Bryan Islip's Blog, page 23
May 18, 2013
Some personal politics
Oh, that UKIP man! Here's some controversy for you, Nigel. Scotland is and always has been a nation separate from England despite its sellout to London by such a tiny minority in 1707.
Ever hear of 'the auld alliance'? Scotland is historically closer to France and Europe than to England; much closer than England has been to France and Europe. Therefore I hope to see Scotland regaining its independence and then becoming a small but active member of the European Union.
I am English by birth* and proud to be so, historically if not contemporarily, for 'my' England is right now very much of an endangered entity. I am Scottish by adoption and equally proud to be so. I think that makes me proud to be British, Nigel. Is that racist? In the politically confused and confusing times orchestrated by a confused and confusing Westminster post WW2, who the hell knows?
Being British I am always well disposed to the eccentric. So entertaining. But I would not register my vote for an ecentric. I have no wish to be governed by one, nor have I any wish to be governed by the ramshackle collection of nonentities currently occupying those expensively marbelled halls so very close in all ways to the parasitic City of London.
When the time comes I will vote for Holyrood and I will vote for Brussells.
*p.s. I don't know from where you originate, Mr Farage? But for interest only I can point out that King Edward the Confessor was born some 1050 years ago in the village of Islip in Oxfordshire, and there has been an Islip chapel in Westmister Abbey for some 600 years (since John Islip, Abbot, completed its construction.)
Ever hear of 'the auld alliance'? Scotland is historically closer to France and Europe than to England; much closer than England has been to France and Europe. Therefore I hope to see Scotland regaining its independence and then becoming a small but active member of the European Union.
I am English by birth* and proud to be so, historically if not contemporarily, for 'my' England is right now very much of an endangered entity. I am Scottish by adoption and equally proud to be so. I think that makes me proud to be British, Nigel. Is that racist? In the politically confused and confusing times orchestrated by a confused and confusing Westminster post WW2, who the hell knows?
Being British I am always well disposed to the eccentric. So entertaining. But I would not register my vote for an ecentric. I have no wish to be governed by one, nor have I any wish to be governed by the ramshackle collection of nonentities currently occupying those expensively marbelled halls so very close in all ways to the parasitic City of London.
When the time comes I will vote for Holyrood and I will vote for Brussells.
*p.s. I don't know from where you originate, Mr Farage? But for interest only I can point out that King Edward the Confessor was born some 1050 years ago in the village of Islip in Oxfordshire, and there has been an Islip chapel in Westmister Abbey for some 600 years (since John Islip, Abbot, completed its construction.)
May 12, 2013
And now what, doctor?
Six months ago Delia's year-long backbone agony was finally diagnosed as grade 4 lymphoma. It was, as I blogged at the time, as if one had walked to the local shop for a loaf of bread only to turn the corner and be confronted by an eight foot grizzly bear. Her chances of survival? With cheotherapy 30-50%, they said. Without chemotherapy, zero percent.
We went for the chemo. I'm not going to go here into the pros and cons of chemotherapy. Suffice it to say that it was the only possible doorway out of a very dark room. And suffice it to say that it has proven to be so aggressive on body and soul as to make one wonder, oftentimes, about its overall value. And it has left my wife with a current legacy of spinal deformation and internal malfunction. Both of them treatable? We so fervently hope so..
Dark days indeed, but made lighter, made sometimes even brilliant by such wonderful levels of local and distant kindness as I, myself, have never before encountered, nor ever would have thought existed. And believe me, I have lived through so much of human suffering within my own family circle.
But anyway now the chemo effects are easing off as the poison gradually exits her body at least Dee can occasionally don one of her lovely wigs, make up her face as of yore, dress herself up in summery loose clothing and take a ride with me on one or other of my sales drives around the remote shops of this lovely Wester-Ross.
Tomorrow we drive the 80 miles to Inverness' Raigmore Hospital in order to be told the results of her latest (PET) scan. Has the chemotherapy done its stuff? If so what next? If not, what next?
Perhaps the worst of answers? No answers. We shall see...
