The last game

When I was a young man, I lived and worked in Amsterdam for three years as an art teacher before leaving Holland to try to freelance in Paris. (Another story).

One late night on the outskirts of Amsterdam, not sure of the way home, driving slowly in my old Standard Eight I had just imported from England, someone drove at full speed from the right and hit my car (right hand drive) bowling it over, missing me by maybe a few centimetres and pushing the right side back door almost against the interior of the left side back door. The steering column ended up in the middle of the car.

I remember feeling embarrassed because someone was dabbing my head with maybe a handkerchief. I wanted to drive off but couldn’t find the ignition. Then I passed out.

I woke up in hospital where I had to stay for several weeks. I had very severe concussion. 

Days went by. A friend bought me my guitar, and in a bed opposite me there was a young musician about my age who helped me improve my playing, by citing chords, etc. to accompany chosen melodies.

On my right there was a boy who had been hit by a lorry. His face was in a terrible mess, but incredibly, in about two weeks, his face was almost normal again. I marvelled at the wonder of natural, healing powers.

I was young and stupid then. I flirted with one of the nurses, and even persuaded myself that I had some success.

The most moving, unforgettable experience in that ‘ziekenhuis’ was that opposite me further to the left was a young man who was paralysed, perhaps also the results of an accident. He lay in a special, basculating bed.

When I could move a little, I went over towards him. We must have talked. Maybe he invited me to play chess, so we did. He told me the moves he wanted to make in function with mine.

He played very well. He kept winning. But as days went by it became noticeably more difficult for him to win. I tried to make up for it by making moves that were not the best. He was immediately aware of this and angrily scolded me. So I did as he preferred and started winning.

He was tired. He never complained. He died peacefully. This was so many years ago, yet I’ll never forget this good looking, young man with whom I had the honour of playing chess.

The nurses were heart broken although they knew it was inevitable. Never in my life have I seen such an openly emotional reaction of nurses following the passing away of a patient. But this man was very special. No doubt it’s why I still clearly remember him today.

Maybe because he also gave me a precious gift of exemplariness. Strength, dignity, humility and peaceful acceptance. A memory that still gives me sacred, spinal signals, so many years later.

                                                       ❤

                              

                          Text and image © Mirino. September, 2025

Cayden

We came back to our house in the mountain village after a sad day.

I was the first to open the front door, and Cayden, from where he likes to patiently wait for us on the landing, made his joyful bark as usual. It wasn’t my imagination. It was Cayden. He was cheerfully saying goodbye.

Because we took him to Nice. It was hot, and the drive exhausted him. When we arrived at our destination. He needed to rest. I found a shady corner and my companion went to get the car, and we drove back home. It was when we stopped in the shaded car park when I was buying a few things in a supermarket that he died peacefully. His heart just gave up the fight.

My companion tearfully phoned me and I got back as soon as I could, took him out of the car and did all I could to revive him, but he had given us his last sigh. True to his beautiful character he tried his best to stay with us and bear the discomfort without ever complaining. How we shall miss him, dear old Cayden. I shall so miss his little morning licks when he knows I’m awake, to remind me to take him out for his morning walk before breakfast. How he waits for us to return without ever sulking, then he finds a toy to squeak in celebration of our return.  

What a wonderful dog Cayden was, and what an example of courage, trust, loyalty and love. He gave us everything he had, and finally even his life out of love and such good will. 

God bless you dear old Cayden. Thank you for everything, including your last, sweet goodbye bark of adieu.

                   19 August 2014 - 9 July, 2025

 

Seasons

After the storms, the sky is clear. The sun increasingly lower at its zenith. Gradually, sublimely, we drift into the autumn season. The season of change, of colour. The season of pressing the grapes for this year’s wine, which may not be as good as usual in this region, for various reasons.

Soon walking old Cayden in the morning, we’ll surprise proudly newly feathered, beautifully coloured pheasants squawking as they noisily flap off. We may vaguely see deer and wild boar through the morning haze. The temperatures will be chilly, but the air exhilarating. 

The seasons, each one assured by the gradual, increasing, then decreasing tilt of the Earth as it revolves around the sun.
A universal phenomenon naturally beyond humanity’s control. The creator of Earth’s seasons so necessary for the cycle of life, of vegetation, forestry, and of everything vital
The magical season that reassures, and always evokes nostalgia. The season I love the most.

                                           Text and image © Mirino. September, 2024
 

Convenient Myths

During the Barbarossa invasion beginning in 1941, the armoured vehicles and tanks of the third Reich are only 200 kms from Moscow. There seems to be little chance of stopping them. The only hope for the High Command of the Red Army is to send 3,500 officer students from the military school of Podolsk to defend the Ilyinsky line. This at all costs, until reinforcements arrive. The cadets have small, moveable field artillery to counter the German tanks. They are accurate but not always powerful enough. One has to aim at the tank turrets to put the tanks out of action. 

The film (on Prime Video) is based on historic facts authenticated by the Russian ministry of Culture. The cadets are ordered to hold the front line for an estimated four day period to prevent the German and Axis troops from breaking through to Moscow. They held out for 12 days before the Red Army reinforcements and tanks finally arrived. 

The only language available for this Russian film banally called ‘Ligne de feu’ (Line of Fire) is French. I refer to this film simply because one notes that there is very little difference between the characters, their emotions, fear, courage, loyalty to their brothers in arms, the realistic scenes, often atrocious but how it then was, and the more serious American WWII films produced by good film directors. In other words the film showed that the cadets spoke and joked just as American soldiers would under the same circumstances. Naturally there were no stupid, Western, caricatures of Russian underdogs brutally ordered to commit suicide by callous, oldschool, Commanding Officers. Obviously the officers in the film had to obey High Command orders, but they cared for their men and did their best to protect them. 

There’s a scene where a soldier volunteers to mend a broken fuse cable to blow up a bridge. He gets shot but finishes the job and sacrifices his life when the bridge is successfully destroyed. These are the same scenes, the same acts of personal sacrifice and courage that one sees in serious, Anglo-Saxon, WWII films. The film highlights the reality of what took place, the considerable initial success of the advance of German and Axis troops at the start of the invasion. 

