Difference of sex no more we knew / Than our guardian angels do;

Today, just a hiatus for Christmas Day morning before we start this thing proper here. The most lovely thing anyone ever said, publically, that I knew was for me, privately.  A long time ago.

The Relic

When my grave is broke up again
Some second guest to entertain,
(For graves have learn’d that woman
head, To be to more than one a bed)
And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let’us alone,
And think that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls, at the last busy day,
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?
If this fall in a time, or land,
Where mis-devotion doth command,
Then he, that digs us up, will bring
Us to the bishop, and the king,
To make us relics; then
Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I
A something else thereby;
All women shall adore us, and some men;
And since at such time
miracles are sought, I would have that age by this paper taught
What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.
First, we lov’d well and faithfully,
Yet knew not what we lov’d, nor why;
Difference of sex no more we knew
Than our guardian angels do;
Coming and going, we
Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;
Our hands ne’er touch’d the seals
Which nature, injur’d by late law, sets free;
These miracles we did, but now alas,
All measure, and all language, I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.
John Donne
(1572 – 1631)

Grep works.

I’m new at this, so forgive me if I’m sounding like a silver surfer who just discovered that ink cartridges cost more than the remarkably cheap printers they just bought, but lying in bed after only 4 hour’s sleep on Xmas morn, my hyper mind’s been currently obsessing on this: that writing a weblog’s making me think a lot about categorisation, and dangers of allowing post-hoc changes later. I suppose what librarians of the more ghastly kind who get fed up stacking shelves call “information choreography”. This is all rather beside the real point of this weblog, but think of it as laying out your pencils in a row before an exam I guess, and stretching your fingers before starting.
So don’t read this if you’re here to read about illness, gender or God. This is a sidenote, some chatter before I start.
It’s the post-hoc thing that concerns me most. You can’t reformat and recategorise paper diaries long after the ink’s dry, which may not be such a bad thing. On starting this thing, I’m tempted to create a lot of categories, and sub-categories, in which I can file entries multiply; so, say, this article might be filed under a master category “information”, a sub-category “technofear”, and also under another master category “blogging”. I might do this with a year’s worth of articles. Then one day I might feel that, given that I only have six articles under “technofear”, and the only ones I remember are about how people irrationally fear cloning, I’ll just rename the category “irrationality” and file it under a master category “belief”. Now, clearly I can review what’s in it, but you can imagine given a few permutations, it’ll get out of hand, beyond the pale and altogether not altogether.

Continue reading Grep works.

Tapping the microphone…

Christmas Eve, 2004, and I start my conversations with myself (and anyone who wants to listen). Is this thing switched on?

As Dom Pedro listened to Bell recite Hamlet, Dom Pedro heard every word and exclaimed “My God, it talks!”



Standby.. transmissions will start shortly.
This weblog’s likely to be less fun than most. Be warned. You’re likely to see lots of this:





and some of this:





If you know me and see some things about me you didn’t know, please don’t feel you’re trespassing – I probably always wanted you to know, really, or at least it makes my life easier if i know you do. Even if you think it makes me rubbish.

Dylan Thomas – A Child’s Christmas in Wales – and a first Christmas Eve’s test of my weblog

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

Continue reading Dylan Thomas – A Child’s Christmas in Wales – and a first Christmas Eve’s test of my weblog