... or, It Pays to Increase your Word Power inspired by The English spoken in England can be a challenge to those from other countries, especially, I suspect, for Americans. How many readers here remember the Reader's Digest in the Fifties and Sixties, with always a page devoted to Wilfred Funk's "It Pays to Increase… Continue reading The Dog’s Bollocks …
Category: connexions
The Grand Scheme of Things
Of all the wayfaring experiences recorded in a blog, this was the most wonderful. I was able to capture moment-to-moment feelings on my voice recorder, as transcribed below, Originally published in August 2010 on perpetual-lab.blogspot.com, which no longer exists. Fortunately I found a perfect copy to enjoy and share today (I’m on a section of… Continue reading The Grand Scheme of Things
My Best Film – Ever
I was 13, staying at Granny's house in Springfield Road, St Leonards-on-Sea. I lived on the Isle of Wight, but sometimes went there in the Christmas holidays. It was a rainy evening when I went to see the film, always on my own - I had no friends there.
Escaping from a Festival
We're a bunch of old friends from University days, on our way to somewhere in Wales, in an old Land Rover. Without our copy of The Readers Digest Book of Roads (400 pages), cross-referenced to signposts, we'd have had no chance. Our route takes us up hill and down dale, in a maze of narrow… Continue reading Escaping from a Festival
How this blog got its URL
When this blog started in 2015, taking over from my former blogspot address, I used the name of singer Tabu Ley Rochereau, who often performed with Franco Luambo's TPOK Jazz Band. This had been a favourite of mine since I first discovered African music through some tracks copied on to a cassette by a local… Continue reading How this blog got its URL
Angels, Chaos, Truth
The last two pieces posted here have left important questions unanswered: What can we really know? What kind of consequences may follow inaccurate assumptions? Do we have any chance of explaining the unexplained, and should we even bother? Is there a wisdom we can call upon, or allow to reach us, which we can use… Continue reading Angels, Chaos, Truth
The Nature of the I
The “I” is easily defined. It is what I mean when I say “I”. There is no confusion about it, no argument as to whether this “I” is real. René Descartes nailed it: cogito, ergo sum. Such simplicity has been wrecked by the introduction of “ego”, a weasel word so tricky as to defy all… Continue reading The Nature of the I
Chance Encounters
(Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven . . . (Matthew 24:36) We cannot know how much time we have left. I met Jack the other day, an old man struggling at his garden gate to bring in a freshly emptied rubbish bin, while holding on to his… Continue reading Chance Encounters
Life and Art
Writing is not easy. The trouble is, I’m too full of ideas. They come in bunches and I don’t know quite what to do with them. My monkey-mind thinks they should be cut into neat shapes and sewn into a quilt for posterity, so I spend hours trying to fit them together like a jigsaw… Continue reading Life and Art
Horoscope
Jan Mulder is me. I called myself Jan because it was a Dutch version of the Ian Vincent Mulder on my birth certificate ASCEN.—develops an extensive personality-attitude, expressing freedom associated with an urge to explore beyond one’s known environment ASCEN.—gives an analytical, critical personality response ASCEN.—gives underlying confused, self-deceptive and neurotic tendencies —coolly affectionate, friendly,… Continue reading Horoscope
Perpetual Lab
This blog has existed for seven years. It’s had three different titles: “An Ongoing Experiment” for the first few months, then “As in Life”, before fixing on “A Wayfarer’s notes” around mid-2007. It’s still an ongoing experiment, still a reflection of life, and reflections on life. Blogger allows you to change the title but not… Continue reading Perpetual Lab
Acknowledgements