We went for the chemo. I'm not going to go here into the pros and cons of chemotherapy. Suffice it to say that it was the only possible doorway out of a very dark room. And suffice it to say that it has proven to be so aggressive on body and soul as to make one wonder, oftentimes, about its overall value. And it has left my wife with a current legacy of spinal deformation and internal malfunction. Both of them treatable? We so fervently hope so..
Dark days indeed, but made lighter, made sometimes even brilliant by such wonderful levels of local and distant kindness as I, myself, have never before encountered, nor ever would have thought existed. And believe me, I have lived through so much of human suffering within my own family circle.
But anyway now the chemo effects are easing off as the poison gradually exits her body at least Dee can occasionally don one of her lovely wigs, make up her face as of yore, dress herself up in summery loose clothing and take a ride with me on one or other of my sales drives around the remote shops of this lovely Wester-Ross.
Tomorrow we drive the 80 miles to Inverness' Raigmore Hospital in order to be told the results of her latest (PET) scan. Has the chemotherapy done its stuff? If so what next? If not, what next?
Perhaps the worst of answers? No answers. We shall see...
May 9, 2013
One Winter's Night
Yes I've blogged this oil painting before. So why again? Because it has proven the most popular of the series of twelve oils on canvas for my Unique Scottish Highlands Picturebook Calendar 2014, the vast majority of which are already sold into the shops.
This is the December painting and the verse reads ...
This
Winter world around Loch Ewe lies, still,
and
glorious the sky these north lights bring
then
you can feel the ages in these hills,
the
birth, the re-birth of all living things.
so
you just know this earth is living, too.
she
breathes; each breath a turning season long;
although
in ways unknown to me and you
she
hears and shares the rhythm of life's song.
but
yet how strong, how long north winds can blow,
(whilst
winter snows cloak those old Torridons,)
and
sometimes raging seas down sea lochs flow
through
long dark nights when little comfort comes.
It
matters not! how perfect our world is,
how
sweet her blessing, soft her bedtime kiss.
I've created a brand new www.picturesandpoems.co.uk website with the help of the guys in 'Inverness On-Line'. Have a look?
April 24, 2013
Hope
"Thus ends the Winter of our discontent ..." (Shakespeare Richard the Third -I think!)
Yes, for the first time since September last Dee came out of the house for reasons other than yet one more trip to Raigmore Hospital. We went to Poolewe to visit Alison's market and then to Gairloch for lunch at Donald's The Shieling. And she even popped in to say hello on the way home to Connie and Mike at their Bridge Cafe.
Dee's sister Gloria and brother-in-Law Peter are with us this week, so have witnessed a truly remarkable change.
Of course we do not delude ourtselves. We are not by any means out of the wood. Grade four lymphoma does not that easily surrender, and on Monday next we have a trip down to Aberdeen's Hospital in order for her to have a nuclear scan. Hopefully that will tell us all about the condition of her spine. Hopefully all the tumours have been zapped. Hopefully the specialists at Raigmore can get to work on some spinal re-construction. Hopefully life can be how it was, normal service nicely resumed ... Hopefully.
April 21, 2013
How Great I Am (or not)
For the six weeks past I've been doing the rounds of Highlands shops selling in my new season cards and calendars, booklets etc. And each Saturday since Easter (and for one more Saturday to come) I have been in attendance at The Beauly Gallery. Cherry Ambrose's gallery has recently been relocated into The Square in Beauly, which is a lovely village twelve miles northwest of Inverness.
I view my own efforts at sales promotion with very mixed feelings. On the one hand it's good to meet and chat to so many friends and strangers across Wester-Ross and the north, on the other I would rather sell anything or anybody's work than my own. Having spent a normal career dashing around from pillar to post (UK to Europe to the Middle East to America) marketing millions of dollars worth of the industrial packaging of a multinational producer, you wouldn't think a few little cards and so on would present any difficulty. Yet I find it almost abhorrent to stand there extolling my own cleverness. For How Great Thou Art read How Great I am. Horrible.
But self-praise is these days just the way of the world. Reading some of the author web-sites and the blurbs that you know have been self-written on the back covers of novels you would be forgiven for thinking the author is some sort of cross between Austen and Shakespeare. Yet neither of the latter seems to have been particularly aware of their own genius. Or if they were, they never revealed such a knowledge. Let the works speak for themselves seems to have been the order of their day/s. That mantra now would consign them to the dustbin.
