Broadsides – A collection of bits and pieces
"Unprovided with original learning, uninformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a blog”
Entrance to the Boar's Head public house and country hotel To a black-tie dinner at the rather pokey country house pub/hotel, the Boars Head at Ripley in Yorkshire, a place well overdue for a refurbishment. Mostly doctors. I have observed over the years that Doctors, when gathered together, a bit like lawyers or soldiers, tend... Continue Reading →
Gibraltar: British families, survivors from the RMS Laconia, torpedoed by German U-Boat on the 12th September 1942 RMS Laconica was originally commissioned as an ocean-going luxury passenger ship for the Cunard line. With the outbreak of WWII she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and fitted with eight six inch guns and two three inch guns.... Continue Reading →
It has been more than a year, (B.C. in fact, or before covid) since I was last at the London flat. It had become a little dusty, (the flat, not London) but it was comforting to see the familiar paintings that adorn the place and furnish the rooms. I took a walk round the neighbourhood,... Continue Reading →
So twice divorced Boris re-married, in no less than the Catholic Westminster Cathedral, triggering a media manufactured storm of “controversy” over the legality, propriety and morality of the Catholic church allowing such a twice divorced man to re-marry in their principal English cathedral. In fact, the rules of the church, in allowing such marriages were... Continue Reading →
To London. First time for some eighteen months. A little surreal. Dublin airport virtually deserted with odd strangers wondering about in masks. The queue for security scanning, usually a long tedious stretch, were moving fast, social distancing in place. Just one of the great bank of scanners was in operation. To be honest it was... Continue Reading →
This poem appeared on my facebook feed from my Austrailian friend Paul Halloran. It was so good that it demands to be shared. When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the... Continue Reading →
I am so pleased that Australia has been placed on the UK green list and is therefore, once again, open to visit. I say once again, but if fact I have never been there. Always wanted to go and it might even be said I was a little obsessed by the place. My favourite TV... Continue Reading →
Powerful Stuff from Peter's Pondering. Chris decided long ago that he could no longer endure the Ceremony of Remembrance parades and services. It was too much for him. He knew that he would break down and weep copious tears, sobbing at all of the memories that he could not set aside. He could never forget! Instead, each year,... Continue Reading →
Loved this from allenriz Just had to reblog it. Ave Verum Corpus has often been described as one of the few perfect pieces of music ever written. It is a mere three minutes long and simple in musical structure but ranks among Mozart’s best works. Ave Verum Corpus (Hail, True Body), (K. 618), is a... Continue Reading →
I bought a shiny suit. It was sort of blue grey and shimmered as it caught the light. The knife edge creases down the drainpipe trouser legs accentuated the shimmer. It was gross, terrible, beyond bad taste. It was tonly the second suit I ever bought. The first was when I had just turned 17. ... Continue Reading →
Gavan was dying. We knew it, Patricia and I, and James, his brother, all three of us knew it. He was struggling with life itself. But Gavan, he wouldn’t accept it. He remained confident that the experimental drugs would work, that he would recover, that he would return to college, see his friends, that this... Continue Reading →
Two poems from my current collection, a homage to D.H. Lawrence, which by the way, have been rejected by my publishers. Poem 1: We must go now, out in’t ter pouring rain Bollock naked in the wooded glade Except fer our wellies And I will hold you wet me dear And whisper into yer dampish... Continue Reading →
We didn’t know how to kiss. No one told us how. No one showed us what to do. There was very little on the TV and the kind of films we went to see on Saturday mornings didn’t have any kissing in them. Abbott and Costello: no kissing, Tarzan: no kissng, Dean Martin and Jerry... Continue Reading →
I was taught to dance at my secondary School. In the gymnasium. It was during P.T. sessions, when it was too wet or too cold outside to go across to the fields. The girls would form up on one side of the gym and the boys on the other. We would be taught how to... Continue Reading →
There was this huge Woolworths store on Lister gate in Nottingham, two floors, maybe three if I remember right, although the top floor was for staff. I worked there one summer, back in the seventies. I was a student, up a Ruskin college in Oxford. The grants were pretty decent then but I still needed... Continue Reading →
So last week we broke out of lockdown, headed out in glorious summer weather driving west towards the Shannon, top-down on the car, Leonard Cohen on the radio, next to no traffic on the roads and Ireland bathed in sunlight and looking as glamorous as it could possibly be. But there is a great sadness... Continue Reading →
It can get lonely during the lockdown. I was discussing this very subject with a spider that found its way into the bath. “Why,” I asked him, or possibly her – you just can’t tell, “why, of all the bathrooms in all the world have you chosen this one?” It wouldn’t answer. Just kind of... Continue Reading →
It is just perfect, perfectly appropriate, that this important 12th-century reliquary, an Irish Crucifixion plaque, should have been found, in of all places, an Irish potato field. But so it was. And according to the notes of the archaeologist who found it, it was in the year 1844. I check my notes. Yes, 1844. Just... Continue Reading →
It is just perfect, perfectly appropriate, that this important 12th-century reliquary, an Irish Crucifixion plaque, should have been found, in of all places, an Irish potato field. But so it was. And according to the notes of the archaeologist who found it, it was in the year 1844. I check my notes. Yes, 1844. Just... Continue Reading →
Gorgeous spring morning. Decided to take a late breakfast in the garden. Nothing special just a cup of tea, croissant, and a glass of orange juice. Relaxing, reading the morning paper on my tablet, musing on life under lockdown. It lasted but a half hour before I was driven inside by the incessant unremitting cacophony... Continue Reading →
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 