Cooleague

Fallacious conclusion

Paul — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:49:01 +0000

“The conclusion of your syllogism”, I said lightly, “is fallacious, being based upon licensed premises”.

Flann O’Brien (At Swim Two Birds)

The Five Uneaten Prunes

Paul — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:03:50 +0000

A mother and her son were having supper together. When it was time for the pudding (some prunes and cream); the boy refused to eat the prunes. The mother told the boy that he must eat his pudding but he refused. She then tried to coerce him without success.

Now she started to feel cross and said: “If you don’t eat your prunes I am going to get very angry with you”. That had no effect.

Then she said: “If you don’t eat your prunes then your father will be very angry with you when he gets home”. That had no effect either.

Then she said: “If you don’t eat your prunes God will be very angry with you and you can go off to bed right now”. As before, he refused to eat his pudding and so was packed off to bed.

The mother finished supper and went to do the washing-up. A big thunderstorm started-up outside and suddenly she thought to herself that she had been too harsh and that her son would be terrified by the thunder and lightning since she has told him how God would be angry with him.

She rushed upstairs and into his bedroom, where the boy lay. He looked up and calmly, simply said; “What a lot of fuss over five prunes”.

SUDDENLY WALKING ALONG THE OPEN ROAD

Paul — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:51:45 +0000

Suddenly, walking along the open road I felt afraid.
I saw the stars and the world below my feet
Became a planet, and I was no longer
In Wiltshire. I was standing
Upon the surface, the edge of the planet
That runs around the sun.
I was in danger.
For all the comfort of the elms, the banal
Normality of houses with their garages, on my right -
All was in danger.
A marble spinning through the universe
Wears on its dizzy crust, men, houses, trees
That circle through cavernous aeons, and I was afraid.

(Mervyn Peake)

THERE ARE SOME MEN

Paul — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:42:52 +0000

There are some men
who should have mountains
to bear their names through time
Grave markers are not high enough
or green
and sons go far away to lose the fist
their father’s hand will always seem

I had a friend he lived and died
in mighty silence and with dignity
left no book son or lover to mourn.
Nor is this a mourning song
but only a naming of this mountain
on which I walk
fragrant, dark and softly white
under the pale of mist
I name this mountain after him.

(Leonard Cohen)

Jumping across the abyss

Paul — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:33:36 +0000

“I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody that will inspire me with passion. You know its’ quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness… There is even a moment right at the start, where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don’t do it.

I know that I shall never jump again”.

J.P. Sartre (Nausea).

STRIFE

Paul — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:24:10 +0000

When strife is a thing of two
each knows the other in struggle
and the conflict is a communion;
a twoness.

But when strife is a thing of one
a single ego striving for its own ends
and beating down resistances
then strife is evil, because it is not strife.

The secret of being miserable

Paul — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:20:36 +0000

“The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation”.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

LIZARD

Paul — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:16:41 +0000

A lizard ran out on a rock and looked up, listening
no doubt to the sounding of the spheres.
And what a dandy fellow!
the right toss of a chin for you and a swirl of a tail!

If men were as much men as lizards are lizards
they’d be worth looking at.

The Successful Fish Shop

Paul — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:06:53 +0000

Some good few years ago, a couple, discerning a need, set up a fish shop in Cavan, the county town of County Cavan in Ireland.

Well it was a resounding success. People hadn’t realised that if you could get nice fresh fish of all sorts of varieties in this area, some distance from the sea, that they would buy lots of it.

In under a month they closed down. Wondering just why (and suspecting that probably there had been problems with getting adequate supplies) a friend asked them “Why on earth have you closed your lovely shop”?

The husband sighed and said “Ah! you just couldn’t stand it or believe it. There was people coming in here morning, noon and night bothering us for fish“!

The Laird and the Tramp

Paul — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:54:29 +0000

A laird was out walking over his boundless highland estate when he encountered a tramp on his travels. He was most annoyed by this and said to the tramp “What do you think you are doing here? Get off my land immediately”.

The tramp sighed, gathered his few bits and pieces together and began to head off. After a few paces he stopped, turned and said “I’m sorry I didn’t know it was your land. But would you tell me how it came to be your land”?

“Be off with you; that’s none of your business” replied the laird.

“Please humour me” said the tramp “and let me know how it came to be yours”?

The laird then said “Well alright then; I got it from my father. Now be off with you.”

“Ah I see” said the tramp “and how then did he come by it”?

“Well he got it from his father replied the laird”.

This went on for a while, repetitively, till the laird, somewhat irked, said “Well he fought some man for it”?

“Right”, said the tramp; rolling up his sleeves!