http://www.desktopsallye.com en-gb desktopsallye.com 2011-10-8T00:00:00Z desktopsallye.com http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#103681 Just read this book today though I knew about it long ago as it was written by a very young man its background matter being Aspergers and a child who was extremely unsocial while highly intelligent. And about his family.I thought Id discuss this directly after reading so please do not read on if you havent read the book as there are bound to be spoilers. I read it both fast because it was a gripping page turner and you really needed to know how the turns of the story developed and deeply because I am married to an Asperger who was undiagnosed as a child and had a very difficult life in consequence.In this story you have parents who can barely cope with the sons eccentricities. They both love him dearly but quarrel with each other over the pressures that arise. Both parents have made terrible mistakes particularly perhaps the father who seems to be the more loyal of the two as we start the story with a dog that has been murdered in a street of uneasy neighbours. One doesnt usually talk ... 2011-10-1 22:56:48 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#102404 Poetry shouldnt really need definitions if you need a definition youre in trouble maybe. But people ask poets for definitions perhaps thinking the answer will help them write poetry sorry it probably wont and poets being highly verbal creatures will often oblige. Consequently there is a wealth of soundbites available many of them worthy of their poet perpetrators. These converge into a number of groups. There are those who say poetry is condensed language or the best language or the best words in the best order Coleridge. Who say it distils experience If fiction is beer poetry is whisky Shaindel Beers or is the language of feeling or emotion. Wordsworths is the most famous statement on emotion Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. But see also Poetry is that which arrives at the intellect by way of the heart R.S. Thomas. Poetry is language at its most nourishing Robert Crawford. Others say it is me... 2011-9-12 20:47:58 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#102003 2011-9-6 20:13:09 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#101997 The house put straight the cats appeased one day of lovely fine weather followed by one of lashing rain and people from the village asking me Did you have a good Poetry Weekend. We did. Brilliant. Described as a vintage year by one blogger and that though weve had bigger audiences in the hall some years and it rained all Friday evening and all Saturday. The weather was accommodating enough on Sunday for us to have garden sessions and our Viewpoint Finale was not rained off. After the year of the Boat trip we reckoned that going somewhere local on Sunday teatime was a good way of getting everyone to go home We did have a lovely finale with 16 poets seeing something of the mountain scenery roundabout. There have been a lot of thanks and photographs on facebook all most appreciated but one thing Im sorry to hear was that a visitor came last thing on Sunday met some of the departing poets and was just too late to catch us in the shop. At least I found ou... 2011-9-6 18:45:33 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#98917 I was born in London the capital that drew people to it where both my parents felt at home. My mother had gone into London from rural Northamptonshire for teacher training and to teach. My fathers family were from Cardiff and he had an aunt in Surbiton who became their familys kingpin as they travelled in from the west towards the capital. We lived in the countryside in Surrey when I was small in an open area you can now see in Google maps filled with new housing schemes. My parents big adventure was to travel north to County Durham where I grew up. Just before university my first boyfriend who lived in London and was really a young man while I was still a kid invited me down and we had an amazing week on the town with plays pubs beats and meals but this was a flash in an unheated pan if you like and receded from view when I went to university though it was nearer my true life than I knew. But such was my sense of the capitals power that I went back to London straight after uni... 2011-7-23 06:35:03 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#96962 Its so like the church. Your good clergyman is humbly working to help his community and praying while beyond him in the seats of power the bishops the church institutions and the state are hammering it out between them eating good dinners quite possibly encouraging wars and very likely not a prayer in sight. It has happened before and it will happen again. Poetry has traditionally been for thinkers eccentrics those who are temperamentally inclined to question the status quo. Rewards have traditionally been less monetary than satisfactional. At one time practising poetry as opposed to reading it was mainly feasible for the priviliged and rich. Byron and Burns were both highly popular but Byron was a wealthy aristocrat and Burns was living hand to mouth. Chatteron Fergusson and others could not cope with their world having too high a ratio of brain to possessions. As the twentieth century the old century progressed there was still a strong flavour of privilege the Sitwells ... 2011-6-24 00:03:24 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#96960 Not sure where the desire came from but we decided in Spring we would have some hens in the garden. Dont remember but suddenly it was a goal. Wed been through a hard winter. Id broken one wrist then the other in the previous six months. The second time was when I said I needed a walk every day for my health went out in the regularly dreadful icy snow and promptly fell on the path near the river. It eventually transpired I had osteoporosis which is completely curable by ferocious tablets which I am am now in process of taking. Yes I do remember. It was the bantams. Helen whose stint gardening at the Roman Camp Hotel had come to an unexpected end asked me to look after her 4 bantams in an emergency. A fox or we suspect a labrador caught one of them one Sunday morning and the feisty wee cockerel crew louder and louder as the snow melted and the spring began. He woke me in the mornings and his cry was so penetrating you could hear it up the village. It was already a serious problem whe... 2011-6-23 22:18:18 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#81931 All Quiet on the Western Front The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie The Spy who Came in from the Cold. All books which have had their day. All mentioned as typical of the 25 titles to be dished out to an unimpressed public in the middle of a fuel crisis which it will be by Britains geriatric governmentpropped publishing industry.The world has moved on. Young folk dont want books like these any more. What is the publishing industry thinking of to propose a millionbook handout in the UK on something called World Book Night Operations beginning World Book.... commonly relate to activities connected with the Third World which we are not. Is it a charity a quango or the Beeb itself who cooked up this crazy idea Is it an attempt to put folk off going into bookshops at allThe reason we dont buy enough of these books is that we have read them all already as have our grandfathers before us. They were interesting books at the time but very very few books stay interesting for ever and those that do the ... 