I blame THE MEDIA. Modern TV in particular is used so often simply as a gateway into the marbled halls of celebrity via a regime of toothy self-glorification, all traces of personal ordinariness or negativity carefully airbrushed out.
Well, if you can't beat 'em it's best to join 'em. So stop moaning, put on your sales hat, up and at 'em, Bryan Islip! If you're not a clebrity you can at least celebrate yourself, abhorrent to you as that may be.
I view my own efforts at sales promotion with very mixed feelings. On the one hand it's good to meet and chat to so many friends and strangers across Wester-Ross and the north, on the other I would rather sell anything or anybody's work than my own. Having spent a normal career dashing around from pillar to post (UK to Europe to the Middle East to America) marketing millions of dollars worth of the industrial packaging of a multinational producer, you wouldn't think a few little cards and so on would present any difficulty. Yet I find it almost abhorrent to stand there extolling my own cleverness. For How Great Thou Art read How Great I am. Horrible.
But self-praise is these days just the way of the world. Reading some of the author web-sites and the blurbs that you know have been self-written on the back covers of novels you would be forgiven for thinking the author is some sort of cross between Austen and Shakespeare. Yet neither of the latter seems to have been particularly aware of their own genius. Or if they were, they never revealed such a knowledge. Let the works speak for themselves seems to have been the order of their day/s. That mantra now would consign them to the dustbin.
I blame THE MEDIA. Modern TV in particular is used so often simply as a gateway into the marbled halls of celebrity via a regime of toothy self-glorification, all traces of personal ordinariness or negativity carefully airbrushed out.
Well, if you can't beat 'em it's best to join 'em. So stop moaning, put on your sales hat, up and at 'em, Bryan Islip! If you're not a clebrity you can at least celebrate yourself, abhorrent to you as that may be.
April 16, 2013
No unlovely world
'Don't make with the negative waves,' said the on-screen actor in Kelly's Heroes. This morning I woke up with two very different bees buzzing around in my bonnet. Maybe later today I'll let them out, allow them to fly through cyber space but right now I want to show you the sight that met my eyes as I opened the bedroom curtains ... lowering skies and companion seas. But Isle Ewe and Aultbea Pier just pure bands of gold. In spite of all the media fuelled terrorism, in spite of yesterday's withering hand of our once beloved National Health Service, this is still a wondrous place. I mean the world at large, give or take away you and I and all the rest.
April 9, 2013
A toast in the night
This is a casual conversation between myself and my Saudi 'sponsor' as best I remember the words from back in 1999, or thereabouts. It is night time. The half moon and a myriad of stars sparkle on a coal black Arabian Gulf. Hot, hot, humid. We walk side by side along the beach, bare footed in warm sand, glasses in hand. Behind us is the Sheik's well illuminated house, some would say mansion, complete with servants preparing the feast to come.
Him: You know, Bryan, we loved your Mrs Thatcher.
Me: Is that right? Not everyone at home loved her. Any special reason?
Him: Oh yes. She kindly handed your inheritance to us and to many others of what you call the developing world.
Me (puzzled\): How's that then?
Him: Your industrial base, or revolution; she had no understanding of how and why it created your traditional wealth, therefore no desire to protect it. Her female mind as well as her upbringing was that of a shopkeeper. A good one. In this she was misled by her her friends, many of them of Israeli persuasion, in the City of London. And so every time she and those who come after her closed one of your factories, we opened one. This is why she is loved by us. He stops, turns to me, glass raised. For that reason I think we should drink our toast to your ex Prime Minister.
Him: You know, Bryan, we loved your Mrs Thatcher.
Me: Is that right? Not everyone at home loved her. Any special reason?
Him: Oh yes. She kindly handed your inheritance to us and to many others of what you call the developing world.
Me (puzzled\): How's that then?
Him: Your industrial base, or revolution; she had no understanding of how and why it created your traditional wealth, therefore no desire to protect it. Her female mind as well as her upbringing was that of a shopkeeper. A good one. In this she was misled by her her friends, many of them of Israeli persuasion, in the City of London. And so every time she and those who come after her closed one of your factories, we opened one. This is why she is loved by us. He stops, turns to me, glass raised. For that reason I think we should drink our toast to your ex Prime Minister.