Masochistically, I’d planned to spend much time and ink writing a structured essay on literacy; covering texting, graffiti, tweeting, Facebook, Wikipedia, hyperlinking, spellcheck, online thesaurus, apostrophe confusion, grammatical mangling, metaphor insensitivity, the history of books from Gilgamesh to Kindle, the National Novel-Writing Month, the demise of the typewriter, my mania for fountain pens, registrar’s ink,… Continue reading Acknowledgements
Sacred places
Books I’ve recently read convey snatches of the lore whereby sacred places may be recognized and visited. I find myself wanting to quote from them. But I must refer only to what I know, sketchy or part-submerged in the subconscious as that may be. David Abram for example speaks of certain peoples, on the fringes… Continue reading Sacred places
Groping Blindly
I’ve been in a ferment, witness to a cascade of interconnectedness, from which it is surely possible to construct an overarching meaning—but I won’t try, and that is an instance of laziness (or what-you-may-call-it) which was a theme in my last: something which seems to me like a great creative principle. In Nature, or perhaps… Continue reading Groping Blindly
The boy Samuel
One doesn’t just read the Bible. One does so within a context. It’s very plain to me that I would not be undertaking it now, except as a process of retracing my steps: to revisit the ten-year-old Vincent and see through his eyes. It helps me see what I am now, and also how the… Continue reading The boy Samuel
Angels
A propos my newly-confirmed belief in the existence of angels, Ashok says in his new post: “He will not believe in anything easily unless he has very sound proof of it.” Au contraire, my dear Ashok. (I seem to be starting each sentence in French.) There is no need for proof when the experience is… Continue reading Angels
Reunion
I felt pleased on finishing my last piece, on Everything. What else was there to say? Much as Thomas Aquinas must have felt trying to wrap up his great work, Summa Theologica, but in a tiny way. But then in his latter years, Aquinas saw things in a different proportion, and said one day to… Continue reading Reunion
Four-leaf clover
I wrote a piece called Lucky in July 2008. I had wanted to illustrate it with a four-leaved clover, the symbol of luck. I had never found one, though in my dreamy childhood, I must have spent hours searching for them, especially when deployed as a fielder near the boundary of a cricket field. Perhaps… Continue reading Four-leaf clover
Under the Umbrella Tree
It suddenly dawns upon me—several hours before dawn—that there might be a point to all this. I mean the world, as it is; the discrepancy between the yearning and the reality; the intended and the manifest; the imagined joy and the actual dissatisfaction. Might it be that perpetual motion is the whole point? I recall… Continue reading Under the Umbrella Tree
To a nephew
Afam is my nephew by marriage, nearly 15, and goes to a good school where good money must be paid for the education provided. So I was asking him about that, and he told me his vocabulary had become somewhat depleted. He didn’t actually use the word “depleted”.. He explained that in earlier years he… Continue reading To a nephew
The past rewrites itself
Further to my last I’ve made a start on some real writing, as opposed to these blogging ephemera. Instead of an occasional post to commemorate a day, I am engaged on a so-far shapeless project to put down something a little more lasting: not just for a book, but a hardback; allowing myself a length… Continue reading The past rewrites itself
The Pocket Diarist
The postman left a package which felt like a small book. Not expecting any such thing, I was delighted; then opened it, and was Deloitted. Deloitte Touche is the current incarnation of a company I left in 1985, known then as Touche Ross & Co, Accountants. I was in their management consultancy, but now I’m… Continue reading The Pocket Diarist
Who is my neighbour?
It’s 3am and I can’t decide between tea to wake me up or hot milk to send me back to sleep. Why not both together? I end up improvising Indian chai, brewing some tea with ginger, cloves, cinnamon, allspice and dark sugar all boiled in milk. It tastes authentic enough. Decision-making is not my strong… Continue reading Who is my neighbour?
