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  • Task driven

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    This is one of those expressions favoured by corporate types in interviews along with team player, good communicator and purveyor of bullshit. But maybe there is some foundation of truth in the idea that we are all task driven. We set our own goals and try to stay focused in…

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  • Bronowski

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    Jacob Bronowski has a brilliant series of ‘personal views’ being repeated on the BBC called the Ascent of Man. His concluding episode made some interesting points about the relationships between science and the arts and the integrity of knowledge. He stated that it is our duty to safeguard knowledge from…

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  • Falling down

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    Recently I have taken a couple of tumbles that have added to my difficulties staying mobile. Both incidents were entirely my own stupid fault. On a wet evening, I put on my flip-flops and got on my bike to go to the off-license. I misjudged the kerh by someone’s driveway…

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  • Absurdity

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    The Myth of Sisyphus is a bit of a downer. The first chapter deals with suicide, reasons for, reasons why despite those reasons people continue to live their lives. The timing for reading about suicide is not great given that a family member recently took his own life. I had…

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  • Albert Camus

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    I am collecting Albert Camus’ seminal work The Myth of Sisyphus from Waterstones bookshop today. I’m hoping that it will give me some insights into his famous quote about integrity. I read his novels The Plague and The Stranger when I was a teenager because that’s what my older brother…

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  • The kiss of death

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    Putin probably didn’t kiss Yevgeny Prigozhin, consensually or otherwise, full on the lips. But in true football management style he appeared to forgive his indiscretions just before he arranged for him and the innocent passengers on his plane to be blown out of the skies. The Wagner group having sworn…

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    Jerk chicken

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    I bought Gordon Ramsay’s cookbook at a charity shop the other day. One of the recipes that took my fancy was his version of jerk chicken. I had most of the ingredients apart from the chicken legs, scotch bonnet chillies and fresh thyme. For the marinade he specified scotch bonnet…

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    Shel Silverstein

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    I wrote about authors who were banned or censored in a previous blog. Shel Silverstein was one such author whose book of poetry A Light in the Attic was deemed inappropriate for children. What I hadn’t realised was that he wrote a poem called A Boy named Sue. Johnny Cash…

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  • Getting scammed

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    I am selling my old ebike, a Boardman Hybrid. Foolishly, I jumped right in and posted a listing on Facebook marketplace. Within ten minutes I received an offer on Messenger advising me that a GLS postman would bring me the cash and collect the bike. Luckily I asked my friend…

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    Futility

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    “The fact of having no effect or achieving nothing” def. Chambers English Dictionary. Move him into the sun—Gently its touch awoke him once,At home, whispering of fields half-sown.Always it woke him, even in France,Until this morning and this snow.If anything might rouse him nowThe kind old sun will know. Think…

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