At last, I'm a winner.
10/10 on the Guardian's literary quiz (about poverty), without looking anything up!
A bright spot in an otherwise depressing day - although lunch with Darek, Steve and Christine is always fun. I tend to listen to their learned discourse in awed silence.
Talking of being a winner: Heathrow 3rd runway and Stansted 2nd runway cancelled! There wasn't much choice - all the parties except Labour were opposed, and no doubt they'll try to expand capacity elsewhere rather than allowing greener transport to replace flying, but for now, savour the clean(ish) air.
Monday, 24 May 2010
Paul Uppal, I don't get bored
Another week goes by, and still my new MP ignores my polite request for basic information about him. It's going to be a long five years.
Meanwhile, even clever people can be very, very, stupid, as Sathnam Sangera proves. He's the good writer from Wolverhampton who called for Uppal's election on the basis that a non-white MP in Enoch Powell's old constituency would be a powerful signal that the country has changed.
Er… no. It's a sign that The Dark Place South West has changed - from a racist white working-class constituency to a very mixed constituency. Let's not forget that the constituency voted Labour from 1997 to 2010, so it's hardly a hotbed of fascism. There aren't even any BNP councillors here, despite this shallow, outrageous accusation:
More seriously, Sanghera's fallen for that very dated trap, representation politics. Having some Asians on EastEnders isn't progress if they're always depicted as owning corner shops, arranging marriages and agonising about religion. Having an Asian MP is no good if he's actively hostile to all attempts to improve race relations, the lives of ethnic minorities in this country, and the disgraceful institutional racism of public and private bodies in this country (for instance, unemployment is massively higher, and educational achievement hugely lower, for black and Asian people).
What does Uppal say?
Meanwhile, even clever people can be very, very, stupid, as Sathnam Sangera proves. He's the good writer from Wolverhampton who called for Uppal's election on the basis that a non-white MP in Enoch Powell's old constituency would be a powerful signal that the country has changed.
I’m Labour, but I want the Conservative candidate Paul Uppal to win
I’m a tribal Labour voter
But there are two facts that make me want Uppal to succeed. First, he’s an Asian bloke. And, second, Wolverhampton South West was formerly Enoch Powell’s constituency
Er… no. It's a sign that The Dark Place South West has changed - from a racist white working-class constituency to a very mixed constituency. Let's not forget that the constituency voted Labour from 1997 to 2010, so it's hardly a hotbed of fascism. There aren't even any BNP councillors here, despite this shallow, outrageous accusation:
Indeed, I don’t think it would be too much of an exaggeration to say that in the decades that have followed Powell’s speech, white Wulfrunians have basically tended to vote Conservative because it was the party most likely to send the darkies back, and the darkies have basically voted Labour because it was the party most likely to let them stay.
More seriously, Sanghera's fallen for that very dated trap, representation politics. Having some Asians on EastEnders isn't progress if they're always depicted as owning corner shops, arranging marriages and agonising about religion. Having an Asian MP is no good if he's actively hostile to all attempts to improve race relations, the lives of ethnic minorities in this country, and the disgraceful institutional racism of public and private bodies in this country (for instance, unemployment is massively higher, and educational achievement hugely lower, for black and Asian people).
What does Uppal say?
… the McCarthyistic mouth foaming utterances of the race relations industry, which through accusation alone can slay political careers and stifle well intentioned and principled debate. I say this because I have seen with my very own eyes the modus operandi of this circus, employing individuals to perpetuate this climate of political correctness. In reality this industry/business does dreadful damage to Britain’s race relations. It seems more concerned with securing it’s own funding streams and non jobs for it’s membership of zealots. The cost of this is all is so much more than financial, as we lose decent people and gag those who point to the emperor’s new clothes.Come on Paul, I'm still waiting.
Walsalls have ears
Some detective work has revealed the extent of state spying on citizens. The Labour government shared one thing with the USSR, and unfortunately, it wasn't socialism. Instead, it adopted the surveillance society which is weird, as it demonstrates their core Tory values. Toryism holds that people are essentially evil and need restraining, which authorises repression (there are some libertarian Tories, who are evil in other ways).
Labour allowed basically any public body to covertly observe citizens - surveillance has been carried out to catch people faking their addresses to get their kids into 'better' schools, people using the wrong recycling bill, even, in Liverpool, spying on anti-crime wardens.
