Random reflections on Reading The Times Books supplement Saturday 11 November

Jeanette Winterson Our disconnection from the Earth is pushing us towards extinction Oh dear!.....

Vintage chart 1965 a momentous year for me a surprisingly literary list not too much to my taste the only one I have read is AJP Taylor later in paperback I remember sitting reading on the bus to work & being astonished at how small was the geographical area covered by WWI battlefields......

Why didnt somebody notice the 2 howevers in the 1st sentence of the extract from the Ashes book?........

Sad to see Johnson Beharrys book apparently not doing well ....quel surprise

Sassoon - people really did use to make thick down strokes & thin up ones! Despite my teachers best efforts I never mastered that art of angling the nib correctly.....

Not in the mood for Fergal Keanes emotion, or for masonic conspiracies .....

Wordsworth & Coleridge - lovely portraits I suppose it is clear enough which is which......

Palin & Rhys Jones ouch! Both in the same week.....

Must have a look at the Gladstone/Disraeli book......

Simon Blackburn the review tells me (more than) all I want to know......

I increasingly admire Jane Shillings deceptively simple prose (thats not an estate agents deceptively spacious) must read this food book....

Hurrah! a good audio review for Beharry......

Doesnt (didnt?) William Styron look like Dick Francis!......

I did love the 2 Mishimas I have read - & didnt he write Woman on the beach? but, unusually flinch from finding out more about the life of an author......

1491 at last glad to know this exists but does not sound like A Good Read. And yes, of course modern environmentalism is just 'naive therapeutic (?not sure about that) nihilism' - German Romantic Nitzchean fascism......

I must be psychic! Skimming through the Doctorow (whom I tend to confuse with Caleb Carr) - admiring but thinking hes too much like hard work - & how does the review end?.....

Now for the Xword & Sudoku

Thats the end of my annoying habit of reading out bits commenting on the paper which you cant see

flobbadob

Global warming

The Right Reverend Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta 1823-26, deserves honour as the prophet & founder of our modern Green movement. For he it was who wrote the hymn From Greenlands icy mountain which contains the line Where every prospect pleases & only Man is vile

And yea it has come to pass. For we are all sinners & the end of the world is nigh!

Stop driving

Stop flying

Stop importing food

Turn off that tv & that computer


Now lets see. Which of our ancestors lived the perfect green life?


But wait. For we are guilty not just of our own sins but of theirs as well

Auschwitz? Mea culpa

The Irish famine? Mea culpa

Slavery? Mea maxima culpa

Personally I should like to put on trial those who cut down the beautiful Peak Forest. And hacked out those ancient limestone quarries. And riddled the place with lead mines. And forced railways through to scar our countryside, using the power of money & clever fat cat lawyers

Why did they not take more seriously thier duty to future generations? To Us

Why were not they as clever & far sighted as we are?

Links

[PDF]From Greenland's Icy Mountain

"From Greenland's Icy Mountains"

The Peoples Princess

I havent seen the new Helen Mirren film about the Queen & the death of Princess Diana. But I wonder if it deals at all with the Queens reaction to Tony Blairs Peoples Princess remark?

For the Queen herself, at 21, had been given the same soubriquet:

Since it was an egalitarian, democratic era, much ingenuity was exercised
in presenting her as a peoples princess

Ben Pimlott: The Queen

Did Alistair & Tony know they were not being original - or does that 'a' make it significantly different from 'the'?

Qual der Wahl

If I hear Tony Blair or one of his minions say, once more, that they have made a difficult decision, I shall scweam & scweam & scweam

All decisions are difficult on their day. What to wear, what to have for supper ...

The whole point of having power is to be the one who makes the decisions. But it is also your responsibility as a politician to persuade us, to offer reassurance to those who may have doubts about your rightness, that you have given proper consideration to all the arguments then used your wisdom & experience to come to the best decision. That way the people will feel they are in safe hands. They might even feel good about the decision

Dont just tell them, irritably: Look. It was. A difficult decision. I made it. (And Im a good guy I am). So. Will you all now. Just. Please. Shut up. And. Move on

Todays Victorian Quotation

Pray do not go & hang people right & left to please The Times

Advice from Sir John Mellor QC to Baron Bramwell 1856

Is North up or down?

