New paintings and regular art updates.
Something in my brain ‘dings’
I remember how the song ‘sings’
Music has a way of sticking
Notes together, metronome ticking.
Sound comes back as mouth opens
Words come out, with the vocals
Songs from months or years ago
We remember how they go!
From some dark corner of my mind..
My vocal chords my brain reminds
The timing, tempo, notes and all..
Into a pattern they all fall
My joy as memory keeps going
And music, memories it keeps sowing…
Do you remember life before the internet?
I do remember, but it’s a long time ago. I even remember the time before PC’s. I can remember seeing them at school just before I left. Obviously there were computers before that but they were massive things with rotating discs of tape, or before that mechanical calculators that could be used to work out enemy codes for combating attacks in war.
I think the “Internet” was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. I’m not sure exactly when, but he came up with the idea of the “World Wide Net”. The idea of a Web of knowledge was often talked about in science fiction stories as I was growing up. Computers had strange names like “multivac”? They would become sentient over time and would decide to take over how humans ran the world, realising the damage we were doing. Often only being foiled in their plans by some ingenious human.
I guess what they were talking about fifty or sixty years ago is what could come from ChatGPT now. And the Internet, which could be seen as a huge web of synapses, might allow that spark of genius to ignite.
Would the Internet have emotions? Or would it rather be senseless as it has no way really to experience them. So many questions that have been investigated in the old style of science fiction stories. Not the “cowboys in space” sort, but old fashioned storytelling by people like Issac Asimov, or Arthur C. Clarke, or others of their era. Literature may have some answers for us.
I remember the time before the Internet. It was good to do adventurous things, and we had to learn things from books. Sometimes it was very boring. But I do remember the moon landings. So exciting!
What personal belongings do you hold most dear?
My wedding ring holds mom’s in place. Her hands must have been bigger than mine, hers would fall off without it. My ring is cheap, soft gold. I bought it myself for £27 from a jewellery store when we were getting married. Mom’s wedding ring is heavier and I’m sure higher quality. It’s slowly wearing mine away as they have rubbed against each other for about ten years. It was her bequest to me when she died, and every time I look at it I am reminded of the strong supportive woman she was. She allowed me to go to college when she could have insisted that I found a job. She helped me with my spelling when I was younger (I was in a low stream at school because I couldn’t see properly). They tested my eyes and I got glasses, mom helped me catch up by helping me with spelling. 100 words at a time! I got put up into the top stream at school. Mom encouraged my artistic endeavours. She would even show people my drawings.
She raised me and my siblings after our father died and went out and did two jobs to support us. She learnt to drive so she could transport us to places. She even took us out to Chinese meals and taught us how to use chopsticks. So many good and odd memories! She raised us to be polite and thoughtful. I am forever in her debt.
We had lots of aqualegias and tulips, geraniums, and alliums. The photos just popped up on my Facebook page. I forgot how much the trees have grown up in the intervening years. We are cutting some of the branches back, to let more light in. The photos were a bit blurred but it was good to see them. Gardening is a lovely pastime. When you get results like this it makes the work worthwhile.
List the people you admire and look to for advice…
Issac Asimov, three laws of robotics
Carl Sagan, pale blue dot, astronomer and scientist
Noel Fitzpatrick, exceptional veterinary surgeon
Marie Curie, discovered Polonium and Radium
Sir Patrick Moore, famous amateur astronomer,
Sir Oliver Lodge, invented the spark plug
Dr Jane Goodall, primatologist
Rosamund Franklin, jointly discovered DNA, British Chemist
David Attenborough, naturalist, broadcaster and environmentalist
Chris Packham, Environmentalist and broadcaster
Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, discovered Pulsars
Mary Anning, discovered fossils.
Albert Einstein, General and Special theories of relativity.
Richard Feynman, American physicist. Wrote ‘Surely you’re joking Mr Feynman’ and other books.
Is that a long enough list? I like to try and understand basic science, I don’t know enough, but I try and get some understanding. I think Asimov got me thinking about science at an early age. He not only wrote science fiction, but books about chemistry and other sciences. So I found out about the early chemist’s, physicists and astronomers. By reading his books they introduced me to Carl Sagan, who wrote books such as Cosmos.
At the same time I used to (and still do) watch ‘The sky at night’ on TV. So I learnt a bit about astronomy, but also about people like Jocelyn Bell-Burnell who discovered pulsars, and other scientists including Issac Newton.
David Attenborough introduced me to gorilla’s, in his TV programme ‘life on earth’ and so I heard about Jane Goodall and her work with primates.
Finally in the 1970’s there was a TV series that dramatised the lives of Marie and Pierre Curie. Having read about her in Asimov books it was fascinating to see what she had been doing in the early twentieth century.
It’s a random list, but it helps me explain my interests…
View into a courtyard
What was a conservatory
Glass gone
Now open to the sky…
What happened?
Age and decay
Piled up over time
Timber rotted
And fallen.
But space preserved
Repurposed
Made good
New life
In old building
This was an experiment using photoshop from 2002. It’s actually a woman’s profile. And goodness knows what filter I used for it. I like finding ols things. It makes me remember I’ve been doing things like this for twenty years!
Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
I was visiting friends at their new house about 40 miles away and I got lost. My hubby doesn’t like asking for directions so we struggled. I could not find where the place was and I’d forgotten to bring the A to Z map, (before satnav which I still don’t have). After a couple of miles of confusion I pulled over to ask a random stranger. I had moved up from that county years ago and I remembered how helpful they are.
Oh yes dear, said the old man, I know where it is. You go down the road past the speedway track (that’s where I met my wife you know), turn left onto the main road past the church (oh we got married there). Right at the roundabout (where I took my driving test), left at the football ground (my team, I’ve supported them for years). Then it’s second on the left (you can’t miss it, the trees are in blossom down there), and you’re at the street…..
After that long conversation we found my friends house easily. I was happy we had stopped. It reminded me of the type of people in that area, always friendly and talkative, engaging and funny. It was a positive encounter.
Flowers in a wreath seen on a bench last year? Was it a memorial to someone who had passed. Remembering a share time together looking at a view…. I wonder.
The bench itself is in good condition, the wood is starting to go green and will need to be replaces one day. I had a bench and the slats rotted. I went out and bought new slats but never found someone to put it back together again. I guess benches and people are similar. If they aren’t looked after they have a tendency to fall apart!
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
I’m not sure when I decided I wanted to be Robin Hood but I was a small child and I used to make bows and arrows out of the mock orange bushes in the garden. The twigs are springy and bent well without breaking, you could also use the straight twigs as arrows. I got quite good at firing them at little targets in the garden.
I guess it all started when I used to watch Robin Hood a programme on the TV starting Richard Green I think. I used to sing along with the theme tune. I also loved the Hollywood films with Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Junior playing Robin.
I wasn’t really interested in Maid Marion, she had to get Robin to help her escape when the Sherriff of Nottingham captured her. Or she was always doing embroidery or weaving… Boring! I didn’t want to be a boy, but my father used to encourage me to do woodwork and I loved climbing trees. I was good at sport and running when I was young, but I grew out of it and it wasn’t until I got into cycling while I was at college that I got fit again because I cycled everywhere.
So yes, I’d like to have been Robin Hood because there were no exciting female role models except for maybe Emma Peel in the Avengers… That’s another possibility…
Mallaband-Brown