 It’s not a film of propaganda. It wasn’t made to portray an indomitable hero like ‘Rocky’, who won the war single-handedly, or other Western war film heroes played by Audie Murphy or Robert Mitchum, etc., those one sometimes admired in the 60’s and 70’s US war films. 

The film ends with the survivors, the young heroes, many of whom are wounded, stoically marching by the large convoy of reinforcements which has at last arrived. The reinforcements are well armed and have brand new tanks, etc. The soldiers and officers salute the cadets with great respect and admiration. Once more one is reminded of similar Western film scenes of such honour, respect, duty and sacrifice. 

This was the USSR, the West’s precious ally, as from 1941, remember? The nation without which there could never have been a Normandy invasion. The Russian Federation, no longer communist, now treated like dirt by stupid, ignorant Western leaders. But that’s another tragic story. 

The history referred to above, a moving story of human courage, is not only factual history; it clearly, discreetly and inadvertently shows that there’s no essential difference of character between Russians and Anglo-Saxons, of normal humanity trying to make the best of things in nightmarish situations. 

No nation has the monopoly of ‘goodness', of ‘exemplary righteousness'. Similarly, no fake religion, or dogma, can claim to have the monopoly of God, certainly without being blasphemous. Evil exists, but one must be able to recognise it, rather than try to project it where it doesn’t exist, for the sake of absurd, impossible ideology, or irresponsible and dangerous illusions. 

                    Text © Mirino. (Photo from film title page, with thanks) August, 2024

 

Stones

I have always been fascinated by stones. I had beautiful stones I picked up from Essex, UK, from the banks of Loch Lomond, from Arisaig, the Isle of Eigg, Scotland, from Zandvoort, and other beaches of Holland, from Yosemite, from the Grande Canyon, from Savannah, Georgia, USA.

Everywhere I go, I look at the stones. They have their own identity and reflect their environment. Often they are formed by intense pressure through eons of time from different minerals. Or they are sometimes embellished with mica, or imprinted with fossils.

They reassure by their existence, a history which covers perhaps several millions of years. They may have been cast aside or partly formed from earthquakes, or indented, even patiently ‘drilled’ through, by many hundreds of years of dripping water, or spat out from the bowels of the earth by volcanoes. Their age makes our own life-span seem so insignificant.

They have endured all the tribulations of thousands, if not millions of years of natural phenomena, of climate evolution, of the elements, to be finally formed, sculpted, moulded as they are when discovered. This is why they are fascinating, and why one sees them and picks them up. 

Nothing more than stones. 

© Mirino, Text and image. September, 2023

 

 

Soviet Nemesis

Below are two pages from Winston Churchill’s memoirs. They consist of Churchill’s speech broadcast by the BBC at 21h on June 22nd, 1941. It was made after his being informed that Operation Barbarossa had begun.
It's interesting because everything negative about Stalin and the past criminal activities of Soviet communism were shelved, for obviously there was a much greater priority.
Today Soviet communism no longer exists. Despite feverish, Western efforts to tarnish the Russian Federation, and now support Ukraine, whatever the cost, instead of making the minimum effort to understand the necessity of negotiations in order to prevent a needless war, the West is allowing history to repeat itself on another, much more dangerous level.
The West has failed to learn from history, what Nazi Germany failed to appreciate. WWII was won by the allies because of this fatal lack of appreciation.

To the West’s discredit, and to the discredit of Turkey and Azerbaijan, as soon as the Soviet Union was dissolved and its former republics regained their independence, it seems to have become a free for all. Turkey and Azerbaijan are trying to swallow up Armenia (Armenia and Azerbaijan were former Soviet republics) and the West is trying to swallow up Ukraine, by trying to expand East militarily, economically, socially and ideologically. This obviously to the detriment of the Russian Federation who is understandably preoccupied, not only regarding its own security, but by that of the Southeastern Ukrainians who naturally, culturally identify with Russia, and have been treated as rebels and ‘separatists’ since 2014. This even to the extent of Donbas, Donetsk and other Southeastern regions of Ukraine being continually bombarded by the Ukrainian military causing thousands of deaths of their own civilians, whom apparently Zelensky considers as ‘expendable’.

The most massive invasion in the history of civilisation, and its defeat by Russia at the cost of many millions of lives, Russian POWs, military and civilians, was the most important military accomplishment of WWII. There is no doubt about this, yet on V.E. Day there were no Russian flags. There were no notable praise and acknowledgments from Western allies of the Russian achievement which broke the spine of the Third Reich, and freed Europe. What’s more, from 1945 onwards mutual East/West distrust reigned.

What’s interesting about Churchill’s speech, is that he was perfectly honest about his total disapproval of Soviet communism. He mentions that this was the case for the preceding twenty-five years. But understandably he also greatly valued the Soviet Union as an ally as from 1941, because he was perfectly aware that without Russia, the UK could never withstand such a massive onslaught that he knew Russia was going to be subjected to.

Today the idea that Ukraine can defeat the Russian Federation in a conventional war is absurd. This no matter how much it is armed and financed by the West. Had the Western powers revised history, they would have reached the conclusion that the crucially necessary negotiations should have been given absolute priority in order that Ukraine preserve its territorial integrity.

 🔥

Above text © Mirino, Below, two pages from Churchill's Memoirs. March, 2023

October 22

 

Every year in October one has the privilege of seeing this, in the valley below the house, in the Alpes Maritimes. And this for 21 years… Old friends.

It’s reassuring, and like ripe beef-heart tomatoes and fresh trumpet zucchini, a good harvest of wine grapes, (and this year’s wine in Italy and France -in certain regions- should be excellent) it all seems to make a mockery of the climate change fanatics.
They cultivate nothing but their own faithless, ideological obsession.

Our summer this year was certainly long and hot, but in the hills inland of Imperia, Italy, I have never seen so much fruit blest by the sun.
The magic of seasons, and autumn is the most fabulous. The colours are always spectacular here, but they are never quite the same.

