Remember, Remember

Slide1 Slide2 3 1 2

November, what’s not to love? My mother, my brother and I have birthdays within 5 days of one another. The whole of the month just feels like one long jamboree. Having a birthday around Bonfire night is excellent. I get one whole week of fireworks which is of course my due, and quite frankly, if there isn’t a firework display going on when I come out of the station, I’m astonished 🙂 Just what’s needed by someone with an already over-inflated sense of self-importance! When I used to live in Battersea, I could see the fireworks from my 6th floor flat which was awesome. Now I’m in Chiswick, I get to see them from the comfort of my sofa. The pictures in this post are from that sofa. As you can see, I was too lazy to even open the window for a clearer shot, so blasé have I become about the whole hoo-ha. I’ve thrown in some pictures of nebulae because they’re what fireworks remind me of.

I started my celebrations by meeting my friend Katie and her son Devesh for lunch. Devesh is nearly 3 and has a brain the size of a planet. I sat there open-mouthed, watching him count to a zillion and reading his book. He combines this with being absolutely adorable. The sheer, raw computing power of the human brain never fails to amaze me. Watching a good one work in its natural habitat – absorbing everything it sees and processing it, is fascinating. There is the added boon of seeing it in a child; cleverness in a child is as natural for that child as breathing. They learn just for the sheer pleasure of it and haven’t become aware of  adult labelling and pigeon-holing yet. It reminded me of seeing my niece identify every colour under the sun at a similar age. Imagine my total lack of surprise at the fact that 16 years later, she’s at MIT. Please encourage the little ones around you to learn, our world needs their smarts. They don’t all have to be brainiacs either; they just have to do whatever they choose to do really well. The rest of us will owe you a debt of gratitude. Have a stardust-sprinkled weekend.

 

/by

Ode to Pasta

pasta with avocado3 1 2

I was going to write about All Saints Day but quickly realised that I could not better the William Walsham How hymn, ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’. I decided not to embarrass myself, or distress you with my pathetic efforts. As usual, inspiration came after a short nap. I was changing the display picture on my BBM app to that of a meal I had the last time I was in Italy and I thought, ‘Of course, an ode to pasta’. Long overdue, I don’t know why there isn’t one. I aim to rectify this sadly neglected branch of poetry. (Yes, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Bur bear with me, it’s Monday and we all need cheering up). I have composed not one, but two poems in praise of pasta.

I sing the gnocchi electric

O Tortelli, what ecstasy

I emanate when you I see

Once Penne held me with its charms

To Ziti I owe countless sighs

‘Twas Spaghetti while overseas

Now all three are nonentities

For you eclissare you see

Ti voglio Torti to a T

(with apologies to Louise.J.Walker and Walt Whitman)

 

Comparative eatology

Rice is nice

But Pasta is fasta

(with apologies to Ogden Nash)

AlaraApothecary, we supply all your poetic needs. Have a fab and groovy, carb-laden week.

/by

Fibonacci Mon Amour

39 4 5 6 7 z2 z z1 8

Today’s post is mostly pictorial. I was messing about putting images on our Pinterest page and I came across a picture of a spiral staircase and it hit me like a thunderclap. I realised that at the back of my mind I’ve been looking at the trees and the falling leaves  and the flight patterns of birds for the last couple of weeks and it’s like I’ve had an itch at the back of my mind. I’m a bit obsessed with trees anyway (don’t ask. But, really – are fractals amazing or what?) so I tend to ignore any tree-related madness on my part. I finally figured out that I’ve been trying to find the patterns in the things I see and of course, that reminded me of the wonderful Leornado Bonacci, aka Fibonacci. I don’t know what was in the water in Tuscany during the  later Middle Ages to the Renaissance but that area certainly produced more than its fair share of geniuses.

The Fibonacci sequence of numbers and the Golden Ratio is everywhere in nature, and I mean everywhere – pine cones, cauliflower heads, broccoli, ocean waves, cloud patterns, petals on flowers, leaf arrangements on plants, pineapples, hurricanes, galaxies, not to mention the family trees of honeybees and rabbits (I’m not making it up!) and the famous Nautilus shell. Of course as a Christian I think it is more apt to call it by its other name – the Divine Proportion. I’m not going to bang on about how beautiful it is, that is self-evident. This wonderful balance is what every decent designer is trying to achieve. For me, this is the acme of perfection – to steal a phrase, it feels like touching the face of God Himself. Look and marvel.