2010-12-2 23:32:47 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#75849 Never before have I felt sorry for H M The Queen but I did when I saw a photo of her sitting in a draughty and sparsely furnished corridor of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh wearing an outdoor suit and hat with Prince Philip sitting on one side of her wearing a black greatcoat and on the other side Pope Benedict. She had accompanied the Pope to Bellahouston Park in Glasgow in the company of 65000 Scottish Catholics the singer Susan Boyle First Minister Alex Salmond and other apparently illassorted people as part of a state visit to Britain. For some reason no doubt of protocol she was unable to receive him in London and this was the best she could do. But the Pope did not do the best he could have done. First he allowed an aide to describe Heathrow as looking like a third world country on the way in then he attacked infuriated inflamed and insulted the entire community of intelligent atheists in Britain by inexplicably comparing them to nazis. His insensitivity... 2010-9-19 18:49:09 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#74977 Callander Poetry Weekend This needs winding up. Maureen Mike Kemal and Edwin went home via loch Tay visiting the Crannog centre and thus giving themselves an interesting highland episode on a roundabout way home. They have moved on as we all must. For a last glance back look at the wonderful photographs appearing and flagged on this page.Dont miss the wonderful pageheader picture of the view from the footbridge. There are also generous blog mentions by several participants including Colin Will Elizabeth Rimmer and Irene Cunningham who admitted to being the alter ego of Ann York poet and magazine editor who fell off the radar in Newcastle some time ago. The poetry weekend was fantastic thanks to all the help offered and given in the runup when I had my broken wrist in plaster and throughout the weekend too. The weather did us proud. We have been smugly hiding from the rain storm and thunder today now it is over. Two superb albums of photos from two fantastic photographers took much of ... 2010-9-7 22:59:01 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#71823 Pictures and snippets of Alan Jamiesons gardenmaking on the edge of Edinburgh have been sneaking through cyberspace all summer so when he called a Comeallye to visit the garden I was quick to accept. He has a very steep site rising from behind his rooms in a building beside an old mill the shape of garden you sometimes see in ancient Scottish towns rising to an old wooded area at the top a wood which most people occupying such a garden would have left to fend for itself. But Alan saw the potential of the wood. In what has been an extraordinary feat of will and exertion he has been in about the wood with saw ropes and tools and turned it into a shrinegrottooutdoor theatre in other words a garden to be lived in all summer and if theres nothing to stop you in other seasons too.It has been said has it well I say it now poets make the best gardeners. I distinctly recognised the creative will that removed the right branches of the right trees and left the framework for Alans space and did it... 2010-8-1 08:47:10 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#70575 I was reminded of this episode by the Mobile Library picture posted by the Scottish Poetry Library yesterday while I was preparing to join the Simultaneous Blog project on an interpretation of the word SWEAR. My story is true. Links to the other blog sites are listed hereMairi Sharratt A Lump in the ThroatCaroline Mary Crew FlotsamColin Will Sunny DunnyAndrew Philip TonguefireKevin Cadwallender CadwallenderClaire Askew One Night StanzasRussell Jones Russel JonesMartaerre SobrecuevaL de la posia y otras disciplinas en palabrasTony Williams Tony Williamss poetry blogSharon Pearl and Fuckin Dave.Im sending you out with the Mobile Library for six months said the Director of Libraries.I took a vase of flowers and a paperweight into my new office to settle down. It was my first professional job after passing my postgraduate library year with high grades and a degree before that. I was feeling rather pleased with myself.A young man cannoned in through the door. Are you the bleedin new... 2010-7-17 22:18:54 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#68781 It was a decade that almost didnt belong in my life but it led to important developments and changes and it wasnt just me.Marriage and divorce were everywhere as sixties swingers took their turn at trying responsible citizenship. I was bringing up two eighties children in a country that was new to me due to the job mobility that affected my partner and the rest of his generation.Television had progressed from evening and afternoon to all day. Participative television was beginning which would lead to much more involvement by ordinary people in media life. Esther Rantzens Thats Life was running throughout the decade. Television was the big medium of the eighties and as pop music tracks began to have videos the visual appeal of stars and singers mattered more and more.Madonna and Boy George thrilled tweenies and teenies fashion became fashion for school age pupils and divergences in dress began to appear sports wear feminist wear those awful dungarees. Skinny models had been overexpos... 2010-6-24 22:24:05 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#66245 Im giving in to popular sobculture to tell you about Hamish the bull at Kilmahog half a mile down the road from Callander. When Callander was a market town and droveroad pitstop Kilmahog was a small settlement of a row of cottages. It harks back to hard times losing its men to wars so it was called the Street of Widows at one point but now its few houses on a sort of oxbow road from the main road are well looked after as they have wonderful outlooks and beautiful country air. At one of the two woollen mills restaurantdriving stops at Kilmahog Hamish holds court in a field overlooking the car park and in summer there is a constant queue of tots and grannies etc admiring him. His birthdays are marked by posters all over Callander and a special Birthday Sale at the mill shop. Now his astute owners have got him a female companion. You wouldnt be so crass as to say they have got him a mate or that he isnt capable from his true description bullock.. Hamish is a gentleman.Hamish is more than... 2010-5-27 09:47:36 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#63736 Ages since I did a blog on these pages mainly because of the special occasion of Robin and Rachels wedding. It took a while to recover from the excitement and my mind had been slightly off its patch. Now back to normal with only the consequence that I am behind with my work with the editing gardening and writing though also able to look at it all afresh. Something you keep doing for years needs a step back occasionally.Today I held a discussion lunch for two and one guest. I wanted to have lunch outside but rain looked possible so I set a table in the office it was a round outdoor table with a cloth and fitted in very well in fact it is still there. In