The beautiful crescendo of colour is so ephemeral, which makes it all the more precious to see. It’s a lovely annual gift that gives one so much pleasure. A warm and gracious display beautifully symbolising life’s miraculous circle.

Text and images © Mirino, November, 2022

Geomiracles

 

Everything is geometrical (and more) from snowflakes to spiders’ webs, fruit, flowers, leaves, all forms of life, their anatomy, balance and movement. The solar system, the ellipsis of the Earth turning on its axis around the sun determining the seasons, the power of the sun and the moon causing sea tides and encouraging growth. 

The admirable way that certain insects imitate twigs and flowers, and certain spiders change colour to match exactly that of the flower they wait motionless on for their prey.  

The intelligence of sea mammals, the secret, age-old intelligence of elephants. The love that such animals show. The beauty and diversity of tropical fish, butterflies and birds so absolutely incredible in form and colour. They defy all seemingly reasonable theories like those of Darwin, and they persuade us that there has to be something else still far beyond our reach. 

The universe itself and its intricate, geometrical (and more) miraculous workings. The further we are able to peer out into space, the more there is that we are still unable to perceive or imagine. 

And here we are in the midst of this paradise, pretentious enough to claim that humanity, who somehow arrived or evolved only 200,000 years ago, an instant in terms of the age of planet Earth (4.543 billion years) and even less in terms of universal time or chronology, is guilty of ‘climate change’.  If humanity is guilty of anything, it’s mainly a recurrence of regressivity, barbarity (travesty, perversion, wokism, cancel-culture, infanticide, etc.) all amounting to imbecility. Provoking rather than preventing war for the dated illusion of personal or national gain is a perfect example. It totally cancels out all other claimed preoccupations, pandemics, and professed ‘man-made climate change’.  Only humanity is capable of destroying what should be regarded as a paradise. If ever this height of human folly became a reality, only humanity would primarily suffer, simply because the powers that be, the divine, universal laws would naturally adapt. Life would go on, like masses of poppies gayly waving where bombs had once ripped up the bowels of the earth. Life would survive and continue to evolve, but the age of humanity would be over, and in such an atrocious, tragic case, perhaps it would be just as well. 

Therefore if ever such a futile, contemptible destiny awaited humanity, according to ‘universal law’ it would naturally be in the order of things.. However, in spite of humanity’s strengths and weaknesses, I believe that our destiny is unimaginably unlimited, provided we don’t derail ourselves beyond all hope, in the ‘meantime’.. 

🌋

Text and image © Mirino, May, 2022

Faith

This is not the first time I refer to faith (previously under the title of Fidem).
I’m not sure who once said it, perhaps it was Descartes, but he wouldn’t have been the only one to surmise that ‘once an ideology is established, the ideologue ceases to think’.
When one ceases to think, one rests mud-bound in one’s own dogma. For example the world is flat. Those who, against all logic, all obvious known facts, obediently continue to believe such a fallacy, do so because it would be stated in seventh century scriptures. They are also convinced that they have the monopoly of truth, because they believe they have the monopoly of God.
Naturally such pretensions are totally devoid of sense, because God, or Almighty Power, made the universe and all forms of life, and by extension all kinds of civilisations, faiths and religions. Religions are like branches trying to reach up to the heavens their own way. Branches of the one, beautiful tree of civilisation.

As Thomas More wrote in his ‘Utopia’, (first published in Latin in 1516) "(…) he (King Utopus) suspected that God perhaps likes various forms of worship and has therefore deliberately inspired different men with different views. On the other hand, he was quite sure that it was arrogant folly for anyone to enforce conformity with his own beliefs, by threats or violence (…).”
How is it that such common sense was so appreciated and so well expressed 506 years ago, yet even today it would be dismissed by Islamists as the ‘false reasoning of infidels’?

Indeed even today we seemed to be governed by doctrine, ideology and ideologues. The EU scribes are capable of writing reams of words (almost 27,000 regarding regulations on the sale of cabbages, whilst Pythagoras' Theorem is defined with only 24 words). This speaks volumes in itself.
The EU executive seems so utterly obsessed and motivated by its ideological goal, that it’s either oblivious to the constant negative consequences it’s causing, or it simply dismisses them as ‘collateral damage’ far less important than the unattainably absurd and highly dangerous objective of the ideology.

Then we have the critical race theorists, repentant apologists, and negationists who occupy themselves by  fanning the embers of dated racism. We also have ‘Wokism’. ‘Wokism’, dérives from ‘woke’ which doesn’t exist in English. One might mean awakened or awoke, indicating that one is no longer asleep, one now ‘sees the light’ or is miraculously enlightened. But from what is written on it one has enough difficulty in trying to find one’s way through the verbose smog.

Even the epidemic of Covid-19 has been, and still is being used for ideological purposes. Instead of being exemplary, of encouraging people to have faith, reassuring them that this difficult period will be relatively short, certain authorities have been exploiting the situation for disgusting purposes of fear-mongering, for socio-political power, if not for personal financial gain, dictating rules that have now reached a ridiculous level of incoherence that’s causing far more harm than good.

No good comes from trying to substitute faith with ideology. And one should never confuse faith with superstition. Faith is the confidence that the sun will rise tomorrow, even if there might be dark clouds shrouding it.
It’s the confidence that the seasons will remain relatively stable, despite the dire predictions of the ‘climate change ideologues’ who might well end up being disappointed if their cataclysmic predictions turn out to be as false as they themselves seem to be. Above all it’s the conviction that the universe and its fabulous, intricate mechanism, and naturally the miracle of life itself, didn’t come about by mere chance. (And no doubt this is not the first time that I have written this last sentence, or any other rubbish for that matter. Repetition, however, is a privilege that should be accorded to all those of a certain age).

When one starts questioning everything rather than appreciating the evolution of civilisation through the rational unfolding of history, (history that clearly demonstrates that there’s a reason for everything) one opens civilisation’s door to give a warm welcome to regression and barbarity.
By falsely correlating knowledge with privilege, one might be looking for a scapegoat for one’s own ignorance. The same goes for equality. The quest for equality only leads to mediocrity. It brings to mind the burning of good books, the destruction of masterpieces, the dismissal of individuality and the demeaning of individual accomplishment. It engenders what it claims to guard against, fascism or Soviet communism, when both ideologies have exactly the same expansionist objective that leads straight to Dystopia.
Unfortunately this is the direction the western world establishment seems now engrossed in trying to drag us. If this is true, then the establishment and all the ‘elite’ eager to win favour to try to assure their cushy future, have learnt nothing from history.

