1 - 8 Jun 2008

A couple of quotations from the American poet, Walt Whitman, who had a long connection with Bolton:

“To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle”.

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars”.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892; poet, essayist).

25 May - 1 Jun 2008

A thought about football from Manchester University's literary critic Terry Eagleton:

"If you were to ask what provides some meaning in life nowadays for a great many people, especially men, you could do worse than reply 'Football'… Sport, and in Britain football in particular, stands in for all those noble causes – religious faith, national sovereignty, personal honour, ethnic identity – for which over the centuries, people have been prepared to go to their deaths. Sport involves tribal loyalties and rivalries, symbolic rituals, fabulous legends, iconic heroes, epic battles, aesthetic beauty, physical fulfilment, intellectual satisfaction, sublime spectaculars, and a profound sense of belonging… It is sport, not religion, which is now the opium of the people."

Terry Eagleton (John Edward Taylor Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Manchester; from 'The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction', OUP, 2007)

18 - 25 May 2008

Last week was Christian Aid Week which helps the poorest of the poor. Some facts from their web site:

• Rigged trade rules cost the developing world $700 billion a year, according to the UN.
• The three richest people in the world control more wealth than all 600 million people living in the world's poorest countries.
• International trade is worth $10 million a minute. But poor countries only account for 0.4% of this trade. Indeed, their share is actually half what it was in 1980.
• Nearly half the world's population (2.8 billion people) live on less than $2 per day. And more than 800 million go hungry every day.
• Income per person in the poorest countries in Africa has fallen by a quarter in the past 20 years.

11-18 May 2008

A thought about expectations:

"I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, essayist, philosopher, poet and leader of the American Transcendentalist movement; from ‘Experience’).

4 - 11 May 2008

There are many thoughts about friendship. Here is one:

"Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together."

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924, twenty-eighth President of the United States).

Additional Thoughts

"Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend."

Albert Camus (1913-1960, novelist, essayist and playwright, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1957 ).

"Be a friend to thy self, and others will be so too."

Thomas Fuller (1654 - 1734, physician; from Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs, Stearne Brock, 1733).