Real Chai - Indian Tea

Ever since I had that first cup of chai in the guards van on the East African Railways and Harbors train going down to Mombasa, I have tried to combine spices to concoct a flavor that emulated it. I often visited the Jani family, when as a student I befriended Janarden and Rajendra (Babu and Raji) and had tea with them. Their chai was very good but never quite as I remembered. I have found that black tea with a good lacing of ginger, and a little cinnamon with three or four cloves, some nutmeg, cardamon and fennel with cumin and pepper are what it takes.





Chai

I have had chai in Oxford
In London and L.A.
And now I make for myself
I like it most that way.

“Kitu gani wewe na funya,1
Bwana kidogo?” he said to me,
When I slide back the guards van door
With curiosity.

“Na taka ungalia tu!”2
Was my hasty reply,
And jiggling his turbaned head
He asked “Na taka chai?”3

“Indio.” was my answer4
The this is what I saw,
He primed and lit the primus stove
Right on the guards van floor.

When the milk and water
Boiled in his tin,
He took a hand of fragrant tea
And deftly threw it in.

The bubbles died then rose again
Then this is what he did,
He whisked it off and stirred the pot
And poured it through a sieve.

We each had an enamel cup
He filled them from his tin,
Then taking up a little spoon,
He put the sugar in.

Then handing me a cup of chai
He said don’t gulp the lot,
“Poli poli, moto sana.”5
Be careful -very hot!.

The train went cuffing onwards
Down Mombasa way
And still I try to find the taste
Of chai like that today

I have had chai in Oxford
In London and L.A.
And now I make for myself
As good as in Bombay!

1. What are you doing Little Sir?
2. I want to have a look that's all!
3. Do you want some tea?
4. Yes was my answer
5. Slowly Slowly, very hot.

Some of the spices fennel, tea, cardamon, nutmeg, pepper and ginger. also cloves are added

From the book of poems "One For The Pot"

https://neilmcleodbooks.blogspot.com/2024/10/literary-works-catalogue.html

Washington's Teeth Were Not Of Wood

Misconceptions
For years I have been correcting people who say that George Washington’s teeth were made of wood. They were not. They were carved in bone by John Greenwood his Philadelphia dentist. Cleaning them during the campaign was difficult so he soaked them in port wine which stopped them from smelling and made them taste better. The port wine stained the natural grain of the elephant dentine making them look wooden. Michelangelo Buonarroti, the extraordinary Italian sculptor and painter, contrary to the widely pervasive myth, did not fresco the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel lying on his back. It is a mistranslation of Paolo Giovio, the Bishop of Nocera’s “Michaelis Angeli Vita” where he used “resupinus” which means “bent backwards”and not as it has been erroneously translated “on his back”. Then of course there is Newton’s Apple. The Universal Laws of Gravitation did not occur to Newton after an apple had fallen on his head as he was gazing up at the moon. But there may be a grain of truth in the notion that seeing an apple fall started him asking why. In “Pricipia”he discusses the effect of objects falling under gravity.



















Misconceptions so often prevail,
They rob us of honest detail,
They clutter the mind,
With notions that bind,
Of the cleverest female or male.

We really should root them all out,
Removing the reason to doubt,
That the tales we are told
By the young and the old
Are really worth bandying about.

To tell you the truth I despair
At the apple that fell through the air,
And struck Isaac’s head
Releasing the thread
Of the theory of gravity there.

When Washington’s dentures you view
It’s simply not right to construe
That they’re made out of wood
For wood is no good
That popular myth is not true.

Michelangelo, its widely known,
Lay on his back’neath the dome
Of the Sistine to paint
Well that’s something that ain’t,
So the next time you hear it please moan!

The Koran its secrets and the Moslem Culture Clash

Don Richardson’s little book “The Secrets of the Koran” is a quick read, but once finished it has left me mulling over the implications of what he revealed. He shows that the Koran is no great literary work, that it is in fact boring and repetitive and filled with errors. More frightening is the clear instruction that this text commands of its readers to kill and maim any who decry its content or fail to adopt it as their guide to spiritual life.

Since consuming its content I have watched horrified as the daily reports come in of what is happening in the Middle East and around the world in the name of Allah and his Messenger. Don shows how the selected verses from the Koran are used to infuse hatred into the minds of young men, boys, in the Madrassas, the Moslem schools. At the peak of their sexual drive they are taught that while they are abstaineous now they will be rewarded with excesses of pleasure if they fight and die for the cause. And what is the cause? To attack and repress all infidels, to eradicate them from the face of the earth. Hence, in countries where they have sway churches and temples are burned, bombs are exploded and innocent people are slaughtered.

