Category Archives: Education

October 11, 2013 · 7:08 am

POPE FRANCIS AND MICHELANGELO’S MOUSE

It was Dad who was always so fond of the story of St Francis, this extraordinary Pope’s namesake and one of the great medieval reformers, just like this real man of God, Francis, a Pope for our times. I guess that soldier turned inspirer went so deep here because he is so associated with animals. GK Chesterton, a Catholic and author of the Father Brown detective books wrote a biography of him wonderfully called Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Whether you are a believer or not it is that human engagement with all life, with the sun, moon, stars and animals that sings of large spirits. St Francis is at the heart of a little fable called Michelangelo’s Mouse, set in renaissance Italy, teaching a mouse called Jotto how to follow his dreams, his artistic inspiration and become famouse!

Michelangelo’s Mouse is available at Amazon at $2.99

DCD

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March 13, 2013 · 8:27 pm

POPE FRANCIS

How interesting, and gently moving too.  A Pope, announced on Channel Four News with a touch of science, in that little detail of the Potassium being mixed in with the wood smoke to make it especially white, with a stirring and holy name name too, Pope Francis.  A simple and humble man, who put aside the power and pomp of the Episcopal palace, to live among everyday people.  Conservative, in the sense of defending marriage, yet also teaching respect for homosexuality.  But of course, the first Pope not to come from Europe in 900 years.  Then there is his identity as an Argentinian, and what impact that might have on the situation , (for Brits),  in The Falklands, and for Argentines, ‘Las Malvinas’.  Perhaps a a minor point, when a Pope is no longer a representative of his Nation, but of the Church. In a man who has been criticized for not standing up enough to the Colonels in Argentina, and the horrors of ‘Los Disaparecidos’, yet who has stood up to the Government and stood among the poor too.  What could be more appealing though, in a world being torn apart by the growning gap between people, in enormous divides between rich and poor, which simply socially can never come to good, than a new Pope Francis?

John Snow, on Channel Four News, with all his charming enthusiasm, was quick to try and make some definitive statement, such as his appearance on the Roman balcony as not being especially ‘exuberant’.  Yet, as soon as Jorge Mario Bergoglio spoke, he was full of gentle smiles and a pastoral, human touch.  It is far too soon to say anything at all.  Except, as Cardinal Cormack Macarthy said, in talking of this as a blessing,  in the resonance of that very singular name, Francis.  It was GK Chesterton, a life long Catholic, the creator of the Father Brown detective stories, who wrote a biography of St Francis of Assissi called ‘Brother Son and Sister Moon”.  One of the most radical of reforming figures in the entire history of the Church.  Who gave up both wealth, and his own martial vigour, to don the brown habit and live a life following the really Christian message, of poverty and love. But also one beautifully involved in nature,  hence his communion with birds, flowers, trees and brother sun and sister moon.

Never missing a chance for the happy plug, although certainly not making as much money as those plastic Madonna bottles that line the route to Lourdes, perhaps we can mention a little Phoenix story then, Michelangelo’s Mouse (Available at Amazon) CLICK HERE.  Since a Pope was just elected under the ceiling of that Michelangelo Masterpiece, the painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Where some think the hung out skin in the hands of one of those archetypal Prophets is the artist himself.   The story is really about the creative spirit, but one of its guiding inspiritations, if Keats said “I am convinced of nothing so much as the holiness of the heart’s affections”, is St Francis.

So what of unbaptised Phoenix Ark Press, and all that stuff about the Church?  Somewhere we wanted Jonathan Miller in Rome, the arch artist and scientist, committed atheist,  to tell more than a billion people it is all nonsense.  Yet knowing something intristinsic too, that it is not nonsense at all.   The argument in our storytelling is that there are two languages in the world, that need to talk to one another again.  The deconstructive, analytical language of Science, so vital to us all, and the poetic, spiritual, human and feeling langaguge of life, love, poetry, literature and metaphor, that so includes the history of religions too. One that cannot be encompassed, simply in terms of human creativity and imagination, by the language of mathematics, Neutrenos, Big Bangs or ‘God Particles’. Or perhaps it can, but that is another argument.

