Wednesday 29th May 2019

Tuesday 28th May 2019

I saw this picture today I was REALLY shocked.

The Nemesis of Heaven

A Summit fever has struck us
Excessive pride and a defiance of the gods
Has lead to a queue before that last step to heaven
A superiority complex has driven us to mock the planet
We shake privilege in your face
We think ourselves Infallible
We have lost our way
Goddess Mother of Mountains forgive our hubris

John Bish 28th May 2019

Sunday 26th May 2019

You Win Again

Bee Gees

I couldn’t figure why
You couldn’t give me what everybody needs
I shouldn’t let you kick me when I’m down
My baby
I find out everybody know that
You’ve been using me
I’m surprised you
Let me stay around you
One day I’m gonna lift the cover
And look inside your heart
We gotta level before we go
And tear this love apart

[CHORUS]
There’s no fight you can’t fight
This battle of love with me
You win again
So little time
We do nothing but compete
There’s no life on earth
No other could see me through
You win again
Some never try
But if anybody can, we can
And I’ll be, I’ll be
Following you

Oh baby I shake you from now on
I’m gonna break down your defenses
One by one
I’m gonna hit you from all sides
Lay your fortress open wide
Nobody stops this body from
Taking you

You better beware, I swear
I’m gonna be there one day when you fall
I could never let you cast aside
The greatest love of all

Saturday 25th May 2019

The Seed and the Fly

See the seed upon the wind
Does it know where it is headed?
It appears determined enough
Or is it just catching the breeze?
See the fly upon the wing
Flying alongside the seed
It is just as determined
But it appears unaware of the seed?
Is the seed aware of the fly?
Does the fly know where it is headed?
I feel our lives for sure are such as this
We travel on the wind unaware of so much
Maybe this is a blessing
Maybe this is a curse
I know not which but still I ride upon the wind
My mind ticking to the beat of it all

John Bish May 25th 2019

Friday 24th May 2019

Within You Without You

George Harrison 

We were talking about the space between us all
And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth, then it’s far too late, when they pass away
We were talking about the love we all could share
When we find it, to try our best to hold it there with our love
With our love, we could save the world, if they only knew

Try to realise it’s all within yourself
No one else can make you change
And to see you’re really only very small
And life flows on within you and without you

We were talking about the love that’s gone so cold
And the people who gain the world and lose their soul
They don’t know, they can’t see, are you one of them?

When you’ve seen beyond yourself then you may find
Peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come when you see we’re all one
And life flows on within you and without you

Thursday 23rd May 2019

Wednesday 22nd May 2019

“Shadows of Shadows passing… It is now 1831… and as always, I am absorbed with a delicate thought. It is how poetry has indefinite sensations to which end, music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry. Music without the idea is simply music. Without music or an intriguing idea, color becomes pallour, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment motionless.”

E A Poe

 

Tuesday 21st May 2019

The painting below was an image I found in a charity store in Kenilworth.

 

Monday 20th May 2019

Ammonites lived during the periods of Earth history known as the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Together, these represent a time interval of about 140 million years.

The Jurassic Period began about 201 million years ago, and the Cretaceous ended about 66 million years ago. The ammonites became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, at roughly the same time as the dinosaurs disappeared.

However, we know a lot about them because they are commonly found as fossils, formed when the remains or traces of the animal became buried sediment that later solidified into rock. Ammonites were marine animals belonging to the phylum Mollusca and the class Cephalopoda. They had a coiled external shell similar to that of the modern nautilus. In other living cephalopods, e.g. octopus, squid and cuttlefish, the shells are small and internal, or absent.

The ammonite’s shell was divided into chambers separated by walls known as septa (singular septum). These strengthened the shell and stopped it from being crushed by the external water pressure. Ammonites could probably not withstand depths of more than 100 metres.

The septa had frilled edges: intricate lines, of varying complexity and known as sutures, mark where the septa joined the shell wall.

The ammonite lived in only the last chamber, the body-chamber; earlier ones were filled with gas or fluid which the ammonite was able to regulate in order to control its buoyancy and movement, much like a submarine.

The most important functions of the ammonite shell were protection and flotation. Each complete 360° coil is called a whorl. Except for the inner-most whorl, the shell is made up of three layers. The thin innermost and outermost layers are composed of prisms of aragonite (a form of calcium carbonate). The thicker middle layer is nacreous (mother-of-pearl), formed of tiny tabular crystals of aragonite.

In scientific literature, it has been the convention to illustrate ammonites with their body-chambers at the top. This is the opposite of their position in life.

Ribs, spines and tubercles (knobs), which frequently adorn the shell, may have strengthened it, but they may also have provided physical protection and camouflage against various predators, including marine reptiles (such as ichthyosaurs), crustaceans, fish and other ammonites. They also helped to regulate buoyancy and stability, as well as being sexual display features.

Ammonites probably fed on small plankton, or vegetation growing on the sea floor. They may also have eaten slow-moving animals that lived on the sea bottom, such as foraminifera, ostracods, small crustaceans, young brachiopods, corals and bryozoa, as well as drifting, slow-swimming or dead sea creatures.

As with living animals, ammonites are classified into species and genera whose names must be Latin words or words that have been latinised. The proper scientific name of a particular ammonite consists of the name of the species, preceded by the name of the genus to which it belongs, plus the name of the first person to describe it, and the date.

Some genera of ammonites had shells that were coiled in more bizarre ways. These are known as heteromorphs, from the Greek heteros meaning different and morphe meaning form or shape. The coiled shell is generally the only part of the ammonite to be preserved as a fossil. As well as being aesthetically pleasing and popular with fossil collectors, they are of particular value to geologists.

Sunday 19th May 2019

Solitaire

Neil Sedaka

There was a man, a lonely man
Who lost his love through his indifference
A heart that cared, that went unchecked
Until it died in his silence

And solitaire’s the only game in town
And every road that takes him, takes him down
And by himself, it’s easy to pretend
He’ll never love again

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He’s playing solitaire

Another day, a lonely day
So much to say that goes unspoken
And through the night, his sleepless nights
His eyes are closed, his heart is broken

And solitaire’s the only game in town
And every road that takes him, takes him down
And by himself it’s easy to pretend
She’s coming back again

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He’s playing solitaire

A little hope, goes up in smoke
Just how it goes, goes without saying
Solitaire

And by himself it’s easy to pretend
He’ll never love again
Ohhh

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He’s playing solitaire