Remember in history how certain intellectual societies in various European countries, and even in the USA, admired the French Revolution, imagining that it would lead to some sort of French Utopia? The same was true regarding the birth of communism, which naturally had a great deal in common with the French Revolution. It initially inspired many western intellectuals.

The French Revolution engendered a monster that took ten years to consume itself leaving bloody ruins of illusions. It was a brutal and naive attempt to negate history and faith. It destroyed monarchy and aristocracy but created social division, and extreme poverty. It created the Republic, but left a tragic void in other aspects.
Eastern communism took a lot longer, but it finally acknowledged its own long drawn-out futility, economic failure, and gave its ultimate last gasp in Afghanistan.
Despite such blatant examples of truth, western ideologues seem to turn a blind eye to them in order to press on with what they imagine to be their own form of ‘truth’. But there is nothing new or trustworthy about Marxism, and ‘neo’-Marxism is simply regurgitated Marxism in disguise. Masked Marxism...

 

 

Text and images © Mirino. January, 2022

October

October, from Latin octo. (So called because it was originally the eighth month of the Roman year.
I love this period in the south, where I am, as I write this, in the Alpes Maritimes. Each day the colours are slightly richer until they reach their autumn colour crescendo. In principle the colour compliments of their original, spring time, mature display of tints of various greens.

 

It’s an ephemeral celebration that makes one smile, gives one confidence, feelings of thankfulness and nostalgia.
This in spite of the panic of the seemingly faithless, convinced that climates are changing in ‘unnatural’ ways, due to the folly of humanity.

 

Perhaps I am old enough to claim the privilege of repeating myself, in saying that I have seen quite a few climate changes. Late autumn and winter smog, for example, on the outskirts of London, sometimes so thick that one couldn’t see more than a yard in front of oneself. True it was caused by low atmospheric pressure, and the general use of coal, before the smokeless kind was developed, but no one panicked or jumped to conclusions that the planet was in danger. We all thought it was quite natural, and accepted it as such.

 

However, in view of our beautiful planet’s extraordinary climatic history throughout its venerable age of 4.543 billion years +, long before humanity somehow arrived on the scene, a mere 200,000 years ago, I have far more faith in universal law (and God) than in pretentious claims of man-induced climate change.
The seasons have always remained stable. They have done so for many thousands of years, so why make such claims? Why exploit fear in such a futile yet mercenary manner?

 

Admire rather the fleeting colours of autumn, and be happy with the thought that 2021 should be a good year for wine, certainly in Italy.
Wine has almost always accompanied civilisation. Its production dates as far back as between 6000 BC and 4000 BC. An ancient winery was discovered in Armenia. Surely this deserves great respect. And aren’t such thoughts reassuring? 

 

I have seen the autumn displays of this particular region for over twenty years. They are always spectacular, some years even more so than others, naturally depending on the weather. So this year we are especially privileged.
Other fabulous characteristics of this region (of an altitude of over 1200 metres) are the variety of sky-scapes, especially sunrises and sunsets. One can see examples of these that I have captured at various periods among the listed links of ‘Photographic works’ on the right. They represent rare, fleeting moments. Similar to the good fortune of seeing and being able to take a closeup of a beautiful, rare butterfly feeding on the nectar of a mountain flower, just before it flutters off, completely oblivious to the claimed perils of dreaded ‘climate change’.

 

Already lower down in the pine woods there are a few small (thus so far spared by the little white gourmet worms) ‘sanguin’ mushrooms, and the beginnings of chanterelles’, but it’s still too early and too warm. Some rain and colder weather will make all the difference when one returns in November.

 

Climate change denial’ is a new offence that seems to be considered as bad, if not even worse than alleged racism or LGBT prejudice. Yet denying climate change would be as ridiculous as, let’s say- ‘oxygen denial’ (half of the world’s oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis in the oceans. The other half is produced on land via photosynthesis by trees, various shrubs and grasses, etc.). Indeed it would be very unnatural and worrying if climates ceased to changed. Naturally they are in constant evolution according to universal laws as well as the seasons governed by the Earth’s tilt (axial inclination or obliquity). Would it not be a shade pretentious to believe that this evolution is greatly influenced by the follies of humanity?

🌈

Text and photographs © Mirino. Octobre, 2021

Epoch of hypocrisy

We seem to be living in a particularly nefarious epoch in which fear, guilt, dishonesty, or even incoherency is being used to try to accumulate more power and personal gain. An epoch that will be remembered for its hypocrisy. Covid-19 is no doubt ‘man made’, but instead of taking legal action against those responsible, those who tried to cover up the truth of the origin of the virus that has caused, and is still causing, endless negative consequences; instead of what should be regarded as a necessary process to try to insure that such a murderous outbreak will never happen again, innocent people, theatre, restaurant and hotel owners are being punished, while it’s still business as usual with China..

Similarly, so called climatologists keep harping on about man-made climate change. But in this case where is the incontestable proof?
Obviously atmospheric pollution has some influence, but even there, where is the proof that it’s causing any change of climatic cycles?
Volcanic eruption is a natural phenomenon which certainly causes a great deal of pollution. Life itself, and all forms of energy, even so called ‘green’ energy produce pollution.
One wryly notices that the term ‘global warming’ is used in the summer, whilst ‘climate change’ is used in the winter, perhaps because the seasons are as perfectly stable as they should be.

