Inspirational Thoughts

Given the rather bleak nature of my last Inishmacsaint blog, I thought to add here a couple of inspirational notes.

An interest in life...

This I found yesterday at the beginning of Graham Greene's novel Our Man in Havana, which happened to be sitting on Ayumi's bookshelf at her parent's home, and which I picked up faute de mieux.

—I could give you a medical certificate, said Dr. Hasselbacher.
—Do you never worry about anything?
—I have a secret defence, Mr Wormold, I am interested in life.
—So am I, but...
—You are interested in a person, not in life, and people die or leave us — I'm sorry; I wasn't referring to your wife. But if you are interested in life, it never lets you down. I am interested in the blueness of the cheese. You don't do crosswords, do you, Mr Wormold? I do, and they are like people, one reaches an end. I can finish any crossword within an hour, but I have a discovery concerned with the blueness of cheese that will never come to a conclusion — although of course one dreams that perhaps a time may come...One day I must show you my laboratory.
—I must be going, Hasselbacher.
—You should dream more, Mr Wormold. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.

[The fact that Dr. Hasselbacher's optimism is later ruined by the shallow carelessness of the protagonist Wormold does not detract from the hope the paragraph conveys.]

Summer Lightning

The second item, only tangentially related, is a song by Ralph McTell called Summer Lightning. It was on the B side of Streets of London, McTell's only real hit (in 1974). Unlike Streets, which is quite mawkish really, this song has a simplicity and private sincerity to it that makes it more appealing. The important thing is the message.

It's a real shame, but the original has been lost: the album is unobtainable, there is no concert footage, but I found this fairly good cover version on youtube



Here's the text:

Move over here, c'mon sit down beside me,
Come closer now, come and put your arms, put your arms around me,
You've had a bad day too, and I feel the same as you, c'mon sit down.

It's just that when I get mad I end up saying things if I thought about I wouldn't ever say,
And I think that you already know that, though I'll say it anyway, I'll say it anyway...

(repeated)

Don't let the day go down, the two of us still fighting,
It's not a storm at all, no, it's only summer lightning,
And we've still got the night, so there's time to put it right...

...let's go to bed.