Lord Smartphone

PLEASE BUY MY BOOK.  It is a collection of short stories, some of them very short, but all of them page turners, or such was my aim.   Talky Tin - which stars our fierce Saudi cat, Whites - is very short indeed, and is also anthologised in Kaleidoscope.

Advert over, so I can get to the main subject of the blog, as I want to say that I hope I never meet the inventor of the smartphone, Lord Smartphone, or whoever he may be.  The thing is driving me mad. It suddenly told me that all the messages I had recently sent had not been sent. So I found a resend button and resent. It seemed to have sent them, but then the next day, it told me it hadn't.  Maybe it was invented by Lord Spitephone?

Then I found a little airplane at the top and it turned out I was in something I didn't even know existed - Airplane Mode...   When I think of the effectiveness and simplicity of the old horse-drawn phone and the system of phone boxes...  and I started to worry about Dr.Who and his phone box Tardis. How would that work as a mobile? Then I remembered it was actually a Police Box!  (Not that you see any of them about now, nor any Policemen.)

But would Lord Toosmartforhisowngood have cared?  

Or maybe its just that I am Lady Notsmartenough-forherphone?

Poor Col had a terrible day on Thursday - huddled up in blankets and hot water bottles, coughing, and dozing (when he could) in front of the telly. I attended the meeting in Zoom, only venturing one very short comment, as I didn't want all the coughing plus the machine gun fire from whatever terrible war or James Bond movie he was coughing in front of to get through my headphones into the meeting. By the way, why do the villains always waste so many of their bullets on Bond? Surely they know by now that they can't kill him?

The Captain is much better this weekend, but now I am going down with the cold - sore throat and slight coughing.

There was a laser light show on The Green on Saturday night. It was probably quite noisy but the design of our flat is so good - the living rooms, kitchen/dining/lounge face Green and sea, and the bedrooms face to the front, to the road, which, in our sleepy seaside town, is usually quiet at night.

The remnants of Storm Nelson were still blowing the balcony geraniums about on Friday.  I ventured out onto the balcony to finish my Memorial Bible reading, and to do the Watchtower study, but had to retreat after about 20 minutes - it was too blowy  Lovely though, wonderful waves - the sea was both roaring and sparkling with sunshine.  The sound of the sea is surely the sound of eternity. A wonderful sound that makes me think of the time when the whole earth will be the paradise it was always meant to be.

One of the things I imagine myself doing is lying on cliffs above a beach - a Cornish style beach of my childhood - listening to the sounds of the endless waves. I am watching a warm gentle sunset,  knowing I have unnumbered sunsets ahead of me - and not one of them will be the same.  The variety and the immensity of Jehovah's creation is beyond comprehension.

Storm Nelson

Storm Nelson has been blowing all day.  The poor Captain is down with a terrible cold - so has been home all day wrapped in a blanket, with me bringing him hot water bottles and hot drinks. I will be attending the meeting in Zoom this evening.

My car is still sick - and has necessitated a lot of complex phone calls today - poor Col coughing away. The previous garage who seem to have replaced a part they should not have are going to refund some of what they charged us.  Col's car is in trouble too - a broken window (don't ask) - that he is hoping to be able to fix himself.

The News is so awful - so awful -  that it seems almost wrong to blog about anything else sometimes.  Children are suffering so much - the children in Gaza, in the Ukraine, and those here at the (un)mercy of bad parents, our "care" system, and our secretive family courts.

Surely the truth of the Bible's warnings about "the world" - the current wicked system of things on the earth - should be more evident by the day?

On a very minor note, us Fantastic Books authors have had a couple of Zoom Sessions recently, trying to find ways to publicise and sell our books. It is not easy. Fantastic gave my book "Waiting For Gordo" such a fabulous cover that I know it would fly off the shelves in an airport bookshop - fly, ha! - by virtue of cover alone. But, alas, it is only the Megaliths of publishing firms that can afford to get their books in there.

We are all grateful to Fantastic Dan for publishing us - we all enjoy writing. And it is lovely having people enjoy what we have written.  Like when I make cakes - my only other creative endeavour at the moment - I enjoy the process of making them and knowing that others enjoy them.  

The Memorial and the associated Bible readings, which I have not finished yet, have set me thinking about how, in my Catholic youth, we used to take the bread at what we called "holy communion", but never the wine. Only the priest got that.  I never remember any of us questioning it. I certainly didn't. And in any case the answer would probably have been the usual "It's a mystery".

At the last Passover supper, "as they continued eating, Jesus took a loaf, and after saying a blessing, he broke it, and giving it to the disciples, he said: “Take, eat. This means my body.” And taking a cup, he offered thanks and gave it to them, saying: “Drink out of it, all of you for this means my ‘blood of the covenant,’which is to be poured out in behalf of many for forgiveness of sins." - Matthew 26:26.27

I don't take either now, which I hope to explain in another blog. But surely if you take the emblems, it should be both, not just one of them?

