OutingThePathology

Keeping Up Appearances

A few weeks ago the Honourable Member for Brent Central was temporarily banished from the Chamber for refusing to comply with the required rules of etiquette. A bit like being sent to your room for calling your elderly relative fat. . . Or perhaps not; for that’s more a matter of opinion, of kindness andContinue reading “Keeping Up Appearances”

‘This statement is untrue’

This post has been delayed for a couple of reasons, one of which should be evident from the text. I was also hoping to illustrate the words with three reproductions from the works of M C Escher. I applied to the M C Escher Co. (which apparently holds the copyright) for permission and had beenContinue reading “‘This statement is untrue’”

An uncertain future

Sentencing the woman to life imprisonment, the presiding judge, according to the Independent, said: “The plain facts of the matter is that you have taken the lives of two vulnerable and defenceless babies.” For a woman who has lost her two babies in an appalling turn of fate, what could be a more crushing andContinue reading “An uncertain future”

Little White Lies

I value my freedoms. Perhaps most valued is the freedom to enjoy a degree of privacy in living my own life without undue interference. But of course this is a negotiated position – weighing your freedoms against mine and then exercising the privilege with due consideration for others’. Equitable coexistence demands compromise, pact and praxisContinue reading “Little White Lies”

“C’est la guerre”

Early in December 1942 an ageing ocean liner slipped quietly out of the protective embrace of convoy ON149 and charting an evasive course, steamed away, unescorted, for the South Atlantic. A contemporary of the Titanic – under construction as that ship embarked on her maiden voyage – this was the last and by far theContinue reading ““C’est la guerre””

Crossing boundaries

I fear it takes a long time to overcome early conditioning. Although I have long since removed myself from the influence of Catholicism and the Jesuits, that nagging imperative to seek fulfilment in placing the needs of others ahead of my own remains deep rooted. I suspect I may never be entirely free of theContinue reading “Crossing boundaries”

Following Procedure

Art Garfunkle brought me a line from “Waters of March” (Jobim). It conjured an image now preserved in an enduring memory of a particular place and time. Early one sultry summer morning, some fifty years ago in up-state Mississippi, a young man with a back-pack climbed down from a Greyhound Scenicruiser. . . There’s noContinue reading “Following Procedure”

A Sense of Decency

“It’s no good just being a decent fellow; you’ve got to sell yourself in this world”. So said the careers master somewhere back in the mid sixties. Understandable, I suppose, but it didn’t go down well. Doesn’t exactly denigrate but puts things in their place. A hierarchy was established and ever since I’ve lived withContinue reading “A Sense of Decency”

Compulsory Games

Apparently the latest iteration of “Monopoly” has gone cashless. This has prompted a view that the more visceral pleasure of relieving opponents of large wads of notes will now be lost. Quite possibly true but, however played, this is just a passing schadenfreude if the defeat is sufficient to remove the remaining players. A pyrrhicContinue reading “Compulsory Games”

A Hierarchy of Collusion

This is a version of my intended first post. A much condensed piece now, since I’ve already set out the stall and shall try to resist the temptation for cathartic but redundant repetition. It’s really quite a small matter – just an everyday story of the cultural disingenuity that seems evermore to infect our existence.Continue reading “A Hierarchy of Collusion”