Just one pint*

Just one** word: Guinness.


*well, not quite true, to put it mildly, but the idea was to link it somehow with the introduction to the sweet fruit of St James's Gate.

**not counting the intro to the word (or this clause; or the footnote to the title; or, for that matter, this further... - let's just leave it, will you?)

Über-urban

Having lived either in cities or in large cities for nearly three decades now, I tend to forget what a transformation I've gone through. I grew up in the country and used to see horses, cows and pigs on a daily basis, although I didn’t interact with them too much, as mine weren’t a farming folk*). I used to chase hens for fun, and be chased by cockerels (also for fun, I guess). I could even talk to farmers, even if I didn’t understand them. If I focus, I can still tell a tractor from a combine-harverster. However, the truth is I’m urban now, at times even über-urban.

I was reminded of it today, while eating an über-urban sandwich (if peasants saw it, they’d struggle to work out it’s at all edible). When the urbanely overpriced sandwich was mid-way to my mouth, it suddenly struck me that, strangely, the green leaves, which the thing was stuffed with to such a degree that it was nearly bursting at its seams, looked extremely similar to someting I saw once growing in a field. This realisation unsettled me a little, so I paused the up-coming bite to hesitate for a split-second whether it’s a good idea to eat something that comes stragtht from soil.

(Then I thought: ‘What the heck! I'll take the risk', and went on).




*sorry, not funny.
**actually, on my mom's side there was a bumper crop of farmers at some point in history.

Mount Pleasant

I needed, badly, distraction from* M. I decided to get off my Cardiff-bound train at Swansea (I wanted to forget about Cardiff too). Even if distraction were to prove impossible to get, I could do some grieving there, I thought; somehow, the city seemed well suited for sadness as it had a quite distinct air of un-fulfilment about it. As if it were a place living without its other half; in fact, I believe Swansea has given up on looking for its other half. 

When I emerged from the modest, albeit elegantly-façaded, station, it was already dark. The evening was unclear and damp, so my mind immediately felt at home. I veered off High Street and brushed past some decent architecture, which normally would introduce a dose of harmony into me but this time it did next to nothing to pacify my painful confusion. I was looking at the details, proportions, materials but they couldn’t reach me. A veil of numbness descended between me and the world in place of the thrill-magnifying love-lens that was there just a few weeks earlier. I strolled on, nearly indifferent to the aesthetics of the universe; only my intellect knew the beauty I was passing; my heart remained immune to it. Soon I found myself climbing a madly steep lane.

Out of habit (and out of good philosophy), every time I stopped to regain my breath, I repeated an old mantra I say on loveless days: ‘The thrill is out there, somewhere’. I was moving up alongside a crescendo of cheap, generic terrace houses. Most were dark inside, but in a few the lights were on; I tried to see what's inside. I wondered if there was some passion or at least romance there, but I failed to see any. Everything felt half-alien. Projecting my life onto the lives of the invisible inhabitants, I imagined them pointlessly going through loveless motions of loveless lives. 'Why bother living in those houses?' I thought. 'Why bother living in Swansea? Why bother doing anything?' I stopped near the top and looked back.

The awkward tangle of the streets below, not so dissimilar to all those streets in Britain and in Poland where the recent and final developments had been taking place (well, at my end and mostly in my head at that; what had been going on in hers, only Jesus knows), looked less daunting now. The lights below succeeded in breaking through the damp mist and offered a whiff of relief. I was quite high up and the city at my feet took humbler proportions. I had an illusion that everything was growing manageable again, potentially comprehensible again; I felt bolder – seeing the bigger picture always lifts me up, a little. Unfortunately, the faint optimism didn’t last long: the Swansea on the other side of the hill dashed any hope of a new bright vision; the architecture was all over the place, so was the way it was laid out.

There was no view over the bay - not that I was likely to see more at this time of the day and in this weather anyway – or any indication which way to go, except one: another, even higher hill. I started the ascent. A tall, ugly building sprung up in front; a part of its name was 'Trinity'. A little farther I noticed another name: Mount Pleasant. I tried not to focus on what the names were attached to, but on their message.  

As I moved up, I realised something: not only did I struggle with gravity, but also with another force, an anti-force in fact: a feeling of being unsustained; all the emotions, words and thoughts I’d been the target of for over the last few months had been taken away and redirected on someone else. I kept existing only thanks to some great miracle; and if it hadn’t been for my intellect, it would be an animalistic existence. A pub appeared on the horizon, but when I got closer I decided to ignore it; it was one of those old establishments whose warm tradition had been gutted to make room for a new, cold one; there was little chance I would find any comfort there, apart from the booze.

I came to a fork in the road; I took the steeper (and I’d like to think - less taken) path. ‘How could I allow my existence to become dependent on one person?’ I scolded myself, but stopped short of branding myself a fool. A man and a small boy appeared further up the street, walking towards me. The boy, evidently loved, was trying to catch up with his dad and as he was making his small, fast steps, he was singing a pop hit, as if my problems didn't exist at all, as if they were all invented by me; but, somehow, I didn't hold it against him. When they passed me me, I turned round to enjoy the sight of a child who had what I had not. The man waited for the boy and then picked him up and rested on his shoulders. The boy went silent for a brief moment and then gasped.

