Category: Uncategorized
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What I have Learnt So Far…
Originally posted on bluntrhetoric: There are many things I don’t know and even more thing it seems that I have to remind myself of on a daily basis. The obvious things like: I am a worthy person, I deserve love , blah blah blah. These are the mini mottos that are easily disregarded in the…
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Debate? Where is it now?
Debate. I don’t mean the Soundbite, or the Sneer, nor Banter, but Debate, the stuff that used to involve swords physical and then swords metaphorical. Where is it? It used to be everywhere, in the pub, in the corridor, around the meal table, even, yes, even, in Parliament. Socrates offered he had no knowledge; that…
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Paris or London: Which is more beautiful?
Paris is grand and breathtaking; London is ‘rude and low’, which is easy for us imported Northerners to say safe in the hills of Yorkshire. Actually it was John Dryden who said so, so there. I like the suggestion in Austen Saunders’ Spectator Book Blog that London’s messy layout and ramshackle streets is a result of…
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Technology as ornamentation
Norman Mailer did say, but cannot find where he said it, that technology is erotic; which is an uncomfortable word for us repressed English-males. It’s like the word porn; another uncomfortable word. But of course there is train-porn, watch-porn (I recall a two years of study accompanied by a group of wonderful fellow students who…
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Discretion is now the better part of Valerie
This word ‘pledge’ is intriguing. Has its capital sunk like toxic debt? Is too much pledging like too much chocolate; you get sick of it and ignore it after awhile? Americans pledge allegiance to flags; we breathe oaths to truth; promises to love; resolve New Years; re-member ourselves with commitments; determine futures; shake hands; guard…
