A New Bottle! Let It Be Bubbly!

Whether it's...

...or...

...or even...

...it's crucial to

To their good health!

We love those guys*.

Jacques Boissenot & his son, Eric:

‘Our philosophy is difficult to explain but it’s first of all to understand the cru. I need two years to understand a new property. You must capture what there is in that cru, its terroir, its expression, its faults and qualities, and then handle it delicately, to guide it to its most beautiful expression. We keep stressing finesse rather than power. We concentrate on the quality of the tannins. Sometimes you can accentuate the faults by having too low a yield; balanced vines are more important.‘

(If this isn't poetry, I don't know what is.)


*who knows: in a while some of them could be behind the wine served at the First New Symposium that was announced at the Last One.

Overspreading my bet?

...well, actually: also wine (&low taxa... - or no: either it's included anyway or I'd be stretching things a bit perhaps...)

PS (You bet)

PS ... I nearly forgot about beautiful women. I must fit them in, somehow.

(Some task! But what's a philosopher to do? Instinct needs strngent intellectual oversight.)

The immaterial. (You bet)

My whole bet is on the immaterial.

(The School of Plato by Jean Delville, 1898. Musee d'Orsay, Paris)

What Is This Thing Called Love? (And don't pepper* to me...)

* about 'nature'!

I'm just wondering: what is this thing called love? what is this thing called sex (technically I know, but I mean: philosophically)?

PS That's a trailer. The papers coming soon (ish)




*my Polish readers may get this, though I acknowledge this sophisticated play on words is probably unfunny and surely unclear. (But judge for yourselves: the piece is played by Art Pepper & Band; and if you recall the Polish verb that is the translation of ... see? I know that the meaning is not quite applicable in this context, but if you stretch a bit your imagination, sense of humor and good will, you may, I mean just about ... . OK: not funny; but then I never claimed it was funny, right?)

Freak out (or praise the Lord!)*

Philosophically

there aren't too many options available here: either it's part of a design by a benevolent, mysterious, super-intelligent and reliably surprising Creator

or it's time to

freak out.

PS You (people) know, I've been looking for a confirmation of God's sense of humor in the Bible, but looking at this I need no further proof. And, oh, Lord!, I do relate to it.




*the latter (in case you wondered).


The illustration: a ... whatever, freaking visitors out on a wall at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Down&out (in Bordeaux)

 i

Drinking lager in Bordeaux?? (Just outside the Musée des Beaux-Arts; established in 1801, apparently the Short Corsican's idea.)

If it weren't about death, one could be tempted to say "serves it right!"

Chickened out

Looking for sth else I found this - and jumped up in my armchair! -

- before I remembered it's not through the windshield but the rear window that the picture had been snapped and the yours-truly's-life-threatening situation hadn't taken place on the Isles, but on the Continent where they stick to their quaint little local habits, such as driving on the right.

(The Slow Mountains of Romania, by the way.)

A distant memory

What was his name*?.... on the walls of Bordeaux, not far from the Protestant Cemetery on Rue Judaïque.

*don't blame me for forgetting, blame democracy.

Death joke/Life joke

For quite a while now I've been putting together a number of thoughts, insights and laughs concerning the question of humor (I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet, but I'm planning to write the lost... - or let's leave it for another occasion). It is envisaged as a take on jokes in the context of Theology (as if there was any other context :) and I decided to deliver something funny, among others, in the New Year.

In the meantime, as you may vaguely remember (the way I do), I tuned in to BBC Radio1*, something that I never do, and listened to cleverly distressing, the way the best comedians are, Nick Helm.

Who, I reaslied while analysing philospophically his gig (as you do), is the illustration of the main point of my treatise that I'm sure I'd be soon looking for to attach to the paper.






(Actually, its such a perfect illustration that - apart from the fact that I love this coincidence - it's stopped being funny for me, as it was originally, and has become a bit disquieting.)




illustration: zazzle.co.uk

Flying in the air (understanding)

(I couldn't resist; especially that the track has recently lead to a certain obvious and extremely thrilling observation.)

I fell asleep in the middle of the touching Nick Helm Christmas Spectacular*, quite probably during the poem about the romantically distressed Snowman, and dreamt of my ex-wife. We were together in a room, seemingly comfortable with each other. Then I started smashing chairs against the walls, something that I always hated, despite the appearances, to do in our real-life relationship. 

Suddenly I felt what and why. 

(The blame’s split, but badlytilting my way,; the original sin’s exclusively mine, though - no woman in sight to share it with, only Satan himself).






PS Sir Howard - in case you haven't moused the added link - was educated in Brighton, a fact that may stand behind the Pavilion and Pier; in the fragment above, that is.

I wish you a merry tax!

(St Catwg's; not this Christmas, though)

On Christmas day, somewhere between the King's Arms and St Catwg's Church in the nice little village of Pentyrch, I thought of a local Christian friend of mine*, whom I hadn't even bothered to wish a merry Christmas. I kept walking towards him though, it seemed, one way or another: I was just in the middle** of making another- after many years since the last one - of my Grand Walking Tours of Caridff (incorporating Llandaff Cathedral, Catsle Coch, Gwaelod-y-Garth and the Garth itself) and soon I was to head straight for the city centre and end up close - if you took our faith into account - to where he lived.

I worried for a second about my neglect, before I realised it had been, accidentally, a very thoughtful thing not to do. Because to wish a Christian a merry Christmas would be to bother him with something utterly redundant or making a high-Church error; it's either like saying "I wish you merry joy" or it's suggesting that the day on which we celebrate the arrival of the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, born as a child to us*** might be dull and miserable; it's like saying "the Sun is bright" or it's like asking a believer: "Does Christ's resurrection give you hope?" ("No. Actually, it depresses me...").  So, Peter, from now on, instead of bothering you with redundant verbiage in the best case and a fallacy in the worst one, on Christmas Day I'll say to you - and any other Christian: "Now that the Hope of Salvation has arrived among us as, I wish you lower taxes!"