The view before him, and before me, consisted of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of small lights rolling out far into the night. We couldn’t see the bay, but in the distance a few single shimmering dots marked the edge of the Gower Peninsula. And then I became that boy for a moment and, just like him, I felt - and the feeling went through me like an enflamed arrow - that the gift is always there, that it keeps on giving, that it’s all the time at my disposal, and that all contingent thrills must be enclosed in the Necessary Thrill, that all contingent loves must be contained in the Necessary Love.

I took one last look before resuming the ascent and thinking about the woman. “Actually”, I said to myself, “any piece of **skirt will do***”.

 

 

 

*thinking about
**decent
***I was probably wrong

Democracy exposed (with a bang on her head)

“Mr Speaker...

One the peculiar and perverse things that democracy teaches its discerning observer, and an occasional participant, is to applaud politicians for breaking their word, after having wiped the floor with them earlier for making utterly irresponsible promises.

... we’ve just learnt that...

Thus, I was extremely happy that David Cameron failed to keep his word regarding the Prime Minister's Questions and haven't knocked the Punch and Judy factor out of it. In fact, he has turned out to be the best Punch I’ve seen live on TV in my whole life.

...in Scotland more people believe...

The PMQ, one must realise, is not only about fun. It’s also an important part of the political debate. Political ideas, political claims and political proposals should be able to withstand all sorts of tests, including the scrutiny of extra-smart (even if often fallacious), ruthless ridicule . And the PMQ offers that test.

....in the Loch Ness Monster....

In the weekly session of their slagging each other off, the Prime Minister and the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition carry out an important part of a genuine review of the system: they mercilessly, aptly and justly slag off the whole democratic idea.

...than in his leadership".

P.S. Actually, even if it was just about fun, the Parliamentarian Punch & Judy may still be one of the strongest arguments in favour of British democracy I’ve ever heard. (Just by the way: funnily, most people here seem to believe that all the incoherent & ruinous political mess going on around them can be defended with that old, evidently fallacious witticism of Churchill's which made false claims about all sorts of old and superior systems, just because he happened to be a player in a new, inferior one.)

P.S. "His party’s problem is  - he exists!”

If justice be done

I obeyed the clerk, put away my newspaper and, along with everyone else, rose when their worships entered the room. The lawyers looked relaxed, too relaxed, and with the help of their polished English and Latin-infused jargon lent a certain air of respectability, and at times, eerily, even dignity, to a series of pathetic and usually repeated failures, idiocies and cruelties. The first man was guilty and knew it; each one after him even more so.

At some point their worships didn’t know straight away whether to go for justice or, well, less justice and decided to do some brain-storming about the alternative in private. The defendant, his nose bearing a manly scare, looked at me asking for love. His eyes were large and sensitive. However, the truth was he had done it again.

Their worships* returned and shared with us a few options concerning the technicalities of the sentence. It was complicated, or they had complicated it, and grew more so with every minute. From the gallery, I looked at the ‘Dieu et mon droit’, which hung above their heads, and then around the room. Suddenly I saw through everyone. And there was no one left who was just; the tell-tale signs bore witness: a stiff upper lip in place of lamentation, eloquence drowning out doom, a second-rate joke in face of Hell**. 'Simplify this parody!' I heard the Queen, or someone, say. Forget consulting probation services; don't bother testing the means; why waste time adding another hundred hours to the community service or another year to three? Let them face the music: if justice be done, off with their heads!

*Does it count when they’re not wearing wigs?, I tried to comfort my mate who feared being locked up (or, if he wanted to be precise, locking himself out).

**someone might want to add: no wigs.

Simplicity / Ease my mind

On our way from Barry, while listening (and listening, listening and listening) to A, I realised I don't know anyone* who has ever done as thorough an analysis of a failed love as that carried out by him, partly at my expense, over the last month.  We – my emotional arm has been twisted to relive and rethink it all with him - have gone through every conceivable, and in most likelihood also inconceivable, aspect of the break-down of his relationship with R., and we have revisited every possible (or impossible) observation, every argument, every conclusion a hundred – or perhaps a thousand, I’ve lost count now – times. Wake me in the middle of the night, give me a couple of key words and I’ll elaborate on them for half an hour or so. (And even if I don't cry, I'll get on the very verge).

Just before Sully (or was it Lavernock?) A. paused, possibly to contemplate in silence how to squeeze dry, analysis-wise, another ueber-nuance (I'm sure he hadn't analysed R. even half as much when they were together; I even seem to recall him admitting that). I took advantage of the extraordinary situation and put on a CD with a compilation of covers sung by a local boy . I wanted to give both of us a much needed distraction from all the sadness we'd plunged ourselves into. In no time, though, we got distracted from our distraction (I know, cheap), because - surprise, surprise – not only most of the songs were about love, but every other one, or so, was about failed love. “You know what’s just struck me? When she said… “, he re-launched his ueber-analysis.  I faked interest and kept listening to a cover of a 1970 hit, but A. failed to be moved by all the troubles two famous New Yorkers were singing about, and ploughed on: “… I'm sure someone must, just must!, have told her at some point: What?? Over something like this??" I nodded, but all I could hear was ‘...when you're weary, feeling small; when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all.' 

I started intertwining with the lyrics a reflection on a well know truth: when love ends we engage in a long, pains-taking and painful effort to try to understand what happened, why it happened and why it wasn't avoided. When love is there, however, we just enjoy it. Have you ever heard of anyone spending hours on end on a madly detailed analysis of a love in progress? Love, though infinitely complex on the one hand, introduces a relieving straightforwardness too; not simple itself, it simplifies everything; it brushes away anything not relevant to itself; perfect love focuses only on what's conducive to keeping it perfect. (This may be the solution of the mind-shattering, universe-shaking, faith-undermining questions that get our heads on the brink of exploding - or imploding; I haven't got that far yet in my analysis. Why is there something rather than nothing? Where does God come from? How can plurality come of of oneness? In the presence of perfect love, those philosophical demons may simply melt down.)

A. went on. He talked about words, deeds and wounds. The song went on too. 'Sail on silver girl, sail on by...'. Just before we entered a tunnel, he shut up and sped up. He shouldn't have done this, as he's driving without a licence these days (which – aren't some of the tests set for love really weird! – triggered the series of events in question). We entered the tunnel at high speed. I looked at a long line of lights above us - could they be leading somewhere? Then I imagined us having an accident and suddenly I felt I could, or even would like to, get straight to the other, simple side now. No more analyses of breakups, no more investigations into broken hearts, no more staring into spaces where love is no more – all of that melted by a perfect romance. Tom Jones raised his voice: 'I'm sailing right behind; like a bridge over trouble water I will ease your mind... like a bridge over troubled water I will ease your mind...'

*apart from me.

Back to Barry

I'm about to move back to Barry for a while (I lived there for a moth or so a decade ago), which I don't mind. I do mind, however, when penpushers come with nonsensical slogans like

'Barry: the difference begins here'

(The difference, of course, begins in your heart).

The The Fallacy of the European Union in 10 Pictures (Part 1)

You don't need to be an expert in political science to know that something is seriously wrong with an organisation that can produce that kind of cover.

(Immediately, the worst brain-washing excesses of the Soviet Union and the whole thick and blunt block come to mind, don't they?)

The addition of loss

We were driving down a narrow Glamorganshire country road which ran along the Bristol Channel, but only from time to time could we catch a glimpse of the channel, the villages (Lavernock, Sully, Cog, the sing pointing to 'The Captain's Wife'... the sweetly suffocating memories...) or, far across the water, lights of Somerset; most of the time we were enclosed by an eccentrically high hedge-wall on either side. Our journey was a quintessentially British experience (I remember the first time I found myself on such a road. “Now I’ve experienced Britain fully”, I thought. “I won’t ever go any deeper than this”. And I haven’t yet). My friend changed the radio station and the voice of Emmylou in one instant took me back to the days of losing D. (I should be writing about losing M. now, but whereas tg something unique about each single loss, isn’t the essence of love-ending always one and the same?) and to a flat in south London where I spent a few months smoking endless hookahs, playing endless records, drinking endless bottles of port and Armagnac and trying to reach a plane on which the break-up of a twenty-year long relationship (and 10 out of those 20 years were happy, or not completely unhappy)  would make some sense, or at least where it wouldn’t matter whether it made any sense; or simply where I could just stop thinking of it. I can’t recall today whether it was the sweet-flavoured tobacco, the music or the Armagnac*, but I did stop thinking, or at least obsessing, about it. There were also two thoughts that helped me immensely. One: that life went on; the other one: that she and I, and our marriage, were death-bound anyway. (Then, which was probably more effective than the hookah, the music and the booze put together, I fell in love again).

However, sometimes and for various reasons, I go back to those days. One of the reasons is philosophical.  It’s a result of two straightforward observations: one is that apart from all the devastation, hurt and nearly-lethal numbness, I find what happened then, and the memories of that time, not only bitter, but bitter-sweet, or rather bitter-bitter-sweet; there seems to be something good about them, something constructive, something uplifting. The other observation is that the experience is unique and as such it seems to contribute something to my life; if this logic is correct, without those miserable, hazy days in Beckenham my life would be poorer.


These conclusions must be considered as strange and they should provoke a deeper investigation, which they did in my case.  Let’s look at them at closer range.


First of all, let’s focus on the latter one: it’s undeniable that any of our experiences is unique; whether happy or unhappy, whether pleasant or unpleasant, whether physical, mental or spiritual - each one is irreplaceable, each brings something that no other experience can, or one could argue so; each of them happened in its own unique circumstances, its own unique ambience and while we were in a unique mood; each then has a potential to bring back the memory of those circumstances and, what’s more impressive, actually re-produce the relevant ambience and mood. Imposed on later experiences, the mood-, thought- and feeling-producing possibilities of one single experience seem mind-boggling, and they often are.

If the aim of our life were to accumulate experiences (some people claim: the more experience, the more life), it could be argued that it’s in our interest to increase the number, depth and intensity of any experiences, including unhappy ones. Although on the one hand it sounds self-evident, it must strike us, or at least some of us, as a major existential fallacy: the pursuit of unhappiness goes against our deepest instincts and beliefs, even more: it goes against us. We’ll deal with this fallacy, which I claim it is, a little later. Now let’s move on to the first observation.

