Simple math

It takes a few minutes to do the math, a simple calculation to determine the number of years we have been married.  But I need to stop and think about it.  My wife just knows.  It's the same with birthdays and other celebrations that need to be memorialised.  I need a written prompt but it seems to have been enoded into her DNA.  It must just be another one of those mysteries of married life, although I can't say which one - I've lost count.

reasons to be cheerful

Love, life and laughter.  Family, good food, wine, and beer.  Crispy snow under a blue sky.  Walking across muddy fields towards a warm house. Lying in the sun, snoozing in the afternoon.  Music.  Listening to the radio.  Did I mention sex yet?  Eating out.  Looking at art.  Standing at the top of a hill you've walked up.  Watching your cat.  Talking to friends.  Reading a book that is truly a home for the mind.  Walking through a wood.  Travel.  A hot shower.  Pebbles on the beach.  Watching the waves of a rough sea from the safety of the shore.  Walking around a town or city in the hot sun.  Sitting sipping coffee or cold beer and watching the world go by. Hearing something nice being said to you.  Cuddling your wife.  Kissing.  Waking up beside your wife.  Kissing. 

Words hurt ... words heal

I never did understand the old saw that 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me'.  Words do hurt, everyone knows that, from the playground bully to tabloid journalists and politicians,  and all of their many victims.  Having myself been the recent victim  of a venomous outburst of vitriol I know whereof I speak.  What is remarkable to me is the power these words have, have had, continue to have.  It appears that they have been seared on my psyche.  They still swirl unannounced and unwelcome around my head.  They still sting.  I struggle to find the right words to heal and am reminded of the truism that a negative encounter has many more times an effect than a positive one.  Presumably time will be the great healer as often it is, but what a painful journey.

Stating the bleedin' obvious

Is it a leaf falling in autumn?  Is it a CGI confection?  Are those raindrops reflected in a window or fairy lights on a tree at Christmas?  It looks to be a cityscape but can we be sure?  It is certainly an arresting and attractive image, but of what exactly?
Anyway, just imagine for a moment this lovely street scene suddenly being filled with gangs of young people, feckless and footloose,  uninhibited by any sense of moral decency and clearly looking to exhibit anti-social behaviour whenever they get the chance to do so.  Gangs are a curse on British society, Prime Minister Cameron has averred, and a principal cause of the proliferation of gang culture is poor parenting.  In a groundbreaking report soon to be published, the solution to troublesome gangs is declared to be, wait for it, 'better parenting'.  Exactly how 'better parenting' is to be achieved presumably lies in the small print of the report.  I can't wait.  I'll wager it does not involve increased investment in schools, community education, social services, youth employment, or similar.  Perhaps Cameron will look to the Womens' Institute to run 'better parenting' classes as part of their contribution to his 'big society',  He could offer them all British Empire Medals as a reward.

Tick-tock!

There is a proposal that the UK moves to Central European Time for a 3 year trial period.  Apparently it will save lives, boost the economy, and benefit tourism. The first benefit I understand, the second I doubt, the last I think is really dumb.  Whoever planned a holiday anywhere according to what time-zone they were going to be in?  A more serious stumbling block is the requirement for the devolved assemblies to agree to the proposal and in Scotland we have serious reservations.  I say 'we' meaning the nation as represented by parliament and the media.  My personal view is that it really won't make a significant difference to the way I live, or at least we can surely cope with darker mornings in winter, but at least when we go on holiday to mainland Europe we won't have to adjust our body clocks and watches.

A tawdry addition to a tawdry system

So the British Empire Medal is to be resurrected despite John Major's attempt to bury it as an outdated relic of our bad old class conscious society that once stratified individuals (and communities) according to their perceived value and status. (The reality is of course that Britain may be relatively less 'class conscious', but check out the private school system, dippy Prince Charlie's veto of parliamentary legislation affecting his Duchy, a system of elite universities centred around the Oxbridge colleges, the House of Lords, not speaking to the Queen until spoken to, the makeup of the current Cabinet, and so so and so forth.)  A medal intended to serve as as a a 'gong' for  those who lacked the necessary rank to attain an MBE or Knighthood will be reborn to reward members of Cameron's 'Big Society'.  And the depressing thing is that many people will welcome this tawdry addition to our tawdry 'honours system'. But how less relevant to the woes - economic, social, political - that beset Britain in 2011 could it be to create yet more flummery, another little bit of political patronage to seduce the naive and unwary and bind them to a vision of Britain that is one part medieval feudalism, one part Victorian fantasy and invention, and one part communal delusion.  If Cameron genuinely wanted to reward deserving members of his Big Society why not just toss them a Knighthood or a seat in the House of Lords, a serious and hearty reward for services rendered, rather than this ' vile little scrap of nothingness from the master's table'.  
Oh, and 'what could be less relevant' when Britain is mired in unemployment, high inflation, falling living standards, savage public sector cuts, and etc?  What about the startling news that the law on royal primogeniture is about to be changed to allow the oldest child, regardless of gender, to become monarch.  Whoopee!  Another big step forward for common sense and female enfranchisement.  Mary Beard excoriates this absolute bloody nonsense far better than I could, so check out her blog 'A Don's Life'.

Realpolitik

Thoughts on the death of Gaddhafi?  Criticism of the manner of his death, following the extrajudicial murder of Osama Bin Laden by the Americans, strikes me as a tad hypocritical.  It is also clearly something for the Libyans to decide and the weight of comment from within the country seems to be in broad agreement that his death is a cause of great joy and celebration, followed by an overwhelming feeling of relief and 'now let's get on with the rest of our lives and rebuild our nation from scratch'.  A lot of media comment in the West is decidedly pessimistic about the future for Libya and often cite the spectre of civil war or the establishment of 'an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law'.  However, if that is what the Libyans decide they want then it is clearly nobody's business but their own.  I suspect they won't but even if they do decide on an Islamic state western governments will quickly accommodate themselves to it.  After all, they've done it for years with Saudi Arabia.  And there's all that oil and gas of course to help the Americans and French and British overcome their inhibitions.  All those lucrative business contracts to win.  All those principles to abandon in the interests of realpolitik.  After all, they did it for years with that crackpot dictator Gaddhafi.

