July 7, 2014
A certain ghost walk guide here in Cornwall finishes his tours with an enigmatic proverb: A person often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it. This is the opening line in Jean de la Fontaine’s fable, The Horoscope. On the one hand it seems paradoxical to say that by departing from your destiny […]
July 4, 2014
We’ve arrived in Cornwall. Moving home can be arduous but before we left our landlord imparted some advice which I’ll share here. On the subject of deciding what I’ll do with my life now, he said, “conserve your energy. You don’t see animals running around like lunatics in the wild. They wouldn’t last five minutes. Wait for the […]
June 25, 2014
“The wonder of the worldThe beauty and the power,The shapes of things,Their colours, lights and shades,These I saw.Look ye also while life lasts.” These lines are tucked away at the beginning of Benji Davies’ beautiful children’s book, The Storm Whale. At first I thought it might be a quotation from a crow’s nest reverie in Moby Dick. In actual fact, these wise […]
June 24, 2014
Before he was sentenced to death by hemlock, Socrates rejected the court’s clemency because it was offered under the condition that he cease questioning the people of Athens. The philosopher responded that, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’. Many have considered the implications of this and the force with which the unexamined life should be rejected. One translation has it […]
June 21, 2014
As we’re about to leave Basingstoke after nearly seven happy years, it might be appropriate to mention Thomas Warton who was born on the site of Glebe Gardens, not far from here. Warton was poet laureate between 1785–1790. This sonnet is dedicated to the River Loddon, which, now culverted in places, is said to run below ground at the […]