Tone

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

There is always a question of tone. People say that the internet bleaches tone, so that insults are taken where none are meant. This is especially dangerous on email and Twitter. Irony is a more delicate creature than one might suspect.

Tone needs care on the blog, too. Lately, I have not talked of the world, but concentrated on my own little patch: the blossom and the tulips and the canines. I sometimes think of this as negligence; sometimes I think well, everyone out there is shouting about the issue of the day, so I shall divert you with cherry trees. What I do not want is for it to seem like smugness. Oh, look at me with my bloody horticulture and my recipe for beetroot salad, while the world goes to hell. So, there are fine lines, everywhere.

I was going to do a bit of a random post today. I had not done one for a while. I was going to say: here are the things that I might have written about, which ran through my head like tickertape this morning. I was going to make a little joke about gold eyeshadow and questions for Thor and superinjuctions and how I have absolutely not one inch of interest in AV.

But I wanted too to say something about death. You can't just go from gold eyeshadow to the end of two lives. And sometimes one risks taking on that awful, sanctimonious, I'm talking about serious stuff now tone; the one that makes one seem somehow more important and caring and emotionally engaged than other, more frivolous people. A man did it just now on the radio and I wanted to throw things.

So I don't really know how to go from la di dah, this was my day, to Captain Lisa Jade Head and Tim Hetherington, without it being odd and jarring. But they were two quite remarkable human beings and I wanted you to be able to read about them. You can do so here, and here. I have an inordinate admiration for physical courage, and they both had it in spades. They are remembered well.

 

Pictures of the day are of the garden, again. I apologise if this is becoming a little repetitive, but I am obsessed with the sudden growing that spring brings. The lawn is full of blackbirds, and the bushes are enlivened by antic blue tits, and every time I go outside, I find something blooming that was not there the day before.

These tulips are so grand I cannot believe they are quite real:

My adoration of the euphorbia continues:

And of the hellebores too:

The little ornamental cherry has almost finished its blossom:

But the apples are in full fig:

I found the very first lilac buds today:

And the beginnings of the chives:

While the little blue clumps grow more delightful each day:

Canines:

And the hill, almost lost in the afternoon light: