There are lots of old buildings around here, and many newer ones that pretend to be old or use details from older buildings.
Many of the architectural features are bricked up and I wonder what is behind them.
I think the correct word for the bricked in windows and arches is “blind” – though I’m not sure if that is only for ones that were never intended to be open.
Continue reading “blind hope”
They say that language shapes our view of the world: if we use sexist and bigoted language, it is difficult to avoid becoming sexist bigots and if we don’t have the words for a concept, we find it hard to understand.
Certainly my own experience of learning a second language revealed a different personality: I was free to say things I could never have said in my native English because the words and the grammar permitted it and because I came fresh to the new language with the opinions and ideas of an adult but with no personal attachment or aversion to the words.
Continue reading “the words we use”
The new General Data Protection Regulation came into force in the EU yesterday and the topic of security – albeit cyber security – has been in most people’s minds, which makes the photo at least slightly apposite.
The poem – written in Spain seven or eight years ago – is a repost, but it’s the best fit for the photograph – taken recently in England:
Camaraderie
In the greystone shadow
of the old jail, three men share
smokes and anecdotes. Two
wear drab and polished black,
the third raises his cigarette
between cupped hands.
Metal glints at his wrists.
I think ideas are a bit like buses: they all come together in a bunch and you can’t catch them all, and then there isn’t another one along for ages.
Perhaps I could follow that conceit a little farther and talk about double-decker ideas, which have more layers and more space to explore than others, or articulated ideas where one connects directly on to another: the first is essential as that’s where the engine is, but it’s incomplete without the second part.
Continue reading “a little history”
Recent posts seem to have been quite text heavy – somewhere around six or seven hundred words each for the last six posts. So perhaps it’s time to fall back on photos again, especially given the season and the fact we’ve had some decent weather and I’ve had a fair number of opportunities to take pictures.
Despite the fact that, as I write this, the church bells seem to be playing “deck the halls”, with the May trees in bloom and daisies – including these fluffy ornamental ones – growing thick and fast, I think summer must be very close.
Continue reading “more flowers, fewer words”
don't confuse the narrator 