Bibliography, 2011

My summary of the year in books:

January - H. Lee, To kill a Mockingbird
February - U.Eco, The Name of the Rose*
March - J. Steinbeck, East of Eden*
April - C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary
May - H. Mantel, Wolf Hall 
June- P. Leigh Fermor, Mani*
July - K. Fox, Watching the English
August - T. Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569 - 1999 (K)
September - E. Ladurie, Montaillou
October - S. Graubard, The Presidents
November - M. Bowden, The Best Game ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL
December - A. Agassi, Open

I can't help but notice the first half was a lot better than the second.  The overall stats show much less reading this year. Only 124, and absolutely dominated by fiction - 60%, higher than ever before. Interestingly that doesn't show in the BOTM which is 4:3:5 (fiction : history : other non-fiction). And two of those those fiction were rereads. Which essentially means I've read a lot of low grade fiction. Actually, I'm not sure that's true - part of the problem is Wodehouse, who I started to read this year and possibly overegged it a bit. 14 of my books, over 10% were Wodehouse: all were wonderful, but none could snatch a BOTM. 

Anyway, for the vanishingly small  number of people who care, it's book of the year time.

Fiction was remarkably easy.  I hesitated over East of Eden, because it is the most sustained piece of brilliant writing I read this year, but a) it's a reread, and b) it's not To kill a Mockingbird, which was just better. It's shorter, and I think the talent to make something so evocative and powerful is greater without the grand canvas that Steinbeck uses.  But it's also better, and more important.

Non-fiction was much harder. James, Leigh Fermor and Fox were all excellent. However, the one I found myself repeating in conversation most has been Snyder, The reconstruction of Nations. There's an unfamiliarity bias here, as it's a fascinating topic, even more so as the Euro collapses. The westerner and the medievalist in me needs to be reminded that nationhood is still in flux in most of world, and it requires work. That book did it exceptionally well. It's a challenge to make an essentially unfamiliar topic accessible and interesting without becoming a bit patronising and dull, so additional plaudits for that.

Bibliography, December 2011

Read: 10
BOTM - A. Agassi, Open

A. Leslie, Killing my own snakes
N. Lewis, Naples '44
J. Le Carre, The Spy who came in from the cold
J. Morris, Venice
A. Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
F.Scott Fitzgerald, The great Gatsby*
J. Williamson, Darker than you think
J. Winterson, Oranges are not the only fruit
J. Winterson, Why by happy when you could be normal?


Thanks heaven for Christmas. On the 20th, I'd only read four things, but a very relaxing in-law Christmas took me well beyond that. I spent almost all of the month thinking BOTM of the month would be Cry, the beloved country - it deserves its classic status, and prefigures some of the more famous apartheid literature by a good few decades. But I finished Agassi this morning. Now, this clearly won't be a classic in fifty years: it's a bit hammed up, you really need to know who the people are (Pete Sampras' dullness only gets mentioned a few times, as a reader you need to fill in the blanks a bit), and it's a memoir, so there's a bit of post-rationalisation about the past. But for now, it's a classic. The voice is compelling and engaging (much like the man), and the emotions are no less real for being a bit two dimensional. It's a great book in a genre that all to often fails to deliver them.

A Christian country

I was rather hoping for a bigger explosion from the Prime Minister's Christian country speech. True, there was the odd mad overstatement from some elements, but by and large everyone seems to have shrugged, said 'probably' and moved on. Of course, even the diehard atheist struggles to say convincingly 'we're not Christian at all' on the way to buy some presents for Christmas, before the public holidays for the incarnation and the feast day of the first martyr. And it was for a celebration of the bible, so not entirely a surprise. 

However, I also suspect it's because once they'd read the speech, it was a bit incoherent. Cameron made three points:

• Firstly that the King James bible is one of the monuments of the English language that reverberates through history and literature to the benefit of mankind. As this is obviously true, it is hardly likely to cause a storm of protest. 
• Secondly, that 'biblical,' by which he means 'Christian' thinking has shaped our morals. I'm surprised this hasn't been attacked, but one for later.
• Thirdly, that Britain is a Christian country. Britain isn't a country, England might be, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is. Sadly, no-one cared about that, but they did debate the adjective - badly.

