The Glonk

Two blogs in two days, my!

A lot of the previous post still holds. Things are going up and down and down and a little up a bit at the minute. I thought of a wonderful graphical way of representing it, and should I manage to get hold of the graphics software licence that I need for my project, I know just the function to represent it! (This, anyone?)

Anyhow, I was sitting in Techno Caf’ earlier (which for those of you who don’t know it alas does not serve food. However it does have desks with infuriating fixed seating with networked laptops, and is generally a nice place to sit and eat lunch and talk and work without feeling that you’re getting on anyone’s nerves), and browsing the internet because work Was Not Happening, and came across this article, the main point of my post.

Read it, yes?

From a thoroughly selfish, and actually maybe not so selfish point of view, I’d be sad if gift giving stopped altogether. A well thought-out gift is wonderful, both to give and to receive, and without wanting to go all pretending-to-be-a-sociology-student on you, I do think that gift giving plays a very significant part in human relationships.

I just do despair at the amount of commercialist tat at Christmas, though, and the number of presents which must be bought simply for the sake of it. What’s the point? You spend the money. They don’t want it, or certainly for no longer than a novelty hit anyway. If they’re a conscientious soul then some of the unwanted gifts might make their way to the charity shop to be bought for a cause by somebody who actually does want them, but mostly they just sit around being things to be had for the sake of having things, and the world gets fuller and fuller of things but we still feel the need to buy more but social graces demand that a gift is a gift, irrespective of its contents or consequences.

I’m not saying that I’m not going to buy anything this year, and I don’t pretend that all of my gifts will be just perfect for whoever it is that I’m buying them for. But I have already bought one gift in a charity shop, and I have a few people for who I plan to buy a chicken, or a hygiene kit. Maybe even a Glonk!

I have a single quotation on my Facebook profile. It was said by Charles Spurgeon and is this: “It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness”

A Note On The Door

(I am still here, I am still alive, I am back in Durham where the internet has yet to grace our house with its presence. Nice to start with, but increasingly annoying when everything in the university relies on it. In the words of Christopher Robin, BISY BACKSON.)

Wanting Memories

I should know better than to listen to songs that I know make me cry :’)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K_FMvktMpI

x

Music and Silence

One of the offerings from Father Christmas this year (or Mother Christmas, to be more precise) was a novel – Rose Tremain’s ‘Music and Silence’. I read it in Shropshire, and I have to say that it was wonderfully written and I enjoyed it a lot (go read! go read!).

But what I really wanted to post was a rather lovely, and apt, couple of lines:

“For what is truly verifiable in life, I ask you? Only mathematics!
Two plus two will always and for evermore equal four,
but how is this going to resolve what boils in my brain?”

I don’t hate my degree, far from it, but sometimes it just doesn’t seem that important in life and that’s all there is to it.

Today, incidentally, is an OK day :-)

Interpretation

“Once you write something, it’s not your own anymore and it bears different meanings to everyone who reads it”

I read this today on one of the blogs that I read. It felt terribly appropriate, somehow.

My Favourite Poem

Us Two by A.A. Milne

Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh,
There’s always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
“Where are you going today?” says Pooh:
“Well, that’s very odd ‘cos I was too.
Let’s go together,” says Pooh, says he.
“Let’s go together,” says Pooh.

“What’s twice eleven?” I said to Pooh,
(“Twice what?” said Pooh to Me.)
“I think it ought to be twenty-two.”
“Just what I think myself,” said Pooh.
“It wasn’t an easy sum to do,
But that’s what it is,” said Pooh, said he.
“That’s what it is,” said Pooh.

“Let’s look for dragons,” I said to Pooh.
“Yes, let’s,” said Pooh to Me.
We crossed the river and found a few -
“Yes, those are dragons all right,” said Pooh.
“As soon as I saw their beaks I knew.
That’s what they are,” said Pooh, said he.
“That’s what they are,” said Pooh.

“Let’s frighten the dragons,” I said to Pooh.
“That’s right,” said Pooh to Me.
“I’m not afraid,” I said to Pooh,
And I held his paw and I shouted, “Shoo!
Silly old dragons!” – and off they flew.
“I wasn’t afraid,” said Pooh, said he,
“I’m never afraid with you.”

So wherever I am, there’s always Pooh,
There’s always Pooh and Me.
“What would I do?” I said to Pooh,
“If it wasn’t for you,” and Pooh said: “True,
It isn’t much fun for One, but Two
Can stick together,” says Pooh, says he.
“That’s how it is,” says Pooh.

Possession

xkcd never does fail to cheer me up!

On the lines of today’s comic, have any of you read ‘Possession’ by A.S. Byatt? If not, I’m recommending it now. It is a clever, touching, fascinating story, and does a wonderful take-off of literary academia. It’s quite hard-going in places stylistically, and probably not one for people who can’t stand poetry in any shape or form… but for people who like literature, who like history, who like a good ol’ love story with a twist, it’s a beautiful novel. To quote an Amazon reviewer, “it does need patience, which is hardly a modern virtue, but the rewards are worth it”.

(In fact I read it last summer on a campsite in France. But I was reminded of it by xkcd, and it seemed as good a time as any to refer you all on :-) )

‘ “What is it? My dear?”

“Ah, how can we bear it?”

“Bear what?”

“This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?”

“We can be quiet together, and pretend – since it is only the beginning – that we have all the time in the world.” ‘