I had this blog properly and fully worked out and then somewhere between the 3 and six o’clock news I forgot. A symptom I fear.Luckily I remembered the cricket world cup on Radio 5 and turned on to hear that Australia had got off to a flying start. But what about the blog? Paradox? Discussion?
The cricket was hopeless – and subsequently even worse – but I have been organizing a very informal reunion of the get loud parky group who used to meet in Glastonbury. There is no agenda and no purpose other than to meet friends and have lunch together. That is the only reason. It came to me in the small hours of the following night. The blog. My literary agent, Christopher, whom God preserve even though he (C not G) does not do e-mail. C invoked the name of Pooter when describing this blog. Mr. Pooter was a Victorian nobody invented by a writer called Grossmith who believed that he was the centre of the known universe and could not understand why only somebodies could write memoirs. In fact from memory George and his brother, Weedon, were responsible for Pooter.Accordingly Pooter wrote some memoirs whence derived many laughs. But, Christopher argued, maybe I was doing it on purpose. I thought about this and decided it was complimentary since Pooter was wise as well as funny , a state to which I aspire. I now realise that I had planned to write a nicely alliterative blog about the power of paradox and its ubiquity.You know how when you get lost on a walk through supposed wilderness and come across evidence of a path and signs that another has passed this way. Half of you is relieved to find that after all help is at hand but the other half is aggrieved to discover that you are not as you thought a gritty pioneer. That is paradox muddled with a desire not to fit a mould. I was going to follow this up with some thoughts, equally alliterative, on the dangers of discussion – the realization that this brings no necessary resolution. I was going to illustrate this with examples from the small hours beginning with getting lost on walks and going on about various things that seem connected in the early morning – things such as the importance of Salisbury and the various paradoxes associated with friendship, longevity and there are apparent contradictions everywhere but the real problem is the confusion even in experienced expert minds between the mental and the physical.In other words even people who should know better are unable to distinguish between inability to hoover up food with the ability to see why this is a bad thing. Discussion is only a worry if it is thought that it must end in a resolution.If it is only debate for the sake of debate it is all right.
In the small hours this morning I came across the blessed Nick Bailey on classic FM. He had discovered his first ever boat, a dredger on its way to the Polish coast – the captain and his mate were holed up below decks and it came to me then that Nick had the perfect job. If I come back eventually I should like to come back as Nick even though we haven’t met because his seems to be the perfect job. Penny knew him in Hong Kong. He tends to work at night and people everywhere seem to listen. He started the pumpkin club, plays things such as Rachmaniov’s second as a regular trucker’s tune and has a girlfriend in Cornwall.A blog is about old friends getting in touch – I think – and I just heard from one such who was diagnosed with Parky in 2000. There IS a connection I promise but if eventually I come back to earth may I come back as Nick Bailey? Please! Henry and Grace came to tea and I found myself reflecting pooter-style that blood IS thicker than water and I must get to know my grandchildren better and while on the subject of resolutions that doing something was usually better than nothing. I say usually with reason. Then Tristram and gang came to lunch and I thought some more…specifically about being thicker than water and I made yet more resolutions about grandchildren. On the matter of doing something I am reminded of friends who failed to write their condolences to the widow after the death of a close friend. Their excuse was that they couldn’t think of the words. The widow was outraged, the friendship foundered and the lesson is to do something however inadequate. Lessons for the day!
In real life the month proceeded towards my lunch for the speech therapists at the Pilgrims at Lovington. I am predictably informal about this and Penny predictably form filling. Apart from Tristram in the Brasserie Zedel we had lunch chez Janet Laurence and Peter and Jenny Hughes, Susan Moody was at one and David and Coco Browning at the other. Readers will be aware of my dilemma over names – they mean nothing to most of you and there is a danger of intrusion. Besides which I called David Robert first time round which I regard as a symptom of something. Possibly it’s old age but may be it is something more dramatic. On the other hand you ought to understand that I would never
deliberately be intrusive for the sake of entertainment and also that the names add something for those who recognize them. The dilemma is genuine but in the interest of honesty in the future I shall name names where appropriate. Besides I run the
blog past Emma.
Anyway the lunch looms and I have spoken on the phone to those concerned. We are up to seven definites with a separate table for carers. In London we not only did the two lunches but a theatre, two cinemas and much else. Back home we visited a doctor and a supermarket and I shall not only attempt three crime novels I shall write about the problems of having dementia of which this blog is one. Apropos of nothing but the small hours, a curious tale of Russell Meiggs fellow of Balliol, and authority on Roman Ostia where the logs come from. He accosted me at breakfast one day to say that he thought my friend Nigel Hollis, who was absent, was “a very low form of life”. It was said of Russell that if he claimed to have met God in the quad it was all right; when however he claimed to have met Meiggs it was Warneford time! The bin beckoned. Wherein lies a paradox…more next blog. And on rambling I am reminded of Oswald Mosley who could not only make his eyes light up but also had an uncanny knack of returning to the subject just when you were convinced he had lost it. Discuss…
I had this blog properly and fully worked out and then somewhere between the 3 and six o’clock news I forgot. A symptom I fear.Luckily I remembered the cricket world cup on Radio 5 and turned on to hear that Australia had got off to a flying start. But what about the blog? Paradox? Discussion?
