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For Alex

3 Sep

Almost twelve months ago my cousin Alex died and the choir she belonged to sang this at her funeral.

I wrote about Alex many moons ago in Life, Death and Becoming a Writer and here Diamonds in the Desert of Cancer.

Is it my imagination but is the world on the cusp of change?

11 Mar

Ok, I know that I’m probably building something out of nothing here, but bear with me whilst I explain what I’m talking about.  So far this year, we’ve had numerous revolutions, major natural disasters in Australia, New Zealand and today Japan.  We’ve been given the bad news about the global economy in just about every language and metaphor we can understand and we are facing one of the biggest challenge to the way the world does business from some of the newest and biggest economies. (more…)

Is it the horoscope that causing the trouble?

20 Feb

According to Jonathan Cainer, this week there will be a triple conjunction of Mercury, Mars and Neptune, these are going to be opposite the full moon (apparently) and we are also going to have a right angle between Jupiter and Pluto.  He goes on to say that this means the breaking down of barriers, collapsing power structures and other upheavals.  Can it be the heavens that are causing the massive change that is happening in the Middle East or is it really just Facebook?

Genetics by design

15 Jan

People come in many shapes and sizes and in one of two genders (normally), but until now they’ve never been ‘designer’ – that is they may well wear designer clothes, carry designer handbags (my one vice I have to admit!) or even be a ‘designer’ (for the web, graphics, fashion etc…. ), but designer baby…….. where has that come from.

I can only imagine how a parent must feel when faced with the knowledge that they may pass on an inherited disease to their children, and I can also well imagine why it would be an easy decision to make (when you have the choice) to choose only those potential babies who are free from a particular disorder by a technique called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD).  But, where does it end?

This is not a diatribe against those who choose to have this treatment, simply an observation that maybe illness, death and disease might be a human ‘natural predator’ – let’s face it, unlike other animals, we have none (except ourselves).  In other words these are some of the very things that help to keep a balance in the world.  Isn’t it interesting that as soon as one disease is ‘eradicated’ another arises to take it’s place!

Black holes and house prices

10 Sep

If the scientists at CERN have anything to do with anything, shortly we may not need to worry about whether there is a recession or that house prices are dropping here in the UK.

They started colliding beams in the Large Hadron Collider for the first time today, the worlds largest particle accelerator designed to test out various theories of particle physics – in other words, just what exactly is going on at the sub atomic level ….!

According to some sources, there are fears that this could create mini (or even maxi) blackholes into which we could all be sucked, quickly, but not necessarily painlessly – although we don’t know that do we, never having experienced it before?

We may yet have a few weeks to party, party, party though as the first high energy collisions won’t be taking place until the 21st October – oddly coinciding with the Autumn equinox, I wonder if that was deliberate and that maybe they are trying to tell us something …!

Chairs and tables

31 Jul

Why is a chair called a chair and why is a table called a table?  These are questions that regularly tax my mind into answering and I still have never been given an adequate answer to the question.

Yes, I know it is all about language and the development of syntax and other long words I often don’t understand, but why these particular sounds and why not others.  Who was it who decided that this thing we sit on at a desk or a dining table should be called a chair – who felt they had the authority to do that or was it simply something that evolved?

Other things that fascinate me about words is the way they sound, when you really listen to the words that someone is saying it can be quite astonishing that this particular sound has this particular meaning.  Just think of ‘balderdash’ say it slowly to yourself and roll it around the tongue – doesn’t it sound odd and why does it mean something you don’t agree with.  Any thoughts on these and other interesting words gratefully received.

Bye for now – I’m off the Beer in North Devon for the rest of the day and playing hookey from The Hysterectomy Association – very naughty but the weather is lovely for a change and we need to make the most of it.

Linda

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