02 May 2016

Notes - refreshed / a blink



       Mid-morning. You are waiting for Carol at the community center and have been re-reading and continued to underline psychological aspects placed in yesterday’s posting. - Amorella

       1010 hours. I have gleaned and refreshed myself from material I read in later high school, college and the university setting. Life experiences make for a different circumstance of course – an added the age spice to the life soup if you will.

       You finished your exercises with 404 calories used in forty-three minutes, better than your usual 360 or so. – Amorella

       1143 hours. The Today Show today said Fitbit is not so accurate as compared with the iPhone or Apple watch but it’ll do for consistency within Fitbit’s parameters.
      
       You and Carol had a light lunch at home and now you are waiting for Carol at TriHealth Montgomery Family Medicine on Montgomery Road while she sees Dr. Merling for poison ivy. You both watched the last of the season’s “Grantchester” on PBS; you were caught by surprise at the conclusion and are happy it is renewed for a third season. – Amorella

       1423 hours. Wow. This is another of the wonderful PBS/BBC productions, so well enacted and thoughtfully written and produced. Carol and I love it.

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Grantchester (TV series)

Grantchester is an ITV detective drama set in a 1950s Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester near Cambridge first broadcast in 2014. It features a local Anglican vicar Sidney Chambers (James Norton) who develops a sideline in sleuthing with the initially reluctant help of Detective Inspector Geordie Keating (Robson Green). The series is based on The Grantchester Mysteries collections of short stories, written by James Runcie. The first series was based on the six stories from the first book, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death. A second series was commissioned in late 2014 and broadcast in March and April 2016.

Plot

Anglican priest (and former Scots Guards officer) Sidney Chambers and the overworked Detective Inspector Geordie Keating forge an unlikely partnership in solving crimes. Keating's gruff, methodical approach to policing complements Chambers' more intuitive techniques of coaxing information from witnesses and suspects.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

[Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes give an average critical review of 90 percent and an average audience review of 87 percent.]

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       Take a break, boy. Post. - Amorella

       1625 hours. While stopped at Kroger’s I saw and copied this from today’s Quora-dot-com. Interesting survey to ask about anyone I suppose.

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These 20 (ten is too few to be at all comprehensive) questions are meant to be asked of public figures and would-be or current politicians, but they work well with almost anybody.

It's best to ask them without revealing them in advance. But even if the questions are known in advance, they are devilishly hard to "spin" even for the most slippery interviewee and her/his spin doctors.

They have been tested extensively, and if they are all asked and their answers recorded IN FULL WITH ALL ASIDES AND REMARKS ON THE RECORD (make this stipulation crystal clear to the interviewee ahead of time: "Be careful, everything you say is on the record") results are often quite astonishing.

Be sure to listen carefully and faithfully record all the asides; they are often priceless.

If you are a reporter, you can set the ground rules for the questioning, the answers will reveal a trove of fundamental thinking that is very hard to find with the so-called "hardball" questions many journalists think make them look "tough" (and don't), and for which any good politician is well prepared. Don't be fooled by the ones that sound "easy" (like the dancing one); they often uncover the most about a personality.

1)  
Besides to your God, your family and your country and your constituents (if any), where do your loyalties lie?
2) 
In as much precise detail as you see fit, how does your mind work?
3) 
Have you ever been in love? If so, describe the experience.
4) 
If you were an animal, what animal would you be ~ other than human?
5) 
Define “generosity”.
6) 
What did your father fail at?
7) 
Except for "nothing," what or whom do you hate?
8) 
In deadly peril, name three people you want in your foxhole with you?
9) 
Have you ever dealt a death penalty? If yes, please explain.
10)
Describe your ability to dance.
11)
What do you think your worst enemy really thinks about you?
12)
On a scale of 0 to 250, where would you score your intelligence?
13)
In eight words or less, please define intelligence.
14)
What is the greatest weakness in your character?
15)
How do you verify the truth of what you are told?
16)
Name and define your favorite word.
17)
Of the following, which gives you the most pleasure: a) Music; b) Money; c) Literature; d) Science; e) Spirituality; f) Golf; g) Food & Wine; h) Films.
18)
Briefly describe your favorite hat.
19)
Who is the best living lawyer that you know?
20)
If you were made to live out the rest of your days as a famous fictional or non-fictional character, whom would you select?

