I revisited one of my favourite films last week. Every time I see it I love it more. Masterfully directed by Tran Anh Hung, it follows the life of a Vietnamese servant girl in 1950s Saigon.
The Scent of Green Papaya

I revisited one of my favourite films last week. Every time I see it I love it more. Masterfully directed by Tran Anh Hung, it follows the life of a Vietnamese servant girl in 1950s Saigon.
Last week I was fortunate to join Temple-Song-Hearts on their tour of France. Temple-Song-Hearts is an all-female ensemble solely performing the music of spiritual master Sri Chinmoy. We gave concerts in Montpellier, Paris and Nancy, and enjoyed a very warm reception at each venue.
Ashrita Furman is one of Sri Chinmoy’s students, and also (not-so-coincidentally) happens to hold the Guinness World Record for holding the most Guinness World Records. This 48,000-candle cake was his 86th record, a symbol of gratitude to Sri Chinmoy on what would have been his 77th birthday.
They say that behind every great man there has to be a great woman, but behind a great woman? They do not mention. Perhaps we should look down toward the hearth.
I have always steered clear of the meme format for blog posts, as I considered it self-indulgent, but if a meme catches on, it ends up being more about other people than oneself, so here goes. John Gillespie over at SensitivityToThings.com has started something with his finely crafted Six Childhood Facts post, and you can […]
My grasp of the Thai language extended barely beyond the basic pleasantries and the buying of food. This was mainly due to the importance of inflections and polite appendages, which English has no care for.
Boris Purushottama Grebenshikov is a living paradigm in the world of music and poetry, justly lauded in his Russian homeland and throughout the world. Tapping the ‘infinite silence’ within as a source of his prolific creativity, his songs are his direct interpretation of the universal musical consciousness.
Dickinson referred to herself as a pagan. Some biographers would go so far as to label her a druid for her worship of nature. But was this apparently stubborn heathen life really built on atheism?
The heart in this film is undeniable, and it’s definitely not just for children. As the film’s motto goes: “You have to believe it to see it.”
Sri Chinmoy is a spiritual teacher, who dedicated his life to serving humanity through his prayers and meditations, as well as his musical, artistic, sporting and literary works.
I’d put off visiting Scotland for over a year, even though York is inexcusably close, and even though a very kind open invitation stood since I moved north from Wales. That’s the trouble with open invitations, and things that are close: they hover just below the top of the list.
Is there such a thing as a junkophobe? That’s me. I buy the same thing over and over because I keep throwing useful stuff away; I’m ruthless to the point of impracticality. I can’t tolerate anything old, broken, unlovely, unclean, or out of place. Then what is this old Cheese Doodles packet doing here?