Author Archives: quercuscommunity

The Drudgery of Organisation

2 Replies

Sign from the trackside between Grantham and Notingham

I have listed 44 published poems, with dates and details of first publication. I have been through them again, and they are now mainly in alphabetical order. There are several other lists to go through, then more searching to find the unlisted ones. I wish I’d been more organise. At least I was organised at times, which makes it easier than it might have been.

As a result of this month being so light on possible submissions I now have six weeks to get things organised. With any luck I may be able to submit some things as soon as the window opens in May. This was how I used to do it. In fact, I used to do all my submissions on the first day of the window instead of leaving it until the last minute. It was more relaxed and though my poetry probably wasn’t any better, it was at least edited properly.

Brick Train at Darlington

Experience tells me that I should not fritter this time away, and I am going to try not to do this. I have four minutes left, at which point it will be time o cook lunch for Julia before she goes off to help in the tearoom.

One thing I notice with my index of poems is that I have a lot of poems starting with the word “The”. I may have to try to be less formulaic.

To make the index more interesting I could, of course, index “The Banana in the Road”, an editor’s choice in Cattatils Spring 2022 edition as “Banana in the Road, The”.

It’s a thought . . .

Mallard at the National Railway Museum – looks fast even when she’s standing still.

 

 

Keeping Count (109 Posts 108 Days)

15 Replies

This is going to be my 109th post of the year and it is day 108. It’s a lot easier now that I’m counting in the titles and don’t have to go back to the first day of the year to do my counting.

It’s depressing that my work rate is actually so low, and also that the year is almost a third of the way through.

I’ve just been reading an interview with an author in the back of a book -it’s a J D Kirk Scottish crime novel, though his real name is Barry Hutchison.  In the interview he claims to have written 200 books, though somewhere else he goes for 140. It’s a lot of books.  This includes a lot for children and some comic books, so the word count may not be very high, though I’m not one to judge. I (vaguely) claim to have had 250 poems published, but I honestly have no idea, having lost control of the counting some time ago. I am going to have to try and get them all together. In terms of word count, some are about a dozen words and I doubt if the longest passes 300, so I’m not in a position to preach.

Actually, I have a terrible feeling that I may be exaggerating. It’s possible that I went to bed thinking “150” and woke next day thinking “250”. Excuse me while I go and count.

My Orange Parker Pen

Several hours later . . .

My admin, as you know, is poor and I can’t find all my published poems. Even if they were all in one place it would be incomplete as I’m a poor record keeper, and they are in at least five lists, but I am over 250.

In fact, I’d better get on with that. And I’d better get my act together and keep proper records in future.

Orange Parker Pen

Thoughts on Editors

13 Replies

So far this year I have had 16 acceptances. One came this morning and prompted this post. That’s from 30 submissions, so it’s a touch over 50%. I have done better in past years, but this year, as I have said, I have tried harder and sent submissions to people who habitually turn me down. It’s character forming.

I’ve been scouring the internet looking for more places to submit and have found a few, but run into three problems.

One is that some only accept postal submissions and I no longer like sending them. Paper does actually, as the expression goes, grow on trees, but I feel it’s better to use emails for both convenience and carbon footprint.

Two is that the editors of these harder to find journals can be quite aggressive, which is probably a reason why they are not so well supported. In general I find editors of Japanese style magazines are nicer and more helpful than those of mainstream poetry journals, but if they aren’t, why should I bother with them?

And three – when I relaunched my poetry writing I decided to aim for the best magazines. I did. I got rejected. I am still rejected. But when I did get in it was worth doing and quite exciting to find myself in a journal with people I’d actually heard of. Better to be rejected by a quality journal than be accepted by one of lower quality.  And better to aspire to meet the quality threshold of a better journal.

My Orange Parker Pen

There is another reason, I just remembered. Some magazines want to be paid to include my work. With some, it’s voluntary – I can access a quicker decision by paying, but with one they actually want you to pay for inclusion.

Few magazines have ever paid. I can live with that. I can live with taking out subscriptions for magazines. That seems fair. It’s a hobby and hobbies cost money. But to pay for inclusion? I don’t think I’ll bother tank you.

