Ragbag

Chateau days

2012-01-20T21:10:00.004Z

I used to be a professional sportsman who lived in a French chateau. Learn more at The Dabbler.

Seems a long time ago now...

2012-01-11T21:20:00.001Z

Over at The Dabbler this is how I marked Christmas and this is how I marked the end of the year. Happy New Year!

Childhood, via Edwin Muir

2011-12-21T14:47:00.002Z

What childhood can feel like, via Edwin Muir.

The word "newspaper" doesn't do them justice...

2011-12-06T07:31:00.000Z

...as I relate over at The Dabbler.

Going on about capitalism

2011-11-30T21:35:00.000Z

Here I wondered why we go on about capitalism so much and then here I managed to do it again whilst writing a review of some short stories.

By the way, that Masterchef Professional is brilliant again isn't it? I praised it last time.

Pomes

2011-11-06T20:44:00.002Z

Here.

Simply odd

2011-10-31T19:09:00.000Z

The Telegraph's obit of Sir Jimmy Savile concludes:

...he was simply an odd chap.

Whilst I'm here, I should mention I've looked at a couple of other odd things over at The D: the culture of French rugby and the notion of capitalism.

Fab'lous aren't they?

2011-10-08T11:54:00.001+01:00

One of the ways Welsh rugby is so lovely.

Mingling in Motown

2011-10-02T08:51:00.002+01:00

I recall some golden musical years from the past century.

The Poster King

2011-09-27T21:29:00.000+01:00

I review The Poster King at the rather wonderful Estorick Collection.

Horses not Flies

2011-09-19T08:05:00.000+01:00

I recall a post-apocalyptic poem featuring horses over at The Dabbler. Thanks go to Mrs Grubb: vegetarian, CND-supporting, pacifist, socialist English teacher from my comprehensive schooldays. On the other hand, she refused to teach Lord of the Flies owing to its bleak view of human nature.

It never rests

2011-08-30T21:05:00.000+01:00

I've been away but nevertheless a couple of my posts went up on The Dabbler, the hardest working blog in showbiz.

A bit nuts

2011-08-09T10:44:00.000+01:00

I offer up what some might consider an eccentric review of Mark Mason's enjoyable Walk the Lines. Poor guy writes about his harmlessly quirky walks around London and ends up being accused of exemplifying the emptiness of our Godless world.

Verities

2011-07-28T21:03:00.000+01:00

Verities, schmerities. Over at The D.

Did I mention...?

2011-07-27T10:27:00.002+01:00

Over at yon Dabbler, I write about one of my favourite poems, Thomas Hardy's Midnight on the Great Western (and only incidentally about MY NEW NOVEL).

My novel is now available

2011-07-15T08:57:00.000+01:00

I've written a novel, as I related here and here. I've been looking for an agent but haven't had any joy so thought I'd publish it as an ebook for the Kindle.

It's called Region of Sin and here's the blurb:

A novel of excitement and intrigue where corruption, international finance, espionage and terrorism intertwine to fatal effect, and where only love can offer redemption.

It's a thriller! But with some arty touches. Buy it here*.

For those of you who know me in real life I shall be conducting a short oral examination of its contents next time we meet. No excuses. For everyone else, I can do no more than plead. Buy it!

* Profits from this edition, such as they are, will go to the Royal British Legion.

This party on that party

2011-07-11T21:42:00.000+01:00

I forgot to link to a review I wrote of Rupert Thomson's This Party's Got To Stop. I enjoyed it and thought it was very clever and effective. I don't get that reaction as often as I'd like so take it as a very strong recommendation.

Evan Davis's BBC

2011-06-23T17:33:00.000+01:00

The kingdom of Evan is at hand.

Good growing weather

2011-06-22T12:51:00.000+01:00

Thinking of mowing lawns while the rain pours down.

The weather keeps on getting verse

2011-06-16T07:43:00.000+01:00

Why most English poetry really is about the weather.

Fighting

2011-06-08T07:55:00.004+01:00

Some homosexual aspects of war-fighting over at The D.

Let still the esculents abound...

2011-06-07T21:32:00.000+01:00

Over there.

TV review

2011-05-26T17:58:00.001+01:00

Depressing, tricksy nonsense reviewed over there.

But this should cheer you up. What a sane man.

Zoran Music

2011-05-16T20:03:00.003+01:00

I review an exhibition featuring this not-as-well-known-as-he-should-be painter over at El Dabblo.

Why US healthcare is unique

2011-05-11T06:24:00.001+01:00

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

This has to make one pessimistic about reform: such a well-rewarded and entrenched interest group as the medical establishment isn't going to give up its privileges easily, particularly given the political influence of lobbying.

The Irish Revolution?

2011-05-07T14:35:00.001+01:00

Read this for a brilliant analysis of the Irish (and Euro) endgame.

