As the crow flies

 Pilgrimage  Comments Off on As the crow flies
Aug 272012
 

After a diverted journey – police had closed the road I had intended to use – I had to choose a different route.  I had to ignore the satnav: it just wanted me to go back and use the blocked road.  So I followed a guessed route on roads I had never travelled before.

The surprise was that the journey took only 225 miles compared with the ‘normal’ 219 miles.  Only six miles added in spite of the fact that my journey went a good thirty miles to one side of my ideal track.

It always surprises me how a tiny addition to the length of a piece of taut string turns it into a slack string with a huge range of possible positions.  (Try it.)  The shortest track is not available to us non-crows, but it seems that most ‘not-quite-shortest-tracks’ are of very similar lengths.

 Posted by at 23:31

Politicians are poets. (Sort of.)

 Uncategorized  Comments Off on Politicians are poets. (Sort of.)
Jul 132012
 

Poetry is often in my mind.  It’s because I used to work in local government.  (The alternative to recalling poetry was to listen to the debates.) It struck me recently that there are big similarities between poets and politicians.  No, really, there are!  Of course there are differences too. It is about the way they […]

 Posted by at 13:21

Still carrying her?

 Uncategorized  Comments Off on Still carrying her?
Jul 122012
 

Two Chinese monks had to make a journey from one monastery to another on a very wet day.  From the moment they left the first monastery the rain poured down and the roads became thick with mud. As they trudged through a small town they passed a very pretty young girl.  She was standing in […]

 Posted by at 23:27

What’s the point of a Writer’s Notebook

 Writing  Comments Off on What’s the point of a Writer’s Notebook
Jul 062012
 

All the writers who advise writers agree I must keep a notebook.  But they don’t say what it is for.  The obvious intention is that I should use a notebook to collect ideas together for later use.  But I have about 3,000 3×5 index cards, and numerous jottings and computer files, collected over a period […]

 Posted by at 23:58

Much Too Difficult

 Life in general  Comments Off on Much Too Difficult
Jun 272012
 

When I started a new job I went on a round of visits.  One man – a senior lawyer – had four trays on his desk for organising his paperwork.  They were labelled: IN  –  OUT  –  PENDING  –   FAR TOO DIFFICULT

 Posted by at 09:33