the event the weather was sunny and we ate outside.Though I often do onedish menus such as those you can find on facebooks Peasant Cooking group page this time I played safe with peoples likes and did not mix items. I had decided that basically I would do antipasti followed by a hot course probably salmon and vegetables depending on las... 2010-4-24 21:32:05 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#58578 In a Famous Hat Shop in Amsterdam But I wasnt in a hat shop in Amsterdam I was stuck in Callander we were delighted that the young people were getting married and they were going for a simple ceremony followed by a party at their home. A happy and important family event so what was I going to wearI didnt really have anything suitable for the part of mother of the bridegroom at a wedding or indeed anything very fresh for a wedding at all. My favourite twopiece chosen for my brothers wedding a year ago had been used as separates a good deal since and wasnt looking new any more. Like many of our family activities this wedding will be a masterpiece of budgeting particularly since the visas for the bride and her daughter proved so expensive to obtain. So I needed to be smart without too much show without looking as if I had spent too much money and without actually having much money to spend Any spare money would be going on more important things such as setting up the young people ... 2010-2-16 21:23:06 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#57873 That man to man the warld oer Shall brothers be for a that. PierogiTwo very different events this week which have more than a thread of connection and comparison. I was down in Edinburgh with my sons family delivering some copies of his play and was staying over with them the evening they had a party for couchsurfing friends in Edinburgh. If you dont know about couchsurfing its a community who offer each other informal accommodation in various cities round the world. They communicate via internet and Rachel invited them to her party by internet. Sixteen turned up the most interesting international bright and friendly young people you could hope to meet. We all prepared and cooked pierogi a food Rachel had learned to make in Poland and the house was full of happy chat among Germans Dutch Lithuanians Americans Brits and Scots. Last autumn Ian and I had found Rachel and Robin a pair of long sofas at the auction which not only provided attractive and comforta... 2010-2-6 21:41:24 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#56331 Carol Fenwick has been working for some time on producing the new Teesside Artists Journal a magazine of poetry and prose with photographs to pull the Teesside literary and artistic community together. It has finally happened a subscription pdf or paper journal containing varied and interesting poems and pieces all of a practised standard and including both writers from Teesside and those with a background or interest in Teesside and North East England.She has done a very good job clearly with commitment to the community and its writers and artists. If not many of the contributions are from younger or beginner writers in the area those who are presented give very interesting work and there is clear encouragement for others to join in and reach publication standard. The work here is not of beginner or amateur character as can so easily happen in local publications. Teesside like other similar conurbations is growing in confidence. I left Teesside almost exactly 50 years ago for a Tynes... 2010-1-17 09:11:31 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#55915 The decades turn was marked by prolonged whiteout see Lake of Menteith above. Apologies for the peppery look of this post with several links but there are some fantastic photos and varied reports which I really wanted to include.As many in Scotland have learnt this week a Bonspiel is a curling tournament on open ice where there is room for many teams to play alongside each other not the case on an indoor rink. Lake of Menteith above is the perfect arena. Pat Morrissey inspired me with his video on a less populated day in the long frozen spell that thickened the ice to 7 inches. On Sunday we went down in the morning this poem describes the day. Gerald England requested it for his blog he likes geographical stuff but we have different readers possibly just a few overlapping. And heres the link to the Beebs lovely and truthful pic. There was a rumpus about cancelling the full Grand Match but people turned up and will continue to do until Tuesday. Though the thaw is now setting in and s... 2010-1-11 18:00:30 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#53698 North Wales Snowdonia from Capel CurigI have lived with a gap in my culture by not being able to speak Welsh for so long now that I dont really know when it set in. Having heard Welsh spoken in South Wales in the late 1940s by my grandparents neighbours and having relatives in South Wales I grew up knowing my father was an expat Welshman but he was ALSO an Englishman having taken the traditional Welshmens route from Cardiff to Oxford and London. There was a Welsh Society on Teesside which our family sometimes attended. I had a flirtation with a young man named Maelor and I vividly recall a circle of people singing mae hen wlad fy nhadau at the close of a party under the rowan tree which we called mountainash on a summer day in our garden. On leaving school and for two summers of university I went to work in Capel Curig in North Wales. I learnt a little Welsh naturally in North Wales then but was distracted by separation as I was from my familys musical habits by the absence of a pia... 2009-11-30 19:39:26 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#52851 This may be more creative than financial but not only do I amuse myself but I sort out some intentions beginning with essential enabling requirements and continuing through morally necessary and desirable ones to continuing commitments and on to hopeful ideas. It owes something to Catherines Wealth Care concept and something to the belief that writing is therapeutic. It is also lets admit it an awakeinthenight job as my sleep patterns have been slightly affected by either the lyme disease incident or its treatment.We may assume that the bookshop will look after itself though of course we work very hard on it particularly Ian without this always being apparent apart from my constant references to auctions book transporting the care of books and simply being here at the shop and it being open. Book publishing is a little more flexible and can be bent to survive the recession. The magazine comes out regularly enough. The next two books are to be real books and produced in house so that it... 2009-11-19 04:19:45 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#50684 A dry autumn and the trees stay green till the last minute only one evening of wind and dancing falling oak leaves. Now midOctober the trees are yellowing reds orange browns tingeing the greens. The sun shone all day and when it set the entire horizon sky was pinky orange the peaks greyblue. In the garden the bushes all need pruning cutting digging out or drastically reshaping depending on their degree of escaping bounds. A gate post has broken or more likely been broken on the back gate. We have a new heavy post to put in. We have also taken down