But for the moment, this does feel like a blessing, a touch of real inspiration, and out of those many names, something refreshing and new.  Athiest or believer, how can you live in such an extraordianry world without the langauge of love and of blessings? A little mouse of hope is squeeking quietly, Michelangelo’s Mouse, and a feeling that this is a gentle, exciting moment for the Church.

PHOENIX ARK PRESS

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November 2, 2012 · 11:33 pm

DERREN BROWN’S ‘APOCALYPSE’

A lot of interest here has been about blogs on ‘illusionist’ and hypnotist Derren Brown. Watching the second part of his ‘Apocalypse’ is a good chance to plug that great thriller, that does not have the power to push itself, The Godhead Game, based around this year’s supposed ‘Apocalypse’, the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar, this December, 2012. (Available but flopping on Amazon.) It’s point is precisely the opposite of ends of the world, since, for all the violence or fear, life and energy are very hard to destroy, as are repeating stories.

Perhaps Derren Brown is a kind of modern saint, though having dabbled in religion, or perhaps feeling a victim to it, he would probably hate the word. But the push and premise of his programme, and ‘set up’ of a character who faced a created Apocalypse, and the ‘infected’, was exactly right, and deeply human, namely to test and bring out the best in his ‘subject’. The lingering question at the end though, namely do we actually need fear, as the spin of the coin on which we all exist, succeed or fail, was immediately preempted by the announcement of the coming programme about faith; Religion: Faith and Fear. The ‘problem’ with the programme was that it already drew on well established cultural ‘clichés’, in all those zombie films. Indeed the set up was an exact replay of one infection and zombie film. Fine, it exactly reflects why such dramas are made themselves.

Which feeds into the question of what drama is for and why talking of science or faith is so much just about language. Derren Brown pushes the boundaries of illusion, hypnotic control, studies of the psyche and what reality really is, if anything at all, to the limits, and there too is his genius. Perhaps he will try to touch what it is very hard to answer, namely is there truth in ‘Jungian’ ideas, that involve such notions as some ‘Collective Unconscious’, that may not be an individual experience alone of dreams, or the powerful unconscious or subconscious, perhaps controlled by a brain centre that can be hypnotised and controlled to an extraordinary extent. To the extent it can stop the nerve functions and make a body in ice cold water think it is in a warm bath, and will actually die. Then that is no more remarkable than dysfunctions people are born with, so that they do not have ‘ordinary’ nerve functions at all, which itself questions what any reality is. But the wider question is what any social reality is too, and what is happening all around us, even in the entertainment staged down a TV screen, as so much is created to advertise or control.

Still, Brown is both a genius and very exciting and inspiring about what he seeks to challenge and examine about a ‘reality’ we all appear to share, but is always so much about illusions, in our experiences and perceptions of the ‘outside world’ and an inner world too. He is doing what that Hollywood movie ‘The Game’ did and would it not be wonderful if we all played that ‘game’ with each other, but to heal and to bring out the most extraordinary in each one of us? The question, as both animal and ‘Man’, is do we need enemies and fear, and what vision and growth exists beyond that when the walls really come tumblin’ down? For those ‘loonies’ who talk some Mayan truth, for whatever reason, perhaps there are always higher states of consciousness.

PA PRESS

ps Just to be a little tedious the Greek meaning of Apocalpsye is not those four horsemen at all, but something revealed.

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November 2, 2012 · 9:43 pm

WONDERFUL AUTUMN WATCH!

What is the love and genius at the heart of British TV, perhaps the strange UK, with the likes of our National Treasure, Sir David Attenborough, for all the supposed fakery about Polar Bears, or the just viewed wonderful and delightful Autumn Watch? It’s exactly what and why they quoted Gandhi, that the key measure of any society’s moral advancement is how it treats is animals, even with all our unkindness to chickens, yum, yum. The people on Autumn Watch are so natural, and naturally eccentric, so passionate about what they do, love and share, it is as entrancing as watching the footage of animals in the wild, or interacting in the studio.

