Quotes About Freedom of Speech

Will elaborate.shortly:

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell

“The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”
[Defend the right to be offended (openDemocracy, 7 February 2005)]”
― Salman Rushdie

“I may not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to my death your right to say it”

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. ”

John Milton, Areopagitica

I now have a Twitter account: @mariecat73

and a Facebook account: Marie Louise Noonan.

please come and join me there

Love ‘rie

one thing, I wrote, just one thing and I lost a subscriber. What is going on?

 

 

 

Sunset

Sunset

Evening and the sunset’s compress
Soothes our inflamed flesh
And I am stunned
By its sudden incandescent flare
The mud, the silt stretches for miles
Encompassing everything.
We watch the ocean rebound
Its sounds, its historic hiss
Slaughter all other sounds around
Injuring the air and to verify your existence
I grasp your hand. And above the elements
Bicker with one another and the sky
Is turning into a shade of sluttish red
Our cheeks are pinked by the wind.
And the watery colours
Bleed into one another. Diffusion –
A catalyst for confusion, for fear.
And the wind, once a gentle exhalation,
Huffs and puffs with all its might,
Grabbing hold of our hair, hauling us in.
And visions emerge from beneath the waves
Where a ship ran aground,
Where demented sailors drowned
It rises up. It bellows. A black cat shrieking,
Competing with our own blood pumping.
The gulls flee from it and fly, fly, fly into nothingness.

Repost: Beyond Comprehension

When I was eighteen I worked as a nanny. My charge was a beautiful little girl aged two and a half. I loved that job. Every day was unique. Every day was a new adventure. She was a bright, vivacious little girl and her joie de vivre was infectious. We would spend the days playing, making up games and stories, painting, baking, walking in the park. It was the happiest time of my life. There is nothing purer than a baby, nothing more delightful than a toddler. You are pulled into their world. You share every new and wonderful and exciting experience and sometimes you have to share their pain. You are rejuvenated by them. So how then could anyone do something like this?

I cannot have children and, given my various issues, maybe that’s a good thing. And I know that is no one’s fault but my own. Starving yourself doesn’t do much for your reproductive capacity and I think you have to have this thing called ‘sex’ and that scares me so I’m not asking for sympathy, just stating a fact. It still breaks my heart though. I think I would have made the decision not to have children anyway even though it is something I have always yearned for. And I can’t help thinking that maybe more people should make that decision. Having children is not a right, it is a privilege.

As I read about this case just for an instant I found myself hoping that the three people responsible for this baby’s death have a really, really bad time in prison. I don’t like feeling like this and I am wondering if that makes me as bad as them. My mother said, ‘no, it makes you human.’ The identities of the three perpetrators have been revealed and all over the ‘blogosphere’ people are speculating about their fate. The mainstream media have accused these bloggers of ‘encouraging vigilantism’ but their revulsion is natural and perfectly human. They are supposed to feel like this. They are shocked because it is shocking. They are horrified because it is horrific and no amount of supercilious sneering will change that. I am not saying that wishing this trio of killers dead is right, I am saying it is understandable.

Nobby once told me that when the second world war was over, he was in charge of a group of German P.O.Ws who, because they were former SS officers, were kept here until 1949 while they underwent a process of denazification (yes, they actually called it that). He described how one particularly fanatical prisoner deliberately provoked the guards by singing Nazi songs and verbally abusing them. It wasn’t long before one of them snapped. He pulled him off the chair on which he was standing and punched him in the face. He was accused of brutality and put on a charge. Nobby, who was his sergeant, spoke up in his defence saying ‘but they’d do the same to us if they could.’ His commanding officer replied, ‘Well, we are not them.’

Do not permit the incoherence of the moral universe of others to corrupt your own.

Because you are not them. Remember that.

Auguries of Innocence
William Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.
A dog starv’d at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm’d for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf’s and lion’s howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand’ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus’d breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won’t believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov’d by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov’d
Shall never be by woman lov’d.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider’s enmity.
He who torments the chafer’s sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer’s song
Poison gets from slander’s tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy’s foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist’s jealousy.

The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags
Are toadstools on the miser’s bags.
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro’ the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return’d to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven’s shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar’s rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm’d with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer’s sun.
The poor man’s farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric’s shore.

One mite wrung from the lab’rer’s hands
Shall buy and sell the miser’s lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant’s faith
Shall be mock’d in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.

He who respects the infant’s faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar’s laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour’s iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket’s cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne’er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They’d immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation’s fate.
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet.

The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,
Dance before dead England’s hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro’ the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

Murder Victims, You Brought This Upon Yourselves

‘but what goes without saying should surely go unsaid.’ Well, indeed, Doctor. Do you ever think of applying these sagacious words to yourself?