The cricket was hopeless – and subsequently even worse – but I have been organizing a very informal reunion of the get loud parky group who used to meet in Glastonbury. There is no agenda and no purpose other than to meet friends and have lunch together. That is the only reason. It came to me in the small hours of the following night. The blog. My literary agent, Christopher, whom God preserve even though he (C not G) does not do e-mail. C invoked the name of Pooter when describing this blog. Mr. Pooter was a Victorian nobody invented by a writer called Grossmith who believed that he was the centre of the known universe and could not understand why only somebodies could write memoirs. In fact from memory George and his brother, Weedon, were responsible for Pooter.Accordingly Pooter wrote some memoirs whence derived many laughs. But, Christopher argued, maybe I was doing it on purpose. I thought about this and decided it was complimentary since Pooter was wise as well as funny , a state to which I aspire. I now realise that I had planned to write a nicely alliterative blog about the power of paradox and its ubiquity.You know how when you get lost on a walk through supposed wilderness and come across evidence of a path and signs that another has passed this way. Half of you is relieved to find that after all help is at hand but the other half is aggrieved to discover that you are not as you thought a gritty pioneer. That is paradox muddled with a desire not to fit a mould. I was going to follow this up with some thoughts, equally alliterative, on the dangers of discussion – the realization that this brings no necessary resolution. I was going to illustrate this with examples from the small hours beginning with getting lost on walks and going on about various things that seem connected in the early morning – things such as the importance of Salisbury and the various paradoxes associated with friendship, longevity and there are apparent contradictions everywhere but the real problem is the confusion even in experienced expert minds between the mental and the physical.In other words even people who should know better are unable to distinguish between inability to hoover up food with the ability to see why this is a bad thing. Discussion is only a worry if it is thought that it must end in a resolution.If it is only debate for the sake of debate it is all right.
In the small hours this morning I came across the blessed Nick Bailey on classic FM. He had discovered his first ever boat, a dredger on its way to the Polish coast – the captain and his mate were holed up below decks and it came to me then that Nick had the perfect job. If I come back eventually I should like to come back as Nick even though we haven’t met because his seems to be the perfect job. Penny knew him in Hong Kong. He tends to work at night and people everywhere seem to listen. He started the pumpkin club, plays things such as Rachmaniov’s second as a regular trucker’s tune and has a girlfriend in Cornwall.A blog is about old friends getting in touch – I think – and I just heard from one such who was diagnosed with Parky in 2000. There IS a connection I promise but if eventually I come back to earth may I come back as Nick Bailey? Please! Henry and Grace came to tea and I found myself reflecting pooter-style that blood IS thicker than water and I must get to know my grandchildren better and while on the subject of resolutions that doing something was usually better than nothing. I say usually with reason. Then Tristram and gang came to lunch and I thought some more…specifically about being thicker than water and I made yet more resolutions about grandchildren. On the matter of doing something I am reminded of friends who failed to write their condolences to the widow after the death of a close friend. Their excuse was that they couldn’t think of the words. The widow was outraged, the friendship foundered and the lesson is to do something however inadequate. Lessons for the day!
In real life the month proceeded towards my lunch for the speech therapists at the Pilgrims at Lovington. I am predictably informal about this and Penny predictably form filling. Apart from Tristram in the Brasserie Zedel we had lunch chez Janet Laurence and Peter and Jenny Hughes, Susan Moody was at one and David and Coco Browning at the other. Readers will be aware of my dilemma over names – they mean nothing to most of you and there is a danger of intrusion. Besides which I called David Robert first time round which I regard as a symptom of something. Possibly it’s old age but may be it is something more dramatic. On the other hand you ought to understand that I would never
deliberately be intrusive for the sake of entertainment and also that the names add something for those who recognize them. The dilemma is genuine but in the interest of honesty in the future I shall name names where appropriate. Besides I run the
blog past Emma.
Anyway the lunch looms and I have spoken on the phone to those concerned. We are up to seven definites with a separate table for carers. In London we not only did the two lunches but a theatre, two cinemas and much else. Back home we visited a doctor and a supermarket and I shall not only attempt three crime novels I shall write about the problems of having dementia of which this blog is one. Apropos of nothing but the small hours, a curious tale of Russell Meiggs fellow of Balliol, and authority on Roman Ostia where the logs come from. He accosted me at breakfast one day to say that he thought my friend Nigel Hollis, who was absent, was “a very low form of life”. It was said of Russell that if he claimed to have met God in the quad it was all right; when however he claimed to have met Meiggs it was Warneford time! The bin beckoned. Wherein lies a paradox…more next blog. And on rambling I am reminded of Oswald Mosley who could not only make his eyes light up but also had an uncanny knack of returning to the subject just when you were convinced he had lost it. Discuss…
I had this blog properly and fully worked out and then somewhere between the 3 and six o’clock news I forgot. A symptom I fear.Luckily I remembered the cricket world cup on Radio 5 and turned on to hear that Australia had got off to a flying start. But what about the blog? Paradox? Discussion?