Where does the ‘sweetness’ of unhappy experiences may come from? Is it there at all? I claim that to a various degree, it is the case. At the root of this paradoxical perceived (at least by me) ‘sweetness’ is a certain crucial reality check, a certain discovery...

[to be continued; must run now to discover where money is] 

Latter-day wisdom

After a mutual understanding between Ali (peace be upon him) and me (let at long last riches descend upon him) that at their beginnings our respective religions were Satan-inspired*, I had a slightly unsettling (and a bit exciting, I must admit) hunch that the impending step was going to be a mutual acknowledgment, expressed to each other’s face, that in professing what we profess we too, respectively, are Satan-inspired (an acknowledgement possibly followed by a short bout of throat-slitting).

Instead, nipping in the bud my trademark instinct to go for the theological jugular, I suggested flying above all the un-truth, confusion and anger, i.e. Satan, and focusing on The Truth (Al-Haqq, 51).

 

**(Allah  The Greatest Name

Ar-Rahman 1 The All-Merciful

Ar-Rahim 2 The All-Beneficient

Al-Malik 3 The Absolute Ruler

Al-Quddus 4 The Pure One

As-Salam 5 The Source of Peace

Al-Mu’min 6 The Inspirer of Faith

Al-Muhaymin 7 The Guardian

Al-’Aziz 8 The Victorious

Al-Jabbar 9 The Compeller

Al-Mutakabbir 10 The Greatest

Al-Khaliq 11 The Creator

Al-Bari’ 12 The Maker of Order

Al-Musawwir 13 The Shaper of Beauty

Al-Ghaffar 14 The Forgiving

Al-Qahhar 15 The Subduer

Al-Wahhab 16 The Giver of All

Ar-Razzaq 17 The Sustainer

Al-Fattah 18 The Opener

Al-’Alim 19 The Knower of All

Al-Qabid 20 The Constrictor

Al-Basit 21 The Reliever

Al-Khafid 22 The Abaser

Ar-Rafi’ 23 The Exalter

Al-Mu’izz 24 The Bestower of Honors

Al-Mudhill 25 The Humiliator

As-Sami 26 The Hearer of All

Al-Basir 27 The Seer of All

Al-Hakam 28 The Judge

Al-’Adl 29 The Just

Al-Latif 30 The Subtle One

Al-Khabir 31 The All-Aware

Al-Halim 32 The Forebearing

Al-’Azim 33 The Magnificent

Al-Ghafur 34 The Forgiver and Hider of Faults

Ash-Shakur 35 The Rewarder of Thankfulness

Al-’Ali 36 The Highest

Al-Kabir 37 The Greatest

Al-Hafiz 38 The Preserver

Al-Muqit 39 The Nourisher

Al-Hasib 40 The Accounter

Al-Jalil 41 The Mighty

Al-Karim 42 The Generous

Ar-Raqib 43 The Watchful One

Al-Mujib 44 The Responder to Prayer

Al-Wasi’ 45 The All-Comprehending

Al-Hakim 46 The Perfectly Wise

Al-Wadud 47 The Loving One

Al-Majíd 48 The Majestic One

Al-Ba’ith 49 The Resurrector

Ash-Shahid 50 The Witness

Al-Haqq 51 The Truth

Al-Wakil 52 The Trustee

Al-Qawi 53 The Possessor of All Strength

Al-Matin 54 The Forceful One

Al-Wáli 55 The Governor

Al-Hamid 56 The Praised One

Al-Muhsi 57 The Appraiser

Al-Mubdi 58 The Originator

Al-Mu’id 59 The Restorer

Al-Muhyi 60 The Giver of Life

Al-Mumit 61 The Taker of Life

Al-Hayy 62 The Ever Living One

Al-Qayyum 63 The Self-Existing One

Al-Wajid 64 The Finder

Al-Májid 65 The Glorious

Al-Wahid 66 The Only One

Al-Ahad 67 The One

As-Samad 68 The Satisfier of All Needs

Al-Qadir 69 The All Powerful

Al-Muqtadir 70 The Creator of All Power

Al-Muqaddim 71 The Expediter

Al-Mu’akhkhir 72 The Delayer

Al-Awwal 73 The First

Al-Akhir 74 The Last

Az-Zahir 75 The Manifest One

Al-Batin 76 The Hidden One

Al-Walí 77 The Protecting Friend

Al-Muta’ali 78 The Supreme One

Al-Barr 79 The Doer of Good

At-Tawwab 80 The Guide to Repentance

Al-Muntaqim 81 The Avenger

Al-Afu 82 The Forgiver

Ar-Ra’uf 83 The Clement

Malik al-Mulk 84 The Owner of All

Dhul-Jalali Wal-Ikram 85 The Lord of Majesty and Bounty

Al-Muqsit 86 The Equitable One

Al-Jami 87 The Gatherer

Al-Ghani 88 The Rich One

Al-Mughni 89 The Enricher

Al-Mani’ 90 The Preventer of Harm

Ad-Darr 91 The Creator of The Harmful

An-Nafi 92 The Creator of Good

An-Nur 93 The Light

Al-Hadi 94 The Guide

Al-Badi 95 The Originator

Al-Baqi 96 The Everlasting One

Al-Warith 97 The Inheritor of All

Ar-Rashid 98 The Righteous Teacher

As-Sabur 99 The Patient One)

 

 

 

*not through any desire to inflame things, but just for the record: I, not him, am right. And by the way (and don't repeat this to Ali... or actually, do! Just don't mention me, right?): which is more outrageous and provocative: to deny the PROPHETHOOD of a prophet or the DIVINITY of God?