Counting calories to no purpose

Great to learn courtesy of Radio Four's Food Programme that too much emphasis is placed on 'counting calories' when people talk about the importance of balanced diets and a healthy lifestyle.  All of this prompted by the surreal comment from the Chief Medical Officer of Health that people in Britain need to eat several billion fewer calories a year in order to combat 'the obesity epidemic', which is itself a questionable concept and shockingly unscientific.  Far more important is the division between those people who cook their own food and those who 'eat out' or buy ready meals and convenience food from supermarkets.  The latter being more likely to develop health issues directly related to their diet.  Interesting discussion too about the meaning of the word calorie, its etymology, and the vagueness and imprecision of much of the language used even by professional nutritionists.

A Kodak moment with trees

I was surprised to discover that my family have a habit of photographing trees.  I have an aunt who lives in Weybridge who photographs nothing else.  I've tried to draw and paint them, but fail miserably due to a basic lack of skill with brush or pencil.  Give me a camera and it's a different story, as the current example hopefully shows.  It's a tree (species unknown) on the road behind our house in Scotland.

Looking back over several years of holiday photographs the number of trees (and rocks) I have photographed is without number.  I just can't work out why.  Is it their shape, their colour, how they appear in the landscape, the texture of the bark?  Is it simply that I like photographing trees?  I'm not sure. I am sure that my wife would know what kind of tree it is.  It's another one of the Mysteries of Maried Life that she knows far more about trees and plants and birds than I do.  And I have tried to learn.  I've watched the David Attenborough opus.  I've bought the Collins Field guides to Birds, Trees, Wild Flowers and Mushrooms.  All to no end.  I can rarely manage to match up one with the other - what I've seen in books and what I come across on my countryside rambles.

Body language in Cordoba

It's a caption competition.  What are the three people in this bar outside the old city walls of Cordoba saying to each other or, more pertinently, thinking? The slick and slightly older waiter is flirting with the pretty young woman while taking their order for cold drinks.  The boyfriend is trying to be serious and authoritative but feels that his machismo is being challenged and doesn't like it.  Just look at his body language. The young woman is delightful and clearly enjoying the banter even if it discomfits her paramour.  A few moments later, with the waiter gone, she takes his hand and leans across to kiss him.  Sweet!

Whitewashing the dead in Olvera

A cemetery in southern Spain in the town of Olvera as seen from the castle next door.  We were the first visitors of the day and the helpful young curator manning the ticket office and souvenir shop unlocked the front door for us and explained how to get out again once we'd had a good look round. It was a hot morning in early October, the sky was a brilliant blue, and we had great fun clambering around the medieval castle taking photographs of this and that.  It was the kind of castle that gives castles a good name with proper crenallations, thick walls, guard towers, arrow slots to peer through, timbered floors, and a stunning view from the rooftop of the keep. There was even the narrowest of spiral staircases with slippery stone steps to corkscrew up and then down again.  But this scene intrigued me.  A team of four women, and all of the civic cleansing and maintenance semed to be done by women in Andalucia, were whitewashing the walls of the tombs in the local town cemetary.

The cycling vampire bite

As a child I went to the beach for my holidays but I have no strong memories of building sandcastles or going swimming in the sea.  There are family photographs showing me with donkeys, my sister, a captain's cap, bucket and spade, candy floss, sagging swimming trunks, and other essential seaside regalia.  I suspect I must have enjoyed the seaside back then, even if it was only the North Sea that I was dipping my pre-pubescent toes into.  Since my formative teenage years however I have strong memories of actively disliking the sand (when required to sit and have picnics on it) and the sea (when required to immerse any part of my body in it).  I did once experiment sunbathing on a beach somewhere in southern France when my own children were younger, but this may have been as much to do with the casual nudism on display as anything else.  Nowadays I am more than happy to stroll along any beach, even to paddle in the warmth of the Mediterranean.  I have even paddled in the Volga river of all places.  But a beach holiday is not for me, nor for my wife, and we prefer what I suppose you might call 'activity holidays' to sunbathing or sitting reading on a beach or beside a pool.

The phrase 'activity holiday' is loosely defined however.  We eschew skiing, surfing, horse-riding and the like.  Walking is our thing, cycling too.  Or pottering around towns and cities looking at anything that might be interesting, sitting in cafes, wandering through shops and markets, eating outside, going to music concerts, visiting art galleries, castles, occasionally churches.  Just putzing in other words - and sometimes doing nothing more than sitting and watching the world go by.  My wife will occasionally draw or paint and I will take zillions of photographs.  She will also swim when possible, a form of exercise I have long since abandoned due to the necessity of getting wet and cold and wrinkly.
Our walking can be anything up to 20 km a day, more than long enough for a middle-aged couple, especially since it usually involve hills to ascend and descend, or gorges to descend into and then clamber out of again.  We are great fans of the Spanish system of senderos and the French equivalent of petit and grand randonnees.  The Americans too in their National Park system make it easy for amateur hikers like us to navigate our way around some of the great natural landscapes the US has to offer, as illustrated below in an alpine meadow in Yosemite.  (Holiday tip: avoid Florida and try out the beautiful South-Western states.) 
This is our kind of activity holiday and largely avoids the danger of being eaten by sharks, as sadly has happened recently in Australia.  Or breaking anything coming down the piste on skis.  Or falling off a truculent quadruped and breaking or bruising something valuable if horse-riding.  But I did almost get attacked by a snake in Andalusia recently, saved only by its last-minute decision to slither off into the undergrowth instead.  And I still have two bloodied scars on my shin for all the world looking like a vampire bite, but in reality the result of a minor cycling accident.  I should also mention that our hike through the Yosemite alpine meadow resulted in a string of painful mosquito bites across my back due to my failure to apply any bug repellent.  On the upside, the park cafeteria does excellent hotdogs and French-fries.

