This latest racism hoo-ha put me in mind of a 1960s political novel by Maurice Edelman, probably The Minister. Set at the time of Macmillans Wind of Change in Africa. A rising Conservative star puts a block on his career by remarking to a fellow dinner-guest: 'I said I wanted the African to be my brother, not my brother in law.'
Too clever by half!
Funnily enough, when I Googled that quote just now it came up, precisely the opposite way round, attributed to Martin Luther King
Monday, March 12, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Why the 4x4 is todays third child
When the Club of Rome produced its famous report in the early 1970s, the one which used a computer model to warn that the world would run out of all its mineral resources within 400 years, it reinforced the existing worry that the worlds population growth was outstripping our ability to produce enough food
ZPG was the aim of all right thinking moral folk who cared about the future of their grandchildren. So obviously it was morally wrong to do more than simply reproduce yourselves in your coupledom. TWO WILL DO
The Guardian Womens page carried agonised letters from women who knew what was right but still felt broody
And I remembered a (for the time) rather risque joke told to us by the teacher who introduced us to the theories of Malthus during the United Nations Freedom From Hunger Campaign
A husband could not understand his wifes extreme reluctance, not to say terror, at the idea of adding to their family of 2 healthy, happy children. Eventually he persuaded her to own up that her fears were caused by the fact that she had heard that Every third baby in the world is Chinese
Pinning the blame for global warming on to the Chelsea Tractor is every bit as prejudiced & wrong headed as that joke
ZPG was the aim of all right thinking moral folk who cared about the future of their grandchildren. So obviously it was morally wrong to do more than simply reproduce yourselves in your coupledom. TWO WILL DO
The Guardian Womens page carried agonised letters from women who knew what was right but still felt broody
And I remembered a (for the time) rather risque joke told to us by the teacher who introduced us to the theories of Malthus during the United Nations Freedom From Hunger Campaign
A husband could not understand his wifes extreme reluctance, not to say terror, at the idea of adding to their family of 2 healthy, happy children. Eventually he persuaded her to own up that her fears were caused by the fact that she had heard that Every third baby in the world is Chinese
Pinning the blame for global warming on to the Chelsea Tractor is every bit as prejudiced & wrong headed as that joke
Saturday, March 10, 2007
The boy with two heads
When it comes to apostrophes I am with GBS - dont use em.
Not because I dont know the rules. I remember very well being taught them in primary school, aged either 8 or 9. The teacher was called Mr Price.
The examples used were The boys heads & The boys books.
I dont suppose I used these precise terms to myself at the time, but I decided then & there that if I ever wanted to convey the news that here was a boy with more than one head, I WOULD NOT DO IT WITH AN APOSTROPHE .
I confess to feeling some confusion over the plural boys books. I now realise that this is because of indeterminacy, in the mathematical sense. How to distinguish between the following?
Not because I dont know the rules. I remember very well being taught them in primary school, aged either 8 or 9. The teacher was called Mr Price.
The examples used were The boys heads & The boys books.
I dont suppose I used these precise terms to myself at the time, but I decided then & there that if I ever wanted to convey the news that here was a boy with more than one head, I WOULD NOT DO IT WITH AN APOSTROPHE .
I confess to feeling some confusion over the plural boys books. I now realise that this is because of indeterminacy, in the mathematical sense. How to distinguish between the following?
- Each boy has exactly one book
- Each boy has one or more books
- Each boy has more than one book
- library, boys, for the use of
If you have to deploy something other than an apostrophe to make such distinctions, why bother at all?
Friday, March 09, 2007
Same or different? (3)
Back to our binary classifications again.
It is only human to view one side as good, the other bad. Or at least to consider one as more desirable than the other. So tall is better than short, thin is better than - ughh! - fat
In our mythical celestial population of 1 milllion souls, most will be a fairly even mixture of good & bad, desirable & undesirable
One poor schmuck will however be all bad - possessed of not one redeeming feature
At the other end of the scale one god-like creature will be possessed of entirely good, desirable attributes
And yet, as with everybody else, they will share each of their features with half of the population
It is only human to view one side as good, the other bad. Or at least to consider one as more desirable than the other. So tall is better than short, thin is better than - ughh! - fat
In our mythical celestial population of 1 milllion souls, most will be a fairly even mixture of good & bad, desirable & undesirable
One poor schmuck will however be all bad - possessed of not one redeeming feature
At the other end of the scale one god-like creature will be possessed of entirely good, desirable attributes
And yet, as with everybody else, they will share each of their features with half of the population
Related posts
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Different or the same? (2)
Going back to our binary categorisation of humans. Suppose by some celestial coincidence we picked the dividing line between tall & short exactly on the median height of the population. So exactly half are tall & half short. Same for weight, intelligence, sporting ability etc etc
And suppose by another celestial coincidence we have found a population of 1million people*, each of whom fits, exactly, one of our categories. We have 1,000,000 people each of whom is unique.