**Lord, the Most Merciful!, please don’t hold these brackets against me on the day of Your Judgement.

The Quill Drivers*

[Remembrance Sunday]

There are penpushers and then there are penpushers, and - as you will surely recall - I never said all of them should be hanged. In fact, the work of some of them, even though they may be a tiny, endangered bunch, is quite commendable and deserves a long-overdue pay rise. Among them there is the Royal Army Pay Corps, aka 'The Ink Slingers' and 'The Quill Drivers'. “An army runs on good food, dry feet, cheerful comrades, effective officers and regular pay (although not necessarily always in this order)”, someone once said**. And if anyone wants peace, as I do, they must appreciate those who help the army run smoothly and remain in peace-preserving war-readiness. 

I could bet your bottom bullet that each army has an ever-expanding, mindless, useless and overpaid pen-pushing division, but I would never put the Pay Corps in this category, because I believe in British generals and admirals (actually I have met a couple and formed a rather pleasant opinion of them; I must admit though, that my judgement may have been swayed by a glass or two of port – i.e. a glass or two too many) and even if I lost my bottom bullet in the first bet, I would win it back in the second one: I can bet your second bottom bullet that British generals would never allow British soldiers to go unpaid or be treated unfairly, money- and other-wise. At least not until British politicians step in. In fact I'd go as far as to say that if British politicians looked after their voters even half as well as British generals look after their soldiers, this would be a completely different place. (And, to uphold my anti-democratic credentials, at the moment I'd rather the nation be run by generals than by politicians).

*I salute you!

**and a topical booklet found in a local library repeated.

Oh Diane

“Diane*, I need your cooperation”, I said to the receptionist. “Someone wants to know how long Dr …. has been my GP**. And can I please have this in writing?”

Just as I should expect after numerous run-ins with penpushers, what seemed to me and the king as straightforward as it gets, didn't seem so from their desk. “It will have to be done by the doctor himself”, the problems started, “and there will be a charge”, they continued. “Diane*, I don't mind paying***, but I need this piece of paper now.****” “I'm sorry, I can't do it – it would be against the rules,” she replied.  “Let me check when the doctor is available”, she looked at the computer screen.  In the office room behind her two women were chatting away and laughing. Their voices suggested a topic unrelated to the health of the nation or, even worse, to the letter I was after.

I braced myself for another skirmish in the war between humankind and bureaucracy, a war I am at the forefront of. “Diane*, love*****, is it really worth bothering a GP with a trifle like that? Why can't you just take a brief glance at my file, write one sentence and print it out on your surgery's cute headed paper?”

Diane looked up from the computer. Her eyes warned me that she wouldn't fall for any 'common sense' nonsense. “This is confidential information and as such has to be authorised to the doctor before it's given to a third party.” “But Diane*”, I tried to juggle in my mind composing the rest of the sentence and fantasising about strangling her for the general benefit of humankind, “the information is about ME, and you'll give it to ME; I'm not, by any stretch of imagination******, a third party.”

Little did I know that Diane had an ace up her sleeve: “But how can we be sure what you'll do with the information? Once you have it you may give it to a third party.*******” 

For a second or two I hesitated whether to blow up immediately or after I've expressed my opinion. I went for the latter.

“Diane, why the hell are you doing this to our civilisation?? We're talking about a silly one-sentence statement about a most insignificant detail in which nobody should be interested in the first place. Now, on top of the time wasted by a bunch of useless and overpaid penpushers in one of the useless and overpaid government departments, you're wasting further time, that of my outrageously underpaid self! – and you're about to waste even more! You want to engage in this silly one-sentence business an outrageously expensive, and quite likely overpaid, GP!! His education and training cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and the knowledge and skills he has acquired are surely better spent helping the military-pharmaceutical complex grow, and who knows, maybe even curing some people in the process than writing stupid documents for some outrageously overpaid, useless penpushers. Can't you see, honey, that instead of being part of the solution, you're part of the country's problem now? Don't you know you're being paid for this idiotic conversation by outrageously overtaxed taxpayers?? Stop this nonsense right away and just do as I do: when confronted with bureaucratic imbeciles, go above theirs heads and consult directly King Common Sense. He'll give you the authority to overrule all the idiotic regulations, norms and forms the mindless, useless and overpaid forces of Pen-pushing can throw at you! Got it?? Then give me this bloody piece of bloody paper bloody now!”, I thought. 

“I see. But I'd be extremely grateful if you find some way of speeding this up”, I said. (To my eternal embarrassment I hereby own up that I failed to explode, contradicting some of my most strongly-held beliefs and seriously undermining my overall credibility.)

“I'll do my best,” she smiled.

