Technology and Wisdom in balance

Ken writes: I’m reading Catherine Blyth’s ‘The Art of Conversation’ at the moment (I’ve just started, but so far it is very enjoyable). I was struck by a claim she attributes to Hannah Arendt (who I have never read…I’m not that sort of philosopher), namely that human technological prowess and human moral understanding have become [...]

Rooted

Dot writes: I don’t want to move house in June. We like this flat. It’s big and light. We have space for all our stuff, including desk, beloved iMac, filing cabinet, nine bookcases (in addition to the two bookcases that were in the flat anyway), and the trunk with Ken’s parents’ names on that, frankly, [...]

Sprout!

22nd May, 21 weeks 4 days. It may look like scrambled egg on the printout, but it was amazingly clear on the screen (‘you’re in Holles St now’, said the radiographer, proudly). All parts present and correct as far as can be told at this stage. Including boy-parts. It seems Hugh is going to have [...]

Trapped!

Dot writes: so Ken, little Hugh in his larger buggy, four strangers trying to skip the queue on the stairs, and I were all in the lift going up from platform 1 at Dun Laoghaire. (Background: there had been flooding at Glenageary and the DART was going no further than Dun Laoghaire. But then it [...]

Pagan Christians

Dot writes: I don’t know a great deal about Anglo-Saxon and Norse paganism (though I’ve been re-reading Voluspa lately), but the key idea I have managed to absorb is that paganism didn’t centre on a coherent body of doctrine or a systematic philosophy, though it certainly involved certain characteristic attitudes. Rather, it centred on local [...]

The speckled boy

Dot writes: on Wednesday, while Ken was flying to Poland, Hugh and I were flying to England to visit my parents in Norfolk. I had rather dreaded the surprisingly lengthy journey as a lone mum with a strong-minded toddler, but Hugh was amazingly good the whole way, only really kicking up a fuss in the [...]

Arrived in Lodz

Ken writes:
I’m writing this from my room at the conference center of the University of Lodz in Poland.
I’m attending a conference on the philosophy of language and (philosophy of) linguistics.
So far my main impression is of my own woeful linguistic ignorance. I bought a Polish phrasebook last week, but I’m really hopeless. I can stumble [...]

Father to son

Dot writes: today Ken has been initiating Hugh into the noble and manly art of Taking Things Apart and Trying to Fix Them.

In case anybody’s worried, it’s not plugged in.
This was the version of the noble art in which the Man (helped by his Boy) takes the item apart, fiddles intelligently with it, puts [...]

Solved

Dot writes: Ken has worked out what has been wrong with Hugh. We are now pretty sure he has hand, foot and mouth disease. On Thursday morning I noticed a scattering of white blobs on his hands, and I wondered if he might have picked up warts. But, as Ken pointed out, they look much [...]

All is forgiven

Dot writes: if Hugh has been feeling anything like as rotten as I feel I forgive him all the tantrums he’s had this week.
I think I might go to bed before he does tonight.