The idiot tax

Not so far from the truth these days, although having been to Vegas and gambled (and lost) my entire $5 stake, I'm not sure I have the right temperament for gambling.  I once bought a lottery ticket in the days when our village shop was still open.  I didn't win.  The following week I decided to try again but decided en route to the village shop to put my £1 towards buying a pint of beer in the pub next door.  At least that way I would get something for my money.  Several friends argue that a few pounds a week for the price of a dream is worth the price of a ticket, especially since at least some of the cash goes to 'good causes' (which is questionable in itself).  I prefer an earlier comment by Alan Coren that the National Lottery is in fact 'an idiot tax', a comment that sounds as if it might have come from his daughter Victoria, doyen of Only Connect my new favourite tv quiz show on BBC2 (second only to Judge Judy, ITV2).  These are both good examples of tv shows that depend entirely on their hostess for their success. Victoria Coren has a waspish comic touch that is quietly hilarious.  Highly recommended. As for my retirement plans, which are no longer a distant prospect, perhaps I should consider going part-time, say three days a week.  Strangely I have always fancied working in Tesco as a complete change after retiring professionally but the employees I encounter there are seldom happy with their lot.  But then who is these days?  Living in the south of Spain would be my preferred option - if only I won the lottery.  Therein lies my quandary: I will not buy a ticket and contribute to 'the idiot tax'.  A perfect example of wanting to eat my cake without paying for the ingredients necessary to make it in the first place. 

Walking in the rain

I now feel guilty about borrowing this image for my blog.  It's by Jane Ferguson and was chosen to illustrate my theme about 'walking in the rain '(not surprisingly).  But should the artist be compensated for her work being used?  No profit accrues from my blog.  Hardly anyone reads them anyway.  Is this justification for 'borrowing' someones creative efforts without recompense?  Possibly.  Hope so anyway. I'm not sure my older son would agree.

Anyway, walking in the rain and whether I should make the effort to put on my waterproofs and head out for a stroll in the cold but fresh air is today's pressing question.  Arguments for: good exercise, haven't had  a decent walk in a few days, it's good to get out, clears the head.  Arguments against: just spent ten days walking (and cycling) in sunny Spain where the sky was blue and the climactic contrast with my homeland is therefore both deeply unfavourable and a significant deterrent (for the moment anyway, until it all becomes a distant memory).  Conclusion: have some mint tea and think about it some more.

Hegel's bagels

We went to Prague earlier in the year. I had been several times before before but it was the first time for my wife and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.  There were however a few exceptions.   For example, the outrageous pricing at some of the most popular tourist spots and in particular the atmospheric Old Jewish Cemetery. I know that the exorbitantly priced ticket included entry to all of the many Jewish synagogues in the city, many of which are particularly fine, but how many shuls can a goyim visit in a single day?  Of the nearby Cafe Kafka however I have no complaints.  A quiet and dark wooden interior, plain furniture, and decent beer and coffee (at reasonable 'tourist city' prices) make it easy to imagine that you might bump into the great man himself.  I declined to buy their subdued souvenir t-shirt only on the grounds that I now prefer plain t-shirts sans motif.  Of the food they served, I'm not so sure because the strudel we ate wasn't quite as good as the breakfast strudels we enjoyed in a different cafe.  However, if they had been selling Hegel's Bagels ...

Other food we ate in Prague was much more enjoyable, and so too was the exemplary Prague beer - the wine too.  Lots of meat, mostly pork and venison, and lots of dumplings, but we found an excellent pizzeria serving both pizza and local wine at very reasonable prices just slightly out of the city centre.  We also enjoyed eating near the university in a restaurant/bar decorated with fleshy murals of large-breasted and naked women and hugely endowed and naked men fornicating in the Bohemian countryside.  Definitely a place to go back to.  Prague I mean.

Feline dementia and daal

It is so cold here.  Driving my son to work because he missed his bus this morning, I first had to defrost the car's windshield.  The temperature outside was 2.5 degrees.  Not too cold if you live in northern Scandinavia or Alaska but cold enough here, especially if you have just returned form southern Spain where the average daytime temperature was in the middle to high 20s.  It is so cold here even the cats are complaining and meow piteously to be let in through the kitchen door whenever their little paws begin to ice up.  Although the older of the two cats regularly meows out of context because of her feline dementia and so it's difficult to know exactly what she's thinking.  She's also taken to leaping, slowly, onto the dining room table to lick any plates or bowls inadvertenbtly left behind.  So it was I discovered today that cats seem to like daal curry with onion, ginger and garlic.  But that could have been the dementia of course.

Small things matter

I can heartily recommend the Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman whose writing appears in the weekend magazine. A recent article emphasised the importance, based on solid academic research, of 'pusuing little victories ... (That) a sense of incremental progress is vastly more important to happiness than either a grand mission or financial incentives'.  It's the sort of thing that chimes with common sense and personal experience but is often swept aside by the surge of 'mission statements' and 'targets' that bedevil the managements of both modern corporations and the public sector, aided and abetted by all shades of political opinion.  Too often managements emphasise the importance of 'seeing the big picture' but lose sight of the more important details, for example understanding the fundamental role played by 'the human factor'.  That is, in any organisation the people you work with come first, last, and always - not customers, clients, shareholders, stakeholders (whatever they are).  Get this first bit right and everything else will fall more easily into place and everyone benefits - including all of the above.  The corollary of course is also true. There might then be some truth in the old saw that if you take care of the little things, the big things often take care of themselves.  Just ask Snoopy.  (I had forgotten how much the Charles M. Schulz cartoons made me smile.)
As a sidebar, my older son was highly critical when I told him the subject of my latest blog, accusing me of 'plagiarism'.  'But,' I protested. 'I always quote my sources.' 'Still plagiarism,' he insisted.  Well not according to my 1996 edition of Chambers Dictionary it isn't.  I quote verbatim: 'to copy ideas from someone else's work and use them as if they were one's own'.  So, ha!

