Too Bad

I feel bad about taking the opportunity to mock various fans of the Arsenal now their team are languishing at the foot of the Premiership. Unfortunately, I don't feel bad enough to stop myself. Hah! 

Mind Blowing - I Mean Really

Just finished Liu Cixin's Death's End. Got completely immersed in it, though I only vaguely understood the science. Whatever doubts I had about the first two volumes of Remembrance of Earth's Past - and there weren't many by the time I'd read The Dark Forest to its conclusion - were swept away by the final volume.

I suppose I should attempt to say something about the kind of reading experience offered by Death's End, but I honestly can't at this moment as it fried my brain. I'll just say that the sheer scale of the thing is awesome (and I mean awesome in terms of epic literature, not as in Mr Connor you are an awesome teacher (which I'm not)). Just when you think Mr Liu has reached the limit of reasonable imagination he takes you to the unimaginable - somehow made imaginable. Oh, I give up trying to explain. This is just glorious stuff, and I'll have to leave it there.

A Bit Extravagant

Came across this today in Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy: One supposeth himself to be a dog, cock, bear, horse, glass, butter, etc. He's detailing the symptoms of melancholy, more specifically Extravagant Humours. Difficult to think of anything more extravagant than a chap thinking of himself as butter, though it's the etc in the list I love. So many possibilities...

Wise Conservatism

As I mentioned the other day I find being intelligently contradicted in my basic assumptions very useful. It isn't necessarily the case that I abandon those assumptions, but when I hold to them it's usually with greater depth and nimbleness of thought - or, at least, I hope it is.

Generally I'd characterise my political leanings as being of the liberal if not outright leftish variety. So it's important to me to be exposed to those of the opposite leanings who've obviously thought their positions through in impressive detail. I'd classify Prof Ed Feser - whose philosophical writings I've long admired and benefitted from - as one of those thinkers. When he writes of contemporary American politics on his blog I think I can see his weaknesses, to be honest, though I'm a bit hesitant to say so given his cutting clarity when it comes to his critiques of those who don't share his way of thinking. But when he examines the best traditions of conservative thought he's unbeatable.

A recent post on Confucian thought is a case in point. His exposition of the Sage's ideas struck me as masterly and, as he argues, apposite to our own troubled times.

Mr Teh Tarik - 3

I've never been let down by the excellent teh tarik from the Muhammadan Stall at the market at 353 Clementi Avenue 2, and I wasn't let down this afternoon. Plus, the curry puffs they sell are well worth one's attention. Noi and I enjoyed a cuppa and a puff (or two) there after I'd attended the late session of Friday Prayers and I'm glad we did.

My only criticism: they don't serve the up-sized gajah version of the tea, but you can't have everything.

The End Of Something

I finished the last of the medicine prescribed by my back doc today. He thought it important that I finished the full round to ease the stiffness in my back that was still troubling me when I last saw him. It's been quite some time since I've felt any pain at all in my left leg, so it looks like the bout of sciatica is officially over. That's a sentence I'm delighted to write.

I'm now considering trying to get back to the gym, which I think is open again. But I guarantee a gentle start. I have enough memory of just how bad this recent bout felt to want to ensure I don't overdo things and suffer a recurrence.

The Big Sky

Thought I'd say a bit more about our jaunt to Jurong Lake Park earlier in the month, as well as posting another picture - this time of the girls with their long-suffering parents. Actually, the bit more I want to say is brief - it was a lovely afternoon with the kind of sky that's a sort of perfection in itself. Some more pictures above as evidence.

Something To Cheer For

Good to see the Tokyo Paralympics getting reasonable attention in the media on the opening day. But worrying that the first case of covid has already surfaced amongst the athletes. Some of these guys are more at risk than the average due to their underlying conditions, so hoping the protocols are firmly in place.

