first summer's day of an old fashioned animal

It is my first summer's day as a creature I have never been before and can scarcely believe I have become. "Old-fashioned, that's what you are" say all the key indicators of contemporary cool. "Stuck somewhere in the Middle-Ages, I suspect," echo those above suspicion, those whose being above suspicion is guaranteed by the speed at which they pirouette and continue pirouetting. Pirouette and silhouette, spinning shadows in the summer sun, twins of the French Revolution. All a play of light and dark, whose only substance is the suggestion of beauty. "But old fashioned, yes, he must be," prodding my disheveled creature form with indifference, which is about as close to kindness as he can manage. "Must be, he even quotes Chesterton." So now I am obliged to quote Chesterton, because it's expected of me; and I don't mind being old-fashioned, if that's what I am.

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Whatever I am I am happy to be it. I don't want to make trouble. Though, just between you and I, I don't mind making trouble sometimes, especially when my old fashioned values are called into question. They can call me what they like. They can mock me all they want. But don't let them start telling me what is true and what is not. By the blazes, then they'll see me fire; they'll see my poorly hidden arrogance too. Then I'll call their dangerous superficial nonsense for all it is... But Chesterton. Yes. It's my duty. Chesterton writes: "Journalism is a false picture of the world, thrown upon a lighted screen in a darkened room so that the real world is not seen and the unreal world is seen...We live under secret government, conducted by a secret process called Publicity." I like Chesterton. He makes you think. I can only read a little bit at a time, because it takes so long to understand. It makes me feel stupid that I am so slow to understand things. But I tell you what, when finally the light does break through, though it be but a single ray in the interior gloom of my world of dust and ash, by God it is magnificent. It goes deep and does me a power of good. It's like oxygen to the soul.

http://mrg.bz/FiqDFA

http://mrg.bz/FiqDFA

God bless you Mr Chesterton for being such a big man with a mind like a lighthouse. Reading is good. That I think so is surely proof enough that I am old fashioned. And now I am afraid, and ashamed at what I have become on this the first of summer's days; a manufacturer of the false, a self-conscious publicist. A blogger. What a disgusting word, a word that redoles of an inchoate underworld of primeval urges and fallen aspirations. And the day is struggling to be bright, and yes a breeze has arisen and blue of sky has with certain courage shrugged off the rumour of cloud. Summer, a good old fashioned Aussie summer has arrived, freckled and plain speaking, only to find that...that...despite being o-f'd I'm joining the ranks of the blog. Flog me for treason. I deserve it. But a reader still am I. And will be. I'll do my page of Chesterton a day, or some other equally weighty author. Theredpenshop blog, let it be known, however long it may persist, will do so to defend the rights of the old fashioned, the literate, the grammatical, the oxygen breathing sons and daughters of an underworld seeking the light.