We seem to be entering the yellow time of year: daffodils have opened up all over the place, bushes that a friend of mine assures me are called forsythia are bursting with yellow flowers and we are starting to see dandelions - there’s even one in my front garden.
The blue flowers are doing less well, at least in my garden. Other people’s hyacinths stand about 6 inches tall, as do mine usually, but this year the ones in my planters are about 1 inch high but already trying to open up - strange little blue flowers poking up through the soil. So far they have not developed the distinctive hyacinth smell. I can only think that the various cold spells have stunted their development in some way!
However, the days are getting longer, and it was quite pleasant being pit and about today. I even had to carry my jacket at one point, walking along the canal towpath in the sunshine!
This morning I got up in time to make sure I was organised to phone my dentist as soon as the clinic opened. The receptionist went off to consult with my dentist and checked to make sure I had no objections to paying an extra charge if they brought my check-up appointment forward so that she could deal with my fallen-out crown. Otherwise she recommended waiting the three weeks until my check-up. No thank you! I’d prefer to get rid of my gap-toothed smile as soon as possible. As it is, the clinic is so busy I have to wait until next Monday!! Very annoying!!
Yesterday I read about plans to “rework” the novels of Agatha Christie, to remove “potentially offensive language”. Whether this will actually happen remains to be seen. I am told that the proposed alterations to Roald Dahl’s work were stopped because of protests. Proposed changes to Roald Dahl’s works were justified, or attempts were made to justify them, on the grounds that children read his stories and might be led astray by his offensive language. I wonder how they explain the need to bowdlerise works for adults.
It’s a long time since I read any Agatha Christie, by the way. I read quite a lot of her works translated into French when I worked as a foreign language assistant in a school in France. The school library was really quite lamentable but they did have lots of Agatha Christie.
This need (?) to check established authors’ works for potentially offensive stuff has given rise to a new bit of the publishing / editing profession. Their title is apparently “sensitivity readers” and I hear that they are paid a pittance for their work!
On the subject of sensitivity, great works of art in other fields also come in for criticism. Parents of 11 - 12 year olds at a school in Tallahassee, Florida objected to their little darlings being shown pictures of Michelangelo’s David on the grounds that it is phonographic. Not all the parents, I imagine, but enough to lead to the principal being forced to resign.
Hope Carrasquilla, the former principal, told the Huffington Post that she wasn’t entirely surprised by the reaction. Every “once in a while you get a parent who gets upset about Renaissance art”. Indeed, normally, a letter is sent out to parents of students warning them that their kiddos are going to see a picture of one of the world’s most famous sculptures. (I believe this is known as a “trigger warning”, something I thought the right were vehemently against.) This year, however, due to a “series of miscommunications”, the letter wasn’t sent out, exacerbating parental anger.
Oh, dear! The world is a little bit crazy!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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