The Magic of Words

Words have a magic all of their own.

They can tell the truth. But you must test for yourself if it is true, because words can also twist your mind to embrace a lie.

Without words, many things would be different. Would a rose smell as sweet if it had no name? Or even sweeter perhaps?

Today I want to mention the magic of the written word. That is something important to take notice of.

There is one particular thing that written words can do that we sometimes find difficult.

Written words can remember things.

When you write a to-do list, or your list of goals, you are using the magical power of written words to change your reality.

Because the words are helping you remember and helping you direct your energies in a certain way.

They're not just words.

To-Do Lists and Goals Lists are important for this reason.

When you need to remember a goal that you want to achieve ten years from now...you can check the list every day and it will remind you even though you could forget without help. The world gets very busy and things try to deflect you from your preferred course. This is when your list could help.

If you need to remember who you were ten years ago, you can look in your diary. People change - sometimes deliberately - and if you have made any improvement, it is often difficult to see that. So it's good to have something to compare it to, a bit like the height marks on the frame of your kitchen door. When you were six, you were this tall. Now look how much you have grown!

But if you are planning to grow a certain number of inches, or the spiritual equivalent, then you need a similar kind of aid to plan your course. Memory is, of course, the thing that will do this for you. But when you are beginning, as I said, it is sometimes rather hard to remember in the face of a lot of confusion. So that's when making lists comes in useful.

Things you need to do. Things you want to do. Things you have to do. Things you wish you could do? Things you need to learn how to do. Things you have never done. Places to go, people to see, things to do. Things to say. Things to sing. Music to play. Games to play. Games to win. Battles to fight. Enemies to befriend. Friends to take care of. Flowers to grow. Children to meet. Your success is here. Plan it now, by saying one thing: I will do a little more each day, and I will do it a little better each day.

You can make a list if you want!

Integrity

Integrity means: doing what you believe is right, and sticking to it.

You should always do the right thing, but you don't always have to tell everybody what you think - sometimes being quiet is the best thing to do. "The tallest tree is the first one to fall".

It's really OK to do the thing you are interested in.

It's really OK!

Yes you can do it!

You can always pretend you are normal, if you would like to.

It will be our little secret!

The unaided eye

New Life

I'm afraid the butterfly is not alive now. Unfortunately before it was released into the outside world. But then it couldn't fly so we don't know what would have happened to it out there...

But look what has appeared on the tree next to the butterfly's place! A new shoot! So life is always appearing, even when you think it is disappearing.

Escape from Stalag Howard

The butterfly has escaped!

It has become quite strong (and a bit fat) by eating my fine cuisine de papillon and has started to search for...something!

It knows to go towards the light and has already got as far as the window!

It might still be a bit cold for releasing it to the outside, but it seems to be getting warmer. This butterfly mostly walks (with a bit of fluttering) but it has still got plenty of chance to succeed.

The carpet wasn't very tasty so I am feeding it again. But it has been out of its house for over 24 hours now!

You want to protect things from danger but you shouldn't protect them from development - even if it is more dangerous. Anyway, soon, soon it can go for its biggest adventure!

The Hobbit (Film)...?

I was just thinking about what I thought was Peter Jackson's upcoming film adaptation of Tolkien's story "The Hobbit". I was going to begin: "So they're making a film of The Hobbit". But they aren't! They are nearly making a film of The Hobbit. The original plan was to make it then go on to film the three episodes of The Lord of the Rings all at the same time. But that was a long time ago. It seems there are problems about a number of things, particularly who owns the production rights, who owns the distribution rights (not the same people, I think, unfortunately), and a law suit which has apparently offended New Line Cinema and made them vow never to use Peter Jackson for anything ever again...so I hear, at least. I don't know what is true, but it seems there is some trouble with this project getting off the ground.

So is it still worth writing my thoughts about the music for this film? Of course! Let's go!