*I hope he hasn't lost me - he lent me.. - or let's leave it (I don't mean un-repaid, but undiscussed, for a moment; until it ceases to be an issue).
**as it was to turn out; there and then I thought I was much more advanced. I arrived home late at night, knackered as a middle-aged horse.
***written a few hundred years before the birth of the Wonderful Councelor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace!


PS And as to all those cards - send them to your local M.P. to urge him to be born again and then lower those... - no, not in such terms during the festive season... - taxes!!

PS Having said which, I have to admit that I kept greeting nearly everyone I met that day with a "Merry Chirstmas" or just reacted with the same if pre-empted. I just hope all of them were heathen and we didn't use the Lord's name in vain.




Picture: St Catwg's Church, Pentyrch; courtesy of BBC News (I do - strangely... - pay the extortionate BBC tax).

All

Amy was all in black and I was concerned. Not about the non-colour (which I tolerate though don't like: it doesn't go well with me personally and ideologically*; besides I couldn't hold it against her as black was what the company suggested for her work-experience period), but about her head: I feared it had been messed up. Amy was, it had just turned out, a Goth and although I didn't know much about her particular sub-culture, my decently-informed understanding of youth sub-cultures is that they all are fallacy-peddlers. In short, I feared that she - even being the nice person she was - might have gone seriously off at the tangent of somebody else's sin.

So I slyly decided to slip a little of (Baby) Jesus into her life; or reintroduce: the UK is a freshly post-Christian society and most local young people have heard of the Saviour.

"What's your favourite carol, Amy?", I ventured.
There was a long silence.
"I don't know if I have a favourite one". Another stretch of silence. "And I can't remember any".

I didn't know what to say, but I felt I needed to do something. I was making my mind up between crying and screaming, when Amy interrupted: "Oh, yes! I like best All I Want For Christmas Is You".

Being polite and being in Britain where you have to be doubly polite (respect to the Brits for that!) I suppressed an appropriate outburst of laughter, but explained in that sweet voice of mine which can mask either heart-felt condescension or compassion that it was a very cute song ("and performer", I added in my mind), but it wasn't a carol in the strictest of the available senses of the term (I understated, wanting to sound local). Then I smiled as I recalled something.

 "But you know what? If you make the 'you' in the song 'Jesus', it becomes a carol - and a good one".

Which is exactly what I had decided to do with this song a few days prior to the conversation with Amy, for a project I'm working on. And I thought that brief exchange and Amy's response a very cute coincidence; one of those that love you and me. Just like - despite all I've done to him**; I strongly hope and genuinely believe - he still does.

*more about colours and the dynamic 'nature' of man - soon.
**I don't want to imply anything about you - maybe you've kept all the commandments that prove your seriousness about the project, but let me just say one word: Shema!


PS Later on it stuck me: maybe Amy understood the song as a carol right from the start? Maybe it's obvious to most people that it is about Christ and my staking it for the Empire was redundant?

Guilty

(On Christmas Eve)

My debts have hounded me down. My sins have closed in on me. The hate, confusion and pettiness surrounding me suffocate. The unpaid rent threatens to get me spending the approaching night on the street (now, this I hope won't happen - the weather sucks). I've fallen out with my own country and my relation with my favourite one is dangerously tense. A young woman whom I love has withdrew her comforting words and offered the me harsh truth, somehow - even without anyone mentioning it - bringing back the memories of the time when I hurt her beyond description. My son goes to church only occasionally. Across the Channel (and then across half the continent) my ailing  and innocent - I swear! - parents are forced to contemplate the ruin of their first-born (who used to laugh most at the Christmas table) and I can't even call them to say that all is fine, because - through my talent, idiocy, laziness and rejection of the system - I'm penniless.

I think of these things and then break down in tears: he should have been acquitted.

I want it all

Yes, I want the world. Not as a loot though, but as a gift.

The Baby Connection

I easily forget, but I'm a human and - not very often, but still - I do need a human connection. I'm on my own this Christmas, which is of no special significance to me (unlike to some of my close ones), but if it weren't impossible, I wouldn't be very far from truthfully concluding that I'm lonely too.

I do have the Father connection, but I feel some strange and rare in me need to make a local connection too: with someone who is tangibly and physically* involved with this World, here and now. So can you  (regardless whether you're reading this in the States, this Kingdom, Germany**, China***, anywhere else - or even Poland****)  close your eyes***** and - please, please - make the Baby connection with me, now?





*****not crucial, but might help.
(I've decided to roll over the rest of the asterisked stuff to a different post. We don't want to upset the baby in his rest with my political ramblings, do we?)


Illustration: El Greco, making the Baby connection

Why then?

Why now?

When I expected it least, when I got as far as I ever have been in my life - if not further - from their causes, when I'm - practically - lying vulnerable (& guilty) on the street, now when I have turned another leaf and haven't managed to soil it yet, now when I've chucked most of the junk from my mind - just now the pay-back for my trespasses has hit and wounded me;  at a completely wrong moment, just like the one the one when my sin hit and wounded you.

Kick the stranger out onto the street (for Christmas)

I had no choice but to watch one couple's preparations for this solemnity and I was wondering: are they getting ready for a great Christian celebration of the arrival of the Prince of Peace and Wonder-Counselor or a brutal feast of a pagan god of aggression and confusion that will end up (and it looks like it will) with the faithful stabbing knives into each other's hearts?

