Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
I’ve decided to put my trust in the reader and dispense with long introductions and explanations. If you care what a micromort actually is, you’ll follow the links. If you don’t understand big numbers, you’ll be in good company.
Today is the day we should have reached unorthodox Canterbury after walking out from Manchester on April Fools’ Day. Instead, like so many, I’m curfewed.
[Read more…] about Micromort and big numbers.“… those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.” (from Pensées by Blaise Pascal)
[Read more…] about Displacement InactivityWhat thoughts and whose ideas have a value?
Lia bought 20 Lines a Day by Harry Mathews recently. Stendhal had commented that “20 lines a day, genius or not, was a good place to start”. I was deeply impressed by Scarlet and Black when I first read it perhaps 40 years ago. A conversation with Gerry Hanley in the bar of the Delgany Inn elucidated from him that Stendhal got him writing with those same words. I had only just finished reading Scarlet and Black and was quite surprised at the coincidence, his bringing Stendhal up over a pint, my knowing who he was talking about. But I didn’t write 20 lines a day. Maybe that was a good thing?
[Read more…] about 20 LinesHindcast: Dateline Dublin Christmas 1348.
14,000 have died of plague in the last five months. Dalkey and Howth together with the port at Drogheda have been devastated by the Black Death. One third of the urban population have died.
Forecast: Dateline Dublin Easter 2020.
1,500 may have died in the month since the first Irish death of complications arising from Covid-19.
Our capacity for benefit may become the ticket to healthcare and a future. The UK is considering having people 75 and older to sign DNR forms. Spain seems to be doing it unofficially for 65 and older by treating likely survivors first.
[Read more…] about Hard Lines27 March 2020 – 21:28 GMT – 7°C Mostly Clear – Co. Dublin, Ireland
Chemo for our daughter started today. We’re the drivers because everyone else has children whose awareness of contamination has yet to develop. Only the patient can go into the hospital. The same hospital in which our neighbour is in palliative care with widely metastasised cancer. A cruel situation for her, separated from family. And cruel for her kids and grandkids. Less cruel for our daughter in absolute terms but it’s hard to consider absolutes when you’re sick
26 March 2020 – 19:50 GMT – 7°C Mostly Clear – Co. Dublin, Ireland
I had wanted to acknowledge the great printer #normanackroyd on his birthday but Covid-19 meant no one was around at #eamesfineart to help me understand fair use had I used one of his prints on Instagram. I’d heard the BBC Radio 4 broadcast earlier of an Ackroyd interview by Robert Macfarlane while Ackroyd continued to work. Acid etching and heavy printing presses made for fascinating descriptions even unseen on radio.
[Read more…] about Omniscient Kingfisher