I don’t know why they call amphetamines ‘speed’.

There are many ways people slow down and the chronic use of speed is one of them. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a compliment I direct towards my closest friends. I call them ‘dag‘.

Now ‘dag‘ is an Australian term referring to a piece of poo left hanging from a sheep’s bottom when caught up in the wool of their tail.

Hardly an endearing term for one’s friends?

Well, ‘dag’ has had many transitions. Read the rest of this entry »

I was a kid in the 60s, and I remember a big glossy red square with a love heart on it and a man in the middle of the heart which seemed to be looking at me.

Those eyes had a great honesty, no walls. He has a quiet feel to him, almost a shyness. When he looked at me off that glossy cover, he didn’t take from me, or give to me, he was just ‘being’ in his own space. it was a marvellous thing to have a friend like this, even if he was only ever a picture. Read the rest of this entry »

 We all have had that experience where we know someone but just can’t remember where we know them from. Face Blindness is like this except it happens all the time, even with people you know really really well. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently attended a reunion for my father’s mother’s side of the family (my paternal grandmother). Around a hundred people were present and as I circulated around the room, I was very struck by the warmth, realness and smiley nature of those present (and the distinctly self-owning more solitary nature of others).
I found in fact that many of the folks present were poets, writers, artists, musicians. Read the rest of this entry »

As a spiritual person, I found it quite shocking when my equally spiritual husband showed me an article titled ‘Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minority’ which appeared in a website for a US university (University of Minnesota). The article refered to a study of 2,000 households across the US in which interviewees saw atheists as ‘self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good’ and ‘that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common core of values that make them trustworthy—and in America, that core has historically been religious’. Read the rest of this entry »

  I recently read an essay by a writer friend (and self confessed ‘ex sociopath’), Jeanette Purkis, who was talking about a cycle of poverty in which those born poor stay poor. Whilst this is often so, what intrigued me was that she was specifically referring to those born to families who disrespected education, authority and the law as though this was synonymous with ‘the poor’. Read the rest of this entry »

The public person is a strange beast. Who on earth would want to be out there for all and sundry to goggle and criticise? Is the public person always self confident? A narcissist? An exhibitionist? An opportunist seeking to sell something? Read the rest of this entry »

We went to visit an old friend on the weekend. He’d be diagnosed with coeliac 12 months ago in his 50s and had been through lots of health complications (including being told to increase bran!) before finding out. Read the rest of this entry »