April 7, 2013
Three small oils
These three small paintings, oil on canvas c 30 x 25 cm, were today hung in Connie and Mike's Bridge Cafe and Gallery, Poolewe. The paintings wrap around the edges so need no frames, in the contemporary style.
The top one is called Sun through evening cloud, Gairloch. The figure is shown standing in front of the viewpoint plaque.
In the middle is Ardessie Falls (near Dundonnell) and the bottom painting is another one entitled Little lochan with rhodedendrons. (Third painting of this subject, including one for the month of April in my 2014 calendar.)
Each of these is priced at £130.
I now have original paintings hanging in The Old Inn, Gairloch, The Shieling Restaurant also in Gairloch, The Bridge Cafe and Gallery, Poolewe, The Beauly Gallery, and the Loch Torridon Community Centre and Gallery.
Tomorrow the Royal Academy, Green Park W1, then The Guggenheim and The Louvre (I wish. Joking!!!)
April 6, 2013
April showers (of snow)
Snow in April. 07.00 this morning from an upstairs window.
Pretty. Pretty cold, too. Must remember to feed the birds extra large rations... North winds shall blow (but not now, not here)/ And we shall have snow / And what will the robin do then, poor thing / He'll hide his head under his wing, poor thing. Or something like that, as I remember it from my childhood.
April 5, 2013
The reckless fires of hell
If I've been a bit quiet of late. I've been packing my cards, calendars, prints etc then driving around the Highlands selling them into the shops. Painful pleasure. Pain because it's hard work done to necessary seasonal deadlines. Pleasure because I enjoy meeting and, as they say up here, blathering with my customer friends this once or twice yearly. A lot of the talk has been about the heath fires that have been ravaging the hills these last few weeks.
I see the flames and the clouds of smoke from miles and miles away. I smell the destruction. I sense the panic of the newly nesting birds and the myriads of insects for whom the heather tangle is home - or was.
I stopped yesterday to talk to one of many fire and police workers. He'd had to spend many of his official hours (our paid for hours) and many more of his own hours trying to ensure some control of the out of control. If the fires get into the peat apparently they can burn away for ages and pop up later anywhere. I will not repeat here the words he used except his comment; "I don't know why these crofters want to burn the hills every year and neither do they, exccept it's about their sheep money. Maybe there's a bit of the fire-raiser child in all of them - or us?"
Me, I see the practice of heather burning exactly as I see the guy who wants to deface the Mona Lisa. Because it's there. Because it's beautiful and he is not. Because he thinks of himself as the son of God, ordained to manage all around.
Sad that Man should ever think he is ordained to manage the mighty rest of Nature when he has yet to learn letter A of the alphabet of how to manage himself! Witness his wars and their self-imposed suffering, witness his assault on the whole of planet Earth and its life forms, and even here, even now, his reckless, feckless despoilation by fire and fence of the beautiful Highlands of Scotland.
Shame on you.
I see the flames and the clouds of smoke from miles and miles away. I smell the destruction. I sense the panic of the newly nesting birds and the myriads of insects for whom the heather tangle is home - or was.
I stopped yesterday to talk to one of many fire and police workers. He'd had to spend many of his official hours (our paid for hours) and many more of his own hours trying to ensure some control of the out of control. If the fires get into the peat apparently they can burn away for ages and pop up later anywhere. I will not repeat here the words he used except his comment; "I don't know why these crofters want to burn the hills every year and neither do they, exccept it's about their sheep money. Maybe there's a bit of the fire-raiser child in all of them - or us?"
Me, I see the practice of heather burning exactly as I see the guy who wants to deface the Mona Lisa. Because it's there. Because it's beautiful and he is not. Because he thinks of himself as the son of God, ordained to manage all around.
Sad that Man should ever think he is ordained to manage the mighty rest of Nature when he has yet to learn letter A of the alphabet of how to manage himself! Witness his wars and their self-imposed suffering, witness his assault on the whole of planet Earth and its life forms, and even here, even now, his reckless, feckless despoilation by fire and fence of the beautiful Highlands of Scotland.
Shame on you.
