Blogs from Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia

In 2017, I wrote a blog called 'Favourite Words' (https://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/blog-965608.html). It is quite long, each quotation being accompanied by a comment. This morning, being at a loose end, I decided to write another blog entitled 'Memorable Quotations'. This is similar to the previous one but shorter and containing no commentary. It is a very arbitrary selection, reflecting my interests (chess, boxing, football, literature, movies, education and so on). There is a small amount of overlap, a few quotations appearing in both blogs. There should be something here to please everyone. "I fought Sugar Ray so often, I almost got diabetes." (Jake LaMotta on fighting Sugar Ray Robinson) "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that." (Bill Shankly) "A hard man is good to find." ... read more

In English, the phrase ‘looking forward to’ has a double meaning. It can be neutral in tone - meaning that one is foreseeing something that will happen in the near or distant future; or it can express pleasure – meaning that one is eagerly anticipating some future event. The phrase ‘looking back’ has no such ambivalence; it just means one is remembering something that happened in the past. We human beings are complicated in that we inhabit three time zones: the present, the future and the past. We are alive in the present but remember the past and think about the future. The degree to which we look back or look ahead (I have deliberately not written ‘look forward’) varies from person to person. On the one hand, there are people who live from day to ... read more

Some time ago I wrote blogs about my tie and shirt collections. Now I’m going to write about my shoes. I have large wide feet, have never owned a car or motorcycle, have not cycled for over 40 years and love walking. Therefore selecting and wearing the right shoes is important for me – much more important than wearing a tie. Ties are purely ornamental, whereas shoes are functional. Next to the front door of our HCMC apartment are two shoe racks. One houses my wife’s shoe collection – mainly fashion shoes, most of which she never wears, but including one pair of sturdy sandals I bought her 15 years ago. She rarely puts them on because they are functional, not pretty, and this is why they have lasted so long. The other rack houses my ... read more

Fiddling around on Youtube this morning, I entered ‘British black and white movies’ and came across a movie called ‘Obsession’ (aka ‘The Hidden Room’) which I had never heard of. I looked it up on imdb, where it receives a 7.3 rating and some enthusiastic reviews. I’ve just finished watching it and am mightily impressed. It is a little gem, an old-fashioned movie with no special effects, relying solely on plot, acting, dialogue and direction. I was especially taken by the acting of Robert Newton. I knew him previously from ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘Oliver Twist’, where he plays rather melodramatic larger-than-life villains (Long John Silver and Bill Sykes respectively), but here he is understated and naturalistic. The ace detective, Superintendent Finsbury, played by Naunton Wayne, is also good - a model of calm logic and a ... read more

I taught English at Old Swinford Hospital School from 1975-85. My first headmaster there was L. W. 'Peter' Sheppard. In 1953 he wrote the following history of the school - which may be of interest to former students and staff. Mr Sheppard's essay can be found in pdf format online at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03057875380000041 I have decided to make it more widely available to interested parties by publishing it on the various OSH websites and, in order to facilitate this, I have copied it onto my blog, adding a few pictures. FROM CHARITY FOUNDATION TO RESIDENTIAL TECHNICAL SCHOOL An account of the development of Old Swinford Hospital, Stourbridge By L. W. SHEPPARD Headmaster, Old Swinford Hospital (As far as can be ascertained there are now, within the State system of education in ... read more