The biggest secret is the fact that hardly any Moslem has ever read the Koran. In fact just ask any devout Moslem if he knows or has read the Koran. The answer is likely to be “No, but I know what is in it". Ask for an explanation of why the story of Exodus is told twenty seven times, each time differently, and all of them wrong. They do not mention the most important aspect of the miraculous history, the Passover. Even though Mohamed was a Jew, he was illiterate to his dying day, and his ravings were written down by scribes. The retelling of Jewish history wrong takes up much of the Koran, and in what is left one in fifty two verses is a war verse inciting believers to attack and harm and abuse Infidels. By infidels I mean thinking people who dare to question the concoction of confused lines, and have not blindly accepted them as their “bible”.

There have been no Luthers, no Calvins, no Knoxes to reform Mohammedan thinking. The major thrust of all Moslem societies has been to enforce Sharia Law and marginalize any who offer alternative beliefs. The aggressive application of this principle has cowed all development and evolution of thought, and results in a repressive primitive philosophy which keeps its adherents in the a mind set fit for the Middle Ages.

In looking for explanations for what we are witnessing, I have seen nothing which crystalized the problem better, than an interview with Wafa Sultan on Al-Jazeerah Television on Februaray,12, 2006. Here is a link to the stream, which I request you visit soon. I have loaded it up on youtube.com . This Syrian psychiatrist has managed to explain the problem in the Middle East conflict, and we all must re-think why we have to support our President and Israel. If we don’t our very culture is at stake.

The Times They Are A'Changing

This morning on my way to drop my boys off at school, I stopped to buy gas for my Honda Odyssey minivan. It was an Arco station, nothing unusual except that they charge too much like everywhere else, except perhaps Costco. I spied something that struck home to me as a significant mark of change in our way of life, and we have only just begun to realize the half of it.

What did I see? Well take a look! It is a disused gas price sign, tucked away behind the fence with the barrels of oil to be dumped, and never to be seen again. Why I ask is it there? Examine it carefully and see if you can spot why this change had to be made. If you want help look at the new sign which replaced it.
















Now after you finish gulping at this astronomical increase in the price of our daily essential, reflect on how the sign-makers never expected the price of gas to exceed a dollar something. There isn’t enough room for more that a one.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Bob Dylan 1963

The Bird House

The bird house, in the shape of a western-town dental office
Has hung vacant for the last two seasons,
Just as countless others,
Which were chosen and positioned with care and hope.
Its shutters and signs are now off kilter
For the rains and intense summer sun
Have bleached and warped the thin wood,
So now looking derelict and abandoned
This year for the first time
It is fit for occupation.















It was the gentle swaying motion on a still Spring-morning
That alerted me to this premier.
From the verandah the unending forays for food
Could be watched as each parent
Peered out, flew to the trellis, where the white rose bramble
Has started to clutter the canopy,
And then on and up to the fragrant pittesporum
Before rocketing away to the hillside trees.
Each return is accompanied by announcing chirps
Which are especially forced if the cat is in sight.
From full beaks the tireless mouths gobble,
Somewhere in the concealment,
And dross laden, each adult departs for another round.




















Never before had my offered home been chosen,
Never had I witnessed the laden beaks day after day
Feeding God’s unseen miracle.
Then, on a June afternoon my backstroke was interrupted
By relentless squawked chattering.
One of the adult birds was darting here and there
From the strings of the hanging geranium pots,
Chirping compulsively.















And from the pool-side I watched as four coerced fledglings
Tottered and fluttered, first to the Badminton net and
Then across to the orange tree before jerking upward
Away to the shaded branches on a maiden flight.
Just one hovered down to the ground
In disoriented surprise.
To its place with watchful eyes I ran,
Scouting the lawn for our tom.
Nervous and confused it too soared off to safety
And the twittering chorus in the dark broad leaves.

Saluting Their Memory

This week-end we all pause to take a breath and peer backwards in astonishment at how fast this year is evaporating. We are also particularly holding in our minds the memory of those who gave so much that we might enjoy the liberty and freedom this nation offers in such unparalleled portion.

On Saturday at 7.30 a.m. the Memorial Day Flag Placement occured at the Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood. Hundreds of POW MIA’s, Scouts, Brownies Girl Scouts and Young Marines decorated the graves of the fallen with our national flag. The whole affair would bring a tear to your eye, especially when a breeze ripples through and sets the sea of red white and blue fluttering as if by one spirit.

