Tag: Non Fiction

Searching for locations: The Paris Opera House, Paris, France

This was one of the more interesting experiences for the grandchildren as they were, as all young girls are, interested in ballet.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit which included some time watching ballet practice.

I could not convince anyone to take the elevator back down to the ground floor as it was suspected we might be ‘attacked’ by the ‘phantom’.  Certainly, the elevator was very old and I think at the time it was being repaired.

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Part of the Grand Staircase in Palais Garnier Opera de Paris

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The ceiling above the main staircase.  The ceiling above the staircase was painted by Isidore Pils to depict The Triumph of Apollo, The Enchantment of Music Deploying its Charms, Minerva Fighting Brutality Watched by the Gods of Olympus, and The City of Paris Receiving the Plan of the New Opéra.

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The ceiling of Chagall at the Palais Garnier

On 23 September 1964, the new ceiling of the Opéra Garnier was inaugurated with great pomp.  It was painted by Marc Chagall at the request of André Malraux

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Amphitheatre and Orchestra Pit entrance

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Interior, and doorways to boxes

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Box seats in the auditorium

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Ornate ceilings and columns

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Seating inside the auditorium

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The day we were leaving Paris, was the first night of the Bolshoi Ballet.  My two granddaughters were greatly disappointed at missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime, to see the Bolshoi Ballet at the Paris Opera House.

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But we did get to see the principals practicing.

Grasping at straws or a pie in the sky?

This is to be willing to do, say, or believe anything that offers even the slightest hope in a desperate situation, even though there is almost no chance for success.

Sound familiar?

We all have a preferred position in any debate, sometimes a pre-conceived notion that we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.

And, just to prove it we will grasp at any straw, no matter how wrong it might be, how big a lie it might be, simply because it fits our narrative.

Politicians are good at it.

Salespeople are too, and they will tell you anything to make a sale.

Seems politicians are little more than salespeople.  Especially when you hold up a foot-thick pile of paper and call it a policy.  Of course, it is.  Look at all this paper!  And you can find it on the internet.

I’ve found incontrovertible truth that aliens have landed on earth many times, and walk amongst us, on the internet too.

Add to the straws the notion that if you throw enough mud some it will stick.

Likewise, if you say the same thing over and over, no matter how wrong it is, people will begin to believe it.

You read it, and see it, and read it again, ten, twenty times a day, over and over until you have been brainwashed.

Nobody repeats the truth, have you noticed that?

The truth usually appears at the bottom of page 17 of a newspaper, buried by the Ford, Ram Truck, and Coca Cola advertisements.

But the lies, the narrative that you are supposed to hear, it comes at you from every angle, papers, magazines, all over the internet, cable channels, everywhere.  It will be on roadside billboards soon.

The CIA and the KGB came up with that little idea.  It’s called brainwashing.

It’s made to sound authentic, that it’s come from ‘experts’, people allegedly with degrees in everything but UFO technology, and because it sounds authoritative, we believe it.

Especially after we’ve been told hundreds of times.

A case in point, I can tell you almost word for word some of the most obnoxious advertisements on television going back 50 years, yes, 50 years, because we were inundated with them, day and night, all the time, for years.

Of course, with fake news and political lies continually being spoken, printed, and hurled at us ad infinitum, no one really knows what the truth is anymore.  I tried looking at the bottom of page 17 for it, but it’s not there.

Like I said, no one is willing to tell the truth more than once.

So, whilst being told by one side that I’m in a vulnerable group and COVID 19 will kill me if I get it, the other side is telling me there’s no such thing as COVID 19 and it’s just an elaborate hoax.

Whoever created this elaborate hoax has done a good job, though, managing to enlist 218 countries worldwide, all their medical authorities, and all of the governments.  That’s some incredible effort.

So, my two cents worth, if every country in the world can partake in a hoax, why can’t they band together in world peace, free trade, and no wars.

Is it a pie in the sky moment?

Or just a little bit idealistic?

 

Still just a state of mind

I can’t say I’m not somewhat fascinated by the conflagration that’s going on around me.

Perhaps that’s because I’m one of the older and more vulnerable of the population. They say older is wiser, but I’m not so sure anymore. Being old, and with an underlying medical condition means you are more susceptible to getting any sort of bug and have a higher percentage of dying from it.

I try not to think about it.

And Chester, my cat, used to get nervous, being 18 cat years (over a hundred human years) and susceptible too, so he heard.  It didn’t get him in the end, it was just old age, and made me feel like age was catching up myself, and worry about my own mortality given age and underlying ailments.

