Tag: Christmas

thing 32: ‘how pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!’: Mary King’s Close

Framily. Prinks. Twixtmas. Hmmm. Every so often I hear a new word which makes me cringe but which I have to admit does usefully convey meaning.

Okay, prinking (= pre-drinking = priming with cheap[er] at-home alcohol in order to achieve required degree of intoxication while out, without having to take out a loan) isn’t often a thing I need to talk about, but the point still stands. So I find myself telling you that during Twixtmas this year (more…)

‘the Christmas life’

So, this has to be one of the weirdest things I’ve seen this Christmas. “The true spirit of Christmas: Turkey panini and chips”. I mean, what? Who wrote that, and why? And why are they still working in advertising??

There’s something about how adrift things have got, here (unless of course this is so achingly post- post- modern and ironic that it should come with paracetamol) which inclines me either to laugh, or weep. I’ve decided to laugh, and (more…)

‘Sometimes’, Sheenagh Pugh

You can read this treasure of a poem here.

Somebody brought this poem to December’s 42 group, which was on the subject of hope, and it seemed like a really good one to go with my end-of-year post. I love the modesty of this poem’s claims. It acknowledges all the many things than can go wrong, small- and large-scale, some of which seem particularly apposite in 2017… and yet, somehow, manages to keep in sight the fact that, ‘sometimes’, things go well. The closing wish, offered out to the reader, is simple, disarming and lovely.

 

‘+1+2.4→-1+0.0; 1/10→1/5’: difficult maths in the Dark World

Some of you who are following these pages may know—

Wait. Before I go on: those of you who are following these pages: thank you. I’m not yet ready to use “message” as a verb, but I do appreciate being, um, contacted, whether privately or publicly. And it’s wonderful to know things I say are resonating. Is it bad that I want to use the slogan for the Syrius Cybernetics Corporation? Share and enjoy, companions, share and enjoy.

Anyway. Some of you who are following these pages may know that, in the hope of spreading the word about what the afternoon knows, I’m recently embarked (more…)