Let us thank God and them for the benefits we enjoy.

The picture is of my son Oliver saluting at the grave of one of the fallen.

A Cup of Rosey Lee

There is nothing else like it, in fact its my drug of choice - a cup of Rosey Lee. It’s my heart starter in the morning and a comfort at any other time of the day, a good refreshing stimulating cup of tea. I would not be so crass as to impugn all of my adopted countrymen by saying Americans can’t make one, but I have to tell you it is still hard to get a decent cuppa tea in this country, so here is an attempt to do something about it.

I was standing in a salon on the upper deck of the Queen Mary one day talking to Samuel Twining. He was here to launch his family’s latest product, Blackcurrant Tea. There were all sorts of people there to shake hands and take the chance to say they had met such a celebrity. There were members of the Consular Corps and the local British community, all making small talk, and one of the Consular emissaries was trying to rush Mr. Twining through the crowd so that he would be able to make whatever the next commitment was on their schedule. Then there was me, Dr. McLeod, who asked “at what temperature are the aromatic hydrocarbons best released from the steeping tea.” Well Mr. Twining and I had a good long chat much to the chagrin of the organizers of the event, and I want to share with you now what we discussed and how to make a proper cup of tea.

The aromatic hydrocarbons, the fragrant oils in the leaf of the tea plant, are only liberated at high temperature. Now, because we make tea with water the highest temperature possible in 212̊F, or 100̊C. That is not actually very hot in the scheme of things, but it does get the job done, and although it is on the low end it is enough to give tea that magic taste. Much below this temperature and the oils are only minimally released , and down at 85̊C the tannic acid is released much more liberally than the oils. So what’s the point? You can’t make a decent cuppa without using boiling water, not boiled - boiling. While we are on this point it should be fresh water at a new rolling boil, and from thence straight into the hot pot and onto the leaves. Fresh water is still oxygenated and the presence of oxygen enhances the aroma and taste of tea.

Cover the pot with a cosy to keep it really hot and let the tea steep for about three minutes, then pour into china cups or mugs through a strainer. If you like milk, and I do, then contrary to George Orwell’s 1946 opinion in the Evening Standard I think it should go into the cup first, and not without very good reason. I like my tea hot, it’s more fragrant that way. By Newton’s Law of Cooling a body loses heat at a rate that is directly proportional to its temperature above the ambient surroundings. By the Method of Mixtures Law we learn that the resulting temperature of two volumes of liquid which have different temperatures being mixed is a new mixture with a lower temperature from which heat is lost more slowly. What that means is that when you pour tea into a cup it loses heat very quickly at first, and if you then add milk the resultant mixture will have a lower temperature than doing it the other way, milk first. By the way never use cream or half and half, it ruins the tea.

There is another reason to put the milk in first, and that is because milk is a natural buffer. It neutralizes the acid in tea and stops the cup being etched and stained. Teeth too! The argument that you can better judge the color of the tea by putting the milk inafterwards is just specious. Heaven knows if you make tea enough times you instinctively know how much milk to put in. I think the lily-livered writer was spoiled by having others take care of it all for him.

There are a lot of other little refinements and niceties that I would love to add which would turn this spot into a tome. But click away if you are curious and you too will be a tea afficionado.

Tea Time
(try this to the mocking bird hill tune)
When the light in the morning
Falls gently on me,
I go to the kitchen
Where I make the tea.
There are cups for my wife
And my dear little boy,
And my golden haired daughter
They fill me with joy.

And my son is a sleeping
Still sound in his bed,
The light it is a’playing
In the curls on his head.
Oh! Its early in the morning
I’m thrilled as can be.
To wake up with the dawning
With a nice cup of tea.

When the evening time falls
And I’m coming back home,
With thought of my darlings
I never would roam.
Sure the cat and the children
They run to greet me,
Then we all settle down with
A nice cup of tea.

Then at night time when I’m telling
A story or lilt
Their heads are gently nodding
On the pillow or quilt.
And it softly that we leave them,
My darling and me,
And make a benediction
With a nice cup of tea.


http://www.box.net/index.php?rm=box_v2_download_shared_file&file_id=f_11048098
September 5, 1998

The Persimmon Tree

The year is advancing at a pace, and the persimmon tree is wearing a new cloak of bright green.







When the broad leaves start to turn gold
And the fruit bright orange and sometimes even red
We get the ladder out, and the long picker basket
And scorning the birds, we take what is left of our crop.

