Wednesday, October 22, 2008
FIL
I thought I had acquired a shiny new factlet from FIL yesterday, very much in tune with our on-going love affair with red lentils. He claimed that red lentils came packed in balls, about the size of a small melon. Rather in the way of, say, pomegranite seeds or brazil nuts. This sounded rather fun. But, sadly, Wikipedia knows better. It seems to think that a lentil plant is like a small pea plant with the lentils growing in pods, two or three to the pod. The picture looks very like the chick peas I got a year or so by planting some chick peas from Balham in the allotment. It also seems to think that a good proportion of those for sale come from Saskatchewan. I hope they have some machine for threshing them or someone is going to be a very long time at filling the kilo bags I get from Mr S.
A propos of various other matters, I have been reminded recently that there are lots of things it is better not to know. Which reminds me in turn of the exchange recorded in chapter 49 of 'Seven Pillars of Wisom'. Lawrence, one Auda Abu Tayi (well cast in the famous film by David Lean) and others were gazing at the clear night sky of Arabia with Lawrence's army binoculars, presumably a toy of quality. They were gazing with wonder at all the stars which could not be seen with the naked eye. Auda was rather puzzled as to the point of bringing all these stars into view. And he says: "Why are you Westerners always wanting all? Behind our few stars we can see God, who is not behind your millions. ... Lads, we know our districts, our camels, our women. The excess and the glory are to God. If the end of wisdom is to add star to star our foolishness is pleasing". A peice of homespun - perhaps fake homespun given that Lawrence spins a good yarn - which has stuck with me over the years - and given the date of the quote - perhaps 1916 - we can perhaps forgive the order in which he mentions the things which are important to him. But stuck with me without much effect, as I have always been one myself to add star to star.
Back at the compost heap the mouse hunting season is going well, with the count now standing at eight. Perhaps one for every two settings of the two traps. The thing is, are we having any effect on the population in the compost heap or anywhere else? Are we just doing the culling which would have happened naturally, organically as they say, over the next few winter months?
And I was pleased to see a review in the TLS by A N Wilson of a book about Dostoevsky by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The reviewer actually did the author the courtesy of reviewing the book, maybe even reading it, in addition to grandstanding his own views. He also claimed that the Archbishop brought special insight, as a religious, into the important religious element in Dostoevsky's writings. And pointed out that as well as writing novels, D held some fairly unpleasant views and wrote some fairly unpleasant journalism - and these not just being the product of intemperate and impecunious youth. He did it all the way through. Whether all this will propell me to having a second attempt at the nice copy of 'The Idiot' I got hold of a year or so ago remains to be seen. I have found him rather heavy going in the past and the pending pile of books on the bedside locker is already rather high. And BH was not sure that Archbishops ought to have time to write learned tomes when their church was falling apart.
A propos of various other matters, I have been reminded recently that there are lots of things it is better not to know. Which reminds me in turn of the exchange recorded in chapter 49 of 'Seven Pillars of Wisom'. Lawrence, one Auda Abu Tayi (well cast in the famous film by David Lean) and others were gazing at the clear night sky of Arabia with Lawrence's army binoculars, presumably a toy of quality. They were gazing with wonder at all the stars which could not be seen with the naked eye. Auda was rather puzzled as to the point of bringing all these stars into view. And he says: "Why are you Westerners always wanting all? Behind our few stars we can see God, who is not behind your millions. ... Lads, we know our districts, our camels, our women. The excess and the glory are to God. If the end of wisdom is to add star to star our foolishness is pleasing". A peice of homespun - perhaps fake homespun given that Lawrence spins a good yarn - which has stuck with me over the years - and given the date of the quote - perhaps 1916 - we can perhaps forgive the order in which he mentions the things which are important to him. But stuck with me without much effect, as I have always been one myself to add star to star.
Back at the compost heap the mouse hunting season is going well, with the count now standing at eight. Perhaps one for every two settings of the two traps. The thing is, are we having any effect on the population in the compost heap or anywhere else? Are we just doing the culling which would have happened naturally, organically as they say, over the next few winter months?
And I was pleased to see a review in the TLS by A N Wilson of a book about Dostoevsky by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The reviewer actually did the author the courtesy of reviewing the book, maybe even reading it, in addition to grandstanding his own views. He also claimed that the Archbishop brought special insight, as a religious, into the important religious element in Dostoevsky's writings. And pointed out that as well as writing novels, D held some fairly unpleasant views and wrote some fairly unpleasant journalism - and these not just being the product of intemperate and impecunious youth. He did it all the way through. Whether all this will propell me to having a second attempt at the nice copy of 'The Idiot' I got hold of a year or so ago remains to be seen. I have found him rather heavy going in the past and the pending pile of books on the bedside locker is already rather high. And BH was not sure that Archbishops ought to have time to write learned tomes when their church was falling apart.
# posted by Jim @ 7:50 AM 