Quis custodiet, and all that? 4.5% of operations resulted in prosecutions, which gives you an idea of the trivialities pursued using long lenses, listening devices and flowers with cameras in the middle (I may have made the last bit up).
Walsall, a nondescript place near The Dark Place, comes third, with 215 applications to spy on people in the last couple of years.
There should be a simple rule: if it's not a criminal offence, it doesn't justify spies. If it is a criminal offence, the police should carry out surveillance. They're not perfect, but they at least know the rules in most cases.
Labour allowed basically any public body to covertly observe citizens - surveillance has been carried out to catch people faking their addresses to get their kids into 'better' schools, people using the wrong recycling bill, even, in Liverpool, spying on anti-crime wardens.
In Bromley the council even spied on a charity shop to see if people were "fly-tipping" their donations at the door.
Quis custodiet, and all that? 4.5% of operations resulted in prosecutions, which gives you an idea of the trivialities pursued using long lenses, listening devices and flowers with cameras in the middle (I may have made the last bit up).
Walsall, a nondescript place near The Dark Place, comes third, with 215 applications to spy on people in the last couple of years.
There should be a simple rule: if it's not a criminal offence, it doesn't justify spies. If it is a criminal offence, the police should carry out surveillance. They're not perfect, but they at least know the rules in most cases.
Return from the nerdsphere
I seem to have spent the past few days judging people.
On Friday it was a War Studies exam (no, I don't teach War Studies), which at least allowed me to try a few one-liners. 'It'll all be over for Christmas' was one. 'You can only leave early if you put underpants on your head, pencils up your nose and say "Wibble" was another, and finally, when the allotted time was up, 'For you, the War Studies is over'.
They laughed, more from the tension and embarrassment than genuine humour, I suspect.
Then I spent the weekend setting up, refereeing, then taking down the British U10s foil competition. The endless, searing heat was utterly horrible. How the kids managed to fight at high tempo is beyond me. Anyway, it was, as always, stressful fun. Trying to call decisions correctly while international standard referees, stroppy coaches and (worst of all) pushy parents mutter or shout with every point is really quite hard.
Luckily, the proletariat of the fencing world is much nicer - the good parents, the volunteer referees, the computer operators and the armourers form a delightful, gossipy, mutinous subculture which meets every two or three weeks in the darker corners of anonymous sports halls to talk heavy metal, operating systems, duct tape qualities, the virtues of the bayonet over the twin-socket, spool resistance and other affairs of major importance. I love it.
On Friday it was a War Studies exam (no, I don't teach War Studies), which at least allowed me to try a few one-liners. 'It'll all be over for Christmas' was one. 'You can only leave early if you put underpants on your head, pencils up your nose and say "Wibble" was another, and finally, when the allotted time was up, 'For you, the War Studies is over'.
They laughed, more from the tension and embarrassment than genuine humour, I suspect.
Then I spent the weekend setting up, refereeing, then taking down the British U10s foil competition. The endless, searing heat was utterly horrible. How the kids managed to fight at high tempo is beyond me. Anyway, it was, as always, stressful fun. Trying to call decisions correctly while international standard referees, stroppy coaches and (worst of all) pushy parents mutter or shout with every point is really quite hard.
Luckily, the proletariat of the fencing world is much nicer - the good parents, the volunteer referees, the computer operators and the armourers form a delightful, gossipy, mutinous subculture which meets every two or three weeks in the darker corners of anonymous sports halls to talk heavy metal, operating systems, duct tape qualities, the virtues of the bayonet over the twin-socket, spool resistance and other affairs of major importance. I love it.
Free the Negev One
Mordechai Vanunu is an Israeli engineer who worked on Israel's illegal nuclear weapons programme. His conscience moved him to reveal the existence of the nuclear arsenal to the world, and he served 18 years, 11 in solitary confinement, after being lured from Britain to Italy and then kidnapped by the Israeli Secret Service, possibly acting on information received from the British intelligence service and disgraced mega-thief Robert Maxwell, who owned the Daily Mirror at the time.
After his release, the country which bills itself as the Middle East's only democracy restricted his freedom of movement, banned him from leaving the country and barred him from any contact with foreigners. Vanunu has now been returned to prison for this latter 'offence'. One of these foreigners was… his girlfriend.
