Sunderland has churches made of honey-coloured sandstone. Outside each church may be the street, or maybe a path through a graveyard. Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara have Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines made of wood painted black or white or tomato red. Each temple and shrine has a tori or a gatehouse. The place of worship is hidden behind a wall that encloses an open area. However, the open area is not a graveyard, although it is a place of peace.
When greeting a person, or acknowledging them, or thanking them, or when saying goodbye, Japanese people bow to each other. This action demonstrates respect, and when performed by both (or more) parties, shows mutual respect. How the people of Sunderland communicate respect is not obvious to me.
Pedestrians in Japan tend to obey road crossing signals. However, unlike in Germany where it is usual to encounter a group of people standing beside an empty road waiting for the green man to tell them that they may cross, in Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara to be precise) they would cross the road if it made no sense to wait. In Sunderland it is a commonplace that pedestrians ignore road crossing signals, endangering themselves and road users.
In Tokyo, and particularly in Kyoto, cyclists ignore instructions and park their bicycles anywhere. Teams of municipal workers make monthly raids to clear the footpaths of illegally-parked bicycles. The bicycles are not locked because it is not expected that anyone would steal them. In Durham a cyclist is likely to be careful where they park and chain their bicycle so as to avoid it being stolen. Few people cycle in central Sunderland.
In Tokyo and Kyoto, the streets are clean because people rarely drop litter. In Sunderland and Durham the streets are clean because gangs of street sweepers remove on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis the litter that people toss onto the ground.
In Tokyo and Kyoto it seemed to be a matter of great personal importance to people whose job it is to serve that they give excellent service. Staffing levels are high. In North East England it is rare to encounter anyone in the service sector who is eager to deliver excellence with enthusiasm. The exceptions are noteworthy, such as a waitress at El Piano in York, and a young man at the Jorvik Viking Centre. Overall, staffing levels are low. This may be significant.
Japan has a massive railway system, with frequent trains that run on time to the second. Staffing levels are high, and the officials take their job very seriously. The North East of England has four railway lines, with infrequent train services that are often unreliable. Railway officials are little in evidence, and not known for their customer service.
In Tokyo (and Kyoto) supermarkets typically carry little fresh fruit, it is very expensive, and is often ready-basketed as a gift. In North East England almost every supermarket carries some fresh fruit, often a very wide range, mostly quite cheap, and ready for eating not gifting.
In Sunderland people visit the bookmakers, the casino, the slot-machine shops, the bingo and buy lottery tickets. In Tokyo and Kyoto, we saw people sitting feeding metal to metal, glaze-eyed as though zombies, in the pachinko parlours.
25 September 2007
24 September 2007
Japan 1: transport
I visited Japan for the first time in August 2007. Flying from Newcastle (NCL) via Schipol (AMS) to Narita (NRT), and back, the long flights over Asia were painful and long-as-a-lifetime. However, KLM was good, and avoided adding extra pain.
Taking the Narita express was the least problematic means of travelling the fifty or so miles from the airport into central Tokyo. Returning to Narita at the end of the holiday it was a mistake to take the stopping train, for although the ticket was cheaper, the train was crowded for much of the journey, which was also substantially longer.
Japan has many railway companies, some of which belong to the Japan Rail Group. Trains belonging to different companies may run on the same lines, or on different lines; may stop at the same stations, or at different stations; may start and terminate at the same place or different places. Inevitably there are different running frequencies, different travel times and different fare structures. Working out how best to travel by train from, for instance, Tokyo to Nikko, is as complicated as working out how best to travel by train from Durham to Newcastle is easy. Within Tokyo, the subway system has a tendency to shadow the suburban railway system. Not forgetting the limited-stop, deep-underground suburban railway system. Whether Japanese people are so used to these multi-layered options that they negotiate them without effort, or like unsuspecting visitors from overseas they quail at the thought, I have no idea. Their ability to read modern Japanese script, which, true to form, uses four different character sets (kanji, hiragana, katakana and roman), delivers a profound advantage when buying a rail ticket from machine, for although the machine offers instructions in English, the same courtesy is not extended to the names of stations, which are written in kanji.
Taking the Narita express was the least problematic means of travelling the fifty or so miles from the airport into central Tokyo. Returning to Narita at the end of the holiday it was a mistake to take the stopping train, for although the ticket was cheaper, the train was crowded for much of the journey, which was also substantially longer.
Japan has many railway companies, some of which belong to the Japan Rail Group. Trains belonging to different companies may run on the same lines, or on different lines; may stop at the same stations, or at different stations; may start and terminate at the same place or different places. Inevitably there are different running frequencies, different travel times and different fare structures. Working out how best to travel by train from, for instance, Tokyo to Nikko, is as complicated as working out how best to travel by train from Durham to Newcastle is easy. Within Tokyo, the subway system has a tendency to shadow the suburban railway system. Not forgetting the limited-stop, deep-underground suburban railway system. Whether Japanese people are so used to these multi-layered options that they negotiate them without effort, or like unsuspecting visitors from overseas they quail at the thought, I have no idea. Their ability to read modern Japanese script, which, true to form, uses four different character sets (kanji, hiragana, katakana and roman), delivers a profound advantage when buying a rail ticket from machine, for although the machine offers instructions in English, the same courtesy is not extended to the names of stations, which are written in kanji.
16 April 2007
Lila, by Robert Pirsig
There are few people who have not read Robert Pirsig's principal claim to fame: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That I have read the book twice is not saying much. Even if some people have a copy on their bookshelves only for show, never having read the novel, that proportion must be small compared with the number of people who posess a copy of A Brief History of Time by Professor Stephen Hawking, although the pages of the book are as yet uncut. I doubt, however, that there is kudos associated with either owning or reading a copy of Pirsig's Lila, a sequel in several senses to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Lila uses a similar formula to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: a 'road trip' story interspersed with the advancement of a philosophical model of human experience.
On the positive side I found many valuable insights in Pirsig's text, the most illuminating being:
However, I feel suspicious about philosophy being presented inj the format of a novel. Despite the existentialists, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Friedrich Durenmat having presented and explored, or at least illustrated, their ideas in a fictional format (novels, novellas, short stories and theatrical plays), and probably being most popularly known for this, I question why someone who purports to have something new and substantial to say would choose a medium that requires the suspension of disbelief and literary sleights of hand, and would risk the message being ignored or thrown out because the literary quality of the work may be considered to be poor. The literary works of Sartre, Camus and Durenmat may not all be masterpieces, but they can be read at least adequately, and in many cases exceptionally well, without being required to engage with the philosophical exposition. Susan Hill's novels, such as In the Springtime of the Year, The Bird of Night, and I'm the King of the Castle, are typically each important psychological explorations that work well as novels. In none is Hill breaking new and contentious ground, and with each it would be possible to visit source material, for example with the novels listed: respectively bereavement, psychotic breakdown and sibling rivalry. I would feel uneasy were I to find that Hill was, in fact, presenting new, unsupported ideas about psychology and psychiatry through the medium of a novel.
