Pigeons

I found some photographs of pigeons, which I took a while back. I then started thinking about them. They are like opals. 

And I found out a fact or two about pigeons. Apparently the reason that they bob their heads is for depth perception. I have no idea if that's true, but it's so fab that I had to include it. Also they are among the most intelligent birds on the planet, apparently. Pretty interesting.

Disappointment

Disappointment sulking in the shadows of my brain
It stumbles forward when I wait.
Seeps through when there is rain.

Grumpiness and petulance are at the sulker's side
And when they are unbearable,
I read and think and hide.

Disappointment stamps his foot and ruins all that's true,
And stomps all over happiness,
There's nothing I can do.

Armistice Day

At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month we are silent. For two minutes we think of the lives and deaths that war has affected. This idea was introduced shortly before the first anniversary of the Armistice by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick. King George VI, who approved the suggestion, wrote in the national newspapers that ‘there may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all our normal activities’. This silence is held each year, and is a significant event in the national calendar. In the two mute minutes we are able to sharpen our focus on the suffering caused by war, and our silence is also symbolic of the silences left by war.

Obama for the win

Well that's a relief, Barack Obama's still in power (no offence Mitt).

Image Courtesy of: http://hyperallergic.com/59844/and-obama-wins/

Fashion

'Fashion is derived from facio to make... Hence it is that a man is fashioned by his tailor.'

John Scott & John Taylor, The London Magazine, 1825

Images by Richard Hamilton, Courtesy of:

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/search/fashion/1#supersized-search-243838

Morocco

I realised that I never shared the photographs that I had taken in Morocco. And so, although I know it is dull to look at holiday snapshots, here are four of them (four happens to be my lucky number).

The dreams of the blind

In the lead up to the anniversary of Armistice day, I thought it would be appropriate to mention Isaac Rosenberg, whose poem, Returning, We Hear the Larks, I have been reading:

Returning, We Hear the Larks

Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.

Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp-
On a little safe sleep.

But hark! joy-joy-strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks
Music showering on our upturned list'ning faces.

Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song-
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man's dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl's dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

When reading the poem, my mind went off on a slight tangent, because of the line 'Like a blind man's dreams on the sand'. I began to wonder, and thought that you might like to read this article about an investigation into the dreams of blind people in comparison to the dreams of sighted people. I have no idea whether the article gives us an accurate interpretation of people's dreams, but I found it fascinating to read.