Writing about things I love and things I didn't know - oh and things I want to eat and cook

Saturday 26 March 2016

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself

It's Easter
We have ‪#‎Brexit‬ and Trump, atrocities, enmity, footballers being paid walloping amounts and Addenbrookes in administration.
Ministers taking money from the disabled, servicemen fighting, religious wars, return of Scarlet Fever, Frederick Forsyth talking about sexting and admitting like me he has no idea who the Kardashians are.
We have ugly vegetables being rejected, dairy farming in the red, twenty somethings that can't get on the housing ladder. An education system third from the bottom worldwide. Maths curriculum that doesn't add up.
We have more trinkets and toys and gadgets than ever before, acquisition of things the new false God. 
I am not sure I see altruism, benevolence, kindness. I worry we are becoming desensitised. I see the countryside snaffled up by voracious developers. Cornish fish sold to Spain. Poets, heroes and heroines forgotten. Pioneers and industrialists not spoken of. 
We have to tax sugar as we have an obesity epidemic. We had the might and majesty of the London Olympics which I honestly thought would cause an existential national shift - for the better. We have reality TV. 

I usually bang on about Dickens - post title - or poets or obscure Italian authors but today my mind is with :




Many many actors have made a career playing Holmes. I will tell you about the Benedict Cumberbatch kissing me on the cheek after Rhinoceros another time. 

He wrote the Holmes series as he needed to make money to send his wife to Switzerland for treatment for his bronchial problems. He was the inspiration for Julian Barnes' mighty Arthur and George. 


He believed in life after death. I always feel he would be a really really good man. 


In my garden I have a magnolia older than the house. I have been on a run which costs nothing. Last night supper was made for me and it was heaven. 
Easter a time of sadness but also renewal no ? When people say they are bored or fed up I always say - and mean - read Dickens. His life as well as his work. I think we need a him to transact and make sense of all of this - via the written word. 

I was listening to something rather lovely on R4 at oddball 'o' clock about a Jewish family. Had some beautiful prayers. I wanted to make something different for Easter. Have a look at this.

Easter wishes to you all.

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