Hanging on to life and hope

I see that my last three posts have all been about books, so this one had better not be. I did speculate about writing “People I’m Hoping Will Die Soonish,” but well, it might be in bad taste. This thought was inspired by two people. One was...

1
0

Eco-shopping and the Slipper Saga

Did I tell you about the Monthly Eco Baby-Steps Plan, by the way? Last month’s baby-step was “try to make sure I don’t overfill the kettle” which is indeed pretty baby. It’s also trickier than I’d realised, because a short person like myself doesn’t automatically...

1
0

Person of Beeston

I was very flattered a little while ago when a local artist I knew slightly said he wanted to paint my portrait. His name is Matthew Lyons, and I think it was during the pandemic that he decided to paint a varied series of local people,...

3
0

Democracy : a ponder

Someone I know asked whether, or to what extent, we do or should blame the people of Russia for the actions of Vladimir Putin. I had already been wondering about a post on the disadvantages of democracy. The obvious quote here is Churchill: “it has been said...

6
0

Being a feminist

Recently I had a fascinating discussion about feminism with a reader of this blog. He expressed the view that belief in feminism meant believing (doubtless among other things) that women should have the same opportunities as men. What are these opportunities, he wondered? Following the Lionesses’...

2
0

The story of a dolls’ house

Back in the 1930s, a Midlands solicitor and his wife commissioned the making of an expensive dolls’ house as a birthday present for their elder daughter Ursula. On the day, her father sent the child on an errand to the room where it had been...

2
0

How we battle climate change: a few ignorant questions

(Once again, apologies for lateness.) This week a fairly depressing and urgent IPCC report was issued  - see here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60984663) We can try to battle climate change by challenging the government and campaigning for better insulation, more wind farms etc. And/or we can try to battle climate change...

1
0

Snow, rain and language

It is or has been alleged that the Inuit people have a large number of words for snow, presumably different types of snow. I was going to write a post about how this theory is connected, if at all, to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as...

2
0

Ignorant musings on Ukraine

I was planning to get back to blogging, honest, but life has been busy. But here are a few thoughts about the topic on everyone's mind; they're not likely to be better than anyone else's. Practically speaking, it makes absolutely no difference how much I express...

2
0