The trick is get the basket claws around the stem
Then twisting slowly, pull until the piece drops in.
Too much recoil launches the remaining fruit on the branch
To a side splitting crash landing on the drive way.

The birds laugh every time fruit falls,
I know the hedge rats hear, and soon the possums
And those brazen raccoons know the tale,
Not to mention the squirrels.

For six months the ultrasonic varmint deterrent
Has failed to do its job again,
But our tree is too tall now
To net its branches.

Some small hours have seen battle,
Hose pipe and prod, Red Ryder and Airsoft
Flash light to the eyes and bingo, a heavy thud
As the prattling predator accepts temporary defeat.

Thanksgiving again! and the tree is bare,
Standing alone until the new shoots of spring
And its flowers welcome back the birds
The ants and the bees, and my protective glances.

EMIGRATING

The first step to "A Biting Chance" 1972









There are many perfectly acceptable ways of coming to America, and let’s face it people have been emigrating to this country for centuries, eons, dare I say millennia. The problem now is that we have allowed ourselves to be maneuvered into a situation where we expect the government to exercise just laws, while at the same time dishing out what they extract from our wallets, in the name of fair taxation, to pay for all sorts of socially and politically correct agendae. I am not happy.

Never mind March, what about May Day Madness! We really need our heads examined, because the very things we love most about America, the things I came here to enjoy, are slowly and surely being taken way. We have just watched hoards of our nation’s residents, notice I did not say citizens, parading about as if they were proud of their support of our country’s failure to enforce its laws, and acting as if they rightly deserved a hand-out derived from the taxpayers pockets.

I fought hard to come to America. I competed with other well-qualified applicants, and after going through the process I am proud to be able to call myself an American. There are many applicants in the pipeline who have simply been hung out to dry. Green-Card holders who dearly want to complete the transfer legally, and they are virtually ignored. They do not have access to the fair application of the law. They have petitioned and are not getting a timely execution of justice. The waiting line is well over seven years long. My brother gave up after five.

Still I believe in America. As I look back now at the time when I took my first aeroplane flight and made that first bold step to carve out a new life here. I recall the poem I wrote then in flight. Here it is.


I’m Leaving

I'm excited 'cause I'm leaving,
I'm going away
To a new land over the sea.
To where the people may be different
And the culture too,
Well that's what I'm going to see.

The silver lady waits to do her duty
Soon she'll surge into the sky
To a new world across the ocean
And so to England goodbye.

I won't forget you England, in the half sun
With the droplets of rain for the flowers
I won't forget the Lady who I know thinks of me
Who will sit in a dream for hours.

But,

I'm excited 'cause I'm leaving,
I'm going away
To a new land over the sea
Where the places and the people and the culture are different,
And that's what's exciting me.

For Mother's Day

Frances Cecilia McLeod





My father died some years ago now, and the initial grieving at his departure has mellowed into an irrationally rich tapestry of the sweet memories of what I like to remember most about him. His work first as a student at Merton in Oxford, and then as an undercover operative for the British Government in Kenya, meant that during the formative years of my life he was never at home. After them, the formative years I mean, he was never there anyway, for he left home when I was six.

It was my mother who raised us five children in an East African colony during the last days of British imperialism. She went to work, hacking away at a typewriter in the secretarial pool at the Government office “Supplies and Transport”. She was a nurse in the Red Cross, and an executive assistant to Kar Hartley the international game exporter. Later she worked on the research team of Dr. Guggisberg as he made headway on the Anaphalis mosquito and the malaria problem, and in the Tsetse fly as the vector for Sleeping sickness. She would come home tired and yet still made time to organize dinner and sing us to sleep.

In her songs Mum would remember the sweet times she had in her marriage. One haunting song written by her from the perspective of her children, suggests that we are comforting her as she laments.

Lonely

Do not sigh or dream of that look in his eye.

The twitch of a smile and the touch of his hand,

It's a thing of the past Mother, we understand.

Lonely, lonely, in spirit we travel together,

Lonely, lonely, in spirit we're always with you.



Turn to me, your son with the curl on his brow,

His little kid-sister and big sister too,

His brothers look like him and also like you.

Homing, homing, as birds of passage we travel,

Homing, homing, remember our home is with you.

The Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall holds a particular significance for me, for it was there that the presentation of Graduates to Her Majesty the Queen Mother, Chancellor of London University took place in1972. Of particular note was not the fact that I got my degree, but that the whole recessional line was held up when the Queen Mum decided to stop and talk briefly to one of the proud parents. It was my dad.

