I KNEW IT~!

WHEN I WAS BUT A PUP …

My dear old Mum (that’s Mom, to you Yanks) used to ensure that I had a nice hot cocoa each night. No objection from me … I loved it.

I still do, in fact. So on a whim a few minutes ago I googled it—you know how it goes, everything you like these days either causes cancer or the consequent halitosis drives away the opposite (oops, the adjacent) gender* — and discovered to my utmost shock that the habit of a lifetime is actually … good for you. Apparently it does wondrous things, and I now know the difference between ‘cocoa’ and ‘cacao’. But the one thing it won’t do is put the cat out.

“Wow~! I want some …”

* Be careful here—we aren’t allowed to differentiate no more. Which is just as well ‘cos knitting purple booties is much more general purpose (covers all bases**) than either pink or blue.

** Tried it myself once. Nobody told me how to ‘cast off’ so I ended up with one sock eight feet long …

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COMMON LANGUAGE

COMMON SENSE, TRADITION, AND THE COMMON

nit-picker.

It’s all very well having ‘voice recognition’ technology that can transmute the spoken word to written writings … but wotif?

Wotif the speaker of the spoken don’t speak proper, like? So try this for size—

“Strange fogs engulfed the land, the Sun barely shown for days, even weeks at a time, and when it did it was but a feeble imitation of itself, crops died in the fields, forest growth almost came to a stop over the whole northern hemisphere, famine etc etc …”

AND LET ME SAY THAT

I was brought up to understand that the English (as in English, note—not American, Kiwi, Australian or any other foreigner lingo) word for the past participle of “to shine” which although written as ‘shone’ is correctly pronounced as ‘shonn’. The sun didn’t shown—it shone, qua shonn, dammit.

That’s the second time this week already—once in conversation (a u-toobe narration) and this instance in written writing. Sadly I can’t stop the progress of destruction and so our once-common language is becoming sundered.

‘Twas ever thus …

 

EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS

AGAIN …

I’ve stated that to my eye the Egyptian pyramids are essentially superb casings filled with rubble.

Quite some rubble though—on the Great Pyramid the blocks average out at about two and a half tons each. Some, not quite so rubbley and made of granite are about seventy tons.

So from other scribes’ efforts on U-tube I filched these almost at random—

AND the last one below informs us that the bits in yellow aren’t blocks — they’re Ground Zero foundation bedrock carved to look like blocks. Cute.

Sadly I can’t go further with this lot at the moment, I’m reading a book devoted to the theory that the ancients built the GP of E using internal ramps. (Originality, I like it. And who knows, maybe they did? Brrrrr …)

Images uplifted with thanks from:

 

More soon but don’t wait up …

REALITY IS NOT

(as is often said)

what it seems.

And fair enough too … except:

sometimes life is too complex to allow the philosopher or scientist to intrude. Like, like, like personally just live for yourself (and try to ‘let live’).

So in everyday life:  who the hell cares if we are all mostly just empty space? Certainly I don’t—if I have an itch I scratch it, if I thirst I guzzle a cuppa. Electrons in orbit, let ’em go spin themselves …

SO WHO CARES HOW MANY

blasted angels can dance on the head of a pin*, or if Christ was a cowboy, or if Mohammed could be done for child molestation were he but alive today? And rightly so— or can exceptions be made for some selected fifty-year-olds who cheerfully bang nine-year-old little girls and brag about it?

Don’t ask me.

Ask the religious; for many millions of souls Uncle Mo is the Grand Ultimate Paradigm. I’m just one old dawg quietly thinking that where you have a contradiction at least one of its premises is wrong.

“Argus!”

“Yes, Mr God, Sir?”

“They won’t like it, you know.”

“They don’t have to, Sir—I’m merely scratching an itch here.”

 * I believe the answer some ecumenical pondering produced (after a great deal of intercourse) was: ten thousand. (I have no idea the margin of error.)

OUT OF CONTEXT,

OR PARTIAL quotes

can be powerful ammo for Deceivers.

No?

Yes?

Maybe?

Here, try one on for size—

“evidence that conventional models of geology or the length of the human presence on earth are wrong”

Source of quote:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorchester_Pot

And this is either one clever hoax, or—

                                                           

 

Aye, there’s the RUB …

referring to a source of more wisdom and greater solace than ever the Holy Babbles of any religious franchise can hope to claim. The Rubaiyat, officially approved by  —>

referring of course to a work by a semi-obscure but powerful (!) Islamic mind some hundreds of years ago—a work which translated directly into English was obscure and almost meaningless; a work which once ‘translated’ (i.e. immensely enhanced) by an  almost unknown English clergyman became one of the modern greats (especially with we hippies).

Click the above quote for one of the many sources. Peruse, find one that appeals and curl up beneath a bough somewhere with a loaf of bread, gallon or two of a good red and whomesoever ringeth thy bell these days and get in amongst it:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native school of thought …

 

That link again:

https://theomarkhayyamclubofamerica.wordpress.com/the-complete-rubaiyat/

AKED WHY

I SO ADAMANTLY

never had pups or otherwise reproduced, I simply shrugged. Shrug. Will shrug. Think of the oriental concept of satori — how can one who’s been there explain it? Easier to explain sight to a man blind from before birth.

But often we stumble over helpfuls when researching something else—

—and this verse had completely slipped my memory. But it explains nicely why I have never reproduced.

Make of it wot thou wilt …

                                                              

CASTRATE ‘EM~!

(OFFICIALS, that is)

BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO

with elected ladies? The modern wimmin can be every bit as destructive once in office as any MCP. (Even much more so, some of ’em) …

A bit of a toughie.

But here’s advice just in from the front, given by a now departing long-service veteran polly—

Esler’s parting advice included: “never argue with people who are very old, very young, very angry, drunk or insane. Just smile, nod and grunt occasionally”

—and remember that if they are in office and hold power over you (and even more better) (for them) are funded with loot extracted at gunpoint from YOUR wallet that:

YOU voted for them!

(I didn’t—that’s one albatross no-one can ever hang around my furry neck.)

(For source of quote, click the above dove)

 

 

I GOT RIGHTS, TOO~!

Or not …

RELIGION

(of any kind, anywhere, any time) is that system of dictatorship which takes away all of your Rights and gives just some of ’em back as privileges.

In the meantime, try this on for size—

And consider the implications … for example, do YOU really have the ‘Free Speech’ you fought and died for in The War*?

 

                      

* Any war. (Insert your very own most favourite war here, and run with it.)

PHOTOGRAPHED

IN H&J’s Store

in Gore yesterday—a work that made me think someone had “captured the essence in minimal brushstrokes” … ergo, a Zen-like painting:

—hung above a stairwell that until recently led from the ground-floor to the upstairs munchery (which is gone now, and sadly missed).

Make of it what ye will …

“I’ll take your word for it, Argus!”

Be advised:

if ever you go to Gore there is a main-street bakery that sells the world’s very best doughnuts and cream buns. Ever~! Get in early, though, before they run out …