Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 86

Middle of the Night Thought

I woke up with this couple of sentences running through my mind: "Dear Brother Bird at my birdbath, How often do I do anything for you? Yet I am paid every day by your beauty."

Gifts are where we find them, and if we're paying attention they're everywhere.

BP's Tony Hayward To Go

Yes, the man who is at the top of the responsibility pile for BP's oil spill will go, in October, to Russia to another job. Reports also suggest that he will get a pension of $1million a year from BP, his normal pay for this year, plus any bonuses the company distributes. Bonuses?? BONUSES!!?

Well, so he lost his job. So did an awful lot of Americans whose livelihood was destroyed by his actions or lack thereof. Some of them still haven't found another job.

But let us not mince words. The...

St. James's Day

I'm not a big fan of commemorating saints, but this one has an extra meaning for me. On this day in 1941 my father was shot down by the Germans, crashing into the sea off France. He was lucky to survive because not everyone on his plane did. He spent the next four years, more or less, in various prison camps, being starved. At the time he thought this was the unluckiest thing in the world, since all his chums were fighting fascism, getting promoted, doing good things, and he was stuck behind ...

Raccoons

We've all got stories about raccoons invading the house, being generally fearless, and destroying things.

The masked bandits have descended on my backyard several times recently, and have romped, scurried, feasted on the tomatoes, and so on. It's all rather picturesque, especially their wrestling matches. One night they killed something, with plenty in the way of ferocious sound effects, and left shreds of grayish fur behind. That was less pleasing.

But they are fearless. And just as we don't ...

Now I know

Seven years ago my best friend of thirty years was killed by religious fundamentalists. They threw him off a roof near the border with Iraq because unarmed news reporters are obviously satanic.

I now know what I would say to his murderers if I were to meet them.

I'd say: "Guess what? We're all going to heaven, anyway, every one of us. The only difference is that when we get there some of us will be delighted and some of us will be really, really, scared. Which do you think you will be? You...

Just Released

Just released, like a tiger from a cage, is 'Princes, Frogs and Ugly Sisters'. You'll find lots more about it on this site. The reviewers really enjoyed it, which gave me great pleasure. Tom Shippey, for example, who wrote the back cover endorsement, is an internationally recognized scholar of Grimm and of early folktales, as well as of J. R. Tolkein, so I was delighted to get his positive appreciation.

Well, enough about me and what other people think of me…..

Bastille Day

Every 14th July the French celebrate Bastille Day - more accurately the day on which the infamous prison of the Bastille was besieged, the prisoners released, and the building sacked. It marked the start of the French Revolution.

But please note Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity took a long and bloody detour before it became anything more than a rallying cry against oppression. In that time the entire ruling class of France was executed. Pol Pot got his inspiration from somewhere…..

So here's t...

Oil Spills and Alien Abductions

If I were a pelican, say, caught in the gulf oil spill, I'd probably go through a nightmare of poisons, and, if I'm lucky, be pulled out of the ocean by a volunteer, after a ghastly near death experience . I'd then be sprayed, cleaned, scrubbed, treated well, examined, tagged, turned upside down, contained, and finally — released in a different part of Florida.

And I bet I'd say, after all that, looking around a place I didn't know filled with pelicans I'd never met, 'I think I was just...

Cashback

The movie may not appeal to all of you, since it has some commercial comedy strewn around, but it delivers some surprisingly firm nudges about seeing and being seen, and what it all adds up to.

The plot is simple - an recently-dumped insomniac artist, filling in as a night shift worker at a supermarket, discovers he can stop time, and so he draws the beauty of those he sees around him, when he can really look at them. This slight framework of plot is made to carry some haunting ideas, as we w...

Anniversaries: What if….?

Today marks the 70th anniversary of General Charles De Gaulle's broadcast to France, from London, in which he urged the French people to continue resisting the Nazi invaders, even though their country had been over-run.

The French Battle fleet, hearing this, dithered. This forced the British fleet to sink the whole lot, fearing that those powerful battleships would be taken over by the Nazis. It was a slaughter, but done to prevent worse things in the future -specifically the blockading and s...