For reasons too boring to go into, I recently decided to buy a compass & carry it round so that I could orient myself at all times. I was subsequently enchanted to find that this practice is highly recommended by the Dangerous Book for Boys

I got a shock however when I checked it on the bus one day: it told me we were travelling due west when our route lay east. A glance out of the window revealed that our driver was taking an unorthodox route round a well-known spot of congestion - that must have confused me

But back on track, we were still travelling west. I spent most of the journey staring at my compass, trying to work it out, even at one point drawing diagrams in the margin of my Times. It was only when, close to home, the bus takes a definite 90 degree turn that I knew I was not suffering from a somewhat prolonged senior moment. Something other than the earths magnetic pole was drawing my compass needle

A friendly bus driver I consulted about this explained that the electrics run along that side of the bus, & suggested that it might be fun to experiment (on a quiet day) to find the 'navigators seat'

In the interests of scientific enquiry I thought I might do this. So, standing at the bus stop, I checked the compass before the bus arrived. Only to find that the needle swung markedly to follow some of the cars which passed. It seemed to be the newer, bigger models which have this effect

End of my project

The second most worrying thing about all this is that my compass needle now has a small but distinct kink - it lines up north & a bit south-west

The worst thing is wondering what the effects might be on us humans. Or is that the same as worrying about radiation from tv sets (in the 1950s) or the ability of VDU screens to cause miscarriage (in the 1980s)? Or, suddenly now, wi-fi?

And must we now all depend solely on sat-nav to orient ourselves in the world? Dont tell those Dangerous Boys ...

------------------------

When I moved up from Brownies to Girl Guides I was given a beautiful compass as a gift. No bigger than my thumbnail it had a brass case - fashioned out of a spent shell by a bored soldier during WWII. I polished it lovingly week after week but cannot now remember when & where I saw it last. I am inconsolable

Todays quote

Once before, in Hellenistic times, scientists came to see their tasks as restricted to mathematical forecasting; what followed was disastrous

Stephen Toulmin: Foresight & Understanding 1961

Are we there yet?

Would it be cruel to have the following conversation in the car?

Are we there yet?

No. We are here

Well, when will we be there?

We've been there, now we are here

Do I exist?

Its funny how, in my memory, so many formative experiences took place when I was 14. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I never grew any taller after my 14th birthday - just as well really, since I am 5ft 10

One important event was my introduction to the 'existence' question. A friends father pointed out that I couldnt know that he & my friend would still exist after I left their house. For a while I thought that maybe I could if, on the way home, I suddenly turned & ran back as quickly as possible to catch them unawares ...

The idea that the world might be a mere figment of my imagination upset me for some time. Two thoughts eventually kept me going

First, if I had invented the world it would be a much nicer place. And second, it was in any case the only world I knew, so I might just as well stop worriting about it

To be continued

Sir Arthur Sullivan: A notable black Englishman

Sir Arthur Sullivan was black.

I cant remember any modern repetition of this fact about a man considered so quintessentially English (Gilbert & Sullivan, Savoy Operas, D'Oyley Carte)

It may interest some who only saw him in after years to learn that he was golden-curled in his student days, & this in spite of the strong strain of African blood that became increasingly perceptible with increasing age ... & accordingly subjected to increasing inconveniences & annoyances during his visit to the US which permanently embittered him against Americans & American ways - RE Francillon: Mid-Victorian Memories 1913

Another snippet about Francillon described Sullivan as 'a smiling youth with an oval, olive-tinted face, dark eyes, a large generous mouth, and a thick crop of dark curly hair.'

Gladstone, Quetelet & the Body Mass Index

I was trying to find out why Quetelet invented the Body Mass Index.

Well the short answer is that he didnt. He did weigh & measure an awful lot of people in 1830s Belgium, & he did observe that, after puberty, weight tends to increase in proportion to the square of the height, but no mention of an ideal weight or of the magic numbers 20 or 25 or 30. To the extent that he had one specific purpose it was to establish a formula for ascertaining someones age. Especially if that person were dead (see postscript).

In his 'Treatise on Man' which reports these findings, Quetelet also publishes some figures for the weights of children in Stockport & Manchester & observes that they were generally lighter than their Belgian counterparts, though it should be borne in mind that the English children came exclusively from the lower orders.


William Ewart Gladstone & his brother John embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe in 1832, to celebrate the formers recent graduation from Oxford. I have just been reading the Philip Magnus biography of Gladstone & was intrigued to see the following description of a military parade at Brussels cathedral, taken from Gladstones diary for 5 Febbruary 1832.