all the hanging baskets from the Main Street finding them light and dry and amenable to a prod with a window pole so retrieving them wasnt the major job I expected. Now they are lining the path and need emptying compost heaping a few tough plants still with flowers to be rescued mainly geraniums pelargoniums. The bees are still coming out but I have fed them with sugar candy which they are eating but not too fast. Therell be plenty there for... 2009-10-15 22:37:10 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#50000 Les IndiesNoires. This extraordinary title was used by Jules Verne in mid 19th century to mean the wealthbringing coal miners in Britain. He was obviously referring to the then termed West and East Indies. I have another page for discussing books but this was more a social shock than a book for a number of reasons. Every prolific author has a book or two that are not so easily got often because they are not up to standard or time has shown flaws in their assumptions. Dozens of authors will never be reprinted and rightly so they have to make way for the new. Some who told good stories are just too swashbucklingly racist sexist or arrogant for future approval. You can all think of instances. Others are mixed some of their books still doing the rounds others quietly consigned to the specialist. Jules Verne is supposed to be the worlds fourth most translated author who measured this But nobody previously bothered to translate this book in full into English. No wonder it is an emba... 2009-10-4 21:02:35 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#49452 Treasure. The excitement in Staffordshire and Birmingham can barely be imagined. How they kept it quiet for two months astonishes me but what a trove or find in todays parlance. And what a wonderful charmchant the metal detectorist of 18 years came out with he had said Spirits of Yesteryear take me where the gold appear the day he found the first pieces. It is my recession that I cannot go to Birmingham to see them straight away having too many appointments in the next two weeks with our accounts also to finalise and a trip already arranged for Liverpool a few days too late. What are the chances of the Birmingham exhibition time being lengthened little I should think. The whole project has been so well planned. It had to be or pandemonium and chaos would have resulted. But what a wonderful event. The effect on art fashion jewellery culture will be enormous though it may not kick in till after the pieces are finally placed on display which may be more than a year o... 2009-9-26 00:41:12 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#48831 Unusually I am doing a culinary blog to show how we survived the cookers demise at the early stages of Callander Poetry Weekend and to spill a few secrets about informal party catering.Preparation is the first thing that saved us and second the fact that a really good hot party dish tastes just as good cold. Anna Crowe had told me about Caponata the Sicilian improvement on ratatouille based on aubergines onions capers and pine nuts. Youll find recipes for Sicilian Caponata on google where youll also see it wildly praised. And with reason. I had made a huge amount of Caponata in two batches frozen in the previous week. Nearly all food will freeze for a few days at a late stage of preparation which makes party cooking much simpler. All this Caponata was to be reheated. I had also made and frozen a bake or concoction of cooked ham strips halved cherry tomatoes sweet red peppers and chanterelles. This was delicious and I had to freeze it for two days so I wouldnt eat it. This arose from th... 2009-9-16 09:19:08 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#47709 These photos are by Patrick Spragg one of the marvellous bunch of actors who did such credit to Robins play. They had brilliant reviews great audiences and a sellout. All the reviews referred to how much it was enjoyed and to the quality of the script so it was worth the massive work upheavals and expense. It cost a packet to put on and even with that degree of success could barely break even all told. Publicity and accommodation added to venue charges Fringe charges and the work and time input increasingly make this almost impossible the way the Fringe is currently run. But all the actors and the writer made their bones and gained profile and with a couple of thousand folk rooting for the play there isnt much more to ask for apart from some return on your money. Moreover Robin Rachel and Star now have a new life and a new home a great conclusion to the whole story.The Pictures Fully Fledged PlaywrightRobin and Rachel on the main road opposite the Botanics round the corner from their n... 2009-8-29 02:26:02 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#46883 There was not as much honey as you would have thought. But there was much more sticky than you would have thought possible. And it was all DELICIOUS. This picture isnt my honey but its definitely the right picture for how it felt.I am unbelievably proud of my small stash of honey in jars lemon coloured perfumed a days work of the unfamiliar. I was two hours going through the beehive in my bee kit deciding what I could suitably take checking that all was well then two hours processing my modest haul then two hours or more clearing up. Theres another jar containing hashy honeycomb harder honey from I dont know which flower that is either cut as comb or pressed. If you look on my honey year as a commercial venture it is a long long way till it will be into credit Im not prepared to divulge the absolute cost per jar this year and I dare say I might have put it off if I had know Robin would want to get married AND put on a Fringe play but we never know these things in advance and anyway ... 2009-8-13 18:47:09 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#46265 A topical blog entry 25 reasons our secondhand and antiquarian bookshop is better than charity bookshops it is always staffed by people who really care about books we have all round professional knowledge of books including writing production and publishingwe know the book trade scarcity availability and history of books we have decades of experience of book people we are not greedy we give excellent sensible free advice. great banter discussions with authors poets and readers we have a bookshop garden we have a great free poetry weekend every year excellent local knowledge and advice available the bookshop has two cats there is also a singing deer the shop is like a living room carpets flowers etc we have our own bindery for the shop there is also a printing press and a large case full of trays of lead type and a belemnite fossil table the shop is open 7 days all hours and available even beyond these hours by arrangement books range from 20p shelf outside to three figure sums it is... 2009-8-4 16:42:53 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#45806 A small apiary two hives When I remarked there was a bee disease in Angus and Fife last night someone responded by shouting . All the bees are dying People seem to like panicking about bees but in fact being aware of disease and working to control it is the best way to help them survive.The local beekeepers society had called a meeting on Sunday to discuss a calamity. The notifiable disease European Foul Brood that was already known to be present in Angus and Fife had apparently spread to the Stirling area. Our usually cheerful band of leading beekeepers had long faces. One of the five government bee inspectors from Perth had come to the meeting to discuss the problem with the beekeepers. I didnt know who this guy was before but I had seen him around the bookshops a naturalist type and he was very worried. The government had know the disease was present in Angus and Fife among commercial bee stocks but because the lab tests were taking so long to come back positive no one was informed... 