Polonius would have been right at home on Twitter. “Brevity is the soul of wit” he advises King Claudius and his Queen Gertrude, following up with “…I will be brief. Your noble son is mad” Whoa. Your noble son is mad. He only needs 21 characters and spits in Twitter’s eye because he has said […]
EvenFourLines
"If any person in any place were to teach even four lines...
...Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream
So is all conditioned existence to be seen" [from the Diamond Sutra]
He may exist on nuts and berries, Or then again on missionaries
July 10, 2011 by
Max stared at the hole in the fence. He was a bit too fat to dive through, as most mildly spoilt Labradors are, but he knew as well as I did…Wombat! We live in south-eastern Australia, well south of Melbourne, just across Bass Strait from Tasmania. This is the best time of the year, cold, […]
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
May 14, 2011 by
Leon managed to do it. About five years earlier, I had tried to demolish the old water-tank lying in a corner of our property. It lay, leaking, slightly rusted, in a shallow drainage culvert adjoining our neighbour. It had to go. But we needed to reduce its size, bend it, fold it, to fit in […]
I will give you three choices; to die forever, to live for a time and return, or to live forever
May 1, 2011 by
There are two sorts of people in the world. Those who love Ken Rockwell. Those who hate him. I am in the former group. The reason is simple. I lost my Nikkormat FTN, with its f2.5 105mm lens (gulp), in 1983. My wife, three small children, and I were hiking in a quiet, easy section […]
It Doesn’t Get Any More Exciting Than That
April 17, 2011 by
I’m asking you. What is the most exciting thing you’ve done? Space Walk? Underwater rescue? Mt. Everest? I didn’t think so. Maybe you are a little like me. I can recall a long helicopter ride to visit oil rigs. A moderately dangerous high altitude drive. Er, there was a division 3 win in Tattslotto, about […]
A Dormitory Without An Alarm Clock
April 14, 2011 by
His final message: “As to me, I leave tomorrow for an unknown destination”. Ambrose Bierce, author, Civil War Hero and journalist, then went to Mexico and disappeared. He was never seen again. It was 1913, and the sprightly 71-year-old chronic asthmatic with an acerbic tongue and pen vanished, as they say, into thin air. No […]
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 […]