/by

The Power of Words

unnamedunnamedx

This is the post I was supposed to write yesterday. I had decided on a mostly pictorial post, featuring signs that make me laugh, and I had quite a few of them. In particular, the one about the US military’s identification chart always cracks me up. They have a blanket policy of denying the existence of any new military craft until they have no choice but to tell the truth ; par for the course for any security-minded government. However, as I was thinking about that, the post took on a darker tone  as I ruminated on the more harmful lies we’ve been told by our leaders in all sectors of society– business, military, governmental, and my light-hearted pictorial post became a polemical rant about the venality and mendacity of those in positions of power and trust. Earlier that day, I’d been reading Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. If you are not familiar with it, I’m quoting it here now:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

It is one of the most amazing speeches of all time. Every time I read it, I get goosebumps. Four minutes long, and he actually says he doesn’t think anyone will remember his words. Abe, if only you knew. These are the speeches that make mankind follow leaders even to the gates of Hades. Words can be deployed as a weapon, for good or for bad and yet, as I was getting into full rant-mode, I felt a check in my spirit and I cancelled the post.

Today’s main story in the papers was about Tony Blair apologising for, and admitting culpability for his part in the mess the Middle East and a substantial part of the Arab world has become. Two simple words 12 years later, ‘I’m sorry.’ Of course that does not make up for the nightmare that has ensued, and it’s pretty cold comfort for the bereaved, the maimed, and the refugees.  Does he mean it or is he just trying to save himself? I’m not sure it matters that much. The words themselves won’t fix what has been broken. And yet, and yet. We all do terrible things and have them done to us. The acts that we find hardest to forgive are those where the culprit shows no remorse, where they think they can bluff their way out of trouble because we’re too stupid to believe the evidence of our own eyes. I guess I’m going to try and use my words carefully, at least until I get carried away again…..

To leave you in the light-hearted spirit I had intended, Craig Brown writes an occasional series of columns imagining 21st century responses of the Twitterati et al to past events. My favourite is one in response to Martin Luther King’s equally astonishing ‘I have a dream’ speech. I bring you Tony from Basildon’s response:

‘We all have a dream, mate. But you don’t hear us going on and on about it’

Comedy gold. Apologies to all Basildonians; blame Craig Brown, not me. Have a fabulous and inspired week.

/by

Joie de Vivre

4 1 2 3

I met a friend earlier today as I was walking through my local park and she had her son with her. Or rather, her son was one mile ahead of her trundling happily along, pushing his trike. Looking at him and the other children in the park, I was astonished to see how wonderful their skin looked. You know how you know  that young children have amazing skin on some level, but you don’t really tend to notice it. Once in a while it really strikes you though- beautiful, clear skin and eyes; it’s wonderful to behold. And of course I thought to myself – ‘If you could formulate a lotion to replicate that, oh my’ (Yes, I am working on it–patience!)

Then I started thinking about how happy all those children were, despite the miserable, rainy, overcast day. And I started wondering about when we lose that capacity for joy. I’m all about the joy, even my name is all about the joy (Thanks,Mater. Excellent choice 🙂 ) I started thinking about my nephew who will never walk if he can skip, and will never skip if he can run, and how he will then pass out at night and sleep the soundest sleep ever. I remember how I would never walk down stairs as a child but would always jump from landing to landing, and of course slide down bannisters where possible. It’s a miracle I survived without breaking any bones. Another thing that makes me marvel is how children can be happy anywhere. No matter how poor or affluent their surroundings, as long as they are left alone to mess around, they’ll be happy. It’s incredible.

I encourage you all to embrace your inner child at least once this week. Splash in a puddle, have a twirl in the street even if people are looking, do a little shimmy as you wait at the bus stop. And if you can’t afford one of our creams this week, buy a child an ice-cream and we’ll be just as happy at AlaraApothecary. No, it doesn’t matter that it’s getting colder. In fact, have an ice-cream yourself.

/by