2009-7-29 17:58:41 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#45360 Its big and it s coming and I was impressed by that video presentation with all the superkids dressed in jeans and T shirts. Perhaps at least social media will see off the loved and hated collar and tie. Google well it started the internet didnt it its the backbone of searches isnt it. Ive always said the rise of the internet is like the invention of moveable type printing. It releases. It releases us from the establishment and from bigotry and from misinformation. It speeds. The spread of news the spread of powerful images the passing on of words. Its going to throw a hammer into the newly and carefully sewnup intellectual property empires. Weve already got facebook twitter mebo and many other sites and systems and those of us who can use them have a streets ahead advantage over the mainly ageing clingers to the old ways.But the old ways dont disappear. Mix and match is a good motto when the telephone can be used when you know your respondent is available books are better chosen be... 2009-7-22 08:34:32 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#45176 Canavan and Bober rehearsing in Leicester as Watson and Holmes When hubby did a Fringe play thirty years ago it cost very little and the Fringe community got by on a few bob and shared fish suppers. When we were close to plays in Edinburgh fifteen years ago by John Cargill Thompson Bill Dunlop and the other playwrights whose plays we were publishing the ante had already been well and truly upped and our role involved dealing with texts socialising with the actors and generally turning up and enjoying the plays as insiders belonging to the small band who had taken it upon themselves to get their particular show up and running and playing to audiences. We thought wed retired from all that until Robins play Broken Holmes went into the lists for this years Fringe. And this time our role is different. We are sideline supporters whose help has so far been wanted for tracking down accommodation acquiring props including furniture that we may never see again at any rate in good condition sour... 2009-7-19 02:32:44 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#44364 These are in no particular order the numbering is a just a check. I feel confident I can easily reach 100 but am making it more readable by stopping at 35 facts here. So many of you have asked me questions about bees things I have learnt this year yet every country person ought to know Ive decided to give you some points of reference. More facts will follow if you like them depending on the response.1. Bumble bees get up earlier in the morning than honey bees.2. Bees do not like thunder.3. Bees will travel a mile or two for their favourite foods.4. They like big trees lime sycamore chesnuts willow etc.5. A colony of honey bees can contain 20000 to 45000 bees.6. If bees are going to swarm they usually swarm at the beginning of June Scotland.7. Hives are often moved to the heather moors in August.8. If bees are unduly aggressive the beekeeper may change the queen.9. Some bee colonies are docile. I havent been stung at all.10. Bees need a bit of privacy in front of their hive door.11. B... 2009-7-5 08:41:55 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#44165 We travelled down to England at the weekend for family parties and with four passengers I decided to hire a car. We left at eight thirty a. m. in a large Mondeo heading for Glasgow on small roads and then on the motorway to cross the border at Gretna on down past Carlisle Kendal Preston and Manchester towards Birmingham and the often congested roads round there but transferred to the M5 without difficulty. Then it was Worcester and finally the smaller country roads into Herefordshire with rich hedges rolling fields and a totally different architecture from Scotland. And beautiful gardens including this one at the Three Horse Shoes Little CowarneReturning the following day we set off early evening and drove into the night which was not a dark one at this time of year in fact we could see the northern light almost all the way until after Tebay and the simple chips and strawberries that were available at ten p.m. we drove on with sleeping passengers and arrived home at 1.30 a.m. We had ... 2009-7-1 00:52:25 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#43650 Flanders Moss is a huge wet raised moss area south of Callander stretching from Thornhill across a wide glen to the Aberfoyle road. Without roads or habitations it partly explains the demarcation between the populated central lowlands and the southern central highlands. We drive round it on our different routes but I have never been onto it before. The whole area is spongy and waterlogged. Without the new floating boardwalk it would not be possible to get right onto the bog to see the undisturbed flat world of aquarian and avian wildlife. Mosses were the bulk of the vegetation. There are many kinds which do not flower and seed but grow upwards on their own vegetation. Others have spores in small spore caps which look like seedheads. The area is scattered with cotton grass and interspersed with pools full of insects and ambhibians. It is too shallow and acidic for fish but the moss itself is very deep. Birds include meadow pipits cuckoos which parasite on the meadow pipit nests and gull... 2009-6-21 17:50:07 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#43210 What kind of treeA very old tree in a row of four old trees three sweet chestnuts and an oak. This one is called the Antler tree probably because its branches looked like antlers 100 years ago or more. Thought to be between 400 and 600 years old. Possibly from chestnuts from the Armada ships This suggestion which we made has gone the rounds but it could equally have been a travelling monk who brought the nuts from southern Europe. You can see they are in a protective copse beside a sheltered artificial lake the water is down the path. The roots will be damp. Water and air unpolluted. Deep leaf mould and a carpet of bluebells. The trees have remained here unmanaged in ideal surroundings but I didnt see replacement trees which should surely be planted now. There are huge hollows in them much too big for bees nests. A duck flew out of one of the hollows as I passed.The priory here which housed monks from Cambuskenneth has much white stone building intact. This and another island were th... 2009-6-13 10:09:22 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#42895 Its been a domestic springsummer. There have been beekeeping flower baskets and spring cleaning at home amidst the neverending activity of the bookshop. Perhaps weve been to fewer auctions but weve been to auctions to fewer regular events but to a range of interesting poetry and writing meetings