From: The Salisbury Review:

And, as always, his valiant acolytes leap to his defence: http://blog.skepticaldoctor.com/2013/04/04/the-psychobabble-of-murder/#comments

And the attack dogs are unleashed:

Well, that was like being savaged by a dead sheep.

@Nadine Dorries

No.  I haven’t been living under a rock or on the moon.  I am familiar with MadNadGate.  I would like to point out though that there is a context to this story and acknowledge that she was somewhat provoked.  She has frequently made the point that plenty of male politicians made obnoxious comments and their words were not seized upon and devoured by the ‘blogosphere’ or the wider media  (maybe it’s something they’d like to happen to them or maybe they have an extra layer of skin).  Does this mean that female politicians are attacked more or is it that they are over-sensitive?

Having read extracts from her blog, I concede that she is not the brightest star in the sky, and she seems to belong to the “All is right with me, therefore, all is right with the world’ brigade.  So lacking is she in basic intellectual acumen, that what some of her more extreme detractors are doing seems ugly and unkind: like pulling the wings off butterflies or eviscerating small animals.  Given that, someone, somewhere elected her to public office and I find that slightly disconcerting.

The basic facts are these: Nadine Dorries MP became embroiled in an online feud with someone who happened to be a member of her constituency.  This constituent has been laid off sick, is suffering from arthritis in the feet, awaiting corrective surgery and posts rather a lot on the social networking site Twitter.  Dorries appears to believe that being ill and twittering are incompatible.  She asserts, in her first post on this subject: ‘In the meantime, do you know of anyone else who has Tweeted more than 35,000 times in less than six months? If so, email my office and let me know. Or, better still, if it’s someone you know is on benefits, contact the DWP.’  As an aside, someone should remind Ms. Dorries that the DWP do not look kindly on malicious complaints from members of the public and the funding of any investigations that arise out of such complaints is also drawn from the public purse.  So should someone in Dorries’ position be inciting people to do this?

A gallant blogger: Paul Staines leapt to the defence of our Damsel In Distress: ‘She claims that she has chronic arthritis but it clearly isn’t affecting her thumbs. If she can operate Twitter there are plenty of jobs she could be doing on a computer. Alarm bells should be ringing at the Department of Work and Pensions.’.  As a health care assistant I’ve watched people screaming out in agony at the pain that can be caused by arthritis and if it’s got to the stage of an operation then that’s one Mid-Bedfordshire constituent who is in a lot of pain.

In her next post Ms. Dorries is busy digging a deeper hole for herself: (Put the spade down, Ms. Dorries….you’re surrounded) ‘If you Twitter all day, every day about claiming disability benefit in one tweet whist arranging a night out in the pub in the next. If you tweet about claiming six months rent from the social fund whilst tweeting how bad your hangover is and if you stride into political meetings and shout the odds with energy and enthusiasm with no sign of any physical disability and if you claim to work for the Labour party and write porn at the same time as claiming your disability benefit – then don’t expect someone like me not to a) inform the authorities and b) tell you to get of your Twitter and get a job.’

It occurred to me though that Dorries might be an idiot savant.  In the latter blog post she  implies that to be in receipt of any kind of disability benefits one must have a ‘visible physical illness’.  Not a whisper devoted to those who are disabled as a result of mental illnesses.

Aside from the ability to use Twitter, arranging a pub night out with friends is another criterion that should preclude any prospect of disability benefits.  I spent a short time on one of the local radio rental wards recently and every Wednesday night some patients would leave the hospital, walk down the road and go to the pub.  As most, if not all, of these people were in receipt of disability benefit, it follows that they were collectively defrauding the system.  And not only that: the nurse who gave them permission to go is an accessory before, during and after the fact.  Other accessories to this crime would include the HCAs, the staff nurses and their fellow patients.  Bring on Captain Dorries and her DWP Stormtroopers.

And, given that she appears to deny the validity of mental illness itself, they should bring a few bulldozers and raze the hospital to the ground.  After all, what use is a hospital designed to treat illnesses that do not exist?  ‘But what about the patients?’ I hear you cry.  Well, they’re not patients anymore, are they?  How can you suffer from illnesses that do not exist?  Besides, we’ll get them jobs.  After all didn’t eminent Rheumatologist Dr. Paul Staines assert that, ‘Anyone with two working thumbs can get a job.’

And what begins in sleepy Mid-Bedfordshire could be rolled out over the entire country.  NHS psychiatric hospitals should be shut down, their patients released into the waiting arms of all those eager employers who have pledged employment to people who, a few minutes ago, were Chronic Mental Patients.  And there goes your first round of cuts.  Starting at the bottom.

