Well, there comes a time when a pseudonym has to be revealed for the person behind it! This is one of the moments...
This month sees the publication of my first collection of poetry.
A Journey with Time
is available in both hardback and paperback versions and is currently available from:
http://stores.lulu.com/JaggsFowler
In a few weeks, it should also be appearing on Amazon and Waterstones.com
For a taster, here is the blurb from the jacket:
" 'A Journey with Time' is Robert Jaggs-Fowler's first collection of poems, the subject matter drawing on his love of nature, travel, books and music, as well as exploring the more intense emotions of love and loss. At times amusing, often poignant, 'A Journey with Time' reveals the inner workings of a sensitive human being who is in touch with far more than just life's daily toil."
If you are kind enough to buy a copy, please do feel free to come back to me with any comments.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Friday, August 08, 2008
Thought for the Day
'The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.'
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Thought for the Day
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Headhunted!
From little acorns...
As a result of my 'Postcards from...' series on here, I was recently invited to join a group of people writing about England for the American tourist market. Naturally, I was keen to be involved and the site has been up and running for a while.
My remit is to talk about life in the North of England. My postings can be found at www.BeABritDifferent.com Look under 'Friends' and click on the posts of James Tusitala.
Associated with the above, I can additionally be found on Facebook and Myspace...so, please come and say hello, leave a few comments, write on my wall and...most importantly, don't forget to add yourself as one of my friends!
See you there!
As a result of my 'Postcards from...' series on here, I was recently invited to join a group of people writing about England for the American tourist market. Naturally, I was keen to be involved and the site has been up and running for a while.
My remit is to talk about life in the North of England. My postings can be found at www.BeABritDifferent.com Look under 'Friends' and click on the posts of James Tusitala.
Associated with the above, I can additionally be found on Facebook and Myspace...so, please come and say hello, leave a few comments, write on my wall and...most importantly, don't forget to add yourself as one of my friends!
See you there!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Projection Word Drops
I have recently been approached by a group of American educationalists with a view to reproducing some of my writing on their new website, Projection Word Drops. As the administrator says in his introduction to the site, their concept is based on the idea that:
'Sincere and true words have undeniable impact, just like a drop of water hitting the water surface. The ripples can go further all around. Ripples are generated as an effect, but it is the drop itself that drives them.'
I am only too pleased to be involved with anything which spreads my writing to knew readers and thought that you, too, might wish to have a look at the site. It can be found at:
http://worddrops.visionsprojection.com/mainpage/
'Sincere and true words have undeniable impact, just like a drop of water hitting the water surface. The ripples can go further all around. Ripples are generated as an effect, but it is the drop itself that drives them.'
I am only too pleased to be involved with anything which spreads my writing to knew readers and thought that you, too, might wish to have a look at the site. It can be found at:
http://worddrops.visionsprojection.com/mainpage/
Friday, April 18, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Do we face the Decline and Fall of the Western Empire?
For the past week, I have been contemplating some words of Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In his Easter Sermon, he said:
“…we as a culture can’t imagine that this civilisation, like all others, will collapse and that what we take for granted about our comforts and luxuries simply can’t be sustained indefinitely.
To all this, the Church says, sombrely, don’t be deceived: night must fall."
Dr Williams is frequently berated in the common press for speaking in an obscure style. However, for once, his message is loud and clear. Life, as we in the Western world know it, cannot continue forever.
There are comparisons and lessons to be learned from both the Roman Empire and the French Revolution.
The Roman Empire was once the most powerful Empire the world has known. Not only was it powerful; for at least the ruling elite, life was luxurious. With villas built in the Classical style and surrounded by art, sculpture, music, good food and wines, those fortunate to be amongst the wealthier citizens of Rome must have felt that life had never been so good. For approximately 1000 years, Rome was paramount. Then, as history now shows, night fell for the Romans; the Roman Empire started to shrink and the Barbarians overran Rome.
In the years before 1789, France was essentially a feudal society. The nobles were wealthy, possessed large estates, and had a life of luxury compared to the peasant workers who toiled in their fields and who provided for the needs of their ruling class. Whether one believes the Marxist view that it was inevitable that the growing class of bourgeoisie would overthrow the aristocracy (and Monarchy), and that in time the working class would overthrow the bourgeoisie, or whether one takes a more post-modernist view of history, what is clear is that the time of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ could not continue forever. At some stage, a degree of re-balancing of wealth had to take place. The French Revolution may have been the mechanism, or it may have just been a speeding up of events that had been happening in small ways for some time and would have reached a climax at some later, albeit inevitable, stage.
Today, those of us who have the privilege of living in the western world can all too readily be blinded to the reality of life in other parts of the world. Even with images of poverty, starvation, war, and human suffering transmitted to our televisions, we are in danger of allowing the television to sanitise the real effect on us. It is as though such things are not really happening; our lives go on as normal, we have plenty of food, clothes and warmth, our oil supplies are plentiful, we are healthy (or at least well-cared for when we are not) and nobody is waging a direct war against us. Many of us can find enough spare money to go on holiday; sometimes more than once per year. Life has never been so good.
