Reported in the 25 September 2021 issue of The Week, page 31
The charms of Brighton
To The Sunday Times
Your restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin describes Brighton as “a heady combination of bracing, breezy and ever so slightly sleazy”. Nice, but no description nails It quite as well as this, from the late Keith Waterhouse: “a town that always looks as if it is helping the police with their inquiries”.
Adrian Brodkin, London
It’s like we all children of each other. If we do not set boundaries, then the world will fall apart.
But it didn’t matter where I might be in the world, I would always be happy to find a dog. No language skills are required and nothing is lost in translation – there is no cultural boundary to overcome. Wherever we may be, in whatever country, dogs will simply treat you as dogs always do – show them a bit of kindness and love and they will gladly return those sentiments. There’s probably a lesson for all of us there.
The following is printed on little sheets covered in transparent plastic that are for sale in the cathedral where Jane Austen is buried
Incline us O God to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.
The origin of the word spaniel is described by the Oxford English Dictionary as coming from the Old French word espaigneul which meant Spanish (dog). This in turn originated from the Latin Hispaniolus which simply means Spanish.
From Wikipedia
There are different kinds of attitudes in communities. In one, the members see the others as a springboard to success but do not care about whether the others are successful.
In others, there is an attitude of mutual care, where success mean success for everyone and where the individuals don’t even consider success outside of a common success.
For that to happen, everyone has to be responsible for everyone else such that each member knows that all of the others ‘have their back’ so to speak.