Sunday, February 22, 2009

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Wheels



I found a way of getting a slightly higher quality video - watch someone else's.

You can also get a slightly better version of mine by starting the video - then clicking on the moving picture - this will take you to the Youtube page proper - where you can click on the "Watch in high quality" link under the pic.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

like father, like son

Quiet little rhythms in a life


Hard to see I know - but there is a perfect cobweb on the mirror of our old car. Click on the pic if you're curious.

The spider made a new one every day through spring - retreating into the bowels of the mirror and waiting. Every day the car would be driven and the the web was all blown away.

I saw the little spider one day while I was driving - it had fallen and was desperately hanging to the flapping tatters of its web with one leg. Although unforgivable to do something so unexpected and inexplicable in traffic, I slowed down a bit - just enough so the spider could haul itself hand over hand back to safety inside the mirror. What goes around comes around. Happily the webs continued to appear.

Eventually a sad day came when I realised that I hadn't seen a web for a week of so - presumably our spider had moved on, or perhaps conked out from making so many webs in vain.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Cold was the night, hard was the ground.

A story from Thomas Buergenthal

I listen to podcasts while commuting, quietly ensconced in my noise-reducing headphones world.

Earlier this week I heard a story both harrowing and moving, a spark of heroism from the depths of a Nazi death camp.

What I want to share is not so much the story itself (although that's below if you really want to listen) - but the wonder of how these stories echo down through time - often through the narrowest of corridors imaginable.

Thomas Buergenthal
(now a judge at the International Court of Justice) was a child, who was fortunate enough to emerge from the camp alive - later in life he grew to be talented and noteworthy enough to be invited on a mid week radio 4 wittering fest. This in turn was podcast - which I managed to listen to (I subscribe to far more podcasts than I can actually get through, so this is also a bit unlikely) - and now find yourself reading about it on a blog.

The event could have just faded away - as many, both good and bad, surely do.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Doctrines

"Battling" cancer.

Why do we say this I wonder. People who have lurches in fortune to develop and then then survive this god-awful disease are praised as tough fighters. This must make those who find themselves slowly spiralling downwards feel even worse - unworthy and weak.

I think we cling to this notion of mentally fighting cancer because we can't bear the thought of something so appalling being completely beyond our control. "It could never happen to me - I would do something about it"

It's a regrettable delusion - arrogant and ultimately selfish - it is futile and worse still it's of harm to others.

This selfish arrogance puts me in mind of the palliative care movement's attitude to euthanasia - the same sin but to a much more serious degree. Upon said movement I wish the burden of disregard.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Sunday, February 1, 2009