He is now an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. Please write to your Israeli Embassy requesting his release. Don't give them too many personal details or you'll find an assassin using your passport.
Update: What were the Israelis going to do with their nuclear weapon? (Apart from threaten their neighbours, of course). Why, sell it to Apartheid South Africa. What a charming bunch of people.
In the end, Israel 'only' helped with nuclear technology for SA to build its own nukes (which it later renounced when the ANC took power) in return for uranium for its own weapons of mass destruction. Here's Gary Younge's view:
Of course, there's no point complaining. Yes, the US has a law against funding countries with illegal WMDs, but realpolitik always, always, trumps morality and the law. Israel can do whatever it wants, to whomsoever it wants - witness the extremely muted UK, Irish and French response to the discovery that Israel used the passports of citizens for assassinations. Imagine the reaction if Iran did that…
After his release, the country which bills itself as the Middle East's only democracy restricted his freedom of movement, banned him from leaving the country and barred him from any contact with foreigners. Vanunu has now been returned to prison for this latter 'offence'. One of these foreigners was… his girlfriend.
He is now an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. Please write to your Israeli Embassy requesting his release. Don't give them too many personal details or you'll find an assassin using your passport.
Update: What were the Israelis going to do with their nuclear weapon? (Apart from threaten their neighbours, of course). Why, sell it to Apartheid South Africa. What a charming bunch of people.
In the end, Israel 'only' helped with nuclear technology for SA to build its own nukes (which it later renounced when the ANC took power) in return for uranium for its own weapons of mass destruction. Here's Gary Younge's view:
Israel was South Africa's principal and most dependable arms dealer. As we learn elsewhere in the Guardian today, it even offered to sell the South African regime nuclear weapons.
"Throughout the 70s and 80s Israel had a deep, intimate and lucrative relationship with South Africa," explains Sasha Polakow-Suransky, author of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa. "Israel's arms supplies helped to prolong the apartheid regime's rule and to survive international sanctions."
Of course, there's no point complaining. Yes, the US has a law against funding countries with illegal WMDs, but realpolitik always, always, trumps morality and the law. Israel can do whatever it wants, to whomsoever it wants - witness the extremely muted UK, Irish and French response to the discovery that Israel used the passports of citizens for assassinations. Imagine the reaction if Iran did that…
Friday, 21 May 2010
Plashing Vole reaches the White House
Typically, the state of US (and British) media is so degenerate that they'd rather talk about me than discuss Obama's successful re-regulation of the banksters.
I was merely passing through, on my way to share a fat cigar with Bill. I had no intention of stealing the President's limelight.
I was merely passing through, on my way to share a fat cigar with Bill. I had no intention of stealing the President's limelight.
Spirit of Steel
Those of you condemned to life in The Dark Place and its surrounding environs can refresh your flagging intellects with a trip to The Light House, to see my colleague Fran's exhibition, Spirit of Steel, an exhibition of images of the Twin Towers site since the atrocity.
I would post an image, but bloody Blogger's gone all recalcitrant. They're very good. You have until June 4th.
I'm free of the place for a couple of days: off to referee the British Under-10s Fencing Championships. There'll be tears before bedtime…
I would post an image, but bloody Blogger's gone all recalcitrant. They're very good. You have until June 4th.
I'm free of the place for a couple of days: off to referee the British Under-10s Fencing Championships. There'll be tears before bedtime…
It Came From A Laboratory!
So, Craig Venter has created artificial DNA, inserted it into a bacterium shell, and it's reproducing, so it's basically alive.
Pharyngula gives a comprehensive and comprehensible account of the science, and he thinks it's a breakthrough, safe, and ethical. So it's fine by me.
The possibilities are endless. Like the long-fabled nanotech, we can design bacteria to produce efficient and non-polluting fuel, produce nutrients and fertilisers, and ones to clean up our disgusting pollution. These things won't be easy and there'll be safety challenges along the way, but there really is no down side, as long as everyone behaves responsibly.
Oh, and to those whingers talking about 'playing God', why not? There isn't really a god, so the situation's vacant.
Pharyngula gives a comprehensive and comprehensible account of the science, and he thinks it's a breakthrough, safe, and ethical. So it's fine by me.
The possibilities are endless. Like the long-fabled nanotech, we can design bacteria to produce efficient and non-polluting fuel, produce nutrients and fertilisers, and ones to clean up our disgusting pollution. These things won't be easy and there'll be safety challenges along the way, but there really is no down side, as long as everyone behaves responsibly.
