Middlefocus

  I nearly walked past this shrub earlier on.   I'm glad I didn't because a little while later this natural occurence had disappeared.   A mist of web and raindrops had cloaked the plant. Entrapment by spiders surely to lure in unwary insects. The strategy reminded me a little of the Sirenes singing in the Ulysses epic. So as not to yield to the tempting invitation the hero in that story had himself bound to the ship's mast while the sailors had their ears blocked with wax so they couldn't hear the fateful song. It succeeded in the story but I am not sure how it worked out for the insects or the spiders in the shrub. I cannot really criticise the insects for falling prey.  It's part of the natural cycle of things.  And anyway, I stopped to investigate so I guess I too fell for the strategy. Glad I stopped and paid attention though. Would have "mist" it otherwise. Have you had a similar experience? Spotted any other of nature's fatal attractions?

  The guide asked us to stop in front of this stone fragment on our visit to Ephesus in Turkey.  "What does it remind you of?" she asked.  Not being that sporty I didn't see the connection immediately. But now, I cannot not see it. According to the guide it was the inspiration for a widely recognised logo. Do you see it? It is an image of the Greek winged goddess Nike. She symbolises victory not just in wars but in more peaceful pursuits such as games and athletics.  She is renowned for her speed and strength. I guess the resulting stylised logo ticked all the right boxes.

  It may have been the light from a sunny day at the beach because a glint of something caught my eye and made me pay attention. Glass. I stooped to look closer and picked up a bottle. Had it been just discarded or washed up? It looked as if it had been buried, brown caked-on sand around its neck, still stoppered. I could feel the embossment on the body and dusting it down could read the details: REGISTERED. WJ. BRIGGS. BELFAST and signed WJ.Briggs. But what did it contain? Holding it up to the light I peered inside hoping to find a roll of paper - a message in a bottle maybe. No such luck, it was quite empty. No hint of or even a trace of whatever liquid it once contained. One thing was sure, it was a glass bottle, dulled by abrasion but clearly vintage. This would-be beachcomber wanted to learn as much as possible about it. Questions surfaced. Why was the bottle here? How come? What was nearby? Who left it, an adult or a child? Does the Briggs company still exist? Where was it? S...

A railway line runs close to the rear of our home. Local and express trains including the hourly ones serving the Belfast/Dublin route hurtle past every fifteen minutes and apart from the occasional sustained warning blast of an air horn we don’t pay them much attention. Visitors to our home are taken aback: “Does that noise not bother you?” It doesn’t. It is simply part of the soundscape of where we live; something we are used to. Our paternal family has close connection with the railway. Granda Christy was a driver on a steam locomotive for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) which also operated in Northern Ireland. A story is told of him stopping his engine on the Antrim Coast as he felt that the sound coming back to him from up ahead was not quite right. His intuitive experience was correct, boulders had fallen unto the track. Catastrophe avoided. A close call. Christy TRACEY with his steam locomotive. Photo source unknown. Exterior sounds are one type of resonance and t...

Here’s something I learned last week. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used to produce wine. Really? What about the vintner? I always thought that their practised, artful skill is what wine making was all about it. Technology and machinery in the vineyard by all means but in the alchemy of turning grape to wine surely not. There’s a first time for everything and so it was back to school for a lesson on and taste of AI-curated wine. School in this case was a wine appreciation class where a dozen of us meet each week in a local social club. Our tutor - we’ve come to look upon him as a benefactor - selects several wines he thinks we’ll like and we spend a couple of hours tasting our way through them and comparing notes and picking favourites. In a recent class many of us also sampled for the first time “orange” wine and that might be the subject of a future post. But back to that AI curation. CTZN - Luminous Drift is a wine blend from South Eastern Australia, apparently bottled in Lo...

The beautiful church in central France where I met the Refugee Woman and Child I wrote the following poem 50 years ago. Scalded by an experience I found that I could only express my feelings through writing it. Whatever the poem lacks in style and structure, the act of going home and penning it had a powerful effect. Powerful enough to have stayed with me for 50 years. Still vivid in my memory. I had been at a church service in a town in France and during the ceremony a woman, clearly a refugee, head covered in a blanket and carrying an infant made her way up the aisle through the congregation reaching out her hand for money. It was a direct approach to a captive audience. I remember seeing the celebrant taking her to the side and discree tly giving her some money. She hadn’t finished just yet however and continued her path through the church, having much less success with others in attendance. Then our eyes met. The look in those eyes. Defiant dignity. I felt really uncomfortable as s...

  "Make sure," advised the museum art curator, "to always buy the catalogue of important art exhibitions you attend." She explained that a great deal of time and effort would have gone into bringing the various items together from different collections or galleries around the world. It would be fairly certain that those pictures would never again be together in the same exhibition. Since that talk about French art given to our Belfast French Cercle around 15 years ago I've heeded her advice as often as interest and my wallet would allow. Pity I wasn't aware of her good counsel for one exhibition I attended when I had just turned 20 and when such advice was beyond my maturity. Still, it was an exhibition that left an indelible mark and an enduring appreciation. Surrealist exhibition It was 1971 in Bordeaux. I had been working there as a moniteur / supervisor in a summer camp just outside the city. Having been given a free day away from the duties of the camp ...