I have been asked to summarise briefly my views on the Business & Financial Outlook for the year
Having got as far as September it looks now that we are in for a year which will be known as 2008
I am not sure that the whole financial & business structure on which our system is founded is not silly, with its billions of barrels & billions of derivatives & nothing to show for it
That is adapted from Robert Benchley in 1931 – 2 years after the Wall Street crash
Erica Wagner exhorts us now to read The Great Crash by JK Galbraith with ‘an eerie sense of déjà vu’
For some of us, it is a case of déjà lu
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Did we deserve it?
Earlier this year I knew that the ground really had shifted when I heard that Halifax had stopped offering straight repayment mortgages, on the grounds that they were not profitable enough
I was going to write a nostalgia piece, but I could not find confirmation of the fact, so I just left it
Events now have certainly confirmed my feeling
Ever since childhood, the Halifax has meant respectability & security to me, learned by osmosis from a family who would not have dreamed of entrusting their hard earned savings to any one else
I still have the pass book I acquired when I was introduced as a customer by my father when I was 16. It was not my first encounter with financial services – I had had a Post Office account since I was 7 – but this was definitely a step into the world of grown ups finance
Not that I would want to return to that world. Apart from the fact that there was a vague feeling that you had to pass some kind of fit & proper person test to be a saver, you certainly had to jump through hoops to get a mortgage. To have been a saver with the society for a certain amount of time, to be holding a proper job, & have accumulated a 25% deposit. Only certain kinds of property would be considered – basically family homes, built in the 20th century.
The only alternative to a straight repayment might have been an endowment, but this was only worthwhile if you were father to a family who needed a guarantee that the roof would remain over their heads if Daddy died. The fact that so few children are left fatherless through mortality these days is just one more measure of how the world has changed
And for me, personally, there would have been next to no chance of getting a mortgage in my own right, at least until I had reached an age where I was clearly on the shelf, past child bearing, & had made the best of it by getting a good job in teaching. By the 1970s, more enlightened institutions might have started taking my income into account for a joint mortgage with my husband, but only at a multiple of 1, compared with his 2½ or 3. It took the Sex Discrimination Act to put women on an equal footing with men as far as house purchase went.
We would have expected to move perhaps once or twice, to accommodate a growing family or to reflect increased prosperity through career progression. Only people who were forced, for job reasons, expected to have to move more frequently. Nobody talked about what their house was ‘worth’, one worried about prices only as a measure of how much you needed in order to acquire a home of your own
Now that everybody is turning round & blaming the bankers, the finance industry, derivatives & rocket scientists for the current difficulties, it is important to remember how much we gained from these relaxations of ‘moral’ approaches to the provision of financial services
I was going to write a nostalgia piece, but I could not find confirmation of the fact, so I just left it
Events now have certainly confirmed my feeling
Ever since childhood, the Halifax has meant respectability & security to me, learned by osmosis from a family who would not have dreamed of entrusting their hard earned savings to any one else
I still have the pass book I acquired when I was introduced as a customer by my father when I was 16. It was not my first encounter with financial services – I had had a Post Office account since I was 7 – but this was definitely a step into the world of grown ups finance
Not that I would want to return to that world. Apart from the fact that there was a vague feeling that you had to pass some kind of fit & proper person test to be a saver, you certainly had to jump through hoops to get a mortgage. To have been a saver with the society for a certain amount of time, to be holding a proper job, & have accumulated a 25% deposit. Only certain kinds of property would be considered – basically family homes, built in the 20th century.
The only alternative to a straight repayment might have been an endowment, but this was only worthwhile if you were father to a family who needed a guarantee that the roof would remain over their heads if Daddy died. The fact that so few children are left fatherless through mortality these days is just one more measure of how the world has changed
And for me, personally, there would have been next to no chance of getting a mortgage in my own right, at least until I had reached an age where I was clearly on the shelf, past child bearing, & had made the best of it by getting a good job in teaching. By the 1970s, more enlightened institutions might have started taking my income into account for a joint mortgage with my husband, but only at a multiple of 1, compared with his 2½ or 3. It took the Sex Discrimination Act to put women on an equal footing with men as far as house purchase went.
We would have expected to move perhaps once or twice, to accommodate a growing family or to reflect increased prosperity through career progression. Only people who were forced, for job reasons, expected to have to move more frequently. Nobody talked about what their house was ‘worth’, one worried about prices only as a measure of how much you needed in order to acquire a home of your own
Now that everybody is turning round & blaming the bankers, the finance industry, derivatives & rocket scientists for the current difficulties, it is important to remember how much we gained from these relaxations of ‘moral’ approaches to the provision of financial services
Related posts
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Who will claim Karl Marx?
The works of most of the great political philosophers of the past (even The Bible) have been claimed to support variously Left & Right.
It is not that Left & Right change their views – though they do: Thatcherite Free Market economics belonged to the dangerous Radicals of the 19th century, not the paternalistic landed Tories; in my life time the Common Market, under its various names, has gone from being seen as a capitalist conspiracy to an organisation for enforcing workers rights
That Matthew Parris should be paying close attention to Marxist thought in a recent Saturday column – albeit as a stick with which to beat current Labour policy – made me wonder if the time is not too far off when Das Kapital is seen as a Tory text
It is not that Left & Right change their views – though they do: Thatcherite Free Market economics belonged to the dangerous Radicals of the 19th century, not the paternalistic landed Tories; in my life time the Common Market, under its various names, has gone from being seen as a capitalist conspiracy to an organisation for enforcing workers rights
That Matthew Parris should be paying close attention to Marxist thought in a recent Saturday column – albeit as a stick with which to beat current Labour policy – made me wonder if the time is not too far off when Das Kapital is seen as a Tory text
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Damien Hirst
I am sorry not to be able to see the Damien Hirst Auction collection. I should particularly like to see the Golden Calf, but even more to see the collection as a whole
The first time I saw any ‘live’ Hirst was in an exhibition at the Serpentine in the early 1990s, the very first piece a collection of pharmaceutical products in a white-shelved cabinet. Not tightly packed in alphabetical order as in a real life pharmacy, not jumbled as in a bathroom cabinet, but ‘artfully’ & individually arranged. They were not objects of beauty in themselves – some of the packets were old & battered – and not, to my eyes, overall a thing of beauty either
It crossed my mind that maybe it was supposed to be saying something about AIDS. This was, after all, not long after the grim tombstone Don’t Die of AIDS ads on the telly, & was reminiscent of the early 1980s, when AIDS was (as it says on the tin) thought to be a collection of rare diseases caused by the assaults on the immune system inflicted by an extreme ‘gay lifestyle’, the only treatment a pharmacopeia of drugs to deal with each symptom
For some reason, to do with some of the specific drugs included, I rejected that idea, & remained baffled
The other piece by Hirst in that exhibition was the sheep in formaldehyde – fortunately restored to view so soon after the ink attack. My emotional response was immediate – I loved it
It was so alive, the epitome of inquiring sheep. The colours – the formaldehyde looked blue, the creamy grey fleece thick & healthy, the black patches endearing
Some years later, when shown a very good black & white photo of a sheep on a snow-covered hillside, staring quizzically at the camera, I told the photographer that it looked just like Damien Hirst.” Oh – is that a compliment?” he asked
One very common response to the kind of bafflement that modern art can induce is “They are having us on.” I do not share that view, but after walking round Hirst’s sheep a couple of times I suddenly wondered if it could be a trick – some kind of optical illusion
The thought had something to do with the bevelled edges of the glass tank. These reminded me quite vividly of the introductory sequence to the Harry Worth comedy series on 1960s tv. Middle aged Harry, dressed in trilby & macintosh, stood at the angle of an old fashioned shop entrance, put his nose to the window edge & raised his left arm & leg in the air. The refraction made him look as if he was suspended above the ground in a star jump
So, could something like that be happening with the sheep - it wasn't real & 3-dimensional at all but just some kind of refracted picture?
