Another post in/for a Brave New World?

Where is everyone? Busy celebrating inauguration? I was very glad to see there is still somewhere that LOOKS like Washington – and not surprised to see it so quite quiet. Quite surprised to see that an apparent extortionist can actually proceed to such circumstance. Maybe I should be begging forgiveness for my bare English cheek but I wouldn’t waste my breath! That man has no authority whatsoever in my mind’s eye and I shouldn’t waste my breath even giving him a mention! I do try to remember he is just an old man from another place, a father and grandfather. Just a man. Shoddy as any other. And worse besides…

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m just a shoddy woman too! But I’m not a bully like some appear to be – and I won’t put up with it either!

I assume to be as entitled to freedom of speech and creative expression as previously but…

This is what happens when my energy supplier blocks my online account and forces me to trek to the store to get prepaid electricity to feed to my meter. I bought newspapers. Just in case the world collapses overnight and there might never be anymore. And I’ve been using my Facebook as if it’s a blog in the most unwise ways lately – like answering that ‘what’s on your mind?’ question … in bits and pieces and all at odds, with…

In some parts of the world,for many people, their world might have collapsed. Anytime between now and then…

Not so long back, pre-November 2016, online news headlines was suggesting that the British public should NOT be going online, as if there were some great threat and that we should only be receiving our news from our newspapers. How do you get a newspaper if you can’t get out to the shop and WHY would anyone not wish to check the propoganda campaigns against other sources for some measure of reliability? Not long after, and having ignored the ‘stay offline’ suggestion, there was a more sensible headline about hoax news stories. There seemed to be plenty of them. For decades.

I should get about reading blogs more. But everything’s changed at WordPress. A reflection of how the world has changed? How the poor have no equal rights even to an online blogging platform that previously encouraged amateur use, simply as humans, blogging for enjoyment and community and a sense of being human, connecting with other humans.

All of a sudden there’s this ‘premium’ with the ‘best for Freelancers and Entrepreneurs’ slant to it. That’ll get a lot of us Brits in trouble as hobbyist-bloggers, just passing time. When it’s your only way of having ‘social contact’ with the outside world it’s a very precious thing. In some cultures we’re not worthy enough for their sense of elitist privelege and should be weeded out – is how it feels. Maybe that’s why Brits should have been staying offline? Until it’s safe? Or what was there to really be scared about and why should we hide our online natural selves when propoganda instructs us to do so? The real world seems far more dangerous and abuse usually occurs from someone known, rather than from strangers.

Apparently we can ‘build a business website in just 10 days’ and with no offence intended to the Blogging U team, there’s a lot about that notion that flouts English Law and risks devastating deprivation to UK bloggers who might then be assumed to returning £250 weekly income as a minimum. Some of us blog to learn and practise and communicate and would NEVER wish to ‘monetise’ our blogs with advertising revenue. [If that’s what monetising a blog means, because there’s no clear info anywhere.] Some of us are fussy. Monetisation? That’s not BUSINESS!

I’ve not seen any statistics for quite a while, but a couple of years ago something like 94% ‘small businesses’ were failing within their first year in Britain. That’d be for these vague ideas of how easy it is and for inappropriate ‘support’ from Employment Services. Wondering how many made it to their second full year?! No doubt online service providers are getting more than their fair share of the blame for that too – although individuals should always accept responsibility for their own choices and actions. It’s been an oppressive and pressured experience for many tens of thousands of UK welfare claimants to ‘just start a business’ while set up to FAIL and having no viable alternative choice.

It maybe ok in some parts of the world to ask for donations as an individual in need too. But in the UK it’s illegal to beg, or even to give to someone who’s starving, homeless either money or food, or we risk a fine or arrest and a criminal charge. Crazy as that seems. I tend to ignore that law on the rare occasion I get anywhere, but with due care. And aware of the risk for myself and the other person. But I don’t have an active PayPal account and so can’t even buy anyone their coffee online and no way I’d risk that charge! And it’s a bit sickening seeing (local) professionals with a salary asking visitors to their website to donate by PayPal when you were expecting to find a method for giving an item for their art project!

Now it feels like it could be risky even visiting to read some blogs I’d normally visit, for the association with other individuals engaging in what might be entrepreneurial or professional writerly progressions. I’m not knocking them at all and mean no disrespect.