How well I remember in Albert Hall
Where the Queen Mum gave me my degree
We were racked with our peers in the upper God’s
What a jolly good company.

Down on the floor were the special seats
For the dignitaries, dons and deans,
Professors and graduate fellows,
Some parents, and people of means.

At the end of one row, by the aisle
I could spy to my great surprise,
My father dressed up in his dufflecoat
And a twinkle in his eyes.

My years as a student were suddenly gone,
The lectures and tutoring through.
We were all of us off on another road,
Ready to try something new.

The anti-climax of being done
With no one out waiving a flag,
No one to slap you on your back
A hollowness made the days drag

And then there came this antidote,
The graduate presentation.
We were decked with our gowns and caps
And filled with expectation.

Each had a colored satin hood
And a tasseled mortar board,
And those who had earned distinctions
Had stripes on their gown-sleeves broad.

The orchestra started playing
Elgar’s march made our pulses rage
When the Queen Mum and her entourage
Processed up to the stage.

How thrilled we were as she gave her speech,
We listened, spellbound, enthralled.
She told us all how proud she was,
“Britain’s best” is what she extolled.

We each in our turn filed down in a line,
To cross the stage, bow and receive,
From the University Chancellor
A smile and a paper decree.

Having returned to the balcony,
The ceremony all but complete
Watching the formal recessional,
I nearly fell off my seat.

The whole parade was arrested
The Queen Mother had stopped in the aisle
And the person whom she was talking to
Was my father beaming a smile.

He was nodding his head in agreement
He put his hand up to his chest,
I imagined that he was saying,
“You pinned it right here on my vest.”

How well we remember the Albert Hall
Where I went to receive my degree,
My veteran father saw it all,
And he got to speak to the queen.

First Time in Disney Hall

I did a bad thing yesterday, and I got into trouble for doing it. I took a photograph inside the new Walt Disney Concert Hall. The usher came and told me off. I was sitting beside my children’s brilliant Ukranian piano teacher, Mrs. Galina Berezovsky. I made a joke to her about it afterwards, saying they are probably worrying about the Ruskies get the pictures, after all we don’t want them getting hold of the technology. She laughed.

We were there in this amazing hall for the first time. It was particularly pleasing to me because our daughter Maran was performing as one of the choristers in the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus. Their rendition of Bach’s “Bist du bie mir” was later followed by the Gibson “Dona nobis pacem” It was lovely. I suppose my Jewish friends would call that nachus. . (Well it is Easter you know!)

The concert was rounded out by having the American Youth Symphony accompany them, and they also played a couple of dramatic pieces with broad dynamics, “Night on Bald Mountain” and “The Firebird Suite” which demonstrated the exceptional acoustics of the hall itself. If you were lulled into dreaminess during the softer portions of the latter you were in for a rude awakening, for, as is done in Hyden’s “Surprise”, the timpanist let lose a volley of bashes on the base drum that fairly rocketed round the auditorium baring the sclera.

I found a better picture of the Toyota French Fries (The new Organ)
















I was reminded of another first time, way back in 1969, when I attended a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, in London. For years musicians used to joke about the echo in the hall, saying that if you played there you at least heard your performance twice. This problem was not successfully tackled until a series of large fiberglass acoustic diffusing discs were installed in the roof . The program then for the first concert after the discs were installed included the Bruckner 6th Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with bells and real cannon. The brass in the first and the bangs in the last fairly blew us out of our seats....

I guess want I wanted to say is that although we were cramped, and I can’t figure out why Frank O. Gehry would let his fine work be so abused by pecuniary meanness, the hall is exquisite, and the sound is marvelous. It is quite a Los Angeles achievement, unlike the Getty, which looks like a cheap condo lot on the top of the hill.

So What’s An AED?

Well you better know it could save your life! Automated External Defibrillators are the next best thing to the paramedics getting there the moment your heart stops beating.

If you want the low down, a lot of people have a cardiac arrest episode at the end of their lives, and young or old, the national average life expectancy from such an episode is only 5%. Please don’t believe what you see on television I am giving you the facts. Before the defibrillator was invented, when the heart stopped so did you. But chances of survival went up following the introduction of CPR (Cardio-Pulmonary-Resuscitation), and leveled off in the 1980's and have only just recently got any better. The best place to have a heart attack right now is in an airport, or oddly enough in a Casino in Las Vegas. The pervasive availability of AED’s in these locations have upped the chance of survival (that means walking out of hospital) to about 70-80%.