in Edinburgh Glasgow Stirling and Perth. Ive had a lovely little book published The Honey Seller see left menu. The shop has been doing OK sometimes brilliantly though we share the financial nervousness of the times.And now we are flung back to involvement with a play in the Edinburgh Fringe after a nine year break. Its my son Robins play and having supported Fringe plays in various ways in the past including play publications props provision even a huge car camping tent on Calton Hill on one occasion working in Edinburgh on the spot for nearly twenty years entertaining accommodating supporting and consoling actors and performers and our shop having been associated with nine Fringe Firsts we c... 2009-6-6 23:10:17 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#41734 Everybodys Oxford is probably personal despite the common ground of buildings and streets. I remember it from early youth. As soon as I was old enough to ransack the secondhand bookshops I was doing just that. I particularly loved the old Blackwells with its twisty upper corners where my love of poetry books began.My father went to Jesus College a Welsh enclave and I might have followed him but for my inclination to study classics rather than the Eng Lit everyone said I should take. There were places for very few women at that time. My father had wanted to see me there. Not only was I sent on a preOxford residential course with an amazing lady called Mrs Hodgson who brought in academic staff and took us to Gloucestershire in coaches but my father took a swap with a house in a place called Littlemore for the whole of a summer when I was about sixteen. During this visit a family friend had come up with a suggestion. She knew of a poet to whom I might send a sample of the poems I was wri... 2009-5-16 19:54:34 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#41733 left Robert Graves writingIn 1935 my father graduated from Oxfordand his parents presented him with a copy of a book that was all the rage in the university that year Seven Pillars of Wisdom. This book by an upper class gay man never mentions a woman other than in the sense in which servants are mentioned by Jane Austen. To T.E. Lawrence women didnt matter. It was as well to take care of them especially those of your own class. After all they were going to have babies and someone had to have the babies as a later argument against working mothers ran. The hypocrisy that covered homosexuality acts of which were still to be illegal for another 30 years also allowed men to treat different classes of women differently. Basically there were whores and drudges and wives.The womens colleges founded by dedicated enlightened and indomitable women did their best to provide education for women but it was a long time until things at all equalised. Women were all but unknown to the science departmen... 2009-5-16 19:45:19 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#41235 This morning I just decided to ask some friends what they thought of Twitter as I had noticed so many people were using it and I hadnt tried it. Was it any use fun easy and did it take up too much time I asked. To which I received a comment from Tim Collins that he had just published a book on Twitter today.I hope my other friends believed me when I said this wasnt a setup. I visited Tims parents recently and to be fair to his Dad I do remember him saying Tim has been writing funny little books but the penny didnt drop. Perhaps it was thought I would feel outdone. Far from it Im delighted. More likely though writing is a coterie and if you are in it you understand it but if you are outside the whole thing can be something of an embarrassment if your own nearest and dearest are involved. Theres also a generation gap a book about what Internet datingIm about to be dragged away from this post but it isnt finished Id like to get stuff on his other books and also briefly discuss how writi... 2009-5-7 16:30:24 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#40854 It was a good ball while we kicked it but its on the slates now. A young person I know well told me that facebook would probably eventually be replaced by something better. And we know that nothing stays the same and in a fast moving media world everything changes even faster than formerly.Like other facebook addicts this morning very early in my case I pressed the familiar friends page to find my friends relisted in alpha order of first name a good development but also horror of horrors without tags with their updates those pithy remarks of news humour current observations. We have lived in update heaven for the last year or more and pouf it has gone.The whole thing about updates is they were expendable aphorisms. Politically and within an interest field like poetry they were extremely powerful. On the very last day of its power I was able with a few other poets nearly all women to inform the world poetry community of the sad passing of poet UA Fanthorpe an important figure and a... 2009-5-1 07:50:40 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#40783 I didnt feel like going to Edinburgh when I woke in Callander on Monday morning. But look at the fun Id have missed if I hadnt got off amp down to Dunblane for the train. There I found a new system of parking control was in its first day and I was lucky to find a free space beside the main road. Ill have to allow extra time to park when doing a train run in future of course if they hadnt closed the Callander line we would not need to drive and park in Dunblane.On the train I got out my poem of the day freewrote into it and got it out of the way. The transition into townie is quite difficult these days but I had made it by Edinburgh Waverley. I trotted off round whats left of Jeffrey Street and down the Canongate amp had a bite of lunch in the little chocolate shop recommended by Gillean. It was brilliant cheap comfortable uncrowded and good food. I watched a familiar procession of poets headed down to the Poetry Library and then I joined them. It was the opening of the Edwin Morgan Ar... 2009-4-29 21:31:06 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#40587 Once you notice bees you see they are closely connected with plants. There are some important plants that they like and the one most people will immediately suggest is spring fruit blossom apple cherry almond pear and plum. Trees are in fact very important. In the spring they start with willow then maple sycamores limes sweet chestnuts and horse chestnuts as well as the fruit blossoms. In my garden they liked the amelanchier which is actually a flowering medlar. They also like walnut trees.The three walnuts and the maple in the Douglas garden left would be a very good start for bees at Stirling Castle but I think it more likely the Castle will have got its honey from Cambuskenneth orchards where I saw bee plants surviving in the orchard sites cotoneaster ivy gooseberries bluebells and old pear trees.In mild weather in early spring the bees will take nectar and pollen from snowdrops aconites and crocuses. They dont like daffodils. They like bean flowers and onion flowers and a great var... 2009-4-26 23:29:06 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#40090 There are at least two PoemaDay projects this April Robert Lee Brewers Poetic Asides and one on NaPosomething or other thats the one Im not doing. Doing one