Fog, fog and more fog!

Yes, it is still foggy as the title implies. All domestic flights from Heathrow have been cancelled and some of the international flights. I feel sorry for people who have had to wait till now to fly. They have long waits ahead. Hopefully this weather condition which is hanging over the UK will move on soon.

I've been working on my book this week. I was very disciplined with it when I started and then I started chemo and returned to school. The combination of the two made it difficult to keep up the writing of 1000 words a day. I am hoping to get back on track over this holiday.

I used to think that I couldn't leave the UK because I couldn't bare to leave BBC radio 4. Now of course I can listen to it over the internet or download podcasts. If I can, so can you. I would like to recommend In Our Time with Melvin Bragg. This week, as I write in fact, the topic is the history of hell. Here is the synopsis from the website:

A fiery vault beneath the earth or as Sartre put it, other people - it seems our ideas of hell are inevitably shaped by religious and cultural forces. For Homer and Virgil it’s a place you can visit and return from, often a wiser person for it. With Christianity it’s a one way journey and a just punishment for a sinful, unrepentant life.

Writers and painters like Dante and Hieronymus Bosch gave free rein to their imaginations, depicting a complex hierarchical world filled with the writhing bodies of tormented sinners. In the 20th century hell can be found on earth in portrayals of war and the Holocaust but also in the mind, particularly in the works of TS Eliot and Primo Levi.

So what is the purpose of hell and why is it found mainly in religions concerned with salvation? Why has hell proved so inspirational for artists through the ages, perhaps more so than heaven? And why do some ideas of hell require a Satan figure while others don't?

Last week I listened to a spellbinding programme on the development of mathematics and Indian mathematicians. Gripping stuff! I'll put up a link to the site.

I have people coming over for lunch. They're bringing it but I would like to make dessert so I'm off now to do that. Perhaps I'll make the brownies! Yum!