A great excuse to roll out Gramsci:

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

I fear the morbid symptoms may be just developing.

Hamming it up...

2011-05-07T14:22:00.002+01:00

...and down l'Autoroute.

Pie and mash and jelly and eels and dabbling

2011-04-12T21:42:00.000+01:00

I'm reluctantly critical of native London grub. Over there.

Floreat Cobb

2011-03-31T16:41:00.002+01:00

I put the case for the astonishing Cobb to readers of The Dabbler.

Walkies

2011-03-22T15:06:00.000Z

I go on a walk. Again. (At The Dabbler).

The Big Fight

2011-03-12T09:02:00.002Z

Sunday night is fight night: Brian "Boxin'" Cox vs Niall "Fightin'" Ferguson. At The D.

Ye olde lolcat

2011-03-07T22:06:00.001Z

Today at The D I speculate on whether medieval cats asked "I can haz lambburger?"

A Non-Lovey speaks

2011-03-02T06:38:00.006Z

Great interview with the Greatest Living Expatriate Englishman:

Given how many great films you’ve made, does it disappoint you when people want to talk about the ones that didn’t do so well?

No, what annoys me is when, as happened today, you’re doing a day’s worth of interviews and the very first question you’re asked if, “Why did you make Jaws: The Revenge?” When things like that happen, the interview becomes very short indeed.

Just out of interest, how did you reply?

I just said what I’ve always said – I made it because they paid me a lot of money! It’s like when people ask me why I made The Swarm – I made The Swarm because my mother needed a house to live in. Then I made Jaws 4 because she was lonely and I needed to buy her a bigger house which she could live in with all of her friends. It’s that simple.

H/t TNC

RS today at The D

2011-03-01T15:08:00.000Z

The playful ogre is given an outing on St David's Day.

Free beer!

2011-03-01T12:01:00.000Z

Win a case of Bath Ales beer, courtesy of The Dabbler, the blog that never stops thinking of its readers. Click here and leave your details (you'll get some recipes and a newsletter too).

'They are not underground'

2011-02-26T08:27:00.000Z

Whilst away for half-term this post appeared at The Dabbler. It has a rather morbid subject but is, I hope, full of life.

An English boot in New York

2011-02-18T14:07:00.000Z

As we're on matters lost in translation, I've been meaning to mention that on a recent post-snowstorm trip to New York I saw more Hunter wellies than I've ever seen before in one place. About 1-in-5 people were wearing them - for real. To think that a boot invented by Kate Moss to be worn by urban hipsters whilst picking through the mud of Glastonbury should do so well in Manhattan!

One other thing. Whilst wondering the streets, I noted a strange lack of cheese-cutter tweed caps - surely it's only a matter of time. I offer this advice to Britain's hatters: ramp up production, call Barneys and hold on to your, er, hats.

How them lot see us

2011-02-15T19:41:00.007Z

The trailer from Don' You Go Rounnin' Roun to Re Ro:

The illusion of sepia

2011-02-15T07:40:00.002Z

...and the temptations of nostalgia. At Ye Olde Dabbler.

Russian reality

2011-02-14T20:30:00.002Z

I've mentioned before how Russia is one of the most deeply cynical and corrupt places I've known. Peter Pomerantsev, a British TV producer, spent the last four years in Moscow making programmes for Russian television. From his latest diary entry:

The fundamental premise for most Western reality shows is what people in the industry call ‘aspirational’: someone works hard and is rewarded with a wonderful new life. The shows celebrate the outstanding individual, the bright extrovert. For the Russian version of The Apprentice, Vladimir Potanin, a metals oligarch worth more than $10 billion, was recruited to be the boss choosing between the candidates competing for the dream job. Potanin goaded, teased and tortured the candidates as they went through increasingly difficult challenges. The show looked great, the stories and dramas all worked, but there was a problem: no one in Russia believed in the rules. The usual way to get a job in Russia is not by impressing at an interview, but by what is known as blat – ‘connections’. Russian society isn’t much interested in the hard-working, brilliant young business mind. Everyone knows where that type ends up: in jail like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, or in exile like the mobile phone billionaire Yevgeny Chichvarkin. Today’s Russia rewards the man who operates from the shadows, the grey apparatchik, the master of the politique de couloir – the man like Putin. Promotion in such a system comes from knowing how to debase yourself, how to suck up and serve your master, how to be what the Russians call a holop, a ‘toady’. Bright and extrovert and aspirational? Not if you want success. The shows that did work were based on a quite different set of principles. By far the biggest success was Posledny Geroi (‘The Last Hero’), a version of Survivor, a show based on humiliation and hardship. This chimed in Russia – a country where being bullied by the authorities is the norm.

[...]

