Too many geologists appear to have lost faith in geological processes. Instead they call upon 'satan ex machina', as explored entertainingly in the movie The Fifth Element. The dinosaurs were not hit on the head by an asteroid (or even two). If someone as much as sneezes these so-called geologists invoke a killer asteroid. Have more faith in your training! Geology happens because of geological processes. Volcanic eruptions, lava flows, plate tectonics and salt domes are examples of what is perfectly good enough to explain much of what happens here on Earth - after all, look at Venus. The latest examples of asteroid-mania is the claim by UK geologists who, feeling left out of the limelight, are insisting that fomer salt dome structures in the North Sea are the UK's own meteor impact craters. What is wrong with these people? I am starting to wonder if they have been 'got at' by Creationists.
In contrast, methane hydrates represent a real tipping point ready to topple. Global warming threatens to release these extensive greenhouse deposits, as happened at the end of the Permian, roasting the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. This is a bona fide, if catastrophic, geological process that has rapid and far-reaching consequences. (I consider this issue in greater detail in my website: Green.)
30 March 2007
29 March 2007
Subceptions: counselling weblog
I have started a new weblog, Subceptions, which can be found at:
http://myblogs.sunderland.ac.uk/blogs/blog-259/
The purpose of this weblog is to explore counselling-related issues.
http://myblogs.sunderland.ac.uk/blogs/blog-259/
The purpose of this weblog is to explore counselling-related issues.
26 March 2007
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art: MIMA
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) is a new art gallery housed in a recently-completed building set in a magnificent square in the heart of Middlebrough town centre. The gallery cost £14.1 million, and the square £5.5 million. These are signiifcant sums of money for a town that carries an unremitting industrial reputation to spend on fine art and architecture.
I visited the gallery on a cold, breezy day in March, bright with sunlight, and was able to photograph both the gallery itself and some of the other buildings around the square. Photography of the inside of the building is permitted, but not of exhibitions. To view my photographs, follow this link:
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art
From the outside, and contrasted with the other buildings in the square, this grand building looks fittingly like a modern art gallery. Its box-like structure, somewhat reminiscent of Walsall's new art gallery, feels modern and contructed. Whilst the two side walls and the back wall are made of a glowing white material that could be limestone, conrete or rendered breeze blocks, the wall overlooking the square is mostly an immense expanse of glass recessed behind vertical steel cables. The main entrance is at the front of the building towards the right. Beside the main entrance, part of the wall is built from am ordered chaos of limestone blocks with all manner of different dressings. From this I took a message that paying attention to detail will yield results. This wall departed from the concept of minimal decoration and large flat areas. It also appeared immediately obvious that thought and attention have been given to the materials of which the building is made.
With its grand atrium from which all floors are visible but activities are hidden. the inside of the building feels a little like the inside of the Sage in Gateshead. The dark stone tiled floor feels pleasingly lavish. To the immediate right of the main entrance a tasteful cafe/restaurant occupies the right end of the ground floor. A staircase with wooden (oak?) bannister climbs diagonally from left to right in a barely-broken run from ground floor to third floor.
[Give details of the gallery spaces.]
On the day of my visit there was an exhibition of drawings in a variety of media. Most notable was the fact that there were a few works by some big names: Picasso, Pollock. The value of the exhibition, however, was the work of less-well-known artists [give details]. Perhaps one of my shortgcomings is that I value examining the drawings of an artist only once I am familiar with their work. I was disappointed not to view some of the paintings in the gallery's permanent collection. With this purpose in mind I intend to visit the gallery again soon.
[Give details of the square]
[Upload photographs of the square]
In summary, I visited Middlesbrough in order to see, examine and photograph a building, and also to view an exhibition. Although the exhibition did little for me, the building is very obviously a significant and valuable addition to the architecture of Middlesbrough town centre.
