or twenty-first consecutive annual seasonal ‘flu jab and all in all I reckon it’s been a boon to me.
People are far too quick to say “I’ve had ‘flu” when all they’ve had is a minor infection and a major attack of morbid imagination. I’ll tell ya what real ‘flu is like. Just picture yourself laying helpless in bed when a sudden breeze lifts a £50 [$100] note [bill] from your bedside table and you’re simply too weak to prevent it blowing out the window. Gottit? Good. You’re about 25% along the way to understanding how bad it can be. Or remembering, if you’re old like me.
I’ll take a little post-vaccination fever over the ‘flu any old day. I don’t seek to persuade anyone to follow my example–I can’t even talk Graham into it–but I do say that it suits me.
In the midst of that, we passed a significant anniversary yesterday. One year to the day when we moved in to this house. We still love it, and where it is. We have good neighbours and, for once, no trace of a desire to move again. Nothing in life is permanent but it’s nice to think that we’re here for whatever may pass as a duration and it’s brilliant not to be thinking about getting the house ready to sell.
And, I had a clever idea yesterday. Least ways, Graham says it’s clever, and he knows about these things.
See, we were talking about the imminence of our project to clear the back garden down to the earth and out to the walls and fences. Graham was wondering how on earth we were going to get rid of the vegetation once we’ve stripped it.
“What we need now is our old Mr Chippy,” I said.
“Yeah. But we sold it.”
“Nothing to stop us buying a new one. I can afford it and I’m perfectly happy to get it.”
“That’s brilliant! What a good idea! Why didn’t I think of that?”
And with no more ado he went off to his computer, tracked down what seems like a good chipping machine at a very reasonable price, and I had ordered and paid for it, for delivery in the middle of next week. It’s an electric thing, not a chunky great petrol-driven one like we had way back when, but it’ll do the job and we’ll sell it when we’re done. I hope he loves it as much he did our old one.
~~+~~
Our old friend, Mr Chippy, in 2000
~~+~~
“Well done, chicken,” he said. ”You’ve earned yourself another Tufty badge.”
“I’d rather have a double-grilled mega-whopper with fries and a chocolate milk-shake next time we’re out.”
“For once it could be that you’ll have earned it.”
“Thanks. I think.”
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