Now, The Hobbit is a good story. It's a very good read. I always feel with Tolkien that it is somehow offensive to "right-thinking literary people" because it is a little bit naïve and doesn't subject its literary form to any radical exploration or expansion. Yes, it's not Finnegans Wake. Well those imagined opinions undoubtedly have some truth to them, but you could also say that since Tolkien goes back to the sources he knew so well - the Sagas, Eddas, poems and prose of Northern Europe which are our surviving mythological and legendary heritage - and since he tries to make a real story like stories used to be told, maybe that is a radical thing to do, in a way. But it's true that it's not avant-garde. It's rather conservative in that it wants some things to remain a certain way. Certainly in The Lord of the Rings the peaceful way of life of the Hobbits living in the Shire is threatened by the "development" and "progress" that comes out of the land of Mordor. It may mean several things but one is certainly that rural life is threatened with extinction by the Industrial Revolution. Plus there is world war, too - I'm sure people have looked into all this in plenty of detail.

So anyway, it's not a great work of modernist fiction, but I will include it as an important work of modern fiction because whatever is good or bad about the writing, the idea and its world have found many ears eager to hear more. It's a good story, like The Three Musketeers or a James Bond novel. I mean it's a GOOD story - I'm praising it, not belittling it!

All of which is not to complain about the book, but to examine why I feel I should be slightly embarrassed to be discussing it in public. Well, I'm not. It's a proper story, so there. Ha!

The Hobbit is fun because you can read it in a day (if you have all day). There are plenty of excitements, some spooky bits, some magic and comedy too. And plenty of escapism if you enjoy reading about home comforts. The Hobbit, it seems, is a homely creature who enjoys his bit of supper. Often more than once!

I was thinking about the music for this projected film. I imagined it would be in the mode of The Lord of the Rings, which I feel is an extremely strong score (from Howard Shore). Its use of Leitmotiv (a theme for each character or thing, so you can see how they are interacting in the story, associated most with Wagner - very appropriate for a legendary story about a ring) provides a great way to unify all three films, almost as good a unifying factor as Peter Jackson's brain, which must be enormous to have made all three films at the same time!

On the other hand, once you have your motifs worked out, not much has to change. Because Wagner operas are mythological, they are supposed to be beyond the scope and compass of mortal time, so time gets stretched out. There is climax, or course (see Isoldens Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde) but time is a bit flattened out. So maybe leit-motifs prevent a more natural flow of musical events? Maybe, maybe not. Anyway they definitely made the right choice for those three films.

But the embarrassing moments for me are: the "Happy Shire" music, intended to be antic and comically endearing, but rather annoying for me, and the songs.

A big song in a film (or "movie", as they are called) is normally a signal for you to go out and buy the record (or "CD" as they are called). Yes, it is a marketing opportunity, almost a moment of "branded content" - entertainment that is actually selling you something. But if the song has a dramatic purpose, that's different. If not...why is it in a film? Do they stop the story to say "buy Simpson's Shock-Absorbers"? Yes they do. It's called product placement. However, that doesn't happen all the time.

But it's the little songs I'm worrying about here. Why do they go wrong? In fact, musical examples of "real music" in films go rather badly - look at Mr. Holland's Opus! The Piano! Dear me. Supposedly examples of great music and would be fine on the soundtrack but not when you take the same level of musical discourse but expose it on a completely different level.

I'm talking about songs because there are quite a lot in The Hobbit.

Far over the misty mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere the break of day,
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

has potential (could still be ruined though) but

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates -
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!
...So, carefully! Carefully with the plates!

could go badly wrong. You see, musical music (as used in an opera by someone who is intending the music to carry important meaning) has a great emotional and expressive range which includes comedy as well as more serious thoughts. But "background music" (which film music is not when it is one of the characters in the story but which it easily can be) doesn't have much range. It can illustrate or echo what is happening on-screen, but it needs more wide possibilities of expression, obviously, to express more things. Bad examples go like "Aha there is something nasty happening me better make loud noise bang bang!", but in a good example you hear an added level of story. Maybe it would be more dramatic with quiet music. Or no music. And so on.

