" A Stunner" a poem, a soft shelled egg and a book recommendation

A Time for Reflection

Cork street photography during Covid by John Tangney

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Faces in The Crowd

Blog followers are still puzzling over this old photo. Billy McSweeney sheds some light on people he recognised and he tells us a bit about them.

 I believe the man in the glasses on the right, beside Michael Kennelly, 
is my uncle T.J. (Timmy) Gleeson of William Street; 'Jumbos' Take-away 
today, Gleeson's Bar at that time.  At the time of the photograph he was 
a pharmacist in Kimmage in Dublin and would have been on a break in 
Listowel.

Owning a Chemist shop business at that time meant that he and his wife, 
Eileen, could not both be away on a break at the same time. This also 
explains why he would not be wearing his Dress Suit. Incidentally, 
Eileen (nee Murphy) his wife, was a cousin of the famous singer Delia 
Murphy and her's was the first photograph used on the Irish Hospital's 
Sweepstake Tickets. She was a 'stunner' in every way, a beautiful and 
kindly lady.

Billy McSweeney

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A Bogán

If you have ever kept hens you will probably have seen this. It is a soft shelled or shell less egg. In Irish it's a bogán as in a softie. I don't think we have any word for it in English.  It happens to young immature hens when their egg laying apparatus is not fully developed. Sometimes it happens to older hens was well when that same apparatus is in decline.

In my youth there was  a lady called a poultry instructress whose job it was to know all about such phenomena and to help out the hen owner. If I remember rightly, the recommendation for this was to put more grit and sand at the hen's disposal.

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A Poem to Set You Thinking

Misfit: A Poem by Tito Mukhopadhyay (2010)

 

There was the earth, turning and turning.

The stars receded, as if

Finding no wrong with anything.

 

Birds flew by all morning—

The sky lit

From the earth’s turning and turning.

 

My hands, as usual, were flapping.

The birds knew I was Autistic;

They found no wrong with anything.

 

Men and women stared at my nodding;

They labeled me a Misfit

(A Misfit turning and turning).

 

And then I was the wind, blowing.

Did anyone see my trick?

I found no wrong with anything.

 

Somewhere a wish was rising,

Perhaps from between my laughing lips.

Why stop turning and turning

When right can be found with everything?

Poem retrieved from Disability Studies Quarterly

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A Gripping Read

If you like crime fiction, you'll love this...and it's set in Cork