No fear of missing out (fomo)

Joey Jones9 Comments

Are you more of a night or morning person?

After a busy life and more than my share of late nights, I’m happy now to chill Olympian style. Got it off to a fine art, you may say.

Into my pj’s at the first opportunity is now my rock n roll.

Lights-off can vary from night to night depending on how I feel, but as the morning comes round, I’m ready, pretty much up with the lark.

A new day is a new page, clean, fresh, and ready to be filled, or not.

Of course, a clear, mild, still and dry morning is favourable, but if the worst thing that happens to me on any given day is I get drenched taking the dog out, I feel I’ve got off lightly.

Al-Ma’arri: AD 973~1058

Joey Jones4 Comments

What are your feelings about eating meat?

No, thank you, WP 💚 Haven’t eaten meat  for many moons

The following poem was written in around 1000 AD by a blind Arab philosopher, poet and writer named Al-Ma’arri: AD 973 – 1058 ( by Gentle World)

‘ You are diseased in understanding and religion.

Come to me, that you may hear something of sound truth.

Do not unjustly eat fish the water has given up.

And do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals,

Or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught

for their young, not noble ladies.

And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking eggs;

for injustice is the worst of crimes.

And spare the honey which the bees get industriously

from the flowers of fragrant plants;

For they did not store it that it might belong to others,

Nor did they gather it for bounty and gifts.

I washed my hands of all this; and wish that I

Perceived my way before my hair went gray!

Let them eat cake

Joey Jones17 Comments

What are your two favorite things to wear?

An easy DP@WP today.

It was my birthday a little while back, and I got two amazing wearables.

One from a couple, close friends, I’ve known forever and the other from a very generous and kind employer from overseas,moons ago.

Me n Patch had a summer break in Cornwall. Said friends had generously given us use of The Sheppy. One of their Airbnb’s, a Shepherds Hut. We had a great time and of course this year it was as hot as. One day, we were shopping before ‘ladies who lunch’, lol. I had eyed and coveted a lovely winter cardigan in a little shop. It was more than I could afford, so I walked away from it. Only for it to turn up on my day. Surprise? Oh yes!

The other gift and also a favourite for this DP. A very beautiful Pashmina from an employer I had parted ways with twenty years ago. She remembers me every birthday and Christmas. I’m not sure this lovely lady imagined I’d wear it every night and every single morning whilst writing before I get out of bed ( Patch willing).

Better than letting it wait for a special occasion – I’m awake and breathing, a cause to celebrate anyway, methinks.

The Final Curtain 💜 for Sir Tom Stoppard

Joey Jones2 Comments

Tributes are flooding in from the literary world and beyond for the celebrated playwright, screenwriter, and former journalist, Sir Tom Stoppard. ( 1937~2025)

Critically compared to William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw, his writing for film, stage, radio, and television is legendary. Covering subjects including human rights, censorship, political freedom, and philosophical observations of human society.

Of him, Sir Lawrence Olivier once said –

” ….is a great glamouriser of thought”

About being a writer, Sir Tom said –

“You’re a writer. You write because you’re a writer. Even when you write about something, you have to think up something to write about just so you can keep writing”

Wow- imagine being a writer of that calibre!

You called?

Joey Jones3 Comments

What technology would you be better off without, why?

Okay, let’s get this out there- I’m still impressed with the landline. I mean, come on, who the flip thought that up? What I mean is how?

From what I can gather Alexander Graham Bell and his sidekick Watson get the credit, but it was Antonio Meucci, an Italian inventor who came up with the first telephone-like device, he couldn’t secure the patent in time, and Bell beat him to it in 1876. Nice!

Getting to today’s DP, its got to be the driverless car. Nah, don’t fancy that at all. By any stretch!

AI tells me….

‘Pilot programs for driverless taxi, private-hire, and bus services will launch in the UK. These will be the first opportunities for the public to book a ride in a self-driving vehicle via an app, though the rules for these early services are still being shaped.


Second half of 2027: This is the target for the full implementation of the UK’s Automated Vehicles Act, which could lead to a broader rollout of driverless vehicles on public roads.’ Yikes!!

So yes, landlines are pretty amazing in my simple mind, but so are 3D printers. 😯 How the…?

Hong Kong 💜

Joey Jones3 Comments

I cannot let another day pass without sending my sincere condolences out to the folk of Hong Kong. To the men, women, children, and animals who lost their lives so brutally in the fire-To the loved ones of the deceased and still missing, my heart goes out to you all.💜

A few words from Sara Teasdale

Joey Jones3 Comments

What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?

Hey WP, this is not the day to dig up hard decisions I have had to make in the past. And there have been so many! I feel quite bright n sunny today, with no wish to bring in dark clouds to spoil things.

Instead, what I will do, what decision I have made is to post another of my favourite poems ( again). No apologies for repeating There Will Come Soft Rains written in 1920.

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.


By Sara Teasdale 1884~1933

No turkeys were harmed in the making of this blog post

Joey Jones8 Comments

Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?

WP, are you asking us this as today is Thanksgiving, or simply a coincidence? I’m a Brit, so that’s not something we celebrate, but to my blogging buddies from across The Pond, have yourselves a happy day!

Word is that turkeys were introduced into England in the 1520s – purchased from American Indian traders, by William Strickland, an English landowner, navigator, and explorer. Much to the delight of King Henry VIII ( a glutton, by all accounts), who is reckoned to be the first monarch to eat it at Christmas. Goose would probably have been an option along with peacock prior to this.

Turkeys were considered a status symbol for a very long time. Only being available to those of considerable wealth or location.

In the 1720s it is recorded 250,000 turkeys were walked from Norfolk to London to meet the festive demand ( One would think that the birds would have lost a considerable amount of weight on their journey?)

As farming increased, it spread to the middle classes partly thanks to Charles Dickens writing about a dinner in A Christmas Carol. ( published in 1843)

Due to mass production and refrigeration, the general population could finally afford to push the boat out and buy turkeys like the elite had done for donkeys years. How disappointed they must have been to find out after all that time the meat would be quite dry…and they realised they preferred goose, beef or a humble chicken any day?

Dream on

Joey Jones13 Comments

If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

In theory WP, this could be quite something, all those extra hours we could use to enrich our lives. But I need to cut this in the bud. Right here and now.

Patch can catch whiff of an empty window at fifty paces. He’d put in for another walk, straight off bat. Then there is the matter of having another meal to think about, shopped for, and prepared. I’m already exhausted at the prospect.

And anyways, having no sleep isn’t conducive to being a happy bunny, is it?

I dream vividly and enjoy the nightly escapades to another world. Sure, sometimes they can get a bit much, and it’s a relief to wake up, but others are as it says on the tin ‘ dreamy’.

If it’s all the same to you, WP, I will give this generous offer of yours to be awake 24/7 a wide berth.

It’s -2 outside at the moment, so I am going to turn off the light and snuggle on down for a while longer. Zzzzz