What is the semiology of card game suites?

Mmmmm woke up pondering the hearts n spades suites
and choosing to have the ace of heart rather than the ace of spades.
But then moved on from these singular logos

What or where do they come from?

Thought of each of the four as core values.
Then at the whole idea of the games they represent.

Acquisitiveness .Having more through chancing your luck.
Shrewdness slyness and winning.Having more than someone ele.

The values then?
Heart of man....represents common humanity each beating
yet has become associated with 'love' not unconditional
but winning...stealing the tart's hearts.Jammy dodging.artful heartful dodging
.They are maybe four clans with flags .Just as the chess game is black n white
cards are black or red.Both logos strong on white backgrounds
 and represent opposing armies or clans or tribes or families.
Winners or losers chancing will tell.No God just luck n mathematics
odds n evens etc.

Clubs sounded a bit more social .But then I thought of the primeval.
Caveman with the club for smashing skulls or threatening with.
History has offered many versions of these from hammer to lacerating whip.
Studded like the club symbol perhaps with nails Maybe a rock ,wood or metal.
So an aggressive suite.

Spades for digging maybe the farming suite or the morticians burying the fallen.
I prefer though the farming idea for spades relate to being more grounded of the earth.
Recycling.Perhaps colour the spades green.

Diamonds .Clearly the wealthy or those of the coin.The valuable item.

Not difficult to visualize these four using the aces as flags for four armies.
raised by standard bearers.The community or mechanics of midsummernight's dream
are the heart suite.Perhaps I mean the common folk.
The pawns on the front line on the two sides of the chess board.

The diamonds are the rich merchants

The spades then the farmers

The clubs like Hitler's militia The military and weaponed.

Mmmmmm that's I think the rub of it.

Feel I want a more inclusive image or maths that of Edward de Bono and  the musical stave
these offer a larger rainbow of colours and aesthetics of none competitivenss.Away from tribalism is the hope of harmony reflection and mutual sharing or the feast.The two suites of spades n hearts get my love whilst the clubs and the diamonds are the deceivers I fear.

been a year since I last used this blog

Blues for three friends
all stuck at home
through illness

inspired by an album
i asked for for Christmas
No plan b by Van Morrison

so find a blues track and create your own backing for these words its a blues

Feel I got me a whole lot of happy
Lot of peace way in my soul
Yeah I got me a whole lot of happy
Deep deep peace down in my soul
Think I got to find me some fine musicians
Help me play my rock n roll

I got three friends upon this earth
a privilege to watch them growing old
Yeah got me some good old friends
I get  to watch them growing old
Ken Hodgson,George Thomson,Cameron Mcleod
don't get around much anymore

Ken he had two heart bye-passes
now he got cancer of the blood
Ken he had  him quintuple heart by pass
now he got leukemia in his blood
He once created the National Acrylic Painters
it was a holy brotherhood

George a famous painter painted Venice
Chester and the Dee
George a very kindly  painter  and one who always
sponsored me
he has had him hip replacements
Now uses a magnifying glass to see

Cameron used to mend the railway
and engineer between the rails
Repaired the Mersey railway
he was a sparks betwixt the rails
Retired and got knocked over
and put on a little weight

Each of these men have been a blessing
encouraged me in all I do
These angels that God sent me
helped me in all I did
I want to play blues harp for them
psalms to heaven can't be hid

In this life we undervalue
all the kindness we receive
in this life we fail to value
all the gifts that we receive
Just a few who will encourage
and who help us to believe

I sing my blues to heaven
and to a God who knows me well
I write this psalm for my friends
who have kept me from life's hell
If it weren't for ken the evangelist
and for George and Cameron's good selves

Lord I pray for our forgiveness
so many things we all get wrong
Lord I pray for our forgiveness
and I suspect we ain't got long
And I know and yes I understand
I cannot fix it with a song

Thankyou God way up in heaven
and the souls trapped in their room
Thankyou Jesus for salvation
and my friend who cannot roam
Oh when the glory train goes by
Come gather our souls and take us to your home.
AMen

Morning prayers

Lord we seek parenting.

