Professor Steve Jones is Rob Cowan’s guest this week on Radio 3. This morning he chose Mozart Piano concerto 457 played by Mitsuko Uchida.
I was busy doing other things, my mind wandered. Then I wandered down to the kitchen; it’s harder to tune the old fashioned knob on the radio down there – especially to FM – so I thought I had somehow got it wrong when I heard Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata – but being played all wrong. Well, not wrong exactly, just a very unusual interpretation -.rhythm & phrasing, very light, dancing even.
Steve Jones had made some remarks about genes & culture & the universality of the language of music with special reference to the number of great Japanese interpreters of western classical music. Could culture be the explanation?
I am in no way a musical expert but the Beethoven Pathetique is the one score I do know as well as could anybody who studied (& fell in love with) it for O level more than half a century ago. I hasten to add that this did not in any way involve my being able to play it, just understand the structure etc.
I bought – with my own money – an EP of Sviatoslav Richter playing it which I listened to over & over again.
The experience in my kitchen was really disorienting – that phrase was just so recognisable, but …
I went back upstairs, where I knew the radio was most definitely tuned to Radio 3, made my self sit down & listen till the end – by which time I was sure it wasn’t Beethoven I was listening to, but it was good to have confirmation that it was the Mozart I had been hearing all along.
Dr Google has reassured me that others have noticed the coincidence – I have not gone doolally yet.
But it must, surely, by some chance be the very first time I have ever heard that Mozart sonata, otherwise I should have recognised & remembered the resemblance.
Wouldn’t I?
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Football
The Times Sports Supplement on Saturday carried on its front an interesting mock-up photo of Harry Redknapp as England manager, wearing a jacket emblazoned on its left breast with a badge of the Three Lions & on its right the elaborately embroidered initials HR. Presumably a witty reference to Harry’s acknowledged skill as man manger, since the display of initials does not seem to be standard practice.
I wish I did not feel such a sense of impending tragedy in this story which is gripping the nation.
Although it does contain all the elements of the dilemmas & difficulties with which we are faced, at the same time it diverts attention away from discussion of the fundamental issues. We focus on who will win the Cup or who will insult whom, sometimes referring these decisions to judges in a properly constituted Court of Law, but always having an opinion of our own to contribute to the febrile, high volume discussions taking part on all available media.
Like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin while ignoring the larger – and real – forces at play: debt, unrealistically high wages, foreign ownership, mysterious financial dealings.
Perhaps it is just because ‘we’ don’t think we are actually paying for all this. After all, ‘we’ don’t go to the actual matches any more (can’t afford the ticket prices). We are the beneficiaries of fat cats in the prawn sandwich seats who do pay for rich mens toys.
Bread & circuses.
I wish I did not feel such a sense of impending tragedy in this story which is gripping the nation.
Although it does contain all the elements of the dilemmas & difficulties with which we are faced, at the same time it diverts attention away from discussion of the fundamental issues. We focus on who will win the Cup or who will insult whom, sometimes referring these decisions to judges in a properly constituted Court of Law, but always having an opinion of our own to contribute to the febrile, high volume discussions taking part on all available media.
Like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin while ignoring the larger – and real – forces at play: debt, unrealistically high wages, foreign ownership, mysterious financial dealings.
Perhaps it is just because ‘we’ don’t think we are actually paying for all this. After all, ‘we’ don’t go to the actual matches any more (can’t afford the ticket prices). We are the beneficiaries of fat cats in the prawn sandwich seats who do pay for rich mens toys.
Bread & circuses.
Things I ought not to have said
It is now more than four years since I poured scorn on the way that the press were briefed to say that a ‘lowly civil servant’ had managed to lose a copy of the entire child benefit data base because he was distracted by major sporting events which were taking place.
Well perhaps I was wrong to be so rude.
The European Central Bank* has a lot on its plate right now but has still found time to publish a paper with the catchy title of ‘The pitch rather than the pit’ which proves that stock market traders at least were distracted by the 2010 World Cup.
In order to check the plausibility of their econometric analysis the authors also tested the effects of another distracting event – lunch.
Although the number of trades did indeed fall during the time when people could be expected to be taking lunch, traders did not seem to take their eye off the metaphorical ball & fail to respond to important news which affected stock prices in the same way as they did when they had a soccer ball to watch.
The paper has a bibliography of over 30 pieces of relevant academic work, with titles such as ‘The flexibility of the workweek in the United States: Evidence from the FIFA World Cup’, ‘Exploitable Predictable Irrationality: The FIFA World Cup Effect on the U.S. Stock Market’ and ‘Good Day Sunshine: Stock Returns and the Weather’
A belated apology to those New Labour spin doctors.
