Sporting Chances

I would have done a lot better in school sport
if I had understood before I began attending
the place that sport was more meant to assess me
than the teach or support me: School was no place
to learn to swim, play football or cricket.
or prove to anyone how teamwork works.  

School was there to discover if I was fit to be taught.

Meanwhile I had to work out between home
and school which of them expected the other
to support me more, without either asking either.

If an aptitude for competitive sport was ever meant
to be a signifier in my life my lack of aptness
would be the case, though I did learn to swim
aged 30, and enjoyed mild attempts at being fit.

But fitness and competitiveness? No chance.    

Less Than Ontological Understanding

Superlatives mark the boundaries
for where and when our understanding
has exceeded our shared capacity
for language. It takes imagination,
or drugs, to think far enough
that we don't have words for it.

Education makes language the drug
we all have to share for us to feel alike
which is why learning limits us
to within the limits of each other. 

Time And Words

Those of us who were teenagers in the analogue world,
well before digital communications sped up all messaging, 
can remember the joy and despair of trying to be pen pals
with somebody whose address we had discovered
and we were both displaced and hungry in the need
to connect with another well away from where we were.

Then, and since, other people's handwriting might be
the ongoing small miracle that we became attached to,  
letter to letter, unaware of what our handwriting meant
to another unless they wrote as much to tell us.

Now we have standard print Trebuchet, Times,
Georgia, Courier, Arial, Helvetica and Verdana,
and screens that invent the time economy, and limit
our attention spans, and therefore at what length
we are at ease we can write hoping to be read.

There the smaller the screen and the more information
the device the machine stores then the sooner
that more of us will wear glasses more of the time,
in a print and image based information-rich society. 

And those who prefer to use emojis
do well to say as much with them as they do
whilst leaving print based human life forms mystified.    

Test Pilot

Not that the weather you fly through
as you take your time is under your control.
But whether good or bad the conditions 
are yours to make the best of. 

 

A Short History Of BBC War Announcements

When WW2 started in Sept 1939,
it started in Britain with a BBC announcement
from a man who affected to speak
as if he were a retired funeral director*.

After the announcement, and what followed,
the British people were more agitated
by the government than the enemy,
as their lives were rendered much duller
and their moments of joy were cancelled.

Eighty six years later, when WW3 happens
I wonder what form the recognition of it will take.

We could do worse than recognise the 'starting gun'
as the BBC being unable to broadcast the short film
'Gaza: Doctors Under Attack' which was there
for the BBC to show and horrify the world with,
from February 2025, where the lead choice
for showing it has now fallen to other media,
through which, I promise you, it will go viral.

So, at under six minutes long and with a narrative
that defines the words 'contested' and 'contentious',
here is 'Gaza: Doctors Under Attack'

It will be contested as propaganda by those
who have pre-chosen their side in the conflict.
Decide for yourself-that is what free will is for.

*Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869 - 1940).
Hear the speech in full here. 

Dress To Overwhelm, Or Be Yourself...

The difference between a fetish and a relationship
is one of process, understanding: with a fetish
one dresser-up dresses to shock or impress another,
until the one who is impressed cannot process
what they are impressed by any further.

Enter collapse and decline in the relationship.
You can read about this in 'Venus in Furs'. 
I read the book twice, to try to understand it better.

Whereas in a relationship the parties see past
the need to impress. Seeking instead to make the relationship
more about their natural selves, no dressing up required. 
Maturity is like some comfy chair they both share
which is neither 'I' nor 'You', but an 'Us' they both occupy.

Picture Set Of The Month - July - Home Made Art

The Mystery of the Hill

Even Monster Need Allies

A Field of Rape

The Worm of Doubt