The cricket was hopeless – and subsequently even worse – but I have been organizing a very informal reunion of the get loud parky group who used to meet in Glastonbury. There is no agenda and no purpose other than to meet friends and have lunch together. That is the only reason. It came to me in the small hours of the following night. The blog. My literary agent, Christopher, whom God preserve even though he (C not G) does not do e-mail. C invoked the name of Pooter when describing this blog. Mr. Pooter was a Victorian nobody invented by a writer called Grossmith who believed that he was the centre of the known universe and could not understand why only somebodies could write memoirs. In fact from memory George and his brother, Weedon, were responsible for Pooter.Accordingly Pooter wrote some memoirs whence derived many laughs. But, Christopher argued, maybe I was doing it on purpose. I thought about this and decided it was complimentary since Pooter was wise as well as funny , a state to which I aspire. I now realise that I had planned to write a nicely alliterative blog about the power of paradox and its ubiquity.You know how when you get lost on a walk through supposed wilderness and come across evidence of a path and signs that another has passed this way. Half of you is relieved to find that after all help is at hand but the other half is aggrieved to discover that you are not as you thought a gritty pioneer. That is paradox muddled with a desire not to fit a mould. I was going to follow this up with some thoughts, equally alliterative, on the dangers of discussion – the realization that this brings no necessary resolution. I was going to illustrate this with examples from the small hours beginning with getting lost on walks and going on about various things that seem connected in the early morning – things such as the importance of Salisbury and the various paradoxes associated with friendship, longevity and there are apparent contradictions everywhere but the real problem is the confusion even in experienced expert minds between the mental and the physical.In other words even people who should know better are unable to distinguish between inability to hoover up food with the ability to see why this is a bad thing. Discussion is only a worry if it is thought that it must end in a resolution.If it is only debate for the sake of debate it is all right.
In the small hours this morning I came across the blessed Nick Bailey on classic FM. He had discovered his first ever boat, a dredger on its way to the Polish coast – the captain and his mate were holed up below decks and it came to me then that Nick had the perfect job. If I come back eventually I should like to come back as Nick even though we haven’t met because his seems to be the perfect job. Penny knew him in Hong Kong. He tends to work at night and people everywhere seem to listen. He started the pumpkin club, plays things such as Rachmaniov’s second as a regular trucker’s tune and has a girlfriend in Cornwall.A blog is about old friends getting in touch – I think – and I just heard from one such who was diagnosed with Parky in 2000. There IS a connection I promise but if eventually I come back to earth may I come back as Nick Bailey? Please! Henry and Grace came to tea and I found myself reflecting pooter-style that blood IS thicker than water and I must get to know my grandchildren better and while on the subject of resolutions that doing something was usually better than nothing. I say usually with reason. Then Tristram and gang came to lunch and I thought some more…specifically about being thicker than water and I made yet more resolutions about grandchildren. On the matter of doing something I am reminded of friends who failed to write their condolences to the widow after the death of a close friend. Their excuse was that they couldn’t think of the words. The widow was outraged, the friendship foundered and the lesson is to do something however inadequate. Lessons for the day!
In real life the month proceeded towards my lunch for the speech therapists at the Pilgrims at Lovington. I am predictably informal about this and Penny predictably form filling. Apart from Tristram in the Brasserie Zedel we had lunch chez Janet Laurence and Peter and Jenny Hughes, Susan Moody was at one and David and Coco Browning at the other. Readers will be aware of my dilemma over names – they mean nothing to most of you and there is a danger of intrusion. Besides which I called David Robert first time round which I regard as a symptom of something. Possibly it’s old age but may be it is something more dramatic. On the other hand you ought to understand that I would never
deliberately be intrusive for the sake of entertainment and also that the names add something for those who recognize them. The dilemma is genuine but in the interest of honesty in the future I shall name names where appropriate. Besides I run the
blog past Emma.
Anyway the lunch looms and I have spoken on the phone to those concerned. We are up to seven definites with a separate table for carers. In London we not only did the two lunches but a theatre, two cinemas and much else. Back home we visited a doctor and a supermarket and I shall not only attempt three crime novels I shall write about the problems of having dementia of which this blog is one. Apropos of nothing but the small hours, a curious tale of Russell Meiggs fellow of Balliol, and authority on Roman Ostia where the logs come from. He accosted me at breakfast one day to say that he thought my friend Nigel Hollis, who was absent, was “a very low form of life”. It was said of Russell that if he claimed to have met God in the quad it was all right; when however he claimed to have met Meiggs it was Warneford time! The bin beckoned. Wherein lies a paradox…more next blog. And on rambling I am reminded of Oswald Mosley who could not only make his eyes light up but also had an uncanny knack of returning to the subject just when you were convinced he had lost it. Discuss…