Walking in the rain

I now feel guilty about borrowing this image for my blog.  It's by Jane Ferguson and was chosen to illustrate my theme about 'walking in the rain '(not surprisingly).  But should the artist be compensated for her work being used?  No profit accrues from my blog.  Hardly anyone reads them anyway.  Is this justification for 'borrowing' someones creative efforts without recompense?  Possibly.  Hope so anyway. I'm not sure my older son would agree.

Anyway, walking in the rain and whether I should make the effort to put on my waterproofs and head out for a stroll in the cold but fresh air is today's pressing question.  Arguments for: good exercise, haven't had  a decent walk in a few days, it's good to get out, clears the head.  Arguments against: just spent ten days walking (and cycling) in sunny Spain where the sky was blue and the climactic contrast with my homeland is therefore both deeply unfavourable and a significant deterrent (for the moment anyway, until it all becomes a distant memory).  Conclusion: have some mint tea and think about it some more.

Hegel's bagels

We went to Prague earlier in the year. I had been several times before before but it was the first time for my wife and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.  There were however a few exceptions.   For example, the outrageous pricing at some of the most popular tourist spots and in particular the atmospheric Old Jewish Cemetery. I know that the exorbitantly priced ticket included entry to all of the many Jewish synagogues in the city, many of which are particularly fine, but how many shuls can a goyim visit in a single day?  Of the nearby Cafe Kafka however I have no complaints.  A quiet and dark wooden interior, plain furniture, and decent beer and coffee (at reasonable 'tourist city' prices) make it easy to imagine that you might bump into the great man himself.  I declined to buy their subdued souvenir t-shirt only on the grounds that I now prefer plain t-shirts sans motif.  Of the food they served, I'm not so sure because the strudel we ate wasn't quite as good as the breakfast strudels we enjoyed in a different cafe.  However, if they had been selling Hegel's Bagels ...

Other food we ate in Prague was much more enjoyable, and so too was the exemplary Prague beer - the wine too.  Lots of meat, mostly pork and venison, and lots of dumplings, but we found an excellent pizzeria serving both pizza and local wine at very reasonable prices just slightly out of the city centre.  We also enjoyed eating near the university in a restaurant/bar decorated with fleshy murals of large-breasted and naked women and hugely endowed and naked men fornicating in the Bohemian countryside.  Definitely a place to go back to.  Prague I mean.

Feline dementia and daal

It is so cold here.  Driving my son to work because he missed his bus this morning, I first had to defrost the car's windshield.  The temperature outside was 2.5 degrees.  Not too cold if you live in northern Scandinavia or Alaska but cold enough here, especially if you have just returned form southern Spain where the average daytime temperature was in the middle to high 20s.  It is so cold here even the cats are complaining and meow piteously to be let in through the kitchen door whenever their little paws begin to ice up.  Although the older of the two cats regularly meows out of context because of her feline dementia and so it's difficult to know exactly what she's thinking.  She's also taken to leaping, slowly, onto the dining room table to lick any plates or bowls inadvertenbtly left behind.  So it was I discovered today that cats seem to like daal curry with onion, ginger and garlic.  But that could have been the dementia of course.

Small things matter

I can heartily recommend the Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman whose writing appears in the weekend magazine. A recent article emphasised the importance, based on solid academic research, of 'pusuing little victories ... (That) a sense of incremental progress is vastly more important to happiness than either a grand mission or financial incentives'.  It's the sort of thing that chimes with common sense and personal experience but is often swept aside by the surge of 'mission statements' and 'targets' that bedevil the managements of both modern corporations and the public sector, aided and abetted by all shades of political opinion.  Too often managements emphasise the importance of 'seeing the big picture' but lose sight of the more important details, for example understanding the fundamental role played by 'the human factor'.  That is, in any organisation the people you work with come first, last, and always - not customers, clients, shareholders, stakeholders (whatever they are).  Get this first bit right and everything else will fall more easily into place and everyone benefits - including all of the above.  The corollary of course is also true. There might then be some truth in the old saw that if you take care of the little things, the big things often take care of themselves.  Just ask Snoopy.  (I had forgotten how much the Charles M. Schulz cartoons made me smile.)
As a sidebar, my older son was highly critical when I told him the subject of my latest blog, accusing me of 'plagiarism'.  'But,' I protested. 'I always quote my sources.' 'Still plagiarism,' he insisted.  Well not according to my 1996 edition of Chambers Dictionary it isn't.  I quote verbatim: 'to copy ideas from someone else's work and use them as if they were one's own'.  So, ha!