Yet, are we not at risk of the same complacency that once beset the Roman and French aristocracies? Is it not simply a matter of scale? Instead of Rome or France, read ‘Western World’. Instead of ‘aristocracy’, read ‘westerner’. For, I would argue, there is a comparison to be drawn between the attitudes of the Roman and French aristocracies to the subjects of their respective empire or feudal estates, and those of us ‘westerners’ in our attitude to the nations poorer than us, but whose inhabitants toil for meagre return in an effort to sustain our insatiable demand for luxury. For example, where would we be without the cheap workforces of China, who produce so much of our every day commodities? Or, for that matter, the agricultural labourers who supply our tea and coffee for less than subsistence wages?
I recently read an article in Source (the Church and Community Magazine for the Parishioners of Upper Nidderdale, North Yorkshire) which gave the following statistics:
‘If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.
If you have never experienced the fear of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 700 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world.
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all. If you own a computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity.’
I can add to those statistics by something I read in a nature reserve exhibition. That, to bring the world’s population to the same standard of living enjoyed by the average person now living in North Lincolnshire, we would need the natural resources of another four or five Earths.
Insisting on supermarkets operating ‘Fair Trade’ policies is a start. Insisting that wholesalers do not import clothes from factories known to use child labour is commendable. However, such action is not going to solve the ultimate problem. We need to face up to the fact that our lifestyles in the western world are unsustainable. How long will it be before the population of China, for example, demands the same standards as those we enjoy? How will the world’s resources then meet the demand? Indeed, how can our own demands then continue to be met?
We must not be blind to the precarious nature of our western civilisation’s existence. As a country looking out at the world (rather than in respect to our internal politics), we (in the United Kingdom) are largely right wing, conservative and reactionary. A vast proportion of the world is, or has the potential to become, quite the opposite: left wing, radical, reformative, and revolutionary. We cannot rely on these factions being contained forever – but who can blame them when the time comes for them to demand an equality of existence?
Western civilisation is the modern-day aristocrat facing a growing unease amongst the countries of the poorer classes. It is time that we awoke to the reality before us. The 18th century philosopher, Rousseau, expounded the notions of the ‘Social Contract’ and the ‘General Will’; ideas that featured heavily within the minds of the French Revolutionaries. Perhaps we need our world’s leaders to start negotiating the same concepts, but on a worldwide basis – now, before the matter is beyond us?
It is a ‘fact of history’ that all empires fall. When, then, the decline and fall of the Western Empire? Just as Classical Greece saw its Dark Age, Western Europe has also lived through its own Dark Ages. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury was quite correct when he said:
“…don’t be deceived: night must fall."
Without a 21st century Enlightenment in respect to the world’s resources, and a reality check on the disparity between living standards, the western world may yet have its most significant Dark Age to come.
“…we as a culture can’t imagine that this civilisation, like all others, will collapse and that what we take for granted about our comforts and luxuries simply can’t be sustained indefinitely.
To all this, the Church says, sombrely, don’t be deceived: night must fall."
Dr Williams is frequently berated in the common press for speaking in an obscure style. However, for once, his message is loud and clear. Life, as we in the Western world know it, cannot continue forever.
There are comparisons and lessons to be learned from both the Roman Empire and the French Revolution.
The Roman Empire was once the most powerful Empire the world has known. Not only was it powerful; for at least the ruling elite, life was luxurious. With villas built in the Classical style and surrounded by art, sculpture, music, good food and wines, those fortunate to be amongst the wealthier citizens of Rome must have felt that life had never been so good. For approximately 1000 years, Rome was paramount. Then, as history now shows, night fell for the Romans; the Roman Empire started to shrink and the Barbarians overran Rome.
In the years before 1789, France was essentially a feudal society. The nobles were wealthy, possessed large estates, and had a life of luxury compared to the peasant workers who toiled in their fields and who provided for the needs of their ruling class. Whether one believes the Marxist view that it was inevitable that the growing class of bourgeoisie would overthrow the aristocracy (and Monarchy), and that in time the working class would overthrow the bourgeoisie, or whether one takes a more post-modernist view of history, what is clear is that the time of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ could not continue forever. At some stage, a degree of re-balancing of wealth had to take place. The French Revolution may have been the mechanism, or it may have just been a speeding up of events that had been happening in small ways for some time and would have reached a climax at some later, albeit inevitable, stage.
Today, those of us who have the privilege of living in the western world can all too readily be blinded to the reality of life in other parts of the world. Even with images of poverty, starvation, war, and human suffering transmitted to our televisions, we are in danger of allowing the television to sanitise the real effect on us. It is as though such things are not really happening; our lives go on as normal, we have plenty of food, clothes and warmth, our oil supplies are plentiful, we are healthy (or at least well-cared for when we are not) and nobody is waging a direct war against us. Many of us can find enough spare money to go on holiday; sometimes more than once per year. Life has never been so good.