Perhaps I shouldn’t keep watching the live, continuous updates on the COVID 19 crisis. Well, perhaps it’s more than a crisis, but somehow pandemic doesn’t quite fit the horrendous nature of it.

And that’s something else I’ve noticed.

People still seem to be laughing it off as a hoax, or a flu strain, or something that might just go away all by itself. 4,727,000 infections later, I think President Trump got that slightly wrong, but don’t tell him because he never said that, even if he did, and you have concrete evidence, then he’ll still deny he said it.

But, as you can see, Chester’s ghost and I have found a new way to lighten our day, we watch what we call The Trump Show.

It’s two hours, sometimes, of, well, I’m not quite sure what it is, but it doesn’t reassure me one bit.

Good thing, then, I live in another country, one where the people are, by and large, doing as the government health officials ask us to do, and we are seeing results.

And our leaders, Local, State and Federal don’t refer to us losing our rights and privileges as residents in a democracy, they ask us to stay home and stay safe, and above all, look after our elderly and vulnerable people.

It’s a repeated and sustained message universally given to us by everyone. We don’t even have partisan politics. The opposition whinge, but basically agree with everything the government is trying to do.

I’m not sure anywhere else other than New Zealand have that luxury.

So, here I am, happily writing, the same as I’ve been doing for the last five years.

Basically, nothing has changed. I go to the supermarket and get groceries, I go to the doctor, I go to the pharmacy, I get to see my grandchildren, and every now and then have dinner with my children, but one family at a time. It will no doubt be some time before we can all sit down together, but I don’t mind. All of them together is hard work.

What I do miss is the travel.

And, sadly, I don’t think any of us will be doing any travelling, especially overseas, for a long time. Good thing then we had travelled extensively and afar during the previous ten years. We were only saying a few weeks ago, it was time to see our own country.

Maybe that will happen sooner rather than later.  We did have a brief period where it was safe, but it seems we’re about to get a taste of what the officials are calling a second wave.  It’s not here, but some people have been doing the wrong thing, got infected, and started spreading it.  It should be contained, but we’ll see what happens over the next week or so.

But I’m not sure if Chester would have been all that happy about us being here more than usual. I suspect our 2, 3, and 4 weeks away would have suited him, having the run of the house, able to climb up on the seats and furniture, and whatever else cats do when you’re not looking.

And sadly I miss his grumpy tones and being more feisty than usual.

Maybe I should have got that dog I always threatened him with.

Anyway, our curve is still flat, whatever that means, and things are looking good. Nobody wants to take anything for granted so we’re going to stick it out for another few weeks, and then, maybe we might consider going away, if only for a weekend.

I suspect our world, even when the virus has gone away, will never be quite the same. Some industries will shutter the doors permanently, particularly airlines, and others will spring up, like out manufacturing which we long ago sold out the foreign entities. Wasn’t that a huge mistake?

Children doing schoolwork at home. That would be unheard of in days before the internet.

People buying everything online rather than going to a storefront. Also not widely accepted until now, and I think everyone is going to take advantage of the convenience.

People will be looking at movies at home, on very large tv screens and sound systems that will rival theatres; construction companies say that new houses are being built with media rooms these days.

And everyone will be a lot more careful about personal hygiene and more aware of their surrounds and the people in that sphere. After all, there is currently no cure for this bug, and it has the propensity to spread while no one knows their contagious – and it will kill anyone.

And something else that not many people are saying out loud, is that you don’t fully recover from it, even though you think you have. You will become susceptible to flu, and pneumonia later on, and without a doubt, this bug could mutate into something even nastier even if we do find a vaccine.

I don’t really believe in conspiracy theories, but something I do take away from this; I hope it wasn’t deliberately made for a purpose, possibly to kill the elderly and the sick (and those who didn’t know they were sick) much like the Nazis did in a more crude fashion, and they do say history repeats itself.

It seems to be a weapon, people are saying we are waging a war, and thus it highlights the fact it doesn’t matter how many nuclear weapons you have, how many soldiers, tanks, battlecruisers, guns or anything else military, they are useless against this. All that money wasted in the ideal of protecting ourselves, and a sneaky virus comes in the back door and kills just as many invisibly. And without a cure…

Think about it. Who has the most to gain by creating a worldwide catastrophe?

And who will magically become the saviour?