Only one who is tall + fat+ intelligent + a sporting rabbit+.......
Only one who is short + fat + intelligent +a sportstar.............
And so on.
But each person will share each single characteristic with half of the population
*OK, really I mean 1,048,576. Just keeping it elegantly simple
And suppose by another celestial coincidence we have found a population of 1million people*, each of whom fits, exactly, one of our categories. We have 1,000,000 people each of whom is unique.
Only one who is tall + fat+ intelligent + a sporting rabbit+.......
Only one who is short + fat + intelligent +a sportstar.............
And so on.
But each person will share each single characteristic with half of the population
*OK, really I mean 1,048,576. Just keeping it elegantly simple
Related posts
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Are we all different or are we all the same?
Choose 20 human attributes or characteristics. Height, weight, sporting ability, intelligence .... whatever.
Classify everybody on each characteristic, but on a simple binary scale. So each person is either short or tall, fat or thin .... whatever. Arbitrary I know, but bear with me.
Even with this level of crudity & arbitrariness there are enough categories to assign each of 1 million people to their own unique group of 1
2 possible categories of height x 2 categories of weight x 2 categories of intelligence x 2 categories of musical ability ...... 2 to the power of 20 = 1,048,576 categories in all
Classify everybody on each characteristic, but on a simple binary scale. So each person is either short or tall, fat or thin .... whatever. Arbitrary I know, but bear with me.
Even with this level of crudity & arbitrariness there are enough categories to assign each of 1 million people to their own unique group of 1
2 possible categories of height x 2 categories of weight x 2 categories of intelligence x 2 categories of musical ability ...... 2 to the power of 20 = 1,048,576 categories in all
Related posts
Sunday, March 04, 2007
The bakery
My paternal great grandparents ran a bakery & shop. I have happy memories of visits. Custard slices or Viennese whirls as a treat. Nobody could understand why I didnt like iced buns.
The flour sacks were kept in a loft above the shop. A cat lived up there to control the rats. I never saw him downstairs, but you could sometimes see him sitting curled up at the edge of the open trapdoor. He was enormouse.
When I was about 10 I ws allowed to help serve in the shop on Saturdays. I remember the humiliation the first time I tried to make change, & being loudly instructed by Great Aunt Betty that you dont have to do the subtraction, you just go '1 penny makes 2 shillings then sixpence makes half a crown' or whatever.
I rememberd this years later when I was trying to teach the laws of algebra to a maths remedial class. My explanation of the associative law was met by loud squeals from one little girl. I had just transformed her life by teaching her how to make change. She had felt that her ambition to work in an upmarket department stiore was destined to be forever thwarted by her total inability to do subtractions in her head.
The flour sacks were kept in a loft above the shop. A cat lived up there to control the rats. I never saw him downstairs, but you could sometimes see him sitting curled up at the edge of the open trapdoor. He was enormouse.
When I was about 10 I ws allowed to help serve in the shop on Saturdays. I remember the humiliation the first time I tried to make change, & being loudly instructed by Great Aunt Betty that you dont have to do the subtraction, you just go '1 penny makes 2 shillings then sixpence makes half a crown' or whatever.
I rememberd this years later when I was trying to teach the laws of algebra to a maths remedial class. My explanation of the associative law was met by loud squeals from one little girl. I had just transformed her life by teaching her how to make change. She had felt that her ambition to work in an upmarket department stiore was destined to be forever thwarted by her total inability to do subtractions in her head.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Death in childhood
1 in 10,000. That's the chance of dying in this country for a child aged 5-9.
Which must, of course, only increase the sense of shock, grief, guilt and, for parents, isolation, if it happens. This is what fuels paranoid parenthood: Please dont let me be the one who fails.