[to be continued...]
Lila uses a similar formula to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: a 'road trip' story interspersed with the advancement of a philosophical model of human experience.
On the positive side I found many valuable insights in Pirsig's text, the most illuminating being:
"If objects are the ultimate reality then there's only one true intellectual construction of things: that which corresponds to the objective world. But if truth is defined as a high-quality set of intellectual value patterns, then insanity can be defined as just a low quality set of intellectual value patterns, and you get a whole different picture of it."When the culture asks, 'Why doesn't this person see things the way we do?' you can answer that he doesn't see them because he doesn't value them. He's gone into illegal value patterns because the illegal patterns resolve value conflicts that the culture's unable to handle. The causes of insanity may be all kinds of things, from chemical imbalances to social conflicts. But insanity has solved these conflicts with illegal patterns which appear to be of a higher quality."
However, I feel suspicious about philosophy being presented inj the format of a novel. Despite the existentialists, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Friedrich Durenmat having presented and explored, or at least illustrated, their ideas in a fictional format (novels, novellas, short stories and theatrical plays), and probably being most popularly known for this, I question why someone who purports to have something new and substantial to say would choose a medium that requires the suspension of disbelief and literary sleights of hand, and would risk the message being ignored or thrown out because the literary quality of the work may be considered to be poor. The literary works of Sartre, Camus and Durenmat may not all be masterpieces, but they can be read at least adequately, and in many cases exceptionally well, without being required to engage with the philosophical exposition. Susan Hill's novels, such as In the Springtime of the Year, The Bird of Night, and I'm the King of the Castle, are typically each important psychological explorations that work well as novels. In none is Hill breaking new and contentious ground, and with each it would be possible to visit source material, for example with the novels listed: respectively bereavement, psychotic breakdown and sibling rivalry. I would feel uneasy were I to find that Hill was, in fact, presenting new, unsupported ideas about psychology and psychiatry through the medium of a novel.
[to be continued...]
14 April 2007
Green issues 9: media discussion of green issues
Why does every other comment in the UK media regarding global warming appear to criticise either air travel or 4 x 4s, the so-called 'Chelsea tractors'? I think that reason might involve the fact that they are, for several reasons, popular targets, and also that these targets serve to distract from addressing more sensitive issues.
[To be continued...]
[To be continued...]
30 March 2007
Faith in geological processes
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.)
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.)
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)
06 January 2007
More YouTube movies
I have uploaded more short movies onto YouTube. With each new movie I am shuffling up the learning curve. By the time I have uploaded several dozen movies, I hope that they will be much more accomplished than my current efforts.
Here are the latest URLs:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzrZ0OyGmC8
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSNN-PzSYP4
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeyzKcYb4GE
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrI3TtdCPUI
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyR2U_tyJVg
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QU1K0U0aoE
Movies 1 through 3 show my recording of animals at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC. I recorded footage of many different animals there, including Tai Shan (coming soon by popular request from my daughter), the baby panda bear. As I progressively edit this material, I intend to upload it onto YouTube. In particular, I am concerned to ensure that no images of my daughter appear in a form that is capturable by people with malign intent. As she is, naturally, an important aspect of a 'home movie' of 'our holiday', I currently find the craft of editing a movie to be dauntingly demanding.
Movie 4 is my narration of verse by A.A. Milne. I was experimenting with using my webcam, but the video quality is not great. I have also been trying to work out how to construct something that approximates to an autocue so that I can look at the camera while speaking. Despite the fact that wielding a camcorder is remarkably easy, filming a performance while performing is rather more demanding.
Movie 5 is a collection of photographs of Boston, Massachusetts.
Movie 6 is a collection of photographs I have taken of Van Gogh paintings in the Smithsonian National Art Gallery, Washington DC; MoMA, New York; and the Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
I am at a loss about how to give my movies a musical soundtrack without contravening copyright.
Here are the latest URLs:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzrZ0OyGmC8
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSNN-PzSYP4
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeyzKcYb4GE
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrI3TtdCPUI
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyR2U_tyJVg
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QU1K0U0aoE
Movies 1 through 3 show my recording of animals at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC. I recorded footage of many different animals there, including Tai Shan (coming soon by popular request from my daughter), the baby panda bear. As I progressively edit this material, I intend to upload it onto YouTube. In particular, I am concerned to ensure that no images of my daughter appear in a form that is capturable by people with malign intent. As she is, naturally, an important aspect of a 'home movie' of 'our holiday', I currently find the craft of editing a movie to be dauntingly demanding.
Movie 4 is my narration of verse by A.A. Milne. I was experimenting with using my webcam, but the video quality is not great. I have also been trying to work out how to construct something that approximates to an autocue so that I can look at the camera while speaking. Despite the fact that wielding a camcorder is remarkably easy, filming a performance while performing is rather more demanding.
Movie 5 is a collection of photographs of Boston, Massachusetts.
Movie 6 is a collection of photographs I have taken of Van Gogh paintings in the Smithsonian National Art Gallery, Washington DC; MoMA, New York; and the Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
I am at a loss about how to give my movies a musical soundtrack without contravening copyright.
25 December 2006
Executing people
The BBC News website announced today that four prisoners on 'death row' in Japan have just been executed. In Libya, several health workers accused and convicted of spreading HIV / AIDS, from which children have died, are now sentenced to death. I have little hesitation in condemning without reservation these barbarities. Killing is wrong. It is as though a blood sacrifice is required to restore the balance of justice. In the Libyan case, the people found guilty are patently innocent of the crimes, but the local people (according to the BBC News website) want someone to 'pay the price' for their children being infected. Whether or not the Japanese prisoners were in fact guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted and sentenced to death I have no idea, and would make no difference. The only spirit served by executing them is brutality, thus increasing the sum of violence in the world. People throughout the world are in desperate need of less, not more, barbarity. As wars, and police death squads, and vigilante groups, and terrorist cells should become only of the past, so should executing people. Abolish the death penalty!
24 December 2006
Wikipedia article about High Shincliffe
I have been busy: writing an article about the village in which I live. I have uploaded the article onto Wikipedia at the following address:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Shincliffe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Shincliffe
22 December 2006
Gifting
This weblog posting is, as many of my weblogs postings are, incomplete.
As Christmas 2006 nears, gifting becomes for me the source of considerable, increasing and unnecessary anxiety. I also feel apprehensive about being corralled into a ritual of elevated expectations awaiting the inevitable anticlimax and disappointment. It all feels like humbug to me. Yet gifting can be such a wonderful transaction that strengthens and deepens a relationship.
