It is chaotic, untidy, but rather beautful I think. I am proud of it, a masterly mix of chance, design and confusion. A metaphor for my life.
I often wonder why I write this blog and why I leave it open for anyone to read.
I thought about it again much earlier this morning.
I still don't know the real answer. I tell myself it is because I enjoy playing around with words; it is a way of keeping up with friends, a kind of quiet and more thoughtful Facebook; a place where people I have lost touch with can reconnect and where I can, perhaps, meet new people who share similar interests; somewhere I can jot down notes and ideas that I can return to and reconsider much later, and also as a place to try out different kinds of fiction and poetry.
But these are probably justifications rather than true reasons.
Up in roof space there is a box, and inside the box several of my father and mother's diaries. Diaries that say say very litlle; so little that no other reader but me would learn of anything about the people who wrote them.
Except to say, if you read my Father's diaries you would come away with a lot of information about the weather and the diet of a countryman in the late 20th Century.
That makes me very sad. They were both clever and interesting people and I would have liked the diaries to have been a small window into some of their thoughts and feelings about life,their interests and the world in general.
I don't think it matters if one comes over as mean, unfeeling or stupid in a diary or blog. Inevitably you will at times if you are honest.
The words are just the surface soil and the sensitive reader digs to uncover, and then interpret what lies below. Different archeologists will come up with very different interpretations.
As I write this my laptop plays the BBC news in the background. Egypt teeters on the edge of chaos. A dangerous chaos that could spread across the Middle East and the rest of the Arab world. I remember Professor Braginsky being worried about the conflicts that would arise within new democratic movements in Middle East. The democrats are mainly from the educated and the rising middle class, while the Islamic parties draw their strength from some of the poorest, and the dispossed in the country,
I don't have the time to explore this in detail, but feel that there is an important historical context. Egypt has long been an international centre of Islamic study and thought. Many Indonesians go there as students.
Al Azhar University, the Islamic Oxford, founded in 970 has a long and fascinating history.
Whatever happens in Egypt the effects will be felt all around the world.
An aside. Al Sisi is not a good name for a General. It is too close to El Sissi to inspire confidence.
But, on the other hand, it gives the General the chance to say in his most sinister and threatening manner, What did you just call me?!
Rather like El Guapo and the word 'plethora' in the film The 3 Amigos.
But this all trivial compared with the fact that Tim Murray (Or is it Andy Henman?) is through to the final of Wimbledon.
'We have always respected him, and now we love him.'
"We should always love a winner.'
Say the men on the radio.
'He was brought up to always take his hat off in the house.'
Says a woman.
That is enough to convert me.
'Come on Andy!' or is it Tim?
So for the next 24 hours the whole nation, including me, will be clutching the arms of the national chair, the national gaze glued to the national TV.
Where's Egypt?
There is a strange and fearful exhileration about no longer having a job...
No, I don't want to write about that.
I close this entry with a copy of Artur Waley's translation of Po Chu-i.
One of the great poets of the Tang Dynasty.
I was reading this last night, and as usual was impressed by the beauty and sophistication of early Chinese poetry.
I particularly liked the one on being 60.
The one about madly singing in the mountains is an old favourite too. You may remember it from the anthology and appreciation for Arthur Waley that used those words for its title.
I have finished Sneddon's Indonesian Language and have gone back to Agus's Indonesian translation of Killing Freud. as always - I dip into the book and then set it aside for months at a time - I am impressed by Agus's perfect Indonesian.
Agus, if you read this, Bahasa Indonesia kau sangat 'Benar dan Baik'.
Bagus Agus!
A joy to read, and probably better than the English original.
But I have to get up now, so here's Po Chu-i and his poem about The Time of Obedient Ears.
PS.
If any of you come across any cheap Penguin Classics collections of Chinese poetry or any Arthur Waley please get them for me.