Litha, clocks, and Uri Geller.

Good grief, July ALREADY?  I had every intention of posting something for Litha, but I was in the middle of a very intensive change management course on the 21st and was just SOOOO tired!  Anyway,  I passed the exam, so it was all worthwhile.  I think.

The picture is from Avebury a couple of years ago;  sadly, this year the weather didn't co-operate but Litha 2010 was a scorcher;  we took part in a mass noonday ceremony in the circle, a totally wonderful experience!

It's hard to believe that we're now in the Holly King's half of the year, especially as the weather in the UK hasn't been exactly summery.  Let's hope July is a bit better.

I mentioned clocks.  Well, it's a clock, actually.  This clock - 

It belonged to my husband's grandfather and it didn't go.  Well, it would tick half-heartedly if you put it on a particular spot on the floor in the hall.  For about two minutes.  Maybe.  My husband really wanted to get it repaired, but nobody fixes clocks these days, so the clock sat there, stubbornly silent.

Well, a few years ago (2003, where does time go?) Uri Geller came to the Swansea Grand Theatre with his one-man show.  He talked about how he'd started a career in Israel, shouting "WORK!" at broken watches and clocks (and then, as the Israeli audience caught on to the possibilities, fridges and air-conditioners as well!)   He told us to try it for ourselves.  When we got home I heard my OH shouting "WORK! WORK!" at the clock.  Yeah, good luck with that, I thought.  A few minutes later I walked past the clock...it was ticking!  What's more, it kept on ticking, and even chiming, for weeks until we got fed up with it and let it run down!

I know sceptics hate Uri Geller.  They will claim that stage magicians can duplicate his "tricks",  thus proving that, obviously, he's cheating.  (There are people who believe that the Apollo missions to the Moon were faked.  They say that there are a number of ways in which the film footage could have been faked.  However, just because it could have been fake doesn't mean it was, obviously.  There's a double standard here) 

 Now, both the OH and I are interested, in an intellectual sort of way, in stage magic, and can usually figure out how a trick might have been managed.  I have seen stage magicians "duplicate" Uri's effects.  They don't do it the same way he does.  They just DON'T.  They cover up, misdirect, substitute.  I know the clock didn't work. I know that, then, it did. And I know that the only thing that was done to it was the OH shouting at it. I have no explanation, but it wasn't a trick.

When Uri Geller first appeared on British TV in the 70's, my niece bent every spoon and fork in the house.  ("Can you still do it?"  I asked her a few months later.  "Yes!" she said, and jumped up to demonstrate.  "No she can't!"  said my sister.)  She was about five or six years old at the time.  Again, I have no explanation.  Sceptics will say it didn't happen that way.

Except it did.