And don't think me naive: I know that the false-gods-possessed heathen hasn't been killed off in us, but I just won't accept the fucker getting shamelessly out and taking a seat next to us at the Christmas table.

At the tangent of sin

Trying to open a bank account (what's wrong with good old-fashioned cash?)

I have no big issue with spending half or more of my waking day in work - I know of the original sin and I acknowledge the consequences. However if I'm expected to spend half or more of the rest of my waking day doing lethally boring and debasing stuff connected with the first part or the technical infrastructure for the acquisition of which which I spend the first part in work in the first place - I rebel. Because this senseless overtime obscures the sense of the first part and doesn't leave us time to think of the lesson we should learn from the punishment proper. It is an absurd infrastructure built on top of an offensive mistake and it must have been thrown in as a lethal surcharge either by our wickedness combined with our stupidity or directly by the Devil who must have thought: "They've confused themselves so much that they won't notice the difference between God's just punishment and a bonus from me!" (If that's the case, he's wrong: someone has just noticed it).

It's as if our world was not only deformed enough by our trespasses, at some point it madly flew off at the tangent of a never-ending bureaucratic sin into a hellish bog of inhuman reference numbers, exorbitant taxes, murderously repetitive forms, moronic tables of rates and redundant confirmations of current address and - surprisingly easy to remember and convenient in use - PINs.

I busted one

I just love the energy English carries: words are to the point, grammar speeds things up and rather than slows them down, sounds are as aerodynamic as they get. If you put your forces# in it, you start a sentence in Cardiff's port and stake the full stop somewhere in Rhodesia; throw in a question tag and you may end up taking over Calcutta.

So when Cerys said it, I knew I was, even before I asked the meaning  "Are you going to bust a move?" The expression itself was like an irresistible number to which you don't even have to throw any shapes* - it throws them for you. It was three days before the staff party and each time we brushed against each other I kept repeating the phrase in a way that got Cerys all in giggles (although I have add that a lot gets her in giggles - Cerys is one of the giggliest girls going**). By Sunday night, I'd got myself quite worked up and yes - when DJ Dan cranked his turnables (or whatever) up, I did bust one or two.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I forgave Cerys for dumping me as her date after she somehow remembered she had a boyfriend.







PS Cerys's boyfriend turned out to be a likable history student, interested in the Cold War and we had a nice little chat about Stalin and stuff. At some point, seeing Cerys enjoying herself (in a very smart, even if a bit too short, black-and-white dress) on the dance floor, I encouraged him to get his swerve on too. He explained that he doesn't feel comfortable dancing and prefers to talk history over a pint, a world-view with which I sympathise in n nearly all cases except the one in which you have a girlfriend enjoying herself on the dance floor in a pleasantly shortish dress. So I pressed on, gave him some body philosophy (aging, dying, using it when young, not making a fool of oneself later, when he becomes a middle-aged/elderly daddy, but thinks he's cool, like me##, etc.) and it worked - he did go on the dance floor and... made a fool of himself: when I was doing the encouraging, Cerys went to the ladies and the poor chap returned immediately, lacking the confidence to groove on his own, not to mention with that long-legged*** wonder that was doing some intensive footwork nearby.




#especially armed ones
## thinks like me, not cool###**** like me; (is it me or the language that's awkward?)
*this one I knew, but hadn't heard for ages; until Andrew's - my new boss's - vivacious wife refreshed my memory (and age it seems: when Andrew was chatting to his mates at the bar, I added a question mark and used it - the expression, not the age - on her).
**I thought that short, energetic alliteration would look good, even if senseless.
***more on her - soon.


### although now when I analyse in my mind - as you do - the shapes I threw, I'm thinking: actually, who knows? I have to ask what Cery's boyfriend thought of it; or maybe Cerys herself? The giggles make me smile... but obviously I'd hate to bust a relationship, I really would. Besides, she is so young she could nearly be my great-granddaughter!  (a bit of a turn-on, come to imagine... sorry - think of it... I mean I don't even what to think...  anyway - just a little, innocent turn-on, all right?!)

**** I need to start doing again those small numbers, but I've forgotten how - again.

Next year's (and this life's) project.

A penny mid-air. A life's project cut out. Understanding seeking faith. A game of catch-up, Lord-wards.

(To be continued next year; if he doesn't close the palm of his hand).

There is no psychology.

There is no psychology - there is only philosophy.

(If you insist, psychology is philosophy incorporating a series of more or less typical fallacies; religion is how you treat those fallacies, enabling the patient to recover and regain his philosophical health).

The Father Connection

I live among ex-pats with whom I can't communicate, because we don't share our patria. I walk down the street alongside strangers who speak a different logic, though we apply the same language.  I drink wisdom with aliens who don't get the obvious message of this planet's wine.  All around me I observe queer* species, twisted races and inhumanely coloured specimen with whom I, strangely, happen to have the shape in common.

Then I feel that there is absolutely no connection between me and them - not even the Son Connection; except for the Father Connection.



*in any sense you, alien, fancy.

A Cicero et Catullus Lullaby

...no mercy from beautiful women (philosophically)

I was sitting in a slightly too comfortable chair on the third floor of a smart library in the centre of Cardiff, one of the biggest ports of the British Empire.

There were two books on my lap. Cicero kept making me drowsy, Catullus kept waking me up. But I thought per aspera ad insignia and persevered with Cicero. I didn't understand much, but how edifying Latin is to look at! And I drowsed off.

Soon, during my ramble in slumber, I seemed to hear "... mere dormientes?", so I opened my eyes and saw one of the librarians accompanied by a security guy approaching Cicero, Catullus, Claudia Pulchra Prima et me - and then solum me, when I woke up a bit more. I smiled at the absurd pair to reassure them that I was indeed just asleep and not, say, taxed to death like a few other civilisations before me and I wondered: an empire in which you need to grab hold of a security man to wake up a reader of Cicero* - is it going to survive?

Then I woke up completely.



PS And yes, I did give them back all the books from my bag... - just kidding.



 *or could it be Marcus Antonius that sent them and it wasn't at all about waking me up? I was reading... well, looking at ... (well, sleeping over, actually) the 2nd Philippic.




Illustration: Lesbia by John Reinhart Weguelin (1880-1850)

(Maybe; or maybe not?)

I drank wine, not grapes, obviously

(Maybe I should have left undrunk that bottle of cheap Italian Cabernet Sauvignon yesterday? But then again*...)

**no, it's not this kind of 'again'.





illustration:

Español [yes, I know - it wouldn't be too difficult to find Italian grapes, but... have a glass, and take it easy] Racimo de uvas de la variedad Cabernet Sauvignon

Bildbeschreibung: Traube der Rebsorte Cabernet-Sauvignon in Gaillac / Frankreich
Quelle: selbst fotografiert
Fotograf: de:Benutzer:BerndtF
Datum: Oktober 2005
From de:Bild:Cabernet_Sauvignon_Gaillac.jpg

Yes

And by the way: YES

(The Executive Summary)

Are you sophisticated?

If you don't dig the philosophical, psychological, sociological, emotional, romantical, analytical, pedagogical, nautical, fantastical and generally ological case for lower taxation, you're a stupid prick.

Proud&Meek

I don't do meek religion, because Christianity is anything but a meek religion. (Meek Christian - yes, I've heard of him; but that's a completely different matter*).


*and I'm in favour, if somebody asked.

Small nations - conquer.

I don't do small nations. They suffocate.

Even more

Once I drank vodka with a Polish film director on a train to Warsaw (or Breslau). I'd be ready to drink twice as much (I'm no big fan of vodka) to remember who it was and what we talked about.

Obssessed (& fucked?)

Either you make (male) man's obsession with sex first philosophical and then theological or you're fucked.

Her Lord (and ways leading to Him)

Long female legs are a powerful argument. First, it may seem; and perhaps truly, for the pussy, then immortality, and finally - and always in awe! - the lord of the Pussy, the Lord himself.

Oh, Beautiful woman!

Don't wait till no man bothers to come to you; don't delay it till you've got no man to go to - go to him now, while you're still fit, just about. He'll find you more attractive, Jesus will.

Torn from Terra

I belive in super-terrestrial nations: those that have been torn - even for a decade - from the soil they plough, trod or piss on and keep the memory of that independence.

Not for my sake, but for hers

I've just craved the resurrection of the elegantly, sophistecatedly, nuancedly sexy body.
However not for my sake, but for the sake of Francoise Hardy.



PS And - although I fear I'd dislike her if I knew her - for the sake of Kate Moss.

Sin will tear us apart

The original sin was the Big Bang. We'll never get together again. (Unless the Lord's)

Them or no one

They are our kids, our chief concern. Because if not them, who? (Jews)

Confirmed

I have confirmed the original sin; and I've killed the kids*. (Haven't you?)


*more on that later

I can't/ How close

I can't judge you 'cause I don't know how close you come to the Lord.

(The Lord's)

The intensification of appreciation. (The Lord"s).

Common(-law) marriage

Contrary to popular & shallow belief, the problem with young people's attitude to the tying of the knot is not that they marry too late or don't get married at all - it's that they marry too early and too often.

The Eschatological "I.D.F.C"

"I don't f*** (actually, I do care about style*) care" possibly has a fundamental significance in eschatology and may be crucial in getting an insight into the psychology of the Final Things. I've been doing a lot of stalking of those things recently and finally I am ready to share one or two thoughts with you. The key themes are going to be: something snapping, missing my 42nd birthday, Gone with the Wind, Queen's We Are the Champions (and the "no time for losers" line of the chorus), a party that makes you... - let's suddenly stop here.




*it seems I'm not a very consistent I-don't-fucking-care Christian; but there's only one important consistency - and nothing else matters; or more precisely: everything else is taken care of by this one ultra-important, over-arching, problem-solving consistency.

Do I care?

...soul on fire...

I'm wondering (shit has just happened, to give you a little splashing of the background): am I falling into some grave fallacy or am I getting things right, big way?

On the one hand it is said "whoever can be trusted with little#...", on the other - "... in his joy he went and sold all he had..." (well, I've blown it rather than sold - maybe this is where part of the problem lies?)...

I just don't know. All I know is that when I see the main thing, and I see the main thing!, about the rest - style, timing, PR, bills*, taxes**, PR, style, this fucking punctual*** world and its fucking punctual ways (how come love is always late, then?), conventions, taxes, PR, sensitivities, friends, style, enemies and what have you - I don't fucking (style) care.







*yes, that is a bit of a problem, I admit; it is to do with morality and integrity - but I've been doing my fucking best for the past two months!
** the paying of
***although I have to say I hate when others keep me waiting - it's disrespectful  (I guess I'm on the verge of some important discovery regarding human relations).

# what if 'little' is this life? - then to focus on the main thing and fuck the rest would make even more sense. I have to consult the Fathers of the Church on this one. NB Remember - when in doubt, don't google it, don't go-to-your-best-friend it (I mean do go, if it's really your best friend), don't ask your mom (unless it's Mary) and forget your dad (unless it's your real Dad) - go straight to the Fathers (after you've been to Jesus, of course).

[this Hash Scriptum was added, as you may have guessed, after a few cooling hours. And, by the way, just one more thing: I may not fucking care, but I'm a Christian - so I don't fucking care in a gentle, loving way. You don't get it? I don't fucking care!!]

When? (Because Hell has already started)

The first time I felt how serious things were was in Brussels at the beginning of the century. I was taking part in a conference organised by a few eurosceptic  MEPs in cooperation with one or two organisations of similar ilk. Among the speakers were Daniel Hannan (who warned about "the dictatorshpip of the extreme centre"), Jens-Peter Bonde (one of the key people behind the event), Roger Helmer (brilliant) and David Trimble. There was an odd ex-prime minister or former cabinet minister, too. Most of them expressed concerns about what the Union was doing, the power it was accumulating and the vision it was pursuing. There was a small federalist contingent that included German MEP, Jo Leinen. When he took the floor he had no time at all for debating issues or discussing particular points. He went straight to the heart of the problem, sending shivers of first shock and then horror down my spine. He simply said: "There is no alternative".

In a second I understood (what many others, especially in the UK had done very early on) that the whole venture wasn't just a bungling project that was going unravel on its own, so to speak, sooner or just a bit later, as I feared, and the only question was how soon and at what financial cost. Jo Leinen made it plain to me then that the project was to federalise Europe under Germany and it wasn't what Germany hoped to persuade the others to do -  it was what Germany had decided to do, come high water or...

(and it's on its way now; actually it's landed on the Greek and Spanish shores yet.)



PS During one of the breaks I chatted to some British participants. One of them (Mr Marriott, I recall; tall, with impressive hair and wearing an unusually long fur coat, like a former rock star) looked around the huge foyer of the European Parliament building and said: "Only one thing interests me: when will we begin to take it all down?"

Sucker for M.

It's happening again. What he created is so huge it could be - forgive me, Lord (but according to his dad you are partly to blame) - an alternative universe.

And I get sucked in - hook, line and sinker.




PS And M just highlights how Chopin - apart from the things that he could do mind-boggingly well - couldn't do piano concertos.

It scares me

It scares me stiff* how Germany - aided by France and a host of lesser players, including Poland** - is driving Europe to the brink of war.

*the body; the intellect's doing fine, thank you very much.

**BBC Radio 4 has just broadcast something on the EU. I heard the trailer in which a Polish block-headed egghead (a politician or diplomat) stated in surprisingly immaculate English: “The European Union is what stands between us and darkness”. That is more that idiotic – that is the language of war.

Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus

I give them recognition too.

Veni, Vinum, Vici

... I've swallowed the wisdom. (Maybe I am a dog... a drunk puppy...?)

I bought it, I drunk it* and I have just understood it.



*the drinking section refers to the per-Prohibition times, which (which means the Prohibition) is coming to an end soon; we're talking about a delayed understanding then, after allowing the necessary time to get sober. However, all the elements were already in place, floating on the surface of my mind, nearly a year ago, while I was still holding - oh! those sweet (but nearly exclusively dry - and continental -  in character; with a frequent exception of port**, a much rarer one of Sauternes and a very rare one of Trockenbeerenauslese, not least due to the price; sweet sherry I regard as a waste of sherry, as anyone should. Just by the way - when I caught some droplets of a local debate regarding excessive alcohol consumption, it struck me that instead of focusing on idiotic price manipulation the local government should focus on the main problem connected with the dizzying stuff: the excessive consumption - or actually even the mere existence of - that cheap sweetened liquid horror, that offence to good taste, that youth depraver, that shame-deprived underminer of morality, that fiendish enemy of humane, pub-based community spirit, that Satan-inspired caricature of the good God-approved stuff, that disgusting omnipresent WKD-kind of abomination! Coming back to continental - I find Chilean, Australian, Californian and South African wines short on complexity, mystery and history that  continental wines are long on; and complexity is wine's key ingredient; if some of the complexity's aspects are cultural or historical, it's all the more appealing) times! - a glass of wine in my hand.


**when you see a half-price bottle of LBV, or similar, smiling to you from a Sainsbury's shelf, you know that there is still some goodness left in this world (in front of you); so you grab it by the neck and take it home!


PS I hope you forgive me this dose of highly personal stuff, but I thought it may be reinvigorating for you to see me a little exposed after that recent universal & sexual (philosophical) spree.

(You can skip this if you've read - carefully! - the previous post)

Ultimately, there are only two kinds of Philosophy: the dwarf philosophy and the Giant Philosophy*.


*sorry if it sounds a bit repetitive (and if you believe I'm stating the obvious) - I just want to rub it in for the dwarf philosophers (who, I sometimes kid myself, read this blog in their tiny swarms).

Santa Philosphers

There are only two philosophical positions regarding the Universe - a belief in one, powerful, benevolent, personal Creator and a belief in Santa.

Most philosophers today are Santa philosophers: they believe in gifts, they may believe in some kind of gift-courier, but don't believe in a gift-maker* and, ultimately, a gift-giver.



*Actually, it's more Dwarf Philosophy then. (Yes, it sounds good and gets the point across rather well: Dwarf Philosophy and Giant Philosopy. "I do Giant Philosophy" - yeah, sounds good.)

It's a beast

Orgasm should be achieved only after it’s been okayed by the Intellect and after it's got the green light from Morality; otherwise it'll have you - faster than you could say 'come' - in spasms, firmly held down to the ground with a chance stranger's naked* foot, your soul shooting dustward instead of heavenward. Because the body** - it’s a beast.



PS In other words: perhaps in Paradise your naked body could be unleashed joyfully and ecstatically to hop around and maybe even sit on many flowers***, but this side of the original sin, your (worked up) body needs to be chaperoned by a more cool-headed pair (like, say, you wouldn't want a slightly tipsy Mrs Grundy to leave a party on her own and walk across Soho Sq without Uncle Benjamin and Auntie Victoria at her side). 

*or booted up; in this you'll retain your freedom, and only in this
**on its own (I mean: without the former two, mentioned in the text; otherwise in tandem or trio, or whatever the beast tells you) & incorporating the consequences of the original sin

*actually, that's not correct - there's an authoritative and final quote regarding this silly vision of mine; soon to be discussed in greater detail, locally.

(Illustration: itswickedfun.net)

He resurfaces

For so long we've encouraged Satan to come up and operate right below the surface, it's no wonder that now and again he pops his heas through and looks us directly in the eye.

Will these isles see independence one day?

Lord Pearson of Rannoch. (Yesterday in the House of Lords, on the issue of the UK in - or out of - the European 'Union', in his beautiful, delicate English voice: "We just want our country back.")

Respect

God-given Kicks

... and it's the best I've ever had*...

Oh, Lord of Thrill,

I'll be a good boy, but please give me back those (clean) teenage kicks*!

*you may remember I'm working on a short treatise on (The arguments in favour of) Sex in the eschatological context - it's going to come any moment now.

Oh, ye sunset-lovers of little faith!

I stopped for a moment* (too long) to take in the moving display on the 4.25- in-the-afternoon local sky. I knew my time was running out, I knew I should look ahead, walk on and not get distracted - but I just couldn't turn the eyes from the sight.

"I'll just take in one more eyeful", I thought like heathen sunset-lovers do, "before it perishes - for ever..." Then I caught a glimpse of very bright light shining straight into my intellect.

"Oh, ye Christian sunset-lover of little faith!", I exclaimed inner-soully, "walk on, look ahead, keep explaining to others that what they see is merely a prompt in the sky to say Hallelujah! - and you'll get a million** sunsets for each pair of eyes which you'll unblind; and they'll be changing so fast - but still safe in the eyes of the Lord of Beauty - that the whole Salon des Refusés of 1863 will barely manage to make quick impressions of them (assuming some*** have made it to the Sun).





*after leaving the Museum where I spent (as I like to do) a couple of minutes in front of another sunset, the one above.
** though I accept that my eschatology may be of the impressionist kind, here, i.e. as imprecise as Monet's technique.
***(All the referencing and pronounsing can really be a paint in the class. So instead of constant - and muddy - repetition of 'them' I decided to cut a long story short and use a simple and pithy asterisk.) ...of them#.

#i.e. the painters



Venice Twilight by Claude Monet
Oil on canvas
65.2 cm × 92.4 cm (25.7 in × 36.4 in)
National Museum and Art Gallery of Cardiff, Wales

A fairy is taxed to death... (Don't laugh!)

Maybe the Brits joke so well because when they're kids they are told that a fairy dies* when they fail to say something funny; and when do, but it fails to get a laugh, she dies in exile*?


*or in economics-literate families: is taxed to death and is found by undercover, armed tax inspectors and brought back to the UK from a tax haven, respectively.

Sur le pont de Cardiff (Belle!)

On the bridge of Cardiff*, over the River Taff, I saw a beautiful silhouette of a young woman and I thought a beautiful thought (my eschatology may not be as perfect as her body, though): Heaven must have the shape of a beautiful woman.

And yes - I'd love to dance...



*almost, by a dozen or so metres. (The older I get the less I suffer my lies and the more I tolerate those of others).




The Repentant Magdalen
Georges de la Tour
c. 1640
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C

Lukewarm (Please don't!)

Oh, with what fervour we do lukewarm...

An Articulated Rice

Maybe I can't but perhaps I can tell if what they say is more or precisely or less what they aim through, but - by Mercurial! - the British articulate!

The Letters

... I kiss the name that you sign...

For some reason (could be the wandering and meandering Jewish strand in my thoughts), I remember that great Israelite prince, Paul* and his love letters, that have often kept me warm - and  alive - during all those lonely nights, when my or the world's lack of love kept me painfully apart from my dreams.

What are we?

I can't work out the Celts.

Are they an echo of a Europe that was ready to go only so far in its submission to logic and rationality? A race that holds on to some important, though perhaps unwritten, insights into life and the Universe? Brave and wild tribes that would rather proudly fight to death that unite and win? Or simply noisy and poorly-disorganized - but not without some charm - peoples* that just unruly waited for the Romans or, locally, a French-speaking contingent of former Vikings to conquer them?

(Then perhaps, frustratingly, a mixture of all of them?)



*quite like some Slavs

Who breaks your bonds?

I'm reading Peter Pan to my daughter* and J.M. Barrie takes my breath away. Seeing someone so unbound and fearless with images and language makes me speechless. Thinking of the Scots writer, I recalled Bronzino and his liberty in painting one of the Evangelists. And a thought breezed quickly past my head, ("Such extreme freedom must come from being anchored in something extremely good, or something extremely evil"), before it before flew out of the window.

*via Skype; I wouldn't say 'extremely', but Skype is good.


PS  [Wikipedia] ...Barrie founded an amateur cricket team for his friends. Arthur Conan Doyle, Wells, and other luminaries such as Jerome K. Jerome, G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, Walter Raleigh, A. E. W. Mason, E. V. Lucas, Maurice Hewlett, E. W. Hornung, P. G. Wodehouse, Owen Seaman, Bernard Partridge, Augustine Birrell, Paul du Chaillu, and the son of Alfred Tennyson played in the team at various times. The team was called the Allahakbarries, under the mistaken belief that "Allah akbar" meant "Heaven help us" in Arabic (rather than "God is great")... - well, being rather clever chaps, they must have quickly realised that the two are one and the same thing.

Noticing the Answer

I've just noticed what I wrote below:

....an execution of the answer....

The answer: up there, far all to see

Making the question die

(Oh, how they don't realise!)

Yes, I have dealt with death philosophically. However, not in a way that solves the problem, but in a way that lives with the problem; not through an execution of the answer, but through getting accustomed to the question, becoming civilised to it and refraining from making scenes.

And the aim is to forget about death, because she's not there any moren rather than because you've accepted it sitting next to you, staring. Knowing - or hoping, in more difficult days - that there is a solution to the problem posed by its self-assured, steady eyes is good. But it's not good enough, it's not what our life is about.

The real solution and aim in our life isn't to know the answer to the problem of death, but to make the question die.

(Dead) Stiff Upper Lip

I don't think I have much choice now: I'll have to accept my death serenely for the sake of my PR.
Eeven if deep down I were to start having second thoughts about the whole strange business of kicking the bucket, I'm not going to stop smiling - I'd look ridiculous ruining, just before breathing my last, my image. So I'm planning to live up to it and die with a laugh. Or if iI'm still in Albion, I'll play it cool and go for a dead stiff upper lip - to keep my image alive.

Missing J.

I was listening to a song and wasn't sure whether it was sad or joyous, because it sounded both. It was one of many that I heard during a Jewish festival in Warsaw last summer and it was like many of the others: its tune was on the sad side, but it - almost magically - had a joyous ring to it.

I understood where the latter came from, but I stopped for a moment by the former. Then I realised that the sadness, really, wasn't about missing Jerusalem.

It was about missing Jesus.

A Gift Bearer (Stalking Miss P.)

Coming back to the question of pussy - the pussy is the Creator's present for man. The woman is who brings it to you. She didn't invent it, she didn't make it, she didn't link herself to it*. And even though she has the full possession of her pussy at the moment (God, with an important exception, is a giver and not a lender), metaphysically she's equally a bearer as she is an owner. And a messenger, too. Through the woman's pussy, the greatest physical prize for man in this universe, the Lord of Pleasure tells him: "This is how good I am."



*no, don't even think of suggesting anything vulgar here, such as - pardon my language - "nature".

Universal Intercourse

So you think that this is a private affair? Think again. Because when you're with her, you're getting laid with the universe.

Thou shall not sin in vain

You've seen her bathing on the roof? Then write a psalm.

Do not sin in vain. Do not waste the wrongs you commit. Make the most of your trespasses. Take full advantage of the hurt you cause. Squeeze them all dry to water your growth. As they will be forgotten only if they're remembered - in order to help you make headway in love and understanding (if they are not one and the same thing).

You will have to give account of each of your sins and will be asked: "What good did your evil do?"

Run away

(I couldn't resist)

The other day I talked to an attractive, magnetic and hyper-energetic young man with a criminal past who had gone head over heels into some crazy love affair a very short while before his planned wedding with another woman, who has put him on the straight and narrow after years of reckless life, or so it seemed.

Obsessed with each other and confused with the situation, the lovers were considering their options (in the little time gaps between all the mad love and sex making, from what I gathered; I was impressed with the brevity, honesty and tactfulness of the description provided to me by the protagonist) and one of the scenarios was running away from all the mess they are creating (it's not how he put it though; by the way: she's decided to dump her partner, too - or rather tell him that she's already done so).

And - it won't surprise you - I thought that this is what the True Religion is about: just before you get committed to something that's going to end in death in the best-case scenario, or disaster in the disaster-case scenario, you run away with your True Love.



PS Not that you can't entrust your secrets to me; they're going public in a moment* - unless they run away.


*What? Have they already... ?

Losing it (2)

I suffered. I'd lost a very, very good thought. I woke up and in the air above my bed, or a useless, worn-out mattress - to be precise, there was just a whiff of an impressively insightful fragrance with a sophisticated note of neat expression. But the bottle of my memory was empty.

I told myself that worse disasters happen - say, high taxation to poor kids in Central Asia or Sweden; but it didn't help. The lost thought was dragging me down, and fast.

I said a short prayer that I may think it again ... and I burst out laughing. I remembered that the thought had been about the Lord himself, so I was worrying about losing a thought about omnipotent, omniscient, omni-remembering God of All Thoughts, lost or found.

(Or let's put it like this: if each of my hairs* is counted, how much more each of my thoughts. Whether they are brilliant or stupid - now, this worries me a bit in fact - they are all safe with the Lord).




*though in my case, He has made it easy for his counting hosts. But it's OK, for Him I can take it like a man.

Crest of A Knave

I've got a soft spot for aristocracy. Not that I have anything genetically in common, so to speak, with them (I come from a mixture of peasant and artisan stock*), but because they're the class that takes the least explaining to. A few recent situations have made me think though: maybe after all? And it's not the fact that I instinctively want to sit on any council that runs whatever the local political entity happens to be. There's something more telling.

And don't get me wrong: although it may seem so, I'm not ideologically against tidying up, mopping, vacuum-cleaning or ironing. Sometimes I don't even mind doing an odd bit of one of them myself (but not more than one and not too often - is that clear?), if I will so.

However, something strange and powerful - as if genetically programmed - happens to me when someone tells me to have anything with to do with cloths, sponges, detergents or brushes. My immediate and spontaneous reaction is an almost physical pain and reaching to where normally my sword would be. Then, restrained by the values and norms that my ancestors have imbued me with - and by lack of the sword - I calm down and want to call for my men and order them to deal summarily with the impudent knave; or clean the place themselves.

So maybe I need to go and find in the attic - or wherever aristocracy keep them - that long-forgotten crest and dust it off ? (not myself, of course...)


*A faint echo of a noble connection rings somewhere in the family, but then in Poland that's quite common.



PS The problem is my men are never there when I need them...