One of my great-grandmothers was proud to be able to say 'I have had 11 & reared 8' - meaning that only 3 of her children (born mostly in the 1890s) had died. She was a real martinet - that achievment made her word law. She herself lived to over 90 & died when I was about 5. I have one very vivid memory of her walking across a room, ramrod straight in her green overall apron. She was still active in the family bakery.
It makes me shiver now to think what those experiences must have been like. A childs death is no less painful because less rare - think of Darwins devastation at the death of his 10-year old daughter.
Which must, of course, only increase the sense of shock, grief, guilt and, for parents, isolation, if it happens. This is what fuels paranoid parenthood: Please dont let me be the one who fails.
One of my great-grandmothers was proud to be able to say 'I have had 11 & reared 8' - meaning that only 3 of her children (born mostly in the 1890s) had died. She was a real martinet - that achievment made her word law. She herself lived to over 90 & died when I was about 5. I have one very vivid memory of her walking across a room, ramrod straight in her green overall apron. She was still active in the family bakery.
It makes me shiver now to think what those experiences must have been like. A childs death is no less painful because less rare - think of Darwins devastation at the death of his 10-year old daughter.
Postscript
And I realise Im not just fretting about the 1 million to 1 accident or abduction but also how indefensibly negligent I could appear. After the McCanns all paernts scent witch-hunt in the air
Janice Turner: The Times 19 May 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
What is life?
A sexually transmitted disease
With a 100% mortality rate
It is strange how we, in this country anyway, increasingly talk as if death were optional. As if the alternative to dying of lung cancer from smoking were not dying at all. Tests of the value of new medical procedures measure mortality & newspapers talk about numbers of deaths prevented rather than numbers of deaths postponed
But look at the mortality figures & you will see that the death of anyone under 50 has indeed become a pretty rare event. And therefore news
This explains why, on at least 2 occasions last year Radio 5 Live carried, as items of national headline news, the deaths of children which did not involve murder, paedophilia or abduction. One child choked to death on a piece of apple, the other drowned in a river on a family day out
The death rate for children under a year old now runs at about 1 in 200. If you survive your first year your chance of dying wont be so high again until your late 50s
With a 100% mortality rate
It is strange how we, in this country anyway, increasingly talk as if death were optional. As if the alternative to dying of lung cancer from smoking were not dying at all. Tests of the value of new medical procedures measure mortality & newspapers talk about numbers of deaths prevented rather than numbers of deaths postponed
But look at the mortality figures & you will see that the death of anyone under 50 has indeed become a pretty rare event. And therefore news
This explains why, on at least 2 occasions last year Radio 5 Live carried, as items of national headline news, the deaths of children which did not involve murder, paedophilia or abduction. One child choked to death on a piece of apple, the other drowned in a river on a family day out
The death rate for children under a year old now runs at about 1 in 200. If you survive your first year your chance of dying wont be so high again until your late 50s
Friday, February 23, 2007
Oh no! Not that man again
I really am determined that this is the last time I will write about Tony Blair. Now we know he is a racist, root, branch & core
I heard him explain, in that exasperated tone of his, that these recent shootings have just been affecting "a particualr small community" & that he "doesnt agree that these have anything to say about the state of British society today"
Its "them", you know, a "community", "ethnics". Not us
Why not just say "Oh well. They're black. What else do you expect?"
I prescribe a course of reading ER Braithwaite to understand how this "lack of role models" has a lot to say about the state of British society
I heard him explain, in that exasperated tone of his, that these recent shootings have just been affecting "a particualr small community" & that he "doesnt agree that these have anything to say about the state of British society today"
Its "them", you know, a "community", "ethnics". Not us
Why not just say "Oh well. They're black. What else do you expect?"
I prescribe a course of reading ER Braithwaite to understand how this "lack of role models" has a lot to say about the state of British society
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The enemy
Wouldnt it be nice if we really could save time?
Its a slow Wednesday today. Not much I really HAVE to do. Ill just put a couple of hours in the bank for next Monday, when things will be really hectic
Its a slow Wednesday today. Not much I really HAVE to do. Ill just put a couple of hours in the bank for next Monday, when things will be really hectic
When we talk about the length of a journey, are we talking about the time taken or the distance covered? Or are we indifferent, taking these to be freely interchangeable?