A fine malt , but there are limits

The problem started when my younger son took me literally.  'The malt whisky is there to be drunk', says I.  And so drinking it he has been.  But he has been taking more than his fair share of my fine malt and I need to address the issue with him.  It's not even as if he buys his own occasionally.  So do I say, 'No more, enough already!'  Or, 'Leave some for me, please.'  Perhaps it should be, 'Smaller measures might allow the whole family to enjoy it.'  Although to be honest his mum doesn't drink malt whisky, nor does his older brother.   I could hide the bottle but that seems churlish.   And, my final dilemma, it's not as if I even enjoy malt whisky that much, certainly not compared to wine or brandy or beer.  But there are limits.

But is it a good read?

I have given up arguing with my wife about the merits and demerits of potboilers.  She likes to read them and I don't.  I have picked up Dan Brown's magnum opus and put it down just as quickly.  The writing is execrable and the plot absurd (although, mea culpa, I haven't actually read it all the way through so that might well disqualify me from comment but, since the book has become such a cultural icon, I feel quite comfortable criticising it).  Good friends and colleagues agree with my wife and one, when carelessly challenged, spewed forth a closely argued discourse on why Dan Brown was both well-written and intellectually stimulating.  No, honestly, she did.  If only I had read the fine article by Jeanette Winterson in today's Guardian newspaper.  'There are plenty of entertaining reads that are part of the enjoyment of life.  That doesn't make them literature.  There is a simple test: does this writer's capacity for language expand my capacity to think and to feel?'  All this apropos of the Booker prizewinner announced last night as Julian Barnes and the view of at least some of the judges that 'readibility is the key to a good book'.  Well, maybe but, as Winterson continues, 'There is such a thing as art.  There is such a thing as literature'.  Hooray for that!  I suppose what has tripped me up on previous occasions was a failure to discriminate between 'a good read' and literature.  Must be more careful with my dialectic in future and tonight over dinner I will try out my new line of attack on my family of voracious readers.

P.S. Sadly, never managed to insert my praphrasing of Winterson's argument into our table-talk.  Perhaps another time.

Well, I did say it would be occasional

I cannot believe how long it is since I posted a blog, but here I am again anyway, just returned from a short break in Spain and clearly refreshed enough in body, mind and spirit to resume my blogging.  I wonder if I will be able to sustain the effort after so long an absence from the keypad?  Isn't the main point about blogging that it's a regular activity?  Otherwise, online at least, I lose track of what's going on in the world around me.The most successful blogs are clearly those that keep abreast of major political, social or cultural events and then comment on them. The bloggers in Syria provide invaluable insights into the violent convulsions of that benighted dictatorship, just as they once did in Egypt and Tunisia and Libya.  (Has anyone seen Mr Qaddafi recently?)  Bloggers in China risk  censorship and imprisonment if they dare to step outside the clearly marked boundaries of 'free speech and tolerance for dissent' allowed by the repressive authorities.  Ironic then that judges in this country's Court of Appeal recently averred that modern communication  technology is 'totally out of control' and so clearly a threat to public order.  Two young men had lengthy jails sentences confirmed for inciting riots on Facebook - only two years less than Abu Hamza received for inciting murder.  How Beijing must smile when western governments raise with them the issue of human rights.  
My blog commands no significant audience.  Perhaps even none at all ... lol!  Nor does it offer unique insights into international or even local or national events, if you discount the intricacies of the Scottish education System - and I wish you would while it still offers me gainful employment.  No, I write my blog simply because it amuses me to do so. So, let's get started again and see how long it lasts for this time.