Rebirth

As we come up to Winter Solstice , I am struck by the fact that for the first December in eons I'm not complaining about the short days. I'm working my life around them, early to bed, early to rise. Masses of Vitamin D.

I was in the midst of my jog-walk today,(picture above taken from my android)and thinking I'd never felt more alive. Normally, in December I'm a bit of a horrible wretch, longing for Spring, renewal, colours. But not these days. I'm feeling very present, enjoying the chill in the air, my woolly cap on my newly shorn head, my thinsulate glovvies on my fingers, my layers of many colours underneath the running jacket. Elder dog seems to be in the same mode as me. Bounding joyfully along the side of the road in front. As you can see.

My December motto: Grab each day as it arrives and French kiss it to the ground.

Mwah!

Problems and Solutions

I've recently been thrust into a position of enormous trust which was an intrinsic component to my decision in having some recent downtime on the blog.

I've been writing for years and years (and years) on the disturbing trends in increased corporatism, rampant climate change, the ongoing inequality of women and social classes, not to mention ethnic groups, the shrinking fixed incomes of private sector single retirees, the hellish marriage of church and state, oh, bloody hell yawn, I could bore for Canada on such matters. And beyond.

So where to begin. I mean the whining has to stop, the blood pressure has to be lowered. So then what?

Well, it begins where I live. I can only change me. And then it was down to a nutshell. Do I continue to piss into the wind or do I turn around and become part of the solution. Maybe a solution that is just felt in me and the small territory around me. Maybe sprinkle a little more awareness with a spice of:

"Will you look at that erosion on our seashore in front of our noses there".

"How about old Albert, is he getting extended home care, we don't want him leaving his house, he loves his bit of garden so."

"What do you think, we have that old trail winding up to the most gorgeous bird-rimmed fish-filled lake, maybe we can get together and clear off the bits of brush on the sides of it and put picnic benches by the lake and Joe over there would write the story of it. What a tourist attraction for our small outport and for us!"

So, yeah.

I'm becoming part of the solution. It's not the years in my life, it's the life in those years.

Wish me well.

How were you born?

It got me thinking. What she said.

I'd asked her why she couldn't be all by herself in her home. She's a long term widow of perhaps 20 years. Nudging her way to 90. But very active. She has 8 children, all grown and gone. All university graduates. All devoted to her. She still misses her husband.

The odd thing is: She can't be alone at night. So if one of her daughters can't make her way out of town for the night she has different villagers stay with her.

"My goodness," I say to her, we are very free with each other in questions now. We like each other.

"Surely you must have stayed alone at least one night in your life?"

"Ah no, no," she responds, shaking her lovely head. She has one of those heads like on an old Roman coin. Regal.

"No, I never did. Not once. You see, my darling, I was born lonely."

Born lonely.

So, like I said, it got me thinking.

I was born crowded. A first grandchild. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, relatives. I was held and carried so much I didn't walk for ages. No need.

Is that why I love being alone while others crave company?

Reflections

Back to the blogworld after quite a sabbatical for this screen sucker. I temporarily suspended most of my cyber activities and it wasn't the delirium tremens experience I had anticipated. I missed reading others' blogs the most. I thought quitting Lexulous would be a cause of the shakes and the jitters but it wasn't at all. FaceBook posting I kept to a minimum and refused to open links from others. AND why does aforesaid FB involve so much WORK on my part?

I took the two steps back from this and came to the conclusion I only like it when the posts are personal: don't send me recipes you haven't made and photographed, don't send me links without a comment as to how it has affected you, don't post décor pics unless it's your own house you're talking about or books you've read or movies you've seen. But most of all don't post pics and movies of animals and babies and weddings unless they, erm, are those that are part of YOUR family. I mean why should I care about strangers' dogs and babies? Why should you?

I'm not saying I'm immaculate in that area either. There was a time when Lolzcatz or whatevers had me frothing and posting. But not anymore.

Point is: Distance is required to have a good look at ourselves and our activities, cyber and otherwise.

I wrote, I read. I walked. I spent time with Daughter who is now (I'm still trying to process this delightful life's surprise) actually living here. We went to a concert on Saturday afternoon and then she said: "I know you want to see "Philomena", Mum - let's pack the day up tight - do dinner and then see it!"

And we did. And it was all good. Very good.

And "Philomena"? - run to this movie. It is brilliant.

Here's my review of Philomena

The Winner!!!

I wish I could announce the prize as $100,000 but hey, next best thing is a selection of my cards. Thanks for all your entries, some of which were directly emailed to me.

The grand prize winner is Charlie/Trudi. So Trudi - if you would be kind enough to send me your snail mail address I will pop those cards in the mail to you.

Pants: email your address and I will send you a card pronto.

Also Kat from Cork - to you as well.

Reminder: My email: wisewebwomanatgmail.com

I am signing off blog writing and blog reading for about a month or so. Three plays, many workshops, three novels AND..... Seriously excited but need to unplug from all these beautiful distractions like Facebook, Lexulous and blog to get all my wee ducks in a row.

Slainte for now.

Write on!

Bon Mots Bons

There isn't bad weather, only wrong clothes.

...................Billy Connolly

(Hands up who's seen the movie, snapshot above, and can identify the star?)

Correct answers will be thrown into a hat and the winner will receive in the mail a selection of my beautiful Newfoundland cards, individually cellophane sealed with envelopes.

Places Lost by Scott Walden

One of the photos from this wonderful book

A dear friend located a book I've been searching for a while and lent it to me. I finished it in a day and mourned over the photos of the remains of villages that were resettled in the fifties and sixties in Newfoundland. People wrenched away from their history, community and the houses their ancestors had built. All in the name of modernization and centralization. I've written stories about these uprooted peoples and talked to many of them whose hearts remain broken and who have inspired me with their memories and spirits.

One of the quotes from the book:

"As soon as each hour of one's life has died it embodies itself in some material object, as do the souls of the dead in certain folk-stories, and hides there. There it remains captive, captive forever, unless we should happen on the objects, recognise what lies within, call it by its name and so set it free."

Scott Walden, the author, writes of the difference between space and place. Only those who have lived in such places can give it memory and identity. Those of us who visit, see it as space only.

I think of the displaced people of the out-islands of Ireland, the Blaskets, the islands of West Cork and many more. Their stories are so similar to those of the abandoned outports of Newfoundland.

This song about the Blaskets says it all, and so very well, about resettlement:

Leather Arse - or how I survived Izal toilet tissue.

Maybe it was only in the Ireland of the fifties, sixties. But OMG! Seriously, OMG! Those Izal toilet rolls were like sandpaper.

I'm sorry to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities. But come on here! How did any of us survive the agony of this sadistic faux-tissue - which had the consistency of heavy duty tracing paper - while scraping our tender backsides?

We are wrecked today, I'm telling you, spoiled, ninnified and sissified with our wimpy Cottonelles and Cashmeres.

You had to be a really tough dude(tte) to withstand the rigours of such a primitive wiping. I would roll and tweak and twist the sheets to soften them. In our house, newspaper was sometimes preferred to the Izal. Newspaper softened when manipulated, unlike the vicious Izal. The only downside was that newspaper clogged the toilet so you had to stuff it up your shirt to conceal it from the parents as you obeyed nature's call.

And oh, did I mention Izal stank? Yes it did. Of Dettol, I think, the disinfectant that stung our cuts and abrasions after we fell.

And it was SHINY. Imagine shiny, hard toilet tissue that stank like Jeye's Fluid and you'll get the picture.

Imagine what it did to our butts.

Risk Taking

Goodbye Cara the caravan

What forms us? What forms me?

Our stories surely. All the little stories of our lives. The bursts of joy, the hell holes of sadness, the reactions to casual cruelties, the love, the hate and all emotions in between. Though some say it's all boiled down to two: Love and Fear.

I write of my own childhood events, the memories so crystal clear. These are what made me with all my flaws, my strengths, my talents. My thirst for knowledge, my passion for language and Irish culture, my obsession with writing. Even my addictions. Whether they are bred in the bone or habituated as a coping mechanism, who's to tell and why speculate as to the origin. Sometimes things just ARE. I live with them. I accept them. I make changes, often kicking and screaming, I make changes. And I chance and risk take.

Over an unexpected lunch with friends in town yesterday we discussed risk-taking. Chance taking. How do we ever know unless we attempt something new - no matter how foolish, no matter how idiotic sounding. This couple take chances. The started several businesses that failed and then struck success with the final business started twenty years ago which they sold last year. This year they head off to Florida for the winter. To try it. And see if they like it.

I take chances - I bought Cara the caravan a few years ago to gypsy my way around the enormous island of Newfoundland, one outport at a time.

The fantasy of this idea came up against cold, hard reality. I've never changed a tire in my life or charged up unliftable batteries overnight or cleaned out a portable toilet system or pumped in potable water to a tank. I was not about to start. I'm simply not that type of pioneer woman.

Cara is leaving me in a few days into the custody and care of a man who does all these things and more and will take manage her. Our lessons are learned in practice and not from lectures. But I never would have known about my own inability if I hadn't taken the chance on her.

Now I do.

No regrets.

Next.

One Sunday Morning in Youghal - Part 2 of 2

Some of the family with progeny from that time in Youghal (babies missing presumably with other mothers)

See Part 1 here.

You'll know later why this whole day is so vivid in my head. It's hard to believe today, but the mothers would line up all those pushchairs (strollers and prams) outside the church door so any mewling infants or gurgling toddlers strapped into them wouldn't disturb the holy faithful inside.

Then we all trouped in to the vast, incensed, candle-lit space. The men were all on the left of the church. Us women and boys younger than five? six? sat on the right. My first introduction to segregation of the genders.

The organ thumped, the voices of the choir soared above us, the altar was packed with clergy: monsignors, curates, priests, altar boys, swanning about in lace and damask and gold embroidered vestments. The children on the women's side were restless, holding their whinging selves in, while mothers frowned alarmingly at them, picking the younger ones up and holding them tightly like a strait-jacket if their behaviour looked like it might escalate into an embarrassment.

Toys and entertainment or food were not allowed to distract them. And off-site child pens unheard of. We were in the presence of Holy God and all his angels here below. And you needed to learn young, and fast, that Hell awaited any misbehaviour in His eyes.

All those men crowded fetchingly on the altar of The Lord, crashing their thuribles, loaded with incense, and their aspergills, loaded with holy water to be sprinkled on the unclean. I knew the names of everything. I was one of those “Why” children whom my father indulged. Endlessly. In church, I would recite the long complicated names of everything holy to myself along with their definitions. Today I would be called a geek. It kept me amused through those long bouts of endless Catholic liturgies.

When the ninety minutes were up, the last gospel read, the last blessing in that strange language of Latin bestowed upon all our sinful heads and the last collection taken up by the solemn men of the Holy Confraternity we were free to go. We could hardly wait. All restraint was gone, us children plunged from the church in a mass of arms and legs and whoops, leaving our parents to pull up the rear with some snoring or fretful toddlers in their arms and now rocking the abandoned babies in pushchairs and prams crying outside the church doors.

We raced down the steps of the church, shouting, landing on the footpath, some of us turning to wait for the parents who had promised us ice creams for behaving ourselves in the presence of Holy God who watched us all the time and never got bored.

What did we hear first? The terrible thumps, the screeching of brakes, the screams from the top of the steps, too many screams to count. I turned back to the road. And it was just for a moment but I saw. A pair of legs underneath the front of the car with lace trimmed ankle socks and black patent shoes. And behind the driver's side another pair of legs with grey knee high socks and sturdy boy's oxfords. The legs were very still. The driver's head was on the steering wheel, his hands locked in place on each side. He looked frozen. There was blood, there was lots of blood. On the car, in the road. I felt my own blood leave my head and my legs went weak. A strong arm went around me, a hand covered my eyes.

“Come away, come away now,” my father dragged me off, still covering my eyes. His voice sounded strange, strangled, “ I want you to forget all about this. And remember you have to look both ways before you cross the road. Always.”

Years later, I asked him about it. He was upset I had remembered it. He had tried to protect me. Yes, both children, a brother and sister had died. Apparently they had spotted their grandmother across the road from the church and ran to meet her. They were 12 and 10 years old.

On the previous day, the dead boy had shown my little brother how to do cartwheels on the strand.

One Sunday Morning in Youghal - Part 1 of 2

Youghal Church

There was a whole pile of us there outside the big church in Youghal. Parents and their children. Many children. I was eight and the eldest. My mother was run ragged from the two younger ones and the baby, I could see it on her face, her tight lips, the notch between her eyebrows that only appeared when she was particularly cross. She rolled her eyes a lot at her sister and her friends, all surrounded by their own children, some crying, some pulling, some just snivelling in anticipation of the hour and a half of torture coming up.

My father was with the menfolk, all off to one side, all smoking Gold Flake and Players. No filters then. You could hardly see the men's heads with all the smoke. I loved to be downwind of this, hearing the strike of the match on the pink sandpaper of the box, the smell of the sulphur, the first expulsion of smoke from my father's mouth. I would breath it in like perfume.

It was an impressive church. About ten wide shallow limestone steps leading up to a large apron in front of the huge main doors which now stood open, waiting for the faithful and the High Mass celebrated at 10 o'clock every Sunday morning.

We had arrived in a series of pony and traps from our rented seaside cottages off to the east of us. Now with that novelty over, all the children were restless.

'Would you hold your brother's hand?' my mother snapped at me. My brother was tumbling cartwheels on the top of the steps. It was a new found skill he had learned on the strand the day before from an older lad. He couldn't stop. One hand down, second hand down, legs in the air wide apart, drop first foot on the ground, then the second, then the hands, he was delighted with himself. He had the envious attention of all the other kids on the top of the steps. Until I raced up and grabbed hold of his hand on one of his downturns and yanked him down the steps and over to my mother. He fought me like the devil, screamed to our mother I was hurting him, I was the meanest sister in the world. Mummy turned on me, told me to: stop whatever I was doing just stop it how was she always telling me to stop it just stop it where was my father he would straighten me out in a hurry.

My oblivious father and his friends carried on smoking, roared laughing, clapped each other on the back chortling about the match they would all be going to on the local hurling pitch later on in the afternoon, their backs to the womenfolk and their childish concerns.

Now as if choreographed, they all crunched their cigarette butts under their brightly polished shoes and doffed their caps and hats as they headed up the steps and into the huge golden cavern of the church.

The mothers struggled and tugged and dragged the pushchairs up the steps of the church, wrangling their other children together in one untidy meandering uncontrollable mess.

At the top of the steps my mother dove into her handbag and threw a bit of black lace on my head.

'There now,” she said, “You're old enough.”

See part 2 here.

Writerly Thoughts

I saw this on the web today and related so very well.

I was musing on this and thinking back to yesterday and some good memories, you know how that is, some lovely memories that are spoiled and tainted by subsequent events with the same people. I do this kind of thinking in the car where no one can see me. For sometimes I cry and think how did something so lovely go so very lopsided, how did such happy times become so overshadowed?

Even writing about it later stirs up the same thoughts. And the writing is poorly formed, too emotional. How do others manage damaged memories? Do they allow the scarring to overpower them or compartmentalize it? That is, just remember the goodness in completeness or believe it to be a false front in light of later nastiness or poor behaviours?

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Winter's Arrival

Behind me

The cold fingers of winter stir around me. I bank the fire high. And look out the window at the racing blue water, white-capped, while some lingering foolish lupines on the banks of the road bob in the now brisker more serious gusts, reluctant to shed the last vestiges of their summer azure.

Leo hauls down more wood from the lot way over the top of the back hill. The barn is full. We have more than enough, I think securely. Not enough yet, says Leo, you forget we need enough for eight months of stove. Eight months of stove, I think. How comforting the rhythm of those words. How comforting indeed that Leo has the wood management skills that I lack.

For it is here. Every year, and particularly in this past glorious Indian Summer, I think: winter will creep in unnoticed. Before we know it.

Oh, we know it alright.

It has arrived in a sunlit fanfare of multi-coloured leaves flying off the trees and the chilling white foam of the waves pounding noisily on the beach stones.

In front of me

The Continuing Unravelling of the Tapestry

I don't have a picture of her. She was beautiful though. That kind of sexy beauty that can make other women hate you. For the men loved her. I'd yet to meet one in our circle who wasn't reduced to a stuttering mumble when she was around. For if she walked into a room, the rest of us females would be wallpaper. Instantly. It was the voice. The tight jeans. The heels. The way she walked. The way she spoke. The way she laughed, loud, deep-throated, seductive. Did I mention she was blonde? Yeah, that too. With dazzling eyes. Downright gorgeous.

She was caustic. She suffered fools really badly indeed. Did I mention she was funny? She was hysterically funny. And bright. She had her troubles, don't we all. She and I bonded over our estranged daughters. She had one too. Heads together, we commiserated, yanked out some private memories of holding their little baby selves and never quite understanding the pain that would be inflicted in later years.

I think the most attractive side of her was her complete unawareness of how gorgeous she was. Truly. And she liked her women friends.

"How do you do it?" I said to her once when there was a crowd of us around. The men, as usual, hanging off her every word. Her witty, sharp, biting words.

"Do what?" she said, astonished, "Do what? Speak up, do what?"

Captivate, I wanted to say. But didn't. She wouldn't know what I was talking about.

"Laugh for me," she whispered to another dear friend a few days ago, "I can't laugh anymore."

Rest easy, dearest Donna. Your three years of dreadful suffering are over now.

And you were still angry as you left us all here today.

I wouldn't have expected anything less of you.

Acceptance is for sissies.

Quotes

Old schoolhouse, Sherkin Island, West Cork, Ireland.

Fans Any reader of my blog would know that I am a voracious reader. Not as voracious as some, other tasks/projects/ideas/commitments prevent that. Most of my good friends are readers. Most of my family too, come to think of it. We bond over books. Discuss books. Pass along books, quote to each other from books. My parents were good readers. There were always books in our home growing up. My mother adored Dickens. My father, for years, was a book-of-the-month- club kind of guy, and also regularly hauled home a pile of library books. Then more children appeared and he couldn't find the time, he told me. And teevee. Let's not forget that stranger in the living room. Kicked reading and socializing to the curb. More's the pity. A reading home rears reading children.

But us stubborns cling to the books and the discussions that move around them.

"I'm dying for you to read Wayne Johnston's new one," said my new friend yesterday. We are both fans of Wayne, it turns out. Except for his second to last. We both agreed it was a bit of a let down. Maybe he lost it.

NF couldn't contain herself. She was bursting with it:

"Oh I hated 'The Son of a Certain Woman' (his latest). I want you to read it. I want you to defend it. Prove me wrong."

Now, this is what I love about books. Passion. There's no in-between.

And a quote from my 2013 reading list?

Here it is. It's from "Martin Sloane" by Michael Redhill

P11-12 - "It's only when you're old enough to understand that the past is gone forever that you begin to store your own life."

I know my family and I felt that way this past summer. It was time for just our memories. The past was gone. It was time to open some new files. And we did. And we still talk about it.

Putting it Out There.

When I put stuff out there, it nearly always comes back. I'm talking nice stuff. I try not to do nasties to anyone, but sometimes I can be a blithering idiot and hurt people without knowing it, know what I mean. Vestiges of my own insecurities still rearing their butts up to fart in my face. Graphic, sorry. But true. Don't tell me you're perfect? Oh sorry, of course you are. My bad.

So after this massive road race, well massive to me, I wrote this article for the newspaper about how us stragglers are considered a nuisance in these events. All hail is given to the Chosen Few who do 20 miles in 20 minutes. Well, I exaggerate slightly. Water stations get taken down after the Chosen Few have passed and even the roads are returned to the vehicular masses and then us stragglers get shoved on to dangerous, cracked and heaving sidewalks with traffic lights and by now angry motorists who have had to delay their important doings by a couple of hours and view us as handy targets on pedestrian crossings for their rage.

So this Really Important Person contacts me and says, I loved your article, I agree with you and all you said in your article, and hey, let's meet and brainstorm and enlist a whole big gaggle of us oldies/physically challenged, etc., and storm the bloody race next year in FULL GEAR, they don't know who and what they're messing with, right?

Hell, I said meekly, YEAH!!!

Calming Crafting

I sometimes wonder why others don't take up pursuits that would bring them relief from anxiety or sorrow and gift them with diligence, curiosity, utilization of imaginative powers, relaxation, focus, and best of all something tangible to show for it at the end of it all.

The above afghan took me a while. One of those projects I started and shelved and moved on from and moved back to. I'm one who can't sit down and do nothing while gawping vacantly at a screen. I enjoy DVD sets of various top-notch shows, admittedly much later than everyone else who have cable service and derive a "buzz" that is engendered around a successful series during its original broadcast. But I also don't suffer the barrages of advertisements they endure either.

I finished this afghan, pictured above, while watching the second series of "Homeland" one of those truly great shows.

Whenever I see one of my creations in someone's home, I often reflect on what I was doing when making it, what TV series or movies I watched with it, what marathon phone calls attended its making, what gorgeous sunny strand was I banjed off on or what beloved family members' conversations took place around it or what trips and visits it made with me.

This one will be gifted tomorrow, appropriately enough on Canadian Thanksgiving. I have I-corded (a form of 3-dimensional embroidery I kind of invented) the initials of the couple on each end. They've been married 45 years (from their teen years) and are one of those couples that engender warmth, respect and love around each other and those who are lucky enough to be in their circle.

Like me.

Blog Jam

I was immeasurably delighted recently to receive an email from a 90+ year old uncle who has recently embraced the web. I have long wondered as to his whereabouts and distance from our tribe but am overjoyed in this day and age that we can reach out and touch long vanished family members and friends. And so easily.

How wonderful it is that our US neighbours are finally getting what we have long taken for granted here and in many other countries: health care not tied to personal wealth or status. Declaring personal bankruptcy or dying because of the cost of life-saving cancer treatments or surgeries or "pre-existing" conditions is completely unacceptable for any citizen of any so-called civilized country.

My potatoes were harvested by a good friend today (pictured above). My own potatoes. Thrilled doesn't cover it.

Indian Summer continues unabated in this enchanted land out here on the edge of the Atlantic. Smiley faces everywhere and shorts-wearing runners. Oh, yeah.

The world on my table

Olive oil, carrying riches from far away Italy. A little puddle.

Now simmering gold at the bottom of the silver pot.

The spices thrown in: turmeric, garam masala, coriander from India releasing a bouquet so rich, just enough to close the eyes and breathe the fragrant air.

Onions, local, ginger from China, garlic, local, all shredded, kissing the spices briefly before tumbling playfully around with them.

Carrots, local, holding the summer sun pressed tightly along their lengths. Cut in chunks and sent into the playground, now wearing coats of all that has gone before them.

Then the stock, lovingly made with the bones of forgotten roasts a month - maybe two - ago. 5 cups.

Simmering on the wood stove for, it doesn't matter. An hour, two.

Withdrawn then, nose hovering above, catching all these blended magnificences, unique yet now together.

Then the coconut milk. From the Caribbean. Folded in. Softly whisked.

Pureed into a red bowl.

Gently bottled up. Labelled. Dated.

Sunshine from around the world.

Asleep now.

To awaken in the short days of winter.

Elder Project

Now and again I forget I'm an elder. Well actually, most of the time. I truly do. I was discussing my elder project with Grandgirl recently and commiserating with her on some of the truly sad stories I have heard from old people when she said: "Grandma but you are an old person!"

"Well so I am!" I replied, in shock and a kind of awe.

Don't get me wrong.

I truly enjoy being an old person. I'm so very fortunate I have my health in reasonably good array. I don't put all my energies, as so many do, into fighting off the signs, the dyeing of the hair, the belly lifts, the chin tucks, the eye-lifts, the $100 anti-aging creams. Not my style - but Namaste if it is yours. Age must be embraced I feel and not denied. Perhaps all this denial is a fear of death. But it will come, botoxed or not, right? I'd rather you saw the ravages of age on my own deceased corpse. Truly.

"There she goes," you might say, "But hats (purple, please) off to her, she lived every bloody minute of it, didn't she? She's all worn out and not rusted out."

Which brings me to this project I've been given due to the play I wrote which covered the same topic. Elder abuse. I won't be talking to elders about this but to schools and other venues around the province in order to shed more light on this pervasive and heart-wrenching subject.

I've been doing the index card thingie to make sure I cover all aspects of this rampant problem in our society. There are far too many index cards. Physical abuse is the least of it.

And as I was jotting down the aspects of emotional abuse(one of the very worst forms in my opinion) on one of these cards, I realized that I, too, have been a victim of this subtle and insidious form of abuse. Some who were very close to me have withdrawn their affection from me. Without rhyme or reason. And it hurts. Badly. The most recent form being when I reached out yet again and was rebuffed, basically, with if I had behaved myself better they might have phoned me but now they wouldn't.

And I only realized this was abuse when I was preparing the workshop.

I think one of the major problems in elder abuse recognition is either the trauma not being recognised at all, or a mindset of such denial for it is deemed far too appalling to contemplate.

I've just proved my own case.

And I don't like it.

Not one bit.