Pedantry is a pain --even to those who promote it

One thing you realize when you discover a few things for yourself as a scientist is that you  only half listened and are lucky to have come even this far , You learn too  that too many half educated  people of our age worship,  but don't use equations they were given and for some strange reason  elevate word associations  to the status of equations.
Even Einstein,  the equation specialist , could see that somethings of importance are not equations ,but choices . ;  Either life is a miracle,  or it is not .

After a lifetime of trying to prove the latter , the grand consumer of  fresh  ideas .  Phillip Adams has finally conceded , not that God is God perhaps ,but that the story is often the greater vehicle for the substance; which if he is right about his new love of old characters  may have nothing to with fresh - we may be seeing the unbelievable - an interest in the stale and suspect .
Is Adams  about to abandon a life of wobbly  words for a mere image making machine - a golden calf version which looks good but doesn't really move us anywhere; Surely he will hack bits off even these stories  and undermine the characters . Otherwise , why has he missed to chance to film these stories  before . The answer is evident ; too many have treated the good books as rule books when they are mostly narrative naive pedants, In seeking the point , they miss the point.
At the end of the day they couldn't make the story work because they would have to portray  the faith as weak flawed or fanatical - none of which will usually apply except to the onlookers,  The strong admirable individuals will have the legs minds and hearts cut out  , They will bring their kindergarten constructs in and walk out with a hatchet mess.  Straw men in Adams in Wonderland - now there is a biography

Maybe as Chesterton suggests , Adams has decided to move somewhat from the predictable long winded life of the lumbering logomacher ? .Maybe he's just playing with us,  as he usually does , Who would know,  the ABC breeds chameleons : Those evolved ones who often think they are what they were last week . I know he thinks he thinks scientifically,  but no its his version , and not his practice to do it properly

Adams  reckons he's going to make movies again. The Bible being his inspiration . I won't wait up to see how he goes because you never know where the time wasting Philip is taking you .( Although we should know by now)   If he runs the script like he runs reviews , he will have the last word on just where even those  stories from the Bible came from .Clever by halves .

Why have the ABC given these same old same old wandering word men so long and good an opportunity to write and control dialogue?  .
These old barnacles wouldn't exist out in the real world of ideas that work  if the ABC had decided there is a need for more diversity on the ship,  
Even withe 3 channels the ABCship is  a lot slower than SBS - esp in this area of storytelling .

Something wonderful

THE KING &I  Like Fiddler there is so much good music and story - even in the minor pieces; Like this song ,  the great way the children relate to the King and the way King is open and the woman strong  ( in  a great Opera production in Melbourne this month ),.

Its a tough job to teach.  This story honors that task very well !  Teachers- give yourself a clap and go !

Sometimes it takes the entertainment industry a while to realise that the impulse of youth to abandon the old is mistaken.   A lot  Funding for innovative art willl not be remebered and create the productive streams of stories on this stream .   Noone is going to ever watch again many of purely reactive plays of the present age.    Thinking people don't want" reactive" as a genre .


Even the determinists need to take their own theories seriously and recognise that the new growth is not independent of the old, but grows out from it .

Rob and Mary

Always good to update the story.  ( ROB  ROY 1995) She's good for him and he for her .
Doesn't mean they agree,  or are the same .
However they learn to agree in the hard yards of many cold walks and talks  that honor is given to you and you can give it to yourself .  That way,  its a gift no one can take away from you.
The man didn't have a horse,  but just imagine HOW honest and honoring talk with your  wife family friends and enemies might do for you to renew the space in which you live .


 The side issue of sustainability
I was fascinated how the story of probable overgrazing by cattle  and unsustainabilty in the Scottish highlands in the 1700 's takes tenth place to the real problems of mankind - greed and arrogance.
Any doubters about the need to keep perspective here in 2014 ,
need to remember that the overuse of lands in Scotland and Ireland is now history and its time we helped Africa , Asia and Australia do the same as we have --  honor the telling of the truth and "bearing it ".


No doubt we will find the same  real enemies to progress are still alive and kicking. Hope you are bearing up OK right now  

Hobbits - big ears have a purpose

The dragon  reminds us that there are demons and darkness and that truth is more about fighting them, than trying to fully define them.
To deal fully with the lumbering logomachy means getting to a vantage point , standing on something that seems impossible, but offers alternative views . To be fully reasonable , as writers like Tolkien say ,you have to get away from being simply rationalistic .
You have to dig into the pile to find the stone unknown to most. You have to find the key that opens doors to places you have never been before . You have to see that its not all about raw power ( and firepower) but a bit about listening .Moving you mind before you have the will to move your body .
To move you just need to recognise that you are on shaky ground . You have to recognise the darkness and demons weaknesses : Sure he, like all wannabes, can burn,  but he 's got blind spots and he  isn't listening very carefully; neither are we careful when we get comfortable. The journey is clearly not meant to be comfortable,  and only fools and featherheads keep thinking it can be . Fears must be faced fully if " moving on" is to be more than mere chatter .
While kids of babyboomers may only wear black to react , they , like our society in 2014, seem to have a sense , despite the growing fanaticism of the left,  that the rationalist's portrait of a white world getting brighter is a load of darkness laden obfuscation ( which it is and was recognised by our forebears to be so)  .There are dark places - unexplored holes and cul desacs on the way , To deny same to our children leaves them vulnerable to the tragedies still waiting to happen .Fear is warranted  Fear is growing because our our generation have refused to recognise the infertility of what they have been sowing.

Death and loss , as the dragon says in the finish,  is the enemy and the only way to live life fully here on earth is to face it fully .

We are not Greeks,  yet we tend to pretend its home for us - even though it never remained so for the first lot . We simply don't have time to play games with words and ideas as if sitting around in groups talking about " Big Ideas" really resolves things . That's why art and philosophy can be far more satisfying than a pile of whitewash in the form of pile of paper, mere description and acres of thesis's not worth the paper that they are printed on; misplaced concreteness