For this ‘animal writer’, who forgot nature, forgot his readers and fans and forg0t where the power and source of his writing came from, it just brings joy. Only readers are right about whatever happened in America, and all that counts is the vision and passion that stories based in the wild bring. But of course, for love of animals, there is us as well, and love of us as well, in all that difficult ‘moral advancement’, competing, seeking, trying to understand, and such extraodinary and eccentic animals too. But apart from anything else, those passionate enthusiasts on Autumn Watch have so much fun!

DCD

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September 25, 2012 · 3:06 pm

THE SHAKESPEARE INSCRIPTION

phoenixark

you underestimate the power of Roper´s argument. To find words by chance in a grille is easy. To find a readable sentence is VERY improbable. To find a readable sentence with a relevant bearing on the subject simply doesn’t happen. A grille built on the figure 31 will give us PAT SIP NO FLEAS, on 32 HE YET HIT AS COT, 35: TOY TIE OR SO, and so on. But only a 34-column grille will give an answer to the challenge put to the reader of the monument: READ IF THOU CANST WHOM ENVIOUS DEATH HATH PLAST WITHIN THIS MONUMENT (for Shakespeare). Combined with the anomalies in the text, which serves the hidden message to be readable, the figure 34 which has a certain correspondence to the name hidden and the fact that the concealed words come in clusters, strengthen the argument that the whole thing was put there by design. Moreover since the person hidden in the message happens to be the same as the one person in history with the strongest known connections, biographical or literary or anything, to the texts we call the Shakespeare canon, should be enough to make anyone who cares about truth at least a bit curious.

IF, I say if, the Folio had been printed without a name on the first page, who would we today consider the Author? A man who left no traces of a literary life AT ALL, like William-of-Stratford, or a man whose literary fingerprints are left on virtually every page, like Edward de Vere? The answer is obvious, but we have a paradigm shift to go through before the world is ready for it, and such things are painful experiences to many people. So painful actually that the wish to stay in the phase of denial can be lifelong.

(pardon my English, I am from Northern Europe)

Many thanks for that. For a shortish reply please see the comments pages in The Earl fo Oxford, William Ray and a Leering hydrocephalic idiot. To go there CLICK HERE and go down to comments, at the bottom right, in blue.

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September 24, 2012 · 2:31 pm

ANDREW MITCHELL, DAVE HARTNETT, TRESPASSING SCUM AND THE WINDOW ON THE ESTABLISHMENT?

Boy, if you think Andrew Mitchell had it bad, you should see ‘Robert’s‘ remarks to some rather clever, elegant protestors, giving a Golden Handshake ‘award’ at Oxford Uni…trespassing scum that they were. Set the dogs on them! ‘No, Robert, really, you’ll curdle the port.’ Click Here

ps If we posted about not hounding Andrew Mitchell too much, we’re on the protestor’s side. Does an England like that really still exist?

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September 24, 2012 · 8:54 am

THE END OF HISTORY AS WE KNOW IT!

Fukayama, what do you do with a journalist whose nose for sniffing out truth might have been a tad bunged up by taking out his own Super Injunction? You have the all compassionate BBC slash the budgets and behind the scenes talent, then give us ANDREW MARR’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD. BBC 1, Yesteryear. “And God divided the waters and made the Heaven and the Earth and Adam, Eve and possibly Transexuals, to dwell therein, or in Middlesex, and saw that it was Good, and Man made the BBC and CGI and Andrew Marr’s History and everyone saw that it was awful and turned off.”

Except that it is so side splittingly funny, it is almost worth watching. With terrifyingly tacky historical reconstructions, to match Mr Marr’s up to the minute journalese and ‘just like Eastenders’ comparisons, including an ‘Out of Africa’ moment and a CGI sequence stolen straight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – mind the exciting drop – we got big-turning-points-in-astonishing-but-troubled Human History, as wise Mr Marr bestrode the plastic world like a colossal twit.