So the score needs to be thoughtful, but it should think on a different level when the music gets exposed and we are asked to listen to it as "real music" in the story.

You have to think carefully, though, because a film score mostly can't have quite the same depth as music on its own in a concert, because film + music is the totality of the offering, each playing its part which should add up to 100%. But that's about good partnerships. When person X is doing something important, person Y should try to help...perhaps even by doing nothing.

Style is difficult for songs in a film because one assumes the audience has a very limited imagination of what songs should sound like. Songs are...well, anything from pop music, or "a folk song". What is a folk song? Why it's Irish of course!

Yes why does it always have to be Irish? Come on, you've got more choices than that! Or could it perhaps be because most films are aimed at the USA? Where there are a lot of people who think of Ireland as "home"? Or the home before this home? Could be.

Yes there are perhaps limited references to work with when you want to engage with the audience, but I still think you should give it a try. People are more intelligent than you might think. Still, they have to sell the picture. I understand.

If The Hobbit has embarrassing aspects, then they may extend to the film version too...and that may include the songs. Let's wait and see.

But Tolkien wasn't embarrassed, and neither are the fans of the stories. You have to get into the world to learn how to show people what it looks like. Being intelligent about it doesn't mean it has to sound "clever". It just will take people there, that's all.

I'm sure it will TURN OUT FINE!

Fear

The things you fear are like shadows in the half of the room that you don't want to see. Your half is not in shadow, because you have chosen to look at it. But what's in the other half?

There is a monster under the bed, and one in the wardrobe too. Dark things come out at night and we clothe them in our own fear.

But in the daylight we can see what is there.

The things we fear are everywhere because we don't want to look at them. So when there is darkness - under the bed, in the wardrobe, or somewhere else we are not sure about - our fears appear. Whenever you sense some unknown thing coming towards you (in space or in time), you shape it into the thing you are afraid of.

The only question is, what is really there?

I think the answer has to be, there is something there. Or, there appears to be something there. What though? It's our choice whether we look closely or not.

Let's think of a situation. General fears around this area (where I am now) are: being robbed, being attacked somehow, losing things, or fear of a general disaster (of whatever type is popular in the media at the moment). Let's take fear of non-specific attack or robbery. OK, so you are afraid of that happening. When it is dark you are more afraid. That may be reasonable because there are fewer people around in the dark. However, that's rather the product of the fear of the dark that we talked about before. If it's dark then you put something there. If you can't see what is there, you imagine what could be there.

As uncertainty increases, this hypothetical person we are talking about gets more afraid. He creates more threats as his knowledge decreases. We can see that fear of attack gets worse when we have less information: if it's dark; if the place is unfamiliar; if we are alone.

However! We can do better than that!

Let's forget about the BlockbusterAttackMode way out. This approach says that the more prepared I am for attack, the less I will be affected by it. Look at these people, they learn a million-and-one-ways of defending themselves, nine-and-a-half exotic martial arts, carry six guns, a knife, and a flamethrower. And that's just for looking out of the window! Are they less afraid? No, and I think they are becoming a bit of a threat themselves actually. Yes, they did get more prepared, that's sort of taking a step, but they did not solve the problem.

The only problem was the original fear, fear created by the darkness we mentioned at the beginning. Then we were talking about a real darkness (the one under the bed, for example), but it's really the same thing if it is physical or a kind of mental darkness which comes from the unknown.

So given that we are afraid of something, we can see the following. First, we are creating more threats wherever we are unsure about something. We talked of a fear of attack but it can really be anything. There are plenty of uncertainties so there are plenty of fears to choose from!