What’s Russia’s problem with reality? The basic principle of reality-based programming is that the audience believes the characters are having real experiences, that the action is not predetermined. The producer’s skill lies in nudging and manipulating the heroes into behaving in an interesting way. Russian channel heads refused to countenance the idea that you could make ‘reality’ programmes which weren’t scripted beforehand...

Read the whole thing: there's also some great stuff on the routine extortion of the tax authorities. What a fucked up place.

Faulks on Fiction

2011-02-09T07:53:00.001Z

Fun with Faulks on Fiction at The so-good-it-could-be-fictional Dabbler.

Oysters, etc.

2011-02-03T14:41:00.002Z

The English, The French, The Oyster And The Dabbler...

Wheatfield, With Cypresses

2011-01-25T14:20:00.002Z

Over at The D I wonder whether Van Gogh was an animist.

Invalid and worse

2011-01-13T18:39:00.000Z

Margaret Atwood's observation - 'stupidity and evil are the same, if you go by the results' - comes in useful again, very unfortunately. I'm not sure there's any more that can be said to definitively discount the link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

However, you can't deny its grandstanding potential for people like this:

Jenny McCarthy’s honesty, humility and humor have enabled her to transcend the boundaries of her roles as comedian, actress, host, best-selling author and influential activist in the world of healing and preventing autism.

That sort of self-description - especially the bit about possessing qualities of 'honesty, humility and humour' - invalidates itself.

A stroll around Stokey

2011-01-11T10:37:00.000Z

At The Dabbler today I take you on a meandering stroll around Stoke Newington and its remarkable cemetery. Inviting, no?

The Kid Stays in the Picture...for 1p

2011-01-06T21:54:00.000Z

The Kid Stays in the Picture. For 1p!

Zen

2011-01-04T13:44:00.000Z

Zen and the art of detective mystery maintenance over at Il Dabblo.

China anti-boosterism

2011-01-01T20:02:00.002Z

Thomas PM Barnett with a sweeping and persuasive piece of analysis: why the 'China Century' will be the shortest on record. It's mostly a synthesis of stuff you might have read elsewhere (some of it on this blog) but its insights are punchy:

...China [will age] more rapidly than any nation in human history — by 2050 China will have more old people (four hundred million-plus) than America will have people (four hundred million) — ...dramatically driv[ing] up the price of its factory labor in coming years...

Like most catch-up artists before it, including rising America of the nineteenth century, China has cheated its way to the pinnacle of the global economy, racking up hidden debts of unprecedented proportions. But heading a single-party state, Beijing remains insidiously adept at disguising that mortgaged future...

In the end, China's pervasive short-term thinking exacts a terrible moral price as everybody cheats everybody else with nary a pang of conscience, as lies upon lies are statistically amassed to achieve China's annual growth rate of 8 percent or better...

If America is addicted to foreign money and foreign oil, then China is addicted to foreign supplies of just about every commodity known to man — save highly polluting coal...

Globalization increasingly wears a Chinese face, meaning — over time — China will be the first one to get sucker-punched by every violent extremist out there. And not all of them will be satisfied with a red envelope stuffed with renminbi...

In the end, there is no such thing as a "China model" — just China's demand...

[W]hile China's economic and network connectivity skyrockets throughout the developing world's most unstable regions, its political-military ability to defend those burgeoning interests still boils down to all those red envelopes stuffed with cash...

[A] sort of implicit, limited-liability partnership with America — Washington provides the military muscle and China cleans up on the post-conflict resource extraction — already exists in multiple locations: In Iraq, our "shock and awe" has resulted in China being the only state with oil contracts both north (Kurds) and south (Arabs). In Afghanistan, our counterinsurgency efforts continue while China plants a $3 billion investment in the Aynak copper mine. As for People's Liberation Army casualties in both theaters? Zero...

Eventually, the American public will figure out what's going on and start demanding China pay its own way. "American blood for Chinese oil" hasn't appeared on protest placards yet, but it should — and will eventually...

China is closing out its chapter on extensive growth...and heading into an economic future that will increasingly be determined by its ability to foster intensive growth...Sinking the magic eight ball in the corner pocket every year is relatively easy when all it takes is more, more, more...!

....when things switch to deciding which industries — meaning technologies — should rise and which should fall, does anybody really think a collection of party pols sitting in Beijing is going to figure all that out on their own? Soviet technocrats couldn't pull it off, and neither did the Japanese. That kind of crowd wisdom is only found among real entrepreneurs, angel investors, and the like, and those types of capitalists want both a hands-off and yet decidedly responsive government, or the kind where you have to pay politicians only when there's an election...

As the nation's huge middle class continues to emerge over the next couple of decades, China's single-party system will fail — time and time again — to protect it from the future, which cannot be commanded...

