Oh no, it's FOR LEASE!

 

 

It's been an early start to a long day! First to the pool where I got caught taking a pee. The lifeguard shouted at me so loud, I nearly fell in. Then we went on to Moruya for some scones with jam and cream and a pot of tea at the local Country Women's Assocation.

On the way, I noticed this sign in the window of the last remaining bookshop, and I thought, "Oh no, it's FOR LEASE!" Over the years, we have lost three bookshops in succession, and "Moruya Books" was the last one still standing, and now it, too, seemed to be closing down. How sad!

 

 

But no, it is only relocating, to an even bigger and better location in the main street, I hope, which I shall check out on our next visit to Moruya.

Despite my best intentions to support this last remaining bookshop, I am sorely being put to the test because it is catering to the prevailing taste of the locals whose taste in books is totally different from mine.

 

 

Although, checking their website when we got home again, I noticed that they stock just the one copy of "Words for Life - To Boost Every Day of the Year". Were they thinking of me when they ordered it in?

The same book is for sale on the internet for as little as $19.99, so should I buy it there or support Moruya Books by buying it from them at $34.99 ? Okay, here's the deal I have made with myself to salve my conscience: if that one copy is still in stock when we drive to Moruya next month for my medical appointment, I shall buy it from them.

 

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How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilisation

 

 

For centuries following the fall of Rome, western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse of the scientific advances coming from Baghdad, Antioch, or the cities of Persia, Central Asia, and Muslim Spain.

There, philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of knowledge and revitalising the works of Plato and Aristotle. In the royal library of Baghdad, known as the House of Wisdom, an army of scholars worked at the behest of the Abbasid caliphs. At a time when the best book collections in Europe held several dozen volumes, the House of Wisdom boasted as many as four hundred thousand.

Even while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful of intrepid Christian scholars, thirsty for knowledge, travelled to Arab lands and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance.

 

 

In this brilliant, evocative book, "The House of Wisdom", Jonathan Lyons shows just how much "Western" culture owes to the glories of medieval Arab civilization, and reveals the untold story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.

More great reading by the fireside for the upcoming weekend.

 

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History teachers will be using this clip twenty years from now

 

 

Now, I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but I’ve been keeping my ears open and it seems like everyone everywhere is super-mad about everything all the time. I try to stay a little optimistic, even though I will admit, things are getting pretty sticky.

Here’s how I try to look at it, and this is just me, this guy being the president, it’s like there’s a horse loose in a hospital. It’s like there’s a horse loose in a hospital. I think eventually everything’s going to be okay, but I have no idea what’s going to happen next. And neither do any of you, and neither do your parents, because there’s a horse loose in the hospital. It’s never happened before, no one knows what the horse is going to do next, least of all the horse. He’s never been in a hospital before, he’s as confused as you are.

There’s no experts. They try to find experts on the news. They’re like, “We’re joined now by a man that once saw a bird in the airport.” Get out of here with that shit! We’ve all seen a bird in the airport. This is a horse loose in a hospital.

When a horse is loose in a hospital, you got to stay updated. So all day long you walk around, “What’d the horse do?” The updates, they’re not always bad. Sometimes they’re just odd. It’ll be like, “The horse used the elevator?” I didn’t know he knew how to do that. The creepiest days are when you don’t hear from the horse at all. You’re down in the operating room like, “Hey, has anyone ... Has anyone heard -” [imitates clopping hooves] Those are those quiet days when people are like, “It looks like the horse has finally calmed down.” And then ten seconds later the horse is like, “I’m gonna run towards the baby incubators and smash ’em with my hooves. I’ve got nice hooves and a long tail, I’m a horse!” That’s what I thought you’d say, you dumb fucking horse.

And then ... then ... then you go to brunch with people and they’re like, “There shouldn’t be a horse in the hospital.” And it’s like, “We’re well past that.” Then, other people are like, “If there’s gonna be a horse in the hospital, I’m going to say the N-word on TV.” And those don’t match up at all.

And then, for a second, it seemed like maybe we could survive the horse, and then, 5,000 miles away, a hippo was like, “I have a nuclear bomb and I’m going to blow up the hospital!” And before we could say anything, the horse was like, “If you even fucking look at the hospital, I will stomp you to death with my hooves. I dare you to do it. I want you to do it. I want you to do it so I can stomp you with my hooves, I’m so fucking crazy.” “You think you’re fucking crazy, I’m a fucking hippopotamus. I live in a fucking lake of mud. I’m fucking crazy.” And all of us are like, “Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.” Like poor Andy Cohen at those goddamn reunions. “Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.”

And then, for a second, we were like, “Maybe the horse-catcher will catch the horse.” And then the horse is like, “I have fired the horse-catcher.” He can do that? That shouldn’t be allowed no matter who the horse is. I don’t remember that in Hamilton.

("Hamilton" is a hit broadway show about Alexander Hamilton, one of the United States' founding fathers. So he basically says "I don't remember that being in the constitutional powers of a president, but all my knowledge about is comes from a broadway show.)"

 

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They were relieved when they finally got the horse out of the hospital, but then, four years later, someone said, "You know, the sandwiches in the hospital cafeteria have got a bit expensive", so they decided to fix the problem by letting the horse back into the hospital, only by this time the horse had been there so long, it thought it was the doctor.

History teachers will be using this clip twenty years from now. And John Mulaney somehow did it without using the word “Trump” even once.

 

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SORRY - NO WHEELCHAIR ACCESS

 

 

The onset of cooler weather makes me think of warmer climes again. Should I take one last trip before it is too late to visit some of my favourite places that have no wheelchair access?

Not that I want to go bungee-jumping off Niagara Falls or swim with sharks in the Red Sea or walk unarmed through the Somalian bush.

Instead, a sandy beach, good food, a warm sea, and an absence of mosquitoes (it's too tiring applying all that repellent) is pretty much all I want. I don't want to be guided around monuments; I don't want to be told how many bricks it took to build the damned thing; I don't want to make new friends on holidays (I can't manage the ones I have at home).

Instead, I just want to veg out in my secret hide-away high up in the hills of northern Bali. No tourists, no television, no a la carte meals, no regulated swimming pool hours, no minibar which transmogrifies a can of Coke sold for 3000 rupiah at the local 'warung' into a ludicrous $5.

 

 

I would be reading books, looking at the sky, listening to the song of birds, taking a swim at any hour of the day or night in the pool (or in the ocean which is a short, death-defying bejak-ride away) ...

 

 

... or enjoying a massage (for the equivalent price of a minibar Coke).

 

 

Perhaps I should book now and go before they have to wheel me up and get stopped by a dirty big sign that reads, Tidak ada akses kursi roda.

 

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It's all about the oil, stupid!

 

Read it online at www.archive.org

 

It was about the oil in Libya; it was about the oil in Iraq; it still is about the oil in Venezuela; and it's now about the oil in Iran. "The Prize - The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power" by Pulitzer Prize-winning Daniel Yergin captures the fascinating stories behind the global hunt for oil.

 

 

Daniel Howard Yergin (born February 6, 1947) is an American author, economic historian, and consultant within the energy and economic sectors. He has authored or co-authored several books on energy and world economics, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning "The Prize - The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power", "The Quest - Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World", and "The New Map - Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations".

 

 

But before you launch into this eight-part video of the book, you may want to listen to this insightful commentary on what's going on with Trump's naval blockade. Why can't a man like Sachs be US President?

 

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