being the book that saw resistance to injustice as a moral imperative. I bought my copy in 1978.

Tarrou, the character who most starkly articulates Camus’ own philosophy, says: “I have realised that we all have the plague … The good man is the man who has fewest lapses of attention.”

Only a handful can do more: these are the ‘healers.’ The central character in the novel is literally a healer, a doctor who tends the plague victims. Dr Rieux, the one who gets on with the job of alleviating the suffering he sees plainly before him.

For Camus to deprive a person her or his life because of war was to him the most complete form of oppression, and he never saw it as other than ‘legalised murder.’

Iraq War (2003) conservative estimate of deaths 470,000 (60% of those violent deaths). The US led ‘Afghan War’ (2001) 120,000. During the decade-long Soviet occupation (1979-1989) 500,000 Afghans died ‘from acts of war!’

So, in the 21st century so far, well over half a million deaths from these two ‘war viruses’ alone! – and that’s a very conservative estimate.

Camus was born into extreme poverty and from boyhood his life was threatened by TB. He died suddenly at the age of 46 in an unexplained car crash – just two years after winning the Nobel prize for literature in 1958.

MUST READ – Trevor Phillips: How I fell victim to Labour’s inquisition

The party’s investigation of me for alleged Islamophobia shows it’s becoming an authoritarian cult

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trevor-phillips-how-i-fell-victim-to-labours-inquisition-9gg9qjk8f

He sums up: “In essence, after more than 30 years of promoting the Labour cause, I am accused of heresy, and threatened with excommunication.

It would be a tragedy if, at the very moment we most need a robust and effective opposition, our nation had to endure the spectacle of a great party collapsing into a brutish, authoritarian cult.”

People are no longer trusted to see truth from falsehood; it is no longer believed that, in Milton’s words, the public’s ‘knowledge thrives by exercise’. Rather, the public is viewed as the child-like victim of false claims, of media manipulation, of awesomely powerful advertising, and other forces likely to warp our minds and fill us up with misinformation. Thus we must be protected from the consequences of freedom of speech and be given ‘the truth’.

Everything the new elites say in favour of truth is called into question, shot down in fact, by their instinctive and increasingly institutionalised hostility to the freedom of contradiction and ridicule and blasphemy against their ideals.

I hand my space today, 6 March 2020, over to ..

There are only four elements you can use  to tell a screen story: Images, Action, Sound effects, and Dialogue.

THE FUGITIVE STAG EMERGED VIA DRAMATIC IMAGES THEN MUSIC THEN SOUND EFFECTS AND FINALLY DIALOGUE.

THE REELING PHILOSOPHER

There was a philosopher who always liked to hang around wherever children were playing. And if he caught sight of a boy who owned a spinning top, he would  immediately get himself ready. Scarcely had the top begun to spin when the philosopher would chase it and try to capture it. It never bothered him that the children shouted and tried to keep him away from their plaything. He was very happy if he could capture the top even as it spun, but only for a moment, whereupon he would throw it to the ground and go away.

For he believed that the knowledge of every tiny thing, therefore even of a spinning top for example, would suffice to produce knowledge of the universal

Hence, he refused to concern himself with the great problems, since that seemed all very uneconomical. If the tiniest thing were properly known, then everything would be known; and that is why he concerned himself so much with the spinning top. And whenever anyone prepared to spin the top, he entertained the hope that he would be successful this time, and as soon as the top was spinning, this hope became a certainty as he rushed breathlessly after it.

But once he held the silly wooden thing in his hands, he felt suddenly ill, and the cries of the children, which he had not noticed before but now suddenly came piercing upon his ears, drove him away reeling around like a top beneath the blows of a clumsy switch.

 Alexander García Düttmann in his book ‘Memory of Thought’

At last, the full story of what happened at the UN’s Poison Gas Watchdog …

“A LOT OF PEOPLE LAZILY OR WEAKLY ACCEPTED (THE) OFFICIAL ATTACK ON POWERLESS INDIVIDUALS AS TRUE. THEY DID NOT NOTICE, OR DID NOT CARE, THAT THE TWO MEN HAD BEEN GIVEN NO OPPORTUNITY TO DEFEND THEMSELVES …

PETER HITCHENS COUNTS IT A PRIVILEGE THAT TODAY HE CAN PUBLISH THEIR DEFENCE IN DETAIL.

Peter Hitchens Blog at http://bit.ly/OPCWtheDefence

As for that “slippery operation known as Bellingcat” that he highlights … more later.

I have had this book for a while, and it only recently came to my attention that no one on Amazon has reviewed it yet, so I thought I’d give it a go. Fr. ap Iorwerth has given a dazzling, brilliant, (and fictional) account of Jesus and his movement from the point of view of Jesus’ greatest adversary, Satan himself. Satirical and serious, Satan does not hold back his criticisms of Jesus’ teachings, nor his absolute glee at how far Jesus’ modern “followers” have fallen from the core teachings. The true culprit behind all the lies and hypocrisy are revealed, and it’s not who you think it is…a wonderful read, whether in paperback or as an e-book. Disturbing? Yes. But once you pick it up, you won’t be able to put it down until the very last word…and even then you will be hard pressed NOT to turn it back to page 1 and start all over again! CAROL KLAVON REVIEWED IN THE USA

I have read this book 3-4 times…in fact, I will be using it as one of the “study texts” for the women’s circle I hope to create in the near future. It is shocking, to say the least, and gives us a unique perspective into Jesus’ ministry, and the inner workings of Satan’s mind, from Satan’s point of view. Disturbing, fascinating, gut-wrenching…there aren’t enough adjectives to describe how mind-blowing (another adjective) this book really is. Just read it! 

The Gospel of the Fallen Angel: Jesus’ Story from Satan’s Perspective by Ge… https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1846944082/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_4H5wEbHBSXWEM via @AmazonUK

HAVE A GOOD & RELAXING SAINT DEWI (DAVID’S) DAY

Welsh cakes recipe https://www.telegraph.co.uk/recipes/0/welsh-cakes-recipe/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw via @Telegraph

According to the idea of Lucretius, the marvellous divine shapes first stepped out before the mind of man in a dream. It was in
a dream that the great artist saw the delightful anatomy of superhuman existence, and the Greek poet, questioned about the secrets of poetic creativity, would have also recalled his dreams and given an explanation similar to the one Hans Sachs provides in Die Meistersinger.

“My friend, that is precisely the poet’s work – To figure out his dreams, mark them down. Believe me, the truest illusion of mankind Is revealed to him in dreams: All poetic art (maybe we can include screenwriting, here?) and poeticizing Is nothing but interpreting true dreams.”

From Nietzsche’s ‘Birth of Tragedy’ (1872)

And I have always loved this line – The beautiful appearance of the world of dreams, in whose creation each man is a complete artist .. and, hopefully each screenwriter as well!