My poem inspired after reading Cid Corman in SloPo last week and doodled this alternative presentation of it, just for fun. [I don’t write poetry often. I’m not a writer.]

But my blogs here are my personal creative space. If whenever i were to start self-employment, there’s no way I’d be bringing it into my personal /our community spaces.and it’s gonna take me maybe about five years to regain my health and maybe get my own Empty Plan together somehow in the meantime. There’s a lot of very complex issues to take into account. And I know it might not look like it, but still…once upon a time and every fairytale begins and ends in a nightmare of a tale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

memento

I bought this in Radford in a junk shop  almost 30 years ago – glad my housemates didn’t think it worth stealing when they ransacked my room while in hospital having my caesarean not long after (and glad I took my ID etc with me too but didn’t stop them causing shit later!

A couple of weeks ago at BW, Pam raised a prompt topic that is difficult to leave alone. I made a start at one of my other blogs here with  a post series in waiting for ‘The Memory of Things’.and thing is, I might have been posting still for transcript with my sketches of Snarl/Gnarl city girls sculpture I went to see once upon a time. But my electricity provider is being hopelessly problematic and today it’s been a whole week since alerting them to the need for help as a disabled customer. They know all this and can leave me for a week making a couple of days electricity last. It doesn’t help my health at all. I know that seems really selfish while millions are having to manage with far less in devastated circumstances!

So I’m still failing better than ever and will bigots and prejudiced twots please take a look at their own failings before judging and condemning innocent paying customers unfortunately dependent on so called welfare. Currently still at risk of the culling spree our government and local authority and public/private enterprise staff seem compelled to inflict. hopefully I can manage to make a call but I’ve been awake all night and might not make it with no coffee. Interference with even my grocery shopping and stores willing to deliver a camp stove but only if you can go in to collect the small gas canisters while bedbound is just flipping ridiculous!

AAAAH! England is such a shit-hole! No human rights for anyone unless they’re either a criminal OR if they can afford legal services! Anyone never read the Beveridge report? reads just like everything they say about Hitler! And now I won’t be able to post the student news cutting about the devastation we caused to Germany in WW2 while I mustn’t mention Hitler again?!!!

Flower of the day, my way, naturally

Although not a regular enough visitor, I always enjoy a visit to this blog: https://ceenphotography.com/2016/12/18/flower-of-the-day-december-18-2016-poinsettia-2/ so, for a change, and although not a typically seasonal offering, I thought I’d join in for some #MagicalMonday  / #MondayMotivation over at Cee’s photography challenge.

I love to play in all kinds of ways whenever able, but it’s been a very strange, difficult and extremely worrying time in the UK. Everyday life seemed to alter for much the worse since the US presidential election results and the dire political climate at home and internationally – including what appears to be criminalised political extortion racket against leaders, politicians and other public figures. Anyway, hopefully the Season of Goodwill will prevail before the New Year is in and out!

So, my first offering is typically atypical, and I’ll share one of my photo files here secondly. [with apols for brevity, ludicrosity as usual etc and all the etceteras…!]

[The raw data on my photo file is incorrect as I messed up correcting the time on my camera when I tried to set the date to correct day and month – it had been wrongly set for ages by mistake! Sometimes it can appear useful to remember that!]

below: photo taken on my front yard around 9 or 10am internet time on Sunday 18th December, 2016, Nottingham, UK (iT ever changing and losing hours here and there apparently!)

And if you happen to be passing by my humble home, please don’t knock my landlord’s fence post down, we already lost a few too many! Thanks for visiting!

 

T.F.I.Friday… As was Tiswas & F-F-S

… anyone remember (Blogger’s World) and ‘Meanings Lost in Time’ … among others…???

(I’m just practising blogging101 and refreshing content here, by the way…)

I spent the day expecting it to be 5th November already, although it may as well have been. Luckily I didn’t miss 4Fawkes-sake-Friday and made this post to grow my to-do list better… and maybe, i’ll be back… soon…

Blogger's World!