Cameron started it of course, by being vapid. His definition of distinctively Christian characteristics went as follows: 'responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion, humility, self-sacrifice, love, pride in working for the common good and honouring the social obligations we have to one another, to our families and our communities.' I'm not claiming there is anything unchristian about the list, but they don't seem very distinctive. Promoters of social obligation for example might look to that other excellent institution of the early years of the Christian Era, the Roman Empire and their system of civic society. 

But the opposite is wrong too: Christian values are not universal ones dressed up in vestments; there are things that are pretty distinctive to the Christian heritage. There aren't really any specific universal truths across humanity, only platitudes. For example, let's take the individual: Christianity at its core is a individual religion. Christ is uncompromising about that - he comes 'to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother' (Mt. 10.34). Confucius wants to talk about ancestors (BTW, I discovered while googling for this that the lineal descendant of Confucius is known to the 83rd generation - i.e., now. It's the longest family tree ever); and Buddhism - ever helpful - thinks the self doesn't exist, it's an illusion. This approach becomes fairly critical when one starts debating, say, sexuality or democracy. We could also go outside religion for this, for example, private property: jolly important in the west; made  no sense at all to the native Americans (see Locke).

In the west, there are three big candidates as roots for these values - the Greeks, the Romans, and Christianity (plus the Jews, maybe a half). I'm not sure it's very productive, though quite interesting, to try to identify which caused what. What we have is a amalgam of ancient Graeco-Roman classical civilisation and Christian values, fused together in the fourth century (ish) and cooked up over the following sixteen centuries, with  a smattering of other influences as we go. For most of its life, well into the twentieth century, our heritage has thus been shaped by the church, more or less. It is Christian ideology that has shaped how we think for most of two millennia. It's a great birthright. It's not universal, though it should be (oh yes, another distinctively Christian ideology - ask a Hindu what he thinks of the lands outside India) and we should not pretend it's generated ex nihilo, though if it helps, call it western liberalism, or secularism.

I think we should be calling it Christian and thus we should call the country Christian, because I think we are. I don't think we're very coherent about it; I certainly don't think we're very devout, and there are a lot of things I'd change if I could. But we do look to Christianity to lead on a lot of these things: that's why the country was unimpressed with the conduct of the chapter of St Paul's - they felt their church had failed. We wouldn't have got so bothered about a mosque. Of course a subset of highly educated metropolitan people don't think this, but they're abnormal. And I don't think they realise how abnormal people they (we) are. Here's Dawkins, arguing I think for disestablishment and the abolition of faith schools (slightly oddly, he seems to think we'll be a secular country if we have a separation of church and state - just like America and Turkey). I don't actually mind the abolition of faith schools. What kind of followers of a great God worry about the control of schools in an benign rich society shaped in the image of their faith? However, he doesn't seem to get the cultural point. I mean, he claims to: in that same editorial he says he doesn't want to abolish Christmas and he likes the King James bible, but it all seems a bit tactical. Then he says the correct analogy for Christianity is whether anyone would call a child a monetarist just as they do a Catholic. But the thing it,  it just isn't. One is an intellectual proposition (how do changes in the money supply work?); the other is cultural, and people think about culture without taking a razor to the logic. I suspect he might know this. He doesn't mention nationalism in his list of things that cause problems, because it also takes his argument away. People don't think logically about the country they belong to, they just do: there are English children, there are even British children. People care about their countrymen and their heritage not because they've looked at it logically, but because of the cultural heritage they take from their parents and society. And then they look to certain exemplars to represent it. This means much of the country cares about men kicking or throwing balls around. I'm pretty certain they think very similar things about morality and the church  in England.  

And that, to my mind, makes the UK is a Christian country. The church is looked to for morals by the overwhelming majority of people, even if they don't go or even say they are Christian. It's still the lodestone for that kind of thing. It may not be in the future. The UK may not be a Christian country forever. I very much hope it will be; I'd like it to be more of one now. However, it will always (used in a poetic not logical sense) be one of Christian descent. And every western atheist should applaud that.

A joyous incarnationtide to one and all.

