so how can you tell me you're lonely?

Hmm. Take Karl's point. I love the song, and the subject is very touching, but I feel slightly estranged by the line "How can you tell me you're lonely?" As if someone who feels really beaten down has come up to him and he's saying, "Worse things happen at sea! Look at these poor souls." It seems to be less trying to prompt positive action, more saying that none of us have the right to feel bad because there's always someone worse off. Can't align myself with that - like Karl says, you've got to go in with a positive attitude if you're going to change anything.

Couldn't agree more. One of the worst lines is 'I know how you feel.'

At least it wasn't a Semen mission....

yukky yukky

...or semen emission...even more yukk

Always loved that, Jude - one of my all-time favourites. Have you seen the old man in the closed down market Kicking up the paper with his worn out shoes In his eyes you see no pride And held loosely by his side, yesterday's paper telling yesterday's news How can you tell me you're lonely And say, for you, that the sun don't shine Let me take you by the hand And lead you through the streets of London I'll show you something to make you change your mind Have you seen the old gal who walks the streets of London Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags She's no time for talkin, she just keeps right on walkin' Carryin her home in two carrier bags How Can you tell me.... In the all night cafe at a quarter past eleven Same old man sitting there on his own Looking at the world over the rim of his teacup Each tea lasts an hour and he goes home alone How can you tell me.... Have you seen the old man outside the seaman's mission Memory fading like the ribbons that he wears In our winter city, the rain cries a little pity For one more forgotten hero in a world that doesn't care How can you tell me you're lonely And say, for you, that the sun don't shine Let me take you by the hand And lead you through the streets of London I'll show you something to make you change your mind I'll show you something to make you change your mind

So how can you tell me you're lonley and say for you that the sun don't shine Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London I'll show you something that'll make you change your mind I used to strum that old number on guitar 'cos you only need about 4 chords. I know what you mean jude, it's touching. So are many of the Beatles numbers. Listening to a bit of the George Harrison thing tonight I'd forgotten that the names of Heath and Wilson appear in the song The Taxman. Made me go all goosepimply, childhood memories.

It's so sad and true...we (me included) slag off the homeless sometimes, but the Catholic Times recently interviewed a beggar in Westminster and it turned out his two kids had been killed in a car crash and since he didn't want to work or even talk to anyone...he just wanted to sit and be left alone. The lonliness left by the death of his kids just could not be filled

Crikey, talk about overlapping posts. God that's awful Jude. You know, I was coaching (voice coaching) a Barbershop Chorus (yes me alone with about 50 men every other week - and yes I was tempted - and yes it all went pear shaped), Anyway, these guys reckoned to have known each other for years, and they were all chummy. We went on an away weekend, during which one of the men told me his son had been killed in a bike accident. When I mentioned this to one of his 'chums' he had no idea. I was so moved by this guy's lack of self-indulgence and quiet dignity. His mate was utterly stupified by this news. Men!

I had a German Friend that lost his family because of alcoholism, he took to sleeping in the streets and living out of shop bins. In the coled weather he sleped in my living room. The man was a grate Physicist. He died out there on the street from a blow to the head. Such a waste!

I often wonder how I can live so happily in a world so stricken with grief

You can't feel grief unless you've been happy Jude

guess you are right... no hot without cold no companionship without lonliness the whole thing is just one big paradox

I like to think of it in terms of shadow and light (instead of good and evil) can't have one without the other

If you live unhappily, you cant do much for those hoe live with so much grief. To much emotional involvement and you become part of the problem. It's sad, but you do have to keep some emotional detachment if you want to help.

do you like Plato by any chance Vicky?

It's not a paradox, Jude. It's simply that without both extremes (in anything) neither can exist. It's only the bad days that make the good days good.

Shadow and light? Try Michael Tippett's 'Child of our Time' 'I will know my shadow and my light then shall I at last be whole' That's really a reference for classical music junkies, sorry.

No he was a racist, masogonistic, narcistic egotist who thought far too much about caves and ships for my comfort Especially when I have to quote him *yawn* Man's been dead for millenia can't we just forget what he had to say?

lol...I'll try. Never read any of his discourses but have been recommended to. I'll take your advice and not bother!

The caves/shadows thing is nice though, I'm on Plato now, just incase these posts overlap, as this party is getting bigger by the minute.

Possibly I'm studying the wrong course with that attitude but hey.. thats my take on it (though of course in the exams i shall repress my vision)

So you're revising right now then Vicky? *winks*

absolutely... in amongst checking out trailers for Return of the King I'll pass... no problem

Agree. Some people can be so patronising. Try telling someone who's just lost half their family in a house fire that you can just imagine how they must be feeling. Unless it's happened to you, you can't. They need to know that you understand that it's a shit situation, but you're willing to stay with them, offer whatever support you can and help pull them through. Saying, "Come on, chin up," isn't going to help at all.

So do you think you'd be a shadow interpreter who murdered the escapee to maintain your power Emma? I expect I'd be a poor sap who believed everything I was told.

Power, me? Bah! I once had power, in a library. I'd be sitting there knowing there was more to the world than shadows, but having no strength to do anything about my predicament.

You should have set fire to the books... that would have livened things up Cast a lot more interesting shadows too And you could have said "Shhhhhhhhhh" really loudly when everyone started screaming

Oh I don't know Karl. At one of the lowest points in my life I was once told I couldn't fall apart because I didn't have time. I was told to dry my face and get on with it. What can I say... I didn't appreciate it much at the time but thats exactly what I did and looking back she was right... I really DIDN'T have time. I think it does help to know that there are people worse off than you, or at the very least that other people go through the same things. It shows you what can be survived.

I wish I could set fire to the books, Vicky. All those tomes upon tomes over the centuries that have repressed the giddiness of existence and all our needs and desires. *sobs into teddy again* *sings* 'some enchanted evening'

"Haappy, happy, happy, happy talk, talk about things you like to do, if you could have a dream, you want to have a dream, have a happy, happy dream come true....." *plus actions*

Wishful thinking. *minus actions*

What ARE you women suffering from?

*yawns* Morning Missi.

The way you lot were behaving last night I should think mourning would be more apt.

*blows rasberry as general response*

I was, until I met you,.. but you are flat-faced and hard with an annoying buzz, and at night I have to switch you off instead of turning you on.

I was suffering from a compilation of soppy songs and rose wine

When it comes to survival, it's actually astonishing how adaptable homo sapiens are as a race. Dig a hole in the ground for us, push a few rocks over to protect us from the wind, tell us to get our water from a polluted old lake nearby, give us putrid, decaying meat to hoover down our throats, order that we hand over one third of all animals we kill, vegetables we grow or fish we catch to tyrants, liars and thieves with sincere, earnest expressions who pour their heart and soul out to us that this is the only way we can survive as a tribe, when we all know that it’s really the only way they can keep their mansions and dine out every night at various feasts and banquets at our expence, and we moan for a little bit, but soon settle down to our lowly way of life, accepting that we’re unworthy of anything even approaching looking to our laurels, let alone carrying them off. In short, we believe what they tell us, and become so grateful for any scraps of soggy lettuce or cold tapioca they spit out at us from their slush funds, that we actually show our hands for them annually, completely forgetting that we’re the ones who cultivated the lettuce and processed the tapioca grains in the first place! And yet when we meet a man or woman who intuitively feels it in their bones that we don’t have to live in a hole in the ground, and who tells us with foresight that, “YOU can be somebody special! You can raise your standards of living right now! You are a child of the cosmos and you don’t ever have to accept anything that is less than your personal goal or your personal vision of yourself. And YOU know what that is. For somewhere, deep in the recesses of your heart and soul, you have at sometime or another had a vision of all that you can be. You’ve seen yourself there. You’ve heard it and felt it. Hold onto that vision. It’s a message from the future. A whisper of the power you have inside you. You ARE somebody!” We say about that mystic, that Shaman, that pied-piper of the future, “Well it’s alright for him ….. he talks a load of crap ….. I’d like to see him talk like that if he lived in my hole in the ground ….. he just got a few lucky breaks ….. I haven’t got the time for all that nonsense …..” Which is our choice, I guess.

You shouldn't dismiss Plato - he is the founder of Western philosophy and you have to read his discourses with an understanding of the time and place in which they were written. For a clear and more up to date interpretation of much of the paradox of life you should read Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. I have given it to my children at the 17/18 mark and they all agree that it has stopped them from seeing things in black and white but just in shades of grey. It's a simple but strangely deep little tome.

Tony... I assume you meant me? Anyway I don't dismiss Plato's importance in the development of Philosophy, just his relevance. As practically every philosopher since that time I have my own theories ;)P

Those are very dangerous things to have, Vicky! And as for you Jude, putting up those lyrics has meant I've had that ruddy song going through my head all day. It's almost as bad as that Kylie song that does the same thing.

You think that's bad, Tony. Because of you I've been singing 'Old Man River' since yesterday and had my 4 year old choreographing it by rolling around the floor.

John (from his post yesterday at about 11 pm) is so right. To help, you first have to empower yourself. When I was studying hypnotherapy I'd see so many so-called therapists who would sit there listening to other people's tales of woe with tears in their eyes and saying, "Oh, you poor thing." Nobody's going to draw any strength from that. All you have then is two people in trouble instead of one. It's like someone diving into a dangerous river to save a drowning man instead of throwing them a rope. I believe that it's important to make clear that you understand, but you must approach the challenge with a kind of "Right, I'm here now, let's get this sorted out, shall we?" attitude. That way, with a bit of luck the person in trouble will be able to draw some strength from you. Offer strength instead of sympathy. Empathise, but don't sympothise.

And so ... straight back to Plato ;)

Not a very good example of it's genre, Jude, though it has been hugely popular and enabled Ralph McTell to have a lifelong career. He is actually a far better muscian than this song illustrates, although it WAS written in the early days of his career. A far better song to express the sentiments concerned would be Richard Thompson's 'How Will I Ever Be Simple Again' though this is set in a war-ravaged country.

I hate that song. Maudlin crap. It's easy childish message: chin up, there's always people worse off than you. When I lost an internal organ, it didn't help much people saying, "Well, there are those that have lost a leg." Nor would it help a leg amputee to be told, "Ah well, there are those that have lost both."

"Its" not "it's" before my fellow punctuation nazis get involved.

I'm not sure that it would help then to be told it Budd, but it might help if they realised it. Do you honestly never look at your life on crappy days and say "ah well it could be worse"?

Loneliness is all in the mind really isn't it. A housewife could feel more lonely than someone who has chosen to go and live as a recluse in the Hebredies. That's where the song falls down for me, not in the comparison of one life with the life of a homeless person, but by suggesting that loneliness is without rather than within.