Questions are going to be asked, governments are going to have to completely rethink their plans of fitting into the global economy at the expense of their own industries, and people will have to rethink how they live their lives, and whether they can sleep at night feeling safe.

I have one vote.

That vote will be going to the people who put their people first and self-interest last. That way I know I’ll be able to sleep at night.

 

In a word: Over

It’s over!  What is?  Well, almost anything.

A relationship, a bad day, a friendship, a long, monotonous lecture, and dinner.

It’s basically the light at the end of the tunnel, when it’s not the 6:32 express from Clapton, entering the other end of that same tunnel.

You could go over the top, which means, in one sense, over and above the expected, or way beyond the expected but not in a good way.

You could go over the waterfall in a leaky boat.  Not advisable, but sometimes a possibility, if someone fails to tell you at the end of the rapids there is a waterfall.  Just make sure it’s not the same as Niagara falls.

Still, someone has gone over Niagara in a barrel.

Then we could say that my lodging is over the garage, which simply means someone built it on top of the garage.

Branches of trees quite ofter grow over the roofs of houses, until a severe storm brings them down and suddenly they are in your house, no longer over it.

You can have editorial control over a newspaper

In a fight, the combatants are equally trying to shout over the top of each other

And sometimes, when trying to paint a different picture to what is real, you could say the temperature is sometimes over 40 degrees centigrade when you know for a fact it is usually 56 degrees centigrade.  No need for the literal truth here or no one will come.

Then you could say I came over land, assuming that you took a car, or walked when in actual fact you came by plane.  And yes, the whole flight was, truthfully, over land.

I don’t accept my lot in fife, nor do I want a small lot on which to build my mansion!

But the oddest use of the word over is when we describe, in cricket, the delivery of 6 balls.

I’ve listened to cricket commentary, and aside from trying to pronounce the names of the players, if you were unfamiliar with the game, being told this ball was outside leg stump, one of  several deliveries, the last of which was the end of the over.  If the delivery hit the stumps, it is then a wicket, and the batsman is out.

Wow!

And we thought it was over…

Until two people decided to lie about where they’d been, and then spend the next eight days running around infecting as many people as they could.

A potent reminder that it only takes one person to flout the rules, and cause utter mayhem and madness on basically around 2 million people who were beginning to get their lives back on track.  That is now all on hold.

COVID 19 is an insidious disease that proliferates when carriers do not know they have it, or in this case, when the carriers have it, and not tell anyone or go get tested so they can be put in isolation.

In other words, these people do not care who they infect, and as a result, who they kill.

This, in my view, makes them guilty of murder if anyone dies from their actions.  And, since it is premeditated, in other words, their intent was to deliberately conceal the fact they had it and still went on a spree, makes them eligible for the highest sentence the court can hand down.

More’s the pity we no longer have the death sentence, because sure as hell, these two deserve it.

It is a very valid reason, in times like this, to bring back public hangings just to get the message across to the fools that still believe this disease is a hoax or a joke.

It is not.

And I suspect, if this turns out to be a runaway disaster, there’s going to be a lot of people baying for their blood.

In a word: Loose

We’ve all heard of the expression, he’s playing it fast and loose, or more interestingly, he’s fast and loose with the truth.

I’ve never really got a proper definition of that expression, but it sounds good, and people have to use their imaginations and put their own interpretation to it.

And if this was the 1930s, and Clarke Gable was playing opposite Jean Harlow, it’s exactly how the posters would describe the blonde bombshell.

Loose, however, in a more literal sense means not tight, so a loose nut on a bolt might be the cause of a catastrophe.

And speaking of catastrophes, there’s a fox loose in the hen house.  Sadly it would be very difficult to catch and tie up.

Of course, in hot weather, you’d rather be wearing something loose, to keep cool.

Women, in particular, can wear their hair loose, as distinct from ‘up’, or in a ponytail or braids.

Some people make a loose interpretation, which inevitably creates grey areas, and loose lips, well, they’ve been known to sink ships.

This word can sometimes be confused with lose, which means something else entirely.

Like, lose a watch, lose your head, in more ways than one, lose your life, as if it was one of nine when it isn’t, and lose everything, perhaps, in the 1930’s stock market crash.

Quite literally, it means to be deprived of, or cease to gain or have.

You can lose weight, have a clock that loses time, or you can lose your temper.

Sometimes I lose the plot.

Figures of speech

I found this explanation on the internet: ‘a word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect.’

We as writers should not use these in our writing because most people might not understand their use.  I think it sometimes adds a degree of whimsy to the story.

