I met and shook hands with Terry Pratchett in October of 2009, when he was awarded an Honorary Professorship at a ceremony in Winchester Cathedral. He was smaller in stature than I had expected (I have no idea why) and there was a frailness there, though he had and impish sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye that obviously signalled how happy he was to be there. Having recently been knighted too he seemed to be enjoying the view from his stature (and who can blame him too). But he has crossed my path again. I rarely watch television but his Richard Dimbleby lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, delivered by Tony Robinson, was riveting. The "Death" in the title was, of course, not me. Terry has Alzheimer's and his lecture was a heartfelt and reasoned entry into the "assisted death" debate, it can be read here: http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?search=A+better+way+to+die%2C+Terry+Pratchett&sitesearch-radio=guardian And why, you might ask, am I concerned with such an issue at 5 am his morning. Well I am not really, I just like to read the philosophical ideas of living. Not the abstract musings but the constant, well thought out debates which confront our lives. And something nice popped out too - for all Terry's impishness of thought and ideas (and wonderful writing - the joy of some of it is astonishing) he and I share a love of Thomas Tallis. Neither of us are religious in a conventional sense but something binds us in this short clip.But in case anyone thinks I am maudlin at 5am, far from it, I find the whole piece uplifting and inspiring. Plato wrote that, "...music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue." And there is something satisfying in that idea. So listening to Thomas Tallis at 5 am in the morning is food for the soul, and if accompanied by a cup of early grey tea laced with honey, well all the better for it. But listening to Terry's Pratchett's lecture reminded me of something else, too. As we go through our lives, bumping thoughts with others, crossing into the thoughts and deeds of others, criss-crossing through our lives, interacting with others, few know what each other really thinks. And life becomes narrated through the slippage (as Luce Irigaray would say - though I can't lay claims to Écriture féminine) but through those half heard and half considered and half thought at attempts to understand what others mean and want and need, as we care for our own thoughts, needs and desires. I had no idea when I shook hands with Terry Pratchett that he wanted to be in control of his own death and yet as someone who wants to be in control of his own life I can see where he is. And so this morning I share my love of Thomas Tallis and a cup of earl grey tea and a very small fragment of my life, here, with another wonderful Icarus image that speaks of joy to me.