*Important note: the report carries on its cover a disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB).
Well perhaps I was wrong to be so rude.
The European Central Bank* has a lot on its plate right now but has still found time to publish a paper with the catchy title of ‘The pitch rather than the pit’ which proves that stock market traders at least were distracted by the 2010 World Cup.
In order to check the plausibility of their econometric analysis the authors also tested the effects of another distracting event – lunch.
Although the number of trades did indeed fall during the time when people could be expected to be taking lunch, traders did not seem to take their eye off the metaphorical ball & fail to respond to important news which affected stock prices in the same way as they did when they had a soccer ball to watch.
The paper has a bibliography of over 30 pieces of relevant academic work, with titles such as ‘The flexibility of the workweek in the United States: Evidence from the FIFA World Cup’, ‘Exploitable Predictable Irrationality: The FIFA World Cup Effect on the U.S. Stock Market’ and ‘Good Day Sunshine: Stock Returns and the Weather’
A belated apology to those New Labour spin doctors.
*Important note: the report carries on its cover a disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB).
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Not-so-sure start
We know we owe a lot of money.
If it’s government we call it a national debt – or is it a deficit, I am never sure.
In business we call it leverage (or foreign investment).
In private households we call it a mortgage, or credit card. Or pay day loan. Or student fees. Then there’s always the pawn shop, or selling granny's engagement ring & grandad’s gold watch.
Add it all together & the nation’s true debt is many times greater than the nation’s income.
Now some bright spark has come up with the idea of starting as you mean to continue.
Babies (or parents, on their behalf) should take out a loan from a new government child-care contribution scheme to pay for someone to look after them while mummy and daddy go out to work.
Mothers in particular are said to turn their backs on going out to work if that adds very little, all things considered, to the family income. And that is bad for the economy.
Doubly bad in fact, because going out to work means that the mother earns a wage AND the value of the child care, which she used to provide for ‘free’, also gets monetised, so contributing twice over to GDP. The snag is that, without subsidy, simple arithmetic dictates that the mother must pay the one who provides the care less than she herself is paid.
These wizard wheezes are said, by Anushka Asthana writing in The Times, to be supported by senior figures in the Treasury. I hope that means politicos, not permanent civil servants. Surely they cannot fall for the line that it doesn’t count as real debt because if you can’t pay it back someone will let you off; otherwise it’s just a way of spreading the costs over time.
Isn’t that what the Ministry of Defence tried to do?
If it’s government we call it a national debt – or is it a deficit, I am never sure.
In business we call it leverage (or foreign investment).
In private households we call it a mortgage, or credit card. Or pay day loan. Or student fees. Then there’s always the pawn shop, or selling granny's engagement ring & grandad’s gold watch.
Add it all together & the nation’s true debt is many times greater than the nation’s income.
Now some bright spark has come up with the idea of starting as you mean to continue.
Babies (or parents, on their behalf) should take out a loan from a new government child-care contribution scheme to pay for someone to look after them while mummy and daddy go out to work.
Mothers in particular are said to turn their backs on going out to work if that adds very little, all things considered, to the family income. And that is bad for the economy.
Doubly bad in fact, because going out to work means that the mother earns a wage AND the value of the child care, which she used to provide for ‘free’, also gets monetised, so contributing twice over to GDP. The snag is that, without subsidy, simple arithmetic dictates that the mother must pay the one who provides the care less than she herself is paid.
These wizard wheezes are said, by Anushka Asthana writing in The Times, to be supported by senior figures in the Treasury. I hope that means politicos, not permanent civil servants. Surely they cannot fall for the line that it doesn’t count as real debt because if you can’t pay it back someone will let you off; otherwise it’s just a way of spreading the costs over time.
Isn’t that what the Ministry of Defence tried to do?
What do older women find to talk about?
A rare event this morning – a 15 minute conversation-as-interview between two ‘older women’ on the BBC!
And not about home, children or any other ‘women’s issue’ (unless you count vegetarianism).
Bridget Kendall spoke to Professor Dianna Bowles about explosives, malaria, sheep breeding & foot & mouth disease.
And how to find joy in life.
And not about home, children or any other ‘women’s issue’ (unless you count vegetarianism).
Bridget Kendall spoke to Professor Dianna Bowles about explosives, malaria, sheep breeding & foot & mouth disease.
And how to find joy in life.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Coke
When I was a student in London in the early 1960s I met more than one young man who said that it was his ambition to marry the daughter of the man who held the local franchise for Coca Cola.