The middle class has achieved its decent standard of living and wants to pass it on to all those only children. Spook it and it will turn on you with a fury not easily contained, for after all, these are people of real education and accomplishment. They will not be ruled over like children for long...

So long as China features a single-party state, its leadership will be too timid to wage wars anywhere — including across the Taiwan Strait. Why? Because the CCP cannot afford a single loss of face... Absent the ability to rotate ruling parties, China remains a paper tiger...

When something sounds too good to be true - as China does when described by its boosters (most egregiously John Gray and Martin Jacques, who should know better) - it usually is.

Last Christmas

2010-12-30T19:32:00.000Z

At The Dabbler I praise Wham's Christmas classic, oh yes.

Paywall piffle

2010-12-27T09:15:00.002Z

I'm finding it bizarre how much weight is being placed upon two arguments by the proponents of paywalls:

Argument 1. If something costs money - that is, quality journalism - people should pay for it. This should be the case even though it's free elsewhere and will surely remain free at the point of use for the foreseeable future (from the BBC, for instance).

A moment's reflection on the world around us is sufficient to show this isn't true: in monetary terms, things are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. It's ironically amusing that it's often the greatest supporters of free markets (most recently and egregiously Fraser Nelson, Matthew Parris, James Murdoch) that appear to believe that prices should be determined by producers on a cost-plus basis.

Arguement 2. Fraser Nelson commenting on Matthew Parris: 'the choice for my industry is clear: either we manage to make digital subscription work, or game over.' Why? Because 'Online advertising has not covered the cost of free articles.'

But as I've written before, a decline in demand for paid-for journalism should result in a decline in its supply until a new equilibrium is established. In other words, it's not the industry that's doomed but the marginal players. If a few newspapers go bust then the online advertising pie will be split between fewer newspapers and so be able to support their respective costs. If you added up the total value of advertising - online and print - dedicated to newspapers and divided it by the average cost of newspaper journalism (assuming distribution and printing is covered by paid-for print copies) you'd arrive at the number of papers that the market can support, roughly speaking. I don't know how many this is - but it's got to be more than zero (perhaps two or three each of broadsheet and tabloid?).

Journalists and media owners are the keenest employers of these dubious arguments. I suppose they're comforting despite their presentation of a binary choice between survival and total destruction: after all, a get-out-of-jail-free paywall means everything can stay the same and it's difficult to seriously envisage an entire industry disappearing. The alternative reality provides a messy middle ground and a painful march towards it: whilst the industry survives, a number of newspapers are going to go bust and a lot of journalists are going to lose their jobs.

Something beautiful

2010-12-25T08:00:00.000Z

A window by Karl Parsons in St Mary's Church, Bibury.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-23T19:36:00.000Z

My post over at The Dabbler looks at a Christmas-time prediction from 1899. Surprisingly (or not?), a lot has stayed the same. At any rate we're not racing 'flying machines to Mars and back twice a day'.

Merry Christmas to everyone who checks in here and thank you for your interest and comments.

Hitch on the Tea Party

2010-12-21T20:44:00.000Z

Hitch on the Tea Party, its demagogues and its apologists here.

On Beck and his followers:

The president is a Kenyan. The president is a secret Muslim. The president (why not?—after all, every little bit helps) is the unacknowledged love child of Malcolm X. And this is their response to the election of an extremely moderate half-African American candidate, who speaks better English than most and who has a model family. Revolted by this development, huge numbers of white people choose to demonstrate their independence and superiority by putting themselves eagerly at the disposal of a tear-stained semi-literate shock jock, and by repeating his list of lies and defamations. But, of course, there’s nothing racial in their attitude…

A Cotswold Village at Christmas

2010-12-21T12:11:00.002Z

...mummers!

Burgess/Boyd

2010-12-18T09:14:00.000Z

Over there, I'm complimentary about one, not so much the other.

A touch of class

2010-12-16T10:09:00.003Z

Our Julie:

The clever working-class youth of this country has been socially and spiritually "kettled" - hemmed in, suffocated and stifled...

Class politics had something going for it, you know.

Lovely winter post

2010-12-16T09:30:00.000Z

This is an all-round lovely post, especially if you're sitting in the bleak, grey city (including a couple of nice photos).

Diary of a Nobody

2010-12-14T09:30:00.000Z

Today nobody blogs on Nobody over at The Dabbler. Be somebody - go and read it.

The great puzzle

2010-12-13T21:42:00.002Z

Felix Salmon illuminates one of the great puzzles of our age (over here as much as over there). The puzzle, however, remains.

Where were the household cavalry?

2010-12-10T09:22:00.002Z

The heir to the throne and his consort under attack? Isn't this the traditional response?

But as this didn't happen the news coverage seems a bit disproportionate. If you drive into a riot surely you can expect to get your car jostled. Anyway no harm done, at least to them.