A fine malt , but there are limits

The problem started when my younger son took me literally.  'The malt whisky is there to be drunk', says I.  And so drinking it he has been.  But he has been taking more than his fair share of my fine malt and I need to address the issue with him.  It's not even as if he buys his own occasionally.  So do I say, 'No more, enough already!'  Or, 'Leave some for me, please.'  Perhaps it should be, 'Smaller measures might allow the whole family to enjoy it.'  Although to be honest his mum doesn't drink malt whisky, nor does his older brother.   I could hide the bottle but that seems churlish.   And, my final dilemma, it's not as if I even enjoy malt whisky that much, certainly not compared to wine or brandy or beer.  But there are limits.

But is it a good read?

I have given up arguing with my wife about the merits and demerits of potboilers.  She likes to read them and I don't.  I have picked up Dan Brown's magnum opus and put it down just as quickly.  The writing is execrable and the plot absurd (although, mea culpa, I haven't actually read it all the way through so that might well disqualify me from comment but, since the book has become such a cultural icon, I feel quite comfortable criticising it).  Good friends and colleagues agree with my wife and one, when carelessly challenged, spewed forth a closely argued discourse on why Dan Brown was both well-written and intellectually stimulating.  No, honestly, she did.  If only I had read the fine article by Jeanette Winterson in today's Guardian newspaper.  'There are plenty of entertaining reads that are part of the enjoyment of life.  That doesn't make them literature.  There is a simple test: does this writer's capacity for language expand my capacity to think and to feel?'  All this apropos of the Booker prizewinner announced last night as Julian Barnes and the view of at least some of the judges that 'readibility is the key to a good book'.  Well, maybe but, as Winterson continues, 'There is such a thing as art.  There is such a thing as literature'.  Hooray for that!  I suppose what has tripped me up on previous occasions was a failure to discriminate between 'a good read' and literature.  Must be more careful with my dialectic in future and tonight over dinner I will try out my new line of attack on my family of voracious readers.

P.S. Sadly, never managed to insert my praphrasing of Winterson's argument into our table-talk.  Perhaps another time.

Well, I did say it would be occasional

I cannot believe how long it is since I posted a blog, but here I am again anyway, just returned from a short break in Spain and clearly refreshed enough in body, mind and spirit to resume my blogging.  I wonder if I will be able to sustain the effort after so long an absence from the keypad?  Isn't the main point about blogging that it's a regular activity?  Otherwise, online at least, I lose track of what's going on in the world around me.The most successful blogs are clearly those that keep abreast of major political, social or cultural events and then comment on them. The bloggers in Syria provide invaluable insights into the violent convulsions of that benighted dictatorship, just as they once did in Egypt and Tunisia and Libya.  (Has anyone seen Mr Qaddafi recently?)  Bloggers in China risk  censorship and imprisonment if they dare to step outside the clearly marked boundaries of 'free speech and tolerance for dissent' allowed by the repressive authorities.  Ironic then that judges in this country's Court of Appeal recently averred that modern communication  technology is 'totally out of control' and so clearly a threat to public order.  Two young men had lengthy jails sentences confirmed for inciting riots on Facebook - only two years less than Abu Hamza received for inciting murder.  How Beijing must smile when western governments raise with them the issue of human rights.  
My blog commands no significant audience.  Perhaps even none at all ... lol!  Nor does it offer unique insights into international or even local or national events, if you discount the intricacies of the Scottish education System - and I wish you would while it still offers me gainful employment.  No, I write my blog simply because it amuses me to do so. So, let's get started again and see how long it lasts for this time.

Dirty hands and rocket

We have created and planted a raised vegetable bed outside the kitchen door with rocket, various salad leaf, herbs, and tomatoes.  It was my idea but not entirely my own work.  My wife designed the bed and did most of the detailed planning.  She also bought the wood and built it. I provided the heavy labour: digging, turning the sod, driving the wheelbarrow, hefting this and that, hewing where required, etc.  The finished bed looks good, everything is growing fast in the warm, wet weather, and we can of course eat the results.  Rocket salad with shaved Parmesan is a particular favourite. However, I have been reminded again that I would not have enjoyed being a peasant farmer regardless of the satisfaction to be gained from 'growing my own food'.  Son of the soil I am not.  I was impressed too with the quantity of compost the raised bed took to fill, the huge number of stones sifted from the soil, the variety of bugs and creepy crawlies to be found in a few square metres of ground, and the length of time it took to scrub my hands and fingernails clean.  If time suddenly reversed back to the Middle Ages, I would definitely want to be a monk in the scriptorium.  Or, failing that, a handmaid for Hildegard of Bingen.