Updated Apr 25View Up votes

About the Author of the survey:
Barnard Law Collier

Anthropologist, journalist, writer, director Scanmyhandwriting.com

I had to edit the above article slightly while correcting errors. - rho

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       1635 hours. We are sitting in the car and the far north Pine Hill Lakes Park facing south for a change. The leaves are really out in force and we can hear Muddy Creek rippling while running north – very pleasant. I was checking this Barnard Law Collier online and can’t find anything about him, but the questions are pretty good.

       Why don’t you respond to the questions, boy. Take your time; it’ll do you good. – Amorella

       1643 hours. I just read the first question and I have no idea. I guess I don’t have any loyalties, except to my close friends. Even then I don’t know how I would define ‘close’ in this context.

       Appears to be a pretty good question to me. – Amorella

       1647 hours. I wasn’t thinking about me answering the questions. I would not make a very good politician. First, you have to have a good memory. That rules me out. Second, I’m not interested in running for politics – too much crap plus I’d have to pretend to be politely honest when I didn’t want to be.  

       You have been home a while, resting in your black bedroom chair with Jadah on you chest. Suddenly it dawned on you who the author of “Grantchester” reminded you of, Graham Greene. - Amorella

** **
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English novelist and author regarded by some as one of the great writers of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted, in 1967, for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Through 67 years of writings, which included over 25 novels, he explored the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world, often through a Catholic perspective.

Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist, rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic, Catholic religious themes are at the root of much of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, and The End of the Affair, which are regarded as "the gold standard" of the Catholic novel.  Several works, such as The Confidential Agent, The Third Man, The Quiet American, Our Man in Havana, and The Human Factor, also show Greene's avid interest in the workings and intrigues of international politics and espionage.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

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       1955 hours. I remember I taped “The Potting Shed” (1981) described below on our Sony BetaMax (like VHS) and used it at the end of twentieth century lit classes for a writing assignment and discussion. Most of my students had never heard of Graham Greene. A short quiet play (well acted) helped to stimulate some minds into private thought they would not have suspected from a typical English class.

** **
The Potting Shed is a play in three acts by Graham Greene. The psychological drama centers on a secret held by the Callifer family for nearly thirty years.

The patriarch of the family is dying and James, his estranged son, appears unexpectedly. He can remember nothing about a mysterious moment that occurred in the family's potting shed when he was 14 years old. Family members who recall the event are unwilling to describe it to him. With the help of a psychoanalyst, James tries to recall just what happened that day that left him rejected by his father, alienated from his family, and alone in the world.

A 1981 television production of the play was written by Pat Sandys and produced by Yorkshire Television for the London Weekend Television series Celebrity Playhouse. The cast, directed by David Cunliffe, included Paul Scofield as James Callifer and Anna Massey, Maurice Denham, Celia Johnson, David Swift, Allan Cuthbertson, and Cyril Luckham in supporting roles.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

** **
       2008 hours. I remember that most of the characters were older, but many related them to older people they knew such as grandparents and/or great aunts and uncles. The plot has a Twilight Zone theme, something students did not expect. I found it interesting that over those 37 some years I could ruffle them into thought through the visuals – plays and films when it suited my purpose. Students lived in the rabbit hole of adolescence and sometime they just needed a quiet jolt to see another perspective of the reality living in other rabbit holes like Graham Green, Jonathon Swift, Shakespeare and Chaucer. Sometimes living in the rabbit hole of the classroom brought me pure joy. To see a quick blink at a student’s eyes and a look that told me she or he just discovered something about her or himself or other human beings that she or he had never suspected. No matter how many students I had I suspect that all of them whether I witnessed it or not, still had a part of their childhood mind in the present. People are interesting. I got a paycheck as well as to witness such events. I feel well-blessed to have had such a lifetime already. (2022)

       Post. – Amorella  

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