Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

I was on radio today. I go radio from time to time of course... but this time it was a chat show and it was on recycling. And i think Pa will enjoy this...so go to the 22/04/2009 . Although maybe he won't be able to hear this because it is on iPlayer and only UK gets iPlayer... But it was one of those shows which i did come out off thinking, i did well. And i know i did well because i enjoyed it. I also did nill prep, and managed to go in saying something mostly coherent. So i think i might be hitting my stride...bring on the 40s! It is tough getting old, it is. There's no doubt about it like. I'm just chatting with Anne here and she wanted the eulogy...so here it is...when i read it i want to add wee things to it. You know, funny things. Like the bit where she gave people money...and the telling off she'd get from my mom for doing it. Like we gave you £200 on Tuesday and it's all gone!!!! It's my money! Mama would say...and you couldn't argue with her, it w...

I don't normally put up such blurred photos, but these were some i took spontaneously on the way in from work. There's just outside the house and the fruit of some few hours in the autumn. Tulips and daffs all the way...the idea was to get the place looking like a wild woodland and it has worked. I thought the tulips would make it look rather silly, but this hasn't been the case at all. I'm a bit more encouraged and will spend a few more hours again next autumn doing even more to the garden. We are currently living in an entirely schizoid economic situation. In the south the government has decided that the tax and be damned approach will be the best one to take. Suddenly they have discovered their republican (with a small r) stripes. Lovely. good. I'm all for it. Except that it ain't those that should be taxed that are being taxed. It's the people who have long carried the burden which will be squeezed even more. Although it doesn't really affect us, bec...

There ain't nothin cuter than me, is there? (Yeeees, i think i'm allowed the license to be the uncynical, annoyingly adoring, pukifyingly doting mother in public, once in a while...) Ghin at the Crawford Gallery...this is his pooing face... He sees a truck... ...and a digger and cement mixer... At the dinner table...there were nine children altogether...it was a right menagerie... At the wildlife park - baby lemur and mummy... Humans and babies of various ages... Oisin does a pelican... ...and monkey This was Ghin just before he fell asleep and missed most of the wildlife park...lamas in the background, in case you were wondering. Swimming at the new health club. Bliss... We ended up in Cork over the Easter holidays. It was a long ol drive and Ghin was not having anything to do with the car seat. I remember in the good ol days when there was no such thing as a carseat, or indeed seat belts. People died less then. There were fewer deaths. I sometimes wonder if there is a relatio...

I should be preparing for tomorrow. For not being at work. But i want to blog instead. Today Ma gave me a review of the past week. The chiang chiang koon. The funeral it seems was very grand. Uncle Theodore came good in the end with it. He had ordered her a white coffin and she was transported in a stretch Volvo limo. P Diddy could not have done better. I jest, seriously, i do. Jac suggested that they all take a ride with the coffin, because i think she wanted to check out the jacuzzi, just in case there was one. My family and other clowns. Then there was the collection of the ashes. They all arrived and they found this box. Oh mama has come out already! they all exclaimed. Mama, said Uncle Gab, he affectionately greeted the box. Then they looked into the box and wondered why her bones were black. I don't exactly understand this bit - why would anyone check out the box? It's not like you can ID the bones of the people who have been cremated. They were perplexed. Then the man op...

I've just finished planting some peas and runner beans. The runner beans surprised me with their maroon and gold cases. They were so beautiful. They were like magic beans. As i planted them, i wondered why i was doing this. It was bizarre. For just a little more than a pound i could buy a whole punnet in Sainsbury's. Why was i doing this? To see if i could, i supposed would be the short answer. Because anyone can do it. Because it's fun. Because it's good for the kids. Because i want to see if i can do it. We went to Scrabo today. After staying in it's shadow for almost eight years, we finally went there. Myself and the boys. Nathan, Oisin and Ghin. It was a windy but bright day and the woods were bursting with spring. Wood anemones gazed up at us with their starry yellow eyes. Bluebells began peeking. Tiny violets studded the ground. Primroses still gathered in clusters. Sorrel, raspberry, mint, brambles, everything had come to life. The beech has begun to put out ...

