Whatever Happened to the Brothers?

It strikes me as odd that nuns are still a common sight on the streets of the western world, but you never see monks, do you? This kind of thing is a common sight on every street corner:

But how often do you take a stroll in the park and see this:

The Wrong Picture.

I’m coming to the conclusion that the designers of astrological iconography got it wrong when they assigned the fish to Pisces. It’s becoming my considered opinion that it should have been given to Gemini.

I’m discovering that Geminis are like those big golden carp which the Chinese love to have swimming in their ponds and under their humpity bridges. They make excellent companions but are too self-willed and slippery to hold onto. Try to stroke one or pick one up and it’ll be through your fingers and on the other side of the pond (or hiding under the humpity bridge) before you can say ‘Where’ve you gone?’

And I’m only kidding (cheaply and at the expense of two of the most splendid people I know) simply because life isn’t giving me much to write posts about at the moment.

(And incidentally, it’s also my considered opinion – based on personal experience – that the role of Pisces women is to punish Sagittarian men for past crimes. Only I can’t think of an icon for Nemesis.)

Beware the Politicians' Ploy.

Back in 1982 Argentina sent troops to occupy the Falkland Islands (or Malvinas to the Argentineans) which were British sovereign territory. Britain sent a combined army and navy task force to re-take the islands and a war was fought, ending ten weeks later with a British victory.

There were questions asked in Britain at the time – and subsequently – about the known and possible diplomatic and military manoeuvring which surrounded the conflict, not least because Mrs Thatcher’s popularity rating had been low before the war but rose massively as a result of the victory. That rise was attributed then, and continues to be attributed, to ‘The Falklands Factor.’

Because it has long been recognised that the popularity of a national leader gets a big boost from military victory, and so the suspicion naturally arises that taking the opportunity to go into a winnable war might be a ploy engineered to achieve that end: unite your supporters and detractors behind you in a common cause that will bring success to your country, and everybody will suddenly start cheering you.

And that’s why I think Americans should exercise a measure of circumspection in the matter of Donald Trump’s dealings with North Korea, and especially his ‘fire and fury’ statement which he made today. No doubt that statement alone has sent the rednecks hollering with ecstatic hubris and flinging their hats heavenwards. Let’s hope it doesn’t give Mr Trump too much encouragement.

Being a Failed Poet.

No, one more blog post to come tonight. I’m trying to build up my stock of silly ditties, so I thought I’d copy this email I just sent to somebody. Now can you see why I’m best ignored?

Oh Mistress Qin, Oh Mistress Qin

I’d like to rummage in your bin

Imagine what I’d find in there

A stale pork pie, a scrap of hair

I’d eat the one and save the rest

To lay upon my heaving breast

When all the world is turning cold

And I’m returning to the mold.

It probably won't be long at this rate. Insanity is almost as dangerous as smoking.

Reluctant Roles.

Would you believe that two people now claim me as their mentor? And if you think that’s odd, do you know what’s really odd? They’re both Chinese. Isn’t life interesting?

So is that it for blog posts today? I think so. I’ve just written a very long (mentoring-style) email and my eyes are tired. Besides, nothing of note happened today, unless you count the young boy who smiled at me, the tiny female creature in a pram who scowled at me, and the young woman in the coffee shop who was unusually nice to me as usual.

I don’t understand why people don’t just ignore me; it’s what I aim for. I suppose I should put it down to yet another failure and be glad of the fact.

Time now for alcohol and some Chinese music on YouTube, just to psyche myself up for another probable day living in a human body. I wonder whether I’ll ever get used to it.

The Chimpanzee's Picnic.

There’s a Richard Rossbach track on YouTube which I occasionally listen to because I quite like it. It’s loosely based on an Irish folk song, but has been so heavily manipulated, electrified, synthesised, commercialised, and generally messed about with that it’s now strictly MOR.

But of course, it’s laden with comments like ‘The Irish write great music’, ‘OMG I love Irish Music’, ‘Now I want to go home to Ireland’, and similar shite. So I commented ‘Pleasant, but it’s about as Irish as a tin of black treacle pretending to be a pint of Guinness.’

I expected to get hailed on with the proverbial fruit, but nothing. Not a like, not a dislike, not a single yell of misspelt indignation indignashen.

Where are they all? If I go down in the woods today, should I go in disguise?

(And incidentally, people commenting on Dave Brubeck’s Take 5 kept referring to it as a song, so I said ‘this isn’t a song.’ And now I’m watching them all argue about what a song is. Great fun.)

Being Guardian of the Bowl.

I walked around via Green Lane again today and found another flying insect which was not flying but drowning (after Stevie Smith) in the dogs’ water bowl. It wasn’t a bee this time, but it still got rescued.

I’ve often wondered what the hell I’m supposed to be doing while I'm down here. Maybe now I know.

The Wrong Basis for Judgement.

Somebody towards whom my feelings were ambivalent said something this week which threw a switch. Ambivalence has now changed to dislike and dark clouds are gathering again.

It raises an interesting side issue. When somebody I like does something which irritates I tend towards tolerance. When somebody I dislike does the same thing I can be most intolerant, and I suspect that’s true of most of us. It’s obviously irrational to judge a person’s actions mildly or harshly depending on how you feel about them personally, but it does seem to be a fact of human nature.

I think it plays a large part in the tensions we often see between the police and ethnic minorities, especially in America where it’s a particularly virulent issue at the moment. I think it has a lot to with the way in which the culture and the Establishment conditions people to view those of different race, ethnicity or colour. And that’s why I think it will take at least a generation – probably more – to work itself out of the sub-system naturally.

Dream On.

My visitor from Brazil just arrived on my blog again, and this is where the problem starts.

When I see Brazil arriving on my blog I imagine there being five beach volleyball players from Rio all sitting around a laptop at half time rapt in fevered adoration. Their bodies are gently glowing in the tropical heat and they are saying…

‘Ah, here is the man we have been waiting for all the nineteen years of our lives. Finally we have found our Messiah. Let us give up prancing in the sand. Let us give up being the girls from Ipanema. Let us stop worshipping our long, seductive thighs and grant those thighs the honour of worshiping him instead. Let us journey to him across stormy waters and throw ourselves at his feet, there to grant him everything his wish and his whim commands.’

… when it’s more likely to be an 87-year-old professor from Sao Paulo University researching a learned tome on Why Are the English So Weird?

Soon be time to go and dream some proper dreams.

A Strange and Sad Imperative.

I was reading earlier about some lunatic in one of the Sydney universities who is going around scrawling graffiti in the toilets saying ‘Kill the Chinese.’

It reminded me of a YouTube video I watched once about the city of Shanghai. One Chinese man had commented ‘Kill all foreign dogs.’ He wasn’t referring to canines.

Wouldn’t you think the human race would have grown up a bit by now?