The men were small, for both John & I could see over their heads with ease

I dont know how tall Gladstone was, though I do know that one of his brothers was famously tall - over 6ft 5 - and one of the sights of Liverpool

And so .... ? Well, what, really. But one of the joys of being a hedgehog is the tiny little coincidences, connections & links you come across. Why should an Englishman & a Belgian be making comparisons like this? Why should Philip Magnus choose this as his sole quote from Gladstones visit to Brussels?

Postscript: "A witness cannot give evidence of his age unless he can remember being born." - Judge William Collis Blagdon

Link

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874)—the average man and indices of obesity - Garabed Eknoyan

Mobile phones

My current pet hate - far worse than "Im on the train" - happens when I am just walking along the street minding my own business. Then somebody behind me suddenly says "Hello!"

So naturally you stop & turn

Grrhh

neo classical endogenous growth theory

Once upon a time there were three factors of production - land, labour & capital

The amount of land is fixed

The amount of labour grows in its own sweet way

The amount of capital (plant, buildings, machinery) grows from investment

Investment can be generated from within (endogenous) or from without (exogenous) - ie from savings or from outside investment

In the equations used by classical economists to explain how economies grow & prosper these 3 factors were given capital letters

But the equations did not always give the right answers when actual growth was compared with what had been predicted

So they stuck in a little t - technological change - to explain the difference. Bit like gravity & the movement of the planets really

Then light dawned. Technology is itself a factor of production

Technology can grow from pinching other peoples ideas (exogenous) or we can grow it ourselves from within

How?

The answer is simple, stupid

Education! Education! Education!

Fizzy water on tap

The best way of reducing environmental pollution is to find a use for the 'nasty' which is causing the problem

Example: coal tar dyes discovered. Waste products of gas works put to good use. Ladies suddenly happy to be fashionable in mauve. Problem solved

Now I am certainly not a chemist. But I offer one possible solution to the problem of CO2: fizzy water on tap via the mains in every home & work place. Problem solved

Electricity pylons

I think I may be the only person I know who actually loves electricity pylons. Aesthetically, for themselves I mean, not in a "but think of all the benefits of electricity" kind of way

There is something magnificent about them in their proportion. I love to see them marching over the Pennines. Instead of degrading the landscape, damaging Nature, I think they multiply the awe one feels in contemplating the forces which pushed the Earth up in such dramatic forms

And I love too the more stately line of pylons across the quieter landscape of the Cheshire Plain near Middlewood. They put me in mind of those old black & white futuristic sci-fi films. But rather than scary monsters these are gentle giants with dangly arms whose purposes are wholly benign

Food you cant buy in supermarkets anymore

Chicken with giblets

Thin sliced bread - not even Hovis. And my local Tesco claims that its slicing machine only works on medium

Whitebait
Most cheaper cuts of meat
Any offal except liver
Chicken livers

Proper avocadoes - big ones with shiny green skins. Only horrible Hass

Sainsburys withdrew their loaf-size pain rustique in favour of 'speciality breads'

Brawn

Ripe fruit

Women really do wear the trousers now

When did trousers become the default mode of everyday dress for the women of England?

Just yesterday, it seems, the Sex Discrimination Act was being used to obtain the right for little girls to wear trousers to school, at least in cold weather, but failing to give the same right to the woman who was required to climb ladders in a bookshop

Now - walk round any shopping centre, go to any office or any social occasion & women of all ages, likely as not, are wearing trousers

And when was the last time anyone spotted an undergraduate wearing a skirt during the hours of daylight?

I think it is a symptom of the retreat from domestic chores. Trousers simplify underwear (no petticoats to wash) & need much less in the way of ironing

And at least we dont have to have the kind of argument about shalwar kameez as we do about scarves & veils

How El Nino caused mad cow disease

1 Fish meal used to be the main protein ingredient of animal feedstuffs. Remember how, in the 1960s, people used to complain that the new fangled frozen chickens tasted of fish?

2 Peru was the near-monopoly supplier of fish meal from abundant stocks of anchoveta. But an El nino in the early seventies caused a shift in the Humboldt current & the anchoveta disappeared

3 At the same time increased prosperity in England was leading people to reject the cheaper cuts of meat. Have you been to an agricultural show, seen the size of a prize bull? What to do with the carcass if only rump & fillet are eaten directly?