I started walking away. Then I turned around. “Thank you, Diane**, I smiled back. "I love you********.”

*To be a bit more accurate: on noticing it on the tag, I just inaudibly whispered her beautiful name, without really uttering it. 

**General practitioner, the local name for a doctor of first contact in the local country.

***well, I didn't mind paying, nor could pay then; but I decided to omit that minor, purely technical detail.

****true.

*****made-up, just to sex things up.

******as a philosopher I knew that there may be a possibility of seeing ourselves as a third party, at least by some stretch of imagination; but, obviously, I didn't want to veer into that particular discussion just then, and not necessarily with Diane, if I had any choice.
*******true (that she said it and that I would show it to a third party).

********I didn't, but I decided to later on; and love - apart from, Schadenfreude (well, kind of) and a bunch of British idiots - will be the gist of the up-coming post scriptum.

(Trivia)

Can you stand men scratching their balls or adjusting their penis in public? (Just wondering).

Two silly old Tatyanas

   Евгений Онегин by  Елена Петровна Самокиш-Судковская

  

"I'm about to burst into tears, my heart is breaking”, the man again went over the top in is acting  when he repeated Tatyana’s words. Most of the people in the room again burst into laughter. They were an amateur group doing an occasional bit of operatic acting and singing, this time based on Eugene Onegin.

Why hadn't they considered, before their laughter painfully filled the place, that among them there might be a man who could say those same words with their hand on his chipped heart? Which one of them*, not to mention my conceited person, could. (Oh how he could!)









*As it befits a fool, I'm working on him, but it's like trying to revive a dead man. Am I the giver of life or love (if they're not one and the same thing)?

Oh no, sir - f*** you!

Three or two (they were really big guys, so there may have been only two, but mass-wise they looked three) rugby players were posing for a photo outside a local charitable establishment which specialises in supporting the homeless and drunks in their genuine efforts to remain homeless and drunk. The photo was to be published on the establishment's website or one of its walls and, possibly, in some obscure, never-read (apart by the authors) newsletter to commemorate a donation made by the guys' sports club. Next to the players stood two or three (not because of their being especially big or small, but because I didn't count properly) members of staff.

I had some business there that day and stopped by the small party to enquire what was going on. After I found out, I wanted to shoot off, but then remembered I was in Britain where one is supposed to try not to be impolite too openly, so I decided to do a spot of small talk first. 'Isn't that a funny shape you chose for your ball?' I said.... joking; I just asked a boring question about their position in one league or another. Just as one of the players, a tall, handsome Anglo-Saxon, was giving me a boring answer, a couple of drunks walked past us. One of them gave the players a nihilistic look and said: “F*** you!” The young blonde, and quite beautiful, man I was talking to stopped mid-sentence, gave me a swift, apologetic look, then turned to the drunk and – in a most impressive show of British  good manners, straightforwardness and, well, effectivness – replied in a friendly voice, placing a gentle emphasis on the second syllable: “F*** you.”





P.S. My landlord's head, in case you wondered, managed to avoid a speeding train after all; however, he didn't manage to avoid getting arrested, spending the night under the supervision of the local sheriff and being told to make an appearance before a local Justice of Peace in the near future. 

The Radio Thought

One day after I had moved in, my landlord (and an owner of a nice compact digital radio) informed me he was going to kill himself.

Actually, if he was right and God didn't exist, he had no particularly good reason to live. A long time ago he had worn away whatever happiness he once had; and he hadn't discovered yet who to get more of it from, nor was anywhere close to that discovery, it seemed. He  had spent a sizable part of his life in prison (where, to give you a fuller picture, his newest prostitute girl-friend - whose room I now occupied - had ended up a short while ago after having beaten up an elderly man; she, to give you an even fuller picture, acted under a misapprehension that the chap had enough cash on him to buy her a line or two of coke, or some other over-hyped God-substitute). As to his family situation, he hadn't seen his millionaire parents for a decade or so; he couldn't care less, or so he said, what was happening with his successful sister; nor could he remember whether he had ever been loved by any of them, or they by him.

'I see no point', he'd say, 'I've lost all interest. Nothing thrills me any more. Not even women. I look at them, see they are sexy, but it doesn't do anything for me'. At that point I tended to offer my brilliant religious pitch, after which he'd say: 'I just wish I could fall to sleep and never wake up, just go, just disappear.'

He was extremely quick-witted and excelled in satanic jokes; his public school education helped him deliver them in highest-quality English.

If it hadn't been for and the fact that he preempted me, and for his diagnosed depression, I would have felt tempted to tell him that if we are to believe in nothing and have nothing to believe in, it made perfect sense to go ahead with his nihilistic plan.

Yesterday, while I was away saving someone else's life, he tried to call me. I didn't answer the phone - I feared another useless chat during which he'd invariably have started slagging off God. This kind of thing seemed to cheer him up a bit, but I was in no mood for that. I texted him a poor excuse, he texted me a poor joke, and we left it at that. A few hours later, when I was on the train back to the Welsh metropolis, he raised the bar - the message went: 'I had a visitation from DEVIL and he told me to KILL YOU'. I wrote back 'Tell him to f*** off and go to hell!' Then I resumed reading Omer Englebert's biography of St. Francis of Assisi.