Prague in Easter with Carmen

Prague in April.  A great city and great fun.  This Easter it was swarming with tourists, mostly in groups and entirely well-behaved despite the city's reputation for occasional loutish behaviour. (On my return to work a colleague professed herself equally in love with the city and determined to return, but with more people, her own 'group' because, she felt, 'Prague was a city that would be more enjoyable with more people around you'.  Having experienced both ways of seeing Prague, I'm not sure I agree.)  The weather was glorious, the food filling, the beer tasty, the wine from Moldavia a pleasant surprise.  Our hotel overlooked the Vltava river towards the Charles Bridge and allowed us to enjoy a morning walk along the riverside and downstream to the cafe Phoenix for our breakfast.   For a week or so we happily tramped the streets of Prague doing nothing very much of anything, although we did go to the state opera to see Carmen.  It turned out to be an exciting evening.  We thought a man had died in the row in front of us, just before the end of Act One. Turned out that he was comatose through drinking too much.  After he had thrown up over the row in front of him, he was carried out into the corridor and we never saw him  again.  Carmen was also notable for an excellent production, wonderful playing from the pit band, a very good chorus, and equally fine principals -- with the exception of the toreador who was execrable in the first half and only slightly better in the second.  I almost booed but glanced at my wife and thought better of it, but refused to clap when he appeared onstage for his curtain call. Stories about the Cafe Kafka, outrageous pricing in popular tourist spots, begging, breakfast, Prague restaurants, prostitutes, art galleries, city walks, trams, taxis and beer to follow.

Strange, isn't it, how the most seemingly banal of lyrics can strike a chord.  This from a song by Elena Ledda called Della Mia Vita: 'Of my life the sweetest moments / Are those I spend, my love, adoring you'.  Not so profound, less cerebral perhaps than the lines from the 'vain and narcissistic' German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (not my opinion, never having read more than just the occasional poem quoted elsewhere) that also caught my eye this week: 'To love is also good, for love is hard.  Love between one person and another: that is perhaps the hardest thing it is laid on us to do, the utmost, the ultimate trial and test, the work for which all other work is preparation'.  But both appeal to the sentimental side of my nature, the soft spot that allows me to cry when I hear 'sad music': mostly opera, mostly Puccini. For I do have a soft inner core, a lack of ruthlessness that allows me to resist the lure of seeking promotion in the workplace. And my experience has been that those who mostly occupy positions of middle and senior management possess a hard edge, a coldness that allows them to reprimand error and pretend to a professional superiority that is more shadow than substance.  Or is my lack of ambition an unwillingness  to 'put myself out there' and be judged wanting by my peers?  Perhaps. Certainly, ever since reading the Hornblower novels of C. S Forester, I have sided with his introverted hero and actively dislike the idea of telling people what to do.  Nagging my wife and family, now that's something else entirely.   

A bit like Sisyphus

I have succumbed to the temptation of the tv ads for the home depot stores currently appearing this Easter vacation that challenge sedentary males to re-imagine, revitalise, yea to redecorate their homes in bright primary colours.  My wife chose the colours, bought the paint and materials, gave me precise instructions on how to proceed, and I provided the labour.  Although at times I felt a bit like Sisyphus the end result is undoubtedly worthwhile.  Indeed, listening to the radio while working, the time seemed to pass quickly and the chore of painting was (strangely?) both rewarding and relaxing.  So keen was I to begin that I was up and out of bed, showered, breakfasted and spreading paint by half past seven most mornings this week.  But I'm glad it's finished, in no small part due to the lofty assistance of my younger son, even if the reference to Sisyphus reminds me that Camus used the title Le Mythe de Sisyphus for his collection of essays on the general absurdity of life and the futility of many of Man's endeavours. Hopefully this doesn't include DIY and redecorating, although I suspect it does.  I don't remember reading that Camus was a dab hand with a brush and paint roller despite his undoubted intellectual prowess.  Glancing around at my pile of 'yet to be listened' to cds and small mountain of 'yet to be read' books, that thought on the 'futility of Man's endeavours' strikes home strongly.  As does a reminder that 'to be always filled with craving and desire' is one of the Three Poisons of Buddhism,  the other two being Ignorance and Attachment, or Hatred and Delusion according to the text you consult.  At any rate, the painting below is Madame Camus by Degas and really quite attractive.  I wonder if Degas was into home decorating?  I wonder too if colour blindness affected any (many?) of the great artists?  Being colour blind myself there have been interesting debates in the last few days about which particular shade of pale yellow (my wife's perception) or pale green (my perception) our dining room walls now are.

A bizarre story caught my eye concerning Henry Nott of The London Missionary Society, and a bricklayer from Bromsgrove by trade, who failed to convert a single Tahitian in 22 years of trying, starting in 1797. 'Possibly', Sue Arnold wryly suggests in her audio book review, 'because they were too busy killing, flattening and drying their neighbours, then making a big hole in the middle and wearing them like ponchos'.   I presume they would be waterproof, but how did they keep the ponchos soft and supple?  Ugh!  A disgusting thought.  However,  I do quite like the Tahitians for their persistence in rejecting Nott's offer of a false god.

More hot toast and butter thoughts

I do have a friend with a heart condition who said he was too busy to exercise.  This cartoon must have been drawn specially for him.  How can you not find time for something that might help to save, or at least prolong your life?  Or is refusing to exercise despite 'doctor's orders' no more than a personal lifestyle choice we are all entitled to make?  Of course it is.  And am I any better for occasionally drinking more wine than is sensible for me?  Knowledge of the ill-health that might result from any behaviour is clearly not in itself enough to prevent the behaviour.  Everyone in Western Europe knows that smoking is harmful to your health but millions of people still do it.  There are other far more powerful influences at work when people chose to smoke, eat to excess, refuse to exercise, drink too much, drive too fast, take illegal drugs, and so on.  I was quite taken recently by a consultant from a major teaching hospital in London who kept repeating (in a radio debate about obesity)  that people get fat because they eat too much, that exercise plays a secondary and marginal role in weight loss (although not in general health and fitness).  I like that and it's obvious when you hear it.  Exercise all you like and keep eating too much and you won't lose weight.  Stop eating and take no exercise and still the pounds will fall off you.  Well said, doctor.  Now where is that hot toast and butter?

