An Organ Grinder

I believe every human creature is an island.

LS Lowry’s An Organ Grinder, Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester, M2

Had I not been lonely, none of my work would have happened.

LS Lowry

Where Dips the Rocky Highland

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake

Sugarloaf Mountain, County Wicklow, Ireland

The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.

Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand.
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Sugarloaf Mountain, County Wicklow, Ireland

From William Butler Yeats’ The Stolen Child (1889)

Eel Pie Island

You see, the thing is, Brian, that God is a hateful god.

Eel Pie Island, Twickenham, TW1

Must be, because if God is good, then why is there evil in the world?

Eel Pie Island, Twickenham, TW1

Why is there pain and hate and greed and war? Doesn’t make sense.

Eel Pie Island, Twickenham, TW1

But if God is a nasty bastard, then you can say, “Why is there good in the world?

Eel Pie Island, Twickenham, TW1

Why is there love and hope and joy?”

Eel Pie Island, Twickenham, TW1

From Mike Leigh’s screenplay for Naked (1995)