I was on my own, taking advantage of a couple of hours to spare between appointments; courage failed me at the thought of asking complete strangers to help by looking at it simultaneously from several angles – necessary because the illusion, if such it was, artfully followed you as you moved around – like one of the Patrick Hughes paradoxical perspectives
Ultimately, the only interesting question about this is – does it matter? No, is the simple answer, without going through all that art (& life) is all illusion stuff, anyway
More prosaically, when I visited the gallery shop I saw a beautifully produced (in Berlin, if memory serves) small brown covered book of sketches/drawings by Hirst. The answer to those who ask Can he do proper art?
And one other abiding memory from that exhibition. Just near the sheep, leaning against the wall, was a battered bicycle festooned with plastic bags stuffed with stuff. Think eccentricity or homelessness
Not really my kind of thing. So why, as I stood there, did I feel a strong urge to take an ordinary plastic biro out of my handbag & add it to the collection? What was that all about?
Back to Hirst. I have seen 2 of his other works, both in the Tate. In their permanent collection they have another of his glass fronted cabinets, one containing exotic giant sea shells. This pleases me neither as might an exhibit in a museum, with labels giving interesting information, nor as a kind of decorative feature – too opulent & blowsy, not minimalist enough for my drawing room
The other was part of a temporary exhibition – the Mother & Child Divided. I was apprehensive going in – would I be nauseated & repulsed?
The first reaction was how peaceful it seemed
Second reaction was – look at the colours. I expected it to be just grey & tripe-y, not flashes of turquoise, pink, yellow, green, purple, black, blue on a creamy grey background
On this occasion I had the advantage of being in the company of a surgeon who pointed out that there was a fair bit of stitching involved – a flap folded back here, fastened down there, artful in its artlessness. Not just something anybody can do, saw a cow in half & plonk it in a tank
Somewhere around this time I went to an exhibition of Spanish art at the National Gallery. Some pictures were genre scenes of kitchens. It struck me how many of these included lovingly painted semi-prepared (decapitated or gutted) rabbits or fish, or anatomically detailed cuts of meat. Not so very different, after all, from the divided cow & calf
I have never seen one of Hirst’s dot/circle paintings live as it were, but in reproduction I am disappointed by the colours. There seems nothing to them, nothing like the zephyrs darting round one of Bridget Riley’s parallelogram pictures. Instead they call to mind Jonathan Meade’s brilliant observation: For Picasso, colour was just a found object. There is no Matisse-like connection to the emotion
It is extraordinary how popular & influential they are – I have even seen plates on sale in Woolworths. Somehow I doubt Hirst is at all put out by this, in the way that Bridget Riley was offended by the way she thought her black & white art was subverted by the Op Art of 1960s fashions
Hirst’s golden calf & diamond studded skull remind me a little of the fabulous golden items from Ancient Iraq, such as the Sumerian goat from Ur.
This impression might not survive live viewing, but it makes me wonder if his next ‘line’ might not be carved stone murals depicting the modern equivalent of Ashurbanipal (Russian oligarchs?) killing lions
*****
"Damien Hirst once sued British Airways, claiming a breach of copyright over the coloured spots that it used in an advert for its low-cost airline, Go. I am surprised that Nestle didn't, in turn, sue him for nicking the design from its Smarties packet. because that is what his spot paintings look like"
Rachel campbell-Johnston, Times art critic
Rear view mirror
Lotto sales falling, said the headline
The story beneath did not support this assertion. Yes, sales fell by more than £100 million in 2007-08, but that does not mean they are still falling – the Olympic successes prompted lots of ‘The lottery is worthwhile’ kind of comments
This of course is always the problem with statistics. Using them to predict the future is, as someone once said, like trying to drive using only the rear view mirror – be it the future financial markets, population, climate change, whatever, we are trying to foresee
But it is all we can do for now
Until the day when all you can see in the mirror is a great big scary monster
Then we are into the realm of metaphysics – in a dark room (to mix the metaphor), blindfolded, looking for a black cat
Which may, or may not, be there
The story beneath did not support this assertion. Yes, sales fell by more than £100 million in 2007-08, but that does not mean they are still falling – the Olympic successes prompted lots of ‘The lottery is worthwhile’ kind of comments
This of course is always the problem with statistics. Using them to predict the future is, as someone once said, like trying to drive using only the rear view mirror – be it the future financial markets, population, climate change, whatever, we are trying to foresee
But it is all we can do for now
Until the day when all you can see in the mirror is a great big scary monster
Then we are into the realm of metaphysics – in a dark room (to mix the metaphor), blindfolded, looking for a black cat
Which may, or may not, be there
Related post: Is North up or down?
