[sicily scene] blur of changing images

So, finally accessed my site through "nourishing" in Google and got:

It's looking a little neglected over here at Nourishing Obscurity where there are usually at least four or five posts a day. I don't know what happened to ...

Well, contrary to rumours that Dominatrix Welshcakes had me in bondage, in fact the opposite was true and this week has been packed with incident. After I saw my escort off into the sunset yesterday, I went looking for the bus back to our town [2 hours away to Welshcakes City] and the instructions were - wherever the bus drops you off, that's where you get back on.

Well no, actually - the bus stop for the return bus is cunningly disguised in a shoebox over by another Terminal about 500 metres away and they further disguise its presence by surrounding it with 24 coming and going buses of a similar nature. No matter - I found it by asking the Carabinieri officer, to his surprise and jumped on.

The engine went dead. Yes it did.

Double-decker airconditioned coach with padded seats and it went dead. They tired, the other bus drivers tried, they all tried horn hooting, shouting and gesticulating but the bus was unmoved. For 30 minutes. For 60. For 70.

The mechanic came and tried many clever things before getting into the cabin, looking one moment and kicking the engine cover.

The bus now on the move south into the setting sun, the olive and burnt sienna countryside with the picturesque little stone houses and terracotta roofs perched on craggy outcrops, the romantic Italian crooners through the sound system, the water run-off from the airconditioning dripping in time onto the back seat, we cruised at a leisurely 80 kph back to Modica Bassa, the lower old town where everything happens.

Chock full of the real Sicily [see the photos], this is the tourist mecca or in the case of last evening, around 9 p.m., the street of wild scenes, from a geriatric army pouring over the countryside, scouting men and women in shorts, adorned with scarves and woggles, of sealed off streets making the taking of a bus up the steep 1 in 4 hill to Villa Welshcakes through to wave upon wave of the cities youth, decked out in party gear and all trying desperately to appear cooler or more colourful than the next.

Silly me - knackered from the walk so far on the flat, I called in on Anita's cafe which has one main feature apart from the cuisine - it is situated down an arcade which then turns at the end at right angles and the 'bay' has tables and chairs. Good, I thought, as I shook hands with the proprietors, decent salad in peace.

I asked for a small salad, which doesn't compute in the Sicilian brain and so she brought me a bowl twice the size [30cm across and 15cm deep] ... half full. Then it was up the hill to a Welshcakes' welcome and you really need to be here to fully appreciate these.

Little did I suspect what would happen and since I've run out of room here, this is continued at Welshcakes ...

This is a typical Welshcakes welcome:

Thought for the Week!

SLEEP
Walter de la Mare
When all, and birds, and creeping beasts,
When the dark of night is deep,
From the moving wonder of their lives
Commit themselves to sleep.

Without a thought, or fear, they shut
The narrow gates of sense;
Heedless and quiet, in slumber turn
Their strength to impotence.

The transient strangeness of the earth
Their spirits no more see:
Within a silent gloom withdrawn,
They slumber in secrecy.

Two worlds they have--a globe forgot,
Wheeling from dark to light;
And all the enchanted realm of dream
That burgeons out of night.

Effing madness or what?

Effing madness or what?

I think it is a beautiful old mansion. The government pays £3.18M for the property 3 days after it was sold for £1.35M! Then English Heritage spends £4M restoring it, only to offer it for sale between £4.5M and £5M. The new owner, if anybody is mad enough to buy it, will need to spend another £6M on further repairs. Then, it is claimed that the public must have access! If I had that kind of money, I would not want a place open to the general public. I think it is wrong for English Heritage to expect it both ways, sell the property and still keep it open to the public.

Mrs Sat Nav knows best

Guest post by Harry Haddock

Aaaah. A week away in the Outer Hebrides shooting and fishing. No database servers that have become possessed by the devil. No clients to chase for money that should have been in the bank 30 days ago. No financial directors ringing you up screaming, telling you that the printer your company has installed doesn't work, and that you are all incompetent bastards, only to find he has unplugged the device to allow him to charge his mobile phone.

We're nearly there. Setting off at stupid 'o' clock in the morning, we fly up the M6, missing an accident that closes the motorway just in time for rush hour, by about half an hour. Nip past Manchester, and are munching some rather tasty ham sandwiches at Carlisle by 8 in the morning. Superb. It's also pretty fine weather for this far up north at this time of year ~ only a few dark clouds interrupting the sun.

As we get further north, the weather only gets better. We skirt around loch Lomond, which is so calm it looks like glass. No, really ~ actual glass. Not a single ripple disturbs the reflections of the mountains. A car load of chubby American tourists stop, seemingly in the middle of the road, to get out and take pictures. Everyone is in such a great mood, we don't mind. 'Don't blame you', I think as I manoeuvre around their RV.

Even the 'surf's up dude' chaps in their Toyota Hilux, with an overloaded trailer that has a wheel that is about to fall off, don't alarm us; I wonder if they made it through the highlands without loosing it. It's approaching half past four. The sat nav says it's only 60 miles to Mallaig. Why is it insisting that we will be a further 2 hours?

'At the next junction, turn left'

That doesn't look right, but I turn left anyway. Onto a jetty that extends out into a loch. Now, I'm fairly used to all of the features on Dave's car after four hours driving, but unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a James Bond style 'turn this car into a submarine' option. There does appear to be a ferry, however, on the other side of the loch. Zooming out on the sat nav, we see what the plan is. Get the ferry, and cut about 40 miles off your journey. Super. But why the two hours to travel less than 60 miles?

