Liberty, Equality, Humanity
“Will you marry me?”
He asked and she replied
“What mean you by this?”
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n.b. A simple proposal, at the sound of it, but is the real meaning of the question clear? What motives underlie the request for a hand in marriage? Is the wording a phrase designed to obscure and confuse, or crystal clear and hence the associated diamond ring?
CLP 25/02/2019
Fierce frosts bite morning
Noon sky wears Marian blue
Sun brings butterflies
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n.b. This arid track, these browned brambles and dry ivy leaves, the dessicated litter and parched grasses are the backdrop for a vivid yellow, medium sized butterfly. The brilliance of the colour was breath-taking. It is in the picture somewhere towards the right. I saw another, larger dark brown butterfly a few moments before.
A bee was exploring some early flowering plants too. The concern is that the burst of unseasonable sunshine draws bees from their nests, or hives early and they then perish from hunger due to the insufficiency of food, that is if the frost doesn’t get them.
Soon after the yellow butterfly I was surprised and thrilled to see a small group of bright birds also flashing yellow. They dashed from the field edge to the top of the trackside hawthorns and settled long enough for me to catch up, before they flitted briskly on again. Eventually, realising my route was persistently pursuing the path, they turned into the safety of the middle of the adjacent field. These were highly likely to have been yellowhammers. Their chirpy song a welcome relief to the unremitting tedium of the Great Tit call that provided a backing track from Bognor to Bloxwich for me today, (apart from when I was on the train).
A little later, between Ford and Arundel, seven deer stood gawping at the passing train trundling atop the Arun Valley railway embankment.
February sunshine, welcomed by all, even if a little mystifying to explain.
Incidently, Marian blue is the light, bright, blue used to colour the dress of Holy Mary, Mother of God in medieval European religious paintings. This February’s sky has often been such a hue.
CLP 24/02/2019
Ironically
Devised by Etonians
Such worthy people
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n.b. A word comprising various bits and pieces from Latin and Classical Greek that was made up by a wit of Eton College, (located just off the M4 near Slough, beneath the westerly Heathrow airport).
Fees at this bucolic location are currently £13,556 per term, (known as a half – there are 3 halfs each academic year, (I offer no comment on the mathematics behind this)). Extra curricular activities can cost between £500 and £1000 per term. Music lessons are between £310 and £620 per term, but there is a 10% discount on fees for boys on musical scholarships.
In 2012 “floccinaucinihilipilification” was used by the Conservative MP, Rupert Rees-Mogg* in the House of Commons – what irony that name carries when 32% of UK Members of Parliament are private school educated.
Floccaucinihilipilification means the act, or habit of describing, or acting as if something is worthless. Roughly 48% of the UK population feel that is how they are acted towards by the current government as it pursues Brexit and the other 52% feel the same because the of the way the current government is pursuing Brexit.
The UK is far from being a united kingdom at the moment, but it is providing the rest of the world some welcome light relief. Former colonial dominions are seeing this as a form of karma, after previously being on the wrong end of the British Empire.
*British citizen Rees-Mogg leads a collection of Conservative MPs called the European Research Group (ERG). They collect around the notion that the European Union can be best researched by taking the United Kingdom out of the EU organisation of nations, who work as a group to reform Europe so that the continent finds peaceful solutions to its differences. The ERG approach is akin to saying to your beloved “I want to research how we can improve the quality of our relationship together, so I am going back to my mother’s.”, (which for some couples, might indeed improve the relationship).
I sense our European cousins may feel this may be the only way forward having had to deal with private school boys like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and the political & global strategy genius who is David Cameron, (see EU Referendum, June 2016 and the invasion of Libya, 2011.
CLP 23/02/2019
Conversing on train
From Black Country to south coast
Life class in motion
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CLP 22/02/2019
Collapse of core
Skin wrinkles, folds, shrinks and tears
Innards now liquid
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CLP 21/02/2019
Startled from sleep
Silent scream stuck in the craw
Eyes can but witness
CLP 20/02/2019
Washed by Spring shower
Dried in gentle breeze and Sun
Refreshed Earth awakes
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CLP 19/02/2019
Boil up the liquid
To remove impurities
Is everything clear?
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CLP 18/02/2019
Many and varied
Beach pebbles dance together
Fate acts as caller
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CLP 01/02/2029
White dusting slow melt
Ice on road blackens with night
Will nothing stop us?
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CLP 30/01/2019
Journey of Words 