Skeleton Architecture

Fake news infuriates me. I can understand a foreign power wanting to destabilise a nation with lies, but I cannot understand the people in power in that nation lying to the people who have elected them, whom they want the votes of in future. That slogan on the bus for Brexit? People believed it, and voted accordingly. And Boris Johnson keeps on telling the same lie again and again despite it being shown to be a lie. My father in law tells me that politicians lie - that is what we should expect of them. It is not what I expect. I expect politicians to tell the truth about what their intentions are and then to do their best to represent the people in their constituencies while following the basic ideas of their intentions. Sometimes changes will have to be made and that's fine, but to lie just to get power, that's despicable, and no one who does such a thing should be allowed to keep their office. There aren't just lies about the NHS millions though, there are so ma...

This started off as a ranting poem about Brexit, but even though I still firmly believe in my rant, it doesn't achieve anything, so instead I've made it personal and noted that we all of us have things we don't want to understand, and they will make us stuck.

I've been listening to talk about dress codes and sexual discrimination on Woman's Hour . It's taken me back to the years when I worked in offices. I tried to dress 'appropriately' but was constantly getting in trouble about my appearance. My hair was the wrong colour, my shoes were the wrong height, I wasn't allowed to wear trousers in court, I needed a tailored jacket, and so on and so on and so on. I once had a workplace appraisal (joy) wherein my line manager told me that I was scruffy and wouldn't be taken seriously. She was wearing a waistcoat so I chose to ignore her sartorial advice. It's incredibly difficult to find clothes that are deemed suitable for an office and which also fit chubby bodies... I suspect that it's actually the bodies that are deemed suspect.  Anyway, according to recent research discussed on Woman's Hour women, espeically young women are still being required to dress for other people's gaze, to wear high heel...

I'm clearly having a bit of a Spenserian stanza moment, because here's another one! You have already had The flame so bright  and Clematis dance , but I wanted to try it again for this poem inspired by something the Dalai Lama said: Judge your success on what you had to give up in order to get it. So the thing in my life that I have given up the most for is my children, my family. It's actually staggering how much I've given up when I try to itemise it, although high on the list was watching Columbo, and I guess I can learn to live with that. If you judge success by what you have to give up, then I suppose my children are my greatest success, so far. I'd best keep at it.  Children came I have forsaken acres wide of time. I've given up on sex and sleep and rest. I have quit smoking and I drink less wine. No longer am I someone of interest. I've given up on cosy sofa nests, abandoned spur of moment trips away. No clubbing now, no going dancin...

The prompt over at Mum Turned Mom  this week is Up . You might think that this would bring to mind pretty balloons, or that song the kids sing at school - Build Up (hooray for non-religious school songs), but the thing that was jumping about in my mind was that the people who stay up  at the top, do it not by standing on the shoulders of giants (raising each other up to greatness), but by climbing up on the shoulders of the weak and then making sure they stay weak. The Tory party's attacks on the poor and the disabled are one example, another is the constant stream of nastiness against immigrants. Then there's the dividing and conquering by pretending that there are sexuality, gender, class, and race dichotomies and trying to keep people in their fake boxes. Ugh.  So, here's my cheerful little poem about overthrowing the patriarchy. I'm sure it'll fit right in. The rule of the fathers Do you think they know not what they do seeking to tear out world...

I'm afraid I'm well behind the times with this one... so behind in fact that I thought briefly that I shouldn't bother saying anything. However, this book really bugged me. This is a book of short stories with the central theme of 'dangerous women', which is basically cobbled together in order to piggyback some other authors onto the current success of George RR Martin, who has one of his World of Ice and Fire novellas in here.  I got it because of the George RR Martin story, and I did enjoy some of the other authors. I welcome the chance to find new stuff to read (despite the length of my 'to read' list). I don't even mind that I don't like some of the stories, however, some of these stories are just shite. Some of the  women aren't dangerous ; they're barely even characters, and they drag an otherwise good book down. I've been through the stories so you don't have to. Some Desperado by Joe Abercrombie. A great Western s...

I'm being sarcastic. I don't love writing for free. I spend time doing research, crafting the right words, and trying to keep people entertained. The fact that I enjoy the work doesn't stop it being work, and does not make it worth less. I've moaned about it before, here . I do lots of writing that I don't share on the blog, here's a wee teaser from a recent poem. I've reintroduced ads on the blog because they seem to have improved since I last had them, and because I am not averse to making money. I also do other writing, which I don't share on here, but do attempt to make money with instead. I mentioned the other day that I follow the  Harper Collins Authonomy blog , the other day this featured a quote from Andrew Solomon (a writer, who also did this lovely TED talk ), himself quoting Rainer Maria Rilker (a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist): Rilke has written, “Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this tes...