Yet, are we not at risk of the same complacency that once beset the Roman and French aristocracies? Is it not simply a matter of scale? Instead of Rome or France, read ‘Western World’. Instead of ‘aristocracy’, read ‘westerner’. For, I would argue, there is a comparison to be drawn between the attitudes of the Roman and French aristocracies to the subjects of their respective empire or feudal estates, and those of us ‘westerners’ in our attitude to the nations poorer than us, but whose inhabitants toil for meagre return in an effort to sustain our insatiable demand for luxury. For example, where would we be without the cheap workforces of China, who produce so much of our every day commodities? Or, for that matter, the agricultural labourers who supply our tea and coffee for less than subsistence wages?
I recently read an article in Source (the Church and Community Magazine for the Parishioners of Upper Nidderdale, North Yorkshire) which gave the following statistics:
‘If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.
If you have never experienced the fear of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 700 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world.
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all. If you own a computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity.’
I can add to those statistics by something I read in a nature reserve exhibition. That, to bring the world’s population to the same standard of living enjoyed by the average person now living in North Lincolnshire, we would need the natural resources of another four or five Earths.
Insisting on supermarkets operating ‘Fair Trade’ policies is a start. Insisting that wholesalers do not import clothes from factories known to use child labour is commendable. However, such action is not going to solve the ultimate problem. We need to face up to the fact that our lifestyles in the western world are unsustainable. How long will it be before the population of China, for example, demands the same standards as those we enjoy? How will the world’s resources then meet the demand? Indeed, how can our own demands then continue to be met?
We must not be blind to the precarious nature of our western civilisation’s existence. As a country looking out at the world (rather than in respect to our internal politics), we (in the United Kingdom) are largely right wing, conservative and reactionary. A vast proportion of the world is, or has the potential to become, quite the opposite: left wing, radical, reformative, and revolutionary. We cannot rely on these factions being contained forever – but who can blame them when the time comes for them to demand an equality of existence?
Western civilisation is the modern-day aristocrat facing a growing unease amongst the countries of the poorer classes. It is time that we awoke to the reality before us. The 18th century philosopher, Rousseau, expounded the notions of the ‘Social Contract’ and the ‘General Will’; ideas that featured heavily within the minds of the French Revolutionaries. Perhaps we need our world’s leaders to start negotiating the same concepts, but on a worldwide basis – now, before the matter is beyond us?
It is a ‘fact of history’ that all empires fall. When, then, the decline and fall of the Western Empire? Just as Classical Greece saw its Dark Age, Western Europe has also lived through its own Dark Ages. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury was quite correct when he said:
“…don’t be deceived: night must fall."
Without a 21st century Enlightenment in respect to the world’s resources, and a reality check on the disparity between living standards, the western world may yet have its most significant Dark Age to come.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
I'm Dreaming of a White Easter
I am sure that it has happened before, but I cannot off-hand remember when. However, Easter morning has dawned with a blue sky and two inches of snow here in the Yorkshire Dales.
A beautiful sight which offers a freshness which is very fitting for the day of the Resurrection of our Lord.
Happy Easter!
A beautiful sight which offers a freshness which is very fitting for the day of the Resurrection of our Lord.
Happy Easter!
A Lexicographic Curiosity
On the 25th March 2006, I posted to this blog an article named 'Word of the Week - Megalotic'. Little did I think that this one word was going to become a major source of interest to our friends in Japan.
Like many blogs, I have a site-meter attached. This enables me to monitor how many hits the blog receives, how long people stay on and how many pages are read. An additional feature, which I find particularly fascinating, is that it tells me which part of the world the reader is in and, finally, how they got to my blog in the first place; for example, did they stumble across it by accident when searching for something in Google, or did they specifically enter the site name.
Over the past two years, it has become increasingly obvious that readers in Japan search on the word 'megalotic' and thus come to this site. Some even enter 'Dr Tusitala - Megalotic' as their search words.
The mystery to me is why this should be. The word megalotic is not an everyday English word and certainly took me a while to figure out what it might actually mean. (See the original posting for my answers to that). So why are the Japanese so interested in the word?
If anyone has an insight to my little conundrum, please do post a comment.
Like many blogs, I have a site-meter attached. This enables me to monitor how many hits the blog receives, how long people stay on and how many pages are read. An additional feature, which I find particularly fascinating, is that it tells me which part of the world the reader is in and, finally, how they got to my blog in the first place; for example, did they stumble across it by accident when searching for something in Google, or did they specifically enter the site name.
Over the past two years, it has become increasingly obvious that readers in Japan search on the word 'megalotic' and thus come to this site. Some even enter 'Dr Tusitala - Megalotic' as their search words.
The mystery to me is why this should be. The word megalotic is not an everyday English word and certainly took me a while to figure out what it might actually mean. (See the original posting for my answers to that). So why are the Japanese so interested in the word?
If anyone has an insight to my little conundrum, please do post a comment.
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