Oh, and to those whingers talking about 'playing God', why not? There isn't really a god, so the situation's vacant.
For Daniel
He's in Liverpool today, at a job interview. So in his honour, here's one of the finest moments from that seminal work of the 1980s, Boys from the Blackstuff, a searing attack on the way the Conservatives abandoned Liverpool and the working class in general. Those days are coming back…
Welsh fiction's moment in the sun
The Guardian has a short feature on Welsh books (in English or translated into English) for cool kids - urban and hip rather than concerned with the loss of land, language and work. I've read most of them and have the rest on order, and will be teaching Freshers (originally Ffreshars) next year.
It's worth a read - non-metropolitan work doesn't often get a look in, thanks to the economics and cultural position of the publishing industry, but new perspectives are always interesting, whether you enjoy the books themselves or not.
Of Trezise's list, I'd recommend anything Niall Griffiths writes. He's interested in the Liverpool-North Wales diaspora and the consequences of community and cultural decay, which goes both ways, and is influenced by Irvine Welsh but I think he's got more depth. So Long, Hector Bebb is a brilliant, technicolor punch in the face (it's partly about boxing) of the dreary Chapel-obsessed moral novels and One Moonlight Night/Un Nos Ala Leuad follows Caradoc Evans in excavating the twisted horror underlying the Nonconformist rural Wales of postcard fame. I'd say that anything Gwyn Thomas (the novelist who described his work as 'Chekhov with chips', not the poet) wrote is stunning, and the same goes for Chris Meredith (men marooned in post-industrial Wales) and Wiliam Owen Roberts, whose experimental novel Y Pla or Pestilence unites medieval Wales and Vietnam to amazing effect. Y Pla has been translated into English and several other languages but his other novels haven't, which is a shame as he's such a brilliant exponent of what might be called postmodern writing.
I notice that these are mostly by men - accidentally. Wales is bursting with talented female writers - Catherine Merriman, Fflur Dafydd (a personal favourite), Menna Elfyn, Kate Roberts (who I think is one of the top ten writers of the twentieth century), Dorothy Edwards, Eiluned Lewis - and I've not even got on to the poetry.
Finally, if you want a laugh (with some suspense), try Malcolm Pryce's Aberystwyth series of noir parodies set in a twisted alternate Wales. Glorious.
It's worth a read - non-metropolitan work doesn't often get a look in, thanks to the economics and cultural position of the publishing industry, but new perspectives are always interesting, whether you enjoy the books themselves or not.
Of Trezise's list, I'd recommend anything Niall Griffiths writes. He's interested in the Liverpool-North Wales diaspora and the consequences of community and cultural decay, which goes both ways, and is influenced by Irvine Welsh but I think he's got more depth. So Long, Hector Bebb is a brilliant, technicolor punch in the face (it's partly about boxing) of the dreary Chapel-obsessed moral novels and One Moonlight Night/Un Nos Ala Leuad follows Caradoc Evans in excavating the twisted horror underlying the Nonconformist rural Wales of postcard fame. I'd say that anything Gwyn Thomas (the novelist who described his work as 'Chekhov with chips', not the poet) wrote is stunning, and the same goes for Chris Meredith (men marooned in post-industrial Wales) and Wiliam Owen Roberts, whose experimental novel Y Pla or Pestilence unites medieval Wales and Vietnam to amazing effect. Y Pla has been translated into English and several other languages but his other novels haven't, which is a shame as he's such a brilliant exponent of what might be called postmodern writing.
I notice that these are mostly by men - accidentally. Wales is bursting with talented female writers - Catherine Merriman, Fflur Dafydd (a personal favourite), Menna Elfyn, Kate Roberts (who I think is one of the top ten writers of the twentieth century), Dorothy Edwards, Eiluned Lewis - and I've not even got on to the poetry.
Finally, if you want a laugh (with some suspense), try Malcolm Pryce's Aberystwyth series of noir parodies set in a twisted alternate Wales. Glorious.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
"Aging, scared newspapermen throw themselves at the latest mobile technology trend in a humiliatingly futile attempt to remain relevant."