Coming back to East Cowes
Now that I’ve got a proper memory card in my camera, I could take hundreds of photos at one time. Yet it’s not my aim to produce a picture gallery or travelogue. It’s more to post letters recklessly addressed to the Universe, like anyone’s prayers to their unknowable God. And when those letters have been… Continue reading Coming back to East Cowes
Intrinsic goodness
Back in the Sixties, I first came across some mysterious expressions from the other side of the Atlantic. I was working for a British company whose main rival was IBM. Both companies had built up a customer base selling punched-card equipment based on the nineteenth-century inventions of Herman Hollerith and his one-time colleague James Powers.… Continue reading Intrinsic goodness
My true self
Paul had spoken of those who accept the received answers of their religion and find no calling to be seekers. Their satisfaction comes from being in the bosom of a congregation. Cool and detached, I had responded that I would not write about the hypothetical experiences of others, for I would not judge them or… Continue reading My true self
Angel story
This morning I couldn’t park in my own or adjoining streets, so I drove to where I used to live, five minutes’ walk away. I steered into a space next to a red car. The driver got out and came across to speak. I thought he might challenge my right to be there. Signs warn… Continue reading Angel story
Spreading the Word
A few miles from here, the Wycliffe Bible Translators nestle in a spot near the woods, in huts that might have once been an Army camp, but have now been landscaped into a cosy village from which the Good News is spread worldwide. Jesus in his time couldn’t speak loud enough to be heard by… Continue reading Spreading the Word
Home on the Island
I’m still not ready to take you through the gates of my new grammar school and show you round that extraordinary world. But it waits patiently, and when we start, the topic will span five years. In contrast, I was only at Powys House a year.That tall stone mansion had been built in the expectation… Continue reading Home on the Island
The Princess Flying Boat
Saunders-Roe Princess Pic: John Howard Worsley Continued from Woodside. Some time after my ninth birthday my mother finally walked out on my stepfather. According to her story it was more like she ran not walked, with pots and pans hurled as she fled down the stairs. But then she was suing for divorce on grounds… Continue reading The Princess Flying Boat
Round and Round the Pampas Grass
Mark was the first child I met on arrival in England aged four, and is the living person I’ve known the longest. We had driven from Tilbury Docks in Grandpa’s old Ford and I slept all the way. I woke to tea in the garden. Mark pointed out his tortoise, which crouched with its… Continue reading Round and Round the Pampas Grass
To Paul, from Vincent
Paul writes: One time I think on another blog you jokingly referred to agreeing with me for a change. But I’m not convinced you disagree most of the time so much as that you have your own outlook on life. My sense is that you tend to respond less to the content of my posts… Continue reading To Paul, from Vincent
Liberation
In the last year I have been reminded, time and again, by smells and various other stimuli, of a period I spent in Holland when I was five. It was a young age for roaming alone in streets and woods, but that's what I did. I’d been dumped with an unwilling bogus “aunt” in a country… Continue reading Liberation
One thought fills immensity*
Every thought could fill a book. It’s the middle of the night now. My dream was so powerful and enigmatic that it woke me up marvelling. I was having a reunion with my first wife. We were laughing. Her face was radiant. We were very good friends. Why did we ever split up? Why did… Continue reading One thought fills immensity*
Aboriginal tirade
I defy every professor on the face of this spinning globe. Gentlemen, ladies, don’t feel threatened. You have chosen the gowns and the tenure, the books, the students, the research facilities and the world’s respect. What more do you want? You may think you define truth too, but this is what I don’t allow. No,… Continue reading Aboriginal tirade
The angelic gift
An English Spring can be two-faced, like life itself. The sun warms you and the chill wind finds its way through your clothes, both at the same time. For a whole week I haven’t written here, but the will was there and a need to understand what’s been happening to me. I’ve been feeling uneasy; … Continue reading The angelic gift
Being ready
On Tim Boucher's blog someone says in a comment: The keys to spirituality could not be passed on from the individual revelation if not for what becomes known as religion. As the writer admits, spirituality begins with an individual revelation. Can the essence of that revelation be passed on? No, it has to be experienced… Continue reading Being ready
All we ever need to know
Reposted August 7th 2022, with the following addition: "Learning is not just about acquiring knowledge. More important than reading, writing and arithmetic is learning what (u)not(/u) to do." Written way back when everything seemed so simple and fresh, and messages came unbidden out of a clear sky: "All we ever need to know is what… Continue reading All we ever need to know
Do I have an immortal soul?
Looking that mackerel in the eye, doubting its immortality, accepting the procession of evolution from fish-like ancestors to me, was another step towards scepticism—as to any afterlife existence I might expect. Religion has no direct authority over my beliefs, but one absorbs vague assumptions from the culture one’s brought up in. For sixty years some… Continue reading Do I have an immortal soul?
a wayfarer’s notes 