The price of a bag
I am curious about the financing – as opposed to the economics, green or otherwise - of the moves against supermarket plastic bags
Sainsburys offers 1 reward point for each bag you re-use at the checkout. I say offers advisedly, because in my experience this only gets added to your account on about 1 visit in 2. This is irritating, & hardly the sort of thing you want to make a fuss about or go to the customer complaints desk about. If you use your Reward points in the simplest possible way, to get a discount off some future bill at the checkout, each point is worth ½p. But how does this compare with the cost of a plastic bag?
Marks & Spencer do not seem to keep any old style plastic bags at all at the checkouts now (they do have small ones, which is often all that is needed). However, on Saturdays they are often giving away a free Bag For Life instead of charging 10p for one. Again, how do the costs work out?
Sainsburys offers 1 reward point for each bag you re-use at the checkout. I say offers advisedly, because in my experience this only gets added to your account on about 1 visit in 2. This is irritating, & hardly the sort of thing you want to make a fuss about or go to the customer complaints desk about. If you use your Reward points in the simplest possible way, to get a discount off some future bill at the checkout, each point is worth ½p. But how does this compare with the cost of a plastic bag?
Marks & Spencer do not seem to keep any old style plastic bags at all at the checkouts now (they do have small ones, which is often all that is needed). However, on Saturdays they are often giving away a free Bag For Life instead of charging 10p for one. Again, how do the costs work out?
How to rob a bank
I meant to post this whimsical quote from Robert Benchley a couple of weeks ago
On April 7, 1904, the vault in the Lazybones National Bank & Fiduciary trust of Illville, Illinois, was blown off, & if there had been anything in there worth taking away, it could easily have been done. As it was, the vault contained nothing but 100 shares of Goldman Sachs, & the robbers, instead of taking these, added 200 more shares of their own & made their getaway, leaving the bank stuck with 300 shares instead of 100
I was going to add that, in our day, the equivalent of shares in the mighty Goldman Sachs would be sub prime mortgage deeds
Now, I am not so sure
On April 7, 1904, the vault in the Lazybones National Bank & Fiduciary trust of Illville, Illinois, was blown off, & if there had been anything in there worth taking away, it could easily have been done. As it was, the vault contained nothing but 100 shares of Goldman Sachs, & the robbers, instead of taking these, added 200 more shares of their own & made their getaway, leaving the bank stuck with 300 shares instead of 100
I was going to add that, in our day, the equivalent of shares in the mighty Goldman Sachs would be sub prime mortgage deeds
Now, I am not so sure
Monday, September 15, 2008
Slip of the pen
A nice slip of the pen in the tv listings for Tess of the D’Urbevilles
“Hardy obviously adored his heroine, even as he put her through the wrangler”
The writer is obviously too young to remember old fashioned wash-day & has mixed up his wringer with his mangle, & managed to cast aspersions on Cambridge mathematicians
“Hardy obviously adored his heroine, even as he put her through the wrangler”
The writer is obviously too young to remember old fashioned wash-day & has mixed up his wringer with his mangle, & managed to cast aspersions on Cambridge mathematicians
Out of touch
The great majority of people – sitting down to their Sunday lunch today ...
