sir walter besant

trickle-down theory vindicated ... at last !

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/reaganomics_finally_trickles_down

i was surprised to learn that ... when they built the first iron bridge across the river severn ...

... that they built the frame first ...

... and then they built the abutments

look in to my eyes and obey me ... you will go to the dulwich picture gallery !

interrred on this spot ... the founders of the dulwich picture gallery

the new coen brothers' film no country for old men ...

( picture of mccarthy and the coens reproduced without permission from time magazine )

you couldn't ask for better evocations of the western landscape than cormac macarthy's

he is a writers' writer

blood meridian and no country for old men are beautifully written stories which i regret having read because they are so disturbingly violent

for many people the depiction of violence in any art form tends to have a kind of pornographic fascination ... many of the cinema's customers could best be described as "users" ... so i've always tended to avoid films that are remarked for their violence & i can't justify going to see this one ... i'm not sure that the tradition of the violent western is needed any longer although i'm willing to accept that the arts must always be free to respond to whatever is fundamental in human existence

however ... despite these gripes, i did enjoy this article about the actor tommy lee jones in yesterday's guardian

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2242229,00.html

bought flowers

cast iron at the V&A ... the worshipful company of salters

a relic of the salters' guild ... i think their motto translates as "salt flavours everything"

http://www.heraldicmedia.com/site/info/livery/livcomps/salters.html

after another visit to the v&a ... the re-write of pride and prejudice can wait no longer ...

the original plot seems a little lacking in proper drama ... maybe i can re-introduce the menage a trois scene, deleted by austen's publishers in a moment of editorial pusillanimity, where lord nelson and lady hamilton, having been thrown out of beckford's fonthill on christmas eve, make their way north through blizzards to gargle brandy with mister d'arcy and his cousin mister rochester on new year's eve

a slow read

I’m slowly finding my way towards the end of a book of essays by Susan Sontag, which I bought more than two years ago. The title is “Where the Stress Falls” and I’m inclined to think it is a very poor title because her work has very little to do with what we call Stress, and much more to do with Emphasis. Each page offers a cornucopia of ideas, felicities, and fresh perspectives, yet somehow, whilst enjoying her sweet-natured conversational style, I never stuck with it for more than a few pages at a time. When we go out in to the world each day, I think we often look at what we encounter as if “through our friends’ eyes”. Why we don’t have the confidence of our own perceptions is hard to explain. Maybe we value the insights that others provide more than our own, as though they were lifeboats on a sea of confusion, more likely it is just our way of sustaining a dialogue with absent friends.

legal tender

= 0.99 US dollars at today's exchange rate,

or one old Bank Of England ten-bob note down Memory Lane

good king arthur ... ruling the civilized world at eccles road

the grand, just opposite clapham junction

estrella morente

takes me to another place ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Gq1Ut2MgA

just trying out a wide-angle low-perspective of a familiar subject

loose change

someone gave me this old coin in my change

i suppose it might signify a time when the germans were still hungry long after the war had ended

the late tom smallridge told me how british servicemen occupying germany had to guard coal-trains in the depths of a terrible winter

the locals would send their children to unbolt the wagons' sides if the trains stopped near their homes

knowing this might happen, the soldiers were given orders to shoot them on sight, but never did as far he knew ... tom said those who gave the orders "were typical of their class"

stuff from assyria

stuff from egypt

stuff from greece

stuff from rome

if all else fails, read the instructions ...

i've had the little camera for nearly three years and i'm just starting to understand the macro function ... i lacked the patience to read the manual ... so it hadn't occured to me that you could place this same tiny lens so close to your subject

don't miss your chance ...

there is a large exhibition of works by william blake at tate britain until the first of june

admission is free

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/blake/default.shtm

the dogs go on with their doggy lives

http://www.joppeluiten.nl/icarus_1/icarus_page_a.htm

no, no, watson ! it can't have been the sloe gin ... unless ... HEAVENS FORBID ! ... unless the filthy degenerate drank straight from the bottle !

editorial skullduggery in the TLS

For those half-educated truck drivers who enjoy a good read but whose delicate sensibilities are sometimes easily offended ... there is an extremely readable and illuminating essay by A. S. Byatt in the Times Literary Supplement dated November 30, 2007

The header to the article on page 16 reads, "Novel thoughts ... A way out of narcissism ?"