Have you noticed that now? Whenever there is uncertainty, you turn it into a threat. Yes, I agree, the accident could happen now, your job could disappear this week, that heart attack you've been expecting could have happened five minutes ago. But does it make sense to be on panic alert all the time? OK, statistically there is probably a chance of these things happening. Probably each of them happened to somebody in the world yesterday. But you are not a supercomputer. The human mind is very powerful (or capable of being) but you are not helping matters by using that power to imagine how badly things could go wrong. Getting a scratch that goes septic and you die - chances are 2,987,453 to one. A chance. Yes, every second. Even twice a second! All the same...I don't want to upset your reasoning process, but it may not be your day for misfortune. Sorry, it must just be bad luck, I guess.

First of all, you are seeing your fears when you cannot see clearly. You can solve that by: recognising what you are afraid of, and trying to be objective (learning to see other sides of a situation, not just the one you are used to seeing). Low Grade Panic Alert is rather a vague state so it helps to identify what the perceived threat is. What are you afraid of? Write it down. Ok I think it is slightly less frightening already. Slightly is a good start. Then by learning to "see through other eyes" you can see where you went wrong before. Illusion is the product of isolation. "I'm afraid of..." is already wrong because it starts with "I". You think you are separate and you have your own problems. But you must be connected to someone else in some way. You have seen another person before, right? Right, so you are not really alone. Then who is this "I"? It is the fearing part. The part that does not fear is called "We" or "Us". Learn about it.

Finding ways to attack a problem will never solve it. Because you are afraid of attack, you are always attacking. Don't fight, invite! Your hostility makes hostility outside you. If you welcome the world and its chances of...failure or...success, then you are shining a bit of light on your fear and you will have more chance of seeing what is really there.

What is really there? A few naughty people doing naughty things. But not all the time. They want things the easy way and can't be bothered to put much effort in. And accidents do happen, but not to everbody and not every day, and when they do we have to stop and think how we got into that situation and maybe learn how to avoid it next time. Health problems do occur but not every minute. A system under stress has to release the stress somehow, and the results can seem unpleasant. But symptoms that come out are the product of something called health. If you are worried about your health then you must know why you are worried. Is it something you are doing wrong? If it is then you can change it. Your body is the only one you have and looking after it will help you a lot. Your life is your life and can change this world for the better. Our world is our world, too, though we are supposed to look after it rather than drain it of goodness. These are all good things. The bad things exist but they are not everywhere. They may not even be bad! They are probably just "things" until you decide they are going to be bad.

We should be afraid. There is a lot to be afraid of. But it is not meant to freeze us in our steps before we have started the race. We are not meant to stop climbing before the first peak has come into view. Fear is allied with caution, respect, care, and guides experiment. Each of those ensures the harvest comes in safe next year. They may mean the ship gets into port safe and sound. The eggs all get back from market in one piece. But where do the plans come from? What makes experiment? Total caution would have zero result. Now I have a message for you. You are not the victim of a dice game, neither coldly and without intent, nor maliciously twisting the threads of your fate. You are not the victim. You have the power to imagine danger for a very good reason - because of the power to imagine. Why do you have that power? To stop? To shut the shop and sink the ship, to shatter and fail and founder and grind to a halt? Or to see in your mind's eye what lies behind the hill, what lives on the other side of the world, what breathes where there is no air and swims without water?

What crawls in the morning, stands upright at noon, and crawls again at evening? The answer is man, from baby to adult to old age, but we should rather ask: What asks riddles? Who invents the impossible? The answer is the mind of man but what that really means is something we are still learning. Don't expect to read about it in the newspaper. With these things, it's better to try and find out for yourself. Believe me.

Now you are brave again!

You only got to be brave by admitting that fear exists. Well done. Now do more!

Granados

The composer Granados was born in 1867. He was in America in 1916, and because he was suddenly invited to give a recital for the President, he missed his boat back to Spain. Instead, he took a different boat to England, and then transferred to another one heading for France. But the First World War had started and the ship was torpedoed. Granados jumped from the lifeboat to save his wife but could not and also HE DROWNED!!!!!!!!!