So said the Chief Whip on Radio 4 news
It may be just one of those phrases – like blue rinse brigade - that summons up an image long departed from real life, it may even br true of the majority of Radio 4 listeners
Some might find it more akin to John Major’s spinsters on bicycles – nostalgic but out of touch with modern life
So said the Chief Whip on Radio 4 news
It may be just one of those phrases – like blue rinse brigade - that summons up an image long departed from real life, it may even br true of the majority of Radio 4 listeners
Some might find it more akin to John Major’s spinsters on bicycles – nostalgic but out of touch with modern life
The boy David
David Miliband appeared on Gabby Logan’s Radio 5 show yesterday
He sounded the way people say he is – personable, articulate, reasonably intelligent & nice. At ease with the common touch & the banter – which have caught out Labour ministers before. He told how he had as a child been presented with a 5-a-side runner up medal by Gabby’s father
What he did not sound like is someone who is ready –yet – to be Prime Minister or even party leader. In any circumstances, but certainly not the present ones
He should wait
Remember Hague
He sounded the way people say he is – personable, articulate, reasonably intelligent & nice. At ease with the common touch & the banter – which have caught out Labour ministers before. He told how he had as a child been presented with a 5-a-side runner up medal by Gabby’s father
What he did not sound like is someone who is ready –yet – to be Prime Minister or even party leader. In any circumstances, but certainly not the present ones
He should wait
Remember Hague
The little woman
The Bishop of Bath & Wells has broken with tradition by including his wife in his official portrait
This however is no Gainsborough-esque portrait with the happy couple side by side in the foreground
Posing in what looks like a side chapel, the wife sits demurely in a niche in the wall behind her upright husband. She occupies about the same amount of space in the picture as does her husband’s arm
Though modestly dressed, it would have been shocking to some even 20 years ago that she should be wearing trousers in a house of God
The bishop, needless to say, is, while not sumptuously, symbolically arrayed in long-skirted purple cassock with a fine silver chest medallion
This however is no Gainsborough-esque portrait with the happy couple side by side in the foreground
Posing in what looks like a side chapel, the wife sits demurely in a niche in the wall behind her upright husband. She occupies about the same amount of space in the picture as does her husband’s arm
Though modestly dressed, it would have been shocking to some even 20 years ago that she should be wearing trousers in a house of God
The bishop, needless to say, is, while not sumptuously, symbolically arrayed in long-skirted purple cassock with a fine silver chest medallion
Sunday, September 14, 2008
More corn
“Will no one speak up for popcorn?” asked Giles Smith recently, when it was reported that some cinemas are banning the stuff
Well, I will - though not for the wilting gooey version in super-size-me bags, the profits from which are relied upon to keep some multiplexes in existence
Popcorn should be a Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening treat for all the family
All you need is a bag of un-popped corn (surely available in all good supermarkets) & a good sized pan – preferably a heavy one, but certainly one with a tight fitting lid
Pour a little oil into the pan. Scatter corn so it covers the bottom in a single layer. Apply lid firmly. Put over the lowest possible heat
The noise, as the corn begins to pop, provides amusement for all the family. When it starts to subside, turn off the heat, but wait until you are certain the noise has stopped before lifting the lid
It is such a simple process, it could be left to the children – except that small boys particularly need close supervision. They find it hard to resist the temptation to remove the lid & cheer as corn bullets fly around the kitchen
We used to eat it with just a light sprinkling of salt, but I expect Demerara sugar would suit the sweeter tooth. Or perhaps some Indian spices, now chicken tikka is the national dish. Cumin, fennel or fenugreek (or even all 3 together) might work. I do not guarantee it, but since you will still have plenty of unpopped corn left in the bag, you could just bin the disaster & start again
For the scientifically minded family, the eating could be enlivened by a discussion of what makes popcorn pop, & how (if at all) this relates to what is currently going on under the Franco-Swiss border
Well, I will - though not for the wilting gooey version in super-size-me bags, the profits from which are relied upon to keep some multiplexes in existence
Popcorn should be a Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening treat for all the family
All you need is a bag of un-popped corn (surely available in all good supermarkets) & a good sized pan – preferably a heavy one, but certainly one with a tight fitting lid
Pour a little oil into the pan. Scatter corn so it covers the bottom in a single layer. Apply lid firmly. Put over the lowest possible heat
The noise, as the corn begins to pop, provides amusement for all the family. When it starts to subside, turn off the heat, but wait until you are certain the noise has stopped before lifting the lid
It is such a simple process, it could be left to the children – except that small boys particularly need close supervision. They find it hard to resist the temptation to remove the lid & cheer as corn bullets fly around the kitchen
