Ah, sweet mystery of Life

Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life by Roald Dahl
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Down to earth stories from English countryside written soon after the end of the II World War.
Warm pictures of people and situations, but always adding a sprinkling of the sinister.
In the case of one story - Mr Feasey - I felt tired and disgusted with a long list of cruelties employed by race dog owners to slow down or accelerate their animals.

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Over to you

Over to You by Roald Dahl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I know Roald Dahl from bit perverse stories for adults, published in mid 1950-ties in Poland. It was a great surprise for me to find this author many years later on shelves with books for children.
Over to you - already the title is quite ambiguous - I wonder what it means to other readers.
I see it as a routine in military radio communication - when each person ending his/her message says - over.
Military communication, right, the book is based on author's experience as RAF pilot during II World War. Roald Dahl serves in Africa, Middle East and Greece. He experienced a very serious airplane crash.
10 stories in the book are short snapshots of war experiences of the author and his colleagues. In most cases, experiences for which no human is prepared.
Some stories are shocking, but I do not think author's intention was to shock the readers. Rather to show them how helpless we all might be.

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A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jonathan Swift from early years excelled in political and social satire. No wonder, that after moving to Ireland in 1714, he couldn't keep silent about pitiable life there.
A Modest Proposal is an extremely absurd and revolting book. I have never expected that such a book could have been written at the beginning of XVIII century.
On one hand it is a smart example of skillful rhetoric.
On the other hand, I consider its absurd considerations as a expression of defeat of socially sensitive person. Swift found fate of Irish people so hopeless, that his only answer was to write something completely mad.
Digression: one of important arguments of the author is to release parents from a burden of caring of children while living in extreme poverty.
Actually there is an example in Irish history of someone following this track.
In 1846, at the peak of Irish Famine, Sir Paul Edmund Strzelecki was made an agent of British Relief Association and he proposed that instead of distribution of food and clothing for children by distribution centres it would be more productive to provide free school education for children and distribute good at school. The scheme was very effective and brought an additional positive effect - parents relieved from hopeless full time care for their children gained new energy and initiative for finding some employment, in most cases successful - this is exactly what Jonathan Swift promised, but achieved by Strzelecki in so humane way.
For his work in Ireland Paul Edmund Strzelecki was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

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First Sunday of June

Means for me Multiple Sclerosis Walk.

This year I did it for the eighth time.
Better stop writing here, let's the pictures talk...

The weather

The crowd

Start...

and then just enjoy...

At the finish line with my friend from skiing fields, who supports me in this walk for many years.

The donations side also looks good, almost reached my target - $440 collected.
Thank you my supporters.

Communion intravenously?

Last weekend we spent in Ballarat on a great music festival - Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields.
On Sunday we attended the Mass in St Patrick's Cathedral.

The Gospel was about how Samuel heard the call of the God.
In the homily, the priest talked about current means of communication.
For example a direct phone call to Heavens, and there a recorded message:
- for a prayer press ONE,
- for a request press TWO,
- for an acknowledgement press THREE,
- for any other inquiry press FOUR.
Please note: this office is closed on Sunday. In the case of emergency contact your local priest, rabbi, imam.

After the mass I visited a toilet and there I noticed another sign of modern times...

A container to dispose used syringes. These are quite common in public toilets in Melbourne. Usually at trains stations, in the parks, on the beaches. But near the church? Thus the title question.

Go and look in lecherous manner

On the New Year's day google displayed special logo...

The second letter O replaced by a rising sun. First 2 letter look like a command - GO! Get out from your hole!

I tried the same with the whole word - GO OGLE!
Ogle? Is there such a word?
I tried google translator - ogle = stare at in a lecherous way.

Here you are! Now I know why google is so popular.

Question for me: to google or not to google?

Balance of the year

At the year end we tend to look into statusctics to make summaries.

I am registered with Goodreads page so it makes a summary for me:

My target for last year was 20 books, Goodreads reported 35, but in last days of the year I managed to read 2 more.

On the other hand my average rating was 2.5 out of 5, that means - mean, mediocre - does it make sense to read?
On one hand I am often tempted to read again my favourite books, on the other - I know that I will reach for new ones. Hopefully this year will be better than the last one.