Against Marcion

I was allowed to give another sermon today (11th December) for Advent 3. Readings here (though we seemed to use a bowlderised version - I was annoyed by they) Here is the text - ish :

Today is a day of rejoicing. It is why the clergy should be in pink, though they have failed me today, with the exception of Fr James. It's why we light a pink candle. In the church’s calendar it is gaudete Sunday. And gaudete simply means rejoice. Traditionally, advent is a season where the four last things are preached. You have come through death and judgement. It’s hell next week, but heaven today. Well done, you’ve chosen the right Sunday, where we rejoice in the anticipation of salvation and of heaven. 

Now heaven itself is pretty difficult to preach on. We don’t know much about it. Writers have struggled to say anything that isn’t a bit mad (think of the book of revelation) or a bit dull - there is a reason why they say the devil has all the best tunes. 

Salvation though is different: it is central to the gospel, where Jesus continually proclaims the coming of the Kingdom of God. It is the abiding pre-occupation of the church. So you’d expect a tight definition to have emerged in the last two thousand years, easy for me to package up for you now. You’d be wrong. The church has been reluctant to define salvation. For example, in a few minutes you’ll say the creed. There’s a long section on God, and a very long section on Jesus. And then buried in the middle, a line about salvation: ‘and for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.’ 

I’m not going to cover all of salvation in a short sermon, even if I could, but I want to cover the promise of it, made in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the New. For it is an old promise that it is made by God to Abraham. At this time of year it is more important than ever that we remember the enduring promise of God. For it is that fulfilment what we rejoice in. 

So let’s start with Isaiah. After all, everyone else seems to have done so. 

This part of Isaiah was probably written in the sixth century BC, at a time when the Israelites had returned from their exile in Babylon, and were rebuilding their lives in Palestine. They were in Jerusalem, but a fairly run down version, it was a fairly bleak time. This final part of Isaiah is a set of prophecies about the world to come, about salvation. And it is uplifting stuff. 

From the chapter before our reading: 'all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and shall bring incense, and they shall publish the salvation of the Lord .... For the nations and the kingdoms that shall not serve thee shall perish (Is 60.6, 12). And this is followed by the opening lines from this morning, to proclaim liberty to the captives, freedom to the prisoner and - although this is omitted from the reading today, but should be in if we used the right lectionary - the day of vengeance of our God. 

That seems pretty clear. God’s people shall triumph, their enemies be crushed. The only flaw is it didn’t happen. The next few centuries saw a series of Empires vie for control over Palestine, culminating in the Roman Empire about the time of Christ. There is a distinct lack of enemies being crushed and of gold being delivered to the people of Israel. 

And it’s in this context that we should read the gospel. When the crowd pester John, asking are you the messiah? They’ve read Isaiah. They are expecting a messiah to come and bring them overlordship of the gentiles. They have been promised gold, cedarwood, tribute and authority. And they have waited a long time. So, every time you read about the messiah in the gospels, remember this. They’re not asking for someone who does a few parables and then inconveniently goes and dies, but for a warlord, who will restore Israel to power over the nations, give them perfect justice and a good supply of gold. They’re going to be disappointed. 

John has also read Isaiah: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness he says, just as we heard last week from Isaiah. I am preparing the way for the messiah to come. He does not mention (if he knew) that the messiah might not be quite what they were expecting. 

Jesus has also read Isaiah. In fact, very specifically, we know he reads this bit of Isaiah. Luke’s gospel tells us he reads the opening lines of our reading on the Sabbath in a synagogue. But he does two important things. Firstly, he misses the bit out about vengeance, just as we did today. He repeats the promise of good news to the poor and of liberty, but not of violence. Secondly, he then says to them, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The gospel then says they were amazed. I think here there is some poetic licence going on. I think a more accurate description may have been horrified and angry. We’ve read Isaiah, where is the gold they may ask. 

And it gets worse. A generation later, after Jesus has died, proving conclusively that he wouldn’t be the messiah at the head of an army, any hope the Israelites had was snuffed out. In AD70, the Roman legions of Vespasian destroyed Jerusalem, tore down the temple, expelled the Jews. 

Was the promise of the Old Testament wrong? 

