Greyhares visitor, Mike Paul, argues in favour of a little more grey all round... It was Chou En-lai, the former Chinese premier who once said, on being asked his opinion of the effect of the French Revolution on subsequent history, “It is too soon to say.“ Now whether or not he was being genuinely profound…
Font of wisdom
There are two key givens in employment. First, it is the employer who pays; second it is the employer who decides what is to be done. Well, that is the theory. When we employed a local engraver, things did not go exactly to plan... During our first holidays in Tréguennec, goods, guests, and even letters…
To do or not to do
Alan West's cat turns out to be a student of philosopher, Donald Rumsfeld... When it comes to life’s “to do or not to do” questions, a kind of Rumsfeldian logic can be applied - There are many things that we can do and therefore do do, quite profitably. There are those things that we can do…
Funny thing, laughter
Laughter is one of the great pleasures in life. It is also complicated as in addition to its traditional role in humour, it sometimes takes on a social role when it becomes an altogether more serious matter. In the world of humour, laughter is probably at its most pleasurable when it gets out of hand.…
The child within
To passers-by I would have appeared a normal adult, but for an hour or so I became a reticent school-boy dragging his feet. I just did not want to go to school. The immediate background to this metamorphosis was straightforward. Some weeks earlier my wife had asked what I wanted for my birthday. I plumped…
Second guessing
After 40 years I assumed I could read my mother-in-law’s mind. By then she was in her late eighties, had become vague and forgetful, but her sense of the absurd was undiminished, possibly even enhanced. We went out for lunch and after our hors-d’ourvres and main courses, we negotiated to go halves on the pudding…
Questions that rock
Sometimes I get a question that rocks me back. I got one last week. On the bike that morning, I had been puzzling over Shakespeare’s seven ages of man. Mine came to four – ‘development’, ‘reproduction’, ‘consolidation’ and ‘decline’. I presented these over tea and reproduction-going-on-consolidation man asked declining-man (me) - ‘if you were offered…
The constant hammer
For years three questions have haunted me but now I am down to two. I still do not know why the chicken crossed the road; I have not resolved whether it was the chicken or the egg that came first (based on Aristotelian principles I am told it is the chicken) but I do agree…