Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

“Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides:
Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.”
Cordelia; King Lear Act 1 Scene 1

—William Shakespeare

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
  That mark our place; and in the sky
  The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
  Loved and were loved, and now we lie
      In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
  The torch; be yours to hold it high.
  If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
      In Flanders fields.

Seamus Heaney On Suffering, Self-healing, and Hope for a Great Sea Change

To mark Joe Biden's President-elect status, RTE put together a piece on his history and voiced by him reading an excerpt from the Seamus Heaney poem “The Cure at Troy” written in 1991 - his version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes written in the fifth century BC. 

As though Heaney wrote it for this exact time as we navigate a mighty sea-change.

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

“My mission is to seek beauty, find humour, and bring joy.”

As I spoke that aloud, I woke up.

It was as if a huge stone had rolled off my chest.

I had a mission statement!

Who knew, now that my hair’s turned white, to finally have a mission statement?  Let alone such a mission!

So simple, so delightful to fulfill. One that is not transactional; that does not include commodification. 

Your sea change has stimulated a sea change in me.

“Whither leads the voyage?

Today is the Tomorrow you Worried about Yesterday and All is Well
- attributed to Dale Carnegie

Seen on a wooden plaque repaired on BBC The Repair Shop

BBC iPlayer - The Repair Shop - 60-Minute Versions: Episode 19

Wood wizard Will Kirk repairs a hand-carved wooden plaque, the remarkable work of Carol Bolton’s father, in 1937 when he was just 12 years old

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0007znp/the-repair-shop-60minute-versions-episode-19

I did not know him before his rush to power, but
what I saw in him then was a man overhorsed by the glory
fate had handed him, riding by sheer force of will, knowing
he must be thrown sometime, and that it would hurt.

In my experience, men who find themselves in receipt of
unasked-for luck become either benign, believing themselves
unworthy, or dangerous, believing everyone else sees them as
unfit.

An excerpt from

Days of Kindness

In 1997, when I tutored on the Constitutional Law course at Liverpool Uni and was only ever a chapter of the book ahead of my students, the chapter on “Conventions” floored me. Coming from Germany, this way of securing democracy seemed positively insane.