I think The Onion's writers are getting bored by the tedious BS generated by anyone with a social network to hype:
Update: it turns out that Foursquare is real and that some Dutch people used it to set up a site called PleaseRobMe ('showing you a list of all those empty homes out there', based on the idea that social media sites are full of people announcing their whereabouts!
While millions of young, tech-savvy professionals already use services like Facebook and Twitter to keep in constant touch with friends, a new social networking platform called Foursquare has recently taken the oh, fucking hell, can't some other desperate news outlet cover this crap instead?
"Foursquare is a little bit of everything—a friend-finder, a local city guide, an interactive mobile game," said company cofounder Dennis Crowley, as if reading from the same tired script used by every one of these Web 2.0 or whatever-the-fuck-they're-called startups. "But more than that, Foursquare is an [endless string of meaningless buzzwords we just couldn't bring ourselves to transcribe]."And on it goes, gloriously world-weary.
Update: it turns out that Foursquare is real and that some Dutch people used it to set up a site called PleaseRobMe ('showing you a list of all those empty homes out there', based on the idea that social media sites are full of people announcing their whereabouts!
Is picking up a prostitute (electronically) educational?
I read an entertaining piece of journalism today which declares that video-gaming is educational, because it involves problem-solving, patience and learning moves. No doubt you've read of research claiming that kids, old people and pretty much anyone can 'train' their brains by playing games, and thus stave off senility or whatever.
I'm not particularly convinced - the 'skills' required by many games aren't particularly transferable. I'm not certain that learning how to score drugs, dally with prostitutes or (as a very good dissertation I read a few days ago boasted) smash enemies' heads against the kerb until they're dead really count as educational. For one thing, the physics of cranium-crunching and the economics of the sex-trade aren't included in the experience: these are worlds of naked, individualistic capitalism.
But then, I'm not really in much position to preach. I know someone who never completed The Hobbit on a ZX Spectrum, and I'm not much better. The last game I played obsessively was Civilization II in about 1996. I loved it, but got bored because it was so ideologically loaded. To win, you had to be a ragingly violent capitalist ready to nuke your neighbours without cause, whereas I always tried to build a socialist, peace-loving society, and got nuked by said neighbours: clearly the game's designers are Hobbesians, and it disturbed me. Civ 3 and Alpha Centauri just looked rubbish and didn't play as well.
I've tried to play Scrabble, but my copy is a cheating American version. It continually gets all seven letters down while refusing to provide a meaning for the made-up words, and gives me 7 vowels. It got so frustrating that I ended up demanding the suggestions every go and sitting back watching the computer play itself, which damaged my play against actual humans because my mental flexibility had been sapped.
I do occasionally go online to play the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy game, which is ridiculously difficult: try it, and then wonder where the summer (and your sanity) went.
So, tell me: what games do you play, which games do you recommend I play (and are available on Mac) and what have you learned from them? I see that Civ 5 is coming this year, and will hopefully be Mac-friendly!
I'm not particularly convinced - the 'skills' required by many games aren't particularly transferable. I'm not certain that learning how to score drugs, dally with prostitutes or (as a very good dissertation I read a few days ago boasted) smash enemies' heads against the kerb until they're dead really count as educational. For one thing, the physics of cranium-crunching and the economics of the sex-trade aren't included in the experience: these are worlds of naked, individualistic capitalism.
But then, I'm not really in much position to preach. I know someone who never completed The Hobbit on a ZX Spectrum, and I'm not much better. The last game I played obsessively was Civilization II in about 1996. I loved it, but got bored because it was so ideologically loaded. To win, you had to be a ragingly violent capitalist ready to nuke your neighbours without cause, whereas I always tried to build a socialist, peace-loving society, and got nuked by said neighbours: clearly the game's designers are Hobbesians, and it disturbed me. Civ 3 and Alpha Centauri just looked rubbish and didn't play as well.
I've tried to play Scrabble, but my copy is a cheating American version. It continually gets all seven letters down while refusing to provide a meaning for the made-up words, and gives me 7 vowels. It got so frustrating that I ended up demanding the suggestions every go and sitting back watching the computer play itself, which damaged my play against actual humans because my mental flexibility had been sapped.
I do occasionally go online to play the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy game, which is ridiculously difficult: try it, and then wonder where the summer (and your sanity) went.
So, tell me: what games do you play, which games do you recommend I play (and are available on Mac) and what have you learned from them? I see that Civ 5 is coming this year, and will hopefully be Mac-friendly!