When I got back home, quite late, he wasn't there. After an hour he still wasn't there; I imagined his head being smashed by a speeding train, the way he had planned and vividly described to me once. I said a short prayer and called the police. Another hour passed, I said another prayer. 'Will the police and his family bother me much?' I wondered. I called 112 again: no one had died on the local rail tracks recently. I went to bed.

I woke at about 3 am. and checked his bedroom - he was not there. I called the emergency number once more: somehow I didn't feel that the no-news they had for me was good news. Then I felt a highly embarrassing wave of some kind of calm; I realised it was a post-death calm. Ashamed, I dropped to my knees and began a decade of the Rosary (the Resurrection).

When I finished, a thought crossed my mind: Should I keep the radio?

Half a heart

I saw a woman giving a halfhearted hug to a man and I wondered: how far can we run on half a heart?

Wer ueber wen?

Not many people crossing the Polish-German border will have any doubt about German superiority.

How come then, if they are so superior, can they be so inferior?

Focus on the Birth

(Die Breslau - Berlin Autobahn in 1984)

Traveling to Berlin, with my home village some 10 miles away (I nearly could see it from the motorway), I was combining the Rosary with some somber thoughts about all the unhappiness I've produced and witnessed since childhood.

Suddenly I got so overwhelmed with all the unused chances, the misused gifts and all the wrong decisions, words and deeds that keep stalking me and my close ones, that I thought I wasn't ready to take any more of unlove and was ready to die.

Just then one decade of the Rosary finished and I went on to begin another: The Birth of Jesus Christ. So instead of focusing on dying, I focused on being born.



Photo: http://www.keesswart.nl/fietsreportages/1984.htm

Just become it

When the writer David Almond imagined* what had made Caedmon, a medieval monk at Whitby, burst into poetry more than one and a half millenniums ago (and later gain the distinction of being the first English-writing poet known by name), he suggested that while walking the hills, valleys and forests of North Yorkshire, Caedmon ‘became the grass, stones, trees, streams, grass’.

Almond's thought sounded like a cue for Aquinas - in one of the most outrageous philosophical claims ever (or insights, if it’s true), the greatest scholastic said that human intelligence allows us to ‘become’ what we focus on; a cognitive, or even existential, power we share with our Creator, God. Apart from its mind-expanding value, this alleged property neatly and conclusively does away with the wet blanket Kant has thrown on the human quest to explore and understand, and the thrill and joy coming from it. 

And although for one reason or another, we don’t seem to be able to take advantage of it in a perfect way, the mind-boggling and mind-opening gift lets us get to the crucial bits: on the most fundamental level, I can indeed know what it is like to be a tree, a cat, or you. If I want more, I have to make an extra effort, perhaps try lapping milk from a bowl on the floor, allow insects and birds feel at home on me and move gently in the wind or have a good, frank natter with you*.

*in an episode of Anglo-Saxon Portraits on BBC Radio 3
**to be clear and fair to the Daddy: this bit is mine, not Aquinas’

Illustration

Too strong not to resist?

The case for unity is so rational and the practical arguments against breaking away so water-tight that suddenly (following a debate in the Scottish Parliament and impeccable line of defense of the Union by the Conservatives, Labour and Lib-Dems), I felt that if I were a Scot, I'd be tempted to vote for independence, just to accept a challenge and prove that nationality is about much more than being practical.

Professional Funeral Directors

In Tredegar there is a sign 'Professional Funeral Directors', which somehow prompts a vision of amateur funeral directors - and a thought that there must be a good comedy script shallowly buried somewhere between the former and the latter.

By Jove, no god!

A god?? By Jove, no! (Unless your philosophy sucks.)

In a television programme about the Roman Empire someone describes a rather large statue of the emperor Trajan which a while ago stood in the unimaginatively named port of Portus. 'Those looking must have felt he was a god', I hear.

Well, if they did, they must have been extreme philosophical dimwits.



P.S. Just in case you're ever tempted* to make a similarly idiotic mistake: running an empire, however impressive and however impressively, and having a rather large statue of oneself doesn't make one a god; creating, sustaining and, ideally, saving a universe does.

*by... or never mind.

God stalks you

Looking at the slopes of local Welsh* hills, I'm listening to what must be the best song about stalking, nights on Broadway and singing 'them love songs' - and I'm thinking a thought I thought way back in Poland after a period of stalking a pretty girl: true love is always ready to resort to stalking. Isn't the whole history of God's people, and our individual spiritual story, one of God stalking us? Likewise, should we give up on our stray brothers and sisters who tell us, and their Carer, to get lost - or doggedly stalk them till they are found again?

*for some strange reason I often catch myself believing the Gibb brothers and their parents were a Welsh mining family gone - quite rightly, if you ask me! - conservative. (More on the local Welsh Conservatives - soon)

It sucks

In Cardiff now (the painting, not the general)

Democracy, by its very nature, sucks the alleged 'democratic' values out of the system.
(Or in the version for democratic masses: democracy sucks.)

Exists

Either He exists or you exit

The best metaphysical joke isn't when you tell God about your plans, but when you claim that He exists.

