I was singing a song this morning as my wife was getting ready for work. She is from the Philippines. She asked, 'where did you get that song?' 

'It's an old Glasgow street song,' I replied. 

Perhaps you sung it as a child? I would  be interested to know if some of our students from abroad sung it. When I did a bit of research on it, it seems it originated from Tonga in the 13th century. I guess Glasgow being a maritime city, it travelled with sailors from the area. We will never find out who the mystery wordsmith was who taught us how to hide from humans, and brought joy to countless millions of kids. Here is the melody at the end, if you wish to karaoke with it.

Nobody loves me, everybody hates me

I think I’ll go eat worms.

Big fat juicy ones

Emsie weensy squeensy ones

See how they wiggle and squirm

Down goes the first one, down goes the second one

Oh, how they wiggle and squirm!

Up comes the first one, up comes the second one

Oh, how they wiggle and squirm!

I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice

And throw the skins away

Nobody knows how fat I grow

On worms three times a day.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Nobody+loves+me%2c+everybody+hates+me++I+think+I%e2%80%99ll+go+eat+worms.++Big+fat+juicy+ones++Emsie+weensy+squeensy+ones++See+how+they+wiggle+and+squirm&docid=608011328972718364&mid=A85359A2D62B7D68963DA85359A2D62B7D68963D&view=detail&FORM=VIRE 

No one could fault Dickens for his characterisations. So good, we feel we have met them:

“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.” Dickens on Scrooge.

Want to be a good writer? Write a hook like this:

“I’m in Suzhou, Zhou Lingtong said, angling his head so he could wipe away his tears and see the road sign clearly. I’m in Changrui Lane, Suzhou. If you walk north past two telephone poles you’ll find me in the dustbin." "Two Lives", in Pathlight: New Chinese Writing (Summer 2013)”― A Yi

"Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching." From an Assyrian clay tablet, circa 2800 BC.

"Some publishing gems worth savouring surface and must be shared with no one."

 “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body” King Solomon wrote.”

Never has there been a time when so many people have embarked on writing courses and self-publishing to my chagrin. What was true in Solomon’s day and 2800 BC vibrates in volcanic proportions in our day.

Reviews are my problem. Sometimes, often, I rely on reviews, only to be disappointed a few pages in. The secret: If the first page does not grip you, forget it. Life is to short and good writers are sparse. However, sometimes, some publishing gems worth savouring surface and must be shared with no one.

"I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else."      Nikos Kazantzakis

I was with a friend out walking last weekend. He was telling me a relative spent £1000 on a hoodie that he took out in hire purchase. Now everywhere he goes, he must guard his hoodie less someone steal it for its designer value.

Conspicuous consumerism is as old as the Silk Road itself. The idea of purchasing of goods or services for the sole purpose of displaying one's wealth is losing ground as minimalism gains power in the West. Happiness is not achieved through materialism. We only need to look at the West to see that depression and other emotional and mental illnesses are robbing society of happiness. Happiness comes from the simple things in life.

A friend asked me, “Who is your favourite character in literature?”

          Oh, that’s a difficult one; it’s like deciding who your favourite child is,” I replied. “But, let me think… there’s Lucy Pevensie in Narnia, Boo Radley in Mockingbird, Hans Huberman in Book Thief and then I read Striped Pyjamas last year and was taken up by Bruno.”

          “Your favourite, Jim, not your top ten?” my friend pressed.

          “Okay, Prince Myshkin.”

          “Prince who?”

          “Prince Myshkin in Dostoevsky’s, The Idiot.”

          “Why him?”

          “Well, he was too good for this world.”

          “Come again?”

          “The story centres on Myshkin, who returns to St Petersburg after years convalescing in Switzerland with severe epilepsy. Although he’s a native of the city, he feels like an alien on his return; compassion was absent throughout the self-indulging society, and under his breath he uttered the sardonic smite, “Pass us by and forgive us our happiness.”  I’m inclined to believe, as many scholars do, that Dostoevsky focalised his own feelings through Myshkin.”

I realised there was a shared quality in all my characters; it was empathy.

‘The mosque is too far from home, so let’s do this, let’s make a weeping child laugh.’ Nada Fazli-poet

It was 2019 that my wife and I was having a break in Croatia. One morning after breakfast we decided we would go for a walk. ‘Go past Spar, yes? Through narrow lane. You see different world.”  the waitress recommended. She was right, it was like entering Thomas Hardy’s England, old ploughshares that one only sees in agricultural museums, scythes leaning on walls, waiting eagerly for harvesting, rows and rows of beehives and breath-taking landscape unspoiled by the human footprint.

As we were walking for a couple of hours, I was struck by the countless shrines dedicated to the Virgin Mary throughout the countryside as we walked from village to village. Small wooden constructions with the statue of Mary with fresh flowers at her feet. They must be spiritual people, I thought to myself.

This thought was on my mind when a short time later we caught up with a couple who had been walking far ahead of us. They were from UK and whilst we engaged in conversation with the woman who was a kind soul, the man walked a few yards in front making it clear he was in no mood for socialising, other than making cynical and sarcastic remarks and mutters about our conversation on spirituality. His wife was clearly embarrassed. Pompous, yes pompous is the word that would describe him. Full of self-importance to be bothered with us who unbeknown to him were looking for a pillow to rest our heads after a traumatic experience with religion. So why was I not shocked to later find out that he was a clergyman? I guess we are kind of used to unchristian behaviour from those who claim to be Christians. Don’t get me wrong, I am not expecting Christians to come and humbly wash my feet, but I am expecting them to be sitting in the top of the class when it comes to human kindness. Am I just naïve in my expectations?

‘What is your favourite quote?’ I have been often asked. It does not take me long to answer; it is the poet, Nida Fali’s couplet ‘The mosque is too far from home, so let’s do this/let’s make a weeping child laugh.’ Embedded in the words are my fundamental expectations of religion; to encourage, love, and support their fellow man.

“There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

I recall little about my mother’s mother. As a child I remember a strange ornament that dominated the centre place on the mantlepiece. It was bronze with three monkeys sitting on a wall: a relic from British colonialism. One monkey had his hands on his ears, another with his hands on his eyes and the latter with his hands on his mouth. They were commonly called The Three Wise Monkeys; wise in that they saw no evil, hear no evil, and spoke no evil. It was only as I got older that I realised that this ornament was not only in people's homes as a decorative object, the wise proverb, ‘Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,’ spoke of a wise philosophy of life. Intellects, philosophers, and religious thinkers from time immemorial have cautioned against gossip.

We live in a world where gossip dominates every fabric of society. People appear to thrive on gossip, but gossip is packed with negative energy that has a subliminal influence on our emotions. Psychologists tell us that gossip is good. However, the same psychologists will tell you that doing kind things for others is the key to happiness; it’s paradoxical.

The Italians call a piece of gossip pettegolezzo. However, there is nothing petty about it; ‘Life and death is in the power of the tongue.’ Proverbs 18: 21 says, that ‘those who choose one will eat its fruit.’ So, there are two roads the proverb says. One that is death-dealing and one that is life-giving. If you are one that has been prone to gossiping, how about taking the road less travelled the one that is life-giving. Help others enjoy life by making them feel good about themselves. Make someone feel good about themselves every day, and you, if you are a gossiper or slanderer, will notice how therapeutic it is to your own emotional health. You will feel good about yourself.

If your so-called friends or family or workmates make you anxious with their toxic tongues, then find new friends, a new family, a new job. Life is too short to be with these people.

So why do people gossip? Research demonstrates that individuals who gossip have high levels of low self-esteem and anxiety and by depreciating other’s value, they attempt to raise their own value. Such individuals cannot be trusted. If they are gossiping to you, they are gossiping about you. Spreading private information or negative judgments is painful to others and reflects poorly on the gossiper.

Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.”
― Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons

“Nothing so reduces and drags down a human being as the consciousness of not being loved.”

― Hjalmar Söderberg.

The above quote was taken from the Swedish classic, Doctor Glas.  The protagonist, a doctor who concludes that love has passed him by and despite his academic and career accomplishments, he finds no comfort in a society that is selfish to the core.

The loneliness and the feeling of being unloved are themes that permeate literature. Huck Finn said, “I feel so lonesome I most wished I was dead” He controlled his loneliness by falling asleep.

In many respects, literature mirrors society. Loneliness and the feelings of being unloved are universal. Are we as humans, not under Divine obligation to enter this arena and assist? Loneliness is all around: In our parks, alone at home, wandering round shops but, “We know so little about one another. We embrace a shadow and love a dream.” Wrote Söderberg. Yes, we seek things and not humans.

On love, on grief, on every human thing,
Time sprinkles Lethe's water with his wing.

                                      —Walter Savage Landor

This two-line poem by Walter Savage Landor reminds us of the particular pleasure in how a very few words can slow us down, and meditate on the moment.

I put this quote into my notebook today:

“Change. It’s needed, but maybe not in the way that we think it’s needed. It seems that we need to be thoughtful about the values that we’ve embraced because of the ethics that we’ve discarded. We need to challenge the apathy that we’ve fallen into because of the convictions that we’ve fallen out of. Make no mistake about it, the collapse of the world around us began with the darkening of the souls within us. Therefore, it’s not about changing a nation that’s in turmoil out there. It’s about changing a soul that’s gone dark in here.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough

The quote linked to a quote I recorded some time ago regarding Nietzsche's Madman, who said “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves?”

We are on the cusp of change. The old standards based on a Biblical morality that is deeply imbedded in our legal system have given way to secular morality, impinged on the thought that society will prosper in secularism.

Hmm! We are only a few years into a secular nation. Too early to say, but we ain’t seen nothing yet.