I visited the gallery on a cold, breezy day in March, bright with sunlight, and was able to photograph both the gallery itself and some of the other buildings around the square. Photography of the inside of the building is permitted, but not of exhibitions. To view my photographs, follow this link:
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art
From the outside, and contrasted with the other buildings in the square, this grand building looks fittingly like a modern art gallery. Its box-like structure, somewhat reminiscent of Walsall's new art gallery, feels modern and contructed. Whilst the two side walls and the back wall are made of a glowing white material that could be limestone, conrete or rendered breeze blocks, the wall overlooking the square is mostly an immense expanse of glass recessed behind vertical steel cables. The main entrance is at the front of the building towards the right. Beside the main entrance, part of the wall is built from am ordered chaos of limestone blocks with all manner of different dressings. From this I took a message that paying attention to detail will yield results. This wall departed from the concept of minimal decoration and large flat areas. It also appeared immediately obvious that thought and attention have been given to the materials of which the building is made.
With its grand atrium from which all floors are visible but activities are hidden. the inside of the building feels a little like the inside of the Sage in Gateshead. The dark stone tiled floor feels pleasingly lavish. To the immediate right of the main entrance a tasteful cafe/restaurant occupies the right end of the ground floor. A staircase with wooden (oak?) bannister climbs diagonally from left to right in a barely-broken run from ground floor to third floor.
[Give details of the gallery spaces.]
On the day of my visit there was an exhibition of drawings in a variety of media. Most notable was the fact that there were a few works by some big names: Picasso, Pollock. The value of the exhibition, however, was the work of less-well-known artists [give details]. Perhaps one of my shortgcomings is that I value examining the drawings of an artist only once I am familiar with their work. I was disappointed not to view some of the paintings in the gallery's permanent collection. With this purpose in mind I intend to visit the gallery again soon.
[Give details of the square]
[Upload photographs of the square]
In summary, I visited Middlesbrough in order to see, examine and photograph a building, and also to view an exhibition. Although the exhibition did little for me, the building is very obviously a significant and valuable addition to the architecture of Middlesbrough town centre.
25 March 2007
Postmodern Pantheon
This posting has been growing for over six months.
There are people, chosen by me to a greater or lesser extent, who have influenced the thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, feelings and behaviour of the person I was and the person I have become. I have decided to identify them. These are my pantheon.
However, the task is too difficult, too risky, too suspect simply to present the results. The task must be examined, analysed, critiqued and developed
However, to present their names here is little more than a game, not to be taken seriously, as I consider celebrity to be an ugly aspect of contemporary western culture. With some obvious exceptions, such as Isherwood and Frank, I know little about the domestic circumstances of most of these people, and I may, for all I know, be inadvertently acclaiming a racist, homophobic, wife-beating paedophile. Few of these people were, or are, vegetarian, let alone vegan, which anyone who has encountered me knows is an essential part of who I am.
There are some, such as William Shakespeare, who have influenced me directly for much of my life (I saw my first Shakespeare play - Twelfth Night - when I was ten years old), and indirectly all my life because of the culture in which I have been raised and live. There are others whose influence has been fleeting, or more recent. There are some whose influence has been mediated through only one literary work, such as Lao Tse and Anne Frank, whereas regarding others, such as Hesse, Isherwood and Golding, it is the broad range of their literary output rather than one work in particular, that has been influential. There are those to whose vision (most of the artists) and ideas I am attracted, and there are others regarding whom it is their ideas and the way in which they lived them (such as Gandhi and King) that stand out for me.
I have focused on the people who have influenced me positively, rather than concerning myself with those from whom I have learned by rejection of some key aspect(s) of their legacy (Confucius, Plato, Jesus of Nazareth, Paul of Tarsus, the Prophet Mohammed, Chartles Stewart, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Senator MCarthy, Richard Nixon, Ayotollah Khomeni, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Osama bin Laden - who did you expect? I am politically liberal, of course I am going to reject icons of political conservatism).
Preparing a list such as mine below is nearly impossible because much of what has influenced me is hidden to me. I live in an economically-developed country, with piped drinking water, sewage treatment, elecricity for lighting, fuel for heating and cooking, an abundance of food in the shops, an albeit somewhat creaky national health service (partly free at the point of delivery), a comprehensive social wefare system, a wealth of information services (including broadband internet), and access to more technology than I have any hope of imagining. The countless thousansds of people who have been instrumental in constructing this western society to date are at least as influential on who I am as anyone I might place in a list. For me, this highlights the point that my 'list', my pantheon, is of people who distinguish me from others, people who define the colour of my livery.
