Category: Words

#772 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Words4 Comments

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

Having just stepped out of the Festive Season I can answer this slightly awkward question from Bloganuary. Playing is not built into my daily life. Far too much White Anglo-Saxon Work ethic has leached into my core. The Festive season is a rich and embellished few weeks, where hard work and the gathering of family and friends allows time out to play board games or read books. To go on real and imaginary adventures with small or large people. Playtime perfection some might say.

Having semi-retired from a serious and sensible career to take up a second career as an artist, could be construed as being pretty playful all the time.

How is playful defined or calibrated. Who sets the protocols or parameters on play?

The truth is that I struggle with the words play and playful. But if I could replace the word play with fun then fun is a daily activity both the planned and the serendipitous. Fun appears in the darkest of moments or the least expected places. It can be scheduled or awkward. Bubbling up out of the fun gland when seriousness or professionalism are expected and the correct response. I am an exploder of mirth, sometimes inappropriately. Is that playful or just bad?

I struggle so much with the word I looked it up. At last I could feel some comfort with this topic. The hook-in for me is light-hearted.

I can actually sign up for light hearted, so much easier to live with. Unless of course it is the Festive Season when anything goes.

#759 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Words1 Comment
Winter Solstice ©theoldmortuary

Yule is associated with the Winter Solstice, so in the northern hemisphere, this Sabbat is celebrated around December 21st.

©theoldmortuary

Yule Traditions and Symbols

When the days got shorter and colder, candles and bonfires were lit, and everyone gathered to lure the sun back. Everyone brought food and enjoyed the feast during the festival. They danced, sang, and decorated their homes. These traditions are very similar to what we call Christmas.



©theoldmortuary

“…This is the solstice, the still point
of the sun, its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold
and unlocking, where the past
lets go and becomes the future; – Margaret Atwood

#753 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn history, Serendipity, Words1 Comment

How can I share the joy of a plunge in cold, clean, seawater or indeed the joy of plunging generally.

In life I am a plunger. I love the word. It begins with an upbeat feeling and then ends with a soft J-like sound that feels like a cuddle.

I don’t plunge without regard to safety or without a good bit of research. Plunging is an immersive experience.

If plunge was a Danish word I could see it being trendy in the way hygge has.

To plunge is to do something whole heartedly.

This morning I plunged into the sea. It was breathtaking and wonderful.

A long time ago I painted a plunge. The moment a hand cleaves into water.

In the header photograph I took an image of the inside of a plastic water bottle. The small amount of warm colours merging into crisp blues is another way of trying to depict the act or experience of the moment of peak plunge.

At this point serendipity hits. Last night we quickly left a Christmas music event to head to the Barbican in Plymouth for a different event. The Christmas lights were a fabulous likeness to my water bottle image.

As you can see from these two images the Barbican was full of people intent on ‘ making a night of it’ in the run up to Christmas.

No big deal you might think but here is a plunge into history. Southside Street and the even older New Street which runs parallel and slightly higher; both lead to Sutton Harbour and existed in some form from about 700AD. When Anglo-Saxon mariners settled here trading goods and fish. Greatly developed in the Medieval periods, the pubs, alehouses and brothels would have seen festive drinkers and pleasure seekers making merry at this time of year. For pagan festivals initially, and then for the conveniently timed Christian Festival of Christmas from about the 10th century. Any excuse to banish the glumness of extra long dank and dark nights in a Northern Hemisphere winter.

This contemporary image of groups of people moving from pub/bar/alehouse seeking pleasure in late December is so timeless it slightly unnerves me . Oh to be a time traveller in this area, with appropriate vaccinations. Plunging through history…

#744 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, WordsLeave a comment

Yesterdays blog caused quite a stir. It seems that rizz is a word that people really enjoy using instead of the word allure.

#743 theoldmortuary ponders.

I know a blog has gone down well when at some point in the day someone quotes it back to me. Also my stats go up, but that is less pleasurable than meeting someone who wants to talk about the blog.

It was news to me that I have been spelling ‘pizzazz’ wrong all my life.