She lays out some careful and very interesting arguments about the evolving scope of the novel and it's subject matter.

But the flyer on the cover simply reads "No more sex in novels, please" , which was unfair to both the author and this reader, I think.

My advice is to ignore the flyer and enjoy the writer.

And then, in the same issue, if you have all day, Gabriel Josipovici's extended gallop around the subject of Modernism is also very useful. This time he looks at many kinds of writing, partly through the prism of Kierkegaard's ideas about existence.

I don't have the time or the talent to go to university and study all those books, so i'm grateful for these informative "tutorials" because they offer stimulus and perspective, navigational beacons in the jungle of ideas ... for those who must creep along the forest floor rather than go swinging through the treetops.

Paula's House of Toast

One of my favourite blogs is called Paula's House Of Toast ... I approach her blog reverentially, she's a wonderful photographer and seems to have a heart of jewelled gold, so i never ever thought I'd even slightly disagree with her about anything until today.

Her blog, titled Kindertotenlied, begins ...

"The Feast of the Holy Innocents reminds us that there is a physics of Good and Evil. In nature, every action has its equal and opposite reaction. The moral calculus may not be exactly the same, but the vectors are identical."

Well yes, sort of. In mechanics, it is useful to think of actions and re-actions. But our Universe isn't simply mechanical and so those naughty physicists have long since introduced the difficult concept of entropy to alarm and confuse us. No, I can't explain entropy easily ... so you'll have to go away and do some work on the subject ... if only out of respect for Paula.

My point, ( Ok, you can't really make clear points whilst foundering in my "fuzzy kind of logic" ) ... where Paula & I might differ, perhaps ... is that I sense that if we did exist in a "moral universe", (and I'm not at all religious), then we'd all be happily dedicated to resisting "moral entropy" ... analytical sociologists want to quantify human conduct but know that individuals can't and don't simply act as vectors, it's only a tendency not a rule ... I really do love the way that our planet's "evolution" seems to be achieving it's complexities as if in opposition to entropy ... but at this point my weary argument drifts off for breakfast ...

Later ...

on reflection, our perspectives don't diverge that much ...

on reflection, they seem almost convergent ...

I'd better take another pill and lie down now. See you later.

one hundred and twenty years ago ... Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa drew this lyrical portrait of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent was born in 1853, so he would have been aged about 34.

Henri was born in 1864, so must have been only about 23.

We sometimes hear that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I don't think Henri flattered Vincent here, instead i think he brilliantly captured Vincent's delicate agitation, and it is almost as if he used Vincent's palette to do the job ... so I think this pastel is one of the greatest compliments that one great colourist can ever have paid to another.

after the arthroscopy

if you think education is expensive, then try ignorance ...

the loved one and i were talking about paris, which i hardly know ... and i remembered how i once told some jazz-loving friends that i'd been lost one night many years ago, on my first visit to the city, in the seemingly endless curved corridors of the meridien hotel in the north of paris

i was on the wrong floor & instead of finding a lift, took a wrong turn to a balcony looking down in to an atrium where, far below me, an excellent jazz trio were playing to a very well-dressed ( glittering, indeed ) audience ... in a style very like that of oscar peterson ... but i was extremely tired and only watched a couple of numbers before resuming the search for my room

my very sweet & good-natured friends reacted to this remark with stony-faced contempt ...

"you fool, tristan ! that WAS oscar peterson"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnrmFMnrxAU

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn5RIzoVqpY&feature=related

has anyone ever cooked just one sprout ?

http://www.eyegas.com/attackofthesprouts/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mostof_sprouts.shtml

the original paper party hat

christmas decorations chez micawber

a frosty day

putney heath ... it's a braw bricht nicht the nicht