I am a hypocrite. The views I express here are those to which I aspire, not those I uphold in practice. As a result of writing this weblog posting, I intend to try to live more closely to my aspirations.
I have many things. If I desire some thing - food, an item of clothing, toiletries, a book, a DVD - I buy it. In both contemporary and historical contexts I am wealthy enough. I no longer require charity.
There are times in the year, such as Christmas, my birthday, and on your return from holiday, when I might receive a gift from you. It is kind that you should think of me. I do not require a gift from you at those times, although those are the occasions when a gift may be less unexpected. I like it best when I receive a gift unprompted by events or dates.
I have no right to receive a gift from you. Should I receive a gift from you, then I receive your gift to me as a mark of your caring for me. Should I receive no gift from you on a day when a gift might be less unexpected, then I am no worse off than on the day before. However, I might occasionally reflect on the quality of our relating.
I like it best when your gift to me shows that you know who I am, that you care who I am, and that you care for me.
I cannot dictate your gift to me, for to do so would seem to miss the point. I am aware, however, of my reaction to your gift. If you gave me money when I was poor, I was intensely grateful; but were you to give me money now, I would be left wondering how much you wish to know about me. Should you give me aftershave, I would be left wondering whether you notice that I have worn a beard for thirty years. Should you give me a silk tie, a leather wallet, a box of milk chocolates, or a book about football or about non-vegan cuisine, I would be left wondering whether you have heard me saying who I am. Sometimes I am left wondering whether your gifting might represent a ritual rather more than kindness, and I can find it easier to cope with you not giving me a gift.
Occasionally I wonder whether your gift might be more about you than it is about me. If you want something, then why not obtain it for yourself? If you want to give to charity, then give to charity - there is nothing for us in you gifting to charity. If you want something from me, then why not ask me for it. Even though I might refuse, and our relationship would be hurt a little, the honesty involved should stand us in good stead for the future.
There are occasions when I give you a gift, mostly to show my caring for you. I like best to give gifts when least expected of me, not least because then you can be certain that the gift and gifting were intended.
I like best to give a gift that speaks of my knowledge of you. However, I might not always get this right because my knowledge may be insufficient: I rarely buy clothes as gifts because I have little confidence that I know your taste well enough; I rarely buy books as gifts because I am unlikely to know whether you already have that book; I rarely buy wine for friends who know wine well because I have little confidence that I could distinguish between a good wine and a mediocre wine.
I try never to give a gift that might offend in some way, such as a book about how to manage your life better, or a bottle of whiskey if you are a recovering alcoholic, or confectionery if you have eating / weight issues. I try never to give gifts that might contravene your political / ethical / moral / spiritual sensitivities, such as a book about Islam if you are a devout Christian, or food that is not clearly labeled as Kosher if you are Jewish, or a T-shirt produced in a 'developing economy' sweat shop if I know you to be enthusiastic about Fair Trade. I risk getting this wrong, and however painful it might be for both of us, I should rather know that I had made a mistake.
In gifting to you, I am unlikely to contravene my own morality. For example, I would neither gift you animal flesh, nor a compendium of 'Irish jokes', nor items that result from the proceeds of crime or fund terrorism (state-sponsored or otherwise). This does not imply, however, that I would intend to promote my own political / ethical / moral / spiritual preferences, nor my own taste. I am unlikely to give you recipes for a vegan cuisine, unless I knew that you too are a vegan; I am unlikely to give you tickets for a Van Morrison concert unless I knew that you too especially enjoy his music. I am unlikely to gift you a subscription to an environmental magazine unless I knew that you too are enthusiastic about green issues. I am unlikely to gift you my donation to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), although I am a member, because there is nothing of you, or for you, in that transaction. There are many gifts in the world awaiting my gifting to you about which we can both feel entirely comfortable.
One respect in which I am lately no longer a hypocrite is that my gifting is no longer ritualistic. However, I do not yet feel comfortable in my newly-attained position, and still feel a heavy social pull towards the ritual of gifting.
As a postscript in December 2007, I found this on the BBC News website:
To be continued ...
As Christmas 2006 nears, gifting becomes for me the source of considerable, increasing and unnecessary anxiety. I also feel apprehensive about being corralled into a ritual of elevated expectations awaiting the inevitable anticlimax and disappointment. It all feels like humbug to me. Yet gifting can be such a wonderful transaction that strengthens and deepens a relationship.
I am a hypocrite. The views I express here are those to which I aspire, not those I uphold in practice. As a result of writing this weblog posting, I intend to try to live more closely to my aspirations.
I have many things. If I desire some thing - food, an item of clothing, toiletries, a book, a DVD - I buy it. In both contemporary and historical contexts I am wealthy enough. I no longer require charity.
There are times in the year, such as Christmas, my birthday, and on your return from holiday, when I might receive a gift from you. It is kind that you should think of me. I do not require a gift from you at those times, although those are the occasions when a gift may be less unexpected. I like it best when I receive a gift unprompted by events or dates.
I have no right to receive a gift from you. Should I receive a gift from you, then I receive your gift to me as a mark of your caring for me. Should I receive no gift from you on a day when a gift might be less unexpected, then I am no worse off than on the day before. However, I might occasionally reflect on the quality of our relating.
I like it best when your gift to me shows that you know who I am, that you care who I am, and that you care for me.
I cannot dictate your gift to me, for to do so would seem to miss the point. I am aware, however, of my reaction to your gift. If you gave me money when I was poor, I was intensely grateful; but were you to give me money now, I would be left wondering how much you wish to know about me. Should you give me aftershave, I would be left wondering whether you notice that I have worn a beard for thirty years. Should you give me a silk tie, a leather wallet, a box of milk chocolates, or a book about football or about non-vegan cuisine, I would be left wondering whether you have heard me saying who I am. Sometimes I am left wondering whether your gifting might represent a ritual rather more than kindness, and I can find it easier to cope with you not giving me a gift.
Occasionally I wonder whether your gift might be more about you than it is about me. If you want something, then why not obtain it for yourself? If you want to give to charity, then give to charity - there is nothing for us in you gifting to charity. If you want something from me, then why not ask me for it. Even though I might refuse, and our relationship would be hurt a little, the honesty involved should stand us in good stead for the future.
There are occasions when I give you a gift, mostly to show my caring for you. I like best to give gifts when least expected of me, not least because then you can be certain that the gift and gifting were intended.
I like best to give a gift that speaks of my knowledge of you. However, I might not always get this right because my knowledge may be insufficient: I rarely buy clothes as gifts because I have little confidence that I know your taste well enough; I rarely buy books as gifts because I am unlikely to know whether you already have that book; I rarely buy wine for friends who know wine well because I have little confidence that I could distinguish between a good wine and a mediocre wine.