Transport schemes are usually appraised by reference to how much time the new motorway etc will save. Some of the knottier conceptual problems of this approach might in fact disappear if the appraisal concentrated on the extra distance gained
I heard somewhere that man has, over his entire history, spent about the same overall, constant proportion of his time in travelling. I wonder if this is true for women too? The latest UK figures show that the average woman travels only 3/4 as far as the average man (6,300 v 8,200 miles a year). But does she spend less time doing this, or does she just travel more slowly?
Years ago, during the Thatcher recession of the 1980s, there was a youth unemployment scheme called YOPS which paid participants a flat £23 a week. As someone charged with making comparisons of the relative earnings of males & females I was shocked to find that the difference in earnings appeared even among these 16 year-olds. But how? Turned out the the only extra you could claim was for essential travel to work. So girls either worked closer to home or were more likely to get free lifts. Or boys were more likely to make false claims
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
10 things to do with old newspapers
In my youth we never used simply to throw newspapers into the bin. Nor did we 'recycle' them. Newsprint was a valuable commodity for which we had many alternative re-uses
1 Childbirth The most extraordinary was during labour. One well known baby book recommended that you keep old newspapers handy in case you went into labour unexpectedly before help was at hand. Newsprint would provide a good temporary undersheet to keep the mess off your bedsheets or flooring. It had the great advantage of being sterile. I wonder if this is still true. Did it have something to do with the lead in the ink, I wonder? The mind boggles
2 Loo paper. Cut into squares, make a hole in the top left hand corners, loop through a piece of string & hang on a handy nail. Actually the Radio Times or another magazine was better, because less absorbent. A bit different to how we think today
3 Fish & chips
4 Firelighting. Tear a sheet of newpaper into quarters. Roll each piece diagonally as tightly as you can. Keep in a jar beside the fire or gas cooker & use as an alternative to matches. Fold whole sheets of newspaper into tight cubes tu use as an alternative to small logs for the fire. Scrumple up pieces of newspaper to use as kindling for the fire
5 Wrap up your rubbish. No black bin bags in those days. Wrap wet, dirty or smelly rubbish in layers of newsprint before placing in the bin
6 Temporary floor mats. Especially useful as doormats for wet shoes or temporary covering for just-mopped floors. Dont use on light coloured lino - the newsprint rubs off on the floor
7 Drying shoes. Stuff wet shoes with scrumpled newspaper. This will absorb the moisture & help the shoes keep their shape. It is also a good idea to scrumple some newspaper into the bottom of your wellies while they are not being worn - stops creepy crawlies from getting in & hiding in the toes
8 Apples. Wrap each apple carefully in a piece of newspaper for winter storage. For best results store on slatted wooden shelves. Or pack carefully into cardboard boxes. Store in a cool place
9 Cleaning windows. Glass will really sparkle if polished off (after washing) with scrumpled newspaper
10 Childrens artwork. Paintings can look very good on newsprint - think Cubist. As can potato prints. Or fold a sheet of paper into 4. Cut little holes along the creases & wavy edges along the free sides. Unfold - a doily! make papier mache bowls or dolls heads
These days of course we have better things to do with our newspapers, once read. We leave them once a fortnight outside the house in a blue plastic bag. nice men come with a big lorry, empty the bags & carry the newspaper away. They pack all the newspapers onto a big ship & carry them half way round the world. This is a good & virtuous thing to do. We call it recycling
And virtue is rewarded. The richest woman in China earned her money by knowing what to do with all these old newpapers once they got there
1 Childbirth The most extraordinary was during labour. One well known baby book recommended that you keep old newspapers handy in case you went into labour unexpectedly before help was at hand. Newsprint would provide a good temporary undersheet to keep the mess off your bedsheets or flooring. It had the great advantage of being sterile. I wonder if this is still true. Did it have something to do with the lead in the ink, I wonder? The mind boggles
2 Loo paper. Cut into squares, make a hole in the top left hand corners, loop through a piece of string & hang on a handy nail. Actually the Radio Times or another magazine was better, because less absorbent. A bit different to how we think today
3 Fish & chips
4 Firelighting. Tear a sheet of newpaper into quarters. Roll each piece diagonally as tightly as you can. Keep in a jar beside the fire or gas cooker & use as an alternative to matches. Fold whole sheets of newspaper into tight cubes tu use as an alternative to small logs for the fire. Scrumple up pieces of newspaper to use as kindling for the fire
5 Wrap up your rubbish. No black bin bags in those days. Wrap wet, dirty or smelly rubbish in layers of newsprint before placing in the bin
6 Temporary floor mats. Especially useful as doormats for wet shoes or temporary covering for just-mopped floors. Dont use on light coloured lino - the newsprint rubs off on the floor
7 Drying shoes. Stuff wet shoes with scrumpled newspaper. This will absorb the moisture & help the shoes keep their shape. It is also a good idea to scrumple some newspaper into the bottom of your wellies while they are not being worn - stops creepy crawlies from getting in & hiding in the toes