We used to eat it with just a light sprinkling of salt, but I expect Demerara sugar would suit the sweeter tooth. Or perhaps some Indian spices, now chicken tikka is the national dish. Cumin, fennel or fenugreek (or even all 3 together) might work. I do not guarantee it, but since you will still have plenty of unpopped corn left in the bag, you could just bin the disaster & start again
For the scientifically minded family, the eating could be enlivened by a discussion of what makes popcorn pop, & how (if at all) this relates to what is currently going on under the Franco-Swiss border
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Paradoxical political economy
How strange that we are apparently reaching the end (for now) of Labour government, just as the West is comprehensively falling out with the capitalist idea that the market is always right
First we have Anatole Kaletsky writing about the nationalisation of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae in The Times. Then on Any Questions yesterday a suggestion that all energy should be nationalised was greeted with cheers from the audience at Davison CE High School in Worthing, West Sussex, which does not sound the kind of place to be a hotbed of socialism. (Perhaps that is a kind of slur on rural areas – remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs)
Actually such turns of the wheel are nothing new. There is not even anything new in the idea that Americans are not nearly the believers in free enterprise & government keeping its nose out as they would like us to think
And when the 1850s & 1860s, (what we think of as the heyday of Thatcherite/Victorian free enterprise), were hit by a series of economic crises & banking failures, The Builder magazine pointed out that the Post Office offered a valuable lesson in how Government really knew how to run an efficient business, entirely free of corruption
First we have Anatole Kaletsky writing about the nationalisation of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae in The Times. Then on Any Questions yesterday a suggestion that all energy should be nationalised was greeted with cheers from the audience at Davison CE High School in Worthing, West Sussex, which does not sound the kind of place to be a hotbed of socialism. (Perhaps that is a kind of slur on rural areas – remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs)
Actually such turns of the wheel are nothing new. There is not even anything new in the idea that Americans are not nearly the believers in free enterprise & government keeping its nose out as they would like us to think
And when the 1850s & 1860s, (what we think of as the heyday of Thatcherite/Victorian free enterprise), were hit by a series of economic crises & banking failures, The Builder magazine pointed out that the Post Office offered a valuable lesson in how Government really knew how to run an efficient business, entirely free of corruption
How many more as?
A strange construction is creeping in – even BBC News uses it
Numbers are said to be ‘Twice as many THAN a year ago’
Is this a confused response to the Less than 5 items in the supermarket checkout debate?
Numbers are said to be ‘Twice as many THAN a year ago’
Is this a confused response to the Less than 5 items in the supermarket checkout debate?
Cotton
The day they strung the cable from America to Europe
they did a lot of singing.
The cable, the huge singing cable was put in use
& Europe said to America:
Give me three million tons of cotton!
And three million tons of cotton wandered over the ocean
& turned to cloth:
cloth with which one fascinated the savages of Senegambia,
& cotton wads, with which one killed them.
Raise your voice in song, sing
on all the Senegambic trading routes!
sing cotton!
cotton!
Yes, cotton, your descent on the earth like snow!
Your white peace for our dead bodies!
Your white ankle length gowns when we wander into heaven
saved in all the worlds harbours by Booths Jesus-like face.
Cotton, cotton, your snowfall:
wrapping the world in the fur of new necessities,
you shut us in, you blinded our eyes with your cloud.
At the mouth of the Trade River,
& on the wide oceans of markets & fairs,
cotton, we have met there
the laws of your flood,
the threat of your flood.
To call this a favourite poem is inaccurate, but it is a salutary reminder that cotton has a terrible history (though Martinson even seems wrong about that, since the cotton trade existed long before the transatlantic cable)
The present day fad for believing that cotton is somehow superior to man made fabrics & ,above all, green infuriates me
The production process is far from benign
It retains water, including sweat, thus making it uncomfortable to wear in hot, humid, close conditions (including inside shoes)
It takes an age to dry – an especially un-green aspect for those who, despite their green credentials, use tumble driers, & is much more difficult to iron than is poly-cotton
I once rather hesitantly expressed my support of poly-cotton to a rather grand old lady – expecting my head to get bitten off by one who demanded linen or Egyptian cotton sheets. ‘Well of course,’ she said, ‘Who would dream of pure cotton sheets these days? To let you into a secret, I even wait to iron mine until they are on the bed’
A really good tip, which grows even more useful as one grows older
they did a lot of singing.
The cable, the huge singing cable was put in use
& Europe said to America:
Give me three million tons of cotton!