Observers of the psyche
William Shakespeare
Herman Hesse
Carl Rogers
Eric Ericsson
Christopher Isherwood (who introduced me to interiority, and gave me permission to write in the first person)
William Golding
Susan Hill
John Rowan
Observers of history
Thomas Hardy
Christopher Isherwood
Anne Frank
Simon Schama
Norman Davies
Explorers of culture
Alan Watts
Andrei Tarkovsky
Akira Kurosawa
Peter Greenaway
Woody Allen (because I, too, love New York City)
Pieter Breughel, the elder
Pieter Breughel, the younger
Hieronymous Bosch
Rembrandt
William Morris
Modigliani
Claude Monet
Vincent Van Gogh
Jackson Pollock
Mark Rothko
Edgar Degas (his sculptures more than his paintings)
Henry Moore
Barbara Hepworth
Frank Lloyd Wright
Mies van der Rohe
Gaudi
James Stirling
Norman Foster
Richard Rogers
Antonin Vivaldi
Ludwig van Beethoven
Gustav Mahler
Sibelius
Gustav Holst
Ralph Vaughan Williams
George Gershwin
Aaron Copeland
Janecek
Bela Bartok (who prepared me for being able to hear Toru Takemitsu)
Toru Takemitsu
Arvo Part
Peter Maxwell-Davies
Van Morrison
Dave Cousins
Martin Carthy (who keeps me in love with both the countryside and with vernacular history)
Sandy Denny (who keeps me in touch with melancholy)
Jon Anderson (who keeps me in touch with dreams)
Phil Collins (who keeps me in touch with ebullience)
W.H. Auden
Roger McGough
Brian Patten
Adrian Henry
Jon Silkin
D.H. Lawrence
Thomas Hardy
Observers of spirituality
Lao Tse
Buddha
George Fox
Alan Watts
Players on the world stage
Oliver Cromwell
Mahatma Ghandi
Martin Luther King
Engineers and entrepreneurs
George Stephenson
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Bill Gates
Steve Jobs
Tim Berners-Lee (because you co-invented the internet)
Clive Sinclair
Richard Branson
Anita Roddick
Scientists and technologists
Pythagoras [~ 580 / 572 BC – ~ 500 / 490 BC]
Aristotle [384 BC – 322 BC]
Roger Bacon [c. 1214 – 1294]
Leonardo da Vinci [15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519
Isaac Newton [4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727]
Humphrey Davy [17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829]
Michael Faraday [22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867]
Charles Darwin [12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882]
Marie and Pierre Curie [7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934 & 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906]
Albert Einstein [14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955]
Carl Sagan [9 November 1934 – 20 December 1996](for popularising science, and believing in space)
Richard Dawkins [26 March 1941 to date](for his rational, fearless defence of atheism, and steadfast rejection of anti-science)
Stephen Hawking [8 January 1942 to date](for developing his astrophysical theories despite his deteriorating physical condition)
There are people, chosen by me to a greater or lesser extent, who have influenced the thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, feelings and behaviour of the person I was and the person I have become. I have decided to identify them. These are my pantheon.
However, the task is too difficult, too risky, too suspect simply to present the results. The task must be examined, analysed, critiqued and developed
However, to present their names here is little more than a game, not to be taken seriously, as I consider celebrity to be an ugly aspect of contemporary western culture. With some obvious exceptions, such as Isherwood and Frank, I know little about the domestic circumstances of most of these people, and I may, for all I know, be inadvertently acclaiming a racist, homophobic, wife-beating paedophile. Few of these people were, or are, vegetarian, let alone vegan, which anyone who has encountered me knows is an essential part of who I am.
There are some, such as William Shakespeare, who have influenced me directly for much of my life (I saw my first Shakespeare play - Twelfth Night - when I was ten years old), and indirectly all my life because of the culture in which I have been raised and live. There are others whose influence has been fleeting, or more recent. There are some whose influence has been mediated through only one literary work, such as Lao Tse and Anne Frank, whereas regarding others, such as Hesse, Isherwood and Golding, it is the broad range of their literary output rather than one work in particular, that has been influential. There are those to whose vision (most of the artists) and ideas I am attracted, and there are others regarding whom it is their ideas and the way in which they lived them (such as Gandhi and King) that stand out for me.
