Telling Tales

Two quotes: 1) from The Devil that Danced on Water, a wonderful book by the daughter of a judicially murdered politician from Sierra Leone, about her father, about the disintegration of her country, like so many other African countries, through greed, corruption, poverty, British colonial hangovers, etc, etc, aided and abetted by World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Big Power manoevres. etc.

'In the African Oral Tradition great events and insignificant moments, the ordinary and the extraordinary, are notches on the same wheel. They exist in relation to each other. The little occurrences are as important as the grand design: the threads are the texture of truth that separate man-made myth from fact.'

This reminds Granny of a comment she heard about Russian conversation; the samovar in one breath, God in the next. Either are good advice for for novelists; and, just as much, for bloggers. Here we are all of us bloggers, yattering out into the ether, about work and motherhood in Paris, aidworking in Zambia, a farm in New South Wales, cafes in Bangalore, fatherhood in Hampstead, God knows what in the USA, so on and so forth, hopping from ideas, principles, world problems, to struggles with machinery, Christmas decorations, kiddy bathtime, office parties, what to do with mushrooms, risotto rice, AIDS, aid, Amnesty international....What makes for a good blog then? What would remain interesting in 2300? The domestic detail possibly? (Who reads Pepys for his official life when they can get his wife, 'troubled with her lonely life' the 'best fritters I ever met in my life' and a 'silk suit which cost me much money and I pray God to make me able to pay for it. ')

Beloved has just appeared, so quote two will have to remain for further blog. Granny's trivia for anyone interested is 1) it's cloudy, windy, and trying to rain. 2) her dog - the Beautiful Wimp- has just walked across Mr Handsome from Blackburn's freshly laid concrete, much to his fury. 3) The Big Dog and the Little Dog are sitting next to her, again, - the Lady is off interpreting for something or someone or other. Feline Houdini is miffed. 4) Beloved is eating cheese, tomatoes and a slice of his own bread before heading for the supermarket. 5) Granny has still to shell yet another million bloody chestnuts. Hail and farewell.