Posted by: jameshigham | May 17, 2008

[thought for the day] saturday evening

Methinks ‘twould be wise to heed the writing on the wall.

Posted in portents

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Responses

  1. Why do Americans always say “the handwriting on the wall”? Infectious verbosity?

    By: dearieme on May 17, 2008
    at 21:21

  2. The writing on the wall points us in the right direction.

    By: CherryPie on May 17, 2008
    at 21:58

  3. Too bad it was not written with more warning time.

    By: jmb on May 17, 2008
    at 23:44

  4. She certainly looks scared.

    By: Ellee Seymour on May 18, 2008
    at 07:48

  5. I’m not quite sure of your target here, but I have been wondering what a credulous person would accept as disproof, or a determined sceptic would accept as proof. Remember the 1984 lightning strike on York Minster, three days after the consecration of David Jenkins as Bishop of Durham? Everything can be explained away, if you so wish.

    By: SACKERSON on May 18, 2008
    at 08:43

  6. And James, what do you think the Hebrew writing actually says?

    By: Jeremy Jacobs on May 18, 2008
    at 12:04

  7. JJ, I think “mene mene tekel upharsin” means something like “weighed, weighed and found wanting”.

    By: SACKERSON on May 18, 2008
    at 17:29

  8. Oop, found it on Wikipedia, I wasn’t far wrong:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_writing_on_the_wall

    By: SACKERSON on May 18, 2008
    at 17:31

  9. … and I suspect that James chose this because of the following extract from the Wikipedia entry:

    “The Oxford English Dictionary entry on writing has literary references to this phrase in English, including the following verse from the poem The Run Upon The Bankers by Jonathan Swift:

    A baited banker thus desponds,
    From his own hand foresees his fall,
    They have his soul, who have his bonds;
    ‘Tis like the writing on the wall.”

    James: did I guess right? One of your depth charges?

    By: SACKERSON on May 18, 2008
    at 17:35


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