But his music survived.

Iceland 1973

What is this a picture of?

It is people in the town of Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland, in 1973.

They are doing something. What?

They are spraying water to stop their town being destroyed by a volcanic eruption!

The eruption started at 1.55 a.m. on Tuesday 23rd January. Luckily the fishing fleet was in harbour because of bad weather so all 5000 people could be evacuated from the town. I was very pleased with them all. Everybody was praised for their calmness, which is what you need in an emergency.

The volcano calmed down about 5 months later. Now the population is back to 5000.

The picture was taken by Svienn Eirikksen, fire marshal of Vestmannaeyjar.

Surf Rescue

Johann Weißmüller was born in Freidorf which at the time was in Austria-Hungary but is now near Timişoara in Romania. Very soon he moved with his family to America. He was a good swimmer and trained hard while he worked as a bell hop at the Plaza Hotel in Chicago. It all worked out very well when he won his first Olympic swimming title in 1924 (Paris). In all, throughout his career he won five Olympic Gold medals and one Bronze, and broke sixty-seven world records. He never lost a race.

And then he became Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle.

Johnny Weissmuller was the Tarzan I remember from the films. They were black and white, and had lots of interesting things happening. I remember the Elephants' Graveyard, trains of native bearers carrying the white man's luggage, Cheeta the chimpanzee, giant spiders and their deadly webs, and the strange fauna of the jungle. There was always a dinosaur somewhere in the jungle for some reason. It was a Dimetrodon, I seem to remember. And don't forget that Tarzan could speak to the animals too. "Ungawa!" meant something. "Simba!" meant something too. It is Swahili for Lion and he said it to lions so that makes sense.

Let's go back in time and find out something else.

When Johnny won his first Olympic medal, he beat someone. That person was called Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku and he came from Hawaii. When you hear the phrase "The Big Kahuna", you now know that it originally referred to him.

Duke (named after Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh) had set the world record that Johnny broke in 1922 (that was before they met at the Olympics). He won many medals himself, but is more famous as the inventor of modern surfing. He experimented with many improvements and alterations to surfboard design but his best-remembered board was the one he called his "papa nui". It was 16 feet long and weighed 114 pounds (4.8m, 52 kg). That was the board he was using on the day the big waves came, one of which would take him from surf zone to surf zone in the longest ride of his life. Let's hear him tell about it now.

But the day I caught 'The Big One' was a day when I was not thinking in terms of awing any tourists or kamaainas (old-timers) on Waikiki Beach. It was simply an early morning when mammoth ground swells were rolling in sporadically from the horizon, and I saw that no one was paddling out to try them. Frankly, they were the largest I'd ever seen. The yell of 'The surf is up!' was the understatement of the century.

In fact, it was that rare morning when the word was out that the big 'Bluebirds' were rolling in; this is the name for gigantic waves that sweep in from the horizon on extra-ordinary occasions. Sometimes years elapse with no evidence of them. They are spawned far out at sea and are the result of cataclysms of nature -- either great atmospheric disturbances or subterranean agitation like underwater earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The danger lay in the proneout or wipeout. Studying the waves made me wonder if any man's body could withstand the unbelievable force of a thirty- to fifty-foot wall of water when it crashes. And, too, could even a top swimmer like myself manage to battle the currents and explosive water that would necessarily accompany the aftermath of such a wave? Well, the answer seemed to be simply -- don't get wiped out!

From the shore you could see those high glassy ridges building up in the outer Diamond Head region. The Bluebirds were swarming across the bay in a solid line as far northwest as Honolulu Harbor. They were tall, steep and fast. The closer-in ones crumbled and showed their teeth with a fury that I had never seen before. I wondered if I could even push through the acres of white water to get to the outer area where the buildups were taking place.

...Bushed from the long fight to get seaward, I sat my board and watched the long humps of water peaking into ridges that marched like animated foothills. I let a slew of them lift and drop me with their silent, threatening glide. I could hardly believe that such perpendicular walls of water could be built up like that. The troughs between the swells had the depth of elevator shafts, and I wondered again what it would be like to be buried under tons of water when it curled and detonated. There was something eerie about watching the shimmering backs of the ridges as they passed me and rolled on toward Waikiki.

I let a lot of them careen by, wondering in my own heart if I was passing them up because of their unholy height, or whether I was really waiting for the big, right one. A man begins to doubt himself at a time like that. Then I was suddenly wheeling and turning to catch the towering blue ridge bearing toward me. I was prone and stroking hard at the water with my hands.

Strangely, it was more as though the wave had selected me, rather than I had chosen it. It seemed like a very personal and special wave -- the kind I had seen in my mind's eye during a night of tangled dreaming. There was no backing out on this one; the two of us had something to settle between us. The rioting breakers between me and shore no longer bugged me. There was just this one ridge and myself -- no more. Could I master it? I doubted it, but I was willing to die in the attempt to harness it.

Instinctively I got to my feet when the pitch, slant and speed seemed right. Left foot forward, knees slightly bent, I rode the board down the precipitous slope like a man tobogganing down a glacier. Sliding left along the watery monster's face, I didn't know I was at the beginning of a ride that would become a celebrated and memoried thing. All I knew was that I had come to grips with the tallest, bulkiest, fastest wave I had ever seen. I realized, too, more than ever, that to be trapped under its curling bulk would be the same as letting a factory cave in upon you.

This lethal avalanche of water swept shoreward swiftly and spookily. The board began hissing from the traction as the wave leaned forward with greater and more incredible speed and power. I shifted my weight, cut left at more of an angle and shot into the big Castle Surf which was building and adding to the wave I was on. Spray was spuming up wildly from my rails, and I had never before seen it spout up like that. I rode it for city-long blocks, the wind almost sucking the breath out of me. Diamond Head itself seemed to have come alive and was leaping in at me from the right.

Then I was slamming into Elk's Club Surf, still sliding left, and still fighting for balance, for position, for everything and anything that would keep me upright. The drumming of the water under the board had become a madman's tattoo. Elk's Surf rioted me along, high and steep, until I skidded and slanted through into Public Baths Surf. By then it amounted to three surfs combined into one; big, rumbling and exploding. I was not sure I could make it on this ever-steepening ridge. A curl broke to my right and almost engulfed me, so I swung even farther left, shuffled back a little on the board to keep from pearling (nose-diving).

Left it was; left and more left, with the board veeing a jet of water on both sides and making a snarl that told of speed and stress and thrust. The wind was tugging my hair with frantic hands. Then suddenly it looked as if I might, with more luck, make it into the back of Queen's Surf! The build-up had developed into something approximating what I had heard of tidal waves, and I wondered if it would ever flatten out at all. White water was pounding to my right, so I angled farther from it to avoid its wiping me out and burying me in the sudsy depths.

Borrowing on the Cunha Surf for all it was worth -- and it was worth several hundred yards -- I managed to manipulate the board into the now towering Queen's Surf. One mistake -- just one small one -- could well spill me into the maelstrom to my right. I teetered for some panic-ridden seconds, caught control again, and made it down on that last forward rush, sliding and bouncing through lunatic water. The breaker gave me all the tossing of a bucking bronco. Still luckily erect, I could see the people standing there on the beach, their hands shading their eyes against the sun, and watching me complete this crazy, unbelievable one-and-three-quarter-mile ride.

I made it into the shallows in one last surging flood. A little dazedly I wound up in hip-deep water, where I stepped off and pushed my board shoreward through the bubbly surf. That improbable ride gave me the sense of being an unlickable guy for the moment. I hoisted my board to my hip, locked both arms around it and lugged it up the beach.

Without looking at the people clustered around, I walked on, hearing them murmur fine, exciting things which I wanted to remember in days to come. I told myself this was the ride to end all rides. I grinned my thanks to those who stepped close and slapped me on the shoulders, and I smiled to those who told me this was the greatest. I trudged on and on, knowing this would be a shining memory for me that I could take out in years to come, and relive it in all its full glory. This had been it.

I never caught another wave anything like that one. And now with the birthdays piled up on my back, I know I never shall. But they cannot take that memory away from me. It is a golden one that I treasure, and I'm grateful that God gave it to me.

Duke appeared in 13 films in various parts, and in 1925 he used his surfboard to rescue eight men from a capsized fishing boat in heavy weather in Newport Beach, California.

It's nice to know that exciting things happen sometimes. Also that fun can be useful. Playing is not just a waste of time!

Distractions

People sometimes ask, after reading something like my last post, what they can do about some or all of the great and terrible events in the world. Well I answered that once, and it seems that my answer is similar now. You can't do anything. Unless you can.

You can do what you can do. But you probably don't believe you can do very much so that is one obstacle. Things are not as bad as all that though. There are certainly some things you are good at now (some people think they are good at nothing, others think they are superior in everything - it is probable that both types are wrong) so you know you can do those things. Hopefully at least some of them are things that can help other people so you are on the way already.

Do you know, there might actually be something useful you can do to help. But probably we aren't sure what that is at this stage. You may have your suspicions (a hidden talent, a forgotten wish?) or may think you are not cut out for great things. You don't have to get your name in the papers to do great things, though. Could be you are great already. (I am telling the truth here - the biggest step is believing me)

Some people get their name in the papers a lot. They are famous and talked-about. We give them responsibility for good and evil things that we also read about in the papers. But have you noticed that the papers don't make a lot of sense? They are ENTIRELY speculative because they are of the moment. But we take the speculation as fact, and fail to notice that it changes the next day. Apparently it is correct to believe statements that have been put into print; less reliable to trust someone's word. (Unless they are famous)

It MIGHT be useful to read about events. Possibly. If you remember that what you're reading always has a particular viewpoint. But reading doesn't mean you are acting. That might seem obvious. But it is easy to imagine that reading today's opinion makes one well-informed and therefore makes one feel one has done one's bit to "set the world to rights". Is it true though?

It takes a while to read the paper. It takes some time to talk about what was in the paper. It takes a lot of energy to carry the beliefs that came from the paper. Let's just accept that not everything is right in the world (yet), that we can't fully know what's going on (probably), that we probably can't change the large-scale happenings, that you can control how you affect yourself and other people, that you can decide to make creative things happen and not destructive ones, that you can be the best person that you already were (under the surface), and not GET DISTRACTED BY CURRENT AFFAIRS!

The most important current affairs are your own current affairs. "Jane Smith orders air strike against husband". "Man declares war on that cat next door". "Twins sign new peace accord".

You are making your own headlines. The difference is, you can change everything about your own news.

Paderewski's Parrot

Paderewski had a parrot. He got it in New Zealand. It would scratch at the door when he was practising. Then when it was let in, it would perch on his pedalling foot. At certain moments it would exclaim,"Lord, what beautiful music!"

I read this in The Paderewski Memoirs. There is no mention of the parrot on the Internet, which is why I had to tell you the story myself. If you ask me, there is something wrong with people. Fancy not knowing about this parrot!

Recommendations

There are 25 countries in the world that have no army. Did you assume, like I probably did, that all countries have an army?

I suppose we are used to conflict - it is the rule rather than the exception.

Among the 25, there are different reasons for the absence of an armed force. In a number of cases, the US military takes care of any hostile situation that might arise.

But I can see at least one that deliberately doesn't have an army.
Here is what I read on Wikipedia about Costa Rica:

On December 1, 1948, president José Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica abolished the country's army after victory in the civil war in that year. In a ceremony in the Cuartel Bellavista, Figueres broke a wall with a mallet symbolizing the end of Costa Rica's military spirit. In 1949 the abolition of the military was introduced in the Article 12 of the 1949 Constitution.

The budget previously dedicated to the military now is dedicated to security, education and culture; the country maintains armed Polices Guard forces. The museum Museo Nacional de Costa Rica was placed in the Cuartel Bellavista as a symbol of commitment to culture.

In 1986, president Oscar Arias Sánchez declared December 1 as the Día de la Abolición del Ejército (Military abolition day) with law #8115.

Unlike its neighbours, Costa Rica has not endured a civil war since.

This is my first recommendation for today: staying away from conflicts.

Further recommendations:

Squid
Squid Ink
Mushrooms: Morels, or any kind, dry-fried for a while, then with lemon juice and black pepper added - tastes of autumn

Quiz: what is the tastiest part of the prawn?

Weather, oh!

I have been checking the weather forecast for a few weeks.

Always it says that in two or three days the temperature will go up higher by a few degrees.

Then when the day arrives, nothing has changed - in two or three days the temperature will go up higher by a few degrees! Oh, why do they torture me so?

But, as you know, the weather is not predictable over longer than two or three days on the whole.

Seemingly the weather forecast is entirely predictable!

Rain is good but I do prefer the sunshine. Which I am unlikely to see in London very often!

Where else should I go? Any suggestions? You could form a Philip Howard Escape Committee. Those who want me further away, send in the name of a suitable place. Those who want me nearer, write in with the name of the place where you live.

I wonder where I would end up like that? Anyway, I know you are too polite to make suggestions like that. You will just have to wait and see.

Now, which way is the sun going? I should follow that.

I heard that Alexander the Great went to see the Greek philosopher Diogenes. Diogenes lived in a barrel and was lying down next to it when Alexander came. He said to Diogenes,"I am ruler of half the world. Whatever you ask of me, it shall be done. Now what do you wish?" and Diogenes said please could you move a bit to the right, you're blocking my sun...

You know, a barrel rolls. It must be a good way of following the sun. I wonder if that's a possibility?

What did the barrel have in it before Diogenes? Wine? Fish? Heraclitus? It makes all the difference to the internal ambience.

But I guess the sun is always the same, eh? When you can see it.

Takk and tak

As part of my travel plans for the future, I'm back to learning Polish. There is this word, 'tak', which means 'yes'. So far so good, that's all quite clear (in some pronunciation you can even hear a bit of a 'd' sound at the start, so you can think of 'da' in Russian and know for sure that this word means yes). But in Norwegian (which we discussed at length, starting on 25th June) the word takk means thanks. I get just a little bit confused as I try to decide whether I'm saying yes or thanks. Solutions: get focused into speaking Polish and not have any other options for the 'tak' sound in my mind; or, concentrate on the different sounds between the two words - which are very different, if you get close enough to see all the differences - and associate different pictures and feelings with each one which will always be there when I use the words.

It may seem a small thing to be talking about. But once you know bits of a few languages, some of the bits can fall into some of the other languages, so I'd like to know what you do about that.

One great linguist (polyglot, or by definition, hyperpolyglot - speaking more than six languages fluently) - the first that I think of - is Richard Francis Burton, the great English ...well, there isn't a word for what he was, he was everything - and everything England was not, so we can be thankful for having him (1821-1890). He was one of the first Westerners into Mecca - he went in disguise, linguistically as well as everything else (you can read about this in Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca). He translated the Arabian Nights (the Alf Laylah Wa Laylah, or "Thousand Nights and One Night") and the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - among others. Burton, who was supposed to know 29 languages, was an incredible man who went everywhere and did everything - fantastical, unlikely, impossible, but he did it. He even discovered the source of the Nile. Read something by him or about him. Then have a think about what you have to do to qualify as 'being alive'. Lord Derby said of RFB: "Before middle age, he compressed into his life more of study, more of hardship, and more of successful enterprise and adventure, than would have sufficed to fill up the existence of half a dozen ordinary men".