So we SAW the Mother of Mankind, from whom we are extraordinarily all genetically descended, except the poor Sub Saharans, not a bad bit actually, then nasty Neolithics hunting down cranially challenged Neanderthals (although, hush, scientists argue about it, and Mr Marr proves elegant Neanderthals are still among us). Then ‘Caveman wos here’ handprints in France, with not one thrill of real wonder because reconstruction kills wonder, to the 11,000 year old equivalent of the Cat’s Eye – you got it, woman invents the animal-bone knitting needle. Thus giving us domestic sewing, fitted clothes, and why Commissioning editors despise the public and love those dinky little symbols at Ralph Lauren. On to Anatolia and, yes it must be, underfloor-overheating Ancestor Worship. Do you ever get the feeling you are being stitched up? Mr Marr, the tapes and the production crew should all be immediately buried in the Leicester car park where they just dug up Richard III, who was a GOOD KING.

So to reconstructed women on Tigris bank, suddenly pondering simpleton grass-eaters, to invent the SEED and AGRICULTURE. Eureka. The heavens shattered, lighting broke and they really did give three minutes to little round stone wall and woman watching single seed sprout. ‘I shall pedal the window box franchise and move to Hollywood’. The tears of laughter started to burst like the banks of the badly reconstructed Yellow River. ‘And you know, there really is evidence there was once a big world Flood?’ Never! Thence to Egypt and Man invents writing, LAW and the whipped tomb raider. Not all those boring Pharaohs, but what its like down there at street reporting level.

If Mr Marr is one of us though, or one of them, he makes the study of history completely pointless, by engaging in modern relativisms so extreme we should have stayed up the trees. Which is why, like travel writing, you should never give history to journalists, but only Sirs Kenneth Clarke, or perhaps David Attenborough, although at least Sir David defiantly sticks to what he knows and loves so deeply. Like that time Andrew hung out for a night in an Indian slum, he should remember his giving us the experience ‘as they experience it’ is just not the same, since he is always about to be whisked back to White City. David Ike was right, TV is evil. Then TV journalism these days is just a chance to climb The Shard in public, visit expensive Shanghai hotels or become a National Treasure.

It is hard to entirely dislike Andrew Marr though and don’t fear, in an hour, Civilisation had arrived and we reached The Minoans. Phew. But this is top scoop, so we learn the hot-off-the-press news that Sir Arthur Evans’s Super Injunction was breached, and he really rebuilt in 1920’s Voguish Art Deco, while the Mayans might have had a dark side too. No Minotaurs or Labyrinthine clichés here though, heavens no, but Andrew squatting by real stones, with truly authentic scientific evidence of blood sacrifice, a warning from history, and then a wailing, knife wielding priestess warning from TV land, only worthy of Up Pompei.

Of course archaeology and science wins the day with pre-history, but history is not a science but art, itself an act of civilising, and this was not it. Who can wait for the joys to come? As every cut-n-past moment is pulled out of the Lady Bird books, to bring us ancient Greece, Alexander The Great, awful Empires, but why the present Queen is the pinnacle of all human life, God Bless you Maam.

David Clement-Davies

PA PRESS

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September 23, 2012 · 4:02 pm

EDMUND SHAKESPEARE – WHOOPS ATROCIOUS!

Always go back to your notebooks, not to mention original records, if you can. It is the problem of blogging unedited work, but everything would be checked before any actual book appeared. Edmund Shakespeare’s infant son was not christened in Cripplegate and buried in St Leonard’s though, but the other way around, and it has been changed in the text here. The child was baptised on July 12th 1607, Sonne of Edmund Shakesbye, in St Leonard’s Shoreditch. It says “the same daye”, which Peter Ackroyd says proves urgency, but actually it probably just means the same day as other entries, ie July 12th.

Exactly a month later, August 12th, 1607, comes the register of a burial in St Giles, Cripplegate, of Edward Sonne of Edward Shakespeere player, base borne. The confusion of first names is easy. Susanna Shakespeare was married to John Hall in Stratford Holy Trinity on June 5th, 1607.

