How sweet to be a Stoic

Mörder Guss Reims: Putze Gatt! Putze Gatt!

By popular demand we present another nursery rhyme from this intriguing volume.

You must read this aloud to appreciate it:

Sara Taylor: The Lauras

 

 

A nice light meal

Jan Steen, The Dissolute Household

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1982.60.31/

This is not unlike Gert’s family gatherings.

In praise of an accomplished female friend

Nana the nursemaid for bandicoots

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-11/maremma-sheepdogs-guard-the-endangered-eastern-barred-bandicoot/8012560

Anita Brookner: Look At Me

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of (Blaise Pascal).

Not so fast, young Blaise. Anita Brookner knows a lot about those hidden reasons. It’s her material.

Distance

How to be a good employee

Gert, if she were still in the workforce, would be inspired to even greater efforts for her employers after reading  George Saunders’ story  Pastoralia.  The narrator has just responded reluctantly to his supervisor’s pressure to provide some information that will allow them to sack his workmate, Janet:

Things we read: Kundera

I loved this observation in  Kundera’ s The Joke which I’ve just reread (and as often happens, found so much more in it that I did twenty years ago):