I try never to give a gift that might offend in some way, such as a book about how to manage your life better, or a bottle of whiskey if you are a recovering alcoholic, or confectionery if you have eating / weight issues. I try never to give gifts that might contravene your political / ethical / moral / spiritual sensitivities, such as a book about Islam if you are a devout Christian, or food that is not clearly labeled as Kosher if you are Jewish, or a T-shirt produced in a 'developing economy' sweat shop if I know you to be enthusiastic about Fair Trade. I risk getting this wrong, and however painful it might be for both of us, I should rather know that I had made a mistake.
In gifting to you, I am unlikely to contravene my own morality. For example, I would neither gift you animal flesh, nor a compendium of 'Irish jokes', nor items that result from the proceeds of crime or fund terrorism (state-sponsored or otherwise). This does not imply, however, that I would intend to promote my own political / ethical / moral / spiritual preferences, nor my own taste. I am unlikely to give you recipes for a vegan cuisine, unless I knew that you too are a vegan; I am unlikely to give you tickets for a Van Morrison concert unless I knew that you too especially enjoy his music. I am unlikely to gift you a subscription to an environmental magazine unless I knew that you too are enthusiastic about green issues. I am unlikely to gift you my donation to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), although I am a member, because there is nothing of you, or for you, in that transaction. There are many gifts in the world awaiting my gifting to you about which we can both feel entirely comfortable.
One respect in which I am lately no longer a hypocrite is that my gifting is no longer ritualistic. However, I do not yet feel comfortable in my newly-attained position, and still feel a heavy social pull towards the ritual of gifting.
As a postscript in December 2007, I found this on the BBC News website:
To be continued ...
05 December 2006
Oh My Newsnight
I have uploaded a short movie onto the YouTube website. The current address of the movie is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0XqoOZ4vik
The movie has many technological flaws, including a two or three second sound drop-out, that I wish to remedy. Each time I upload an amended version of the movie, I shall update this weblink.
The movie script is my posting in this weblog entitled Green Issues of 4 November 2006. I anticipate leaving the movie text unamended, because I intend to make several more short movies looking in greater depth at a wider range of green issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0XqoOZ4vik
The movie has many technological flaws, including a two or three second sound drop-out, that I wish to remedy. Each time I upload an amended version of the movie, I shall update this weblink.
The movie script is my posting in this weblog entitled Green Issues of 4 November 2006. I anticipate leaving the movie text unamended, because I intend to make several more short movies looking in greater depth at a wider range of green issues.
27 November 2006
Cathy Come Home
I watched 'Cathy Come Home' on UK television yesterday (Sunday 26 November 2006) evening. On each occasion, including the first, I have watched Ken Loach's 'Wednesday Play' several times over the past 30 years I have felt a great reluctance to put myself through the unswerving inevitability (listen to Ravel's 'Bolero', or read the description by Simone de Beauvoir of Jean-Paul Sartre and herself watching US 'western' movies) and the mounting agony of the simple plot. On each occasion, however, I am enticed and drawn into the movie by Loach's unsentimental, unsensationalised docudrama treatment (contrast with the recent BBC 'Horizon' docudrama on pandemic 'flu).
Loach's characters are Everyman and his Wife, who we are not invited to love, interacting with characterisations of people employed to run 'the system', who we are not invited to despise. Both the subject matter and the acting seem to belong to unexceptional BBC television drama/soap. However, the camera-work and editing are much less languid than a contemporary soap such as Coronation Street. I love the devices of having the voice of Cathy looking back to provide a commentary; and of providing factual information about homelessness in various parts of the UK (as Manuel Pueg does about homosexuality in his novel 'Kiss of the Spiderwoman', and John Fowles does about prostitution in Victorian London in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman').
The movie rehearses a range of myths about the apparent fecklessness of people who become homeless, unostentatiously exposing the patent fallacy of such myths. The movie shows how easily (and even arbitrarily) people can be knocked out of society into an effectively disenfranchised underclass. The movie shows how a couple of ordinary people, with ordinary aspirations, can be driven to shout at (i.e. to behave impolitely towards) officials of 'the system' who fail to hear (won't or can't?) the increasingly desperate plight of Cathy and her family. On several occasions during the movie (such as at the meeting of the householders who live near the caravan site, and the subsequent arson attack on the caravans; and when the baliff comes to evict them from the squat), the hypocrisy of the characters is suggested, although the scene is never devoid of sympathy for them.
... to be continued ...
Loach's characters are Everyman and his Wife, who we are not invited to love, interacting with characterisations of people employed to run 'the system', who we are not invited to despise. Both the subject matter and the acting seem to belong to unexceptional BBC television drama/soap. However, the camera-work and editing are much less languid than a contemporary soap such as Coronation Street. I love the devices of having the voice of Cathy looking back to provide a commentary; and of providing factual information about homelessness in various parts of the UK (as Manuel Pueg does about homosexuality in his novel 'Kiss of the Spiderwoman', and John Fowles does about prostitution in Victorian London in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman').
The movie rehearses a range of myths about the apparent fecklessness of people who become homeless, unostentatiously exposing the patent fallacy of such myths. The movie shows how easily (and even arbitrarily) people can be knocked out of society into an effectively disenfranchised underclass. The movie shows how a couple of ordinary people, with ordinary aspirations, can be driven to shout at (i.e. to behave impolitely towards) officials of 'the system' who fail to hear (won't or can't?) the increasingly desperate plight of Cathy and her family. On several occasions during the movie (such as at the meeting of the householders who live near the caravan site, and the subsequent arson attack on the caravans; and when the baliff comes to evict them from the squat), the hypocrisy of the characters is suggested, although the scene is never devoid of sympathy for them.
... to be continued ...
20 November 2006
Infanticide (de facto)
Guidance recently issued to hospital paediatric units by the BMA (British Medical Association) upset me. It is proposed that UK babies born at 22 weeks or earlier should not be resuscitated because their chances of survival are only one per cent, and the likelihood of a surviving child being disabled is high.
Had I only a one per cent chance of living, I would take it without hesitation. I find it hard to believe that few people would say differently. If my daughter had a one per cent chance of survival, I would do all in my power to provide her with that chance.
It would appear obvious, therefore, that the issue for the BMA is not about the chances of survival but that the cost of intensive neonatal medical care is considered too high to make the expense worthwhile. I accept that there are prices that may not be worth paying for a human life, or even the chance of a human life: the sacrificial death of other people; a Chernobyl-scale environmental disaster; or the destruction of a national art gallery or national cultural / world heritage site. However, people, companies and governments the world over spend millions of pounds, euros, dollars and yen on armaments, on base entertainment and on conspicuous consumption. Whilst it would be fair to argue over the merits or otherwise of goods and services bought and sold the world over, a medical policy of refusing to save the life of a prematurely-born child in order to economise on resources seems to be turning medical ethics upside down.