I remember some years ago when I working with a Russian chap who’d not been in the country very long, and though he had a reasonable use of English, it was not quite up with our figures of speech.

And made me realize when he kept asking me what they meant, just how many I used in everyday use.

Most of these figures of speech use descriptions that do not necessarily match the word being described, such as ‘I dance like I have two left feet’.

And that pretty much sums up how good I can dance.  But …

‘Like a bat out of hell’, not sure how this got into the vernacular

‘Like a bull in a china shop’, describes a toddler let loose, no, you had the securely in their pram but somehow they got loose while you weren’t looking

‘More front than Myers’, as my mother used to say, but in context, Myers is the Australian version of the English Selfridges or Harrods or Paris Galleries Lafayette.  It refers to the width of street frontage of the stores, which in fact stretched for a whole block

‘As mad as a hatter’, though not necessarily of the millinery kind, but, well, you can guess, it’s from Alice in Wonderland

‘As nutty as a fruitcake’, provided your fruitcake has nuts in it

And, ‘I haven’t heard from him in donkey’s years’ which means you haven’t heard from someone for a long time, or perhaps as long as it takes donkey’s ears to fully grow.

Yes, someone made a minor adjustment and added a y to ears, because it used to be ‘donkey’s ears’, believe it or not.

You can see, if you get the references, they are somewhat apt, and, yes, they sometimes creep into my stories.

 

In a word: Light

Yes, I see the lighthouse, what’s it doing all the way out there?  The thing is, these places are sometimes so remote, I start thinking I should rent one for 6 months and then, without any distractions, I’ll get the blasted book finished.

Until there’s a shipwreck, of course!

Light is of course light, duh.  Turn on the switch and let there be light.

Hang on, didn’t someone else say that, millennia ago?  Someone famous?  It’s on the tip of my tongue.

No! It’s not cyanide…

So, whilst we need it to see everything, it has another meaning…

My, that’s a light load your carrying today, which means not very heavy.

Or, that’s a light-coloured jumper, which means pale.

Oh, and did you light the fire?

And, after you light the fire, do you light out to a safe haven in light traffic because really it was arson, and you got a light sentence the last time enabling you to do it again.

If you are trying to rob someone, then it was a kilo light.

And after a long hard struggle, did you light upon the correct answer?

This is not to be confused with another similar word, lite.

It seems this is only used for describing low-calorie drinks and food, such as lite beer, which seems to me to be a lazy way of not using light

Still, there’s not much other use of the word except as a suffix -lite, but then you’d have to mention -lyte as well.

The message here – just use the damn word light and be done with it.

 

Words, sometimes more destructive than bullets, and one ‘sorry’ could save a lot of heartache and pain

They can destroy relationships

They can tear apart friendships

They can start wars

We are sometimes at a loss for words

Sometimes we can’t find the words

And then there those horrible things called crosswords.

There are antonyms and synonyms

Sometimes we use words we don’t know the meaning of because of their similarity with others we do

Then there one or more words that make other words as in anagrams

There are substitute words, words we use around children like fudge instead of, well you get what I mean

There’s no doubt we would be lost without words

Words are to be chosen carefully and thoughtfully

They need to be delivered in an appropriate manner, not in haste, and not in anger

We need to believe in what we’re saying before others will believe it

We need to learn how to express our feelings

We should take advantage of learning English (or any other native language) when at school

We need to start reading as soon as we can and keep up reading as we get older.  One should never underestimate the power reading and writing gives us no matter who we are.

Always have a dictionary by your side.  It is the most valuable book you can own.

And always remember the power of speech can at times move mountains

The good old days

This is a flashback to the times when we could travel without worrying about a pesky invisible disease.

And, now, we can refer to the days before COVID 19 started as the good old days.

Although we are able to travel within our own state, and this is a photo of the Gold Coast beach not far from the Hilton Hotel in Surfers Paradise.

I’m not inclined to run the gauntlet of thinking that an outbreak might not occur in a place where there are a large number of visitors, some of whom do not, or more likely will not, obey the health regulations.

And I suspect this will be the same for a lot of the over 60s who are in that vulnerable group the disease attacks more severely, and who are probably the people with both time and the money to boost local businesses, the sort of visitors the area wants to attract.

Unfortunately most of us can’t take that chance, after seeing in the southern states how a visit to a restaurant can quickly turn into a hot spot and then a disaster.

So it looks like we’ll be in our pseudo jail for some time longer.