Today i went into the study and Peter was in there with the boys. They were trying to set up the X Box, with no success, as usual. But in addition that that, they were also stepping all over my posters. My 20 year old posters which i had collected in my travels across Europe. A Norwegian version of the film poster In Bed with Madonna. A piece of calligraphy done for me by Ho Kah Leong. A sketch i did of an old friend. A pastel i drew of Garuda. His reason - I thought this room was filled with junk.

3am in an east Belfast suburb. Little houses in little gardens. Little people, all asleep in their little beds. Safe as houses? Or so they say. How do we create beauty out of a thing so harsh? I name thee too. Caliban. I call it my own. Mama died two days ago. Something inside also went. When someone you love dies, they take a part of you along with them. I can safely say that she was the first person whom i was close to who has passed on. When i first came here, it was the phone call i dreaded the most. Mama i gone. Instead, within two weeks it was Mama Queenstown who went. She went suddenly, heart failure. Because she looked so young and was so active it was hard to comprehend at first. It was the day of the St Stephen's Day storm. We went down to Kinnegoe Bay. I didn't know what to feel. Ten years later, i was at work when the phone call came. Jacq was on. Steph, ya Mama has gone. Why am i still crying? I never saw her, except for our yearly visits. Last year, she was like a...

I am aware that i live in a bubble. I don't know when it will burst, but it does feel think those walls, those transparent walls. I can tell you that the world is filled with people who are unable to think for themselves. Tell me what has changed between this year and two years ago. Nothing. Fundamentally nothing. Except that this year people have decided that the illusions that they dined out on last year were not good enough for this year. This year is the year we got real. What i don't understand is why could we not have gotten real in a more imaginative way? Why could the government not have said, look, we are securing the savings of people who have saved and beyond that we are going to put money into local communities, the switch over to a renewables based economy, we are going to put the fuckers who put us into this mess into jail... They cannot do this because firstly, they have no imagination. Just as bankers have to be greedy bastards in order to be bankers, bureaucrat...

The credit crunch is taking over everything now. For a generation of people who have not been used to the 'privations' we are facing, it's a terrible feeling. What? You mean we can't have everything that we want? You mean that we money doesn't solve everything? You mean that our unhappiness is going to be compounded by the lack of funds? I remember when we were growing up, my mother would reguarly say 'no' to us. No, you cannot have that chocolate. No we cannot get a new doll. No we do not need a new dress. No, you may not be a member of the Polo club. Now, apart from the last one, money was not the issue. The issue was that we learnt about limits. We learnt about limits and we lived within them. We were put out of course, but we did not NEED to have the thing that we wanted. And everything was driven by need. Being a postwar baby and the third in a family of eight my mother knew about needs. Sometimes they didn't even have what they needed. But it was o...

It was a really beautiful day. Sunshine, wall to wall. It made me feel all hopeful and energetic, despite the desperate financial situation we are all in. And i cleaned the entire house. After i blog i'm going to hoover and then fold the clothes. I plan to go running first thing, so i don't think this is going to be a blog of any length at all. But there'll be lots of nice pictures. I'm also going to update the school's blog today. So this one will have to end here. Sorry.

It's getting so busy now. We are in the middle of some branding training and i could really do without the time being wasted on it. It's not that i think that branding is silly - it's that we don't need to spend a whole two days doing it, not especially when we have the annual leave situation coming up. I'm missing my runs! After doing so well after two weeks we have a situation where i'm getting only two days in the last six...it's really driving me a bit bats. The G20 are meeting now. I don't know what they think they'll be able to do. Apart as from look at each other and say we really screwed it up guys...it seems pretty pointless meeting. Don't try and sort out the world if you haven't sorted the problem in your own backyard. Here are a group, of mostly men, who have worked away in government for the best part of their lives, who have probably contributed to the mindset which have gotten us into the state that we're in, attempting to ...