Many people have thought so. Marcion, a second century churchman, whose followers converted much of the middle east to Christianity, rejected it entirely. Modern agnostics, who are willing to the give the new testament the benefit of the doubt, can’t face the Old Testament. And the church itself can be a little too prone to talking about Jesus in a flat and simplistic manner, as if everything can be reduced to asking what would Jesus do and a few selective quotations from the New testament. Because the Old is long, and difficult and we don’t like some of the messages. It's noticeable in the compilers of today's lectionary, who have tried to smooth out the difficulties of the Old Testament by omitting some of the difficulties of the text as if it didn't matter.

But Jesus didn’t think like this, nor did Paul. And if we reject the Old Testament, then we are on very shaky ground indeed. C.S. Lewis in a famous aphorism attacked those who claimed to follow the moral teachings of Jesus but not the religious. He pointed out that if Jesus was not the son of God, then he was a madman; if he is not the messiah that the prophets spoke of, what is he? And what kind of God is God? The Old Testament contains (albeit sometimes obscurely) our best description of God and of salvation. It needs careful interpretation, it does not need rejection.

Fortunately, just like all our protagonists, we can read Isaiah too. And towards the of our reading, God makes clear his promise: 'I will rejoice in the Lord, says the prophet, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.' A few lines later, in the next chapter, the same language is used, but this time, it ends not with the prophet rejoicing in the Lord, but the reverse, saying 'so will the Lord rejoice over you.' (Is. 62.5) 

That is the promise of the Old Testament, that God rejoices over us all. He covers us with salvation. And this is a promise, not an offer. There is no ‘if’ or ‘provided that’ in Isaiah. God will cover all people with salvation. And the time is coming when he will show his hand. 

Just as the rhetoric in Revelation isn’t a literal view of heaven, so the rhetoric of war in Isaiah isn’t the essential part of the message. The promise won’t be fulfilled as was expected, but it is fulfilled in a more potent way than the Israelites ever imagined. The coming of Christ does not defeat the enemies of Israel, but death itself. 

The Marcionites and the moderns are wrong. It is God’s promise to Abraham and through him the world that will be fulfilled at the end of Advent. In our epistle this morning, Paul adds a coda to a longer letter to the church in Thessalonica. After the specific advice he gives, he asks them to hold fast and reminds them once again, that 'the one who calls you is faithful.' 

God’s promise of salvation is one that has endured. The Old testament is the witness to the promise of God, the coming (the advent) of Christ is its fulfilment, for the one who calls us is faithful. 

Rejoice, rejoice!

Amen

Bibliography, November 2011

Read: 10


BOTM: M. Bowden, The Best Game ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL

M. Bradbury, The History Man
M. Bulgakov, Master and Margarita*
J. le Carre, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy
G. Dexter, Why not Catch 21?
C. Dickens, Bleak House
A. Huxley, Crome Yellow
J. Morris, Hong Kong
D.L. Sayers, The Nine tailors
P.G. Wodehouse, Carry on, Jeeves  

This month's BOTM is not the best book on the list. I'm not sure it's even second. There are at least three classics on this list (four if you include Dickens, but I've never gotten on with him and this was no exception).  Bowden's account of breakthrough game of American football, that launched the sport onto the American public is neither as well written nor as famous. But it's the book I enjoyed the most. Partly because it was  different, but it was also fascinating, both about American Football and especially about how it emerged from relative obscurity to become massive. And it was a great story.

Bibliography, October 2011

Read: 9
BOTM: S. Graubard, The Presidents

Anon (ed. J. Wilkinson), Egeria's travels
J. Barnes, A History of the World in 10 1/2 chapters
M. Dobbs, To Play the King 
G.M. Fraser, Flashman at the Charge
Optatus,  Against the Donatists
O. Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence
H. Sachs, The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824
P.G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves 


This is late, and I don't have much to say about it, as it and much of the next month's reading was derailed by Bleak House, which I've only just finished. Anyway, nothing was standout brilliant, and some were weaker than I expected (the passing of time has not been kind to Mr Dobbs' political thrillers). The most interesting, though I hesitate to say best as my knowledge is low, was a monumental book on twentieth century presidents which nicely filled some material gaps in my knowledge. I can see how it could be genuinely interesting to study as a period, but why would you study it, when you could do medieval heresy instead is slightly beyond me - the detail of and convention machinations and electoral college politics aside of course. That's almost as interesting as the ancient world; in fact sometimes it even looks like it (someone's probably done that book).