Moving up the ladder, there is the hierarchy of professionals  established to treat and serve the ‘mentally ill’.  Take psychiatry out of the the NHS altogether and you wriggle free from the ring fence.  Imagine all the cuts you could make there: psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, therapists, HCAs, psychiatric social workers, community nurses, occupational therapists, housekeepers, cooks, maintenance men, cleaners…Oh, don’t worry, they’ll find jobs – they’ve got working thumbs.

Now, Nadine, I’m not an economist, but if you do what I have outlined above, you won’t have to go near child benefits or winter fuel allowance.  You provided the germ of the idea, Nadine, and I nurtured it into fruition.  Don’t worry, I’ll let you take the credit.  Run, Nadine, run, take this plan to your leader.  He’ll see in you what no one else has ever seen: true genius.

Ich Bin Ein Untermensch Too

Seaneen over at mentallyinteresting.org.uk. launches a ferocious and passionate and eloquent attack on this article in The Daily Mail. And every missile hits its target. I see parallels between the treatment of the underclass and the treatment of the mentally ill.

They do not follow the rules.  They do not obey instructions.  They are weak, they are feckless, they are helpless.  Their very presence corrupts society.  The industrious middle class readers of The Daily Mail are the most hostile towards them.  It is not that they lack imagination.  It is not that they are devoid of empathy.  Far from it.  They possess those qualities in abundance.  They understand more than they want to.

The underclass and the mentally ill represent devastation.  Lives laid to waste by some invisible force over which they have no control.  Those Daily Mail commenters are afraid because one day they know it could happen to them.  Like aerial bombardment.  No one knows who the missiles will hit next.  But they will never acknowledge that.  Not in a million years.

Damned Cheek!

“The unexamined life is not worth living”

– Socrates

“The unlived life is not worth examining”

– Anonymous.

‘Life has not ravaged me because I have never lived’

– Me

‘I do think the right wing press is evil’

Michael Portillo

Amanda Platell’s ‘contribution’ to the ‘Karen Matthews’ debate can be found here.  It is referenced on this blog.  Ms. Platell proceeds to label ‘Formula 1 champion and Swiss resident Lewis Hamilton’  ‘hypocrite of the week’.

This is the same Amanda Platell who was press officer to William Hague from 1997-2001. No, it is Ms. Platell who is the hypocrite of the week. Hypocrite of the century. Those of us with a half decent memory recall how she betrayed the Tories after the general election of 2001. She kept a ‘secret video diary’ of the election campaign and then unleashed it on the world when the Tories, to whom she had pledged her loyalty, lost.  She exploited their downfall.  What motivated her then? Greed and the desire for fame would be my guess which makes her, ultimately, no better than the ‘terrifying underclass’ she condemns.  Karen Matthews, she asserts, is the ‘personification of that terrifying growing phenomenon: a feckless, amoral, workshy, benefit-dependent underclass’.  Ms. Platell is, in my humble opinion*, the personification of the lack of personal loyalty endemic in the ‘political class’.  And, if those people can’t be loyal to one another, then how can we expect them to honour their commitments to the public?

*A phrase that will probably never emanate from the keyboard of Ms. Platell.

Addendum: And, according to this blogger, every member of the ‘underclass’ is a clone of Karen Matthews.  This is what she has to say about Ms. Matthews’s neighbours: ‘I know all the neighbours ‘rallied round’ but these are exactly the same people who would also get up a lynch mob in a nanosecond, were there even a whisper of paedophilia in their area.’ (Let’s rephrase that sentence: ‘these are exactly the same people who would get up a lynch mob in a nanosecond, were there even a whisper of  ‘a member of the underclass’ in the area’.  That’s more like it.  The words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ spring to mind for some reason. Cool header/graphics though!)

My Response: ‘I can’t see how you could possibly know that.  And the ‘lynch mob’ mentality you refer to can be found in our mainstream media, in newspapers staffed by (mostly) middle class journalists.’

Addendum 2: :  the nihilist in me, however, finds it hard to disagree with this: ‘It’s hard for me to imagine being so brutish and de-sensitised, living each day totally in the moment, like a hyena. If that is the direction we are heading in as a species then we may as well just nuke the lot just now and leave it to the cockroaches.’  I don’t believe, however, that people who live their lives in this manner are confined to a particular social class.  If you want proof of that then look at the antics of the so-called British ‘aristocracy’.  And I derive hope from stories such as this. The sentence handed down by the judge was pretty derisory and this case received relatively little publicity in the British media.  One fact the journalists picked up on was that reading was for this girl a ‘passion’. I hope she can carry that with her into the future. I hope she succeeds in spite of the abuse that was inflicted upon her by her so-called parents. No one should be written off and many people from abusive backgrounds can and do make a success of their lives. No one is ‘doomed’ to failure and, if society believes that they are and condemns them to a state of eternal victimhood, then it is compounding the injustice inflicted upon them by those who were supposed to care for them.  And this, heartbreakingly, is the future that certain people seem to be wishing upon Shannon Matthews.  That is the last thing this little girl needs right now.  What she needs, more than anything else in the world, is for people to believe in her.