Poetry – creatively stacked but a touch light on stock

Rat Traps and Ramblings

6 Replies

We have had rat traps down for four days now. We have caught three rats (two of which were quite young) and three mice over the four nights with two traps being sprung without catching. We currently have them out but not set. I want to see if anything finishes off the bait, and I also want to give them a false sense of security. And, to be honest, I want a rest from emptying them.

When I am once again prepared for the sight of bulging eyes and mangled bodies I will give it another go.

I really don’t know what is going on in the world when I am feeling sorry for dead rats. However, rats spread diseases and I take immunosuppressants. The two things don’t go together well, and though I’ve not heard of someone getting ill from contact with rats in the garden, why take the chance? I once worked with a man who became ill after fishing. He seems to have come into contact with germs from rat urine in the water and when he put his fingers to his lips (he was a smoker) he made himself very ill.

However, I won’t bore you with my rat stories.

When I was an adolescent (and possibly a borderline embryo psychopath) I used to go out looking for dead animals by the roadside. I collected birds feet (this was a proper thing – there was even an article in the RSPB magazine about it. I still have the book on taxidermy I saved up for, though I never progressed to actually curing a skin or stuffing anything as I couldn’t get the chemicals and my mother objected to me storing dead birds and animals in the fridge.

Blackbird on picnic table – Rufford Abbey

The crunch came when I stored a dead mole in a box in the conservatory. I managed to conceal it from prying eyes for several days (I only used to skin at weekends) but after one particularly warm day it made its presence known and taxidermy was banned.

For some reason my word count has disappeared but I must be past 250 words by now so time to publish. I just noticed that I don’t have  place for Tags either. Curiouser and curiouser . . .

Chaffinch in the Bird Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Countries Divided By a Common Language

14 Replies

I have often commented on the differences between UK English and US English. I don’t mind either. The Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, South Africans and many other groups all have their own versions of English too. I look on it as a gift to the world, and once given, it is not ours to control. Use it how you want.

However, I also have to point out that there are many other languages and cultures in the world who all have a claim to something similar. China, India and Arabia have all made great contributions to the world we know. Even Switzerland, as Orson Welles points out in The Third Man, after five hundred years of democracy and peace, produced the cuckoo clock. And chocolate and bankers who still cling to Nazi gold.  No single nation is universally brilliant and moral – no single nation, whatever politicians tell us, is universally evil.

 

The first sign that something was not right in the President’s head

Bearing that in mind, it seems that there are people who want to control English and force others to speak like Americans. It’s bad enough that we are bombarded with constant American films and TV, but recently it seems we can only get US English in spellcheckers. We are being forced to become part of the USA.

Not only in spelling, but politicians in the USA are taking it upon themselves to advise us how to live and run our country and, even worse, are giving a misleading picture of life in the UK.

Even if this is a picture of a doctor healing man that isn’t Epstein i still represents a slide from both humility and reality

It is, I think, time to start pushing back. I accept that most citizens of the USA are lovely people, and my mother always told me that Americans had very good manners. It is the tragedy of modern America, that you don’t draw from this pool of talent and elect some of them.

So here are two pictures. The Daily Star has just run a headline based on the famous line “He is not the Messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy.” If you know your Python you will recognise the quote immediately. If you don’t, I apologise for my cultural imperialism.

This is how o cope with a delusional brat – you can’t reason with him, you aren’t allowed to punish him because he has corrupted the system, so ridicule is all that remains

The other is a picture of Sweep. Again, you may not recognise him, or his importance, and I apologise again for my insensitive use of cultural imperialism. He is the rapscallion companion of Sooty, and I have more confidence in him, than I do in most current politicians.

And finally . . .

 

 

 

Statistics – the Greatest Lie

19 Replies

I’ve grown used to lying over the last few years. It all started after Donald Trump’s first election when he declared that millions of people had attended his inauguration and claimed it was far more than had attended Barack Obama’s inauguration. The pictures clearly showed this was not the case, and although it’s true that pictures can lie, is more likely that a politician was lying. We soon learned that if his lips were moving, he was lying.


