Kevin's Watch

Yeah, you gotta be able to laugh about that shit, otherwise...well, otherwise you're as bad as the people you're complaining about.

--A

And .. arguably even more importantly its not good for your sanity ..

You dont want to get all bent out of shape over this shit .. when you do .. mate they win. If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs .. and blaming it on you .. or being lied about, dont deal in lies ... or being hated .. dont give way to hate

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---

Rudyard Kipling was a wise soul I mean fuck look at his crocodile wisdom

Thanks Av too true,
and Sky, Nicely done.
"If" and "The man in the glass" are poems I have on the wall in my back shed. My sons have been made to recite them both plenty of times over the years.

Sometimes I think a deadline is good for you. It gets the blood and brain juices flowing.

Ahhh .. you speak of adrenalin, fire

... read in Laliari voice

Hopefully you get that little nugget

I can't do anything if I don't have a deadline.

As for Kipling, his poetry was certainly good. Pity about his colonial sensibilities though, what?

--A

By the standard of If I'm afraid I fall well short of the mark.....but I think being a 'man' (as forged on the playing fields of Eton) is overrated - but I don't think I ever failed at being a human being; that I think, is the important thing.

Yes, poor old Kipling is getting a bit of a mauling here in the UK at the moment. Manchester university is embroiled in an argument as to whether If was appropriate as a mural for its newly decorated Leaders Lounge, and some of the students have covered it up with Maya Angelou's Still I Rise instead. Kipling has associations with 'the white man's burden' aspects of colonial policy that run a bit too deep for some to be comfortable with, though I'm a great believer that true art rises above the failings of it's creator ....... and possibly even above the uncomfortable nature of its content.

(Edit; yes - after a few moments thought an insight comes to me worthy of note; great art does not require you to view it with the intent with which it was created. If can serve equally as a warning against as an exhortation toward.)

Ah yes. and Gungadin din din! would no doubt stoke all of the same fires.

Hear hear re the human being part that matters Peter.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
and get pats on the back as you pass.
But your final reward will be heartache and tears,
if you've cheated the man in the glass.

(applause) I like that Kizza.

By odd coincidence, I'm at home at present following an op last Friday and the guys from work sent me a card that arrived but minutes after I'd made my post. The illustration was one of Kipling's from The Cat Who Walked alone (the one of the cat walking down the avenue of trees), a subject which (not to get to maudlin about it or anything ) I had been musing to myself about (ie the path to passing being always one that we needs must make alone) literally in between the posting and the card's arrival!

(Hope, by the way I'm not on that path yet - but it never hurts to be prepared! )

I still love If. I can enjoy writing without being affected by the writer's beliefs/attitudes/whatever. Hell, I read L Ron Hubbard and Orson Scott Card and enjoy them both.

I like Gunga Din too. The final realisation that despite the prejudices and pre-conceptions, the lowly native is a better man than the narrator.

(I like Burns' A Man's A Man For A' That as well.)

--A

How interesting .. and arguably this is an indictment against me .. I couldnt read Orson Scott Card because of his beliefs sadly I have no desire to even give Enders Game a crack and I thought the movie droll

I choose to be small minded sometimes.

But you are absolutely the better person .. and yet if I look at historical figures .. I see them as products of their time .. and am prepared to extend greater latitude.

Read whatever you like, so long as you're not giving money to Card/Scientology.

Haha, I don't give money to anybody. Well, except by buying their books I guess.

--A

cheers Murrin .. and I personally definitely wont

Buying their books is what I meant! So long as people keep buying Card's work, he'll still have the money to keep donating to anti-gay religious and political organisations. And Scientology is, well, Scientology. They probably don't need the money, but it still helps.

(And don't support the Writers of the Future contest, either; it's just a big Scientology recruitment campaign.)

Yup thats what I figured you meant

Did not know that

Our Prime Minister used the word "Capricious" today when describing the weather and how we deal with terrible drought and flooding at the same time.
Based on what mother nature is throwing up (today in particular), he got that word right.
I am as concerned and excited as a kelpie with two balls today due to the large heavy downpour of rain we are copping. I left my wheelbarrow outside overnight and it has been overflowing since I woke up at 5:30 this morning.
I am sure my roof gutters are going to teach me a lesson in diligence before the day is out.

I'm Murrin wrote:Read whatever you like, so long as you're not giving money to Card/Scientology.

Hey, I just had a dreadful thought.
The Man in the Glass wasn't written by a bloody Scientologist was it?
I thought it was by "Anon" and claimed as written by every man and his dog.

Well, I bought them all second-hand anyway, so doubt any of that goes to them.

--A

I have a healthy collection of second hand gems myself .. no problem with that.

Books dont go off .. thank fully .. unless they are flood affected .. or somehow get damp.

I give all of my old books to my dad. He is 87 and wakes at all hours and reads away in the middle of the night. He has his own clear preferences - murder/spy/thriller/conspiracies) and has been known to "shot" a book to the corner of the room if he thinks its crap.
He was walking through the house with a book recently and looking at the back cover he exclaimed "thirty dollars for this?", and I asked him if that was what he paid and he laughed loud and said "No, I got it from the book exchange, but someone paid thirty bucks for it once!"

I went on the roof yesterday. 6c and in between rain. I shouldn't have done that.