Just listening to the story of one of the equestrians in the US team, who lost both legs when she was just seventeen, in the suicide bombing at Brussels Airport in 2016, as outlined this evening on CNN, was a powerful reminder of just how much the participants in the games give us to cheer for - regardless of nationality. (Though, to be honest, I'll be cheering Team GB just that bit louder than the others. Hah!)

A Bit Of A Concern

I tried ringing brother-in-law John last Thursday, that being my sister, Maureen's, birthday. She's still in the home she was admitted to a few weeks back, and I already had a strong sense she was likely to stay in there from John's account of her dementia. Anyway, since I haven't got a number for the home, and I'm not exactly sure how Maureen might react to a direct call, I was calling John to get the latest on Maureen's health, and his own, and to find out whether the card we sent arrived on time, and how he would get it to her, given the fact that the restrictions resulting from Covid, and his own issues regarding mobility, meant that he couldn't actually visit her. In the event it turned out I couldn't get through to John that evening, or the next, or the next.

The odd thing was that I got a few answers to my calls, but they seemed to come from random strangers who generally didn't answer coherently as the line was bad or emphatically told me I had the wrong number. Another peculiar thing was that I rarely got the usual sound of the phone at the other end ringing. On the two or three occasions I did, the ringing was curtailed after 30 seconds or so and the familiar recorded voice told me something to the effect that the phone was not in use at that time. When I found someone to talk to at the other end it followed a period of silence once I'd dialled and the voice would abruptly break in (something that happened with John once or twice in earlier calls.)

This continued until yesterday. I wasn't particularly worried about not getting through, assuming there was something wrong with John's phone, or the whole system was wobbly. Of course, we felt some concern - which was mounting - but thought that if something really terrible had happened then someone would have got in touch. Then it occurred to me that I had Cheryl, my niece's, phone number somewhere and that it made sense to ring her to see if she could shed light on what was going on.

It turned out she could. John was hospitalised early in the month - I think just after the last time I phoned - with quite serious bleeding on the brain and a couple of other problems. He'd been put on oxygen for a time, but generally he's recovering. Fortunately Maureen isn't worried about not hearing from him as Cheryl and Caroline keep telling her she spoke to him just recently and Maureen happily accepts this, not being able to remember otherwise. Cheryl reckons that the sensible thing now would be for him to sell the house and buy a smaller property customised to his lack of mobility and that Louise could then look after him as a carer. This sounded good to me. It's a relief to know that the good sense of my nieces is likely to prevail eventually. It's a further relief that Cheryl clearly expects a full-ish recovery from John.

The only worry now relates to the phone calls. I told Cheryl about them and it occurred to both of us that since I was calling the land-line to the house the situation sounded a tad iffy. Has someone got in there for temporary occupation? Unlikely, I know, but not impossible, and it would explain some of the oddities of the calls. Cheryl suggested that it would be good for Louise to check the house and I heartily agreed. For some reason, probably irrational, I'm spooked on this one. But it's good to know that John and Maureen are in good hands over there.

The Fascination Of What's Difficult

I'm always happy to find myself contradicted in my ideas regarding just about anything, especially by thinkers for whom I have a good deal of respect. It's a great way to keep the brain juices flowing and prevent myself from falling into a lazy pontifical stupor - always a temptation for me where thinking is involved. Coming across the work and reputation of William Logan the other week provided a very useful jolt.

In recent years I've been happily promoting the virtues of a kind of relaxed democracy in the world of poetry, an attitude that somewhat precludes the bracing toughness of the Prof Logans and Geoffrey Hills of this world. I suspect these guys would treat at least some of the verse I admire with scorn and I find that both threatening and fascinating. 

Indeed, some of GH's wise words on difficulty in poetry have been quietly haunting my thoughts since 14 August: In my view difficult poetry is the most democratic, because you are doing your audience the honour of supposing they are intelligent human beings. So much of the populist poetry of today treats people as if they were fools. Isn't that fine? - But strangely suspect at the same time. What would Hill have regarded as populist poetry? Aye, there's the rub.