And for some reason every time I think about the Matthews children a phrase enters my head: ‘Done because we are too menny.’

In case you’re curious, my opinions on ‘mindless procreation’ and promiscuity can be found here and here.  In the meantime instead of  ‘paying people to have brats’ (not my words) we should pay people to have cats because they’re cooler and cheaper to keep and you don’t have to spend half your life looking like a beached whale!

A little late but while I was on my travels I came across this on Deborah Lipstadt’s blog.  Channel Four never had much of a mind to lose. Controversy at any price.

Yet Another Freaking Addendum: I wonder if people regard the behaviour of the bloke in this article as being ‘typical’ of the ‘educated middle classes’ aka the Übermenschen.  A rhetorical question really because we all know they wouldn’t and I’d be prepared to stake my life on that.  And they’d be right not to.  Unlike Karen Matthews he is not expected to be ‘an ambassador for his class’. Funny that.

Beyond Comprehension

When I was eighteen I worked as a nanny. My charge was a beautiful little girl aged two and a half. I loved that job. Every day was unique. Every day was a new adventure. She was a bright, vivacious little girl and her joie de vivre was infectious. We would spend the days playing, making up games and stories, painting, baking, walking in the park. It was the happiest time of my life. There is nothing purer than a baby, nothing more delightful than a toddler. You are pulled into their world. You share every new and wonderful and exciting experience and sometimes you have to share their pain. You are rejuvenated by them. So how then could anyone do something like this?

I cannot have children and, given my various issues, maybe that’s a good thing. And I know that is no one’s fault but my own. Starving yourself doesn’t do much for your reproductive capacity and I think you have to have this thing called ‘sex’ and that scares me so I’m not asking for sympathy, just stating a fact. It still breaks my heart though. I think I would have made the decision not to have children anyway even though it is something I have always yearned for. And I can’t help thinking that maybe more people should make that decision. Having children is not a right, it is a privilege.

As I read about this case just for an instant I found myself hoping that the three people responsible for this baby’s death have a really, really bad time in prison. I don’t like feeling like this and I am wondering if that makes me as bad as them. My mother said, ‘no, it makes you human.’ The identities of the three perpetrators have been revealed and all over the ‘blogosphere’ people are speculating about their fate. The mainstream media have accused these bloggers of ‘encouraging vigilantism’ but their revulsion is natural and perfectly human. They are supposed to feel like this. They are shocked because it is shocking. They are horrified because it is horrific and no amount of supercilious sneering will change that. I am not saying that wishing this trio of killers dead is right, I am saying it is understandable.

Nobby once told me that when the second world war was over, he was in charge of a group of German P.O.Ws who, because they were former SS officers, were kept here until 1949 while they underwent a process of denazification (yes, they actually called it that). He described how one particularly fanatical prisoner deliberately provoked the guards by singing Nazi songs and verbally abusing them. It wasn’t long before one of them snapped. He pulled him off the chair on which he was standing and punched him in the face. He was accused of brutality and put on a charge. Nobby, who was his sergeant, spoke up in his defence saying ‘but they’d do the same to us if they could.’ His commanding officer replied, ‘Well, we are not them.’

Do not permit the incoherence of the moral universe of others to corrupt your own.

Because you are not them.  Remember that.

Auguries of Innocence
William Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.
A dog starv’d at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm’d for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf’s and lion’s howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand’ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus’d breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won’t believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov’d by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov’d
Shall never be by woman lov’d.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider’s enmity.
He who torments the chafer’s sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer’s song
Poison gets from slander’s tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy’s foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist’s jealousy.

The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags
Are toadstools on the miser’s bags.
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro’ the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return’d to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven’s shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar’s rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm’d with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer’s sun.
The poor man’s farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric’s shore.

One mite wrung from the lab’rer’s hands
Shall buy and sell the miser’s lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant’s faith
Shall be mock’d in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.

He who respects the infant’s faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar’s laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour’s iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket’s cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne’er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They’d immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation’s fate.
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet.