Michael Blencowe Redux

If Michael Blencowe comes to a venue near you, do go and hear him. Or if you are local, sign up for one of his walks.  You will learn so much while being entertained.  I have already praised his wonderful "GONE" in previous blogs, but here is another heads-up for it.  I wish everyone would read it out of respect for the beautiful creatures we have so callously wiped out.  He brings them back vividly, and in the face of the sadness, entertainingly, in that he keeps you reading.  Maybe we will get them all back when the earth is under the loving rule of the Kingdom of God?

I hope we will all be there to find out.

This is Michael's website:   https://michaelblencowe.com/

The anti-depressants I was put on came with a warning: "People say they give them nightmares, so don't take it just before bed".  I followed the advice, but also prayed to Jehovah that I would not have any nightmares, because when I was a child, I used to have terrible ones and do not want them back.   So when a nightmare situation promptly started up in a dream I tried to give a Kingdom witness to the threatening person. And, as they were not interested (a common experience, alas), the bad dream melted away along with them.

The tablets obviously affect specific areas of the mind as I have had repeated dreams - barely remembered - about the home of my childhood, which appears as 5 Disraeli Crescent in my books. I must point out again that I am not taking anti-depressants because I am depressed - I am not, not in the Clinical sense - but because they may help with one of the very painful manifestations of arthritis. It works for some apparently.

Thursday was my last night on the tablets, and yet again 5 Disraeli turned up, in circumstances which could have been nightmare-ish.

In the dream, I was walking through its dark cellars, up the steps to the cellar door, to the house which turned out to be locked. Spoiler alert: It is where my long short story "Till They Dropped" ends back in space and time, in the dark cellars of Disraeli Crescent.  This story ends the collection in "The Umbrellas of Hamelin".

So the potential for a nightmare was there. But the dream door was so flimsy I could kick it open. And when I found that it had been boarded up, the boarding turned out to be cardboard - also easily kicked through. So I got back home, and was not trapped in the dark cellar.  For which I thank Jehovah profoundly, although I also don't want to be presumptuous and think that He is carefully monitoring my dreams, as if I was so important...  

But I can't overstate how much Jehovah cares for us through his congregation - and how much he wants to extend this help to all who will accept it.  An obvious example, is that the Kingdom Halls were closed and we were into Zoom meetings a day or two ahead of the official lockdown.

So the dream was not a nightmare.  But there was a sadness about it. There was the house of my childhood, empty of people apart from someone who had made the kitchen a studio and was painting in it. Could it have been my brother in law Ken - a painter, who died just before Lockdown and so is painting nowhere now?  Maybe the sadness of missing him got into the dream too.  But some of our old furniture was there. It gave the feeling of people a long time gone - of a house that had not been a home for a long long time. As indeed it hasn't been as the University bought it from my parents and turned it into a Department of Something or Other. 

So the sadness was natural.  It was, as Janet Frame put it, "the sadness that belongs to the world".

And I have no wish to go back.  I want to go forward into the restored earthly paradise and meet all my family again, my parents, my uncles and aunts - and the family I never met - the ones who were cut off from us by the Iron Curtain that clanked down across Europe in the wake of World War 2.  Will they be there?

Will I be there?  Captain Butterfly and I were at the Memorial of Jesus' death last night, the night of the full moon, the night of Passover, to be reminded of all that his sacrificial death made possible - and that it is an undeserved kindness being offered to all the children of Adam. 

And I got to hold the Captain's hand through the prayers.

 

A Hebrew Character in Memorial Week

This lovely moth is the Hebrew Character I mentioned in my previous blog. Nice that it should turn up in Memorial Week. I know the Memorial isn't until Sunday - but we start our Memorial Bible reading this week. The Hebrew Character it is named for is  nun, I think.

We had our Monday Zoom session on Tuesday, if that make sense. We are discussing a joint project, writing-wise, spearheaded by Nute who has the most presence in the world of writing - and who has won some awards. 

I found a fragment, written so long ago I typed it on a typewriter, and it envisages South Yorkshire as a separate republic ruled by First Comrade Arthur. It was that long ago. Anyway, I have re-typed it and we will see if we can do anything with it. I find I do have King Arthur pulling the sword out of a barrel of Stones, which I still quite like.

But those are vanished days - ancient history to the young.

Col and I had a rare outing - rare that is for my housebound self - on Tuesday night - to hear Michael Blencowe speak on "Butterflies of the South Downs".  He was on top form, as usual. It was both funny and informative.  Showed me how much I still have to learn about even the local world of butterfly though.