Efficiency increase in Pakistan
Workers in Pakistan today reported a massive surge in productivity while school and university assignments became noticeably better informed, following court orders banning Facebook, Youtube, Flickr and Wikipedia due to 'sacrilegious content'.
OK, I'm being flippant. The Pakistani courts have banned these sites in response to a nasty-minded campaign calling on people to post cartoons of Muhammad, many of which are spiteful and racist. It seems rather confused - you have to search for these things to be offended by them, so the devout could just not log on, rather than using the courts. Most Pakistani's won't be affected anyway - web access is restricted to a tiny proportion of the population.
I also don't quite understand the ban on drawings of the Prophet - it certainly wasn't always banned in every branch of Islam, and Muhammad isn't God: he was a man.
Why can't we all just get along?
OK, I'm being flippant. The Pakistani courts have banned these sites in response to a nasty-minded campaign calling on people to post cartoons of Muhammad, many of which are spiteful and racist. It seems rather confused - you have to search for these things to be offended by them, so the devout could just not log on, rather than using the courts. Most Pakistani's won't be affected anyway - web access is restricted to a tiny proportion of the population.
I also don't quite understand the ban on drawings of the Prophet - it certainly wasn't always banned in every branch of Islam, and Muhammad isn't God: he was a man.
Why can't we all just get along?
A battle won
British Airways cabin crew have won their appeal against an ban on their strike action. They're fighting degraded working conditions and victimisation, and British Airways' only weapons are technicalities (in this case, how exactly the union communicates ballot results to its members), which the Appeal Court have rejected. BA will probably go to the Supreme Court, but in the meantime, the struggle continues.
Victory to the workers! And I'll have a glass of wine and a blanket please.
Meanwhile, the Tories and Lib Dems have shown their true colours by announcing that they'll privatise the Royal Mail. Because, obviously, when you need a fair, universal service, you give it to profit-making organisation which will reduce wages, staffing levels and service coverage. Brilliant. Rural folk can now look forward to not receiving mail, as a punishment for living in sparsely populated areas. Service in poor areas will decline, junk mail will increase, deliveries will get later and prices will rocket. Shameful.
Victory to the workers! And I'll have a glass of wine and a blanket please.
Meanwhile, the Tories and Lib Dems have shown their true colours by announcing that they'll privatise the Royal Mail. Because, obviously, when you need a fair, universal service, you give it to profit-making organisation which will reduce wages, staffing levels and service coverage. Brilliant. Rural folk can now look forward to not receiving mail, as a punishment for living in sparsely populated areas. Service in poor areas will decline, junk mail will increase, deliveries will get later and prices will rocket. Shameful.
Yankee Classics
Album of the Day is Benjamin Lees' Symphony No. 4: Memorial Candles, part of Naxos Records' brilliant project of selling cheap CDs of every American composer (though Lees was born in China of Russian parentage) who hummed a line. It's a patchy affair: some of the composers are lost geniuses (genii?), others are fairly humdrum. Yet there's something brilliantly democratic about giving everyone a chance to be heard, at £6 per CD.
Lees is still alive, in his 80s, and his music is firmly in the classical tradition, rather than part of the experimental (i.e. largely tune-free) movements of the twentieth century. This isn't to say that he's old-fashioned or derivative - he draws on the more interesting of the late Classical and Romantic composers like Prokofiev and Bartok, whose music is brilliant and challenging, and does interesting things with rhythm and sound, influenced by his maverick teacher, George Antheil.
Symphony No 4: Memorial Candles was commissioned to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Holocaust, specifically its Jewish victims, and features a solo female voice and violinist. It's utterly terrifying, saddening and finally resigned. As it should be.
Here's the melancholy 3rd movement. Ignore the sunshine.
Lees is still alive, in his 80s, and his music is firmly in the classical tradition, rather than part of the experimental (i.e. largely tune-free) movements of the twentieth century. This isn't to say that he's old-fashioned or derivative - he draws on the more interesting of the late Classical and Romantic composers like Prokofiev and Bartok, whose music is brilliant and challenging, and does interesting things with rhythm and sound, influenced by his maverick teacher, George Antheil.
Symphony No 4: Memorial Candles was commissioned to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Holocaust, specifically its Jewish victims, and features a solo female voice and violinist. It's utterly terrifying, saddening and finally resigned. As it should be.
