Line of Fire

I'm out of London now.

On the day of the bombs I looked out of the window to see if people were behaving better. I imagined they would all have seen what their real priorities were. I thought that a great shock like that would have made a great difference. But I looked out and they were still avoiding each other's gaze. They were still pretending not to notice each other.

On the way out of London yesterday it was the same. By now I was feeling that this was worse than any killings and explosions - the possibility that great loss of life, everywhere, immediate and instant, had made no difference at all. That the cages we all live in were so strong that nothing could break the bars down.

Then at Canary Wharf (a big target) I saw them. People who had changed. A few. They have to work there. They have to be in that building all day, afraid that it could be their day to have their picture in the news. Now they were friendly. They were glad to see me, and glad to get through each minute and hour safely. I looked in their eyes and saw souls looking back at me. In this kind of crisis, there was nowhere to rest the mask, there were no masks to fit the job, so all masks fell to the ground. These people didn't feel safe, they didn't feel at peace, but they were reaching out and now they were part of something wider. They weren't alone any more.

So I felt better myself.

Song

"In the songs of the jackdaw each and all of the different cries peculiar to the species are constantly reiterated. All the call-notes [...] are reproduced in the song, and that includes the "Kia" and "Kiaw" cries, "zicking" and "yipping" and even the sharp rattle normally used in defence of a comrade. In all other birds that I know, sounds with a "meaning" are not used in the song at all, or, at the most, they occur only singly. But the song of free-living jackdaws consists almost entirely of such sounds! And the unique part of it is that the singer accompanies the individual cries with the corresponding gestures. When rattling he bends forward and quivers with his wings, just as in a genuine rattling reaction; when "zicking" or "yipping" he assumes the appropriate threatening attitude. In other words he behaves exactly as a human being who becomes so engrossed in the recitation of a ballad that the individual passages awaken corresponding feelings and emotions and automatically evoke the appropriate gestures. To my human ear, these "song-sounds" are in no way distinguishable from those which are meant in earnest. How often have I rushed, in alarm, to the window, hearing a loud rattling and thinking a marauder had one of my birds in his clutches, only to find that a loudly reciting jackdaw had made a fool of me. But never have I seen a real jackdaw taken in, in that way. This is a constant source of wonderment to me, considering the blind, reflex-like nature of the reaction which follows on the rattling of a fellow-member of the species in cases of emergency. It is this significance of the individual sounds and still more the touching expressiveness of the accompanying gestures that make the jackdaw's song so enchanting to one who understands its emotional movements and sounds. How delightful are these little black fellows, repeating with elation their ballads, in which are conjured up pictures of all the exciting experiences pertaining to the life of a jackdaw!"

KING SOLOMON'S RING - New Light on Animal Ways
Konrad Z. Lorenz (Translation: Marjorie Kerr Wilson, 1952)
Chapter Eleven: The Perennial Retainers

Do you know what is important now?

Did you hear what happened here? Look at the news.

I just wanted you to know that you can only control the things that you can control. But those things, you really do have control of them.

Some events are great and wide and directed at a larger whole than just you or your circle. If you could fight them, you would know what to do.

So you know what to do. Do the things you can do. Mend what you can mend. Then if we all do that, each little pool of light will touch the edges of the next one.

It is a little bit distracting. I might say more later.

Love from Philip

Sitemap

There are so many websites now that it is quite a task for Google to crawl through all of them to update its search results. That's why you can now submit your site information using Google Sitemaps - in our case here, just an XML file that lists each page of www.dreme.co.uk together with some basic information like how often the page is updated, and how important each page is relative to the rest of the site. Easy! Simple folk can do it using an online sitemap generator from which you can download the XML file, and upload it to your server. Keep track of its progress in Google by signing up for your own account with them. It doesn't cost anything. Now when you update your site Google will know about it FAST. Better than the four weeks or whatever it was when you first submitted your details! Technically more experienced people are probably aware of more sophisticated ways of submitting to Sitemaps, so I won't mention any more! (These are useful if you are regularly adding a lot of new pages to your site.)

A smile, here or there...

I made one person smile yesterday. It's one, but I think more would be better. What are you thinking - the others were all dialling for the police in terror as I tried to tickle them with my feather duster? I do try to fit in a bit more than that. I am just another face in the crowd normally. But that face!

Please make someone smile soon if you can. It will be much appreciated in all sorts of ways by all sorts of people. Thanks.

Weather Matters

From my Polish phrasebook:

cloud chmura
fog mgła
frost mróz
ice lód
lightning błyskawica
moon księzyc
rain deszcz
sky niebo
snow śnieg
star gwiazda
sun słońce
thunder grzmot
thunderstorm burza
wind wiatr

To me this is the material for an incredibly exciting conversation which I heartily look forward to having!

[pronunciation help: ł = "w" / ó = "oo" / ę = a nasal "e(n)" sound / ś = "sh" / ń = a bit like "ny"]

What's New?

I got my Friedman music in the post. That's Ignaz Friedman, and if you don't know who that is I don't know if I want to tell you - you should!

Was yesterday such a long time ago? Did all the truths we learnt then suddenly fade away? So why does it feel a bit strange to be getting Friedman in the post?

And I didn't tell you what I need it for!

Fashion is not all it's cracked up to be. You can buy the latest car, and you will have...a car. It is a vehicle for getting you somewhere. Once a car was called by its longer name - a carriage - and it had a horse or horses in front. It did the same job.

And the old faces that passed by mirrors now stained, broken or lost, are they suddenly useless?

But he who loveliness within

Hath found, all outward loathes,

For he who color loves, and skin,

Loves but their oldest clothes.

John Donne (1572-1631)