What do we want? Er...

I popped over to St Paul's yesterday, on the way back from actual church. I thought I'd go see the protests before I passed judgement. It's rather better than I thought: there is no aggravation, it's quite tidy (with refuse separation that would make any council glad), it doesn't really affect the church at all - more on that in another post - and everyone seems very good natured. They have put up a lot of posters, but it's impossible to be angry with them. It's like a picturesque cross between a student protest* and a festival, with a few crusty hippies and a lot of nice youths taking things very seriously indeed. Many of them have beards, which every ex-student knows is a sign that you are very serious about politics (this only works on the left).

Not that I am any clearer about what they want. For the last week, I've been asking that question of those who might be in sympathy with them and they don't know. I'm thinking of adding it to my list of fun games to play to bait the left (current favourite: which of BP, BA and BT should the government own? Hint: till 1997, the Labour party thought the answer was all three). Going there doesn't help either. Their posters are the usual ragbag of radical socialism, anti-capitalist hoo ha, along with an amusing placard against usury.

'Helpfully,' they've posted their statement up online. It's not entirely clear this is a good idea for them. Of the nine points, three aren't debatable or are meaningless (2,5,8) and four are just poorly thought through left of centre posturing (3,4,6,7) - I don't believe for a second that they have thought through global justice and equality issues. However, it's the remaining two points that are most irritating.

It's because they think that they have arrived at some profound critique of the system: 'this is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!.' This strikes me as a depressing and deep failure to understand the world and a childish refusal to accept that it's more complicated than they think. This approach is widespread and I would categorise the Tory rebellion on Europe in exactly the same way. In this case though, it's why they can't put forward a coherent position forward - they simply haven't done the work, and they're not equipped to. They have diagnosed that something has gone wrong, and they think that having a lot of meetings will help. It won't.

By itself, this wouldn't be an issue. They're not important, real politics gets done elsewhere. But it adds to a public debate that will not consider trade-offs, only propositions, and that's a disaster. Take the banks for example, the line that we should not pay for bank's losses is seductive, but obviously nonsense. There's an oddity anyway about taking tax from bankers to pay for the state and then declaring you want nothing to do with them. In making this argument, the protests ironically are making the same antisocial transactional calculation they would accuse the bankers of. However, the obvious real issue is that that's the wrong question; the right one is to ask what would be the best way to minimise pain for everyone, given we are in this situation. Governments can stop the bankers making money, but will it help? In this case therefore we are really debating between flavours of how best to regulate the financial system. That's not very seductive, but it's very important, and it's hard. We aren't going to navigate that or any other problem by sitting in tents and having daily discussions without decisions. Such an approach is at best self-indulgent, and at worst outright dangerous. It doesn't matter that I can't point to specific demands coming out of the St Paul's camp, it does that people in general don't seen have any, because it means they can't discriminate between options in anyway. To govern is to choose, not to express your dislike about things.

So, I hope they enjoy their protest; and I really hope no-one listens.

 *As an aside, my favourite student protest story ever is when Oxford's left occupied some university buildings, and about an hour before they were evicted, the leadership told all the lawyers to leave as it might affect their careers if legal proceedings were taken against. And they all left. I wonder if the same spirit pervades the St Paul's protest.

BIbliography, September 2011

Read: 11
BOTM: E. Ladurie, Montaillou


C. Bourret, Un Royaume transpyreneean? La tentative de la Maison Foix-Bearn-Albret
E. Brockes, What would Babra do?
M. Dobbs, House of Cards
W. Fotheringham, The passion of Fausto Coppi
E. Ladurie,  Histoire du Languedoc
H. Mount, A lust for windowsills
E. Waugh, Brideshead revisited
P.G. Wodehouse, Something fresh
P.G. Wodehouse, Leave it to Psmith
[the name isn't important, what is is that it was in comic book format], Henri IV

Something of an inevitability in the BOTM this time. Ladurie's Montaillou is a classic of medieval history, concerned with the complex networks of individual relationships in a heretical town - what is not to like? It's a pioneering work that really uses the almost unique source material to really reconstruct a fascinating account of medieval life in Occitania. I wish I had read it as a undergraduate, and everybody should. If ever there was an antidote to 'olden days' thinking, this is it. It's not perfect, and could have been a bit shorter, perhaps with some diagrammatic representations of the relationships in the village, but otherwise ace.