If any achieved his ambition he must now be living a very comfortable retirement.
Operating profits rising by 12% a year; volumes growing by 13% a year in China, & even 2% up in Europe - recession proof Coke is ‘refreshing a world looking for hope, optimism & renewal’ according to Chairman, Muhtar Kent.
Well the aspiration as expressed by those fellow students was a jokey way of summarising complex arguments about economic development. The young men were the brightest & best, sent to the UK for a university education before going back home to what we then called one of the Less Developed Countries, one that was perhaps not yet even formally Independent.
From a purely personal point of view, a beautiful wife with an indulgent father who could offer his son-in-law a job demanding nothing more than the import of the magic syrup to be mixed with water & gas, put into (presumably imported) bottles, corked & sold to a grateful populace.
Status. Possibly an easy route to political power.
What more could a young man want.
Links
The Coca Cola Company full year and fourth quarter results for 2011
Related post
Colonial scholars
If any achieved his ambition he must now be living a very comfortable retirement.
Operating profits rising by 12% a year; volumes growing by 13% a year in China, & even 2% up in Europe - recession proof Coke is ‘refreshing a world looking for hope, optimism & renewal’ according to Chairman, Muhtar Kent.
Well the aspiration as expressed by those fellow students was a jokey way of summarising complex arguments about economic development. The young men were the brightest & best, sent to the UK for a university education before going back home to what we then called one of the Less Developed Countries, one that was perhaps not yet even formally Independent.
From a purely personal point of view, a beautiful wife with an indulgent father who could offer his son-in-law a job demanding nothing more than the import of the magic syrup to be mixed with water & gas, put into (presumably imported) bottles, corked & sold to a grateful populace.
Status. Possibly an easy route to political power.
What more could a young man want.
Links
The Coca Cola Company full year and fourth quarter results for 2011
Related post
Colonial scholars
Forestry questions
Who owns Scottish & Southern Energy?
Whoever they are, they now also own at least 3,000 hectares of Scottish forest.
All in a good cause of course. Burning ‘biomass’ is so much cheaper than building offshore windmills as a way of producing energy which is greener than the sort you get from burning coal. And wood creates more energy than other kinds of biomass available for burning.
Question: at what point does wood (green) become coal (black)?
There is a problem however. Power producers can afford to pay higher prices than can existing customers who want wood for building houses, making furniture, fixtures & fittings, or constructing pallets for industry & the transport of goods. So these latter are getting increasingly unhappy about this threat to their livelihood.
Britain currently produces about 10 million tonnes of commercial timber a year & one-fifth of this goes for energy. By the end of this decade we might need 80 million tonnes for energy alone.
One way or another it looks as though we shall have to start importing other countries’ forests.
Whoever they are, they now also own at least 3,000 hectares of Scottish forest.
All in a good cause of course. Burning ‘biomass’ is so much cheaper than building offshore windmills as a way of producing energy which is greener than the sort you get from burning coal. And wood creates more energy than other kinds of biomass available for burning.
Question: at what point does wood (green) become coal (black)?
There is a problem however. Power producers can afford to pay higher prices than can existing customers who want wood for building houses, making furniture, fixtures & fittings, or constructing pallets for industry & the transport of goods. So these latter are getting increasingly unhappy about this threat to their livelihood.
Britain currently produces about 10 million tonnes of commercial timber a year & one-fifth of this goes for energy. By the end of this decade we might need 80 million tonnes for energy alone.
One way or another it looks as though we shall have to start importing other countries’ forests.
The English forests sailed the oceans of the world & found new lands full of wildernesses & more forests waiting to be cut down - Kate Atkinson
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Philip Bainbrigge
Nevil Shute included this poem in his autobiographical memoir, Slide Rule, published in 1954; he called it 'one of the best war poems that I have ever heard' but said that he had never seen it in print anywhere.
The poet, Philip Bainbrigge, had been a sixth-form master at Shrewsbury School, where Shute was a pupil before he left to join the infantry in August 1918.
Shute describes Bainbrigge as a tall, delicate, weedy man who was as blind as a bat without his thick spectacles - the sort who should never have been sent into the army & posted to France at all, which he was at a late stage in the War when almost every male who could stand on his own two feet was being conscripted.
He was a popular young teacher with a great sense of humour & enormous academic ability. This sonnet was written in the trenches shortly before he died. The echo of Rupert Brooke is no doubt deliberate.
Martin Taylor included it in his collection Lads.
Sonnet
If I should die, be not concerned to know
The manner of my ending, if I fell
Leading a folorn charge against the foe,
Strangled by gas, or shattered by a shell.
