Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Third visit to the market
I missed this third visit, a dream visit, in yesterday's post. A bit vague, but it starts with my having bought two items from some sort of remote auction, maybe musical instruments, one of them maybe a set of drums, for about £125 and £5. Slightly uneasy about this as I do not play any instruments and may have left it a bit late to learn - particularly given my lack of talent in that department. Then on to the auction house with a friend (name withheld. Two aitches?). It turns out to be run by some young men with long lanky hair and in goth clothes, in some sort of open air next-to-the-arches scrap yard. The sort of thing you might find in Coldharbour Lane. The young man I talk to seems to think that the items I have boughts cost £25 and £5 rather than the £125 and £5 mentioned earlier. I don't like to correct him, particularly as I am a bit embarassed about admitting to spending that sort of money on this sort of thing in front of my friend. But the most striking feature of the dream was the young mens' fingernails. These were painted in a pale mauve, lilac maybe, with glitter, and shaped into a point. The shape of the blade of those pointed spades used in Ireland and on the Continent. With the point of each terminated by a small sharp blade, maybe a couple of millimetres long, growing out of the nail like a tooth.
Intrigued by a short item in today's DT. It seems that a formerly top lawyer has been set to jail for a year or so for racketeering. The racketeering in question was described as giving his clients backhanders. The intrigue being, why would a lawyer do that and how does it amount to racketeering? Or is it just yet another misprint in the DT?
Intrigued in a more solemn way by the case of the child who having started off with much talent, acquired a devastating condition which left him (let us say. It is the generality which interests, not the particular details of the particular case) blind, mute and more or less paralysed, but who nevertheless managed to live to be about 30. His parents appeared to have devoted those thirty years of their life to him, with the spin-off of having identified something which helps with the disease in question, if caught in the early stages, which in case of the their son, it was not. The intrigue here being, was doing all this the right thing? Would it have been better to have allowed the son to slip away much sooner? What about pushing rather than slipping? Is it right to use someone in a condition like this as a vehicle for the development of medicine? Is it right for parents to wreck their lives on the wreck of their son - as I imagine they have done in this case. One supposes that they still believe that they did the right thing - it being fairly dreadful to change your mind after such an event. Perhaps they would not have done had there been other children. (Presumably a Catholic believes that the soul of the dead child will arrive in heaven in good order and good condition, untainted by its bad deal in this world. John Donne, I suspect, might have been doubtful. He pondered in one sermon about the difficulty the Lord would have re-assembling his various parts on Judgement Day, some of which were scattered far and wide. A toe here, an arm there. Not to mention teeth, toe nails and hair clippings).
Intrigued by a short item in today's DT. It seems that a formerly top lawyer has been set to jail for a year or so for racketeering. The racketeering in question was described as giving his clients backhanders. The intrigue being, why would a lawyer do that and how does it amount to racketeering? Or is it just yet another misprint in the DT?
Intrigued in a more solemn way by the case of the child who having started off with much talent, acquired a devastating condition which left him (let us say. It is the generality which interests, not the particular details of the particular case) blind, mute and more or less paralysed, but who nevertheless managed to live to be about 30. His parents appeared to have devoted those thirty years of their life to him, with the spin-off of having identified something which helps with the disease in question, if caught in the early stages, which in case of the their son, it was not. The intrigue here being, was doing all this the right thing? Would it have been better to have allowed the son to slip away much sooner? What about pushing rather than slipping? Is it right to use someone in a condition like this as a vehicle for the development of medicine? Is it right for parents to wreck their lives on the wreck of their son - as I imagine they have done in this case. One supposes that they still believe that they did the right thing - it being fairly dreadful to change your mind after such an event. Perhaps they would not have done had there been other children. (Presumably a Catholic believes that the soul of the dead child will arrive in heaven in good order and good condition, untainted by its bad deal in this world. John Donne, I suspect, might have been doubtful. He pondered in one sermon about the difficulty the Lord would have re-assembling his various parts on Judgement Day, some of which were scattered far and wide. A toe here, an arm there. Not to mention teeth, toe nails and hair clippings).
# posted by Jim @ 12:45 AM 