I do not believe that whether a child is likely to be born disabled should be a consideration regarding whether to save the child's life. If the issue is about cost, the financial expense of caring for that child through life would be a drop in the ocean compared to building and launching a military satellite, making a blockbuster movie, or a constructing a cruise liner. However, maybe there is an implicit belief that the life of a disabled child is a life blighted. ("The child would be sensorily impaired, be in constant pain, and have a poor quality of life. We'd be doing it a favour, putting it out of its misery. Were it a dog we'd have little hesitation about putting it down.") It would be interesting to find out the differential suicide rates for disabled and able-bodied people: I doubt that there is much difference (I am ready to be corrected). Maybe the BMA's concern is for the inconvenience to blameless parents of being saddled with a child requiring medication several times each day; additional attention to needs; specialist care, equipment and schooling.
I have a strong belief that societies the world over are better, richer, more humane societies because of the engagement required of them to care for children and young people, older people, people with a learning disability, physically disabled people, people whose health is frail, emotionally vulnerable people, people who live on the edge. Societies that most of all prize and reward strength and excellence, and strive towards conceptual ideals and ideas of perfection, risk losing touch with warm humanity. It seems to me that the UK is already quite some way along that cold path.
I recognise that for many people the term 'family' is problematic, perhaps because of abuses that have taken place within their family. However, I like the term when used more broadly to refer to a group of people who struggle together to make life work. To quote from Lilo and Stich: "Family means no-one gets left behind." For me, that means no-one.
Had I only a one per cent chance of living, I would take it without hesitation. I find it hard to believe that few people would say differently. If my daughter had a one per cent chance of survival, I would do all in my power to provide her with that chance.
It would appear obvious, therefore, that the issue for the BMA is not about the chances of survival but that the cost of intensive neonatal medical care is considered too high to make the expense worthwhile. I accept that there are prices that may not be worth paying for a human life, or even the chance of a human life: the sacrificial death of other people; a Chernobyl-scale environmental disaster; or the destruction of a national art gallery or national cultural / world heritage site. However, people, companies and governments the world over spend millions of pounds, euros, dollars and yen on armaments, on base entertainment and on conspicuous consumption. Whilst it would be fair to argue over the merits or otherwise of goods and services bought and sold the world over, a medical policy of refusing to save the life of a prematurely-born child in order to economise on resources seems to be turning medical ethics upside down.
I do not believe that whether a child is likely to be born disabled should be a consideration regarding whether to save the child's life. If the issue is about cost, the financial expense of caring for that child through life would be a drop in the ocean compared to building and launching a military satellite, making a blockbuster movie, or a constructing a cruise liner. However, maybe there is an implicit belief that the life of a disabled child is a life blighted. ("The child would be sensorily impaired, be in constant pain, and have a poor quality of life. We'd be doing it a favour, putting it out of its misery. Were it a dog we'd have little hesitation about putting it down.") It would be interesting to find out the differential suicide rates for disabled and able-bodied people: I doubt that there is much difference (I am ready to be corrected). Maybe the BMA's concern is for the inconvenience to blameless parents of being saddled with a child requiring medication several times each day; additional attention to needs; specialist care, equipment and schooling.
I have a strong belief that societies the world over are better, richer, more humane societies because of the engagement required of them to care for children and young people, older people, people with a learning disability, physically disabled people, people whose health is frail, emotionally vulnerable people, people who live on the edge. Societies that most of all prize and reward strength and excellence, and strive towards conceptual ideals and ideas of perfection, risk losing touch with warm humanity. It seems to me that the UK is already quite some way along that cold path.
I recognise that for many people the term 'family' is problematic, perhaps because of abuses that have taken place within their family. However, I like the term when used more broadly to refer to a group of people who struggle together to make life work. To quote from Lilo and Stich: "Family means no-one gets left behind." For me, that means no-one.
06 November 2006
Killing Saddam Hussein
I permit no-one to take life in my name, for killing is wrong. Whether perpetrated by tyrants or democratically-elected governments, killing is wrong. Regardless of purpose, motivation or mitigation, killing is wrong. Whether executed as a crime in passion, in time of war, or judicially in cold blood, killing is always wrong.
22 August 2006
Some cities in the US
Mahattan is the capital city of high culture; the most vibrant of cities in which to shop, eat and be entertained; and simply the centre of the world. The terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 prompted me to visit - four times to date. Were a year's job-swap ever possible, I should find it impossible to resist. In the meantime my next visit is being plotted.
DC, with its Smithsonians, its grand architecture, and the charming politeness of many of the people who live there, make it a worthy tourist city. Its pleasant weather, reasonably accessible public transport system, and several vegetarian eating places (all of which had vegan dishes) made the four days I spent there all too brief, and I should have preferred to have spent four weeks. DC is high on my list of cities to revisit.
Boston, on the other hand, is significantly over-rated as a tourist destination, and is worth avoiding until even Washington (Tyne & Wear, UK), Peterlee (County Durham, UK) and Harlow (Essex, UK) have been exhausted. Whereas it likes to trade under the name of 'Beantown', Boston's historical sites are few, poorly presented, and offensively partisan. Many of the people who inhabit central Boston behave coldly at best, some might say rudely. There is virtually no vegan food to be had anywhere near central Boston. On the other hand, Cambridge was pleasant in a very, very low key way, but nothing to Oxford (UK), Cambridge (UK) or ever Dublin (Eire).
Chicago has wonderful architecture stretching back to the nineteenth century. As well as the grand buildings, such as the Institute of Art, and the fascinating 1920s' skyscrapers (such as the Union Carbide building), and the imposing late twentieth century skyscrapers (such as the Sears Tower), Frank Lloyd Wright left his mark, several in fact, at Oak Park - essential viewing for anyone interested in architecture. A boat trip is an excellent way to view the architecture of downtown Chicago. The Instiute of Art, so lovingly featured in John Hughes' movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, is world class, and is essential viewing. Several recent movies use the ambience of Chicago as though a chartacter: Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, and While You Were Sleeping, starring Sandra Bullock. The public zoo is set in parkland on the lakeshore. There is vegetarian food in Chicago, including in the gay, bohemian suburb of North Halstead.
To be continued ...
DC, with its Smithsonians, its grand architecture, and the charming politeness of many of the people who live there, make it a worthy tourist city. Its pleasant weather, reasonably accessible public transport system, and several vegetarian eating places (all of which had vegan dishes) made the four days I spent there all too brief, and I should have preferred to have spent four weeks. DC is high on my list of cities to revisit.