UPDATE: Just remembered I wrote this about young graduates and how things suck for them. Things have got worse. Blame the baby boomers?

Some sketches of Russia

2010-12-07T07:05:00.002Z

Over at The Dabbler.

Poor Americans

2010-12-06T17:56:00.004Z

This chart shows how lobbyists working for business and the rich have screwed ordinary Americans over the last half-century. Funny how no-one over there seems to notice.

Has anyone got the same chart for the UK?

Shots in the dark

2010-12-01T08:10:00.002Z

Drinking vodka Russian-style over at The Dabbler.

Latest Dabbles

2010-11-25T13:24:00.000Z

I post on the joy of phone and the mysteries of the French Foreign Legion at you know where.

Fantastic Mr Christmas Fox

2010-11-23T14:51:00.000Z

You can win a fantastic Mr Christmas Fox over at The Dabbler!

Evidence

2010-11-18T15:44:00.000Z

I've been mulling over Andrew Anthony's entertaining and encouraging interview with C Hitchens at the weekend. It's full of good stuff and I was partcularly struck by this:

Hitchens once wrote a line that has almost gained the status of philosophical epigram or even scientific dictum: ‘What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence’.

Very good and useful. However, an awkward question has popped into my mind: what evidence does he have for that statement?

A paradox

2010-11-17T11:13:00.001Z

The online world seems inundated by people objecting to the attention being paid to the royal wedding. They're not helping.

But then what's really happening is that they enjoy getting into a bate about this sort of thing.

Enjoying Tales from Bibury Shop

2010-11-16T13:19:00.001Z

Just to let you know, if you enjoy the countryside, you'll enjoy my brother's Tales from Bibury Shop blog. A couple of tasty tidbits today.

Burma - The Land of Green Ghosts

2010-11-15T05:02:00.002Z

As we celebrate the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, I've posted a 1p Book Review of Pascal Khoo Thwe's The Land of Green Ghosts over at The Dabbler.

Flying judges

2010-11-12T13:21:00.002Z

Got a backlog? How to move things along briskly (at The D).

Back. Hurrah!

2010-11-11T16:53:00.000Z

Thank you all for your kind comments under the previous posts. They really do help with the morale.

I've just got out of UCH. I'm a bit sore, which is to be expected, but otherwise I feel amazingly well. It's making me realise how under the weather I was pre-op.

Anyway, I'm now tentatively looking forward to a bit of decent health. No doubt blogging will resume shortly here or over at the astonishing webby phenomenon that is The Dabbler.

Absence

2010-11-08T14:56:00.000Z

After several previous delays and disappointments, Gaw's latest operation has happened and he is recovering very well in hospital. He hopes to be home later this week.

Normal service should therefore be resumed shortly.

T, on behalf of Gaw.

Songs from films

2010-10-31T07:38:00.002Z

Today at The Dabbler I appreciate some memorable songs from some great films.

Tales from the riverbank

2010-10-28T16:23:00.000+01:00

The Tales from Bibury Shop blog is back. And there's more intriguing news of riverbank developments:

...I have noticed that the grass around the river banks is often streaked with a silvery deposit. I have worked out that this is heron poo. As they take flight from a morning's fishing they almost always emit a long streak of sparkling deposit. On closer inspection the poo is entirely composed of fish scales which contrasts vividly with the lush green grass.

If you don't like hearing about that sort of thing there's something wrong with you.

In praise of Masterchef: The Professionals

2010-10-27T12:26:00.000+01:00

Masterchef: The Professionals, where cocks of the walk end up as coq au vin. At The D.

Babooneries

2010-10-26T07:03:00.000+01:00

I hoot on babooneries at El Dabblo today.

Baltis

2010-10-20T14:43:00.002+01:00

Balti. Brum. Here.

In praise of AR

2010-10-19T18:06:00.000+01:00

Antiques Roadshow. Admit it - you'd miss it if it wasn't there. At The D.

Win, win, win!

2010-10-18T21:19:00.000+01:00

You - yes, you - could win one year's subscription to Slightly Foxed over at The Dabbler. Should you be witty as well as lucky you can also win a Stan Madeley book. Hie over there forthwith!

Gauguin at the Tate

2010-10-18T12:53:00.002+01:00

Today I dabble away on the Gauguin exhibition at Tate Modern.

The future's not what it used to be

2010-10-12T13:42:00.002+01:00

At The Dabbler today I muse on why the future's looking more and more like the present.

Writing's on the wall for wool

2010-10-11T18:28:00.003+01:00

Preparing to celebrate Wool Week yesterday, I was amazed to learn from the enthusiastic Lucy Siegle (right, in a non-wool scarf) that there are question marks over the sustainability of wool:

It's too much of a stretch to say that wool is highly sustainable (there's the animal exploitation, for starters, though the industry claims excellent welfare conditions for all its 1bn sheep), but it is compostable and water resistant.

