You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. […]
Poetry is not the most important thing in life… I’d much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets
The Olympics – a golden signpost to change
My adorable nephew shows his colours I was at the office of a Sunday newspaper yesterday, putting in my occasional appearance as a subeditor when something odd happened. We had, as most papers do today, several spreads about the Olympics – about the closing festival high jinks, about glory and courage. So far so uplifting […]
I hate house work more with each passing day
Today I got a new thing of wonder – a tablet computer gizmo. It’s, frankly, astounding. It plays videos, goes online, connects me with everyone and even turns itself into a book at bedtime. It takes pictures and tells me where I should be and when.For those of us old enough to remember the first […]
A walk at the Whangie
Is it through the Whangie, to the Whangie, round the Whangie? If you don’t know what I’m on about, or you think that, perhaps, I’ve come over all post-watershed, I will explain. The Whangie is an odd rock formation in a corner of the Kilpatrick hills. We walked there this week and the sun shone. […]