http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel An exploration of what makes people happy, in particular the simple pleasures of life. Inspired by a song by Ian Dury. en arkangel arkangel Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:21:43 +0100 daily 1 You can now find me at Simple Pleasures part 4 - do pop round for a chat... Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:21:43 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/More-Simple-Plaesures/14/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/More-Simple-Plaesures/14/ Moving for a while at least to http://simplepleasures3.blogspot.com/  - come visit...   Technorati Profile Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:04:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Moving-Home-for-a-while/13/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Moving-Home-for-a-while/13/ -----Original Message----- From: ArkAngel Sent: 11 September 2006 07:35 To: 'breakfast@bbc.co.uk' Subject: Memories of 9/11 I was celebrating birth on that day of death. It was my 38th birthday. My friends at work had taken me out for lunch. We returned to our office to be confronted with the difficult to comprehend scenes of burning buildings and colliding planes. When the first tower collapsed a terrible reality started to kick in. I remember particularly the presents I was given that innocent lunchtime before we returned to those tv pictures. Peter Ackroyd's book 'London' about a city I love. And Bob Dylan's album that had just come out that day 'Love and Theft' which represnted the opposite of death and terrorism - music, man's art and creativity. ArkAngel London Mon, 11 Sep 2006 07:40:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Peace-and-Tolerance-revisited/12/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Peace-and-Tolerance-revisited/12/ Going to have a little paddle in the darker side of our world today as a way of addressing the simple pleasures of Peace , Tolerance and Freedom . This whole row over the cartoons of Muhammad published the other day in Denmark - here's exploring a few points... Objecting Muslims cite the ban on the graven image in their religion. The cartoonists weren't Muslims so that doesn't really apply. As it happens both Judaism and Christianity have similar restrictions on the graven image enshrined in the (from memory) second Commandment but these religions over the years have somehow been able to distinguish between an idol and Picasso's Guernica . You only need go to Leighton House in London to see how Muslims have an admirable history of flouting this ban to the benefit of Art . The beautiful Islamic tiles collected by Frederic, Lord Leighton include images of birds - however, you can trace in the glaze cuts across the birds' throats which apparently get one round the graven image... Sun, 05 Feb 2006 11:50:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Peace-and-Tolerance/11/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Peace-and-Tolerance/11/ Been storing this one up since Thursday (8 Dec) - it was 25 years ago that day that we lost John Lennon . I was in Tijuana where I saw his picture beside headlines I couldn't fully translate but I knew he was gone. So I kicked off Thursday with Oh Yoko which this picture reminds me of - thank God he found Love . In the middle of a cloud In the middle of a cloud I call your name Oh Yoko, oh Yoko, my love will turn you on How wonderful to be able to write a song like that for your lover - so simple (which is after all the theme of this blog). Love is reaching, reaching love Next up was Across the Universe which is one of the very best of The Beatles ' songs - one I believe John was particularly proud of (caught a bit of an archive interview on Radio 4 the other day by a Rolling Stone journo in the 70s.) And as I headed off to work what better than A Day in the Life from the magical Sgt Pepper ... On the tube listened to his greatest solo... Sun, 11 Dec 2005 11:37:25 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Has-anyone-seen-my-old-friend-John/10/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Has-anyone-seen-my-old-friend-John/10/ This evening i feel like linking up a chain of simple pleasures starting from a few minutes ago. It's been a while since I've been here so where better to start than... Hallo. Hallo. Hallo. Hallo. Hallo. Hallo. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Public Image Limited 's eponymous first single. It was on the radio just before. How fabulous to break the mould with the Sex Pistols and then break it again as soon as you leave. Dub reggae - The echoey Hallo of PIL reminds me of the transcendental ethereal vibe of Dub. 45s - Seven perfect inches of black vinyl. Dub makes me think of buying records in Jamaica. Wrong and missing labels. Relying on the recommendations of the record shop keeper. Rooms with unglazed windows/fresh air flowing in i.e. with a hole in a wall - the lounge in Noel Coward's house east of Ocho Rios - a widescreen window open to the elements looking out along the coast True friends - I was in Ochi for my friend Nigel's wedding - he sent a text the day of... Sat, 01 Oct 2005 23:51:08 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Chain-chain-chain/9/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Chain-chain-chain/9/ So as Friday the 13th draws to a close what Simple Pleasures have helped offset it today? Comic books - this morning I was reading a newish one I bought in Dublin on Monday entitled 'Shining Knight' from DC Comics. I've really got back into these (as Noah observed in the car taking him to skool this morning) thanks to coming across Vertigo Comics recently in a shop at Camden Market . And I came across Vertigo thanks to comic book writer Alan Moore and his fabulous The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen . Then there's the delight of story-telling which I've been engaging with thanks to a new website I've been working on called 'Every Object Tells a Story' www.everyobject.net to which I contributed a couple of stories today about seaweed in Lough Swilly in County Donegal and ancient stones (a dolmen) in the Mountains of Morne in Northern Ireland . As I was reading to the children this evening I spotted our cat ( Tommy Boy ) sitting on next door's shed staring out... Sat, 14 May 2005 00:24:48 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Bucking-the-trend-on-Friday-the-13th/8/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Bucking-the-trend-on-Friday-the-13th/8/ This is Noah and Dylan's first entry in Simple Pleasures. It's Saturday morning, Tom and Jerry has just finished, the Enfants Terribles were lying together on the couch under the blue blanket, but now it's time to get active and seize this day... Noah likes drawing , Charlie Chaplin , seeing his cousins Finlay and Jake , Lego and taking photos . Dylan likes playgrounds , eating Indian food , his Daddy and his friends and going round to play . They've gone next door to play now so i'll take the opportunity to springboard off their pleasures. Cartoons : The Hair Bear Bunch (Ooh ooh Mr Beazley and my kinda afro), Bugs Bunny ; meeting Chuck Jones in Cambridge and asking him why Bugs dresses up in women's clothing so often; Hong Kong Phooey (Is it Henry the mild mannered janitor? Could be.)... Lying down, relaxing : in the back garden of Lellow House in the summer , just listening ; on our bed on Saturday afternoons; on grassy banks where it's... Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:38:59 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Things-Noah-and-Dylan-like/7/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Things-Noah-and-Dylan-like/7/ You can't reflect on the sources of Happiness too long before you get to Music . I'll always remember a quotation I heard at school by Walter Pater (whoever he was, a pal of Oscar Wilde if I remember right - and while we're on the subject of Oscar it's a good time to chuck The Importance of Being Earnest and The Ballad of Reading Gaol into the Simple Pleasures pot, and while on the subject of those let's toss in woodcuts , as my copy of Reading Gaol is illustrated with woodcuts by Frans Masereel, and the films of Albert Lewin including The Picture of Dorian Gray and Pandora and the Flying Dutchman which brings us neatly to James Mason's voice and Ava Gardner's beauty ...and the beauty of Women and the voice of her ex-hubby Frank Sinarta and ...well we're back to music - but look how infectious this Pleasure thing is, and now back to Walter, reigning in this sentence in a way John Milton would be proud of - oh yes, Sing heavenly muse, let's not forget Paradise Lost , in particular... Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:54:25 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/The-Food-of-Love-and-Happiness/6/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/The-Food-of-Love-and-Happiness/6/ Light flurries of snow. Snow flakes floating into your face. Coming in from the cold. Home. Going out into the cold bright day. The sign above our front door going out: "Dun Na nGall Donegal 1" - I mile. Or (less than) 1 day away. Donegal. Fanad Head. Port Salon beach. The sea arch just north of there. That day I watched the sea weed swirling around my feet (by the arch), browns and greens and eddies of water in a PERFECT MOMENT. Noah and Dylan were playing by the water's edge with Una nearby. Fri, 04 Mar 2005 10:07:04 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Pure-White-Pleasure/5/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Pure-White-Pleasure/5/ The other root of this idea (beside the sermon mentioned in the first entry) was Ian Dury's wonderful song Reasons to be Cheerful, part 3 , a long list of simple pleasures from which the one that stands out in my memory is yellow socks. Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly Good golly Miss Molly and boats Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet Jump back in the alley and nanny goats 18-wheeler Scammels, Domenecker camels All other mammals plus equal votes Seeing Piccadilly, Fanny Smith and Willy Being rather silly, and porridge oats A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it You're welcome, we can spare it - yellow socks Too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty Going on 40 - no electric shocks The juice of the carrot, [for me it's the juice of an apple ] the smile of the parrot A little drop of claret [I'll take a dessert wine ] - anything that rocks Elvis and Scotty, days when I ain't spotty, Sitting on the potty - curing smallpox ... Thu, 24 Feb 2005 02:12:52 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Reasons-to-be-Cheerful/4/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Reasons-to-be-Cheerful/4/ I first tasted it in a coffee shop north of Leicester Square and west of Chinatown. Thought it was in a league of its own, unlike anything I'd ever tasted. To be honest, I've never been able to reproduce the impact. Bought a sack-cloth bag of it in Jamaica on my one and only trip there so far. But it didn't match up. Bought another tin of it last Christmas at the atmospheric Martyn's coffee shop in Muswell Hill, North London (home of The Kinks - let's chuck Waterloo Sunset in the pot, both as a song and an experience, while we're on the subject) - Martyn's with its aroma of roasting coffee beans , its wooden floorboards, fancy goods, unchanged Edwardian interior - but again it didn't live up to that first experience. So I go on searching for the next magical cup. Meanwhile... back in Jamaica, simple pleasures included buying 45s from the record shop where the shopkeeper played you what was hot on discs with no or wrong labels; the view from Noel Coward's living room window , a window with no glass,... Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:46:25 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Jamaican-Blue-Mountain-coffee/3/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/Jamaican-Blue-Mountain-coffee/3/ Always loved it. Very English I suppose. The cricket pitch (and I'm not even particularly interested in cricket) - and that's another one: the sound of ball on bat , a summer rhythm, all the time in the world. The circular lawn in my ma's house. Dozing in the sun. Mowing the lawn in my own home, a bit of physical work to make the stretching out on the blanket with a good book and a cool drink all the more pleasurable. Meanwhile, back in Asterix in Britain a Briton with a red handle-bar moustache waters his perfect lawn, flicks a blade and pronounces it "a decent bit of turf" (or at least it will be in another hundred years) - and then the hurtling chariot drives across it, carrying Asterix, Obelix and Asterix's cousin Anticlimax. Then there's Cambridge and college lawns, the shaded grass around Girton's chapel-like library, Granchester, Rupert Brooke, bees and honey, tea in an orchard. Which brings me to another SP: cycling one night, after midnight, out to Granchester by the silver light of the moon ,... Mon, 14 Feb 2005 00:49:30 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/The-smell-of-cut-grass/2/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/The-smell-of-cut-grass/2/ This blog is inspired by a sermon I heard a couple of years ago which quoted a 'will' left by a father for his children which was not his 'money will' but his 'wisdom will' (I can't remember the exact terminology that was used but you get the idea) - it was his attempt to pass on some of the more useful things he'd learnt in his lifetime about what really matters and about the way people are. I've come to the conclusion over my forty-one years so far on the planet that Happiness is to be found primarily in the Simple Pleasures of life so I've decided to put some of those pleasures here for Noah and Dylan to read when they're a bit older and anyone else who cares to. And one day soon Noah and Dylan can start adding their own... Mon, 14 Feb 2005 00:23:27 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/The-Simple-Pleasures-of-Life/1/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/arkangel/The-Simple-Pleasures-of-Life/1/