Again, the age of planet Earth is 4.543 billion years. Man, women (and perhaps even the first LGBT participants) somehow arrived on the scene only 200,000 years ago, which is a blink of an eye in comparison with the age of Earth. Its climatic history, long before humanity arrived by some sort of miracle, is phenomenal. Not only were there several ice ages, but there were eras of very high temperatures that make our so called ‘man-made global warming’ theory seem all the more ridiculous.
One was during a geologic era termed as the Neoproterozoic that took place between 600 and 800 million years ago (give or take a few centuries). Extremely hot temperatures have also somehow been climatically assessed and recorded between 500 million and 250 million years ago. Long before humanity graced the planet. During these ages, far more CO2 was produced than that of today.
It therefore seems a shade pretentious to claim that man is responsible for climate change. Even more pretentious is the claim that man can correct whatever changes are taking place, when such changes are naturally governed by universal laws.

In Italy and southern France the month of May this year was one of the coldest Mays experienced for several years, but then the ‘experts’ paradoxically put it down to the effects of global warming, claiming that the Arctic, warmer than it should be, is sending its cold air south. Why did it not do the same thing in May 2020? And why has it stopped sending its cold air south since May?
The man-made climate change theory is however, an excellent pretext to make the innocent fearful and guilt ridden. It’s a great pretext to rake off billions which, needless to say, have no effect whatsoever on natural or divine phenomena.

In his diaries Samuel Pepys refers to terribly strong winds that one couldn’t stand up against, and an unusually scorching summer in London. He wrote of the Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London that destroyed much of the city’s centre including part of St Paul’s Cathedral. Never would he, or anyone else of his epoch, have advanced a theory that such rare phenomena were due to an excess of horse farts, or even divine punishment. This although he was a devoted Christian and husband, despite his endearing weakness regarding women in general.

I mentioned this before. In my youth I ‘clearly’ remember periods of thick smog, on the outskirts of London, especially during autumn days when atmospheric pressure was low. We then thought it was ‘natural’, and put up with it. But this was before smokeless coal was produced. It’s probable that Paris had similar periods of smog in the 19th and early 20th century. The industrial revolution would also have greatly contributed to this.

Years of experience, and faith itself, would add to one’s doubts regarding the assertions that man is responsible for climate change. Years, because one has experienced the gradual changes, the cycles. One is also aware that there is always a reason for everything.

Deforestation, for example, contributes towards flooding and landslides. The peasants who long ago tended the forests and river banks, repaired terrace walls that supported the soil for pastures, etc., no longer exist. The asphalt covering roads is not always porous, whereas the earth it covers naturally is.  Deforestation and extensive periods of excessive rain can therefore undermine roads and cause them to collapse in certain vulnerable locations. Obviously there is nothing unnatural about this. We have to assume the consequences of our own actions, and what we regard as conveniently necessary.

There are times (like last year) when local vines become infected with some sort of malady. There is nothing one can do about it. The local cultivator vintner will shrug, and trust that the following year will be better, which is in fact the case. Such things are not necessarily caused by humanity’s veering off the righteous, politically correct path towards global utopia. No doubt it has been the natural course of events regarding the production of wine since the Greeks or the Georgians of South Caucasus as long ago as 6,000 BC.

Indeed, putting things into perspective, when one refers to history, especially the climatic history of the Earth, many millions of years before humanity somehow appeared; a civilisation that gradually detached itself from nature, thus reality and eventually even faith, and developed its own bombastic, pretentiously divine, self-importance, isn’t one a little more capable of seeing things in a clearer, rational, thus saner manner?

🌠

Text and image © Mirino. August, 2021

 

Parisian crash course

Paris, about fifty years ago.
After working in Amsterdam for three years, I wanted to go to Paris. As an artist illustrator I needed freelance experience. I also wanted to improve my French. I believe I left Holland in the winter of 1970, but I’m not sure. I was still in a sort of dream..

At that time I had a blue Fiat 850 coupé, (they seem to have since become extinct). It was cold and late in the day as I drove south.
In Belgium the roads were then cobbled in certain places. There was verglas. At one point the car slid hard against a high curb and the shock broke the front right disc brake. I could no longer use the foot brake and it was too late to have repairs done. In any case my budget was very tight. I therefore thought I had no other choice but to continue, and had to rely on the hand brake only. I was scared stiff, but fortunately at that time there was not a lot of traffic, so I succeeded in carefully getting down to Paris.

One of my sisters lived in the 16ème and kindly put up with me until I found and rented a small, virtually unfurnished pied-à-terre near le Bois de Bologne. (500 francs a month. Can you imagine!) I can’t remember buying any furniture so it must at least have had a bed. As there wasn’t a table, and I didn’t have a desk, I began by carrying out my illustrations, commissions for book covers, page illustrations and even film posters, on my square, black, suit-case on the floor!

In the mornings, for apparently a long enough period, I went to the Alliance Français for my French lessons. ‘Officially’ I was a student. I had no work permit or titre de séjour. But in those days, if a young man, (même un étranger) was caught with a girlfriend in a public park after it was closed late in the evening (for example) the police would, tongue in cheek, reprimand the young couple. They might not even demand identification papers. At least that was the case for me at one sweet time..
At the Alliance Française there was a canteen where one could eat quite well for very little cost then.
But in Saint-Germain-des-Prés one could order a menu of steak, frites, salad, a glass of red, sliced baguette and desert for about 10 francs, or plausibly it was even less. It probably was if, during that frugal period I could sometimes afford it.
Apart from that I regularly ate evening meals of sardine and tomato sandwiches.

Trying to get appointments for work was often frustrating as one had to use jetons to telephone in those days. Invariably one was kept waiting by a casual receptionist, (maybe varnishing her nails) so precious jeton time was too often used up fruitlessly.

At one time during this Parisian crash-course (that I would have recommended for all young people) I was quite ill. I had caught a severe throat infection. Eating became extremely painful. Tomatoes especially cause excruciating pain. I had a high fever but was lucid enough to know that I had to do something about it without delay. To this day I don’t know where I went, how I managed to find a doctor, or who he was, but miraculously, this was what occurred. I must have knocked on his door. As soon as he saw me he ushered me into his house. But I remember nothing. Blank. All I remember is that he cured me and expected nothing in return. NaturalIy I shall never forget that. A God sent saviour. Bless him, whoever he was.

