Shirokumagô to nazono tori

I wrote the word 'BLOG' on a post-it note this morning. It is still there and I can't remember what it is to remind me of. We were talking about the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television at the time but I don't think that was it. It was something a little more off the wall, a bit of self-reference or a weird thought. It may return to me.

Sorry about the long break. I have actually just received my first non-spam unsolicited email to RdeWeyden@hotmail.com. It was from someone who I mentioned in a previous entry but who I do not know personally. I will spare you the name dropping so you will just have to guess who it is. One clue - 'Fred the cat'.

I have just started reading The Autobiography of Arthur Ransome and it is as compelling as any of the Swallows and Amazonsbooks. It came to light recently, that Mr Ransome was involved with British Intelligence during his time in Russia in the years after the Revolution which some people seem to have used as justification for not labelling him a traitor. I would have thought that his books were so well loved and that no hint of dis-respect was ever voiced but I seem to be wrong. It is clear right away from the beginning of the autobiography where the inspiration for the S&A books comes from though the blurb promises some suprising revelations on this subject. I will let you know if I remember. Oh that I could forget all the troubles of the world and be transported to 1930s Coniston. Of course with hindsight, you realise that everyone has WWII to go through within a few years of this, so nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. John Walker would be exactly the right age to be involved in the war as soon as it broke out and Roger would have been of an age by the end. All the inter-war idealism of everything from S&A to the Agatha Christie books is coloured, for us, by the storm of war which everyone was about to go through. I am beginning to think that Arthur Ransome should be ranked up with George Orwell but this is only because of this tinge of wartime angst which I get when I think of the 1930s.

My Uncle was a tail gunner in Halifaxes which I sometimes use as comfort that people did get through the war unscathed. My Father-in-Law lied about his age to join the Marines and was sent home from The Hood which of course is one of those 'what if' events. Cause and effect etc. I know now that you cannot evaluate the past using 'what ifs'. There is no such thing once the moment has gone. And of course with Quantum effects added in, everything possible happens anyway. Life is a consequence of Sum over Histories - an average of what could be and as you know, I think that is personal to you. Without a full recording of all possible states of matter at all possible times (with a frequency of 1/Minimum Quantum Time of course), history is gone and is indeed - bunk. Your Life at this moment is all that exists in any concrete way for your own mind.