Today in England (Britain/Brutain/UK?) is 4Fawkes-sake-Friday! A special evening indeed, the first night following Diwali, whereby fireworks, firelight and even tealight-type celebrations were withheld from all public areas other than those supported by one or few local BBC radio station events (apparently). Not quite tonight being Firework Night (as that’s tomorrow), I’m here while resting in bed taking up a belated challenge while enjoying some recommended listening, hoping those plenty near-off noises are only fireworks and not mortar fire(!) Sparing, our few thoughts for those global neighbours in the vicinity of such atrocities as war and violations of civilian life – and resisting the evil influences of political propogandas whilst we have no way of knowing…

The first Friday of each month we have this thing titled ‘3Quotes’ within our sidebar thing titled ‘Friday Special Feature’ and the weekly features page. @piyushavir these pages are in need of at least…

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Shutterbug Showcase #prompt for 10th November…

Any fellow bloggers or previous #blogging101 co-learners game for a challenge over in the BW forum???

Blogger's World!

Following Susan’s announcement that she would like a rest from volunteer scheduling and prefers not to be tagged at the moment for #shutterbug showcase (and while not wishing to be “volunteer scheduling-in-charge” for personal health reasons and my #authorstory interest, resuming that from next week hopefully…)

Call for volunteers to post for this event for any of the following dates? The prompt for next week is…

TOAST

Susan, (arwen1968) originally suggested the fantastic idea of each participant deciding the prompt for the following week. I’m proposing that you can adapt the above prompt eg you might wish to drop the ‘TOAST’ and adapt the prompt to make it ‘CELEBRATION’, for instance – or anything else you might loosely relate to the ‘TOAST’ prompt.

Volunteers are invited to post for the following dates (non-members could post on their own blogs if they prefer as our admin is inaccessible and appears currently…

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Leap Year Guestbook 2016

As I intended this blog for learning about portfolio posts and making a website- eventually – my main blogging is… in the main, all over the place, as most of you know. This reblog links to my primary blog (have now found the admin setting to alter that).

Thank you to all my followers here for encouragement and support along the way. I will continue to post here once a month for the recyled book challenge, with the first post tomorrow… there might be nothing else until the April post challenge, when I’ll be so busy playing April Fool’s that I’ll post on 2nd April instead of 1st…

If you’re joining in the Leapster challenge you can pingback and /or comment on any previous post and links will be rounded up asap, or leap here (your leap, your way) for my latest Leapster challenge announcement post (it’s not limited to just one day – leap your way through the next four years and be a 2020 Leapster too!)

Have a happy Leap into something somewhere and best wishes for Leap Day and the rest of Leap year 2016.

The Wishing Well

Thanks for stopping by 🙂 My blog is born again on 28th February 2016, I hope you like the theme (one day old today!) and it’s a comfortable visit – please speak up if there’s something lacking or anything you need here?

Wishing you all a Happy Leap Day and a Happy Leap year 2016 😀

If you can spare a moment, please ‘sign’ my Leap Year Guestbook 2016

Are you taking or making a Leapster challenge #blogdare?

Please share… pingback or comment to let me know…

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Saturday’s special…with Lunar Tides

Today would have been Kurt Cobain’s 49th birthday. It’s a time to rejoice in his ever having lived at all and for the gift he was to the world. He also apparently said:

“If you die you’re completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on.”

I found the quotes used for this post during today’s research at brainyquote.com, (toward my guestpost here, but not using this quote) then happened across the images used for his post, including to make the picture-quote, during research at pixabay.com (toward my Leap into…pix day 5 post, again, not using these particular images).

I almost applied the ‘light’ quote to this image instead, but thought the moon version more appropriate – what do you think?

Anyway, back to the point of ever making this post… another of the quotes (from Brainyquote.com), attributed to Kurt Cobain is: “If there was a Rock Star 101, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me.”

WordPress / DailyPost / BloggingU team, will you ever be offering a RockStar101? I don’t expect so – and I’m still waiting for further news of Websites101 and Blogging301 (CSS)…

Wouldn’t it have been great if there’d been things like online streaming in the early days of Nirvana? Maybe there was, in smaller circles, and I’ve just been a dinosaur for too long…

Anyway, I’m very grateful for Blogging101 and other 101classes for meeting fantastic peope around the world, like Lydia – many of you might have bumped into her in class and know her as aidyl93.

