In Extra Time

Having one more day is quite handy, I suppose, as long it's not too much of a busy one. Then it can be a bit much. But it's always good to have a bit more time to live through, eh?

Still Rising

I wonder why Susan Cooper's The Grey King won the Newbury Medal in 1975. In case you don't know, the Newbury was (and probably still is) a pretty prestigious award in the world of children's fiction. I'm not implying that the fourth novel in her The Dark is Rising sequence didn't deserve the prize, but I would have thought the second titular novel would have been the more obvious contender simply because the later book is so strange - and so sort of grown up. Compellingly so, for me.

I'm getting close to the end and wishing I had time to finish it, but I don't want to rush. There's so much to enjoy in the quality of the prose. (I suppose that might explain the award, since I can't honestly describe the plot as gripping.) So it looks like the novel will accompany us on our journey north over an extended weekend break.

More anon. Probably.

Time To Spit Out

The main characteristic of my day at work? Having no time to spit out, as Mum would have said. In its way exciting, and time certainly passes quickly, having no choice. But I'm hoping tomorrow will see some let-up in the pace. I don't mind going with the flow, as long as it slows down.

On The Record

Greatly enjoying reading Pat Gilbert's highly informative, well written and fair-minded account of the only band that really matter (or used to, that is): Passion is a Fashion - The Real Story of The Clash. Never realised that Joe Strummer was actually some four years older than me, vaguely assuming that I was bit older than any of the punks of the late 70s. Now I realise they were very much my generation. It was just that I was in a small way respectable and they weren't.

Much as I admired (and still admire) The Clash I thought there were elements of iffiness in how they went about some things and the book confirms this, but brings with it the requisite understanding of what it's like to be in your early twenties and both inspired and silly at one and the same time. Thank goodness that no one would dream of writing anything about me at that age. Or any age, for that matter.

Still Counting

Just back from the gym where I found myself counting out time and numbers, in a similar manner to what I referenced a few days back. But I must say I'm less conscious than I used to be of measuring my progress. On the previous elliptical trainer - the one that eventually fell apart - I was always aware of the read-out related to calories used up and generally used that as the best measure of an individual work-out since it was an obvious constant. The odd thing is that when I had to switch to the 'other' elliptical trainer the new calorie count was considerably lower for the same sort of time & distance so I gave up bothering to take note of it. (The difference being something like 170 cals burnt in an hour versus 600 - 700 cals.)

But I decided recently to take note of a couple of key numbers to try and make sure I don't get overly relaxed in the course of my 60 minutes of punishment. These relate to distance travelled and calories burned and I actually wrote both numbers down in recording my efforts just now. Hope I don't get overly obsessed trying to out-perform myself - but a bit of obsessiveness could prove useful in its way. 

The Damage Done

Watched a couple of short documentaries on YouTube about fentanyl and the havoc it's wreaking in American cities. Depressing. Suppose I saw this coming with the death of Prince (the first time I'd heard of the stuff) when I picked up on just how strong it is in comparison to heroin, and how deadly. Can't understand why anyone would want to get involved with it, but have to accept the fact they do.

Now my YouTube feed seems flooded with stuff about the drug and other horrendous variations on it. (Tranq, anyone?) Not sure I want to watch further. Sort of overwhelming and inescapable. But most of what I've seen seems restricted to the Americas, so perhaps there's hope for other further places.

Foundational

Fabulously busy day, inclusive of a wonderful forty minutes or so of deep stillness during Friday Prayers. These days prayers at the masjid have a meditative quality for me that feels just right, simply appropriate somehow.

I suppose it was in line with this sense of being at the centre of things that got me thinking for a few minutes or so of Prof Ed Feser recent excellent post on the argument (for the existence of a divine being) from contingency. My own reversion to a theistic belief system didn't actually begin with consideration of logical argumentation to be honest, but in recent years I've become increasingly convinced of the validity of 'proofs' I'd sort of dismissed in my time at university as a student of the Philosophy of Religion, largely through the help of real thinkers like Prof Feser and their explication of the classic (and sadly disregarded) proofs.

Before I came away from prayers I'd decided to add deeper consideration of the fine details of the arguments offered by Ibn Sina, Aquinas and Leibniz to my reading for the Holy Month of Ramadhan. Looking forward to it, but I'll need to step up in terms of my capacity for hard, focused thought.

Suspending Judgement

Am uneasily aware that in the course of the day I expressed a couple of harsh judgements regarding folks who've crossed my path recently. They were genuine, honest, and reasonably considered judgements, but I need to remind myself that, for all that, they may be wrong-headed.

The first thing to do with a mind is to open it, as a wise man said. Actually, I wish I'd had the wit to say this, but I picked it up from Richard Williams's excellent blog over at thebluemovement.com, it being the final line in a particularly strong piece on the art and thought of Yoko Ono. 

I've pretty much always been entirely dismissive of her work. It looks like I might well have been wrong.

Keeping It Real

One very odd feature of my relationship with my smart phone is that I'm generally reluctant to leave home without it, something I thought could never happen to me before I was forced to use the thing by the exigencies of work (and life in general.) But this isn't because I can't do without the device, though not having it with me at work can be mildly problematic on some occasions. No, the reason I want it on my person is because it counts my steps and I like to check the data.

I realised this with even greater force than usual yesterday morning when I went off to work. I had taken the unusual step (for me) of charging the phone whilst I was drinking my routine milo and forgot it wasn't in my pocket when I went downstairs. Now on this particular morning I had a duty to do before getting to the staffroom which was to deliver an in-person wake-up call for some of our students boarding in a hall adjacent to my own. Before I reached the door of their hall I realised I didn't have the phone. So, no big deal, you might think. Just do the duty then pop back upstairs to pick up the phone before walking across to my desk.

But it was a significantly big deal. I spent almost a minute thinking hard about going to get the phone right away, which was in any practical terms quite unnecessary, since counting all my steps going up and down various stair cases as I roused the kids from their dogmatic slumbers just didn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. Fortunately I forced myself to behave sensibly and go about the business that needed to be done without undue fuss. But, even now, I irrationally miss those steps turning into real numbers, despite getting all the actual benefit of making this old body do some mild early morning exercise.

The numbers have somehow become more real than the actual steps, and this despite the fact that I don't exactly trust the processes through which the numbers are delivered to me.

People are strange. Especially me.

Me, Me, Me

As I astutely pointed out, a week or so ago, this Place is in sore need of more pictures. So I thought I'd provide a few culled over the last year. The common theme is that they features various versions of yours truly. But fortunately there are other luminaries involved to break the monotony of the egotistical sublime.