‘What are you, a sorcerer? / Only at home. In company I drink out of the cup.’
– Take it from Here, BBC radio comedy with Frank Muir and Dennis Norden
Celebrate Minor Mundanity
Fake Memoir
Yachts, Leaks and Bacteria
One night last week, I’d had a bad night’s sleep, broken by rain pounding on the roof. There were also sheets of wind-blown water crashing over the side of the house. I knew I wasn’t on a leg across the roaring forties in a round-the-world yacht race because the bed wasn’t rocking. But I wondered about the strength of water, the power of the ocean while remembering the damage I’d seen on the keels of maxi yachts on a hard stand in Fremantle. And the cataclysmic noise just above my head simultaneously prompted thoughts about the end of time, which for us as individual sailors, would be the same as the end of our lives.
Loose Connections
I read yesterday that George Blake has died. I’m old enough to remember his escape from Wormwood Scrubs jail in 1966 but not old enough to recall his trial with much clarity. I walked past the jail in Hammersmith a few years ago and it was Blake’s name that came to mind. Notoriety is strangely long lived.
Winter Book Season
It was wonderful to get a selection of books as presents this holiday. One my new treats is this year’s winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Explaining Humans by Camilla Pang. However, I have a few to finish before I can begin to enjoy the new haul. One of those unfinished treats is last year’s winner.
From Parandrus to Picasso
The proud parents showed us her sketch and we were taken aback. This was back in early September. Then, a few days later, we were talking about it while hill walking during one of the inter-pandemic lockdown respites. We talked with the artist about her sketch and how art can involve many media. We joined the artist sketching smiley faces on soft slates with hard glacial dropstones and left the faces by the trail to cheer other walkers.
Missed Conjunctions
It’s been cloudy in the evenings this week even when it hasn’t been raining. So I never saw the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn last Monday. Tonight, the weather was very different. A beautiful evening, though cold, and a slightly hazy sunset. The re-appearance of Mars above a waxing moon embroidered the pretty skyscape shortly after the 1610 sunset. I set up the camera and spent almost an hour moving and adjusting my tripod, practicing with numb, gloved fingers in the failing light. I chose to take photographs of some of the many people taking selfies while bathed in the golden sunset.