So why the dramatic difference?

Cardiac arrest means your heart stops beating normally. It doesn’t mean your heart is dead or that your brain is dead, but it does mean that there is no pumping of blood round your body any more. Usually the heart muscle is contracting erratically in a fluttering manner. The blood carrying oxygen is what keeps us alive, and without blood, well actually without oxygen, your brain cells start to die in about three minutes. In about five to eight minutes without oxygen the heart muscle itself starts to die. After that even if the paramedics do get the heart started you will never know it!

So the critical factor is how efficiently you can massage the heart to keep some blood carrying oxygen flowing to the brain and to the heart muscle itself, and do you know how long you’ve got? About five to eight minutes! If you had ever tried to do CPR you’d know that in about three minutes you are plum tuckered out and even changing off with a partner just delays the inevitable arrival of the point where the heart muscle will not contract any more even if you stimulate it to do so. Rarely does CPR cause the heart to start beating normally again. It takes a shock.

That is where AED’s come in and why they are a life saver. While continuing CPR, you open the box you turn it on and you follow the clear directions which are spoken to you. You cannot shock someone who doesn’t need a heart start, because the devises have a computer inside that analyses the status of the subject. Only when necessary they allow a complete novice to administer a live saving jolt of electricity to the chest of a person who is already clinically dead, and if given soon enough can bring them back to life, and keep them alive until the telephone operators who are receiving your 911 call, and the paramedics who are fighting the traffic to get to your home or the park or the shopping center, can get you the help that is needed. They make a huge difference and there should be an AED in every home, office and work place, and possibly every car.

Click on the picture above to see the range of AED's available. They are all good!

Henrietta’s Papa

Mario C. Garcia
1930 - 2006
Revelations 21:4 He will wipe out every tear from their eyes and death will be no more.





Sound Library

For Henrietta who wants her father to know how thankful she is to have had him in her life: for all the tough love shown to her and her sisters and his grandchildren. She always looked up to him for being a hard worker and for providing for his family. He was her father, her hero, her friend.

Papa can you hear me now? I’m praying that you do,
To hear me say “I love you still” now that the trials are through.
Oh! Papa I still hear you, tender in my mind,
Even in admonishment your tone was always kind.

Papa I remember how you would dance with me
I can see my sisters looking on so enviously,
You had me clutched within your arms and twirled me all around
I was flying with my Papa, with feet above the ground.

Papa I remember your strength that would not fail,
Yet when the call came telling you were gone I felt so frail.
I was numb and even now I can not tell just how I feel
But I know that you are gone and wish it wasn’t real.

Papa? do you remember when by the harbor quay
We’d be walking hand in hand, together you and me?
The waves were gently lapping and the birds mewed overhead
And I was with my hero, ’though those words were never said.

The fenders they were yawning as the boats rocked in the breeze
The halliards were clanking on the masts in a reprise,
Oh! we’d be eating ice cream and drinking in the view
And Mama would be with us and you’d call her Honey Dew.

Oh Papa! do you recall when I last pushed your wheel chair?
Through blinding tears with my eyes closed the vision is still there,
We went to the marina to see the boats a new
And Julius had an ice cream just like we used to do.

Papa, you’re my hero and so you’ll always be
And I will keep you in my heart for all eternity,
And time will never weaken nor take away one breath
For it’s love that binds, not reason, and that’s stronger than death.

Love and miss you
for ever
your daughter
Henrietta

The Pope And The Pickpocket

The fame of France and Italy is said to come in threes
For "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
And Rome of course is well renowned beneath the Corinthian frieze
For the Pope within the Vatican, the pickpockets and cheese.

Now Roderick, at fifteen, had gone off with his chums,
To see the Pope and taste the cheese and watch out for the bums.
They hoped to see the Bersaglieri running round a square
In a piazza with a fountain and the ancient buildings there.

On a Sunday morning after visiting the caves
In the catacombs where long have lain the early Christian graves
They braved a local public bus to reach Saint Peter’s Square
And hear the Holy Father say Mass and Sunday prayer.

Oh they weren’t riding on their own the bus was just jammed tight
There were tourists and pilgrims coming to see the sight,
And others riding with them who have traveled that way before
Who’d polished the nack of stealing while the tourist gape in awe.

Well that morning while in transit when a pouch he tried to pick
Roddy spied a pickpocket as he made his dip.
He didn’t get distracted, he watched the hand go in
And take his teacher’s camera out. He thought it was a sin!