Elsewhere, don't read Harry Mount's book on architecture - it's patronising and annoying, and reads it a bit like he's typed up the notes from his Masters in the subject, and added some silly conversational asides. On reflection, one suspects that is exactly what he has done. Lazy.

Anarchy, State and Utopia

On holiday the other week, the scientist I was with mentioned in passing the essential importance of science in civilisation. He didn't exactly say it was the greatest of all human endeavours, but he meant to. And he's got a point - as he put it (I'm paraphrasing) without science and engineering we wouldn't be able to do anything - in this case, build the nice cathedrals. Now, this kind of argument is overblown, and reductionist (try doing anything without language), but the point is a good one.

And I was still thinking about the most important of human endeavours when I read this article. It's not a very good article, attributing here to capitalism what my friend was keen to do to science, namely a wide ranging power independent of other important aspects of human life. However, it did make me think about another of the great  human endeavours - Government, or rather the state.


The state gets a bad press a lot of the time, especially from the right, though even the modern left can be a little grudging in its praise. Rhetoric of the last few decades has been about how to modernise or roll  it back. This language is unhelpful, and inaccurate. Apart from a few extremists, most of the right don't even want to roll back the state. They think they do, but actually they just want to change its shape. While the shorthand is convenient, it's not accurate - the right of the state to engage in an area tends not to be disputed, merely it's efficacy. And the objectors tend to forget that they want the state to guarantee all the freedoms they want. For example, a libertarian may claim they want the state to refrain from criminalising drug taking, but actually they want it to do that and to stop other people from interfering too: it's simplistic and wrong to simply talk about rolling things back. In this case we're debating how it acts with regards to drugs, not whether it can or should. 


Because the state is amazing. The modern state is an extraordinary feat of complexity that has incomparably improved the lot of humanity, against anything that has gone before (note: it's also capable of being the most powerful agent of death as well - a testament to its power). However, it's the principle that I'd like to concentrate on.* The development of the state has a real claim to be the bedrock of human achievement. Without it, there can be no real co-ordination of human activity, no mechanism to secure anything and build upon it, no mechanism to either create wealth or redistribute it. For that, we should be grateful. Hobbes put it best: without a state (or as he put it, in the state of nature), the lot of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

Precisely because it is so important, one must take the government to task for policy failures or rank incompetence, and we have to alert to structural failures - which I think it where we are now. As the current phase of the economic crisis unfolds, there's a lot of chat about whether we have transposed a banking crisis into a sovereign debt crisis. There's obviously truth in that, but I don't think the maths add up. America, the Eurozone and even the UK can pay their debts, though it will hurt. Yet both the US and Europe seem to lack the political machinery to make that happen. Civilisation isn't going to end, but it's going to be worse (a lot worse than it needs to be) because of ignorant populism in the states and Germany, and a misguided mis-match of political and economic union across Europe. The politics and the failure of the political dialogue poses a greater threat to the outcome than the raw economics.

I'd normally make a point here about the need to limit the role of the people in any constitutional settlement, but I'll save that for later. Really, the point is that governing is hard, but failure of government is far far worse. Nozick's classic and complex book is now famous for preaching close to the reverse, but ironically, I can use his title to points in the right way . I don't think we can get to utopia (remember: no place), I'm much too much of a Hobbesian Conservative pessimist for that, but it's a lot closer to the state than it is to its absence. We should be arguing about the nature of what the state does, but we should be very grateful for what we have, and terrified of the prospect of its failure.