gives you no time to investigate the other.The first thing I learnt was that eight times out of ten I wanted to revise a poem after a longer period than a day had elapsed from its writing. The exhilaration of new work skews its reading. Maybe one in ten poems comes out right first time often when there has been a longer gestation period trying to think of the approach sometimes I got a day or two behind with particular prompts. The tenth time the poem is slight funny and can stand on its spontaneous feet or else it hasnt really got anywhere at all so theres no point taking it further. A slight poem is that about hobbies a funny is the cleandirty poem a copout. I learnt I could write poems of a sort I would not have attempted at a time when quite likely I didnt feel inspired to write one at all. I compared writing a poemaday to pro... 2009-4-18 23:56:44 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#39092 You can come here time after time and not a single soul but yourselves. I decided to begin a poemaday routine for April as many other poets are doing some already did this last April. This morning I wrote my first one on the prompt origins about a beautiful deserted place in central Scotland that we know Glen Orchy that runs between the Oban road and the Fort William road past the Green Welly. Green Welly may seem a funny name for a place but it is about as well known a junction as Scotch Corner used to be on the Great North Road. The Green Wellys at what was once a beautiful little place called Tyndrum. Old Tyndrum is a single row of white cottages that cross the present road at right angles. Present Tyndrum is basically the Green Welly road service shop and two railway stations. Yes two an upper and a lower serving different lines and two dozen houses. Future Tyndrum is a bigger place altogether with developments gold mines you name it.I digress. The poem was about Glen Orchy where... 2009-4-1 22:54:13 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#38912 It was supposed to be a short Sunday and the weather was great for gardening and we did quite a bit of that in the morning. Making way for the bees has done the whole area good as I move plants and bushes and clear up. We got our beehive stand lidded and painted its a massive strong packing case cadged from the tannery with the cut down lid of a gateleg table that was surplus to requirements nailed on top. However thats only part of todays story as the bookshop was surprisingly busy and totally took over during the afternoon. To start with we filled a massive hole in the childrens section made by somebody buying all the remaining Railway Modellers. A colleague from Australia who had missed us in the week came back and bought his usual select heap including a gorgeous Talwyn Morris hand binding we had hidden in the lobby upstairs. Ian was quite sorry to see it go but even Australia needs a culture. We were then mobbed by Glaswegians and others on a sunny day out looking for thrillers ... 2009-3-29 22:28:37 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#38816 each of our shops has in turn hosted a family weddingBack from St Andrews to the heartland of Callander the week swung into gear and a high gear it was. First my brother turned up a day earlier than I expected and married Sandi in our local registry office with our local registrar Irene brother Stephen turning up by air from London to support brother Paul. I was just home and hadnt prepared for a meal for the evening before so we all went to Poppies Callanders No 2 posh restaurant for dinner and a great natter. The day of the wedding dawned wet unsuprisingly but we only had a few steps to the registrars after Stephen arrived. A happy and dignified ceremony included the reading of my poem Travelling together and a subsequent chat with the registrar who showed a quick country appreciation of veterinary ophthalmology. We returned to the shop for a cup of tea before heading down to the Roman Camp very much Callanders No 1 restaurant where we had a top class peaceful and leisurely lunch. A... 2009-3-27 19:39:00 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#38567 This was my third visit to Cambo House near St Andrews and my second to stay. It was a very nice feeling to return to this specialist garden and massive house still a family home with apartments and BampB. In the sheltered yard full of plants I started picking out snowdrops and aconites scillas and unusual tulips as soon as I arrived and had a box of my choices reserved till I was ready to go. I had a small apartment last year but this time decided to go for BampB which was better value since my room felt like a flatlet in itself having its own landing on which a cat named Stella hung about trying to dash into my room and a vast bathroom besides.In the corner of the room was a wooden door behind which on investigation there was a rough ladder leading to a massive clock with a pendulum like a big oil drum creaking back and forth every second and chains and weights taking up a small room space with two windows. So thats why it was called the Clock Tower room.There are things I always hav... 2009-3-22 21:13:06 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#38154 The secret park to the north of the motorway. It s a short walk to Sauchiehall Street etc. from hereGlasgow is 35 miles away. Edinburgh is 50. Because we worked in Edinburgh for so long I have tended to treat Edinburgh as my neighbourhood big city. Robin was based there for ages and we still have our bank there and I could well expect to meet many acquaintances friends and contacts whenever I dropped back in. To get to Glasgow you have a choice of small roads or complicated motorways. Last night I took the A84 which is dark quiet country and twisty almost all the way in till it hits Bearsden then Maryhill.Destination Mitchell Library I found somewhere to park on my Aberfoyle route only five minutes walk away and easy to get to and leave by car. Into the Mitchell the best library complex in Scotland and down to the cafeteria. Here I started seeing people I knew in droves. Had a cuppa with Louise and Zoe and some of their friends on a decidedly womens table. Then Elizabeth amp Paul Rimm... 2009-3-14 09:02:19 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#37795 Two massive audiences for events today the Makar launch at the Church of the Holy Rude by Stirling Castle in the afternoon and the Glasgow Slam late evening at the Mitchell Theatre within the Mitchell Library complex.The Church of the Holy Rude is a beautiful cathedral but is often used for secular events such as concerts. It was the theatre for the installation of Magi Gibson as Stirlings new Makar. Rory Watson introduced her she herself gave a very well planned reading and two schoolchildren from Bannockburn read engaging poems. The Provost spoke of the importance of poetry. The whole thing took less than an hour and was followed by tea and cakes. There was a great audience of all sorts of literary and townspeople. We filled that vast area of seating. Ian and I shut the shop so we could both go and we thought it was a splendid occasion.I had had a lot to do with organising this event not to mention helping to find and appoint a Makar and we were extremely happy with the eventual o... 2009-3-7 19:12:41 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#37542 Violence is it a Mens Thing Robin Cairns pamphlet the Last Man with Sky. Recently answering a silly quiz on Facebook I was asked When did you last cry I said I dont cry I get angry. When I am angry I feel physical sensations my head seems about to burst there are tears behind my eyes and it feels as if my blood pressure is pounding while under a very thin layer like thin ice there is misery and despair which I am fighting. It is not at all good for ones health. I dont get angry often nowadays. I have learnt to thicken the layer of ice. When I was younger there was a lot I couldnt stand. I used to make scenes among the people I was with if certain subjects were raised there were many things I couldnt read and I certainly couldnt watch most red blooded films. It wasnt violence that bugged me it was cruelty. It still does. Because we have to live our lives as sane people Ive learnt to work round this place in my psyche but there are times when if I am ... 