'We All Know.....

      ....that respect for order is an excellent thing, and that this is even more important in times of revolution than it is in periods of stability; but the Ancsas were of the opnion that it was completely unneccessary to abuse anyone's obedience, whether man or beast, even in the name of order. Nikki [their dog], then, never had to complain of encroachments on her field of independence by a master or mistress drunk on power. Her little ways and habits were never to be disturbed or upset for a caprice, or malice. There could, of course, be no question of bad faith in the small family she had joined, and it rarely, perhaps never, happened that her master or mistress imposed an obligation on her carelessly, or out of intelectual laziness, an oblibation, that is not justified by the interests of their little company. The abuse of power, baleful vice of kings, leaders, dictators, directors, heads of departments, shepherds, cowherds and swineherds, heads of families, pedagogues, elder brothers, of old and young in what authority so-ever, this stench, this sickness, this source of infection, peculiar to man and unknown to any other carnivore, even the bloodiest, this curse and blasphemy, this war and cholera, was a thing unknown in the Ancsas' house. No pointless constraint was placed on Nicki's freedom. And the gentle disciplinary limitations which were, by tactful initiation and in the interests of the community, imposed on it, were understandable, transparent, open at every point to the spacious world of intelligble necessity'

 - a page from the 1956 novel 'Niki The Story Of A Dog' by the Hungarian poet and author Tibor Dery.

  Read a 2018 review of the novella here.            

For Now We See Through A Reflecting Pool Darkly....

 

Empires Are Like That

 Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria, Iran and Veneuala,
are all countries that Trump's USA has bombed
in the last two years. They could easily see themselves
as disenfranchised voters when they look with curiousity,
at the analytics, the early results, of the mid-term elections
in that empire-sized-country, for signs that indicate
whether they are going to bombed again in future.

In relative size they are all small. Iran is the largest
at one sixth the size of the USA. Of the countries
that America has bombed recently they above all
know they are foriegn policy cannon fodder
for a preening president to use his fire power on,
to get his own movement to cast their vote
to echo the past where the war has to be real
before it could be edited into infotainment 
for the land where its biggest war was a civil war,
1861 - 65 in which it created its own recurring enmity.

Before going to war with Spain over the Philippines
1899 - 1902 and fighting more wars, before damning
other countries who have  resolutely, defended themselves
in the century after. It helps Somalia, Iraq, Nigeria, and Iran
to know that their new oversized enemy
will never recover from its distorted memory
of its own greatness: Empires are like that. 

Music For Beyond Arimstice Day

This portable cello is of the sort that was made for more genteel times and wars, such as the First World War (though it was not the first - that title could have been given to the Napoleonic Wars a century ealier). But still in the early twentieth century a soldier who was musical would take his instrument to the battle field with him, and when the bombs were silent and there was no fear of mustard gas he could play for his fellow soldiers in the field, or in the hospital tent for the patients and nurses - as long as the music did not make it's listeners too melancholy.

Wars in warfare since then have excluded such simple and homely refreshments of the sensiblities, in favour of an increasing coarsening of the senses in which the soldiers who have survived such wars took home to their familiesm and sought to hide, symptoms of the damage they endured when it was called shell shock, though it is now called PTSD. Such damage can now be cause by living with family, or from many other different causes, including employment.

What music should we play today to give ourselves respite from the battlefield of modern life, that will return us for a short while
to a place of restful elegance?

 

Scary Times - A Review Of 'Glasgow Boys' By Margaret McDonald

 

  This book is sold as Young Adult Fiction, It is definitely fiction but how much is it for young adults to read? 

  l am unsure: I am the wrong age to comment on the intended age range for its audience. 

 The lead characters Finlay and Banjo are teenage boys who in the book go through what most teenage boys expect to go through, first time leaving school, first job/training, first female friends, first time subjectively experiencing their own sexuality in a world where sexuality is easily misunderstood when spoken of in slang terns, first time testing out what sense they have of being an adult in the world without the parental regulations that once acted like 'stabliser wheels' on a child's bike, that stopped the rider from losing their balance, where their poor comprehension of adult law and adult maturity proved unhelpful in guiding them. 

  But where most teenagers, boys and girls, would have to adapt to responding to levels of responcibility based on an adult sense of the law, whilst having two birth parents who readers might assume had good life skills and a reputation for being able to defend themselves not far behind them, Finlay and Banjo make their first steps into adulthood with the background of them both being raised in a care home posssibly since the age of ten and then seperated and losing contact with each other through them being fostered, where Finlay's fostering has come to an end due to his apparently becoming an adult.

  So the reader gets to sit with Banjo and Finlay whilst they are put through the many first stages of adulthood, and the experiences often leave them rather raw and unable to explain to themselves what is happening and how to respond to it. If I had a charity box like swear box sat at my side in which I had to put money every time that Banjo and Finlay were presented as being caught short in some new situation they did not know 'how to read', where felt threatened, or when they actually swore on the page, then the charity that the box was for would have done well out of me reading this book. 

 There are over thirty chapters, all of them alternate titled 'Finlay', 'Banjo', 'Finlay' etc. From the start to over half way through the book the chapters look short, and the language is kept simple, but at no point does the author stint on the amount of drama she can compress into tightly written chapters. In that respect the book observes one of George Orwell's rules for writing where short simple sentences are the ideal building blocks for creating a complex story. Then there is at the end of many chapters a section titled 'Three Years Earlier', where these adenda to the main story form the back story of Finlay and Banjo's lives in the care home, which accumulates into a very particular drama for both of them. 

   At no point in this book is the word 'trauma' used and yet the book is full of hints at trauma in the everyday dramas through which Finlay and Banjo get their first taste of being attempted adults among other young people doing the same but with better quality material and family support. 

  There are break throughs, though in the writing they often don't feel like breeak throughs, because barely after Banjo gets through one scrape or conflict, more intact then he expected to, then another scrape or hair pin bend in life which is a consequence of the previous conflict, tests him. So that whilst he reacts well in the new situation he does not get his breath back, figuratively, or appreicate the taste of being confident in his growing maturity, in himself.

  It would be churlish of me to say that the last chapter seems like a false ending, so I will not say that. What I can say is that the characters, Finlay and Banjo and their friends, in their new chosen family, to adapt a phrase, had to find a point of resolution in their lives that fits well with the wider world around them. Job done. 

  I can imagine this being the first book in a series where the same characters return at later stages in their lives where they look back and forward in different ways as new times present them with new challenges that are less painful then facing adulthood without the support of the sort parents that other teenagers have, as guidance.    

Wild Life Picture Of The Month - The Citrine Wagtail (Motacilla Citreola)

The Citrine Wagtail (Motacilla citreola) is a small songbird in the family Motacillidae. This species breeds in the central Palearctic in wet meadows and tundra. It migrates in winter to South Asia, often to highland areas. Its range is expanding westwards, and it is a rare but increasing vagrant to western Europe. Vagrants seem to extend the migration rather than straying en route; in Bhutan, for example, though along one of the species’ migration flyways, the citrine wagtail has been recorded as an extremely rare passer-by rather than staying even for a few days or weeks. Photo and text: Mavera Yordam.

 

It Must Be The Change Of Season

but it happens every November that charities
who like to attract the public's attention
choose that month to invite to the public
who have not written a will recently to do so.

What is more they say 'write a will for free',
whilst making the process one where the writer
will be invited to make a donation to them,
goodness knows how much money lawyers
and their clerks make out of this process.

'Been there before, made a will then',
and 'I don't have enough to worry anyone,
or excite them at the prospect of my decline
being advantageous to them.' is all I will reply
 - if I am asked about this for the present.