Losing it

I started today by spending some four hours trying to remember a couple of thoughts that came to me – or I came to them –  when I woke up (kind of) in the middle of the night. This tends to happen to me regularly and I usually I just foolishly rely on my memory (recently I started to support it with strange images attached to the thoughts; at the moment e.g. I’m trying to work out what the magnificent stained-glass window, the glass of whisky being passed to me by a deceased head-master of my grammar school and the slowly collapsing building all were supposed to mean). 

From time to time I manage to leave a trace on my BlackBerry’s voice- recorder or scribble something on one of the pieces of paper on which I more or less sleep. When I look at the notes in the morning, they may be solid, valuable stuff or not quite so. 

The other day, when I seemed to have lost a whole long list of what may have been the most brilliant and highly original insights in the history of blogging - perhaps even in the history of stalking - or the cleverest one-liners and best punch lines in town, at some point - when I was really frustrated with the blank page that my memory kept returning to my pleas - I caught myself thinking: “I just hope it was all rubbish!”

(By the way – I failed to recall those thoughts).

Through her

(Fra Angelico?)

Seek a beautiful* young woman, because your God has sought one and your Salvation comes through one.

*My theology may not seem very beautiful here, but I just can't imagine that God would choose - no disrespect to ugly women - a minger.

Mountain stalking

Mount Olympus, allegedly

(I’ve done some mountain-stalking.)

High* mountains are about awe, challenge, action, effort. They are a show, they fill our mind, rather than the other way. They just leave an odd ravine here and and odd pass there to fill with our stuff. When you're among them, you can’t slow down - or you’ll never climb this peak or get out of that valley and you want that, there is urgency around you. Thoughts need to be steep and high-calorie. Vistas are given, breath-taking and awe-fueling. It's as if the Creator had sneezed and said to us "Now, what do you think?" “Jesus!”, we exclaim to Him, “This is some landscape! Some message!” And then we wonder: "What will it be when it comes in words?"

It is not so with low* mountains. They let our minds spill out. They are there for us to build up, as if the Creator left a sand-box for us to use our imagination and impress him. But we slow down our trek, lose the sense of direction and purpose - and fill them with strange visions, disorganised thoughts and outlandish Gypsy mansions or, in the worst case, God-less cities and towns – the best landscape we can do**. 

*Someone, ages ago, called them ‘Slow’ and ‘Fast’, for reasons – in most likelihood - mythical. However, the name of that sage got lost on the steep and winding road downwards to our present era; one account suggests that it may have been something starting with an A, or thereabouts. 
 (– just trying to keep up that ancient, heroic idea).

**except Cathedrals

Follow it

Follow the beauty.

(To where* it comes from.)

*well, it's: Who; but you suspected that anyway, didn't you?

illustration

Just being there

The BMW which I was sitting in moved fast through the Slow Mountains* of Romania. The laid-back road linking Oradea and Cluj was lined with local* villages, outlandish Gypsy mansions and an inspiring variety of churches. A rail track ran parallel to the road, but further away than one would expect, as if someone wanted to claim for the local civilization just a little more of the sleepy local valley stretching for miles on either side of us.

Local people must have forgotten that a loc.. - OK, OK... that a hot midday had passed - and most of the summer for that matter - and we saw very few of them. Suddenly, in front of one of those classic rural post-Austro-emperial houses we caught a glimpse of a girl and her grandmother. They just sat there and looked ahead in silence. The sight struck me as very strange. I couldn't work out Romania, Oradea, the valley, the village or the pair. What were they doing there? Then I got it: they played the most important part - the girl and the old woman were justifying it all, simply by being there.




*I don't dig slow moutains generally. I dig fast mountains, such as the Tatras or the Alps.
**yes, I can see the problem. I must do something about this thing that I have about this word.

The best things in life

The best things in life are free, they say. They're not. It's just that someone else has paid for them.




(illustration: someone else paying for something else)

Stalk it!

It's just before dawn. This Question wakes up, slowly opens its sleepy eyes and .... sees you, sitting there on a chair next to its bed, staring*.

*i.e. doing good philosophy.

A Beautiful Dominion

I don't believe in ugly women. (To be continued; and beautified).


(And Ugliness Shall Have No Dominion...- from the letter - in progress - to beautiful women, by me)

You old devil!

I told a friend of mine that I can clearly see Satan's influence in many of the things he does and says - and he takes offense (it seems so, but in fact it's hard to know: I haven't heard from him for a while).

What the hell has happened to the good old notion of 'friendship'? If you can't tell your mates they're inspired by Satan, whom the Devil can you?

Immerse me in beauty, Lord

Saint Columba, a Spanish virgin and martyr of Cordoba (among others)

Father, whatever my fate, please send me as an apostle to beautiful women; but not just yet. First, I beg you, send a beautiful woman to me. Yet not my will be done, but yours.



(An

The Ultimate Oxymoron

(- which* reminds me)

Here are some of the most extreme oxymora:

A sad sage

A still life

An unedifying Margaux

A burned-out apostle

A mistaken* pope

A too low tax.

And the ultimate one:

A broken "Hallelujah!"

*(that song of Cohen's)

**when speaking ex cathedra on dogma

Get overthrown

(You saw her bathing on the roof...)

Keep falling for her, because lack of worship for the young woman's mind, body and beauty is a serious religious fallacy.

In the young woman's mind, in her body, in her beauty (the latter being the sum of the former two perhaps) is knowledge, wisdom and understanding. If you seek them, seek her.

The Stalking of Questions

Philosophy is the stalking of questions.

"Mercy!" "No mercy!"

I am going to show no mercy in bringing you back to the Most Merciful


(Especially to beautiful* women)

*withering