Boston, on the other hand, is significantly over-rated as a tourist destination, and is worth avoiding until even Washington (Tyne & Wear, UK), Peterlee (County Durham, UK) and Harlow (Essex, UK) have been exhausted. Whereas it likes to trade under the name of 'Beantown', Boston's historical sites are few, poorly presented, and offensively partisan. Many of the people who inhabit central Boston behave coldly at best, some might say rudely. There is virtually no vegan food to be had anywhere near central Boston. On the other hand, Cambridge was pleasant in a very, very low key way, but nothing to Oxford (UK), Cambridge (UK) or ever Dublin (Eire).
Chicago has wonderful architecture stretching back to the nineteenth century. As well as the grand buildings, such as the Institute of Art, and the fascinating 1920s' skyscrapers (such as the Union Carbide building), and the imposing late twentieth century skyscrapers (such as the Sears Tower), Frank Lloyd Wright left his mark, several in fact, at Oak Park - essential viewing for anyone interested in architecture. A boat trip is an excellent way to view the architecture of downtown Chicago. The Instiute of Art, so lovingly featured in John Hughes' movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, is world class, and is essential viewing. Several recent movies use the ambience of Chicago as though a chartacter: Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, and While You Were Sleeping, starring Sandra Bullock. The public zoo is set in parkland on the lakeshore. There is vegetarian food in Chicago, including in the gay, bohemian suburb of North Halstead.
To be continued ...
27 May 2006
The media mainstreaming of the language of the BNP
The political agenda of the UK appears no longer to be driven by elected representatives, but is being determined by the reationary politics promoted by News International (News Corporation) and the commercial imperative of the purveyors of what the news media chose to define as news. It used to be the case that although the national newspapers were politically partisan, political action took place in the political arena: Westminster, the soapbox and demonstrations. In May 1997 the news media wrested from the UK Consertvative Party the mantle of quasi-formal opposition to the newly-elected Blair government. I am unsure about precisely when the Blair government lost control of the agenda, possibly in the run-up to the most recent (5 May 2005) general election. Maybe control of the political agenda has been ebbing away from Westminster over a period of years. This current period reminds me of the time between Tony Blair's election to leadership of the UK Labour Party (21 July 1994) and his defeat of Conservative John Major (2 May 1997), except that it is now Rupert Murdoch for whom we are waiting to move into 10 Downing Street.
Current so-called revelations about the UK Home Office appear largely driven by an agenda of xenophobia. The rehtoric focuses on the deportation of foreign nationals, 'bogus' asylum seekers, 'economic' migrants, refugees and people trafficking. For reasons I find it difficult to understand many people in Britain have become addicted to this unpleasant, bunker propaganda that should be the sole preserve of Nick Griffin's British National Party, the Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen, and paranoic, white-supremicist, North American redneck militias. (The one difference is that the UK media appear to be anti-Arab rather than anti-Jewish.)
The phrase that prompts my wry smile is "this island nation of ours". The UK is neither the most densely populated country in the world, nor the most densely populated country in Europe. The UK ranks 33 in the world league table, next to Germany, whereas the Netherlands (15) and Belgium (17) have considerably higher population densities. I am unfamiliar with people complaining about living in Jersey, Guernsey or Barbados: real islands with much higher population densities; and even London ranks well down the list in the world and in Europe.
I am not claiming that what is being stated in the headlines is necessarily factually inaccurate, but that it is being given a maliciously-twisted relevance.
... to be continued ...
However, vox pop suggests that not only is the UK population buying into this de facto deceit, but also appear immune to the facts and their significance. To illustrate this point, regarding law and order, to anyone in the UK it is self-evident both that there are fewer police officers and that crime is all but out of control - whereas despite better recording, recorded crime has been on the decline for the past 15 or more years, and there are more police officers, as well as civilians working for the police, than ever before. Regarding health, the UK public focuses on the fact there are one-third fewer hospital beds than at some point in the past, rather than the relevant facts that life expectancy has risen so much that there is a major crisis in pension savings; or that the rate at which new drugs to address this or that illness or condition are being introduced appears to be accelerating; or, perhaps most significantly, that medical procedures have advanced sufficiently that the need for lengthy stays in hospital has thankfully been signifiantly reduced. Regarding tobacco smoking, the UK public demand a right to damage the health of allcomers (smokers and non-smokers alike), whingeing plaintively about hospitals that ban smoking, and confetti-ing with cigartette butts the entrance to public buildings, when all the evidence for decades has unequivocally, adequately and graphically illustrated that smoking should be stopped immediately; as well as buying from the informal economy significant quantities of cigarettes on which no duty has been paid (are these the same people who buy newspapers that peddle myths about crime being out of control?).
... to be continued ...
Current so-called revelations about the UK Home Office appear largely driven by an agenda of xenophobia. The rehtoric focuses on the deportation of foreign nationals, 'bogus' asylum seekers, 'economic' migrants, refugees and people trafficking. For reasons I find it difficult to understand many people in Britain have become addicted to this unpleasant, bunker propaganda that should be the sole preserve of Nick Griffin's British National Party, the Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen, and paranoic, white-supremicist, North American redneck militias. (The one difference is that the UK media appear to be anti-Arab rather than anti-Jewish.)
The phrase that prompts my wry smile is "this island nation of ours". The UK is neither the most densely populated country in the world, nor the most densely populated country in Europe. The UK ranks 33 in the world league table, next to Germany, whereas the Netherlands (15) and Belgium (17) have considerably higher population densities. I am unfamiliar with people complaining about living in Jersey, Guernsey or Barbados: real islands with much higher population densities; and even London ranks well down the list in the world and in Europe.
I am not claiming that what is being stated in the headlines is necessarily factually inaccurate, but that it is being given a maliciously-twisted relevance.
... to be continued ...
However, vox pop suggests that not only is the UK population buying into this de facto deceit, but also appear immune to the facts and their significance. To illustrate this point, regarding law and order, to anyone in the UK it is self-evident both that there are fewer police officers and that crime is all but out of control - whereas despite better recording, recorded crime has been on the decline for the past 15 or more years, and there are more police officers, as well as civilians working for the police, than ever before. Regarding health, the UK public focuses on the fact there are one-third fewer hospital beds than at some point in the past, rather than the relevant facts that life expectancy has risen so much that there is a major crisis in pension savings; or that the rate at which new drugs to address this or that illness or condition are being introduced appears to be accelerating; or, perhaps most significantly, that medical procedures have advanced sufficiently that the need for lengthy stays in hospital has thankfully been signifiantly reduced. Regarding tobacco smoking, the UK public demand a right to damage the health of allcomers (smokers and non-smokers alike), whingeing plaintively about hospitals that ban smoking, and confetti-ing with cigartette butts the entrance to public buildings, when all the evidence for decades has unequivocally, adequately and graphically illustrated that smoking should be stopped immediately; as well as buying from the informal economy significant quantities of cigarettes on which no duty has been paid (are these the same people who buy newspapers that peddle myths about crime being out of control?).