Part of the point though of blogging Edmund’s story as work in progress, is to open up absolutes of ‘scholarship’ to general correction and discussion, because even records can be wrong and the period is so fascinating. Anyone who writes in should be aware of that. There are many ‘facts’ that have been relayed into the mainstream too, and appear on places like Wikepedia as absolute truth, that mutiply error. Alan Nelson cited the error about Will Kempe and his perhaps not dying in the 1603 plague in Southwark, because the register did not refer to a William Kempe, but he checked back and it did say William Kempe a man.
PA PRESS

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September 23, 2012 · 12:13 pm

JFK, SHAKESPEARE AND CONSPIRACY THEORY

Just blogged a reply to a comment in The Earl of Oxford, William Ray and a Leering Hydrocephalic Idiot, that talks about the “conspiracy theories” around Shakespeare. But watching Oliver Stone’s JFK last night, what could be more obvious proof that conspiracies happen? JFK’s assassination was the 9/11 of its time, in terms of world shock, when everyone remembers where there were. It certainly was for my parent’s generation. If even a tenth of the facts are right, there cannot be serious doubt that Oswald was not the lone shooter, indeed it’s impossible, so the patsy he said he was, and that the Warren Commission was a fabrication. A “Coup d’état” is Stone’s conclusion, in a film where people often quote Shakespeare, and with that highly convincing and chilling moment when Donald Sutherland remarks that “the organising principle for any society is for war.” It might say a lot about Iraq and Afghanistan too. Of course the CIA director Allen Dulles is mentioned too, and his dismissal by Kennedy, and that organisation that Kennedy said he wanted to “scatter to the four winds.”

It brought up the issue of research here into Dulles’s amazing career in Switzerland, the Manhattan heiress and art and literary patroness Drue Heinz and American OSS and British spies there, involved with the Edda Mussolini story and the Count Ciano affair. It was rather shocking to me though when an editor on The Independent newspaper in the UK doubted anyone would be interested nowadays, if you could prove who killed JFK. Perhaps he was right and it’s just a brutal fact, and time and truths always hurry on.

I have no proof of anything specifically related to Kennedy. It was just studying Dulles more closely, and the free-wheeling writ that he and the OSS were given to fight the Nazis, that began to make Stone’s take even more convincing. Just as Churchill told the SOE to “set Europe ablaze“, US Black Ops started in the Second War, and included not only media disinformation and propaganda campaigns, that carried back into America with “Operation Mockingbird”, but the habit of OSS and later CIA assassination, that Dulles fully sanctioned. Still a hero at the CIA, very heroic in Switzerland, when he crossed the border with a Million Dollar money order, at the moment of Operation Torch and the closing of borders, he may have been something of the Good Shepherd in the Matt Damon movie, but his later career is rather more suspect.

PA PRESS

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September 21, 2012 · 12:24 pm

THE DA VINCI CODE PROVED TRUE!

Perhaps it’s the wonderful end of obsessions with sex as original sin, women as evil, or the proof of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code fictions. Perhaps Catholic priests will now be allowed to live happily married lives. It was no Biblical story that forced in the idea, for instance, that Mary herself was conceived by Immaculate Conception, but the decrees of Church councils.

Karen King, a Harvard professor of Divinity, has just discovered a snippet of ancient parchment with words to the effect “and Jesus said, my wife…..who may become my disciple.” The Da Vinci Code may be a dreadful read, in literary terms, but it is also a very clever page turner. It builds on rather astonishing ideas about Da Vinci then, Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene, and out of books like The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail. We still think The Godhead Game should be seen as a Da Vinci Code of Mayan World End ideas, this year, but that’s special pleading! In the meantime, what a blessing for debate, life and different kinds of sacred love, even if Christians did get so upset about a film they misunderstood, The Last Temptation of Christ. Ghandi used to renew his marriage vows every day.

PA PRESS

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