Driving in Paris, round the Arc de Triomphe, for example, was a joy in August when most of the Parisians would have migrated south. One feels one has the whole city to oneself. And Paris was beautiful, very special then.

Work wise in Paris, as no doubt in all European cities, there were good people and less good people. The latter took advantage, and the former helped. It was thanks to those who understood and helped, that I was able to take my next step in life. But that’s another, very long, illusive, but certainly more creative chapter.

Text © Mirino. Top Photo with thanks to Coralie, line drawing/letter, with thanks to 'Nathalie'. June, 2021

‘Metical’ change

‘Metical’ is Mozambican money. Its origin, to quote, is Portuguese, based on Arabic miṯqāl, from ṯaqala ‘to weigh’. It has absolutely nothing to do with the following, apart from being an anagram of ‘climate’... 

Climate change. A fascinating subject. kaleidoscopic. Each day is different, unique, and this has been the case since the birth of planet Earth 4.543 billion years ago, give or take a year or two, a month, a week, a minute, a second. Even the last measure is important because if, for example, in a certain location one anticipates a spectacular sunrise or sunset, and wishes to capture it with photography, seconds are of momentous importance. It would be inopportune to then decide to change a lens or filter. 

Today we are blest with sophisticated means to forecast the weather. Observer satellites that film the movements and the build up of cloud formations, means of anticipating and calculating atmospheric pressure, humidity rates, levels of pollution, wind force, and wind direction changes. Marvellous computer technology. Yet, despite all that, the meteorologists often get their forecasts quite wrong. For an example, in the location where I am now, as I write this, only two days ago the weather was forecast to be 100% rain today. Nevertheless, this morning we were blest with clear blue sky. At 13h this was still the case. The forecast was naturally changed to accord. The change forecast that it would rain here 40% at 15h. Later this was changed yet again to 40% rain at 19h. Now it has been changed to 30% rain at 21h this evening, and so it goes on. Climate change... Doesn’t this mean that universal laws are often unpredictable, like life itself? Certainly, and it’s just as well. 

The climatic history of the Earth is incredible. There was a geologic period  known as the Neoproterozoic (600 to 800 million years ago) when the Earth’s weather was exceedingly hot, which comparatively makes today’s ‘global warming’ theory, or scam, absurd. And naturally there were several exceedingly cold ice ages. Yet life obviously survived, certainly before mankind (and womankind) graced the Earth, beginning a mere 200,000 years ago. We have come a long way since then, despite gruesome periods of abstruse, social regression. 

The experts may get their forecasts wrong, but we must never try to contradict the idea that mankind, womankind, (and whatever of today’s dreamed up variant humankind) is responsible for ‘climate change’. Seemingly we are being fed this pretentious assertion which defies proof as well as natural logic, in order to try to render us guilt ridden and fearful. But the radical climatic changes of planet Earth that occurred many millions of years before human-beings mysteriously arrived or somehow evolved, make the experts’ ‘man-made climate change’ assertions appear pretentious and ridiculous. 

The experts have affirmed that the unusually cold spring weather in Europe, even in the south, is also due to global warming... They say that as the Arctic Circle is a few degrees warmer than it should be, it’s sending its cold air south. Why would it do that? Mind you, for some strange reason this year, this may well be true, but why did it not do the same thing in the spring of 2020 and the year before, etc? A year relative to universal time is a moment, a wink of an eye. 

Why use the term ‘global warming’ when it’s evident that such a phenomenon is certainly not global? Over thirty years ago I remember when it snowed in June in Southern Europe, but no one came up with incoherent theories. In my youth I remember fog (smog) in the outskirts of London so thick that one couldn’t see more than a metre in front of oneself. If prior to the descent of smog one had been driving one’s car, someone had to walk in front of the car waving a scarf or handkerchief to enable the driver to slowly crawl home, providing the motorist’s home was reasonably near by. Otherwise the car had to be abandoned. Whilst walking outside in such conditions one wore a handkerchief over one’s nose and mouth (although this was not a governmental law). Once home the part of the white handkerchief that theoretically ‘protected’ one’s lungs, was black from the smog. Yet no one panicked. It was not unusual at that epoch in cold, humid winters when coal was used to heat houses, in low atmospheric pressure, before so called ‘smokeless coal’ had been developed. 

The same scare tactics referred to above regarding ‘man-made climate change’ have certainly been used for the so called pandemic, seemingly for similar, lucrative, mercenary motives. Were fortunes made from the bubonic plague which lasted from 1346 to 1353 and which caused the death of possibly up to 200 million people in the world? If so it was nothing compared to the fortunes made from Covid-19 which is alleged to have caused the death of 3 million people in the world. The death of possibly up to 200,000,000 people in the fourteenth century was naturally far more significant than that of 3,000,000 people in relation to the world’s population count then and now. The number of alleged victims relative to the world’s population today should categorically cancel out Covid-19 as a pandemic. Yet we have been persuaded by the authorities and the complicit, constant televised reports, to dread the virus. One suspects that this is for reasons that have far less to do with how dreadful the virus really is. These ‘lucrative, mercenary motives’ must be very personal if certain authorities are even willing to ruin their national economies in the process of ‘protecting’ the population. 

To return to climate change. To pretend that man is responsible for whatever comparatively insignificant climate change that’s in the throes of taking place, is also suspicious, to say the least. And to rake off billions pretexting to counter whatever claimed ‘man made climate change’, is plain fraud if nothing effective is done to reduce pollution. The latter is the only possible factor that would have some negative influence. Paying to pollute is obviously not the solution. Dismissing nuclear energy and all progress in this field without bothering to invest in order to solve the problems, is incoherent. All more so when one is prepared to ruin the countrysides with ugly, expensive to maintain, comparatively inefficient, limited energy producing wind turbines. 

The seas and oceans cover 70% of planet Earth. Their energy producing potential is obviously enormous, but to my knowledge there is only one small, ingenious country in the world that has succeeded (over eleven years ago) in very effectively and ecologically tapping sea energy: Israel.  

 

Referring once more to this subject already alluded to here and here, is not necessarily repetition due to advanced age or obsession. If anything 'advanced age' gives one the advantage of having seen and experienced climate change phenomena long before, and in forms that were then accepted as fairly commonplace, but in fact they were far more harmful than what's considered harmful today. 