8 Apples. Wrap each apple carefully in a piece of newspaper for winter storage. For best results store on slatted wooden shelves. Or pack carefully into cardboard boxes. Store in a cool place
9 Cleaning windows. Glass will really sparkle if polished off (after washing) with scrumpled newspaper
10 Childrens artwork. Paintings can look very good on newsprint - think Cubist. As can potato prints. Or fold a sheet of paper into 4. Cut little holes along the creases & wavy edges along the free sides. Unfold - a doily! make papier mache bowls or dolls heads
*********
These days of course we have better things to do with our newspapers, once read. We leave them once a fortnight outside the house in a blue plastic bag. nice men come with a big lorry, empty the bags & carry the newspaper away. They pack all the newspapers onto a big ship & carry them half way round the world. This is a good & virtuous thing to do. We call it recycling
And virtue is rewarded. The richest woman in China earned her money by knowing what to do with all these old newpapers once they got there
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Take me to your leader
Am I the only person to feel outraged by Tony Blairs recent tv interview in which he said it had been an honour to lead 'them' - ie the British people?
What an arrogant, condescending & patronising tone. Them is always what you say when you want to put them over there, in a different category from Us
It also displays an alarming failure to understand the difference between government, country, parliament & people
The Prime Minister leads the government, in the sense that he is primus inter pares. To do so he needs the confidence & support of Parliament, the elected representatives of the people, who delegate to him the responsibilty for running the executive branch of Government. If he needs new laws to be able to carry out these duties he must ask Parliament to pass them. If he needs money, he must ask Parliament to Vote it for him
He is not the Leader of the House of Commons
It is up to his Party to decide if he is their leader or not
The People have no say in any of this, in the strict sense that they do not vote for him. They vote for their local MP. They may believe that there is a link - vote party x whose leader is y - but that is the most that can be said. And even then there is absolutely no sense in which the voters agree to a game of follow my leader
What an arrogant, condescending & patronising tone. Them is always what you say when you want to put them over there, in a different category from Us
It also displays an alarming failure to understand the difference between government, country, parliament & people
The Prime Minister leads the government, in the sense that he is primus inter pares. To do so he needs the confidence & support of Parliament, the elected representatives of the people, who delegate to him the responsibilty for running the executive branch of Government. If he needs new laws to be able to carry out these duties he must ask Parliament to pass them. If he needs money, he must ask Parliament to Vote it for him
He is not the Leader of the House of Commons
It is up to his Party to decide if he is their leader or not
The People have no say in any of this, in the strict sense that they do not vote for him. They vote for their local MP. They may believe that there is a link - vote party x whose leader is y - but that is the most that can be said. And even then there is absolutely no sense in which the voters agree to a game of follow my leader
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
The true nature & purpose of political power
The most capital advantage an enlightened people can enjoy, is the liberty of discussing every subject which can fall within the compass of the human mind … To render the magistrate a judge of truth, & engage his authority in the suppression of opinions, shows an inattention to the nature & design of political society. When a nation forms a government, it is not wisdom but power which they place in the hand of the magistrate; from whence it follows his concern is only with those objects which power can operate on … administration of justice, … protection of property & the defence of every member of the community from violence & outrage fall naturally within the province of the civil ruler, for these may all be accomplished by power; but an attempt to distinguish truth from error, & to countenance one out of many opinions to the prejudice of another, is to apply power in a manner mischievous & absurd
Robert Hall: Works 10ed 1850
Robert Hall: Works 10ed 1850
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Barry Richards
I only ever saw one Barry Richards innings live. It was a Sunday match at the Oval, nothing very much depending on it
I was sitting near the old scoreboard at the pavilion end. The wicket was well over towards the other side of the ground. A long way away, in other words. Nevertheless there were several balls which came speeding right down to where we were sitting, racing along the ground, to jump the boundary rope then bounce back off the wall. And all seemingly hit without any great power at all
He got his hundred. Point made, job done. So he then wafted one & made his way back to the Pavillion for a well earned rest
I was sitting near the old scoreboard at the pavilion end. The wicket was well over towards the other side of the ground. A long way away, in other words. Nevertheless there were several balls which came speeding right down to where we were sitting, racing along the ground, to jump the boundary rope then bounce back off the wall. And all seemingly hit without any great power at all
He got his hundred. Point made, job done. So he then wafted one & made his way back to the Pavillion for a well earned rest
Monday, February 05, 2007
War is magical - ?