* There is certainly a long anthropological literature here about definition which I will have glossed over / go wrong . I don't care: the principle stands

Bibliography, August 2011

Read: 7
BOTM: T. Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569 - 1999

J. Gleick, The Information
P. Leigh Fermor, The Traveller's Tree
A. Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz
S. Nicholls, Bodyguard of Lightening
S. Nicholls, Legion of Thunder
S. Nicholls, Warriors of the tempest

I went to Lithuania at the start of the month, and so read some Lithuanian (maybe Polish really) books. Now, I don't know very much about Lithuanian (or Polish) history, so I cannot comment on the relative standing of Snyder's book, but it was a belter. Engrossing, well told and well constructed, it was one of the most gripping and illuminating books I have read for a long time. Everybody should read it. His conclusions on the impact (ultimately, horribly, almost positive) of Soviet ethnic cleansing and the counter-cultural restraint of Polish leaders in 1990 is astounding, and in some cases uplifting (though coming out of some fairly bleak reading). While his presentation of the role of the medieval in determining the national myth and policy of the post--Soviet states is persuasive, and a warning to those who think that none of this matters any more. It's also really shows why the Lithuanians don't like the Poles, though they have the same national epic.

Bibliography, July 2011

Read (12)
BOTM: K. Fox, Watching the English


B. Bryson, At Home
A. Christie, Murder on the Links
J. Galsworthy, A man of property
J. Galsworthy, In Chancery
J. Galsworthy, To Let
Y. Kemal, Memed, my hawk
P. Leigh Fermor and D. Devonshire, In tearing haste
N. Lewis, Voices of the Old Sea
J. Morris, Oxford
N. Slater, Toast
R. Wilkinson and K. Pickett, The Spirit Level


The Spirit Level first. It is a very bad book. It is full of tendentious overclaiming and distorted methdology (not all best fit lines have to be linear for example); it writes repetitively and in that 'gosh, how astonishing' style that has served Malcolm Gladwell so well, but worse. It's ahistorical and culturally blind and its murder statistics will have taken a bit of a battering in Norway this month, undermining some of it's claims. But, it may be right - that inequality has risen to a level unseen for generations, and that is harmful. What can be done is less clear, nor how we should go about it. The Japanese example is illuminating for the confiscatory taxation principles. Food for thought.

A much better book, in which the Japanese also feature heavily (though in this case due to their similiarity to the English) is Fox's. It's engrossing and very recognisable, though inevitably I spent my time trying to work if I fell into cultural norms for upper middle or middle middle class.* But it does throw quite a bit of light on how we work and what we do unconsciously. While the headlines are generic, it's the precision and detail that really marks this out, it's also a great read. Fascinating.

* Except for  the wearing of shorts. Apparently, only working class men wear those in their home town. I beg to differ. 

Down with choice

I'm already starting to get bored of NI - and I can't say much about it anyway, for fear that it will be misinterpreted. So, I've moved on, let's hope lots of the criminals end up in prison. It did allow me to make the first dents in Anna's quite frankly unreasonable position that universal suffrage is acceptable as a model for decision making, but that's about all.

Astonishingly, Parliament is actually doing something else, though you would be forgiven for not noticing, especially as it's by Andy Burnham, a deeply forgettable man. He's having some meeting to note that  the 'English Bacc' is restricting choice. The government's got some slightly feeble response where it says that it doesn't. This is a depressing debate, dragged off course by government mismanagement and misguided principles. Mismanagement first: it's clearly the case that there must be a two year easing in on this change. Pupils shouldn't be switching courses half way though GCSE - it's not fair and it's not helpful. The second issue is more important and more pernicious - it's about choice.

In particular, it's to do with the view that choice is fundamentally good. This is obviously and provably not true. Choice without information is a prison for the poor. And children don't have choice. We have carefully constructed an education system where they don't have choice. They cannot choose not to go to school; they cannot choose to be illiterate (or rather, they shouldn't be able to). And they cannot choose to study any subject. To my knowledge there is no Byzantine History GCSE (for shame!). And we do this for good reason. Children don't know anything. So we give them things to do that are good for them and will serve them well in later life, which sadly probably does not include Byzantine History.

It does however include Maths, English, Science and it should include a language and a humanity, which  should be history. And this is where the English Bacc debate has got silly. Of course it makes options narrower, but that's a good thing. Here are the subjects that are listed as losing interest: Art, RE, Citizenship, Drama and PSHE (Personal, Social and Health education). Some of these are not proper subjects, some are, but the point is that some children have been choosing do these subjects in place of Maths, English, or Science, history or French (or similar language). And there is no justification for that. None at all. Never. Before people protest, gifted artists can still do Art, unless they are only doing five GCSEs. Likewise for actors. The real point is that it is never acceptable to claim to have mastered 'citizenship' if you are unable to tell me anything about your own country's past cannot count.

