rain on the wind

Walking up Grafton Street, I stopped suddenly.
The thought struck me.
"My life is about to change," I said aloud. "What about my travelling woman? What about my homeless guy?"
The ghost of Karen Blixen appeared beside me.
"These are my Kikuyu," she murmured.
I looked at her.
"They're not ours, are they Karen?"
"No James," she said softly. "They're not ours.

heelers in wonderland

Drrrrrrrrring.

"Buongiorno."

"Hello. Is this the foreign language section of the Rome police?"

 "Yes."

"Do you have someone there who speaks English."

"No."

And they hung up..

in the valley of the gwangai

Dawn at the chateau.
The mighty Heelers stirs in his slumber. He seems an almost mythic figure in the half dark, like some magnificent mythical beast newly escaped from the pages of Norse or Greek mythology.
(That's quite enough myths. - Ed note.)
From somewhere in the real world, an alarm clock jingles.
The great jungle beast opens his eyes and swings his legs to the floor.
Another day begins.
Heelers notices another jungle beast also present.
Paddy Pup is sitting beside the bed watching his master intently.
Ireland's greatest living poet grunts and starts to get dressed.
"Why do you wear socks?" asks Paddy Pup conversationally.
"My feet aren't covered in hair like yours," answers Heelers.
There is a moment's silence.
"So why don't you wear a sock on your face?" wonders Paddy Pup.
My answer is unprintable.

well well well

Ould Staples.
Blooming CS Gas.
By these epithets I mean the writer CS Lewis.
Who would have thunk it?
After all this time I've finally been forced to read some of his work.
I'd steered clear of him at school because the Hitler Jugend at Oldbridge College used to like him.
Now just three years ago Padre Peter gave me a collection of his books for Christmas.
Not the Narnia rubbish.
Writings about Christianity.
It's only taken me three years to start reading them.
The Padre kept asking how far I'd got and my generalisations along the lines of "he's good isn't he?" were no longer enough to head him off.
And lo!
A completely new experience...
I've at last found a writer who is better than me.
I always say life is worth living bold readers, even at the worst of times, because if you keep going, life will repay you with wonder.
Normally I don't really expect to find this sort of wonderment in the arts.
Wonderment that makes life worth living.
Consider the accredited masters of English literature.
Shakespeare, Keats, Enid Blyton...
All very worthy but clearly none of them my equal.
I have voyaged so far in life.
What a gift to find one whose achievement I cannot touch.
When I contemplate ould Staples' Christian writings I just grin ruefully and shake my head.
Like finding fresh water after years in the desert.
I can never write like this.
It's such a relief not to have to try.
Someday he will be the first Anglican to be made a doctor of the Catholic church.