... to be continued ...
05 May 2006
Satisfaction: pleasure versus fulfilment
In pursuing thoughts about happiness from an earlier
posting, I got to thinking that I am seeking to earn myself a sense of
satisfaction by means of pleasure. I feel satisfied when I experience the pleasure
of listening to Vivaldi ('Four Seasons), Sandy Denny ('Who Knows Where the Time
Goes?' or Van Morrison ('Madame George'). I feel satisfied when I experience
the pleasure of watching Spirited Away, Amelie or Koyaanisqatsi.
I feel satisfied when I experience the pleasure of a well-prepared Indian, Thai
or Chinese meal. I feel satisfied when I when I experience the pleasure of Monet's
water lilies, Van Gogh's Provençal
scenes, or Pollock's swirling rhythms. And what if I spent my life engaged only
in consuming? As vital as each source of pleasure is to me (other than in
matters of taste and preference, little different from football and soaps), and
I should dearly love to have more of every source of pleasure-induced
satisfaction in my life, something would be missing.
I have spent a significant part of my life volunteering, and
I continue to volunteer in one respect or another. The paid work that I now do
is about helping people, which makes my work much more satisfying to me than
were people not helped as a result. It is important to me that my work (whether
voluntary or paid) is meaningful in some way, so that while I am engaged in it,
and also when I have completed a task, I enjoy a sense of fulfilment, and
consequently satisfaction. Visiting cities overseas can be remarkably hard
work, due to my travel sickness, difficulties in locating vegan-suitable food,
and ensuring adequate wheelchair access to museums (I telephoned the Musée Marmottan
in Paris, and was assured that access was no problem as there is a stair-lift
at the entrance, but when we arrived the stair-lift was not only out of order,
but looked as though it had been out of order for a long time), to hotels (I
have discovered that the doors to most bedrooms in Holiday Inn hotels are too
narrow to admit a wheelchair) and onto public transport (on each
wheelchair-accessible bus for La Guardia that arrived over a 90 minute period
the wheelchair lift was non-functional, generating considerable anxiety that we
might miss our flight to DC). Perhaps because of having to overcome such
difficulties, I can achieve a considerable sense of fulfilment, as well as
pleasure, from visiting cities such as Paris, Berlin and Venice, New York, Washington
and Vancouver, contributing to my overall sense of satisfaction with the
experience. Constructing my website, or developing my photographic skills, or
improving my ability to communicate in some other language, is often demanding
in one way or another, and consequently offers the satisfaction of fulfilment,
especially on those occasions when the discipline involved fails to generate
pleasure in the experience.
In conclusion, I guess that I am motivated to achieve an
only-occasionally fully-satisfied sense of satisfaction (who else but the
Rolling Stones?), in part through pleasure, and in part through fulfilment,
neither of which alone is sufficient, but in combination and balance can offer
considerable satisfaction for a while.
04 May 2006
Happiness and satisfaction
I read, today, on the BBC news website, that happiness is in decline in the UK. According to the report, compared with fifty years ago, significantly fewer people in the UK are very happy. Over the same time period, wealth in the UK has increased three-fold. A question was implied: being so much better off now, why are people in the UK less happy? A second, more explicit, question was asked: should government focus either on creating happiness or on creating wealth?
I feel uncertain about several points: what is happiness? is happiness made up from component parts, such as contentment, satisfaction and joy? does happiness exist other than as a generalised concept? how can blunt, ticky-box social surveys hope to understand the delicacy how each individual makes sense of their ever-changing human emotions? how can anyone imagine that it should be the business of government to attend to, and respond to, how people feel?
According to the BBC news website, it has long been recognised that it was many years ago that the US population ceased getting happier with increasing wealth. Whilst I understand what is intended by this statement, I also have many doubts about it. For example, apart from not knowing what happiness is, and what exactly was being measured, I have no knowledge of which social, demographic and geographical factors were correlated; nor of how much account was taken of wealth differentials (compared with wealth in the US and the UK, wealth in Scandanavia is more evenly distributed across the population). Were it the case that wealthy people get happier, poorer people become less happy, and wealth differentials have increased, then maybe there is nothing suprising to be discussed.
It has become a commonplace in the UK that winning millions of pounds (GBP) from the national lottery is more likely to result in a reduction in happiness. Yet the hope and belief of many people is that to become wealthy, or at least significantly wealthier, is sufficiently desirable that, for every child, woman and man in the UK, 75 GBP each year is handed over to Camelot (the company that runs the UK lottery). Accordingly to a Camelot press release from March 2005, weekly takings are between GBP 85,000,000 and GBP 90,000,000.
What is not a commonplace is that, over the past fifty years, the expectations of people in the UK have skyrocketed. Most people in the UK expect to be able to travel with ease at speed around the UK, probably in our own car; many people expect to be able to travel cheaply by air to tourist destinations throughout western Europe; it has become imaginable and feasible for many people to travel around the world. By contrast, the UK of Brief Encounter, shows a very different world. Regarding food, entertainment and recreation, expectations have changed out of all recognition. Regarding health, we have come to expect specialised medication (regardless of how expensive) as our right, and have become impatient for new techniques and cures. Regarding technology, we are so sophisticated that a cellphone without texting capability, a television incapable of receiving digital pictures, a laptop computer without wi-fi, would feel like a medieval throw-back. Regarding communication, we expect to be able to sit on a beach in Margate, Marbella or Miami, and call home, text our friends, maybe send a e-photograph or e-video; to find a means to post a weblog of our travels; to have booked our holiday on-line; to have e-mailed our pillow preferences to the hotel; and to have checked out the websites of cafes / bars / restaurants that serve food suitable for vegans or vegetarians, or food that is kosher or wheat-free or nut-free.
Were it the case that our expectations were being met faster than our expectations were being raised, life would feel more satisfying and we would become happier. However, the dual-fuel engine for the satisfactio of our expectations is powered by money and further-elevated expectations. Paradoxically, therefore, in a market-driven capitalist society the more we seek to have our expectations satisfied, the further out in front of satisfaction our expectations will streak. In western society, it is only by reining-in, or even reducing, expectations could satisfaction increase. In the later 1950s, a British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, famously told the British electorate that they had "never had it so good", reminding them of post-war shortages, rationing and inflation. However, the purpose of his message was for people to rein in their expectations about rising wages (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3728000/3728225.stm). Successive UK governments have attempted to deliver a message of wage restraint, and suffered for their pains at subsequent elections. Living in a globalised world, in which people in Connecticut, Chad and China are able to converse together in a chat-room, it would be barely possible for a country to attempt, unliaterally, to reduce the life expectations of its people - to my understanding, the Taliban regime attempted this in Afghanistan.
