Ignorance

 

On Monday morning I was sitting here at this desk in our study when, on the other side of the road, something caught my eye. It was a telephone engineer at the top of a telegraph pole. He was making some kind of intervention concerning the various wires that meet there.

One of them comes to our house and I assume that without that wire, I would not be able to send out blogposts to the world at large. Blogposts that have no doubt  created puzzlement and angry debate in internet spy centres run by government agencies in both Russia and China. But to be honest I have precisely no idea how this process works for I am no technophile.

There are lots of things I do not understand. After all, we cannot know everything so I just cruise along  untroubled by my ignorance. Although I have snapped thousands of digital images with digital cameras, I have no idea what a digital image is or how that business works. All I know is that digital images are infinitely superior to the old prints we waited for after completing rolls of film. And if you know how digital photography works, please don't tell me because I know that I would just glaze over and forget it all before the breaking of a new day.

How televisions work is another long tolerated area of ignorance for me. I prefer to think of that process as pure magic for the technical explanation would baffle the hell out of me.

At the end of my Valentine's Day post, I referred to electronic car keys. If you drive a motor vehicle, you have also most likely got an electronic car key. I can lock Clint with my key from fifty yards away  and at night when locking our front door I often press "Lock" on Clint's key just to make doubly  sure he's secure. The indicator lights flash orange through the front  door's glazed panels to tell me that my press has been successful.

Again, I have absolutely do idea how electronic car keys work and so I often smile or shake my head in amazement. Who ever invented these keys deserves to become the king (or queen!) of a small but prosperous  mountain kingdom. I just typed into Google, "Who invented electronic car keys?" and the answer came back - Paul Lipschutz who worked for an automotive supply company called Niemans in the 1980's. His applications for various US patents were granted in that same decade. They all related to car security. I doubt that there is a statue of  Paul Lipschutz anywhere in the world but maybe there should be one.

And how do microwaves work, TV remotes, bar codes, refrigerators, satellites?  My ignorance of these things  is quite comprehensive.

Poem

Entombed

Trembling

Pitch dark
After concrete thunder.
Guessed what it was
Spitting out dust
In deafening silence -
Something heavy
Clamping my left foot.
Supine in  blackness
Fingertips touching the void 
Shouting “Help!” then waiting
Bawling  “Help!” again...
Nothing.
Nobody comes.
Time collapses.
Dozing then sleeping,
Sleeping then dozing.
Waking to dread.
Everything unchanged -
Inky and noiseless.
Left foot pulsing
To thoughts of water
Cool cascades
And wailing “Help!” once more -
Aching for tiny sounds of rescue
When only

This hollow silence

Remains.

⦿

Please consider donating to the Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal. Here in Great Britain go to The Disasters Emergency Committee to donate. Citizens of other countries can easily find suitable charity sites online. If we all do a little to help, we can build a mountain of money to assist the desperate people left behind.

Stroll

 

"Seatbelt!" commanded Clint as I lowered my buttocks into his cockpit.

We weren't travelling far. Just fifteen minutes away inside The Peak District National Park. I tucked Clint's wing mirror in when I parked him on Clodhall Lane.

"See you later alligator!" I muttered as I set off towards  Wellington's Monument above Jack Flat and not very far from The Eagle Stone shown in the top picture. The Duke of Wellington commanded Britain's forces at The Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

I didn't need a map because I knew the circle I was going to walk - just a little over two miles. Above I was on Baslow Edge looking towards the village of Curbar. Below - a Highland cow with magnificent horns has taken a break from her endless grazing

Near the end of the walk I noticed this small herd of a deer on raised ground in a large area of moorland that is called simply Big Moor. No fancy names. The deer haven't always grazed Big Moor. They are a fairly recent addition and I noticed that a lot of money must have been spent on high fencing to keep them inside the moorland area. Deer and motor vehicles are quite incompatible.

Below - I suspect that the old guidepost predates the dry stone wall to the right by a century or more.  The track once ran along Blackstone Edge to a couple of stone quarries - long since disused -  before turning towards Chesterfield.

The lone hawthorn tree below appealed to me and I took a few pictures of it but I think that this was the best one. The tenacious tree is to the left of the image simply because I wanted to include all of its three o'clock shadow:-

Out in The Peak District you sometimes come across contemporary carved stones that may be part of some art project. Near Curbar Gap car park I noticed a "companion stone" with these lines carved upon it:-

Before the stone

before the land

the running hare

the pointing hand

the rattled wheel

the bright idea

something else

would lead us here

Rather than trying to photograph the whole thing, I just focused on this one word - "wheel" where after thirteen years moss is establishing itself in the carved letters:-

Onward I walked - perhaps like one of those Christian soldiers in the old hymn and before too long I was approaching sleeping  Clint with my magical key. Press the button and "Abracadabra!" all locks are unlocked. Lord knows how it works.

Language

It has been fascinating to observe Little Phoebe's language development. The last time she had an overnight stay here we were giving her a bath. Shirley was dealing with her front end while I came up from behind with a jug of warm water to pour over her back. She glanced over her shoulder and said, "What's he doing?" which took us both aback. Remember - it is less than a month since her second birthday.