Raafat al-Ghosain

Thanks again to Robert Fisk of The Independent newspaper for reminding us of the following.  I paraphrase slightly.  'Just after 2am on 15 April 1986 the Americans killed a young woman, Raafat al-Ghosain.  Three bombs dropped from an F-111 aircraft  "impacted in the vicinity of the French embassy" and caused – to use the usual callous euphemism – "collateral damage".  Her father described the scene. "She was lying on her back with the head turned on the right cheek, she was intact, her hair undisturbed, and a small streak of blood coming from the top side of her head, flowing down her left cheek." Ms Ghosain was aged 18, a graduate from an English school on holiday from London, a promising and beautiful artist whose individual death went unrecorded in the country that killed her a quarter of a century ago. Her mother was Lebanese and her father Palestinian, working for a Libyan oil company. She is forgotten today.' 

Cinema verite

More fun from the BBFC classifications intended to aid unwary adults who might shirk from the unexpected or be unwittingly offended on a visit to the cinema.  This time the  BBFC guidance coyly warns that the film 'contains a discrete sex scene'.  What larks!  What might 'an indiscrete sex scene' look like, I wonder?  And how exactly do you have sex 'discretely'?  With the lights off,  beneath the bedclothes, fully clothed perhaps?  Slightly tricky that last one I would have thought. But I'm trying to imagine a filmgoer being caught unawares by something that appears on the big screen. 'These people are making love, discretely, but nonetheless copulating in Widescreen Dolby Surround Sound.  Outrageous!  This would never happen in real life.  So much for cinema bloody verite.'  I would love to read the BBFC guidelines that allow the censors to differentiate between 'a sex scene' and  'a discrete sex scene'.  Or between 'sex' and 'strong sex'.  Great phrase that - strong sex.  As opposed to what?  Slightly flimsy sex?  Half-hearted but well-intentioned sex?  These people need to get out more.

Hubris

It's an unpleasant sensation to feel yourself slipping through the previously stable surface of an assumption of professional competence on which you have been happily working.  The Ancient Greeks had a word for it and this week I have experienced that unpleasant sinking feeling as a victim of hubris.  My trusty Penguin English Dictionary defines hubris  as 'arrogance, insolence' (page 360).   But I prefer the Chambers 21st Century Dictionary's definition (page 654): 'arrogance or over-confidence, especially when likely to result in disaster or ruin'.  There was no disaster, no ruin, but an act of professional clumsiness that can be explained by workload pressure but not excused by it.  I was left breathless by the stupidity of what I had done.  Was it a salutary lesson?  Most definitely, yes.  And, without wishing to make more of it than it was, it reminded me of the lines from Tobias Wolff:

'You can go on as if you hold the reins, that the course of your life, yea even its length, will reflect the force of your character and wisdom of your judgements.  And then you hit an icy patch on a turn one sunny March day and the wheel in your hands becomes a joke.'

 

Reading about, watching and listening to the news from Japan, Libya, Bahrain, Palestine, Mexico, Syria, and Yemen,  it's appropriate to recall, as Alain de Botton reminds us, of Seneca: 'What need is there to weep over parts of life?  The whole of it calls for tears.'   Quite so.  Seneca's the one in the middle, with Plato on the left and Aristotle on the right.  Nice little medieval illustration but an unfortuante reminder that my 'teach-yourself Ancient Greek chronology' has fallen on hard times.

Mrs God

Is there a Mrs God?  What a great question?  I was also tickled to learn that the use of 'He / She' in common prayer books is becoming more widespread in the Christian church.  What a wonderful example of theological 'sitting on the fence'.  And doesn't this failed and slightly barmy attempt to offend no-one really just  please / displease men / women in equal measure? But is god perhaps beyond gender, gender neutral, or a sort of divine hermaphrodite? Hard to say given the importance of sexual reproduction in the maintenance of the species.  And given that the majority of the world's monotheistic religions are patriarchal in nature, patriarchal by tradition and patriarchal in contemporary practice, does it really matter?  Answers on a postcard please to anyone but me.

History on the march

World events are moving too quickly for me to keep up with on my blog.  Libya and the brutal civil war between Gaddafi and the rebels / freedom fighters, depending on which news service you listen to - disgracefully - for surely they are all freedom fighters struggling to overthrow a vicious tyrant.  Japan following the earthquake and horrific tsunami whose devastation is Biblical in proportion.  How many killed?  Ten thousand?  Twenty thousand? And now the nuclear threat from the perhaps fatally damaged power station.  Unrest in Bahrain and the arrival of, er, friendly troops from Saudi Arabia.  The victims of the New Zealand earthquake and the Australian floods now largely forgotten.  The civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan equally so.  Too much is happening too quickly.  Truly it seems as if history is on the (quick) march.

All hail the goddess!

My dentist knows I dislike her.  My dentist who is a sweetly natured, gentle and proficient woman knows I approach her surgery with all of the trepidation and deep seated anxiety of a true dental coward.  I have a phobia so powerful that if my wife didn't prod and cajole and remind me that my appointment was due then I wouldn't go.  My detestation of the dental profession is so strong that when the children were younger I would take them with me so that I would have to be brave.  And that didn't always work.  But my dentist knows this and once gave me a Being Brave badge for not crying out.  When I stand up from her chair my legs wobble and I stagger slightly for the few seconds it takes me to exit her surgery.  Walking down the street, as the distance grows between her dental practice and my retreating figure, I breathe more freely.  Despite all of this, I recognise her value.  I openly acknowledge the importance of regular visits to her satanic suite of brightly-lit rooms where the sickly sweet smell of decaying molars and medicated mouthwash seems to linger and perfume the air.  Life without my highly capable and silver tongued dentist would be grim indeed.  For all of those foolish people who wish they had lived in an earlier age, I would only ask that they consider life without effective dental hygiene and dental surgery, a life without anaesthesia, a life without the wonders of penicillin.  Just look at the picture and consider the Ancient Egyptian priestess whose skull showed the horrific marks of poor dental hygiene in the shape of a fist sized hole eaten into her jaw, the result of a tooth gone bad.   So it is I grit my teeth (sorry ... ) and pay my dues (literally) to the patron saint of dentists (probably) St. Apollonia of Alexandria.  All hail the goddess!

