“But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance: They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming, In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires, In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe” William Blake wrote as though he experienced […]
If It Were Not For Reality
January 24, 2013 by
When Gary Larson retired in 1995, the world became a poorer place. Everyone has their favourite cartoon. Mine is the look-alike Freudian psychiatrist carefully writing in his imposing notebook while a clearly disturbed patient on the couch talks and talks and talks. If you look carefully at the psychiatrist’s notebook, he has written “Just Plain […]
Happiness. Is There Anything You Can Do To Increase It?
June 17, 2012 by
You can find 1621 quotes about happiness, and that’s just from one site. Most are brilliant. Like “Happiness is a warm puppy” (Charles Schultz). Some, like Bertrand Russell’s “The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible” somehow don’t hit the spot. Many people have trouble being happy. […]
I Said I Want A Second Opinion
October 16, 2011 by
Boy, are they ugly tomatoes. I was picking a few from our veggie patch last season, and with a name like Rouge de Marmande, you would expect them to look glorious. Aristocratic, even noble, perfectly formed, symmetrical, evenly coloured. But no, this variety of tomato is real ugly. They vary in shape from elliptical to drum-shaped […]
They Are Not Ripe Yet
April 11, 2011 by
I used to think ‘Sour Grapes’ was just a metaphor. Now I’m not so sure. I blame it on an article in a European journal, obscurely titled “XYZ – Nondum Matura Es” The XYZ is irrelevant, you can substitute ‘Atomic powered trains” or “ESP as a communication tool”, that part makes no difference, it’s the […]
Mental Illness Is A Metaphor
March 27, 2011 by
When I was a young man, working through a medical course in the 1960s, there were 10,000 psychiatric beds in the State of Victoria. That is, in a population of about 3 million. Now our population has doubled and the number of psychiatric beds has fallen by about 80%. We spent weeks and weeks’ as […]
