Pulling Focus

 I stopped reading newspapers last November. I made the resolution and haven't broken it yet. I think I'm better informed as a result.

Once in a while if I'm in a shop that sells the ruddy things I'll scan the the headlines and think "disinformation and distraction"- and sometimes when I'm on the Net I'll click on a link that takes me to a newspaper site and read something that has nothing to do with what passes for current affairs- but that's all. 

When you don't read newspapers it's as if you've twiddled a knob and the objects that occupy the foreground- prime ministers and presidents and celebs- go all blurry and the objects behind them- principalities and powers and angelic hierarchies- emerge in much sharper focus

Repeating Myself

 I don't like to repeat myself and was a little put out to find I'd used the image of the telescope before- and in the same context (see last post).

I have a lot of elderly friends and acquaintances- and with many of them I know what they're going to say before they say it. I'd hate to think I was similarly predictable.

At least I've worked a variation. Last time I had the important things in the foreground and the trivia in the background. Both versions work but I think the second is more logical and therefore an improvement...

Neighbours, Everybody Needs Good Neighbours...

 We got to speak- for the first time- to our neighbour on the left hand side. She's a widow woman with (her description) a "grumpy" middle-aged son and she told us things about our other neighbours that we hadn't known. The property at the back of our garden belongs to another widow woman with two middle-aged sons- possibly grumpy and possibly not- while the neighbours on our right-hand side- who we've always found perfectly agreeable- are to be "avoided' because they're "unfriendly" and he has a conviction for GBH. Good grief!

She also gave us an account of the people who lived in this house before us that flatly contradicts what we were told by a previous informant. So who to believe? Who indeed...

A number of our neighbours have dogs. There was one of them barking up a storm yesterday evening. Eventually the others joined in. Part way through the palaver we heard a hoarse female voice at full stretch yell, "Shut your fucking dog up!" It had no effect. We think the dog's owners must have locked it out in the garden while they went off site and it was asking to be let back in...