Yes, there's been a question mark over sheep farming for a while now. Those Arcadian Shepherds really were on to something:

The strange persistence of "pseudo-history"

2010-10-09T17:18:00.001+01:00

Well that break didn't last long. I guess if you're provoked enough, even a high temperature doesn't get in the way...

From a piece on trees in today's Guardian by Colin Tudge, a biologist and the author of The Secret Life of Trees (my emphasis):

But in Britain right now, woods are on the up. According to a survey carried out this week by the Forestry Commission for the UN, we have more trees than at any time since 1750 (after which we cut them down to build a navy to fight the French). In fact, we have 11,200 sq miles of woodland – which is more than twice as much as we had at the low point of the 1920s, after the first world war had taken its toll on timber and charcoal.

There is no evidence for either of the bolded assertions; in fact, the evidence points entirely the other way. The continuing use of woodland to harvest timber or make charcoal helps ensure its survival.

The other point to make is that there's woodland and woodland. Plantations - which ecologically have little interest relative to naturally occuring woodland - may well have increased our wooded acreage. However, ancient woodland has declined.

I came across this Richard Mabey review of the sainted Oliver Rackham's Woodlands. It makes the argument:

I was lucky to be at Rackham’s debut, at a conference 30 years ago. He was a shy young Cambridge botanist then, and was addressing the seemingly uncontroversial subject of The Oak Tree in Historic Times. But his paper turned out to be a bombshell, a clinical demolition of foresters’ paternalism and an awesomely evidenced account of the fact that, for most of human history, trees had been regarded and used as a self- renewing resource. He described how he had measured all the main timbers in the original part of his college, Corpus Christi (there were 1,249, mostly small squared trees about 7ins in diameter), and calculated how frequently such a building could have been created from the renewable oaks of an ordinary Cambridgeshire wood. He blew away the notion that felling trees destroyed woodland.

In the half-dozen books he has written since, he has revolutionised our understanding of historical ecology. In sharp and exquisite English, and with a historical intuition as strong as his scientific rigour, he has laid waste the conventional wisdom of foresters, the ideologies of theoretical naturalists, the “pseudo-histories” of historians. His simple — and to him sacrosanct — precept is that the final arbiter in all arguments about woodland must be the trees and woods themselves, in all their dynamic, mutable, particular detail.

And yet the "pseudo history" persists!

By the way, C Tudge appears to be plagiarising himself. His latest article begins and ends:

My passion for trees began at primary school, well over half a century ago. I was 11 when I started a nursery in our garden in south London, planting sprigs of sycamore, oak and holly salvaged from the bomb-sites that still pockmarked the city. They'd be grown by now, if I hadn't dug them up to make way for a greenhouse.

[...]

We've been treating trees badly for a long time. At Binsey in Oxford in 1879 Gerard Manley Hopkins lamented the felling of poplars: "O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew – Hack and rack the growing green!"

We still don't know what we are doing and in the world at large the hacking and racking continue more vigorously than ever. But right now, in Britain, although the leaves are dying the trees with luck are flourishing. I do hope we can keep it up.

Back in 2005 another article, which he must be proud of as he's posted it to his website, begins and ends:

At age 11 I started my own nursery—horse chestnut, sycamore, birch, oak, and holly, pillaged from the World War II bomb-sites that still pock-marked South London: those baby trees would be big by now, if they hadn't succumbed to later whims.

[...]

In Oxford in 1879 Gerard Manley Hopkins lamented the felling of poplars: “O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew—Hack and rack the growing green!” We still don't know what we are doing, and never can in any detail, but the hacking and racking continue more vigorously than ever. The only half-way sane approach if we want this world to remain habitable, is to approach it humbly. Trees teach humility. We need to take the world far more seriously. It would be a good idea to begin with trees.

Other bits are very similar too. He's a fan of recycling and in many ways it seems. In any event, he could do with some fresh input on 'hacking and racking', a good thing when it's done in the right way.

If I may quote: 'We need to take the world far more seriously. It would be a good idea to begin with trees.'

No posts for a bit

2010-10-09T15:21:00.002+01:00

I've come down with flu so won't be posting for a bit. Happy days...

Happy odyseey

2010-10-06T12:31:00.000+01:00

Yonda lies my postage on da Dabblah (T Curtis homage). About the happy odyssey of a legendary and alarming soldier.

Cancelled

2010-10-05T14:27:00.001+01:00

Op cancelled, for the third time now. I've been waiting since the end of May.