Lydia’s having a blogging hiatus at the moment, but there’s lots to browse at her blog in the meantime. Last Saturday was #InternetFriendsDay, and I caught up with Lydia at Twitter, just in time for the live streaming announcement for the band she plays with, Lunar Tides.

Come join @lunartidesmusic #live on #Twitch !! #Streaming now: https://t.co/W8EGMgkODt

— Lydia (@aidyl_93) February 14, 2016

Sadly, it was the last live gig the band were broadcasting at TwitchTV for a while – but the good news is that they’re busy recording their first CD – I hope I’m near the front of the queue to get mine and that overseas shipping will be do-able.

In the meantime, I’ll be keeping up-to-date with news from Lunar Tides, looking out for vlog announcements and crossing my fingers for that CD heading my way one fine summer’s day 🙂

I liked a @YouTube video from @lunartidesmusic https://t.co/cG6vS5zcJn VLOG: Day 1 in the "Studio" with Lunar Tides

— Lunar Tides (@lunartidesmusic) February 15, 2016

I’m a glutton for souvenirs, and as I enjoyed being part of the livestream audience, I snapped a couple of screenshots of the gig. Many thanks to Lunar Tides for making music and making their live gigs accessible – and thanks again for permission to use these screenshots in my post.

That’s Lucas at the back on drums and vocals (says he’s really a guitarist, but makes a fine vocalist, drummer and front-man from the back of the set), Lydia playing bass guitar and at front-right Randy on guitar and vocals. Lunar Tides write and perform their own music and the couple of times I’ve managed to catch their live stream show I really enjoyed it. It just happened to be their evening time but my early hours of the morning, or I might have turned up every week.

Thanks again Lunar Tides, I may be missing your live-stream, but yet again you just helped make my Saturday special 🙂

[I have to return and update links later!]

Making the Leap… just for fun

Are you making your Leap Day special?

Something in the air at Jacquies’s blogparty at the weekend had me all fired up and inspired. Seperately, having been issued 14 questions to answer in a challenge from a friend, I decided fourteen is a good number to work with and that there would be fourteen day until this year’s Leap Day and we won’t see another until 2020…

Naturally, what followed was thinking 14days, 14ways? Can I manage a Leap? and I want to make a four year plan – where would I like to be in my life by Leap Day 2020?

Alternatively, or additionally, how might I like my blogging to develop in those four years?

When I made this blog, my first concern was grabbing the url for my name, so that should I recover sufficiently to use it alongside semi-professional practise, I have it. Any hope of recovery enough to work outside of bedrest still appears a long way off. Never mind, it’s not impossible and considering this four year stretch could be a good way forward. Not the steps to get there, just where am I aiming for?

So, in the meantime, I’m of course making myself some fun and trying to extend my range in small ways. As well as continuing my informal blogging at the Wishing Well, I’m reviving my One for Fun Blog by challenging myself to two very quick posting tasks there for each of the next 14 days. The first task is about building an inspiring found image library (pixabay/unsplash etc) – I’ll aim to collect 14 images a day to my media library and select just one of those fourteen to post that day. The second task is to go back through my guest-posts at Snailzpace Daily. From the quotes I posted for my friend there, primarily for his resource, I’m going to select one quote a day that I really like and inspires  me for my Leap – and apply it to the background I’ve chosen, like this first one that I’m reposting below.

So, this is what I’m calling the Leapster Challenge – if you’d like to join in, you don’t have to do something every day for fourteen days although you can if you wish! You don’t have to aim for fourteen ways either – it’s just my way of working out how many different small ways I might increase my posting, writing and creativity while at bed-rest and (believe it or not) trying to avoid burn-out. You could aim to just make one post on Leap day. If you like the number 14 theme you could use it, or split it into two posts of something 7… your leap, if you want to take the challenge. You could just think about it and join for a second wave of the Leapster Challenge springboarding from 29th Feb…

I’m pushing myself quite hard with things I think will take five or ten minutes each but might probably take longer.. as well as those two things at One for Fun, I’ve two things at the Wishing Well – the matchmaker Q&A, answering one question a day and making a psot of it – I’m also doing a reblog a day there from the party guests blogs… Two things to do here? I think I’ll just make a weekend post each of these next two weekends with something of seven things on each… then a Leap Day post on 29th.