There is so much to learn, so much to know - so much happiness ahead for all those who "inherit the earth" and who will live forever upon it.  And it all becomes possible through the ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which will be commemorated this Sunday, the 24th March, in your local Kingdom Hall, after sunset. It will take about an hour - and no collections are ever taken at our meetings.

I would love you to go, and to hear what you thought about it. It is the most important day of the year for us.

A Dingy Flat-Body

Taking those invites (to the Memorial of Jesus' death) round our block of flats last week reminded me of just how I am deteriorating.  I managed ten in all, yet not so long ago, when we first retired, I was knocking at every door in the flats, then in later years, if we had a lot of invites left I would take a bundle and put one through every letterbox.  This year, all I managed to do was to place ten - one on the ledge in each hallway, one with neighbour who I met in the Hall, and I left one with the workmen.  I had to do the last two hallways the following day.

The moths have returned to the balcony, including one we have not had before - the rather unkindly named: Dingy Flat-body - see photo above.  Could it be called the Velvet Cloak instead?

It makes me wonder what a giant extra-terrestial moth would call me if I went and got caught in its Person Trap...  but no, I don't even want to think about it.

Appropriately enough for Memorial Week the moth on our wall this morning, under the balcony light, is called the Hebrew Character. It flies in a single generation during March and April, and is attracted to the light.

Col kindly chauffered me to the meeting at the Kingdom Hall yesterday - for the Special talk - The Resurrection : Victory Over Death.  It was a wonderful talk, so comforting.  

Among the verses the young brother giving the talk, quoted was this, one of my favourites, as it is such a clear promise of the awakening from the sleep of death, and of its being such a joyful one:

      “Your dead will live.

My corpses will rise up.

Awake and shout joyfully,

You residents in the dust!

For your dew is as the dew of the morning,

And the earth will let those powerless in death come to life." - Isaiah 26:19

Queen Emma

We were watching a programme about the conquests of King Canute, when his Viking army/navy sailed to the UK and ended up making him king.  The previous Roman occupation made an appearance as London was able to hold out against King Canute because of the immense walls the Romans had built hundreds of years previously.  Some of those walls stand to this day.

There is a joke currently doing the rounds on facebook, saying that, if England is to be invaded again, can it be by the Romans, as we badly need all the potholes in our roads fixing.

Canute and the rightful heir to the throne, Edmund, fought each other to a standstill in the end, with  slaughter and cruelty on both sides.  And they agreed to sort of rule together.  However, Edmund was very quickly killed - but not it seems by Canute, but by an act of treachery from someone on the English side, someone well known for previous treacheries.

It all reminded me depressingly of some aspects of expat life - well, all life as it is now really.  The backstabbing, metaphorical as well as literal - even over the smallest of prizes.

Canute himself made a good King apparently. He made a very sensible dynastic marriage with the British Queen Emma - and I had no idea till I saw this that we ever had a Queen Emma! - and England had a welcome period of peace under his rulership.

But what a tragedy it has all been. Human history I mean.

I couldn't find a "Queen Emma" in Col's photo gallery, so I hope one Himself took of a Queen of Spain Fritillary will do.  I feel sure Queen Emma was lovely too.

There was a great confusion about my Audiology appointment in Worthing on Wednesday morning.  It turned out they had cancelled it, I assume because I had an emergency appointment when my hearing aids failed. Though they assured me at the time that the second appointment was still going ahead. Luckily we checked ahead before we set off. The Captain's idea, and a very good one.

At any rate they have re-scheduled it.

I have taken some invitations round the block - just one in each front hallway - and hope and pray that someone will come.  I must remind myself to go round again on the Monday after the Memorial and remove any that haven't been taken, which I hope won't be all! and put them in the recycle.

The Memorial will be after sunset on Sunday the 24th March at your local Kingdom Hall. You will be so welcome. And there is a special talk about the Resurrection, which will be given here this Sunday at 10:00. If you want to go to that, you will need to check the time with your local congregation.

The title is: The Resurrection, Victory Over Death".  And it will be a lovely reassurance that the dead will not be forgotten during the Thousand Year Reign of the Kingdom of God.They have such a joyful awakening ahead of them. I hope I will be there to see it. I hope we will all be there.

POLYCRISIS!

Polycrisis is a word apparently coined in the 1970s.  It was needed to describe many global threats happening at the same time.  And does anyone have an answer to this supercrisis?  It would clearly need a united, one-world government to even begin to think of tackling it all.  But can you imagine the horror of a human one-world government - George Orwell's 1984 come to life?

It would probably lead to a new word having to be coined - a Polypolycrisis maybe?

Which is why we need the heavenly government - the Kingdom of God - for whose coming Jesus taught, and teaches, us to pray.  You can be taught by it and cared for now, if you wish - the good news of the Kingdom is being taken worldwide, as Jesus prophesied it would be:  And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations and then the end will come. - Matthew 24:14

The end being the end of the current wicked system of things on the earth, not the end of this lovely planet!  And our Speaker at the Hall on Sunday pointed out that the fact we need a new word to describe the system in which we are now living, surely fits exactly the time of the end as described in prophecy in the Inspired Scriptures.  