Nor seek to see me in this death-in-life
Mid shirks and curse, oaths and blood and sweat,
Cold in the darkness, on the edge of strife,
Bored and afraid, irresolute, and wet
But if you think of me, remember one
Who loved good dinners, curious parody,
Swimming, and lying naked in the sun,
Latin hexameters, and heraldry,
Athenian subtleties of δηζ and ποιζ,
Beethoven, Botticelli, beer, and boys.
The poet, Philip Bainbrigge, had been a sixth-form master at Shrewsbury School, where Shute was a pupil before he left to join the infantry in August 1918.
Shute describes Bainbrigge as a tall, delicate, weedy man who was as blind as a bat without his thick spectacles - the sort who should never have been sent into the army & posted to France at all, which he was at a late stage in the War when almost every male who could stand on his own two feet was being conscripted.
He was a popular young teacher with a great sense of humour & enormous academic ability. This sonnet was written in the trenches shortly before he died. The echo of Rupert Brooke is no doubt deliberate.
Martin Taylor included it in his collection Lads.
Sonnet
If I should die, be not concerned to know
The manner of my ending, if I fell
Leading a folorn charge against the foe,
Strangled by gas, or shattered by a shell.
Nor seek to see me in this death-in-life
Mid shirks and curse, oaths and blood and sweat,
Cold in the darkness, on the edge of strife,
Bored and afraid, irresolute, and wet
But if you think of me, remember one
Who loved good dinners, curious parody,
Swimming, and lying naked in the sun,
Latin hexameters, and heraldry,
Athenian subtleties of δηζ and ποιζ,
Beethoven, Botticelli, beer, and boys.
Philip Bainbrigge 1891-1918, killed in action at Ephèy, 18 September
Links
Matthew John Williams: Comment on "If I should die" by Philip Bainbrigge
Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches. Martin Taylor
Rupert Brooke: Poems 1914
Related post
Producing martyrs
Links
Matthew John Williams: Comment on "If I should die" by Philip Bainbrigge
Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches. Martin Taylor
Rupert Brooke: Poems 1914
Related post
Producing martyrs
A support or underprop
We all love the family photo album, even royalty, & a particular gem forms part of an exhibition at Windsor Castle to mark the Diamond Jubilee. It shows Her Majesty, aged 2, in the company of her grandfather’s parrot.
I hope it is not lese-majesty to say that my eyes fixed on the legs of the little princess, which look to me to be far shorter, from knee to ankle, than we would expect to see on a two-year old today.
Which makes me think that some useful historical data on this topic could be gleaned from photographic analysis of a very large sam[ple of toddlers.
Links
Windsor Castle: The Art of Monarchy
BBC Radio 4: Behind the Royal Image
KING GEORGE V and his parrot CHARLOTTE
Images of Remembrance Day studied for climate change clues
Related posts
Buprestogenesis
Speaking about legs
Back to short trousers
Are our children too fat or too short?
Baby long legs
Healthy legs
Windsor Castle: The Art of Monarchy
BBC Radio 4: Behind the Royal Image
KING GEORGE V and his parrot CHARLOTTE
Images of Remembrance Day studied for climate change clues
Related posts
Buprestogenesis
Speaking about legs
Back to short trousers
Are our children too fat or too short?
Baby long legs
Healthy legs
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Cold weather kindness
Cold weather is extremely dangerous for hedgehogs, according to Paul Simons of The Times.
If anyone meets one out & about during this cold snap, please wrap it up warm & take it to a hedgehog refuge
Friday, February 10, 2012
Numerosity
02 01 2012
12 01 2012
20 01 2012
21 01 2012
01 02 2012
10 02 2012
I am being both diverted & distracted by dates at the moment. Specifically by dates expressed in their numerical DDMMYYYY format.
Such a proliferation of days which can be identified using only the digits {0,1,2}. Those with 3 two’s, 3 zero’s but only 2 ones are particularly pleasing.
Today’s date has a particularly pleasing rhythm to it, almost a haiku.
One. Oh.
Oh, two!
To owe one too.
12 01 2012
20 01 2012
21 01 2012
01 02 2012
10 02 2012
I am being both diverted & distracted by dates at the moment. Specifically by dates expressed in their numerical DDMMYYYY format.
Such a proliferation of days which can be identified using only the digits {0,1,2}. Those with 3 two’s, 3 zero’s but only 2 ones are particularly pleasing.
Today’s date has a particularly pleasing rhythm to it, almost a haiku.
One. Oh.
Oh, two!
To owe one too.
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