I have not been quite able to make up my mind about the writer Lewis Mumford. At times he seems like a bit of a charlatan, or the Ancient Mariner with his glittering eye. And yet I have put lots of quotes from him in my commonplace book. Whatever else, he wrote beautifully
The following (from The City in History) needs no comment
The following (from The City in History) needs no comment
If anything were needed to make the magical origins of war
plausible it is the fact that war, even when it is disguised by seemingly hard
headed economic demands, uniformly turns into a religious performance; nothing
less than a wholesale ritual sacrifice
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Clive Lloyd
The first Test Match that I ever saw live was at Bourda in 1968. That, rather than revolution, was what excited me most that year
My excitement was intense. We had to get to the ground early to secure a seat. The weather was gorgeous
My first shock was the wicket. It looked like a sheet of glass shining under the sun. Up until that moment I had truly thought - without ever really thinking about it - that cricket fields were green all over
But up till then my only experiences of watching first class cricket were via grainy 425 line black & white tv or Pathe newsreels at the cinema
So many memories of that match. But the most enduring was & is Clive Lloyd
Funnily enough I cant remember him batting in that match
What I do remember is his fielding in the covers. With his long reach & lithe form, he made me think of a panther. He didnt seem to even have to move much from the spot, just pounced
In truth, I didnt know very much about cricket then. I understood 4s & 6s & fast bowlers running in, but that was it. Didnt even usually know where the ball had gone to without the camera to guide me. But watching Clive Lloyd made me really understand for the first time that there really was a lot more to this game, a lot that would provide hours of absorbing entertainment. Even a tussle between Lance Gibbs & Geoffrey Boycott
Of course that was before Clives knees went. In later years I came to think of him more as Paddington Bear, with his hat & glasses & rather shambling gait when walking to the wicket
And what a batsman. I shall certainly never forget his innings at the World Cup Final in 1975
My excitement was intense. We had to get to the ground early to secure a seat. The weather was gorgeous
My first shock was the wicket. It looked like a sheet of glass shining under the sun. Up until that moment I had truly thought - without ever really thinking about it - that cricket fields were green all over
But up till then my only experiences of watching first class cricket were via grainy 425 line black & white tv or Pathe newsreels at the cinema
So many memories of that match. But the most enduring was & is Clive Lloyd
Funnily enough I cant remember him batting in that match
What I do remember is his fielding in the covers. With his long reach & lithe form, he made me think of a panther. He didnt seem to even have to move much from the spot, just pounced
In truth, I didnt know very much about cricket then. I understood 4s & 6s & fast bowlers running in, but that was it. Didnt even usually know where the ball had gone to without the camera to guide me. But watching Clive Lloyd made me really understand for the first time that there really was a lot more to this game, a lot that would provide hours of absorbing entertainment. Even a tussle between Lance Gibbs & Geoffrey Boycott
Of course that was before Clives knees went. In later years I came to think of him more as Paddington Bear, with his hat & glasses & rather shambling gait when walking to the wicket
And what a batsman. I shall certainly never forget his innings at the World Cup Final in 1975
Saturday, February 03, 2007
A dream in marble
I returned to the Taj at night & saw it illuminated, first by a bright moon & then by some garish fireworks. I felt that if I were to write for years it would be of no avail - & so I departed - Taj-haunted - carrying off a new thought which can never perish
William Russell: My Diary in India in the Year 1858-59
William Russell: My Diary in India in the Year 1858-59
et = square root (-1)
Once upon a time there were some sums which we could not do. No matter how hard we tried, we could not work them out
The reason was because in order to find the answer we had to get the square root of -1. But there is no such number in our world. It is indeed a very strange thing that we can have minus numbers, but not one of them has a square root
One day however a visitor came from another world. His name was i
He stayed with us while we did our sums, sitting in the place where the square root of -1 should go. And something magic happened. We could keep on going till we got an answer to our sum, an answer which was a perfectly ordinary number from our own real world