The one on the left is a candlestick – it has a metal insert. The one on the right it a snowman. They always make snowmen when they have spare wood and time as they sell well at Christmas when they do the craft fair in the Cathedral.

WP is much the same. I have had over 400 views a day for several weeks now. I have also had an average of 12 people a day recorded as looking. So which is it WP – 400 or 12?

It could be AI robots, but in that case why don’t they show up on both counters. It could be that I’m being monitored by American Intelligence for my comments on President Trump and the Death of Democracy, but they wouldn’t do that surely? Juxtaposing the two words in view of the moronic outpourings we hear every day is surely just handing me an opportunity for mockery. It couldn’t be much else as nobody else would be interested, and in truth I’m sure it must be AI. Trump is flirting with Armageddon, but AI is setting up to slowly strangle the life out of us. It will be like the boiling frog – we won’t notice until it is too late.

The candlestick again. It started out as a bent bit of pine with a split and a massive knot. She just set to work, the knot pinged out, another, as you can see, stayed to make a decorative feature, and the split disappeared along with a lot of the wood. She is getting good at this.

It’s much the same with Julia’s wood turning (where she went today). I won’t notice that all the shelves are covered in turned wood products until it’s too late.

She baked simnel muffins over Easter too, but they don’t last, so they won’t be taking anything over.

 

 

 

Reasons to be Cheerful

21 Replies

As I have become older, I have become more soft-hearted. this is comparative, of course. I am soft-hearted compared to a farmer, but a murderer of innocents to a vegan. Last night, I added two more deaths to my conscience. No rats were harmed in last night’s trapping, but two mice paid the ultimate price. It wasn’t an ideal result as I am after bigger vermin, but it does show that the traps work and that I reset them properly.

Daffodils in Nottingham

Today I have been to the doctor already, had a relaxed breakfast of bacon cobs from Greggs, watched an episode of The Sweeney on TV and attended to the blog. I am now ready to start work, but it also time for lunch and I will need to prioritise. It is a hard life. A little light writing, I think, and a slightly delayed lunch.

And after lunch . . .

The steam seems to have gone out of my day. I have pottered and fiddled and moved things about, but not much has actually happened.

Blossom at Wilford

Julia’s wedding outfit was delivered (it’s actually a jacket and a pair of trousers but “wedding outfit” shows I’m taking it seriously) and I received a three month supply of arthritis injections. The delivery man took my sharps bin away. That’s about it. Not one of my more exciting days.

I assume that if I checked the internet I would find more stories about warfare and politics, but I don’t want to. I am able to live without knowing all the details. I presume if WW3 breaks out Julia will let me know. And if she doesn’t, an almighty flash and mushroom cloud will do the job.

Narcissi

Spring in the Mencap Garden

One thing I don’t need to worry about, as Julia pointed out, is losing my hair due to radiation poisoning.  Even in the midst of so many worries about Armageddon, there is still a bright spot if you look.

A Rat Conundrum

31 Replies

We set rat traps yesterday. They are in boxes to stop birds and cats becoming involved in the attempted murder. This morning Julia reported both boxes had tails sticking out of them and one of the rats had, in addition, been partly eaten. Probably another rat, or even one of the rare cats we get. I give you this gruesome detail only to prove that it was dead.

By this afternoon, when I finally got myself enthused to deal with rat remains, both boxes were empty and all the bait was gone. There were, however traces of rat in both boxes.

I’m sure we killed one. The other may have been killed or merely stunned. Feedback on the trap website indicates that sometimes the springs aren’t strong enough and a rat can pull its head out and escape. It is probably a sadder and a wiser rat, but it is still breathing, though presumably less keen on the scent of peanut butter.

I’m a little worried by the thought of the amount of carnivorous activity going on in my flower beds, and even more concerned to find I’ve been spelling carnivorous wrong all my life. I haven’t needed to write it often, or my spellchecker would have pointed it out, but in my head it is spelt carniverous and I was very surprised to find it wasn’t.