🌈 

Text © Mirino (images NASA with thanks) May, 2021

Polaritics

I used to believe that polarity, one of the essential forces that rules the universe, creates gravity, and makes the world go round, was intrinsic to nature, including human nature. That polarity also governed civilisation. That the balance between the East and West, for example, depended on social, economical, and political polarity. For the simple minded, like me, there may be a grain of truth in this. Since the end of the Soviet-Afghan war, however, when Soviet communism finally died in 1989, and the Berlin Wall was pulled down later that same year, this claimed balance has changed somewhat. It was natural that distrust between the East and West remained, at least for a reasonable period of time, but when the ‘big, bad Russian bear’ allows public and trade freedom, when it reaches out to the West only to be scornfully shunned, surely something must be wrong. 

This incoherency is emphasised by the fact that Russia has resuscitated its cultural identity and its Orthodox Christianity, Yet at the same time the western establishment monopolised by ideologists who ironically seem engrossed in espousing covert Marxism, feel the need to continue to treat Russia as the evil enemy, inventing all sorts of idiocies to reinforce this hostile attitude. It was, for example, particularly revealing that during the endless Syrian war, and not long even after the Ukrainian coup, a coup certainly encouraged by Obama with the complicity of the expansionist EU executive, Vladimir Putin reached out to the USA with the offer of cooperation to rid the world of ISIS. Naturally Obama refused the offer. Perhaps he was also still in the throes of covertly using ISIS, with the complicity of Erdogan, in order to try to bring down Assad. 

Since then we have had the opportunity to hear Assad express his point of view. After years of being led to believe he was an ogre capable of tearing young children apart and eating them, we were surprised to hear how reasonable and intelligent he is. We also note that today Russia is less inclined to manifest a close alliance with Iran. This so much so that Putin recognises Israel’s right to secure its borders, even to the extent of letting Israel destroy any Iranian military presence near its border with southern Syria. This, whereas Obama was virtually hostile towards Israel, and irresponsibly over generous and tolerant towards Iran. 

Surely Biden, assuming he will become US President, despite the fraudulent methods overtly used to achieve this function, will be manipulated to implement more or less the same foreign policy as Obama. And therefore naturally Biden will also be persuaded to open the flood gates to illegal immigration, even though the negative consequences of immigration in Europe should obviously discourage this ill-inspired idea. It should have been enough for Americans to realise the danger towards the end of Obama’s second mandate. So confident was the ex President that H. Clinton would be elected, that he began to spell it all out, in a sinister, enigmatic way. 

Such is the scenario. Whilst the West treats Russia as the dangerous foe, using unlikely incidents leading to incoherent accusations to try to justify the argument, it allows the real wolves into the sheep pens. Paradoxically the western establishment is still not discouraged from believing that ‘failed multiculturalism’ will pave the way to global Utopia. 

So where does polarity now figure in this strange tragicomedy turn of events? Does it mean that as Russia has had the courage to dismiss communism as a failed ideology, and resuscitate its true, rich, cultural heritage and identity, the West is going the opposite way by undermining its true, rich, cultural heritage and identity, its root religion and inherent values by obsessively pushing an agenda that falsely advocates equality and cultural (or rather cultureless) conformity, using virtually the same ideology that eventually, ineluctably proved a disastrous failure for Russia? 

 It certainly seems so, and would be an incredible admission of western stupidity. But then isn’t democracy itself eventually destined to become its own enemy? We saw this in Egypt. It could happen in Europe and the USA as well, if the status quo is allowed to continue indefinitely. 

It’s a sign of the times when one looks towards the East with hope, during an epoch when one feels that the very foundations of one’s own identity are no longer truly represented, supported and defended. And when fear is used to control and oppress the people during a concocted in China pandemic, that has had no negative impact whatsoever regarding trade relations with Beijing and ‘the People’s Republic’. 

The Sovereign Supreme Pontiff is also used to illustrate how ideology (and polarity, if not also bipolarity) can even influence the Vatican. ‘Fraternity’ and ‘Equality’ (including LGBTQIAWXYZ) at the expense of Liberty, Christianity and true faith.

🎴 

Text and image © Mirino. November, 2020

 

Bonne entente

 

I believe in miracles. Life itself is a miracle, and those who disagree, can only be regressive, loveless fools. Love is also a miraculous phenomena. It has amazing curing powers, and can even determine premonitions. I know this because I have personally experienced them. 

When I was about nineteen I had an important operation in my right ear. Due to an inherent physical ailment called Otospongiosis that my mother also suffered from through her life, it was necessary for me to undergo an operation called Stapedectomy. It consists of removing the stapes of the middle ear and replacing them with a very simple prosthesis. In the sixties this operation was relatively new, and I was fortunate enough to be operated on by a certain Dr. Wright (In Middlesex Hospital, London) who was later knighted for his excellent surgical achievements in this field. However, at that time there was less certainty that a similar operation should be carried out on both ears within a limited period of time. 

In any case, I had other ideas and wished to travel and work on the continent, which I did. In the process I neglected the eventual requirement regarding my left ear, and my hearing on that side deteriorated. 

Out of ignorance and blind faith I entrusted this care, probably too late in any case, and following the advice of my ex father-in-law (GP) to an aesthetic surgeon in France, who also claimed to be able to perform the operation of Stapedectomy (on the side). He failed and I suffer greatly from tinnitus from my left ear also as a result. Apparently, according to an otolaryngologist, there are about twelve such failed cases like mine in Nice caused by this individual. Consequently he no longer has the right to practice, and it’s just as well. 

Since then I have naturally adapted to my particular condition, and assume the responsibility as well as the consequences without any regrets. Indeed, apart from tinnitus, I consider that an important degree of deafness can be advantageous. My Scottish mother used to say that if you can’t hear what a person is saying to you, it’s generally never really important. This I too have found to be quite true. In other words if someone really wants to communicate, they will find the means and make the necessary effort to do so. 

