RIP - I think not

This is for Louise, my creative writing teacher who died of cancer last week.

I do not wish for her to rest in peace. She would be singularly unimpressed by peace and la la angels.

I wish for her to be in the great wine bar in the sky, drinking caberent sauvignon, scoffing brie and biscuits and carrying on, at length, with relevant quotations, as to why Cormac McCarthy was the greatest writer alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_McCarthy

This is for her emotional generosity and the encouragement that helped me keep writing through a dark time.

This is for her irreverant sense of humour that not everyone understood (I often had to stifle my sniggering behind my hand at a particularly witty bon mot while others looked bemused).

I don't pity her death. She would hate that and give me the verbal equivalent of a clip around the ear. I (with many, many others) am grateful for her life.

All we have are our relationships and memories. All else turns to dust.

The meaning of life is 42

Thanks to Douglas Adams (sadly no longer with us) for the revelation that the meaning of life is the number 42. I think it comes from his book "Thanks for all the fish".

After the terrible events of last week in Virginia in the USA, I needed to remind myself of the fundamentals of what makes life worth living. My condolences to all those affected.

My preferred explanation of the meaning of life actually comes from Emerson

" To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch...to know even one life has breathes easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

Crushed tomatoes

As a potential vegetarian (not this life, maybe the next) I would like to protest the use of "crushed" tomatoes in the Italian food section of my local supermarket.

It is not clear whether these tomatoes have been held in rendition in Eastern Europe, interrogated then tortured by a middle eastern state starting with "I" or simply confined for a long period without trial in Gitmo.

I don't care which side did it but it has to stop.

Tomatoes deserve the right to justice and a fair trial. They should not be confined endlessly then "crushed".

They deserve better and civilisation is not civil when their rights are ignored.

Mummified