Peter's Books, Photography and Miscellaneous Musings
Daphne Cooper is a long-time friend, dating back to our days at the University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club. She is also an accomplished fellow writer. Seven or eight years ago she challenged me to a private writing contest. It’s been going on ever since.
This is how the challenge works:
Continue reading “The Great Writing Challenge: Daphne vs. Peter”
Today I want to plug someone else’s book – a marvelous little book that’s about 225 years old. I stumbled on it by chance, I don’t even know how anymore. It’s my favourite read of 2024 so far, and I’m overwhelmed by the story and the charm of it all.
Continue reading “The Strangest Tale: Trim and the Map of Australia”
“Then he simply ceased pedalling. The bicycle’s momentum carried it forward a while but—as bicycles will—the machine began to waver from side to side ever more precariously.“
I was talking to my fellow author, Daphne C., and the conversation spiralled around to our student days together. That eventually led me to trot out two stories that a philosophy student—let’s call her “Helen”—told me at the time.
Helen’s first story concerned a philosophers’ party.
Right off the bat, this had my attention as an oddball story, because philosophers, giant turtles and three-toed sloths are one of type IMO – not party animals.
Nevertheless, Helen insisted there had been a philosophers’ party which she was part of. At the end of the evening, her prof left the party on his bicycle. It was a balmy Cape summer evening, so the remaining partygoers clustered on the porch to wave the prof goodbye and watch him pedal away.
Continue reading “The Philosopher’s Bicycle”I ran a series of social media posts about Grisou the Cat. In each post I inserted him into some well known work of art – usually a painting – to show the artist how it should be done right. Then I challenged viewers for the best caption, to win international bragging rights. While there were great captions, the judges ignored MY captions. Quelle frustration! So by popular demand from the adoring millions (rounded up to the nearest millions) this post is dedicated to MY captions. At last! Take that, stupid judges!
God: More bloodied angel wing feathers in the garden? This has to stop.
[Hi-res version and more artist info at https://www.photo.net/photo/18654743]
Continue reading “Improving Great Art. One Cat at a Time.”