4 Denatured protein, once advocated as the solution to world hunger, thats what. Adding denatured bull protein to animal feed does not turn them into cannibals

5 Denaturing requires heat but the oil crisis of the early 1970s put pressure on industry to reduce their energy requirements wherever possible. So the temperature was reduced below the level needed to destroy the agent causing BSE

Quod erat demonstrandum

Related post: The Ilkley Moor Argument

The devil on the plate

Why do we always demonise childrens favourite foods? In my day friends mothers always apologised for giving you beans on toast if you went round to tea. But no decent mother would have sent her children off to school without a proper cooked breakfast inside them - bacon, fried egg, fried bread, the lot. Nor would she have neglected the once a week (at least) cake baking session. Vance Packard tells the story of the initial failure of Betty Crocker cake mixes: what woman would not welcome the saving of labour brought about by simply adding water to a box of powder? But this failed the 'decent mother' test. Problem solved when the recipe was adjusted so that mother had to do the wholesome decent thing of adding an egg

Next came fish fingers - decent mothers cook proper fresh fish

In the 1970s sugar was the devil, with sugar companies & any scientist who had ever accepted a penny of their ill-gotten gains his agent here on earth. So mothers fed their children nice savoury crisps instead

Now its burgers. My mother told me never to eat anything made of mince when I went to a cafe or milk bar, since mince was probably a euphemism for yesterdays left overs, some even scraped off plates & put through the mincing machine. I remember a highly laudatory article in Time magazine in the 1960s, praising the new McDonalds phenomenon of fast clean food made from ingredients you could rely on. And it offered the perfect nutritional balance of starch (from the bun), protein, calcium from the cheese & vitamins from the lettuce & tomato

In my day the emphasis was all on protein for building healthy bodies in what was still a time of shortage. As far as I remember the fat on meat counted as part of the protein. And if you needed to lose weight for health or aesthetic reasons then you cut down on carbohydrates, obviously. Bread, potatoes, cakes, biscuits, these piled on the pounds

The Ilkley Moor Argument

As the song goes (when translated)

If you go out on Ilkley Moor without a hat on you will catch your death of cold

Then we shall have to bury you

Then worms will come and eat you up

Then ducks will come & eat the worms

Then we shall come & eat the ducks ....

.

If there is only a fixed amount of matter in the world then we are all cannibals

Casareep - a neat philological circle

I heard on Radio 4 of a kind of Chinese fermented fish sauce called cat-see-ap (I made up the spelling). We get our words catsup & ketchup from this

In Guyana & the Eastern Caribbean there is a sauce, originally produced by the Amerindians, called casareep which is made made from fermented cassava or manioc. This is used to make a meat stew called pepperpot (not to be confused with Jamaican pepperpot, which is a very fiery soup). Casareep imparts magical keeping qualities to this stew; providing that you boil it up every day, you can add more meat & keep it going for a year - or so I was told. I never knew anyone who did this. We had it as our special treat for Sunday breakfast

Casareep looks like soy sauce. In Trinidad soy sauce is known as Chinese casareep, thus bringing us back to the country in which we began


PS Damn! On yesterdays (November 12 2006) R4 Food Programme a man called Ivan Day said that cat-see-ap comes from Vietnam. How could he spoil my conceit in this way?


Serendipity corner. Today (26 March 2007) I chanced upon another website which gives Dutch/Indonesian/Sranantongo words for Surinamese ingredients.

Kasiri is a kind of cassava jack, a weak liquor

Kasripo is casareep, used for stews


End of argument: OED says ketchup derives from ke-tsiap, an Amoy dialect word. And so another circle: one of the most widely available brands of soy sauce is ????

Link

PEPPERPOT

Related post

Another saucy circle

Irony

I hear that there are no subtitles on digital tv. If this is true it will be a sad loss

I often watch with the sound off. This started when I needed to be quiet, but has now become my preferred mode

A whole new art form has developed, at least for programmes that can be subtitled in advance. Art form is probably too poncy a word; maybe I just mean a grammar, involving for example the use of placement & colour to indicate to the viewer which words belong to which character

My favourite new piece of grammar should be imported into everyday writing. Irony, or sarcasm, is indicated by the use of ? or ! as appropriate, but each inside brackets