Here's the melancholy 3rd movement. Ignore the sunshine.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Thanks for the trees, Swedes!
I've received more books. I bought loads at the weekend (more J. G. Farrell, a cultural history of the depression, an 1899 beautiful copy of the Icelandic Laxdaela Saga and biographies of A. J. Cook and James Maxton), and now another spruce appears covered in words. Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, which I'm ashamed to say I haven't read before, Corder's Lionboy, a graphic novel (i.e. a comic) called To Teach by William Ayers (bought because he's a real 60s radical and the right tried to use him to bash Obama), and four more Penguin Great Thinkers books, with the beautiful designs: Ruskin's On Art and Life, de Montaigne's On Solitude, Locke's Of the Abuse of Words and Hazlitt's The Pleasure of Hating (you can tell I've been marking). They're lovely slim volumes of great ideas which I heartily recommend - some of these links are to the full texts).
I'll find time to read them when I'm made redundant.
I'll find time to read them when I'm made redundant.
On your bike
This looks like paradise to me. The sped-up footage gives it the charm of a Harold Lloyd film (imagine it in black and white). Look out for The Man On Two Bikes. What a hero.
Cambridge might be a little like this, if it actually catered for cycling seriously rather than merely tolerated a lot of cyclists.
Cambridge might be a little like this, if it actually catered for cycling seriously rather than merely tolerated a lot of cyclists.
Gavin Watson, photographer
He's a brilliant photographer, author of Skins, his brilliant collection of skinhead photos. He's appearing at The Hegemon today, in MC001 from 2-4 to talk about his work and sign copies of his book. I'm invigilating, damn it, but come if you can.
A change of pace
For the past few weeks, I've mostly been listening to Riot Grrl and 80s/90s indie pop (Pale Saints and Heavenly mostly), but the next album on my alphabetical trawl through my hard drive is a compilation of Benedictine monks singing Gregorian chants.
Now, I'm ambiguous about religious music as it is: it can be utterly sublime, but it's written for the glorification of an imaginary being which has legitimised all sorts of appalling behaviour (and some good things, to be fair). I'm also ambiguous about Benedictine monks: I spent some of my school life in the tender care of this lot (as well as the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy - who were heavily armed and not inclined to mercy, I can tell you) and they were, by and large, drunks, mental and physical bullies and very much not what you'd call holy. I just can't imagine the ones I knew producing this kind of contemplative music. I also supposedly sang this stuff in the school choir - nobody worked out that I simply mouthed the words for 2 years because choir practice was better than the homework sessions which were the alternative.
So this is a beautiful album, one which, I suppose, can be treated by atheists as simply music - being in Latin helps most people, but I can follow enough to get annoyed - but it holds all sorts of other associations for me.
Now, I'm ambiguous about religious music as it is: it can be utterly sublime, but it's written for the glorification of an imaginary being which has legitimised all sorts of appalling behaviour (and some good things, to be fair). I'm also ambiguous about Benedictine monks: I spent some of my school life in the tender care of this lot (as well as the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy - who were heavily armed and not inclined to mercy, I can tell you) and they were, by and large, drunks, mental and physical bullies and very much not what you'd call holy. I just can't imagine the ones I knew producing this kind of contemplative music. I also supposedly sang this stuff in the school choir - nobody worked out that I simply mouthed the words for 2 years because choir practice was better than the homework sessions which were the alternative.
So this is a beautiful album, one which, I suppose, can be treated by atheists as simply music - being in Latin helps most people, but I can follow enough to get annoyed - but it holds all sorts of other associations for me.
Hold my calls, Moneypenny
Very exciting day today. I've been for a swim, I've got lots of marking to do, there's a union negotiating committee meeting to attend, then I'm invigilating an exam.
This is exactly the kind of glamour which attracted me to a life in teaching. The intellectual cut and thrust, the bronzed bodies and white teeth, sipping cocktails in the staff room, impeccably rigged out in designer clothes, before driving off in a rakish cabriolet to a conference in St. Tropez.
Er…
This is exactly the kind of glamour which attracted me to a life in teaching. The intellectual cut and thrust, the bronzed bodies and white teeth, sipping cocktails in the staff room, impeccably rigged out in designer clothes, before driving off in a rakish cabriolet to a conference in St. Tropez.
Er…
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