The ferry trundles towards us, and after paying our fare,we take the short hop across the loch.

'Turn left' the sat nav chirps. But everyone else is turning right. Never mind, Mrs Sat Nav knows best. Oh no she doesn't.

We wind our way around what seems like every loch and bay on the west coast of Scotland. On a single track road. At about 20 mph, with mad post men and builders keen to get back to their wives after a weeks hard work hurtling towards us at break neck speeds. Dave appears to be turning slightly red in the face. 'Um, I might have programmed in the shortest, instead of the quickest, route', he explains. Really? The road gets smaller and smaller, the surface more and more pot holed. I start to wish we had come in my Land Rover.

Exactly two hours later, we arrive in Mallaig, set up camp, lock the guns away, and set off to the nearest pub. After several pints of Stella, it doesn't seem that bad at all. After all, we got to see all the best bits of Scotland, despite the best efforts of the mad postman.

A week of fantastic weather, sunburn, plenty of rabbits and fantastic scenery followed, although the fish remained elusive and couldn't be tempted from the sea with our bait. Perhaps we should have asked the Sat Nav where they were as well?

Is Milton better than Shakespeare

Ask a stupid question and you might get a stupid answer. This question, which forms the title of a book by Princeton academic Nigel Smith, is pretty odd. Shakespeare for a start was a playwright. John Milton was a poet and political controversialist. Milton's poetry is much more magisterial than Shakespeare's: he doesn't create characters as much as argue in verse. Shakespeare's poetry is tied to moments, whereas Milton's is tied to the great dramas of Christian theology- the fall (Paradise Lost) and the person of Christ (Paradise Regained). To compare them seems to miss the point- because in a sense they were never trying to do the same thing- Shakespeare touches on great themes by sketching individual lives, Milton touches on individual lives by sketching great themes. One wrote the most natural verse ever written in English, the other wrote the most artificial (Milton's lines are often filled with amazing music, but the music is much more difficult to grasp than Shakespeare's is).

Furthermore it seems to me a little stupid even to want to compare them. Milton is generally thought of as the lesser poet: but his poetry still repays great attention. He was one of the greatest writers to have ever lived and some of his lines- 'better to reign in hell than serve in heaven' will survive as long as the English language. He was also an amazingly fecund political thinker- a republican who defended the English experiment in government without a king in the 1650s, he was an early advocate for divorce and for freedom of religion. To say he was worse than Shakespeare is a bit like saying Einstein was a less important scientist than Newton- so what? It doesn't mean that you cannot understand science without understanding relativity or that you cannot really understand English literature or history without reading Milton. Milton understood that himself writing a eulogy of Shakespeare and so did Newton, commenting that those alive today stand on the shoulders of giants. Lists that rank authors are often pernicious: the idea that there are authors who you should read- a kind of top ten or even top one or top a hundred is barmy. You should read everything with any quality.

And yet.... there is a reason this book has been produced and its not because the question is a serious question... rather the question is a means. It is a means for Smith to introduce all the ideas about Milton that academics have had over the last forty years to a general readership, smuggled amidst the idea that one could prove Milton was better than Shakespeare. It is like the virtues of an Everyman catalogue: the idea of a list is epistemic nonsence- but it is didactic sense- it helps people enter the wonderful world of literature and art to know which painters and authors to look at, then they can move on. That is the purpose of this book and of literary lists or any kind of list in general, they are not meant seriously but as aides to people entering a subject for the first time. A question like this is a crutch- before you can walk unaided it is useful, once you can understand the subject, you can throw it away.

Is Milton better than Shakespeare? For those who have read them, silly question- for those who haven't read either- start with Shakespeare and move on to the later poet.

Should the McCanns be subjected to a media blackout?

Should the McCanns be subjected to a media blackout?

Watching the Breakfast News on BBC1 this morning there was a report on a genuine case of abduction. And when I heard that the abductors had asked for a media black out, I could not help thinking 'what a pity there was not a media black out in the McCann case'. Gerry and Kate McCann are still maintaining that Madeleine was abducted. Even though the evidence does not support this version of events.

Perhaps, the big tent on the McCann media circus is being pulled down by the PJ?

Yesterday, It was being reported that the PJ would not now be conducting a reconstruction because the PJ wanted all the Tapas Bar 9 to take part and 4 of them refused to return to Portugal. They are Jane Tanner, Russel O'Brien, and Rachel and Matthew Oldfield. Apparently, they are all concerned that they will be prosecuted for child neglect because, like the McCanns, they left their children unsupervised whilst out binge drinking.

Today, it is being reported that the PJ are seeking to prosecute the McCanns for child neglect.

Children and animals tend to get people all emotional. However, it is necessary to put aside all such emotions in the McCann case. The McCanns spin doctor, Clarence Mitchell, is claiming that their legal advice in relation to the McCanns conduct is “well within the bounds of responsible parenting”. I beg to differ, because the question is 'Is it safe to leave children under 4 years of age unsupervised?'.

My challenge to you all is to find on the internet support for the McCanns position that it is safe to leave children under 4 years of age unsupervised.

Under both English and Portuguese law it amounts to child neglect and/or child abandonment. If the McCanns lawyers are stating otherwise, I would argue that they should be sued for providing negligent legal advice.