Hearing aids are constantly improving, and I continue to get by better than I ever imagined, thanks essentially to the operation of Dr. Wright, performed so well, many years ago. Yet, after thirty years of marriage, and of the necessary constant wearing of various hearing aids, I separated from my former wife and was later destined to meet another woman. 

The person I was destined to meet accepts me and loves me as I am. This was in fact a brand new experience for me. I in turn accept her and love her as she is. When we first met, almost twenty years ago now, another miracle took place. For two years following our meeting I no longer needed to wear a hearing aid in my right ear. How is it possible that after so many years of being obliged to rely on a hearing aid, I was suddenly free of this obligation? That this incredible experience lasted two years is indeed a miracle, and is proof of the powers of love and well being (amor vincit omnia). That it didn’t last longer than two years in no way diminishes its importance and its miraculousness. 

I am fortunate enough to have therefore benefitted from miracles. They apply to me in other aspects as well, but it would take far too long to also refer to such history here. 

Recently I had an appointment with another ear specialist who believes that he might be able to perform a miracle regarding my insensitive left ear. I had promised to visit him, but deep down, despite a degree of curiosity, I had no illusions. What put me off was what could to some extent be interpreted as a threat. He said that there was no doubt, it was absolutely factual, that my right ear would get worse. He obviously has no personal knowledge of me or my life’s trajectory, and has no real interest. Why should he have? Naturally it will get worse, and eventually I won’t hear anything at all because I will be ‘elsewhere’. But even ‘elsewhere’ wherever that might be, I sometimes wonder if the deafening sounds that roar in my head will go on and on relentlessly, even after life... 

Nevertheless, Picasso was right. ‘It takes time to be young’. Perhaps this is even truer for those like me, far up in the clouds, who have no conception of time. Is it old age that makes me believe that I’m getting younger, or at least that I’m not getting any older? Isn’t this yet another miracle? I think it is. 

Alice too, is immortal. When one has nothing left to prove, apart from, to oneself, then surely one has time to be young. 

Text © Mirino. (Photo by Bruno). October, 2020

Corona

‘L’effondrement d’un monde’, the collapse of a world, certainly the Western European world, conditioned by incoherent ideology, inane politics, absurd economics, and make-believe unity, all of which nature’s insidious creation has also shown to be ridiculously false, and should also render null and void.

The same applies to the East, to China’s constant lying, vainly trying to project an image of the world’s most perfect, paradoxical system- capitalist communism. The culmination of made in China is the Coronavirus itself. It symbolises the rotten core of a nation that has prospered too long on slavery, exploitation and monopoly.

When danger is imminent, instinctively one’s first concern is for the family, for loved ones. The family never loses its essential importance, despite the establishment’s constant efforts in demeaning its value. The same applies to nations, which are extensions of the family, and reflect cultural identity forged by history.

How irrational to claim that nations and nationalism, which is fatherland and patriotism, are obsolete. How senseless for a head of State to declare to an interlocutor- ‘your problem is that you believe a father is necessarily male'...

This terrible virus reveals how lost humanity has become. It highlights humanity’s weakness, Europe’s lamentable lack of solidarity. The uselessness of the EU and its overpaid mediocrity. It throws even more light on how Turkey under Erdogan deludes itself in believing in a tyrant who can stoop so low as to deprive Italy from the most basic necessities at a terribly crucial time of need. It reveals more than ever the total irresponsibility of obsessively implementing the ideology of mass immigration.

This cruel, indiscriminate, and appropriately- made in China- virus, has shocked the world, and in doing so has inevitably brought home realities and values that matter most. It has reminded us of who we are, and of what life and death really mean.

⛎

Text and image © Mirino. March, 2020 

Dark, idle thoughts

based on good faith

It springs to mind that Greta and her family should take extra care not to contract the dreaded virus. It would run against the grain of their man-made, climate change, doomsday theory.
God, or Nature, who and which in many ways amount to the same Almighty Power, always has the last word, and seems to have a vast array of surprises in store for man, woman, and the ‘progressive’, ambiguous kind. Such power is never short of imaginative innovations that are not necessary helpful in paving the way for the future of humanity.
Because of this, one is inclined to believe that there must be a reason for these unanticipated events. There is, after all, a reason for everything.

Greed for wealth and power has beguiled and corrupted too many who claim to represent us, to the detriment of more positive, essential values. The world has profited from contemporary, oriental slavery. It relies on China for virtually everything. Has the Chinese bubble reached the stage where it could finally burst?

The controversial multibillionaire has invested billions of dollars in trying to initiate a new, conform, global, social order. His imagined, neo-Marxist lubie of ‘Utopia’, where culture would no longer have any reason of being, as it implies individuality and identity. Nations and borders would no longer exist, so cultural identity, sovereignty, patriotism and patrimony would also, in theory, have no more reason of being. The only exception to the rule would be Islam, which is more a bellicose, expansionist, disciplined, but obsolete ideology than a religion. Perhaps the ‘elite’ delude themselves in believing that it would be easier to globally govern a disciplined, Islamic society, than to govern a more democratic, culturally diverse society.

Imagine then for a moment that the open border idiocy backfires mainly because the imposed, uncontrolled, illegal immigration inanity, instead of being theoretically destined to act as the social catalyser, becomes the most effective means of making sure that the Coronavirus is spread equally throughout the world, creating disastrous, global disorder.

The desired social conformity would thus be limited to humanity being uniformly infected with a virus that in too many cases has already proved itself to be indiscriminately lethal.
Some might even think that this could be part of an insidious plot to reduce populations, but that would be totally incoherent.
Should the over-rich, cynic, the megalomaniac misanthrope, who could have done so much good for the world, be deprived of his final bonus years because of contracting this dire infection, God forbid, he wouldn’t even have time to reflect on the utter folly of his lifetime obsession.

They who take themselves for Gods often learn the hard way that only divinity (if not art) is immortal throughout recorded history of civilisation. Self-proclaimed gods who abuse financial, or theocratical power, only leave a wake of misery behind them. They are as ephemeral as autumn leaves, but autumn leaves are far more glorious and memorable.

Text and images © Mirino. March, 2020