Not just a father but a mother too.
We need all the qualities of 'family'.
Brothers,sisters,aunts ,uncles:
to feel part of,not apart from
the flock.

And you have given us instructions
to find the lost and alone sheep.

From the often
scrambled, chaotic collage of
clues and snippets of advice
we/I ask for what to pray?

How to focus?


Thankyou Lord that
we all woke up this morning
Thank you that as I did
you answered my plea
with Liverpool's football anthem

Lord we are walking through storms
seeking to keep our heads held high

to look up not down

and not to be afraid of the
dark flooded valley

We seek courage
from the seeds of faith
you have planted
in each one of us

Not to just sing but believe
 and to act upon
these words

'IF YOU SAY GO
WE WILL GO

IF YOU SAY STAY
WE WILL STAY

IF YOU SAY STEP OUT ON THE WATER
though they say it can't be done
WE WILL FIX OUR EYES ON YOU>>>>>>>and WE WILL COME!

Your ways are higher than our ways and when the curtain ripped
Jesus had broken through the sea had parted
the dove had returned
the rainbow of hope had appeared
Your son's shining had brought us back home to you
'MOTHER /FATHER' GOD Author of ALL LIFE.

The slave mother Jochobed
entrusted baby Moses to a basket
and placed it in the reeds and water of the NILE
Miriam Jochobed's sister bravely asked the Pharoah's daughter if
Jochobed could   effectively wet nurse her own son.

Lord may we entrust ourselves and our children
to your motherhood?
In parallel to Herod's defense of his authoring
the words on the cross
he wrote 'what I have written I have written'
and so Lord help us to identify
and author such testimony in our lives

Esther authored the words 'If I perish I perish'
instructing..go and gather  all the Jews in Susa
and fast for me,I will go see the King,
which is not according to the law.'

Lord help us to be more like Esther,Jochobed,
and the midwives of Exodus  1.17
who let the male children live

Help us always to fear you more than
the legalism of our own interpretations
BRING US TOGETHER AS FAMILY

May the storms of nature's devastation  and war's cruelty
from Syria to Somerset be fought by the presence of mothers
 and fathers and the children  all in concert
saying 'NO!Whenever others are excluded from your Love and rescue.

My Spotify account just suggested that if I like Leonard Cohen
perhaps I might also like Jennifer Warnes
My facebook accounts invite me to like and to share
and you remind me that

'what I do not do
for the least of one of these
I do not do for you'

And that anyone can like their likeable friends
but I am to be more like the outsider Samaritan
and Love those who do not seem likeable-my enemies(?)

And 'turn the other cheek'

I pray for Dawn French
whose simple plea on the front of
a glossy magazine looking sad and lonely
is 'don't bully me for being fat'.

Lord help us identify the bully in each of us and repent
we learn some of it from the judgemental culture of out newspapers
The big  game of fame and fortune hunting
and the famous and fortunate being hunted
Temptations
help us to live on enough is enough
to say no to such narrowness of heart
Let us know that our enough is Jesus
our mother father sister and brother. Amen

Mind palaces

Poirot speaks of little grey cells
the recent Sherlock speaks of mind palaces.
I think of misogyny and a friends's interpretation of the bible
'a woman must not have authority over a man'.
Then I think of the streams that feed his mind.
Agatha Christie and the Daily Mail.
Mmmmmmmmmm!
Well 'she' and 'he' then.
The she who writes for the Miss Marple
of seemingly background figure who is able
to be an incidental figure in the village
subordinate to male society
like the Bronte sisters writing as men.
Created by a woman and expressing a
woman's wisdom ,but 'knowing her place'(that right then?).
Reminds me of Good will hunting ,when the psychiatrist
speaks to Will of 'not much dignity in that' viz acting as a
janitor in the most prestigious maths university
and when no one is looking completing formula
that only one or two brains on the planet can achieve.
So instead then has to act as a foreigner ,giving her the chance to play
with her own identity.On the one hand everyone thinks
that he is French(a man) when he is real;y Belgian(a woman?)
Yet my friend seems to fail to notice he has been ministered to
by a woman.Following her (secular?) parables for years.
An avid fan!

But that wasn't the mind place that I woke to at ten to four.

No it was the ying and yang of male/female parables in the form of
two important film parables. Both using watery metaphors.
In Amelie she dissolves before our eyes onto the floor of the cafe
into so many little drops of water.In Shipping news Kevin Spacey
drowns as water fills the rooms each time his identity is disintegrated by
a none love situation.Strangely the mind palace here is also added to.
For God has also segue-d  Kevin into the character in Paying it forward.
In which the ministrations of the boy's mother completes him.

Both proverbial female characters are illustrated in the Paying it forward
parable.His first wife is the wrong type of girl.Whilst the kindly mum
is the right type.She is the one who has nurtured a compassionate boy
who at Kevin the teacher's invitation comes up with the human as angel
who does three good things ...and the pay it forward actions (Biblical behaviour).

In both Shipping News and in Paying it forward Kevin Spacey's character
is informed /transformed from damaged/abused/confused/hurting to a functioning loving
 (forgiven) new man through the compassionate acts of kindly women.

The ying to the yang of this is Amelie.Her parents are studies in shallow none meaningful
lives illustrated by the nit picking love of their contents.Exemplified by knowing in
 detail their boring bags and uncreative environments for their child.

She is so full of life that she rights wrongs like a Quixotic genius.
The best bit is when she crosses the road describing the world around
 her to the blind person who has a postively euphoric Damascus road experience
with her mind's eye open to all the wonder beauty and joy of the encounter.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah born again at its best.


To these films one must add Good Will Hunting where it is the focus
on the love of a woman that liberates both client and patient as they
realize the point of life is fulfillment of choosing life,
utilizing the gifts one has been given and of pursuing relationship.

Lost and found a little Pixar film is also a fantastic parable
 for we do not always notice what God had given us.
Perhaps a lovely metaphor for God is the octopus
who balletic-ally and unnoticed (following a storm)
rights the boat,places the two disparate characters
back in the boat and then gives the boat a gentle shove
 before disappearing as they way up.

Man and woman need the same reuniting.
Three things have to go chauvinism/reactionary feminism and misogyny .
.But the main one is the idea that man has any authority.
For only the 'author' has the 'author'ity.
And just as in Agatha  Christie and  Annie Prouix
God is an author beyond gender-who writes women
and male parts evenly and without preferential treatment
that is something mna and woman kind have added in false contest
when it was is and always will of necessity be a concert of mutual symbiotic necessity.

in memory of a friend's loss and my own

may the peace of God that passes all

understanding keep our hearts and minds

 in the knowledge and the love of God

 and the fellowship of the holy spirit  

be among us evermore amen

when i first started keeping a blog

i thought because of my untidy flat

it was a good place to keep notes

when people gave me points of reference

i no longer do this as notebooks

 are both more convenient

and cause no concern

sometimes things don't work out

as we all hope

i pray 

change will bless

us all as we learn new ways

and retain older methods

pen n paper best 

mmmm

amen

A simpler kindlier naive and more loving world

Had a gentle evening last night.
went with two courteous colleagues to see
Laurel and Hardy..thinking about it
the name doesn't suggest stardom ,but
that of an old gents tailors where you get made to measure
any cloth you like in an old fashioned
oak wood shop with mirrors and a smell of cotton

We started out in an atmospheric pub that had these qualities
I tried to remember Michael Macintyre's name.
trying to relate on some freeing level that
the Yorkshire man who said'not for me'
when he saw the comic flounce and bounce onto the stage
was not to his 'entertain me lad' liking.

Mostly I want the gentle family atmosphere
the Laurel n Hardy old suits and ties to fiddle with
because they are silly is a sort of reassuring place of the older
mum n dad.We enjoyed that the lower floor of
Royal Court was pleasing to Jimmy Rae and I
felt like an ocean liner.

I think we are a bit fluish and the darkness
is getting to me too.Dehydrated I think but for water
would have loved another pint last night but denied myself same
as sometimes you know you want the equilibrium
of a gentler sobriety to remain
whilst the conducive flavour of the beer
would have been fab.Just knew a sniffle n a
headiness meant clarity would be preferable lest I sink .


My morning this morning is one of looking around
 and whilst being able to see
that the exhibitions and folding and removing of furniture is heading me
towards simplicity I must address the question
how to return to that creative new beginning.

Hence the intentionality of the headin.
 simpler kindlier naive and more loving world

one for me to rest in step intio produce from and wander safely in
inclusive ofg those who will be conduvie sharing appreciative and entertaining
By which I mean I with kindly world applause and encouragement might
nurture freedom for their self expression and a growth in my understanding and appreciatipon
of all of life(God's) nuances.

Minimalism.
To see the stripped back box cartoon so well engineered for Laurel and Hardy's 2d yet 3d ness
was fab.The story line at a sort of basic line drawn by say Mel Calman
relationship and boys in a girl's ruled world.The safety were the girlfriend is more of your mum.
Yes the two men like Morecombe and Wise are children like John to his Yoko


What is missing from the relational politic is the reconcialiation of these seeming opposites.The girls need to get out to play too.i.e. with the boys in their escape.Probably the problem with any boy based 'lodge'.

Oh for Honolulu but let the wives be the dancers.



and forget the lodge rules about boys only.


Some day needs to be today.
I may live alone and yes I may find peace but the comfort of that girl I love
well like my faith it is the Eden and simplificartion I truly seek
I love my paintings of Stones that have been rolled into minimal monuments to the flowing moment in the light
I love the doves with their blues shadows showing the sky can land too and the simple materials of zink and wood and lino and mositen paper and colours with which to print.Only the print rooms have so far shown that boys and girl can liev to play affectioantely and meditatively together.But no music and dance.For my lyrics take up far less room that my framed pictures scupltures etc.


So off now to take car for MOT see how today unfolds.Gently I hope.

Creativity and the insidious accumulative-ness of embracing change.

Loved last night.There was a jungle theme.One poem was about town at night being full of people caricatured for their carnal nature and pheromones etc as animals.My book and postcard had elephant and various other zoo animals in it.Simon narrated the real experience in the Palin -like adventure of being chased by orang utan. At Amici a word that I have used in an unrecorded song  representing the name of my daughter and that of the girl ( I have missed for some time now) merged.Last night Simon was clever in the shift in his voice to make a very definite aside( like a 'to camera' of Eric Morecambe -a here in the room aware of narrator to  listener.Gerry beside me who hadn't remembered his ear n ades thought the articulate nature of Simon's annunciation very special.Heard every word so clearly so well pronounced 'a great reading voice' Oh and the jungle theme again Gerry by request/demand did 'king of the swingers' and given that Simon's tale was that of seeking to escape a mother orangutan with biscuit and banana throwing well.

Any road.Whilst writing songs and decluttering ironing has been building up and up and although large pieces of furniture and equipment have gone out I can see little mounds of things appearing like boils in the recent joyful emptiness 'space I had known for a short while.I am up early and will start drawing out a mural at 9.30.Philip Brown also added to the Amici animal theme.He narrated a poem about an hippopotamus by T.S.Elliot and even 3 a'peth a foot hand that she put two and two together and saw the Slinky's link. Marko introduced me to sleep I think.Wanting to make an essay or book out of last nights revelry has been inspired by the wonderful exciting adventure story that Simon had shared.I want to see the St.Francis film at URC tonight that Micky Schroder has arranged so I must get some rest I will set the alarm for 8 I think.Amen