2009-3-2 21:20:12 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#37163 It took me a long time to find my style in clothes. Problems began with school uniform continued with the beat non fashions and the disastrous effect of archaeology on dress sense. They continued with the miniskirt mafia and then those years working libraries wearing little suits... followed by maternity and poverty a disastrous combination luckily both temporary.But now I know where I am at. I like cosy tweeds and coats for the country and I like really dramatic clothes performance clothes you could call them for poetry etc. And since 2000 when I decided to go back to wearing colours rather than black I have had some fun clothes. This is the style of the jacket I bought today but not its fabric design.I dont usually buy clothes in the charity shops in Callander but Ian sent me along to the new one for the local Hospice. They have opened with a marvellous collection of new fashion clothes which must have come out of a back door in the trade somewhere. Lots of motherofthebride type stu... 2009-2-24 02:23:11 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#37030 I recently chose and read this poem at a funeral not for someone particularly close but I noticed a lot of things about the poem not least its complete immersion in the place described. In the same way as in Hopkins Inversnaid the place takes control of the poem producing a strangely detached impersonal description. The Lake Isle of Innisfree I will arise and go now and go to InnisfreeI will arise is biblical. Repetition of and go is also biblical.The next lines sound practical but are really mythicalAnd a small cabin build there of clay and wattles madeNine bean rows will I have there a hive for the honey beeAnd live alone in the beeloud glade.Theres that repetition again of bee. Nine is a mythical number . Bees feed on bean blossom. In the presence of thousands of bees the poet makes being alone sound desirable. He develops this idea in the first line of the next stanza And I shall have some peace there for peace comes dropping slowThis is a very long line and slow. We are out of tim... 2009-2-21 21:00:39 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#36973 Stirling Castle Writers Group continues at the Castle in a superb room above the Douglas Garden near the highest point of the walls. We had a good session there this morning mainly chatting about all sorts of writing issues. The group has gelled despite great diversity. I didnt do any writing there but on the way in I scrawled down a few notes and this has become one of two new poems. One is finished the other one the more immediate one needs time to settle and may well need some revision when I look again. There is a third poem from this session which I have just revised but may need another look. The one I am posting today in the Stirling Castle page is about the visit to the Great Hall with Stirling University Poetry Conference last summer. I had not written or considered that as a poem before but because of the fresh distance of looking on it it came out right very quickly. or maybe it came out because I had already been working on drafts of other poems and I saw a gleam in the cor... 2009-2-20 19:36:00 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#36867 BeehivesNine bean rows will I have there a hive for the honey beeand live alone in the beeloud glade.Yeats would have been better off with two hives. There are several well known designs of hive of which the National is probably the best known. All are of the same basic plan.They are very simple stacking crates which the bees stick together with gluey stuff. You have to prise the crates apart with a metal tool when you want to manage the hive. Some people also have very small subcolonies in miniature hives little bigger than shoe boxes. They may keep these in small gardens and have the main hives further away. The national hive can be made either in wood or in a very hard polystyrene. You may get more honey from polystyrene hives but the bees are more likely to swarm from then due to increased activity.I am prospecting sites in the garden for two hives. I think behind the ponds may be good but there needs to be good access and somewhere to work and it is easiest to have the two hives t... 2009-2-18 11:10:16 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#36797 I omitted to give you the location of the stone figures in yesterdays piece. Kilmartin in Argyll is an area of great iron age interest. Its glen is full of standing stones cairns burial mounds all manner of iron age antiquities and later stones many with cup and ring marks decorations of celtic heraldry and mysterious signs. The Kirk and the old Manse at Kilmartin are built on a large raised mound at the centre of the area typically erasing what had lain underneath them. The Manse is now a museum and coffee house. We have been there twice in the last year once on a day which turned out exceedingly wet and again a week or two ago when we left behind terrible rain and snow in the rest of central Scotland to find a dry sunny day down the west. Todays pic is the Aiguilles peaks in the AlpsKilmartin is also the location of a poem by my friend Christopher Whyte who now lives in Budapest. He writes his poems in Gaelic. I have translated a number of his poems including a very long one to Ch... 2009-2-16 23:16:57 http://www.desktopsallye.com/page16.htm#36663 New Accessibility After help from both NetworkedBlogs and my provider Mr Site here we are beginning an index blog for desktopsallye which will link into topics throughout the site hopefully enabling the Blog Feed feature to work on facebook. For those who access the site via the website home page the index to recent topics will remain but I will remove it to below the welcome pictures. On this blog page the beginnings of topics will appear taking you two or three paragraphs into the text then a read here link will take you to the continuation. Contact Us is one of the most useful links on any site. On bigger sites it is well hidden but it can always be found and will take you to a real person and one who knows a good deal about the sites and subjects in question. Sometimes one gets an autoresponse and a time indication but theres always help to be had and if you follow the normal rules of clarity amp courtesy these will pay the usual dividends. Here are some of my... 2009-2-15 03:02:39