Dee Jayne Walker.

O.K. So.... Its like this right... Niel Gaiman's T.V. adaptation of Good Omens, is Fantastic... Brilliant... I could pile superlatives on it for quite a while. I loved it. Now I hasten to add... this isn't a 'review'. At least... not in the ordinary sense of the word. 'Reaction' would be a better description. And... that said... I am a little biased... because I have loved the book since it was first published. And... as anyone who knows me, knows (brd) I am a huge fan of Terry Pratchett, one of my all time favourite people. Never mind author. In a lot of ways the experience reminded me of seeing Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring for the first time. Likewise I loved it, but when it was done... I missed Tom, and Old man Willow. And now... dear reader, if you don't wan't spoilers, would be a good time to postpone reading further.* And with Good Omens I missed, Big Ted, Pigbog, Greaser and Scuzz, AKA  Grievous Bodily Harm.

Ok... so... heres the thing. Got into this online conversation about the Jesus myth. Now this theme gets very caught up on the historicity of Jesus. Which whilst relevent to a degree, is by no means the whole story, and not really that important. Not by a long chalk. That there might have been an individual at the origin of the narrative, does not change its mythic status one jot. We can say the same for Arthur Pendragon, Merlin, Robin Hood, some aspects of the stories originated very much with real people and real stories. They are still myths. The problem with the Jesus myth, is... its clouded by generations of scholars trying to prove its 100% incontrovertibly true. Scolarship has only recently begun to examine it from a unbiased point of view. Historians for more than 1000 years assumed it was 100% true. By edict on high, the incontrovertible word of 'god'. And here's the inquisition etc should you step out of line. We cannot understand the myth, unless we

THIS BLOG POST MAY NOT BE AS MORBID AS THE TITLE MIGHT SUGGEST. ALTHOUGH IT MIGHT. I SUPPOSE IT COULD DEPEND ON YOUR POINT OF VIEW. I love death. Not the twisted arms and legs, torso cut into pieces, struck down by a heart attack, kind of death, but a particular character in a series of books by a now ( sadly ) deceased author. And if you haven't figured it out, his name was Terry Pratchett. But this isn't really about Sir Pterry, or even Discworld. Its about appropriation. I didn't mean to steal this character, and two others ( The death of Rats, and Quoth the raven he rides on ) for my own nefarious ends. It happened some years ago, sort of by accident. Few people can fail to have encountered those posters who, WRITE IN ALL CAPS, NO MATTER WHAT THE TOPIC. Usually making statements and claims one thinks are, lets say 'odd'. ( Or.. flying mammal poo bonkers ) And I am no exception. And every time I have, the first thought in my head was of Sir Pterr

It is can be frustrating when I notice, someone was about to say something but suddenly changed their mind. Because now I'm wondering what they were about to say. Why did they change their mind? Is it something important to them? Or to me? This is not a criticism. I do not plead they should always speak their thoughts. But sometimes wish, they would get it off their chest. To relieve me of my curiosity at the very least. And sometimes, more often than not, I think I mostly know what the unspoken thought might have been. Having listened to what they were saying beforehand. But, f we really study and understand the fleeting expressions on a person's face, do we really understand them? Or not? Why are some people such good liars? Amd I'm not talking about Trump. He isn't actually a very good liar, he keeps tripping himself up. Sociopaths in general, psychopaths and malignant personalities in particular. These are the really good liars. The ones that can

I have been fascinated with eye contact for a lot of my life. Its importance seems to me to be that its a time when we mostly intuitively pick up each others micro expressions. And tell ourselves stories about how the other person is feeling. And even what they are thinking about. Some people are good at reading micro expressions, some people are not. Such people that have a talent for it,  are like lie detectors. Good authors, good journalists, even dare I say it good lawyers, good psychoanlysts, psychologists. For many years I have tried to understand consciously the stories I see, about myself, and about the person in whos eyes I see the stories. Some stories occur over and over. One such story I have seen is the cis gendered man's sudden realisation that he has just been fantasising some very carnal thoughts about me, and he's just noticed I am not a cis-gendered woman. O.K. so it doesn't happen so much these days, I am 54, but I was young and gorgeous

O.K. so... following the recent Terrorist incident in London. I posted the following. "The Islamists seem to have found the measured response of the British people to the Manchester bombing unbearable. And have further tried to provoke hate, through acts of pointless violence on and near London Bridge, tragically with serious injuries and reported deaths. The result will be the same. The British will still keep calm and carry on." In a comment on the thread linked to the post, another poster +Christian NNalletamby, asserted the following.... "There is no peaceful Islam, check the sources. There are "peaceful" Muslims, who finance and support the killers. Willingly or not, at this point, makes no difference." I felt I wanted to distribute my response to this a little more widely. Mostly because it seems to represent my view well. And I think it is a constructive view. So essentially this is me casting seeds wide. Because as soon as I thoug