The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,
Dance before dead England’s hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro’ the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

Some Man/woman/child/cat/dog/hamster/

Squirrel called McSlappy (or similar) keeps bothering me. So, here’s something to be getting on with…Kiss, Kiss, Kissy! And here are some song lyrics you may be interested in:

(Sinead O’Connor)      

Margareth Thatcher on TV
Shocked by the deaths that took place in Beijing
It seems strange that she should be offended
The same orders are given by her

I’ve said this before now
You said I was childish and you’ll say it now
“Remember what I told you
If they hated me they will hate you”

England’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses
It’s the home of police who kill black boys on mopeds
And I love my boy and that’s why I’m leaving
I don’t want him to be aware that there’s
Any such thing as grieving

Young mother down at Smithfield
5 am, looking for food for her kids
In her arms she holds three cold babies
And the first word that they learned was “please”

These are dangerous days
To say what you feel is to dig your own grave
“Remember what I told you
If you were of the world they would love you”

England’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses
It’s the home of police who kill blacks boys on mopeds
And I love my boy and that’s why I’m leaving
I don’t want him to be aware that there’s
Any such thing as grieving.

Courtesy of these people

********************************

THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES
(Sinead O’Connor)

It seems like years since you held the baby
While I wrecked the bedroom
You said it was dangerous after Sunday
And I knew you loved me
He thinks I just became famous
And that’s what messed me up
But he’s wrong
How could I possibly know what I want
When I was only twenty-one?

And there’s millions of people
To offer advice and say how I should be
But they’re twisted
And they will never be any influence on me
But you will always be
You will always be
If I treated you mean
I really didn’t mean to
But you know how it is
And how a pregnancy can change you

I see plenty of clothes that I like
But I won’t go anywhere nice for a while
All I want to do is just sit here
And write it all down and rest for a while
I can’t bear to be in another city
One where you are not
I would return to nothing without you
If I’m your girlfriend or not

Maybe I was mean
But I really don’t think so
You asked if I’m scared
And I said so
Everyone can see what’s going on
They laugh `cause they know they’re untouchable
Not because what I said was wrong
Whatever it may bring
I will live by my own policies
I will sleep with a clear conscience
I will sleep in peace
Maybe it sounds mean
But I really don’t think so
You asked for the truth and I told you
Through their own words
They will be exposed
They’ve got a severe case of
The emperor’s new clothes
The emperor’s new clothes
The emperor’s new clothes

Courtesy of these people      

*******************************

‘You Cause as Much Sorrow’

I’m full of good intentions
Like I never was before
It’s too late for prevention
But I don’t think it’s too late for the cure
So you call in your minions
And see what you can find
Night time or morning
These hands are sticky but I don’t mind
Why must you always be around?
Why can’t you just leave it be?
It’s done nothing so far but destroy my life
You cause as much sorrow dead
As you did when you were alive
I never said I was tough
That was everyone else
So you’re a fool to attack me
For the image that you built yourself
Just sounds more vicious
Than I actually mean
I really am soft
Yes, I’m tender and sweet
Why must you always be around?
Why can’t you just leave it be?
You’ve done nothing so far but destroy my life
You cause as much sorrow dead
As you did when you were alive
Why must you always ask me?
Why can’t you just leave me be?
You’ve done nothing so far but destroy my life
You cause as much sorrow dead
As you did when you were alive

Courtesy of these people.

*************************

THREE DAYS GRACE LYRICS      

“Just Like You”

I could be mean
I could be angry
You know I could be just like you

I could be fake
I could be stupid
You know I could be just like you

You thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you

You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you

I could be cold
I could be ruthless
You know I could be just like you

I could be weak
I could be senseless
You know I could be just like you

You thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you

You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you

On my own, cause I can’t take liven with you
I’m alone, so I won’t turn out like you
Want me to

You thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you

You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll be just like you

I could be mean
I could be angry
You know I could be just like you

Courtesy of these people

Oh, and Miss McSlappy, you asked where the Three Billy Goats Gruff were. Well, Billy Goats Gruff these days aren’t the same as they were when you were a lass. They could be anywhere, doing anything. Oh, I despair, I really do.      

Addendum: And what really, really, really pissed me off about all this, Ms. McSlappy, is that I didn’t even get a glimpse of your beautiful face. I’m bi-curious* and I bet the mere sight of you would have had me packing my bags and setting sail to the Island of Lesbos in an instant.

*I’m not really.  I am only teasing.

Addendum: Not being funny but that blog’s been there since Jack the Ripper was a nipper.  Why are people suddenly complaining about it now?

Another Addendum: Someone on that spoof site, someone I know visits here regularly, accused me of having a ‘victim complex’.  That person may like to read this.