"No." said Roddy "Stop that now." He wrestled with the man,
And tore the camera back again from right out of his hand.
The culprit made excuses, his looks were sour and dark,
He would wait till he was in the square to find an easier mark.
















On reaching the Basilica the bus just emptied out
Like a stream of water from a horizontal water spout,
Folk fanned out on the cobbles to join the throng who hope
To receive the blessed sacrament from Benedict the Pope.

From the papal balcony he said Mass and then dispensed
A blessing on the pilgrims, and the thieves and all, and thence
Roddy and his school chums went south to see Pompeii,
And the pickpocket was left to try his luck another day.

An Easter Poem

The Folded Palm
John 12 ,“Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming sitting on a donkey’s colt.”
For Nan MacNamara on Palm Sunday at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood









I keep a palm leaf in my bible
It’s folded and plaited and dry,
It reminds me of when the palm fronds waved
In profusion as Jesus rode by.
It reminds me of that fateful day
When the fickle crowd faltered and failed
Turning from frantic welcomes
To denials, in the court where they railed.

“Hosanna”, they called as He rode in
“Hosanna” they cried out with zeal,
“Blessed is He that comes in the name
Of the Lord, King of Israel”.
How quickly their attitude altered,
As the Pharisees looked on with scorn.
How deep and complete their denials
When the trials were done with the dawn.

The Pharisees saw as He rode in
On a donkey, the scripture fulfilled,
And they plotted within their jealous hearts
How the Son of Man would be killed.
How sad Jesus was when He saw them,
For He knew every thought, every plan.
He could see how the crowd would reject Him,
And desert Him to a man.

I ask myself if I’d deny Him
Had I been in the crowd long ago.
For even Peter who loved Him,
Denied Him, three times in a row.
He rode through the crowds on a donkey,
Anointed, the Pascal Lamb
He gave His life so that I might live
- Sinner that I am.

So I keep a palm leaf in my bible.
It’s folded and plaited and dry.
It reminds me of when the palm fronds waved
In profusion as Jesus rode by.
It reminds me that He died for me
That He came to atone for our sin,
So that my poor soul might be saved
And on the last day welcomed in.
Neil Stewart McLeod - March 2003

Clan MacLeod Dance Books

The Clan MacLeod Dancing Heritage















The MacLeod Dance Books, the definitive collection of Scottish Country Dances relating to the Clan MacLeod, are available in archival museum quality editions which are hard bound gilt embossed and printed on acid free paper that will last for centuries.

Among the seventy nine dances in the collection, two, “MacLeod of Harris” and “MacLeod of Dunvegan” are taken from Mary Isdale MacNabs’s collection, and they are found in Volume Two “If The Ghillie Fits”. The dances range from simple beginners dances (level one) to level four for advances dancers, and cover the whole spectrum of reels, hornpipes, jigs and medleys. A few of the dances are very old, indeed one dates back 1590. Many of the finest contemporary choreographers have written dances especially to be included in this collection.

These books took thirteen years of dedicated work to produce, and I do not know that they will ever be reprinted. The cost of the books was arrived at my merely dividing the cost of printing by the number of volumes. We will never recoup or cost. They are beautiful books however.

Available in a two volume Limited Edition set
“Dances of An Island Clan” and “If The Ghillie Fits...” Each book is illustrated and contains the story of MacLeod related dances, each with its choreographic description, original musical score, and diagrams of the significant dance movements. The books are packed with the legends and tales of MacLeod lore, and for dancers and non-dancers alike who love the clan history the books are a delight.

Wonderful presents for enthusiasts, and a must in any clan library, the books are available for $25 each and $45 for the set, plus postage and packing.

Please contact: Neil McLeod by email only: drneilmcleod@yahoo.com for mailing instructions

Postage and packing: USA - $ 8.00, Canada - $ 11.00, Britain - and elsewhere $18.00 per book
(Note: cost of postage may vary, we reserve the right to ask for additional postage if necessary, if a less costly alternative can be found we will gladly use it and make refunds accordingly.)

Success and Significance

This picture must look vaguely familiar to many. Any parent who has been involved in Junior Varsity Football with a son on the field or a daughter on the sidelines will know what it is like to get the children ready, clean the uniforms and do all the extra driving to make sure they are “there on time”. Well my buddy Jim Covell told me one day that there were two phases in a man’s life. In the first we strive for success, but in the second it is for significance. This poem, though brief, is about the transformation.

Success and Significance

By any measure
Accomplishing your goals is called success.
Yet in and of itself
When all is said and done it means little.