I have focused on the people who have influenced me positively, rather than concerning myself with those from whom I have learned by rejection of some key aspect(s) of their legacy (Confucius, Plato, Jesus of Nazareth, Paul of Tarsus, the Prophet Mohammed, Chartles Stewart, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Senator MCarthy, Richard Nixon, Ayotollah Khomeni, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Osama bin Laden - who did you expect? I am politically liberal, of course I am going to reject icons of political conservatism).
Preparing a list such as mine below is nearly impossible because much of what has influenced me is hidden to me. I live in an economically-developed country, with piped drinking water, sewage treatment, elecricity for lighting, fuel for heating and cooking, an abundance of food in the shops, an albeit somewhat creaky national health service (partly free at the point of delivery), a comprehensive social wefare system, a wealth of information services (including broadband internet), and access to more technology than I have any hope of imagining. The countless thousansds of people who have been instrumental in constructing this western society to date are at least as influential on who I am as anyone I might place in a list. For me, this highlights the point that my 'list', my pantheon, is of people who distinguish me from others, people who define the colour of my livery.
Observers of the psyche
William Shakespeare
Herman Hesse
Carl Rogers
Eric Ericsson
Christopher Isherwood (who introduced me to interiority, and gave me permission to write in the first person)
William Golding
Susan Hill
John Rowan
Observers of history
Thomas Hardy
Christopher Isherwood
Anne Frank
Simon Schama
Norman Davies
Explorers of culture
Alan Watts
Andrei Tarkovsky
Akira Kurosawa
Peter Greenaway
Woody Allen (because I, too, love New York City)
Pieter Breughel, the elder
Pieter Breughel, the younger
Hieronymous Bosch
Rembrandt
William Morris
Modigliani
Claude Monet
Vincent Van Gogh
Jackson Pollock
Mark Rothko
Edgar Degas (his sculptures more than his paintings)
Henry Moore
Barbara Hepworth
Frank Lloyd Wright
Mies van der Rohe
Gaudi
James Stirling
Norman Foster
Richard Rogers
Antonin Vivaldi
Ludwig van Beethoven
Gustav Mahler
Sibelius
Gustav Holst
Ralph Vaughan Williams
George Gershwin
Aaron Copeland
Janecek
Bela Bartok (who prepared me for being able to hear Toru Takemitsu)
Toru Takemitsu
Arvo Part
Peter Maxwell-Davies
Van Morrison
Dave Cousins
Martin Carthy (who keeps me in love with both the countryside and with vernacular history)
Sandy Denny (who keeps me in touch with melancholy)
Jon Anderson (who keeps me in touch with dreams)
Phil Collins (who keeps me in touch with ebullience)
W.H. Auden
Roger McGough
Brian Patten
Adrian Henry
Jon Silkin
D.H. Lawrence
Thomas Hardy
Observers of spirituality
Lao Tse
Buddha
George Fox
Alan Watts
Players on the world stage
Oliver Cromwell
Mahatma Ghandi
Martin Luther King
Engineers and entrepreneurs
George Stephenson
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Bill Gates
Steve Jobs
Tim Berners-Lee (because you co-invented the internet)
Clive Sinclair
Richard Branson
Anita Roddick
Scientists and technologists
Pythagoras [~ 580 / 572 BC – ~ 500 / 490 BC]
Aristotle [384 BC – 322 BC]
Roger Bacon [c. 1214 – 1294]
Leonardo da Vinci [15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519
Isaac Newton [4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727]
Humphrey Davy [17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829]
Michael Faraday [22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867]
Charles Darwin [12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882]
Marie and Pierre Curie [7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934 & 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906]
Albert Einstein [14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955]
Carl Sagan [9 November 1934 – 20 December 1996](for popularising science, and believing in space)
Richard Dawkins [26 March 1941 to date](for his rational, fearless defence of atheism, and steadfast rejection of anti-science)
Stephen Hawking [8 January 1942 to date](for developing his astrophysical theories despite his deteriorating physical condition)
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