It’s the pits !

It must have been in about 1971 that I was in Ireland, visiting my wife’s parents. We used to go there once or twice a year in those days, and I got to know the locals quite well. One evening in winter we were with old Michael and Katie (of the MacCoilidh family) in their marvellously warm living room in their little cottage by the main road. Someone (not me) suggested that we ought to be singing so as to bring cheer to the bleak frosty night outside. That was a cheap trick because none of those three would be the first to sing a single note ; and so I was obliged to go through my entire repertoire – all borrowed from the Dubliners – and all of which I faithfully murdered, in both tune and word. But nobody cared for the musical niceties ; the point was that we had a wail of a time.

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A meeting of minds

There are different roads that may be taken in our quest for knowledge. The road of formal education is the surest way to fame and fortune ; but is it always the road to enlightenment?

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Realization

Realization Atop the lonely mountainside There sits a lonely child ; The chill that penetrates his bones Makes hard his soul and wild. He thought him freedom he would find When once he broke him free From labours of the rocky climb. But it was not to be. Thirteen long years of study toiled To [...]

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