On the cabinet, next to my bed, is a talking alarm clock with a big yellow button which, when pressed announces the time.
Waking Early
Leave a reply
Category Archives: uncategorised
The Cliff Path
We walk the cliff path of Brexit
And pass
A mock-up of the empire
And Oxford’s dreaming spire.
The exit
Is down or up?
China Bans George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”
On reading that the Chinese government has banned George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm”, (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/china-bans-the-letter-n-and-george-orwells-animal-farm-as-president-xi-jinping-extends-grip-on-power-a3777686.html), I was reminded of Lord Acton’s remark that:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are
almost always bad men,…”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton).
The Acton quote, jostled in my mind with that famous quotation:
“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whom_the_gods_would_destroy).
I have visited mainland china or, to give that country it’s full title, The People’s Republic of China (PRC). While there, I found the people whom I came into contact with both friendly and helpful. I did, however feel an underlying sense of unease, a feeling which I can best describe as a sense of being observed.
Today’s China is not that of the country which suffered under the dictatorship of Mao and which is so chillingly described in Jung Chang’s “Wild Swans”, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Swans). It is, however a society which, on the on the one hand wishes to embrace the market economy while, at the same time shying away from the values of individual freedom which (at it’s best) distinguish liberal societies from authoritarian ones.
There will, no doubt be those who say what do values of individual freedom matter when, at bottom people are concerned with their own material comfort? Sitting here, writing this with no fear of the midnight knock Ion the door, I, for one know the answer to that question.
There Was A Young Lady Named Ling
There was a young lady named Ling
With whom I had a fling.
I swear its true
That I love you.
But love is such a temporary thing …
There Was A Young Lady Named Sally
There was a young lady named Sally
Who lived in a narrow old alley.
When the moon shone bright
She would dance by it’s light
And sing of her childhood valley
Let Us Purchase A Balloon
Let us purchase a balloon
To visit our mistress the moon.
In attaining our goal
We are, for a moment whole.
But tis over soon
For we are but lust
And whirling dust
The Dismal Science
(“Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/786/786-h/786-h.htm).
There Was A Young Man Named Guy
There was a young man named Guy
Who said “all flesh must die”.
His girlfriend Holly
Was far from Jolly,
Which is not like you or I.
—
There was a young man named Guy
Who said “all flesh must die”.
His girlfriend Holly
Was far from Jolly
But she made a really good pie!
A Flower Found Within A Book
Shall I compose a poem about a blood red
Poppy that I discovered in a book,
And how I took
It dead
From within the grieving leaves?
Shall I say
How, yesterday
I placed that flower
In a carved
Box where it will languish, love starved
For countless hour?
The book I had when we met.
I forget
Why the flower (paper thin)
Was there with it’s sharp pin
Still intact.
I remember the fact
Of you and me
Buying part
Of a once living tree.
Each heart
Is dying or dead
Those Who Wear Their Conscience Upon Their Sleve
Those who wear their conscience upon their sleve
Are men and women as upright
As the medieval knight
Who would never deceive.
They see the world in black and white
And always do
What is just, true,
And right.
There are (they say)
No shades of gray,
And when the roof falls in
On their sanctimony and sin
I sigh
Shrug, and grin