And three million tons of cotton wandered over the ocean
& turned to cloth:
cloth with which one fascinated the savages of Senegambia,
& cotton wads, with which one killed them.
Raise your voice in song, sing
on all the Senegambic trading routes!
sing cotton!
cotton!
Yes, cotton, your descent on the earth like snow!
Your white peace for our dead bodies!
Your white ankle length gowns when we wander into heaven
saved in all the worlds harbours by Booths Jesus-like face.
Cotton, cotton, your snowfall:
wrapping the world in the fur of new necessities,
you shut us in, you blinded our eyes with your cloud.
At the mouth of the Trade River,
& on the wide oceans of markets & fairs,
cotton, we have met there
the laws of your flood,
the threat of your flood.
Harry Edmund Martinson (from the Swedish)
To call this a favourite poem is inaccurate, but it is a salutary reminder that cotton has a terrible history (though Martinson even seems wrong about that, since the cotton trade existed long before the transatlantic cable)
The present day fad for believing that cotton is somehow superior to man made fabrics & ,above all, green infuriates me
The production process is far from benign
It retains water, including sweat, thus making it uncomfortable to wear in hot, humid, close conditions (including inside shoes)
It takes an age to dry – an especially un-green aspect for those who, despite their green credentials, use tumble driers, & is much more difficult to iron than is poly-cotton
I once rather hesitantly expressed my support of poly-cotton to a rather grand old lady – expecting my head to get bitten off by one who demanded linen or Egyptian cotton sheets. ‘Well of course,’ she said, ‘Who would dream of pure cotton sheets these days? To let you into a secret, I even wait to iron mine until they are on the bed’
A really good tip, which grows even more useful as one grows older
Related post: I love radio transmitters
Friday, September 12, 2008
Trust the jury
“Another defendant, described as a shadowy figure with terrorist connections, was acquitted of all charges & cannot be retried”
When you see a sentence like that on the front page of the august Times newspaper, you know that somebody, somewhere has lost their head
The sad thing is that it is always easy to see in historical retrospect, where governments over-reacted to ‘the threat of terror’. And thereby often succeed only in prolonging the agony
Living through this particular agony, it is also easy to see why governments can be almost forced in to reacting like this
So thank heavens for the British jury
When you see a sentence like that on the front page of the august Times newspaper, you know that somebody, somewhere has lost their head
The sad thing is that it is always easy to see in historical retrospect, where governments over-reacted to ‘the threat of terror’. And thereby often succeed only in prolonging the agony
Living through this particular agony, it is also easy to see why governments can be almost forced in to reacting like this
So thank heavens for the British jury
Sweetcorn is not green
Despite my resolutely sceptical view of all things Green, I am going to start a campaign under the Green banner
Ban sweetcorn!
Or at least put strict limits on its use. Introduce quotas. Must be clearly labelled as an ingredient of any sandwich, ready meal, salad or restaurant dish which contains it. Sweetcorn-free versions must always be available
I do not hate sweetcorn – even the tinned kind, for which I have a great rice salad recipe, ideal for summer. Sweetcorn fritters make a perfect accompaniment to fried chicken. And corn on the cob with butter is one of those sinful foods best eaten only in the company of your nearest & dearest – and even then only if you are in a position to cut the cobs on a sunny day & plunge them straight away for the minimum necessary time into boiling water
But it is a sin to scatter a few tough little yellow bits indiscriminately through almost everything else (especially tuna sandwiches)
Yesterday a perfectly nice, fresh, crisp green salad with tomatoes & red onion was ruined by the addition of these things. I scrupulously pushed them to the side of the plate as I found them – in total a measly teaspoonful, but still hard work
The reason for hitching this to the Green bandwagon? They block up the sewers & the sewage farms, necessitating special cleaning & disposal
So they cannot even provide much nutritional value
Ban sweetcorn!