Hille Perl

Hille Perl.  Remember that name if you want to immerse yourself in the music of the seventeenth century viola da gamba.  She plays with the touch of an angel and even her name seems to fit the style and sound of the musical world she conjures.  I suspect that Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656) is more interested in the fleshy tones and seductive contours of the young woman he paints than the ripe and earthy tones of the viola da gamba she purports to be playing, but it is an appealing image nonetheless.  I wonder what Hille would make of it?  I suspect that she would be pleased to see her beloved instrument promoted regardless of the context.  I wonder though how accurate the young lady's bowing and fingering technique is?  Judging by the look on her face she is clearly enjoying her own music making.  Hille Perle's rather quaint sleeve notes on her Doulce Memoire cd  includes the wish that the music 'may happify (sic) and inspire you'.  It clearly has in this case.  I rather like it too.

Skin deep

I was struck over the weekend while shopping in town and at the supermarket by the number of women who, judging by the colour of their complexion, appear to have been dipped in creosote.  Ladies, I know you're making an effort to look more attractive, but that wood preservative colouration isn't doing it for you.  For those gents who also seem to be obsessed with their skin taking on the same sheen as Ronseal's Quickdrying Mahogany Woodstain, the same proviso applies.  Be natural.  Use as much skin cream as you need to make your skin feel soft and supple.  Add whatever makeup you need to highlight your most attractive features.  Apply gently scented perfume and try not to overdose on the anti-perspirants. But forget it with the fake tans already.

The pursuit of happiness

Am I happy?  How would I know?  Define happiness, using both sides of the paper.  In a new book by John Kay, 'Obliquity: why our goals are best achieved indirectly', he suggests that profitable companies are not those who always pursue profit at all costs, in the same way that happy people are often aiming for something else. Their happiness is a fortunate by-product of doing other things, of living 'a good life' with a clear moral compass.  So much then for all those books promising readers there are only 'ten simple steps to a happier life' and holding out the impossible dream of being able to 'make yourself happy in 30 days'.  (And I just love that word obliquity.  It's the sort of word that appears to be of recent formation but I was surprised to learn that it has an ancient pedigree, stretching back to Late Middle English, according to my OED, page 1428.  It stems from the French obliquer, to turn in a sidelong direction.)  The French philosopher Pascal Bruckner clearly agrees with Kay.  In his new book, 'Perpetual Euphoria', Bruckner argues that striving to attain happiness is more likely to lead to a state of unhappiness than not: that the active pursuit of happiness is a fool's errand.  Better by far, he advises, to treat happiness as an uninvited but welcome guest when and if it shows up in your life.  Hoorah to that.  I agree too with F. D Roosevelt's old saw, also quoted by Kay, 'Try something; if it fails, admit it frankly, and try another'. This reminds me of my family motto, carved into the lintel above the doorway of the ancestral shed: if at first you don't succeed, give up.

Byron etc.

A short ditty from Byron caught my eye in the newspaper:  'A little she strove, and much repented, / and whispering, 'I will ne'er consent' - consented.'  Followed shortly after by several quotes from a review of 'Talking to the Enemy: Violent Extremism, Sacred Values, and What it means to be Human' by Scott Atran.  The book's author ends by saying that, 'permanent peace is about as improbable on Earth as unending day', but before he gets there, as the reviewer adroitly notes, 'In a passage that should be framed and hung above the desks of every world leader, he writes: 'Until Barrack Obama's election, US relief for the Indonesian victims of the December 2004 tsunami arguably was the only significant victory since 9/11 in the struggle to prevent enlistment of future terrorists for jihad'.  Scott Atran also makes the (hopefully obvious) point that parents of suicide bombers feel neither satisfaction nor pride in the actions of their sons (or daughters): 'I have yet to meet parents who would not have done anything in their power to stop their children from such an act'.  Indeed.  Surely only crack brained far right-wing gainsayers and anti-Semites would disagree.

Food for thought

Is there anything better than a roast chicken for dinner on a Sunday?  Well, yes, naked group sex in a jacuzzi is better, but if you restrict the choice to food I mean.  Pizza in Naples.  Ok.  No, well, that is better. Tapas in Seville washed down with local wine.  Fair enough.  Bratwurst and beer in Frankfurt.  Stop already, you made your point.  There's a whole lot that's a whole lot better than roast chicken on a Sunday.  But if you're stuck at home and the shops are closed and the restaurants are full and you lack the energy or inspiration to open a cookery book then nothing beats a roast chicken for Sunday dinner.  And yes, I do think that vegetarianism is a lifestyle choice sensible eaters should pay no heed to.  They have no word for it in Mandarin.  Don't think Inuit culture shelters many nut roast nibblers either.  On an associated point,  I wonder how the government's latest food fascist diktat on the maximum quantity of red meat people should eat squares with evolutionary science (for are we not descendants of carnivores)?  And is it true that vegetarians have a lower incidence of bowel cancer, as surely they must since they eat no meat at all?  Food for thought.

Mud

Mysteries of Married Life #2 involves the accretion of mud.  When I go walking, anywhere, my lower legs are quickly covered in mud.  If the ground is wet and boggy the mud reaches to my lower thighs.  In extremely wet conditions it can splash my upper back.  I have even been known to get muddy walking along a tarmacadam road. But my wife attracts no mud, at anytime, in any terrain, whatever the climactic conditions.  Even her boots remain mud free.  It's a muddy  mystery of married life for I guarantee that even in a historical re-enactment of the battle of Passchendaele she would attract no mud . As for my illustrative choice, is it mud or is it chocolate that covers the fiery eyed young woman?  Do I lick or do I wallow?  Flanders and Swann would know what to do.