Success is not the measure of the man,
But what comes after it -
After the struggling and the inward perspective
Comes significance,

That greater purpose
For which we all should strive,
To matter, not to ourselves
But to the lives of others,

“Hello”, he said
Eyeing me in the football stand,
And with diminished accolade
Expounded, “Your Roddy’s dad.”

And in a twinkling
The true measure came to me,
That in his world, and that of my son
I had attained significance.

Hats Off To Checker Cab - Fighting Back Against Scandalous Advertising

I dropped my car off for service, and took a cab to work.

What would you do if you had dropped your car off and the cab that had arrived to take you to work had an advertisement of the top which offended you? Take the cab anyway? Call for another cab? It is a tough question. But every day we are confronted by attention-drawing exploitive imagery which is gradually getting more suggestive and inappropriate. It desensitizes us to normal bounds of propriety and scandalizes the innocent. Under the guise of the right to free speech marketing gurus are manipulating our appetites and creating demands for products and services we would be better off not using. Under the cloak of normal capitalist practice the fabric of our society of slowly, inexorably being torn apart and the silent majority is sitting back doing nothing because of our inertia and the belief that we as individuals can not have an effect. Well it is not true, the little guy, you can make a big difference.
Here is a cab with roof top advertising the type that I have often seen used for "gentleman's clubs".

If just a few of us complained every day about what did not work for us, if we drew attention to offences to good taste, we could form a collective army of public opinion which could drive this country in the direction we want it to go.

Let me give you an example. The cab I didn’t take had an advert for some dirty bar where prostitutes sell their services. The idea that my dollar was going to finance a promotion for such a business galled me. So I wrote a letter complaining to the Checker Cab Company, and to their credit they got back to me and told me that such advertising was to stopped forthwith. I was pleasantly surprised. I share my letter and their response with you.


So what, big deal you might say. But consider this if every time you saw an offensive advertisement you complained to the producer, and then asked other people who employ that producer whether they want to be associated with and represented by a company that uses business methods which are destructive of moral values, what would the accumulative effect be. Would they react like the Check Cab Company? If so then you and I can play a part in cleaning up America, the land of which we are so proud.

Take a look at these bill boards and ask yourself what other company is also using that marketer, Viacom or Regency or whatever, to promote there products. A letter to the company suggesting that they not endorse such free speech, and implying that with their tacit support of it, you feel that you would prefer not to use their service or product. Such and expression of condemnation might do a lot to change the permissive way advertisers get us to absorb their subliminal and not so thinly veiled messages.

Now take a look at this window treatment in a shop window on Sunset Boulevard. I am asking myself what was going on in the mind of the owner when this was allowed to be displayed.

I have heard that if you look for the bad you will surely find it. But where do you draw the line?

Falling In Love And Staying There

Well it is that time again when we are obliged, not that it is a chore, but we are pressured to be a little more romantic than may be usual. I welcome and embrace the Saints Day. It gives me a chance to tell how blessed I am to have been married to my sweetheart, and that to this day our loves grows day by day.

I look at the ring on my left hand and I remember the poem I gave to my wife, Nancy, when we were only two years wed. It still rings true today.

THREE BANDS OF GOLD
Ecclesiastes 4:12
I gave my love three bands of gold
On a summer's day so fair,
All bound they were and intertwined
As braids of her golden hair.

Three bands I gave to my sweet love
Each one to pledge my troth,
To love, to cherish, have and hold
No matter where we rove.

Each golden band I gave to her
Will ever a symbol be,
To love with body, heart and mind
The flower she gave to me.

And summer days will come and go
And time will play his part,
But nought will dull the luster
Of the love within my heart.

And on my hand I wear a band
Of three wound rings of gold,
They 'mind me of my promise to
The love I dearly hold.

January 7, 1992
On the other hand, the expectation that someone will tell you that they love you can be a demand that spoils the spontaneity of freely expressed passion, and this next poem addresses this point.

DO NOT ASK

Do not ask me to say I love you
And look sadly up to me with those deep dark eyes
Do not be like some timid furry animal
Unsure of my affections and fearing I shall say go.

Do not ask me to say I love you
Those words rob me of my free choice to say I truly love
And compel me as though I were cornered
And have to argue.

If I say nothing
You'll stir and sigh,
Or answer, you'll doubt the reply
For no more than an idle phrase.

Rather say “come love”, then kiss me
I shall follow till from the wave's crest
I'll say the real words.
For like the waves love comes and goes.

So do not ask.