Monday, April 20, 2009
Miami Blank
Nige texts me to say his mind's blank and he's not even in Miami. This is a roundabout way of saying I can't think of anything to post about. Give me a clue, somebody, anybody.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Let me get this straight...
ReplyDeleteNige texts you with the message: "My mind is blank."
Furthermore, you then report this to us as hot news.
Jeez, and they accuse the yoof of being vacuous.
If you're at a loose end in Miami, why not recall some home comforts, with the paradox of the Taunton wicket, or catch up with some binge-drinking news over at my place.
Maybe it's all been said...
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the shower this morning, half listening to Thought For The Day, head full of nothing, ears full of soap, half-heard the phrase from Psalm 40 - 'He put a new song in my mouth'. Wondering, and this is all angels on a pin-head stuff, 'new to whom?'. Assuming mind of Almighty is infinite, what sort of infinity is it, for there many (probably too many to count)? Are the number of possible songs, even with our limited palette a numerable infinity. Has He heard it all before, or just not from us?
Discuss.
i was talking to a young journalist who's abandoning the profession to do TEFL abroad. He's probably late 20s, said how tough it is to break in if you're young and don't have connections, etc. i said i don't really know much about journalism, the only practising journos i know of & read regularly are you, Kurp, and Burleigh, which got the wonderful comment on yourself, something like: "Yeah but Appleyard's like God, he's on a totally different level to normal journalists."
ReplyDeleteDiscuss being God.
J G Ballard has died after a long illness. I enjoyed his most recent novels, especially Kingdom Come, but I would be interested in your assessment.
ReplyDeleteBut I still managed to post...
ReplyDeleteOh well, maybe you could write about what it feels like to be the only person in Miami wearing cowboy boots (if remotely true, er hem - maybe everyone does). I second the post about JG Ballard and I wonder what the psychology of the future feels like at the south end of Florida. Plus, of course, there is the small matter of that island with the cigar-chompers in charge only a few miles away ... where it would seem it's all about looking forward to the past. Maybe they have a point. Who kows.
ReplyDeleteYou're worried about Ballard's death when Stephen Hawking has been hied to the hospital? Which do you suppose has had the greater effect on our culture?
ReplyDeleteI had my students try to answer the question raised by the Templeton Foundation, "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" They didn't do nearly as well as Steven Pinker, Chris Hitchens, et al.
A daisy-chain of possible topics:
ReplyDelete1. Why spam filters suddenly cease to work in strange places2. Etymological implications of spam and Python - the open source programming language much used by Google. Michael Palin was happy with the first but almost called his lawyers when I broached the second. Yet when I'd mentioned to the inventor Guido van Rossum the week before that I knew Michael a little he was ecstatic. To be the man that blew that love affair apart would have been a sad moment even for my CV.
3. What Ian Hislop blurted out about Sarah Palin on Question Time in September - surely one of the best moments on telly last year.
4. How many people have had profound experiences of Jesus and the Holy Spirit as a teenager, as Hislop did, but would say that they have moved on as adults? A well-known BBC correspondent once told me at Parliament Hill that exactly the same happened to him. I've always had in mind forming an informal club for such ...
5. How did Parliament Hill get its name? Are our two Houses over the hill or is the "nailing of Balls" part of a benign (though painful sounding) purging?
6. "It takes balls to admit you're a eunuch." Best line in the funniest extract of Just A Minute brought out in honour of Clement Freud last week.
7. How would Sigmund feel about his dynasty merging with the Murdochs in the persons of Matthew and Elizabeth?
8. Who in the Murdoch empire knew about Athlete's connection with Ichthus as they cast around for examples of faith-fuelled singers like Susan Boyle?
9. Has Boyle single-handledly ended the global economic downturn, with our discussion of Jade Goody paving the way?
The last I find truly remarkable. Is someone upstairs taking the phrase Reality TV more seriously than anyone imagined possible?
Richard, you think too much and in far too lively a fashion. Here's a glass of water and a thorazine....
ReplyDeleteThe concept of a glass of water is known to me, thorazine isn't. Opting not to google it may show a stubborn streak.
ReplyDelete