D Is For Day, Drizzle, Democracy, and Dostoyevsky

Our alphabet, with its 26 glowing symbols, is, I fear, too short. Too many letters are tasked with representing too many sounds. It really isn't a case of WYSIWYG. Our vowels stretch according to their whereabouts in a word. Our consonants multi-task. We could (pron: kood. Not kowld. Or Sowld.) look at altering the spelling (Webster was partially successful at this, and we English English writers are still sneering at American English spelling 200 years later) or simply rejoice in the fact that English eccentricity, the only truly appealing thing to come out of that odd little island, is typified by the language, the spelling, and our terribly truncated alphabet. 

There is, really, nothing special about the Day. It's reasonably cool, given that we're in the last weeks of Autumn. Rain is falling, and there is no sound of birdsong.

It is, however, the first day of my 70th year. I am eagerly anticipating my birthday gifts, which does show that I am still addicted, in some small way, to Stuff. But I know that I will be receiving a real treasure from Jenny: a record album by Jon Batiste, the astonishingly talented man who recently won an Oscar for his work on the movie "Soul". 

And Phoenix has sent me a hundred Hershey's kisses.

So, Despite the Dismality and Drizzliness of the Day, there are some rays of sunshine.

Last night we were watching a You Tube programme by Monty Don, the English garden chap.

 I hesitate to call him a Gardening Guru, as the media insists that anyone with a thimble-full of knowledge about anything is a Guru on the subject, thereby debasing the word.  When I say "watching", I mean that I was looking at some Dostoyevsky quotes while enjoying the Montyness of Don. Crikey, Dostoyevsky was a miserable bugger. I had decided to add a quote from a writer  whose initials was that day's letter, but I don't know if I want to include old Dosty. No sane person has ever read War and Peace from cover to cover, and as for Doctor Zhivago - well, someone else had to write that because he couldn't be bothered. 

Nevertheless: a Dostoyevsky bon mot or two is below.

Today's Drizzle is truly Democratic: it is a soft rain that falleth on rich and poor alike. If they're outdoors, that is. But it does strike me that for a homeless person (there, but for the grace of Offler, etc) the Drizzle is just a lot less comfortable, and a lot colder. Fortunately, we have a system now established that is establishing bases for the homeless so they have a warm and dry place to shelter.

I guess the USA's Southern folk, friendliest in the world, would say that our system is "Socialist", or even "Commernism", and that we should imprison the poor, or - better yet - arm them so they'll shoot each other.

I note that even while Jo Biden is pleading for Israel and Palestine to stop killing each other, he isn't taking the toys of warfare away from Israel. The USA will probably send more guns to them, because nothing disincentivises (!) shooting quite like supplying more bullets. 

DOSTOYEVSKY SAID:

Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.

And

But how could you live, and have no story to tell?

And

The world says: "You have needs - satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide; for the poor, envy and murder,

I didn't say he was dumb. Just lacking in optimism. A bit.