I am glad you got through the day, Mary.
People always are fighting about something. Now they found a spy in Galway collecting industrial secrets. He was working for canadian firm, but he was actually working for Russia. He is deported (don't know to which country).
Here they are fighting about piano. Things are blocked for self reasons and even schook is harnessed to selfish pity interests. However, life is not about that in my view. I am just beginning to understand that.
I got through my day and I still think that I am not good. I used to think that I am ok, but lately after being dumped several times I have doubt.
But I keep going and nice messages here help a lot.

Some people, t-p, just have rather depressive natures, I think. You and me for a start, and several other people on this board. We have to learn to live with it, and most of the time we do, but then despondency descends again.

When the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud....

(John Keats, Ode on Melancholy. I liked this when I was sixteen, and it came into my head now.)

Thank you for the pictures, Martle - they are lovely, and cheering.

(I'm not happy that the people arrested (NOT charged, we should remember) over the recent terrorism are connected to the health service. There goes another illusion. Naive of me, I know - there were plenty of Nazi doctors.)

This is the thing in life that certainties are not really certainties. Yet to live in fright that the whole thing is going colapse is not good too.
So I know now that cooking is the answer. Thank you hh.
Thank you Mary, thank you martle.
Pictures are lovely and the poem of John Keats is not known to me, but I am going to try to find it.

It is despondency that is difficult to take. All the sudden all hope can be gone.

The pictures are very good.

 In Act 2 of Sondheim's "Follies",  Carlotta sings:

      Good times and bum times,
       I've seen them all and, my dear.
       I'm still here.
       Plush velvet sometimes,
       Sometimes just pretzels and beer,
       But I'm here.

       I've stuffed the dailies
       In my shoes,
       Strummed ukeleles,
       Sung the blues
       Seen all my dreams disappear,
       But I'm here.

       I've slept in shanties
        Guest of the W.P.A.
       But I'm here.
       Danced in my scanties,
       Three bucks a night was the pay,
       But I'm here.

       I've stood on breadlines
       With the best,
        Watched while the headlines
        Did the rest.
        In the depression was I depressed?
        Nowhere near
        I met a big financier
        And I'm here.

        I've been through Ghandi,
        Windsor and Wally's affair
        And I'm here.
        Amos 'n' Andy,
        Mahjongg and platinum hair,
        And I'm here

        I got through "Abie's Irish Rose"
        Five Dionne babies
        Major Bowes
        Had heebie-jeebies
        For Beebe's
        Bathysphere,
        I've lived through Shirley Temple
        And I'm here

        I've got through Herbert & J.Edgar Hoover
        Gee, that was fun and a half,
        When you've been through Herbert & J Edgar Hoover,
        Anything else is a laugh

        I've been through Reno
        I've been through Beverly Hills,
        And I'm here.
        Reefers and vino,
        Rest cures, religion and pills,
        But I'm here.

        Been called a pinko
        commie tool,
        Got through it stinko
        By my pool.
        I should have gone to an acting school,
        That seems clear,
        Still, someone said, "she's sincere"
        So I'm here.

        Black sable one day,
        Next day it goes into hock.
        But I'm here.
        Top billing Monday,
        Tuesday you're touring in stock,
        But I'm here

        First you're another
        sloe-eyed vamp,
        Then someone's mother,
        then you're camp.
        Then you career
        From career to career.
        I'm almost through my memoirs
        And I'm here.

        I've gotten through "Hey, lady aren't you whoozis?
        Wow, what a looker you were."
        Or, better yet, "Sorry, I thought you were whoozis,
        Whatever happened to her?"

        Good times and bum times,
        Ive seen them all and, my dear,
        I'm still here.
        Plush velvet sometimes,
        Sometimes just pretzels and beer,
        But I'm here.

        I've run the gamut,
        A to Z.
        Three cheers and dammit,
         C'est la vie
         I got through all of last year,
         And I'm here.
         Lord knows, at least I've been there,
         And I'm here!
         Look who's here!
         I'm still here!

Mary and Milly,

I used to get very upset and worked up about the news, which is often so awful it is unbearable.

I went through a really big depression during the time of one of the African famines, and a dear friend who I was seeing for support said:

"Dont watch, read or listen to the news, it is just upsetting you. Either go out there and feed the children yourself as a volunteer, or get into politics.....either DO SOMETHING about it or stop worrying about it, and torturing yourself, it's indulgent."

At the time it seemed really hard, my heart was breaking over the starving babies, but she was right, and I took her advice. I couldn't give everything up at the time, I had a worthwhile job, and a sick husband to keep.... since then I do keep abreast of the news, but if I begin to get over involved in a particular story I think of the advice she gave, and ask myself "What are you prepared to DO about it, Jan?"

It is a tough, cruel world, all we can do is try to make our own world as safe, and be as pleasant to others, as we can.

xx Jan xx

That's all very well if you actually CAN do something to alleviate the situation however small.  You can throw money at the starving nations if you can't go out there yourself.

What grieves me is all the stuff that I'm totally impotent to do anything about.  It's the feeling of despair and helplessness.  I think Mary feels the same although she can correct me if I'm wrong.  What can we do about wars?  We can't stop people killing each other - I can't get on a plane and travel round the world looking for Madeleine, I can't stop drug-crazed young men raping and murdering 2-year olds....it's a very simplistic and frankly rather ignorant and unthinking statement to say "Go and do something about it".  Most of the time you can't.

There was a time when we didn't know most of what went on the world.  Now we have regular media bulletins on tv, internet and radio of crises in far-flung places that are dreadful to hear.  Ignorance was bliss I feel.

As dreadful as they are, it is good we are hearing them. This will indeed help them to go away. News organizations that suppress the horrid stuff are a much worse alternative. That we have to hear these heartbreaking stories is an unfortunate side-effect of these stories getting more attention.

I know that isn't comforting, but perhaps a useful perspective.

The poem by ee cummings has been set several times, even once by a student of mine. It really is better with music.