Maybe I can blame my rural North East Essex youth where people still spoke with a soft accent rather than the better known Estuary English which is now synonymous with Essex.

There was no i in our pizzazz when I was growing up and for all of my life until yesterday. There was a rabbit hole of discovery on line that briefly swallowed me up. You can click on the link or not

https://uselessetymology.com/2019/11/15/where-does-the-word-pizzazz-come-from-etymology-history/

The Etymology of ‘ Pizzazz’- Useless Etmology.

I think I have always enjoyed words that include zeds.

Reliably first on the front row of a Querty keyboard.

Deliciously somnolent when written or typed repetitively. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The funny thing is that I must always have ignored spell check and pressed on with my own abbreviated version as the Whatsapp message at the top of the blog shows.

I was at school with a boy who had a zed in all of his names, Juliusz Bezjak Szpytma, I was very envious.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that the devices used to light gas hobs had piezoelectric cells!

Enough, time to draw this blog to an end before I pass its Zenith.

#736 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity, Words2 Comments

One of life’s pleasures, of my sort of aimless wandering in a foreign city, is indulging in capturing the textures, colours and experience of inconsequential but interesting things.

I loved the texture created by the loss of mortar between the bricks of this wall in Venice. Texture and ginger colours was a bit of a thing for me on this particular day. I was able to see the original painting of a mythical bird woman by Max Ernst.

The imperious bird-woman commands our attention with her direct owl’s gaze, and seems alarmingly about to step out of the painting. The robe depicted here may refer to the mystic initiation of Christian Rosenkreuz, founder of Rosicrucianism. It seems also to have autobiographical allusions, with the artist present in the green swan or heron. Much of the highly textured surface has been created by decalcomania, a technique of dabbing at wet paint with rags or paper to create a puckered surface. The comprehensive meaning of this painting eludes us, as is characteristic.

Max Ernst’s paintings often baffle me, but even when reproduced the textures he creates are thrilling. To see one up close and actually see the picture in person was a fabulous treat. But as a word collector I was almost as thrilled with the word ‘decalcomania’

So much to take in, in one walk. Time for refreshment. Which turned out to be just one more moment of inconsequential discovery. My poor old post-covid taste buds long for anything that stimulates them into action, however brief. Ginger is a regular drink of choice and the fierier the better. There was an Italian soft drink that promised great things with its name.

Gingerino offered not a glimmer of ginger but it was one of the bitterest and delicious things I have tasted in a long while. Despite its nuclear colour I was hooked and rather giddily had another. Sadly it seems my discovery was just a very brief holiday romance. Gingerino and I will never be reconnected in the U.K.

A day of remarkable ginger texture is definitely a day well spent.

#714 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, autumn, Words1 Comment

I learned a new word yesterday.

I am shocked that I never thought to question what the counterpart to misogynist is. Both misogyny and misandry are pretty easy to spot but it never occurred to me to give the dislike of men a name. Now I am thinking myself  into a circle of over thinking.

Is it misandrist of me to think that misogyny is more commonly experienced in society.

Thankfully my second new word of the day is much easier to get my head around. 

Goodness I love biomimicry. Yesterday a friend was knitting with variegated knitting wool,which was the exact shade of fallen autumn leaves. At the time she was sitting under this piece of art.

©Yan-Feng

These were exactly the colours of the day yesterday.

Two new words in one day!

#707 theoldmortuary ponders

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It is not often that the days ponder must wait until after the sun has started to set. Today this was always going to be the case. I was up early to buy croissants to fuel a morning of lively conversation with the bobbers. Straight after that a chat with some fellow Bookworms and then deep conversation with a one year old. My day was replete with gorgeous, gregarious women who all talk about anything and everything with wit and wisdom.

A chance encounter with a word perked up my day even more.