I am likely to feel happier when the bad things that have been going on in my life are being relegated to the past. This is about transition. Ironically, I may feel happier while recovering from a serious illness than when I am ordinarily healthy; when my bank balance is nearing solvency after a period of debt than when I have been sitting on comfortable financial cushion for some time; when the sun breaks through after a week of perpetual drizzle than when yet another day dawns with a clear blue sky.
Talking with a colleague, Jo, reminded me that when I have a self-imposed goal, the attainment of which would give me satisfaction, I tend to feel a contented anticipation. Simple examples of this include planning a holiday abroad; learning sufficient tourist language to get by in a non-anglophone country; re-organising and redecorating a room; and slimming.
How happy I feel may also concern the absence of bad things going on in my life. When I am healthy, feel safe at home, feel financially secure in my job, and feel supported by family and friends, I am less likely to feel unhappy. However, I may be bored and doubt where I am going in life, and consequently not feel happy.
I recognise different qualities of happiness. For example, I recall something of the overwhelming excitement and joy I experienced when I first attended a Promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London; when I first piloted a Piper Tomahawk; and when I stepped out onto the observation deck of the Empire State Building in Manhattan. I recall something of the serene joy I felt when crossing by jetfoil from Vancouver to Victoria, on sighting a pod of orca whales. I recall something of the awe I felt, surrounded by the Canadian Rockies, witnessing the Perseid meteor shower (13 August 1993); and surrounded by darkness on the hard shoulder of a French motorway witnessing the totality of a solar eclipse (11 August 2000). I recall something of my intensely moving joy when my daughter was born.
To be continued ...
I feel uncertain about several points: what is happiness? is happiness made up from component parts, such as contentment, satisfaction and joy? does happiness exist other than as a generalised concept? how can blunt, ticky-box social surveys hope to understand the delicacy how each individual makes sense of their ever-changing human emotions? how can anyone imagine that it should be the business of government to attend to, and respond to, how people feel?
According to the BBC news website, it has long been recognised that it was many years ago that the US population ceased getting happier with increasing wealth. Whilst I understand what is intended by this statement, I also have many doubts about it. For example, apart from not knowing what happiness is, and what exactly was being measured, I have no knowledge of which social, demographic and geographical factors were correlated; nor of how much account was taken of wealth differentials (compared with wealth in the US and the UK, wealth in Scandanavia is more evenly distributed across the population). Were it the case that wealthy people get happier, poorer people become less happy, and wealth differentials have increased, then maybe there is nothing suprising to be discussed.
It has become a commonplace in the UK that winning millions of pounds (GBP) from the national lottery is more likely to result in a reduction in happiness. Yet the hope and belief of many people is that to become wealthy, or at least significantly wealthier, is sufficiently desirable that, for every child, woman and man in the UK, 75 GBP each year is handed over to Camelot (the company that runs the UK lottery). Accordingly to a Camelot press release from March 2005, weekly takings are between GBP 85,000,000 and GBP 90,000,000.
What is not a commonplace is that, over the past fifty years, the expectations of people in the UK have skyrocketed. Most people in the UK expect to be able to travel with ease at speed around the UK, probably in our own car; many people expect to be able to travel cheaply by air to tourist destinations throughout western Europe; it has become imaginable and feasible for many people to travel around the world. By contrast, the UK of Brief Encounter, shows a very different world. Regarding food, entertainment and recreation, expectations have changed out of all recognition. Regarding health, we have come to expect specialised medication (regardless of how expensive) as our right, and have become impatient for new techniques and cures. Regarding technology, we are so sophisticated that a cellphone without texting capability, a television incapable of receiving digital pictures, a laptop computer without wi-fi, would feel like a medieval throw-back. Regarding communication, we expect to be able to sit on a beach in Margate, Marbella or Miami, and call home, text our friends, maybe send a e-photograph or e-video; to find a means to post a weblog of our travels; to have booked our holiday on-line; to have e-mailed our pillow preferences to the hotel; and to have checked out the websites of cafes / bars / restaurants that serve food suitable for vegans or vegetarians, or food that is kosher or wheat-free or nut-free.
Were it the case that our expectations were being met faster than our expectations were being raised, life would feel more satisfying and we would become happier. However, the dual-fuel engine for the satisfactio of our expectations is powered by money and further-elevated expectations. Paradoxically, therefore, in a market-driven capitalist society the more we seek to have our expectations satisfied, the further out in front of satisfaction our expectations will streak. In western society, it is only by reining-in, or even reducing, expectations could satisfaction increase. In the later 1950s, a British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, famously told the British electorate that they had "never had it so good", reminding them of post-war shortages, rationing and inflation. However, the purpose of his message was for people to rein in their expectations about rising wages (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3728000/3728225.stm). Successive UK governments have attempted to deliver a message of wage restraint, and suffered for their pains at subsequent elections. Living in a globalised world, in which people in Connecticut, Chad and China are able to converse together in a chat-room, it would be barely possible for a country to attempt, unliaterally, to reduce the life expectations of its people - to my understanding, the Taliban regime attempted this in Afghanistan.
I am likely to feel happier when the bad things that have been going on in my life are being relegated to the past. This is about transition. Ironically, I may feel happier while recovering from a serious illness than when I am ordinarily healthy; when my bank balance is nearing solvency after a period of debt than when I have been sitting on comfortable financial cushion for some time; when the sun breaks through after a week of perpetual drizzle than when yet another day dawns with a clear blue sky.
Talking with a colleague, Jo, reminded me that when I have a self-imposed goal, the attainment of which would give me satisfaction, I tend to feel a contented anticipation. Simple examples of this include planning a holiday abroad; learning sufficient tourist language to get by in a non-anglophone country; re-organising and redecorating a room; and slimming.
How happy I feel may also concern the absence of bad things going on in my life. When I am healthy, feel safe at home, feel financially secure in my job, and feel supported by family and friends, I am less likely to feel unhappy. However, I may be bored and doubt where I am going in life, and consequently not feel happy.
I recognise different qualities of happiness. For example, I recall something of the overwhelming excitement and joy I experienced when I first attended a Promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London; when I first piloted a Piper Tomahawk; and when I stepped out onto the observation deck of the Empire State Building in Manhattan. I recall something of the serene joy I felt when crossing by jetfoil from Vancouver to Victoria, on sighting a pod of orca whales. I recall something of the awe I felt, surrounded by the Canadian Rockies, witnessing the Perseid meteor shower (13 August 1993); and surrounded by darkness on the hard shoulder of a French motorway witnessing the totality of a solar eclipse (11 August 2000). I recall something of my intensely moving joy when my daughter was born.
To be continued ...
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