“The sky was covered with clouds. A thunderstorm was breaking over Alexandria. To the east upon the icy green waters of the lake poured a rainstorm - flights of glittering needles pocking the waters; [Montolive] could dimly hear the hush of the rain above the whispers of the car. He glimpsed the pearly city through the dark cloud-mat, its minarets ( Read more... )

I read in Nature of a family with a mutated gene  
meaning they feel no pain.

The researcher said ‘They bump into things

They don’t get hurt but are covered in bruises.

Life without pain sounds like a blessing but it isn’t’

Yes the Christmas bells ring hollow

There’s incest under the mistletoe

Outside the annual Christmas bushfires, the sun a yolk on a ( Read more... )

More Durrell on some of the tensions of being and loving and being an artist: Balthasar says "At least the introvert escapes this fearful struggle to give oneself to another. Lying with ones's own kind [he nicely blurs the line here between homosapien and homesexual], enjoying an experience, one can still keep free the part of one's mind which ( Read more... )