Obstinately opposed

(The Damsel in theological distress is obstinate)

"Seeing as the Saviour in the whole Gospel shows that there is salvation for the flesh, why do we any longer endure those unbelieving and dangerous arguments, and fail to see that we are retrograding when we listen to such an argument as this: that the soul is immortal, but the body mortal, and incapable of being revived? For this we used to hear from Pythagoras and Plato, even before we learned the truth. If then the Saviour said this, and proclaimed salvation to the soul alone, what new thing, beyond what we heard from Pythagoras and Plato and all their band, did He bring us? But now He has come proclaiming the glad tidings of a new and strange hope to men", writes Justin Martyr.

And the Doctor of the Church who pinned down, philosophically, the nature of time adds: "No doctrine of the Christian Faith* is so vehemently and so obstinately opposed as the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh". Tell me about it, St Augustine...


*apart that of the Continuation of the Supply of Good Wine, with the promotion of which I'm hoping to make my modest name go up  in philosophical history (alternatively, it can turn out to be The Sex in Heaven Doctrine [proposed]).

The Giver of Orgasm*

The best philosophical approach to sex is that you have it with God. Because in a  metaphysically most obvious way, the ultimate arouser of your penis, the main caresser of your body, the deepest fountain of your ejaculation, the true partner in your orgasm is not the woman who's below, above or next (or whatever) to you, but God. 


*Hallelujah.

P.S. Not - just in case she ever lays her angelic eyes on this - inspired by the damsel in distress from the previous post.

A Christian damsel in distress

  The dragon kept braying: 'No wine in heaven!', so it had to go.

I am correcting a Christian friend of mine on the question of parties in heaven. She is female, deeply-spiritual and angelic - which seems to be part of the problem rather than the solution here: it must be that angelic side of her that unimaginatively, not to say: foolishly, and unorthodoxly dismisses a cup of outstanding – well, heavenly, to be precise – red ('he meant it spiritually') and Jesus' incentive for us to make it to the other side, and starts giving me some Cathartic baloney that 'well, some kind of resurrected bodies – yes,but they won't be bodies really, because senses are naughty'... At that all the God-imagined, God-willed, God-invented, God-made, God-given and God-sustained wine-appreciating equipment in me gives a mighty holy groan and makes me cut her short. I announce to her that she's a dangerous heretic (throwing in a pithy explanation*) and refer her to a local bishop, subito.

Then, while my God-imagined, God-willed, God-invented, God-made, God-given and God-sustained wine-appreciating equipment is calming down, I admit to myself that even though it is a little worrying to find a fellow-pilgrim not quite knowing where they're going, I somehow enjoy the notion of Christian damsels** in distress waiting for a youthful (well, early 30s***) intellectually bold, not to say: ruthless, Christian knight on a white philosophical horse, slaying her fallacies.

And I know it must be a weakness of sorts, but what can I do? After all, I'm just a simple, intellectually ruthless Christian knight on a white philosophical horse that is keen on rescuing damsels in distress by slaying their fallacies, am I not?

*a few installments of which have already been published here, the rest to come soon, so to speak.

**she's single, in her 60s.

***well, early 4... OK, OK, mid-40s.

The Welsh

A confused nation* in the eery shadow of deserted chapels that long ago gave up a hymn in a language they'd lost. (Not that the English or the Scottish are much better, but in a differently confused way).

*well, a loose collection of lost tribes, more like, but I wanted to sneak in an upbeat, flattering note somewhere. I am a nice guy after all, am I not? 

Illustration by Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales

Meaningless Wales

Another empty valley of empty Wales

Somewhere between zombie Merthyr Tydfil and undead Brecon I looked at the mountains of Wales and they made no sense; the long, green slopes meant nothing, the whole rolling landscape had gone flat. There was no doubt in my mind and heart that it wasn't that they were all made senseless, but that meaningless people have robbed it of purposeful beauty; and what's left for them, and me, is a scenic, hurting reminder of what what what* could have been.



*the triple 'what' isn't another short-lived attempt at cheap 'poetry', just a typo on the run. However, as it seems much better than the lyrics I've waxed before, I'll leave it to look and wonder at from time to time.

Non-God Solutions

P.S.

Non-God solutions just don't work. I'm not Ezekiel, but you can trust me.

(I've just tried another one - and it, predictably, didn't).


P.S. The other day I picked up a book in an un-local library and there I found a chapter on Ezekiel and his vision of the chariot of God. Apparently, some ancient Jewish sages found it so mysterious and profound that they advised others to avoid it. By pure chance (so to speak) I came across that passage today morning and did read it, not for the first time. However, for the first time a thrill of awe went down my spine when doing so, and a renewed and even more frightening realisation that the way I am now, the mere mystery is about to burn me alive, not to mention the reality behind it.

Hallelujah

She has cut through her demons to me (and the Lord).

The lesson

I stand by two old women, one of them a teacher, talking about life, near death and stuff and one of them (the bent one) says 'Oh, dear Mrs .... - it's health that is most important!'

How come, I look down on them, that after all the decades they haven't grasped the crucial lesson: the most important thing is existence and love, if they're not one and the same thing*.





*they are.

When surrounded, surrender

I am surrounded by God, so why don't I surrender?

(Especially that I've already been  infiltrated by a holy agent.)