So then i could go home
The reason was because in order to find the answer we had to get the square root of -1. But there is no such number in our world. It is indeed a very strange thing that we can have minus numbers, but not one of them has a square root
One day however a visitor came from another world. His name was i
He stayed with us while we did our sums, sitting in the place where the square root of -1 should go. And something magic happened. We could keep on going till we got an answer to our sum, an answer which was a perfectly ordinary number from our own real world
So then i could go home
Monday, January 29, 2007
The truth about allergy allegedly
Allergy is on the increase because the modern western immune system does not get enough challenges these days. Especially when young - no measles, mumps or chicken pox, no playing in muddy fields or parks. Or so goes the TOO CLEAN theory
Well perhaps. My theory is that the immune system gets too many challenges from the modern food chain
Once upon a time when we ate meat the serving on the plate came from just one animal. But because of mass production a single burger from a chain may now contain meat from up to 100 animals, each with its own immune history. Similarly, it should be called chickens tikka
Dairy products used to come from just one fairly small herd. Now milk is collected, mixed & processed in huge regional plants, thus destroying the flavour, apart from anything else. One reason why goats milk may be good for those with allergies is that it still tends to come from just one farm
So we regularly consume in a single sitting a real cocktail of animal products whose different environments will have produced a veritable cocktail of immune system products
All fruit & vegetables contain natural toxins - they would not otherwise be able to survive their predators. All of these natural toxins can be shown, by normal laboratory tests, to be potentially toxic to humans. Some we have learned to cope with by suitable methods of preparation - such as boiling bitter cassava for a good hour. Others just dont seem to have caused the damage once feared - we no longer share the Victorians fear of tomatoes
Now we eat a wide range of 'novel' fruits & greens. In winter in England the choice used to be limited pretty much to carrots, sprouts, dried peas or cabbage. Add to that courgette, butternut squash, aubergine. Not to mention ordinary 'English' vegetables grown out of our season in almost any country of the world
Obviously these 'novel' foods are not, in & of themselves, a problem, since billions of people have survived healthily on all manner of diets
But the Hedgehog Allergy Hypothesis says that modern allergies are caused by our just not yet having evolved to cope with such infinite variety. The appetites they feed but us make ill
Well perhaps. My theory is that the immune system gets too many challenges from the modern food chain
Once upon a time when we ate meat the serving on the plate came from just one animal. But because of mass production a single burger from a chain may now contain meat from up to 100 animals, each with its own immune history. Similarly, it should be called chickens tikka
Dairy products used to come from just one fairly small herd. Now milk is collected, mixed & processed in huge regional plants, thus destroying the flavour, apart from anything else. One reason why goats milk may be good for those with allergies is that it still tends to come from just one farm
So we regularly consume in a single sitting a real cocktail of animal products whose different environments will have produced a veritable cocktail of immune system products
All fruit & vegetables contain natural toxins - they would not otherwise be able to survive their predators. All of these natural toxins can be shown, by normal laboratory tests, to be potentially toxic to humans. Some we have learned to cope with by suitable methods of preparation - such as boiling bitter cassava for a good hour. Others just dont seem to have caused the damage once feared - we no longer share the Victorians fear of tomatoes
Now we eat a wide range of 'novel' fruits & greens. In winter in England the choice used to be limited pretty much to carrots, sprouts, dried peas or cabbage. Add to that courgette, butternut squash, aubergine. Not to mention ordinary 'English' vegetables grown out of our season in almost any country of the world
Obviously these 'novel' foods are not, in & of themselves, a problem, since billions of people have survived healthily on all manner of diets
But the Hedgehog Allergy Hypothesis says that modern allergies are caused by our just not yet having evolved to cope with such infinite variety. The appetites they feed but us make ill
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