This time I got as far as the operating theatre, in gown and stockings, before being informed that I wouldn't be going through the doors - they'd run out of intensive care beds. So at least four surgeons are also twiddling their thumbs this afternoon.

Anyway. Cup of tea.

On not hibernating

2010-10-04T15:59:00.000+01:00

I'm off into hospital tomorrow for a big op and it's intended that I shall stay there for about ten days. As little blogging will be carried on during this time I thought I'd leave you with a difficult poem (referred to here). It is mostly mysterious but illuminated by flashes of beauty - and therefore rather lifelike.

It's called The Winter Bees. I suppose it has some personal resonance as the honey bees of the title don't hibernate, they slow down and huddle together to keep going; more or less my modus operandi over the last couple of years and for the next couple of months. It's by Jon Silkin, a poet the majority of whose poems I'm not fussed about. However, occasionally and when he writes about nature I think he can come up with poetry as good as anything written in recent decades.

Anyway, ta-ra! Don't be afeard - the operation is intended to restore me to full fitness so it's a good thing. What's playing on my mind most right now is that I'll be missing most of Masterchef Professional. For a second year, too.

The Winter Bees

Winter bees, finding enough blossom,

of the sweet small copiousness they cram

winter - frozen muddle - with amorous pressure;

the acetylene flare of bees, nectaring

in suffused purple light; the honey

cool moral, waylaid by feelers.

Flickering sugary flowers, their doused blameless

substance a gelid intermittent veining,

like strands of wintery heat - the bee hunts them

for liquor, jabbing a superfluity.

Veined blossom flickering, scalloped clouds, these consonant

sharing forms, a bee their suffering link,

is also a heated wire, quick form.

The zone forks its electrics, the sky, fanned

in ridges like a shell, splits with a flash;

the bivalve in a half form, coy fissure.

In cold this unceasing flare is work

a prisoner of honey slowly unwinds

as if it were a spidery filament;

oozed sugary superfluity

the jasmine hardly notices it yields.

The face is winter's

plum-coloured, a huntsman's hung up in the fog.

A doe, spotting soft grass and briar, her breath

gassed in exhaustion, inoperative limbs

tied as a thicket is, green liquid,

greasy manufacture you recognise

is gangrene. Recognise these shifting marshes,

the horses buttocks, the man's slighter ones

a contour upon the animal fixed like

a grin, blood misting the thicket. Remus,

with fierce light, with struggling blood, as if

you ploughed up North America, tune your horn

with fierce light, with straggling blood - as if

the evening's silvery flanks, the gashed flanks,

the simple sun, gashed. Hot star, rise up, see

your furred contemporary, curious nectar

of the lonely; the dead wings, without weight;

the embrasures of honey, the queen's furred kinsmen

in rows and layers, effigies for the spider;

pointed receptacles, corbels of honey

fluted with dust, scum upon amber fluid.

The young boy shoves off for lunch, whistling -

his little pipes, the unbroken larynx, are reeds

of cheerfulness, earth for him so much down,

fluff, a mantle, on the bellowing cheeks.

Sex and shopping

2010-10-01T21:25:00.000+01:00

Some thoughts on sex and shopping over at THE DABBLER.

It turns out I may be part-fairy

2010-09-30T14:45:00.001+01:00

Tooling around on the web, as one does, I came across an extract from what sounded an interesting book, Wirt Sikes's British Goblins - Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions. The author explained what he was about thus:

In the course of the summer of 1882 I was a good deal in Wales, especially Carnarvonshire, and I made notes of a great many scraps of legends about the fairies, and other bits of folklore. I will now string some of them together as I found them.

What I found particularly interesting was that he started this passage with a reference to the village near where my paternal grandfather's family are from (I wrote about my Taid here):

I began at Trefriw, in Nant Conwy, where I came across an old man, born and bred there, called Morris Hughes. He appears to be about seventy years of age: he formerly worked as a slater, but now he lives at Llanrwst, and tries to earn a livelihood by angling.

It turned out the strange tale he had to tell concerned the farmhouse where my Taid's family lived, at least during the summer months (it was a hafod*), up above the Conwy Valley:

He told me that fairies came a long while ago to Cowlyd Farm, near Cowlyd Lake, with a baby to dress, and asked to be admitted into the house, saying that they would pay well for it. Their request was granted, and they used to leave money behind them. One day the servant girl accidentally found they had also left some stuff they were in the habit of using in washing their children. She examined it, and, one of her eyes happening to itch, she rubbed it with the finger that had touched the stuff; so when she went to Llanrwst Fair she saw the same fairy folks there stealing cakes from a standing, and asked them why they did that. They inquired with what eye she saw them: she put her hand to the eye, and one of the fairies quickly rubbed it, so that she never saw any more of them. They were also very fond of bringing their children to be dressed in the houses between Trefriw and Llanrwst; and on the flat land bordering on the Conwy they used to dance, frolic, and sing every moonlight night. Evan Thomas of Sgubor Gerrig used to have money from them. He has been dead, Morris Hughes said, over sixty years: he had on his land a sort of cowhouse where the fairies had shelter, and hence the pay. Morris, when a boy, used to be warned by his parents to take care lest he should be stolen by the fairies.