Too easy to snigger

I do like the idea, written about most persuasively by Kathryn Hughes in today's Guardian, of the value in trying to 'inhabit the opposition's  mindset'.  The article was a review of a book on Cavaliers of the English Civil War by John Stubbs, 'Reprobates'.  The context was a discussion of the Edinburgh lawyer Archibald Johnstone, a man who spent his wedding night with his fourteen year-old bride (sic) 'testing her on her catechism'.  She died eight months later and Johnstone's eventual, if painful rationalisation of the tragedy, was that it marked 'God's special favour'.  Hughes writes, 'It would be easy to snigger, but Stubbs watches over Archibald's unlovely Calvinism with something approaching tenderness.  Here is a man already in a hell of his own making: who would begrudge him the capacity to wrangle darkness from light'.  I like too her saving of the essayist Aubrey who, 'With his crashing snobbery, his fussy antiquarianism and loose way with a fact, he has long been consigned to the status of historical mediocrity.  But Stubbs reminds us of Aubrey's better qualities'.  Yes.  I sometimes worry that it is too easy 'to mock' colleagues and to forget or deliberately ignore their 'better qualities'.  Something to remember on Monday morning.  Along with the story of the poet William Davenant who, ingesting mercury to cure his syphilis, 'had his head sown into a medicated hood to protect his ruined features.  It didn't work:  once the hood was off he found himself cupping the remains of his septum in his hands'.

The baldy bloke

Our son tells us that customer service in Germany is inherently different to customer service in the UK.  Not so fawning.  Longer eye contact. Can't say I've noticed but it's an interesting thought.  On this morning's shopping jaunt in town I was certainly struck by the warm and friendly manner of the various shop assistants I spoke to.  Most especially the lovely young lady in a charity shop who had me laughing out loud listening to her instruct an elderly volunteer on the use of the electronic payment card machine. 'Now', she said, 'Ask the gentleman nicely for his card.'  Meaning me.  And when I smiled and said that it was good to be called a gentleman, she said, 'Well, I could have said that bloke with the glasses.'  Then, at the end of the transaction, which had taken some time to complete, she delivered a devastating smile, a wink, and said to the volunteer, 'Now give that bloke with the baldy patch his receipt.'  What could I do?  I roared with laughter.  Now that's what I call customer service - make 'em leave with a smile.

Caveat emptor

'The retention of capital punishment in many of the states in the USA is partly a result of local democracy.  Local people exercise democratic choices and vote to retain execution as the ultimate punishment.'  An interesting thesis and another fascinating 'Thinking Allowed' programme presented by Laurie Taylor on BBC Radio 4.  Would people in the UK vote in a referendum for the return of capital punishment?  Perhaps. Or perhaps attitudes have moved on apace.  I certainly hope so.  But I have a new idea for a programme for Laurie, if he's interested.  'The difficulty of recommending books, films or music to friends.'  It is a stratagem fraught with difficulties and should really only be attempted if you are more than halfway sure that the tastes of your friend and your own coincide closely.  Otherwise there is the possibility of recrimination, bitterness, perhaps even anger.  Even more so when it comes to recommending a holiday destination. Just  imagine spending all that money on a vacation somewhere only to find when you arrive that you hate it.  Who do you blame?  Your friend of course.  Not so bad if it's a paperback book or a cd, especially if you lend it to them first.  Restaurants are ok because you can always blame the chef or the service on the night they go.  Films too. 'You didn't enjoy it?  But the reviews were so great.  Are you sure you understood the narrative twists? / the underlying leitmotiv? / the director's extended metaphor? / and etc.'  Your friends have a responsibility too of course and are free to act or not on the advice you proffer.  Back to the idea of democratic choice.  If you chose to purchase anything on a recommendation please be aware that the recommendation is inherently flawed in that it  comes from another.  Caveat emptor, says I. The doggy cartoon is only tangentially relevant to all of this but it made me laugh.  A bit like the spoof tv ad that purports to advertise doggy dentures.  It's silly but I always smile when I see it.

A learned rabbi

There's an old Jewish joke about a man searching for the meaning of life.  He travels for hundreds of miles in search of a famous and  learned rabbi.  The man climbs mountains and fords rivers.  He gets sick and almost dies.  Eventually after many years travelling he finds the learned rabbi and asks, 'Rabbi!  What is the meaning of life?'  And the rabbi says, 'Come back a week Tuesday.  God didn't tell me yet.' 

Actually, it's not an old Jewish joke at all, I just made it up.  Which is to say it might be an old joke surfacing from my sub-conscious but I didn't copy it directly.  And I quite like it.  It's not a great joke, but it's an ok joke.  Maybe I should start writing jokes for a living.  Then again, maybe not.  At least with my current job I get  a pension.

Ogden Nash

I first became aware of Ogden Nash on a cassette tape version of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with Hermione Gingold narrating and the Vienna Philharmonic providing the music, conducted by Karl Bohm (whose LP box set of Beethoven Symphonies I received for my 16th birthday).  The filler was Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, enlivened by Nash's wonderfully acerbic verses.  And I just love this poster.  But who listens to cassette tape versions of anything these days?  Well, me for one.  I still have a Sony machine and hundreds of tapes, although the amount of wow and flutter seems to increase at an alarming rate when I play them now.  I'm sure there is a technical reason for this, but c'est la vie.  As they die on the cog wheels of the tape deck the cassettes are ceremoniously unspooled and binned without regret. I never did take to them and only persisted in buying cassettes because they were cheaper than the newly arrived cds.  Yet another false economy it seems, even when the cost ratio comparison of cassette versus cd was better than 2:1.  As a postscript, the Hermione Gingold recording was bought by my wife and buying music of any kind is still a rare event for her.  I wonder why?