Or at least put strict limits on its use. Introduce quotas. Must be clearly labelled as an ingredient of any sandwich, ready meal, salad or restaurant dish which contains it. Sweetcorn-free versions must always be available
I do not hate sweetcorn – even the tinned kind, for which I have a great rice salad recipe, ideal for summer. Sweetcorn fritters make a perfect accompaniment to fried chicken. And corn on the cob with butter is one of those sinful foods best eaten only in the company of your nearest & dearest – and even then only if you are in a position to cut the cobs on a sunny day & plunge them straight away for the minimum necessary time into boiling water
But it is a sin to scatter a few tough little yellow bits indiscriminately through almost everything else (especially tuna sandwiches)
Yesterday a perfectly nice, fresh, crisp green salad with tomatoes & red onion was ruined by the addition of these things. I scrupulously pushed them to the side of the plate as I found them – in total a measly teaspoonful, but still hard work
The reason for hitching this to the Green bandwagon? They block up the sewers & the sewage farms, necessitating special cleaning & disposal
So they cannot even provide much nutritional value
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Rust in physics
The title of this post is a typing error, but I couldn’t resist leaving it uncorrected!
Listening to one of the Radio 4 programmes yesterday about the Large Hadron Collider I began to understand for the first time the sheer scale of the data analysis involved. If they are to find the higgs bosun they will have to be able to pick it out of heaven knows how many particle observations (excuse me if my jargon is awry)
So how can we lesser mortals believe it if they say they have found it? It sounds to me as if it will be hard to be sure they have not just misinterpreted an error term
Then I remembered this:
Particle physicists construct their own detectors, tinker with them constantly, adjust them & even rebuild them for new experiments. Hence it is exceptionally difficult to check the results of an experiment, & there is no alternative to judgement in determining how much faith to place in any particular report
Theodore Porter: Trust in Numbers
Ultimately, none of us can do other than rely on trust of course
Listening to one of the Radio 4 programmes yesterday about the Large Hadron Collider I began to understand for the first time the sheer scale of the data analysis involved. If they are to find the higgs bosun they will have to be able to pick it out of heaven knows how many particle observations (excuse me if my jargon is awry)
So how can we lesser mortals believe it if they say they have found it? It sounds to me as if it will be hard to be sure they have not just misinterpreted an error term
Then I remembered this:
Particle physicists construct their own detectors, tinker with them constantly, adjust them & even rebuild them for new experiments. Hence it is exceptionally difficult to check the results of an experiment, & there is no alternative to judgement in determining how much faith to place in any particular report
Theodore Porter: Trust in Numbers
Ultimately, none of us can do other than rely on trust of course
But it strikes me that trust could be an important part of the reason why it is so difficult for a woman to reach the top in academic physics, if she wants also to have a family
A young woman who is just reaching the post doc stage was talking about this on Womans Hour yesterday
There is the obvious difficulty at that stage of short term contracts & needing to move a lot
Plus, should you decide to try a career break, you risk getting out of touch with a fast moving field
But you also put a rupture in all those connections - of personal contact, working with others, publication etc - which form the bonds of trust
A young woman who is just reaching the post doc stage was talking about this on Womans Hour yesterday
There is the obvious difficulty at that stage of short term contracts & needing to move a lot
Plus, should you decide to try a career break, you risk getting out of touch with a fast moving field
But you also put a rupture in all those connections - of personal contact, working with others, publication etc - which form the bonds of trust
Teetering piles
There is now a pile of 16 books by my bed, ‘rescued’ from the library. There were 2 more, but I have left the Delderfield & Jerome K Jerome in places where the finder may get some amusement from them. Others will meet the same fate when I am done with them
So far my total outlay is less than it would be for 1 new paperback
Half are books of poetry – obviously a massive clearance going on there
Others are old essays or memoirs: Virginia Woolf, Sydney Smith, GK Chesterton
Samuel Selvon’s Lonely Londoners which, I fear, may bring more tears than laughter on re-reading 40 years on
And – The Complete Works of Charles & Mary Lamb (1908 2 vol edition)
So far my total outlay is less than it would be for 1 new paperback
Half are books of poetry – obviously a massive clearance going on there
Others are old essays or memoirs: Virginia Woolf, Sydney Smith, GK Chesterton
Samuel Selvon’s Lonely Londoners which, I fear, may bring more tears than laughter on re-reading 40 years on
And – The Complete Works of Charles & Mary Lamb (1908 2 vol edition)
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