Some time ago the bobbers swam in a sea filled with Pilchards and White Bait. The seagulls thought all their Christmases had come at once, with a huge shoal seemingly trapped in Tranquility Bay. They swooped and dived as we bobbed and swam. Their disturbance causing millions of fish scales to be loose in the water. We emerged, twinkling like a troupe of exotic dancers. Fish scales stuck to our skin so tenaciously that even vigorous rubbing could not remove them until we used soap and hot water.

R.Morton Nance revealed a word precisely designed for this phenomenon which afflicts fishermen all the time.

Gollowillians are fish scales incidentally attached to humans.

Now this may be the first time Gollowillians knocks tatterdemalion into second place in a blog. I had planned to natter on about things that are dilapidated but that will have to wait for another day. Because the sun has finally set.

#692 theoldmortuary ponders

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I wonder if nasty viruses are a good way for people with normally robust health to live in the shoes of people who are less fortunate. After 24 hours of exploding insides I was left like a whimsical husk, unable to function in any useful way until my insides decided that they would permit half a can of flat coke and a small amount of plain pasta.

My best descriptive word for my state yesterday was flimsy and the previous few days were definitely queasy.

Goodness I love the word ‘flinsy’. I have not always used it wisely or in a kindly way. In my teenage years I described a friends new boyfriend as flimsy. I thought I was being kind and truthful but maybe finding something good about him would have been what a truly good friend would have done.

The other definition of flimsy is almost certain to be or to become extinct. Hand or type written reports were often created on triple layer stationary. A sandwich of normal paper for the original, ultra thin paper in the middle and thin card on the back. The ultra thin paper was often called the flimsy and most organisations had a special filing system for flimsies. Paper versions of credit card transactions were possibly the last incarnation of the flimsy as a noun.

#685 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Serendipity, Words2 Comments
Battersea Power Station ©theoldmortuary

‘There are some losses that change the trajectory of your life’ P.Diddy

Puff Daddy, P.Diddy, Diddy or even  Sean Combs  his real name, is talking about the death of a woman he loved and shared three children with.

Significant losses or negative events do change the direction that life takes.

As an optimist and someone who likes to reflect on my half-full glass I am guilty of skimming over negative outcomes and always trying to find the best in people and situations.

Reflecting on the negative is not somewhere I feel comfortable but just acknowledging that negatives and positives have equal power to change the direction of life is somehow a quite relaxing thought. Just as the planned and unplanned have a similar capacity.

A ponder is not what I expected when I read an article about a Billionaire Rapper. Just one thoughtful sentence. Of course I have lived the reality of loss altering life’s directions. As has every human. But until today I could not have expressed that sensation so eloquently.

#675 theoldmortuary ponders

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Autumn flowers in cafes.

A rather strange summer in the UK has created some lovely flowers for autumn.

Which could be considered to be natural schadenfreude. Summers misfortune has made autumn thrive.

Schadenfreude has never been my bag. I really disliked those TV programmes that invited the public to send in videos of people having minor slips, trips and falls. I don’t like pranks or practical jokes. My moral compass doesn’t take any enjoyment from other people’s misfortune. Misfortune falling upon those that deserve it is sometimes satisfying, but no more than that.

I’m pondering this because I heard a sportsman being interviewed yesterday and he was asked if he had Schadenfreude when a team that did not renew his contract immediately hit a period of poor performance.

There was a long awkward radio silence, he then apologised for not knowing the words meaning. After the presenter rephrased her question there was another silence while he considered his answer.

” Why would anyone take pleasure in their friends and former team members suffering repeated defeats ” he asked.

I can only hope the interviewer squirmed at her question. She was clearly working her way through scripted questions, but had not registered that every one of his previous answers had demonstrated that he was a compassionate and thoughtful person.

I was going to ponder a different word today but Schadenfreude pushed Prescient from my mind, I should have realised that would happen!

This is quite a dry ,wordy blog but autumn flowers in cafes are brightening up the look of it if nothing else.

My big problem with schadenfreude is that there is no natural control. I once saw a man slip on a banana skin. It gave me brief pleasure to witness a cliche but ultimately he collided with a hard park bench and really hurt himself.

And so October blows in I wonder where the ponderings will take me.