She struggles with some longer words but has always been confident about "marmalade". When putting on her winter coat she will request "Hood up!" Her favourite dessert is rice pudding which she calls "ri puddi" but better pronunciation is gradually coming together now.

"Drawing!" means she wants to sit at the dining table with me to do some drawing in one of her big drawing pads. I bought her dry wipe pens in case she got colour on her hands, clothes or the table itself. I am quite happy to giver her time just swishing the pen around, getting control of it but sometimes she will hold the pen gently as I manipulate her hand to create simple drawings like the little girl in the top picture.

Mum and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa all try to limit Phoebe's screen time but she can be very insistent. "Tubbies" is short for "Telly Tubbies" but she easily says "Peppa Pig", "Gruffalo's Child" and "Twirly Woos". She is also quite fond of "Mr Tumble" who she refers to simply as "Tumble".

Being a little girl, she is clearly bemused by the cultural necessity to add "please" to any request she makes and is often required to say that word. Currently, it arrives as a prompted afterthought. It's funny how saying "please" and "thank you" have become the very  emblems of  politeness in English speaking countries.

As I witness Phoebe's escalating language skills I am reminded that I have almost no memory whatsoever of how my own children's language evolution happened. They were helpless babes who couldn't say a thing and then, as if by magic, they became proficient users of English. It is as if I blinked and missed it all. This blogpost will help me to remember how Phoebe grew and learnt to master our language.

In due course "getti" will become "spaghetti" and "Wickbix" will become "Weetabix" as "cuppatea" will become three separate words.

Judge

Over at "Geograph" one of my pictures was the winner for Week 4 in the 2023 Picture of the Week competition. 3321 eligible images were submitted that week so to come out as the overall winner was most pleasing.

There are no monetary prizes. No medals or shields, not even a holiday in the sun. Geograph is an amateur non-profit making photo sharing website.The only prize you get is to select the following week's winner. For Week 5, 2704 images had been whittled down to fifty by one of the site moderators. This was the shortlist I had to choose from.

In third place I put this excellent night picture of a shop window in Ross-on-Wye near England's border with Wales. The image seems quite surreal to me:-

In second position I put this photograph of a heron on the coast of Northern Ireland. I liked the lighting and the way the blown feathers look like hands - as if the heron is conducting an orchestra:-

Finally, the overall winner - "Mental Anguish":-

It is a quirky picture. The skewed horizon seems to echo the theme of mental desperation. The photographer is a Welshman called Alan Hughes. He has taken many wonderful photos in that part of Wales and beyond. This was his own description of the image: "On top of a small cairn on Southerndown beach someone has placed a stone with a poignant message. This beautiful, wild, forlorn area with its sheer limestone cliffs has several times been the scene of the last moments of people tormented by mental anguish. The car park above the cliffs even displays a Samaritans helpline number."

Memes

Just yesterday, I referred to the following four politicians. All deservedly ridiculed in these memes. Overseas visitors may be confused about the Liz Truss birthday card. During her short time as prime minister a British tabloid newspaper kept a lettuce in a fridge to see if it would last longer than Truss. Famously, the lettuce won!

There's nothing like a good photo opportunity.

Unapologetic

This week, Liz Truss who was Britain's shortest serving prime minister of all time came out of the woodwork once again. But she did not emerge with a contrite apology for her  absurd and ill-considered economic "plan" that caused untold damage to this nation's reputation for sound economic governance. Instead, she sought to blame others and in her blind arrogance failed to grasp that she is directly  culpable for the costly damage that was caused to our economy last autumn.

"Fundamentally I was not given a realistic chance to enact my policies by a very powerful economic establishment, coupled with a lack of political support."

What is it with politicians who seem allergic to apologising or accepting full responsibility for their mistakes?

Truss's predecessor Johnson also left office in a scornful mood as if he was still the special one he thought he was at Eton School. It wasn't his fault he was going - it was everyone else's. And now even though he remains a salaried Member of Parliament, he thinks nothing of accepting lucrative payments for lectures and book deals. The word "sorry" is not one that Johnson really understands.  If he uses it at all it is with cunning qualification. "I'm sorry that you feel that way" etc..

It's the same over in America. It is likely that Trump views the word "sorry" as a sign of weakness because it is not one he would ever use himself. He's not sorry about tax evasion, dalliances with prostitutes,  shady property deals or encouraging an assault on the US Capitol. He still shows no humility or acceptance with regard to the fact that he clearly lost the last presidential election.

Another Republican politician, George Santos, has not shown an ounce of contrition for his series of lies on a range of subjects from his sexuality to his family background and from his educational achievements to his business achievements or lack thereof. It is quite outrageous that this fantasist should ever be allowed to hold any kind of public office.

We deserve better leaders than a bunch of  egotists who mistakenly imagine they are being strong when they refuse to apologise for their failures or their mistakes. Saying sorry and meaning it is a sign of maturity  not just in everyday life but in the political sphere too.