Worse was to come when I tried to reset the traps. They wouldn’t reset. I tried to get help from the company website. First I was offered advice by a website that cropped up as I searched for the official company one. I hate it when that happens. They wanted £1 (refundable) to put me in touch with an expert. he chances of them having an expert on rat traps seemed unlikely. The likelihood of them using my payment details to steal money seemed slightly higher.

Then I was offered membership of a Discord group to seek advice. I’m vaguely familiar with the name but I don’t want to join anything just to get advice.

Feedback on Amazon indicates other people had this problem, but didn’t offer a solution.

Finally I found a video on how to set them, but there was no troubleshooting advice. Eventually, having spent half an hour searching and pondering I remembered some of the tricks of setting the old-fashioned sort of trap. Taking great care, I reset them whilst lifting the bait/trigger platform slightly. This allowed the catch to engage and they are currently lurking in the shrubbery.

We know here is at least one more, as we saw it after the other two traps were sprung.

I know it’s barbaric, but they spread diseases, kill water voles and make a mess in sheds. They also chase squirrels, which was very funny to watch but not entertaining enough to grant them a stay of execution. When we had one and it appeared once or twice a week I could put up with it, but we have been seeing two at a time nearly every day and something needed doing.

I think pictures of flowers might be good for this post.

Less Than Optimal Start to the Morning

17 Replies

After a good run on the email (months without errors) we are back to the old problem – can’t log in (can’t even get a page that allows me to attempt to log in) and a message telling me there is a problem (which I can see, without a message) and that I should try later.

I generally start by suspecting BT is useless. Then I go through a variety of dark suspicions , usually hinging on cyber attacks by malevolent foreign powers. Then I decide BT is useless. My evidence for this is that my other email account never seems to have the same problem. I just tried it. It is working perfectly.

I would use the alternative, but it just seems like a lot of trouble to change addresses. So far, I have avoided doing it. When I changed debit cards last year – just a simple renewal rather than a major change – it appeared to be a lot more complicated than previous changes. I have not become more complicated, but it seems the systems of various companies have become more complicated. One insisted I signed up to their app before I could change card details and TESCO failed to deliver my groceries because I had missed ticking a box when changing details.

It’s amazing how much we now rely on email and the internet. I’m sure that one day civilisation will end just because we can’t access the internet. Nobody uses cash these days and we would all have to turn to looting or starve.

However, I’m sure world governments will already have a plan in hand. After all, they can’t really concerned just about religious wars, oil and sending people into space with a non-functioning $23 million toilet, can they?

Well, that used to be what I thought. Now I’m not so sure.

In years to come will someone make a film of how a handful of billionaires turned world politics into a real life version of Risk: The Game of Global Domination?

A Skyful of Kites

10 Replies

River Nene, Fotheringhay

I had a haiku accepted yesterday. The accompanying haibun were rejected, but it’s quite a red letter day when I get a haiku accepted, so I don’t mind.

That leaves me with plenty of choice in haibun when I select the one for submission this month. It’s falling into place so well, it’s bound to be a disappointment when it all falls apart. Because, let’s face it, all the good plans turn out to be too good to be true.

We went for a drive this afternoon. It was quite pleasant but I took no photos so you’ll have to take my word for it. I am only just getting used to going out again and am not very good at it. At one time there were five red kites in front of us, with a couple coming very low. We also saw one landing in a tree and a buzzard on telephone wires.

Fotheringhay – cottage and phone box with library and defibrillator

Peterborough never had buzzards when I lived here, and England didn’t have red kites at all – they were all in a small part of Wales. They were reintroduced into the Chilterns in 1989 and Northamptonshire in 1995. Now they are so common they have been put on the Green List. This is quite a change and shows we can reduce some of the decline in nature.

I’ve just had an email from WP suggesting I am getting to the limit of my free plan and suggesting that I might like to take out a discounted paid-for plan. I’ve been on a paid-for plan for years and am slightly annoyed by this. That’s why I get annoyed by the constant minor faults and inefficiencies. The cost of WP is a major item in my annual budget and I’m not sure they take it as seriously as I do. They really should notice me and the service I pay for, and if they haven’t been providing it, how about a refund? I think I know what the answer will be to that.

Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire