Cherie's Place - Thought for the Week

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

Robert Fripp

PhotoHunt - Nautical

I am sure you will all recognise the 'White Cliffs of Dover', you can also view Calais in this previous post of mine.

For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick

Dover Beach

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

by Matthew Arnold

The English Patient

by Michael Ondaatje

Last night I managed to get to my book group for the first time in months. There were 8 of us there to discuss the book, although one person hadn't read any of it.

Synopsis:

The story is set in Italy in 1944. The war is over and has left it's devastation on both the land and the people that have been left in it's wake.

The book centres around an isolated Tuscan villa that has served as a military hospital. Two people remain; a young Canadian nurse named Hana and her last patient a man who is burned beyond recognition (The English Patient). Hana is scarred by what she has experienced durning the war and by the death of her father. Her patient drifts in and out of dreams of the past and his time spent in the desert.

Later the two of them are joined by Caravaggio, a thief made legitimate by the war who had been tortured and maimed by his war time captors. A young Sikh Sapper named Kip also joins them. He had been employed by the British Forces dismantling bombs.

The plot flits between the past and and present as each individual story unfolds.

So what did the group think of it?

Most of the group members loved the book, but found it difficult to detach themselves from the film version which has quite a different emphasis. Luckily I didn't have that problem because I have never seen the film. We liked the imagery and the way the book slowly unfolded, unraveling the past and the events that have shaped the characters.

Everyone liked the characters although one member of the group wasn't convinced with the way Kip reacted and developed towards the end of the book. I personally thought that it was quite a plausible way to react, following the course of his life and experiences throughout the war. The novel has a clever way with words, which draw you in, revealing metaphors and the ultimately the identity of the English patient. Within the pages love, loss, betrayal and sense of nation are all featured.

Most group members felt the book would benefit a second reading, as they thought a lot of nuances had been missed the first time around.

Aftershock!

This is to do with the journey home and not the book. I had a terrible time trying to get on any road that led back to my home. After about 10 minutes driving I found that the road was blocked off with cones. I thought no worries I can take the next road which led to the same roundabout that I was trying to get to. Annoyingly that was blocked of with cones too!!!

I had to drive all the way back to where I started from and drive out of town in the other direction. When I reached that all illusive roundabout I saw a sea of traffic cones. All the exits were blocked apart from the road I was on and luckily the road that I needed to be on to get home.

I find it totally irresponsible that no diversion/warning signs had been put in place to warn people in advance. All the other ways I could have got home are miles out of my way!

The Ugly Donkey

At work today we received an envelope and inside it were some heart shaped chocolates and a red envelope that was addressed to:

The Ugly Donkey on the 3rd floor west wing

The way it was addressed opened up all sorts of possibilities but underneath in very faint letters it said 'by Cherie'. Phew! that meant it wasn't me ;-)

That narrowed down the possibilities. We figured it must be the 25 year old pictured below who was orphaned when it's owner retired last year. It arrived in England from Spain and has resided in our office ever since. Many a visitor has done a double take thinking there is a dog in the office.

And after all these years the Donkey has it's first valentine card, which was signed very enigmatically.

A Fairy Among fairies

I saw this on Dragonstar's blog, but this post is also for Luisa and Dani xxx

What is your fairy name?

Your fairy is called Thorn Hailglitter

She is a protector of the lonely.

She lives in brambles and blackberry bushes.

She is only seen in the light of a shooting star.

She wears purple and green like berries and leaves. She has cheery turquoise wings like a butterfly.

Get your free fairy name here!

Kirs... A Fairy Among fairies..., originally uploaded by CasallArt.

A bit of an Update

Following on from my post yesterday:

Today it has been announced that the Metrix consortium have come to an agreement with Sodexho who have agreed to join Qinetiq on the basis of being a 50/50 equity partner in provision of the defence training review.

More information can be found here.

A Privatisation Too Far

These are the words of Conservative MP Mark Pritchard when he spoke out against the Defence Training Review (DTR) which would see defence training privatised and delivered by the Metrix consortium.

PCS has been talking about the pitfalls of DTR for several years but now its message seems to have reached the attention of the mainstream media.

From today's edition of The Guardian:

"The project involves planning applications and big investments in infrastructure projects as well as the sale of large amounts of existing MoD property. Defence officials have expressed doubts about the impact on military ethos.

Mark Pritchard, Conservative MP for The Wrekin, who stands to lose the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering at Cosford in his constituency if the project goes ahead, describes it as a "privatisation too far".

He added: "St Athan does not have the infrastructure so it needs new roads etc. We have all that in the West Midlands."

The consortium and finance is unravelling, he continued, giving the MoD a "massive headache". He called on ministers to make an urgent statement in the Commons on the project.

A consortium called Metrix, consisting of Qinetiq, the MoD's privatised former research and development agency and Land Securities Trillium as equity partners, was set up to finance and manage the project. But Land Securities recently dropped out, leaving Qinetiq having to look for a new partner."

Interestingly, The Telegraph has also picked up on the story. The Telegraph seems an unusual place for a Conservative MP to be reported speaking out against privatisation...

• Guardian Article.

• Telegraph Article.