Interesting to think one's ancestors had social relations with fairies. But the next passage is even more intriguing as it concerns a Williams from the area (and all the Williams from there seem to be related):

He [our narrator] knew Thomas Williams of Bryn Syllty, or, as he was commonly called, Twm Bryn Syllty, who was a changeling. He was a sharp, small man, afraid of nothing. He met his death some years ago by drowning near Eglwys Fach, when he was about sixty-three years of age. There are relatives of his about Llanrwst still: that is, relatives of his mother, if indeed she was his mother...

To think that fairy blood might run in my veins... It would explain a lot.

* Hafod is Welsh for 'summer dwelling or farm', and refers to the seasonal cycle of transhumance - the movement of livestock and people from a lowland winter pasture at the main residence (Welsh hendre) to a higher summer pasture from roughly May through October.

London calling

2010-09-29T09:24:00.002+01:00

Today at The D I remark on how all three party leaders are Londoners - for the first time since at least WWI.

The Age of the Infovore

2010-09-28T15:22:00.005+01:00

Just read The Age of the Infovore by Tyler Cowen. I enjoy his blog very much but I was disappointed in the book. It's about how to thrive in what he calls the information economy.

It's poorly written - baggy, rather cliched and lacking clarity of expression at times. One of its major problems is that it sets out to explain how we should think about the digital economy through a couple of analogies that will be unfamiliar to most readers: autism and Buddhism (contemporary culture also happens to be like a marriage). Analogies are usually used to enlighten by translating the strange into the familiar. In this case the strange is being explained - very extensively - through comparison with the even stranger; there are too many moving parts. The lack of clarity of expression becomes an even more serious problem in these parts of the book.

Unfortunately, where it's not confusing its observations are mostly commonplace, wrong-headed or just bizarre. From a couple of pages chosen more or less at random (pp58-60), we learn that Shakespeare is losing out to the internet; that a Walmart store 'doesn't compare' to Mozart's Don Giovanni; that carrying around an iPod is preferable to carrying around a Caravaggio or Picasso in a pop-up box.

How and why do books like this get written?

History of the Countryside

2010-09-27T10:39:00.002+01:00

I post on Oliver Rackham's marvelous History of the Countryside over at The D today.

The The

2010-09-25T13:40:00.000+01:00

This weekend I'm over at The Spectator posting about Matt Johnson's The The, the band that never seems to arrive at a full stop (and Mind Bomb, probably their best album).

Please don't try this at home

2010-09-23T13:45:00.001+01:00

Amateur artists are often inspired to copy the masters. There must be very many conservatory impressionists working up pictures inspired by Matisse, Monet and Renoir. Now it looks like contemporary art is encouraging a degree of popular imitation:

Modern art makes a change from a fleet of noisy sports cars and screeching WAGs but the choice of garden decoration by Derby County’s stopper Stephen Bywater has won him no fans.

Instead of monogrammed electric gates and a Ferrari the championship goalkeeper created and displayed a piece of erotic artwork in his garden.

The makeshift exhibition, which included wind chimes, a blow-up doll embellished with rubber genitalia and a portable toilet covered in graffiti, were described by ‘eyesores’ by his neighbours and last night the keeper covered his handiwork with tarpaulins.

One of the mottos, painted on the side of a disused toilet block, coupled with a bright blue horse box, reads “piece and love” (sic).

I suppose it's remarkable in its way that the amateur installer is a professional footballer, a group until now not noted for their interest in transgressive conceptual art. But I guess one of the beauties of this sort of thing is how accessible it is.

H/t Fearraigh.

London in the rain from a double decker bus

2010-09-23T13:27:00.000+01:00

I love this - it's exactly right.

Couple more here.

Midtown Manhattan, sideways through a skyscraper

2010-09-21T15:55:00.000+01:00

At The Dabbler.

Leaving home

2010-09-20T15:06:00.002+01:00

Further to big boys starting school I've just come across this by Linda Pastan. Excuse me, I think I may have something in my eye...

To A Daughter Leaving Home

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

H/t TNC.

Reporting the Pope

2010-09-17T16:11:00.000+01:00

Get religion right. Even if you don't like it much. At The Dabbler.

Handmade digital art

2010-09-16T10:15:00.000+01:00

Over at The D.

Lives of the artist

2010-09-14T18:47:00.002+01:00

I alert the world (via The Dabbler) to an amusing interview with painter Mark Alexander.