1/. “Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, & it’s too much. Then I remember to relax, & stop trying to hold onto it & then it flows through me like rain, & I can’t feel anything but gratitude - for every single moment of my stupid, little life.”
2/. This clip👆shows the journey of the Hubble telescope, ending at the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula - 6,500 light years from earth
The pillars are made of hydrogen & dust. The tallest is one 1000x taller than our solar system
“Peace on Earth & goodwill to all man.”
3/. “If you’re going to try, go all the way.
There is no other feeling like that.
You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.
You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.
It’s the only good fight there is.”
(Charles Bukowski, Factotum, 1975)
4/. “Every day should be a miracle instead of a machination.
The shades roar like lions and the walls rattle, dance around my
head.
Then her eyes look at me, love breaks my bones and I laugh.”
1/. A few weeks after the #Brexit referendum, I tweeted that it felt as if Britain had cut itself adrift & that we were floating, rudderless, on a raft with a donkey (our leaders), a monkey (our future leaders), a hyena (the scavengers) mayhem) & a vicious tiger (the far right).
2/. Brexit, if felt, had unleashed a dark genie from a bottle & would not go back in...and looking back, perhaps - like Trump in the US - that was the intention
Democracy, which depends on shared truths, was in retreat, & autocracy, which depends on shared lies, was on the march
3/. We’d had enough of experts
Facts were bundled aside by opinion & national pride was whipped into patriotic fervor with rampant slogans about sovereignty & taking back control
Reasoned argument & gentle humour could do nothing against this onslaught.
"The govt assured us that the #COVID datastore would be unwound at the end of the pandemic & the data destroyed. They also said any extension would go out to public tender.
2/. I’m not a body language expert, but @uksciencechief’s habit of adjusting his glasses, looking away & um-Ing & ah-ing whenever he’s asked a penetrating question is getting wearily familiar.
Here is Vallance being questioned by @Jeremy_Hunt in May.
3/. In July, Vallance claimed he couldn't remember which date SAGE called for lockdown!
1/. “If you’re with someone you love hold them close. If you can’t be with someone you love or you’ve lost someone you love, take a moment after reading this. Close your eyes. Breath. And on think them. Think of their laugh, their touch. their soul."
These ladybirds made me cry.
2/. I’d cycled to Totteridge ystdy & spotted the ladybirds on a gravestone
It was a beautiful day
Beside the grave was a 2,000 year old yew tree
The tree - thought to be the oldest living thing in London - got me thinking about mortality & all the grief that this year has seen
3/. “The world’s more full of weeping than he can understand” (Yeats)
There is a lot of grief at the moment
Grief is important. It’s the flip side of love.
The more you deeply you love, the more deeply you must grieve