Ray's Blog: January 2009

What do you do when you’re faced with other people’s problems, you’re expected to help, and you’re almost certainly being manipulated, or taken for granted? Do you simply fail to notice the way people are treating you and fall into line? Do you have a vague suspicion that you’re being exploited but get on with...

Posted at 18:46pm on 31st January 2009

Revised: 15th January, 2010

Does it ever strike you as strange that medical advances, in Western civilisations, are such that we can prolong life by nearly half as much again as our allotted three-score-years-and-ten, yet the legal position of euthanasia is constantly challenged? Of course, we don’t call it euthanasia! That in itself would challenge our sensibilities,...

Posted at 17:18pm on 26th January 2009

3 Comments

I returned from over 2 weeks away this afternoon, having flown long haul. I read your book 'Post Mortem' on holiday, amongst 6 others, and I think it was the one that touched me and certainly meant the most! So, thanks.

Alwyne

Mel's Comment:

Thank you Alwyne. It's great to know my book stood up so well...

Posted at 16:57pm on 23rd January 2009

I received a piece of work, recently, with a request to look it over and comment on it. It has prompted me to write on the subject of Voice, and the merits (or otherwise) of how it is used. There’s a little bit of grammar instruction necessary here, but I will illustrate my point afterwards...

Posted at 14:42pm on 21st January 2009

When you look back on an argument you’ve had recently with someone close to you, do you sometimes feel it was a squabble over nothing? That what seemed like a major misunderstanding at the time was, actually, nothing more than a petty clash of opinion; or a state of affairs where the two of...

Posted at 09:51am on 17th January 2009

2 Comments

This is the first Post on my shiny new laptop. As I wrote, yesterday on my Twitter wall (I think that’s the correct jargon) setting up a new computer is a nightmare of mistakes, misunderstandings and misapprehension. Hence the lack of time to add anything to my blog for a few days.

So I thought, today,...

Posted at 22:22pm on 15th January 2009

2 Comments

There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. So says the 800 or so advertisements that now adorn London’s bendy-buses, as the result of a campaign by The British Humanist Society (BHA), funded by Prof. Richard Dawkins.

Really? Now what do you say to that?

Much has been made of that word ‘probably’....

Posted at 12:44pm on 11th January 2009

2 Comments

I was reading about a man – Jeff Lucas – who described himself, in his younger years, as a “shame addict”. The term resonated with me and sparked a sitting-up in bed, early morning debate – though, sadly, without a cuppa to accompany it.

“That describes me years ago,” I said.

“Yes!” my husband agreed. “But...

Posted at 18:00pm on 6th January 2009

I don’t know about you, but for the last couple of days I’ve been feeling vaguely depressed. Some of my feelings of malaise are undoubtedly to do with tiredness brought on by having a houseful of guests to feed, and the late nights spent sitting on hard, upright chairs, playing games like Mexican Train Double...

Posted at 17:24pm on 3rd January 2009