Now I  have to make a leap towards self-care and eating well today, so apologies for not applying links yet, I’ll have to save that for an admin task later…

Love to hear what you think of the Leapster idea – and how you might be making your Leap Day special …

 

Reblog – my guest post at BW, re: Helen keller

There’s no reblog button now to share my post from Blogger’s World, so my screenshot pic will have to do for a preview, full post at http://wp.me/p6Cbfo-34v … the partial photo shows the young Helen Keller (left) with her governess Anne Sullivan, in 1988. 

(This post isn’t repeating text from my BW-feature, it’s me rambling about my process adn focussing on a couple of particular excerpts of Helen Keller’s writing.)

I really enjoyed researching for this weeks #authorstory post. I included some resource links, the ABF Helen Keller archive, articles and recommended some video links too. But I most enjoyed reading some of Helen Keller’s work, so much so, that I made my first public podcasts, reading excerpts from a couple of pieces of her writing. If you can spare a few minutes to have a listen and like to hear attempted readings of poetry and prose, I’d love to receive feedback and criticisms are very welcome 🙂

I also thought that a couple of audio files might be assistive for visually impaired readers, so recorded and uploaded those to my post (part 1 approx 10mins, part 2 approx 5 mins). Then decided that I needed to provide transcripts too, as pages hosted at my other blog, The Wishing Well. Note to self:  work still to do at that transcript! As well as sorting out the pre-formatted text formatting in the top section, there’s a paragraph repeated in part ii of the text citing different paragraphs on each. Oh, when I can’t see for looking!!! (and doing things while exhausted makes for many a mistake!) Please, dear reader, if you go there, forgive me – I’ll catch up soon-ish 🙂

I selected some paragraphs of Keller’s 1903 essay, Optimism and really quite like the condensing as an abridged version but also plan to revisit the full texts and study them in more depth, at some point. There are links to the various formats full texts online sources on the transcript for my reading – and it’s wonderful to see digitised versions of the original book pages.

Helen Keller’s intelligence and command of language is absolutely astounding. I think I should read my abridged version every day to strengthen my resolve.

I, too, can work, and because I love to labor with my head and my hands, I am an optimist in spite of all. I used to think I should be thwarted in my desire to do something useful. But I have found out that though the ways in which I can make myself useful are few, yet the work open to me is endless. .. Darwin could work only half an hour at a time; yet in many diligent half-hours he laid anew the foundations of philosophy. … it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. [from part ii, para.26]

Here’s another favourite excerpt from that same text:

These things which you see and hear and touch are not the reality of realities, but imperfect manifestations of the Idea, the Principle, the Spiritual; the Idea is the truth, the rest is delusion.

 

I realised when i began to research, that although Helen Keller’s name was familiar to me, I had forgotten any prior learning of who she was. I expect that when we heard small mention of her in school it would have been a very brief introduction, telling us what an incredible person and writer she was, but not actually sharing her work. It was probably one of those 300 words of contextual information and a set of comprehension questions on a workcard. It seems such a shame – and apparently that’s still a common experience, according to replies in the comments to my post at Blogger’s World.

The second piece of Helen Keller’s writing I selected to read from is her magnificent poem, ‘Songs of the Stone Wall’, published in 1910. The transcript is here (and hopefully without  error) and the audio file of my reading from this work is labelled as Part 2 on the BW-feature post. This was one of my favourite moments in the poem:

At the foot of the aged pines the maidens moccasins
Track the sod like the noiseless sandals of Spring.
Out of chinks in the wall delicate grasses wave,
As beauty grew out of the crannies of these hard souls. [from verse 12]

So, I came here not to write another few hundred words, but have enjoyed doing so, it seems.

I’d love to hear from you if you’re familiar with Helen Keller’s work and have any recommendations, or your own favourite moments in her work, or for any other feedback or discussion.

I wont be posting here often, while I work out how and why I am doing whatever next with this blog that I keep mulling over… so for now, and until next time…  I hope you’re having a good day 🙂

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(Image from pixabay.com)

“If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.”

Confucius

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“If you do not think about your future, you cannot have one.”

 John Galsworthy

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“The future is no more uncertain than the present.”

Walt Whitman

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