‘It lifts and separates’ is a slogan that will be familiar to those of my generation - it was advertised as the chief virtue of the Playtex ‘cross-your-heart’ Bra in the impressionable days of my youth. However, it also serves as a memorable illustration of my theory concerning the origin of what we think of … Continue reading Why Writing is like a Playtex Bra
Tag: Plato
The Actual Colour of the Sun
‘The sun is actually white, it just appears yellow to us through the Earth’s atmosphere.’ This is a line that appeared on Facebook a while ago, courtesy of my friend Else Cederborg, who posts all sorts of curious and interesting things. It is a common form of argument that most will readily understand and generally … Continue reading The Actual Colour of the Sun
‘Like, yet unlike.’
'Like, yet unlike,' is Merry's comment in The Lord of the Rings when he first sees Gandalf and Saruman together: Gandalf, returned from the dead, has assumed the white robes formerly worn by Saruman, who has succumbed to despair and been corrupted by evil and is about to be deposed. So we have two people … Continue reading ‘Like, yet unlike.’
St. Anselm and the Blackbird
Blackbird Its eye a dark pool in which Sirius glitters and never goes out. Its melody husky as though with suppressed tears. Its bill is the gold one quarries for amid evening shadows. Do not despair at the stars’ distance. Listening to blackbird music is to bridge in a moment chasms of space-time, is to … Continue reading St. Anselm and the Blackbird
A penny for them…
‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking.’ – Eliot, The Waste Land ‘He’s the sort that you never know what he’s thinking’ defines a recognisable character but carries a curious implication. There is a strong suggestion of duplicity, of inner workings at odds with outer show. Even among … Continue reading A penny for them…
Seeing Better
‘See better, Lear!’ is the admonition Kent gives his King after he has petulantly banished his youngest daughter, Cordelia, because she ‘lacks that glib and oily art’ to flatter him as her false sisters have done. Sight and blindness is a central theme in King Lear, as is its corollary, deception, both of others and … Continue reading Seeing Better
In the beginning was the word… or was it?
Reflecting on the origin of words leads us into interesting territory. I do not mean the origin of particular words, though that can be interesting too; I mean the notion of words as units, as building blocks into which sentences can be divided. How long have we had words? The temptation is to say ‘as … Continue reading In the beginning was the word… or was it?
The Lords of Convention
‘The present king of France is bald’ seems to present a logical problem that ‘the cat is on the table’ does not - there is no present king of France, so how can we assert that he is bald? and is the sentence true or false? But I am much more interested in the second … Continue reading The Lords of Convention
Where to Find Talking Bears, or The Needless Suspension of Disbelief
Something I have been struggling to pin down is a clear expression of my thoughts on the oft-quoted dictum of Coleridge, shown in its original context here: ‘it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a … Continue reading Where to Find Talking Bears, or The Needless Suspension of Disbelief
The Muybridge Moment
The memorable Eadweard Muybridge invented a number of things, including his own name - he was born Edward Muggeridge in London in 1830. He literally got away with murder in 1872 when he travelled some seventy-five miles to shoot dead his wife’s lover (prefacing the act with ‘here's the answer to the letter you sent … Continue reading The Muybridge Moment
COMPLEAT TROWZER 