Category: Community
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Is there a place for honour in this House ?
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So the UK’s Coalition Government of the last five years is now behind us and we are in the process of choosing its replacement. A frantic election campaign has begun, and in fact began ages back, much of it conducted at the lowest possible level by people trained in hitting low. There is a mix…
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What’s a “Carer” ?
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Each of us surely wants to be acknowledged as a “caring” person, even while so much that is uncaring is happening all round us – perpetrated presumably by aliens. The Head Rude-boy of Blingland has presided over changes in the Benefit system that disgrace us all, even while they continue sufficiently popular with his constituency…
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Rule by Rude Boy ?
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What has been the effect upon UK citizens of the behaviour we have witnessed during the past few days, as negotiations over the planned televised debates between our political leaders appear to have reached their climax ? For me, the way Cameron/his Party/his hooligan Press have conducted themselves has been utterly astonishing. Obviously the Tory…
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Wrestling with my Shadow
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My shadow dogs my path. It dwarfs me, this daemon, this desolate god. Could I live shadow-free ? Would I fly ? What would be left of me ? Here are some more thoughts on the shadow : First Sightings I can say this with real pride : no one but…
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I and Thou and Charlie
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In the early 1990’s, I wrote a series of poems called “I hyphen Thou”. The poems explored the image of the hyphen and were suggested by a book by the philosopher/theologian Martin Buber called “I and Thou.” The idea of the hyphen is an old favourite of mine. In fact I run a small charity…
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Let the bird of paradise speak loud from his cage
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I want to recite to camera a long poem, originally by John Skelton. And I want to do so from the top of the Tyndale Monument, a tall tower on a hill near Bristol. William Tyndale and Skelton both lived in the reign of Henry VIIIth but they have more than that in common. The…
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The sky is cloudy, the coast is nothing clear. Is there anything we should be doing ?
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I was contacted recently by a friend and colleague now retired. She was an NHS mental health worker, who gave her all for years flat out, feelingly and wisely. Now she paces and grieves. Here is a slightly abridged version of what she wrote : “I have met with several ex-colleagues recently. On Saturday I…
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I See Everywhere the False
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I see everywhere the false, the masked, the sleek and hollow, the bought and the creatured. Their words twist the wind tug at my mind and steal from me the hymns of my life the sacred. True words die the moment they pass between these creatures’ teeth. Humanity is on the…