Category: Stories

Chibber at the Art Gallery

It was more a case of save your money for God’s sake than art for arts sake that I suggested to my good friend, Chibber, we explore an art gallery rather than paint the town red, white and blue in a drinking establishment. This was, of course, pre-covid days.

At first hesitant by my complicated and sophisticated reasoning, rolling my Rs and elongating my Es, I could see my brainwashing was working and he agreed to enter the Chamber of Magical Dreams. Think he thought he was going to Disneyland.
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A mystery in Hundred-acre Wood

I happened upon the trailer to ‘Christopher Robin’ the other day;  a film (as my reader knows) about the denizens of Ashdown Forest, just down the road from here – which I can see as I write.

So just imagine my mystification when I heard my little ursine friend speak! Wasn’t that a Transatlantic accent? Yes, of course, he is ‘spoken’ by Jim Cummings, who is Disney’s go-to voice for their animal animations.

But then, said I to m’self, said I: the Bear of Very Little Brain (and his friends) are well-known polyglots, talking to their readers all over the world. Even to Romans, in the 1960 best-seller. Salve, Pooh!

Cringe from the Fringe

I’ve got a job at the Water Company and it’s well boring.

My job at the Job Centre is OK but if I’m fired I’ll have to come in the next day to talk to my colleagues.

“Never Apologise! Never Explain!” – Sorry, that’s my motto.

I recently found out that I am genetically connected to a Native American tribe. The first thing I thought was “How?”

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/culture/50-best-jokes-edinburgh-fringe-2018/

Fake news?

Everybody’s fave airline (not), Ryanair, is having a Darwin , cancelling 50 flights a day, expected to total 2,000 before long. It claims it’s all about its holiday arrangements for pilots but interestingly, Norwegian (my fave!) has announced today that it has been poaching Ryanair’s pilots – to the tune of 140!

So who’s telling porkies here?

Meantime, guess who’s losing customers in droves and who’s first in line for new bookings!

Cordelia: A Short Story

It was love at first sight. The moment I set eyes on Cordelia I wanted her with a passion my wife neither understood nor forgave for years. Cordelia was resting on the mud, her distress obvious to me, yet her lines were classically beautiful. She had aged well, but neglect has taken its toll. She looked like a proud old lady who had fallen on hard times. She was, in fact, stronger than she appeared and cradled gently, she made the journey by road to her new home on the banks of the Thames.

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A good read

I frequent the English/American section of the local public library, which offers an apparently random selection of novels of every genre. And a couple of weeks ago I spotted this – not a name I recognised -and gave it a try.

The story reveals the complications arising from the young lives of two brothers brought up near Calcutta; one of whom moves to New England.

I particularly enjoyed the author’s insights into relationships, expressed fluently and never dull, each character revealing their take on the dramatic events they experience.

I’ll be looking out for Jhumpa’s other titles.

The fourth and fifth estates

Whether Thomas Carlyle or Edmund Burke should have the credit for the original use of the expression , the fourth estate, it is now used Stateside to refer to the ‘regular’ meeja, alongside the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. The fifth estate, which began life in the ’60s, is the new meeja: special interests, social media and of course you and me – the bloggers.

carlyle

Carlyle

Isn’t it interesting that President Trump seems to ignore the (no doubt already blurred) boundaries between the fourth and fifth, to the extent that this happened yesterday at a press meeting, as reported by the Grauniad?

‘Outlets seeking to gain entry whose requests were denied included the Guardian, the New York Times, Politico, CNN, BuzzFeed, the BBC, the Daily Mail and others. Conservative publications such as Breitbart News, the One America News Network and the Washington Times were allowed into the meeting, as well as TV networks CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. The Associated Press and Time were invited but boycotted the briefing.’

Does that infringe the First Amendment? Or does Trump’s idea of ‘fake news’ justify his actions?