Sadly, although we had a ton of religious education at the Convent, we never touched on the vital matter of Bible prophecy.

The lovely starfish that heads the blog was taken by Himself on Paradise Reef in the Maldives.  As the Kingdom of God will soon transform the whole earth into the paradise it was always meant to be, it seemed appropriate.

The earth is so lovely.  I am looking out over a rain-soaked Green with one valiant waterproofed dog-walker and beyond to a grey Channel and sky. And it looks beautiful.

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great

by Stevie Smith

Honour and magnify this man of men

Who keeps a wife and seven children on two pounds ten

Paid weekly in an envelope

And yet he never has abandoned hope.

I was reminded of this poem by a post on fb on Tuesday, one posted by one of my great-nieces.  It said:

If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkey starved, scientists would study that monkey to find out what was wrong with it. When humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes.

And, yes, we are encouraged - by the world and its media - to adulate the super rich and what I suppose could be called "the designer label" culture.  But why, in a world in which some people work all their lives, yet never know what it is not to be hungry?  Shouldn't we admire those who cope with such difficulties, such a struggle, for their courage, for their fortitude?  So I remembered the poem in which Stevie asked us to admire and honour such a person.

And here is some perfect advice, from the very Source of wisdom, our Creator, Jehovah:

Do not love either the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; because everything in the world—the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the showy display of one’s means of life—does not originate with the Father, but originates with the world. Furthermore, the world is passing away and so is its desire, but the one who does the will of God remains forever. - 1 John 2:15-17

Would it be fair to say that the Designer Label culture is all about making a showy display of our means of life? The present wicked system of things on the earth will soon be passing away.  We need to stand clear of it, and resist all the world's efforts to push or persuade us off the "narrow road" that leads to life. And we need to warn others,

On Tuesday I zoomed with a couple of friends in the morning, and made a wokful of veggie curry in the afternoon as I had rather  a lot of veggies left over. I had a blood test on Wednesday morning, and two more Zoom sessions, morning and afternoon.

What did we do before Zoom came along?

I couldn't find a King Alfred in Col's photo gallery, but I did find a King Angelfish which will have to do.  It looks very fierce and kingly.  And I do not think I would like to fall out with it.

APOLOGIES to my Blog Readers

I have to start this blog with an apology - it seems that over the years I have been getting some lovely comments from my readers, but I had not seen them. They were supposed to have come to my email address first so I could decide to put them on my blog - or not.  I was alerted recently by Stuart and Boris that they had made comments on a couple of my recent blogs. And yet nothing came through.  I have finally found where they have been hiding - for many years! - and have posted them all.  From now on, I should be able to see them and put them on the blog.

I appreciate all of them, but this is the first chance I have had to see them, and to say so.  

Where were they going?  Well, the clue was this, into a box called "Comments".... that I had never even noticed before.   "Elementary my dear Watson." - or it should have been...  

At least I can blame it on my age - which is one compensation for being so old. The other compensation, which I have surely mentioned before, is that the gift of life seems more wonderful, precious and interesting by the day.  

I put a bunch of flowers at the head of the this blog by way of thanks to you all for the comments.

A Lion or a Lamb?

Did March come in like a lion or a lamb?  It was hard to tell on Friday - raining hard one minute, then sunny, then quite windy with waves on the Channel.  Then it was sunny again. So I don't know how to apply this bit of folk wisdom: When March comes in like a lamb, it goes out like a lion - and vice versa. 

Friday was a trip to the Audiologist... which I was very apprehensive about in case he would not be able to fix the hearing aids. However all was sorted there and then, thank God, and believe me I did ask Jehovah about this.  A young audiologist with the most beautiful long blonde hair, cleaned the aids and changed a little disc on them and I can hear again! We wished her a lovely weekend.

Wonderful.

And re March, as we got out of the car when we got home we stepped into a violent hailstorm! So I guess March HAS come in like a lion.  And the lion of March was still roaring on Saturday morning - wind, rain and a stormy sea - all interspersed with sudden bouts of sunshine.

Col left very early for The Field, well laden with metal detectors and sandwiches. I washed the kitchen and bathroom floors, got the washing done, and joined the Field Service Group in Zoom. And I spent the rest of the morning Zooming with 3 friends, which cheered me up.

And Sunday morning was the meeting at the Hall, and as I can hear again, I was able to go in person, though everything now sounds VERY LOUD.  Which just goes to show how brilliantly Jehovah created the human ear.  Amazing technology has gone into my aids, and I am very grateful for it. But the original ear cannot be replicated.