However, the opposition to these proposals is thoroughly misguided. Here is the shadow minister:

Schools will steer resources and children into these subjects ... More pupils will take these subjects

Good.

This mantra of choice is absurd, and in this debate downright harmful. Resources should be focused on the key aspects of education from which everything else flows. We might have a debate about whether the humanities are essential, but the rest just are. And as the rest of the education system is predicated on compulsory learning so should this be - they're children remember. Choice be damned.

A.E.I.O.U.

At the centre of my dining room is a large family tree of the Habsburg dynasty. I bought it in Austria in 1997 and had it framed once returned. It's brilliant: visually arresting as it shows the slenderest of threads on which this greatest of dynasties hung when Maria Theresa succeeded and the vast sprawl of her many descendants; and important because it is the greatest of dynasties.

I don't mean the greatest in formal achievement, despite the motto signified by the vowels above - Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan. While Charles V and Philip II genuinely bestrode Europe at the head of an enormously powerful transnational empire, most Habsburg Emperors occupied places towards the bottom of Europe's top table, usually eclipsed by at least one other crowned head. However, as a dynasty it was unparalleled, leading to the rather waspish description 'let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, marry!' I prefer the description I read many years ago which described the inheritance of Charles V as a 'genealogical joyride' - either way, they were magnificent, and enduringly fascinating as the increasingly complex and baroque Empire moved through the centuries. It was a tragedy for the dynasty, their people and for Europe that they ended up on the losing side in the First World War.

The person whose life it changed most was Otto von Habsburg - Lothringen (the formal name for the dynasty since the union with Lorraine). Born in the purple in 1912 as the heir (but two) the Empire, his father was the last Habsburg Emperor and from 1922, aged nine, he has been the head of the dynasty and claimant to the thrones of central Europe. He died on Monday aged 98.

Death of exiled potentates is not normally of great interest, but Otto mattered. The Nazis were terrified of a restoration and named the Anschluss Operation Otto; after the war, he was instrumental in securing Austria for the free world rather than let it be partitioned amongst allied soldiers, and he served as an MEP for decades, rather ironically given the Habsburg rivalry with the Wittelsbachs, for Bavaria. During his term, he is most famous for removing Ian Paisley from the chamber when he began to shout 'antichrist' repeatedly at the Pope. He was a magnificent man, and a monument to a vanished age, recalling the dedication of his great-great-uncle Franz-Josef, and the transnationality of his distant ancestor Charles V.

It's fitting perhaps that he goes at the same time as Patrick Leigh Fermor who recorded the world that outlasted its rulers for a single doomed generation between the wars. Yet, while Leigh Fermor was rightly lauded by the full set of news outlets a few weeks, only two broadsheets covered the Habsburg death in Britain, an oddly matched pairing of the Guardian and the Telegraph. We were relatively poor and the rest should be ashamed.

Bibliography, June 2011

Read (7)

BOTM - P. Leigh Fermor, Mani

T. Hasegawa, Racing the enemy
H. Jacobson, The Finckler Question
G. Maxwell, Lords of the Atlas
G. Robb, The Parisians
E. de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes
P.G. Wodehouse, Aunts aren't gentlemen

This wasn't a great month. I got very bogged down in Hasegawa's account of the end of  the war, and though fascinating (because I know little about the diplomatic machinations of 1945), it didn't give me a clincher for my 'we should have dropped the bomb' argument (quite reverse in fact). Elsewhere, much fun, but limited. Mani the inevitable favourite, but on rereading I think its appeal is to a certain extent personal. While it's a great book, it's made greater by the richness of the imagining of the Byzantine world that Leigh Fermor indulges in. There's a famous passage where he imagines the restoration of the Empire, but there are several more. They're all wonderful, and the rest of the book isn't bad either.

Bibliography, May 2011

Read: 11

BOTM: H. Mantel, Wolf Hall

W. Cather, My Ántonia
S. Excritt, Art Nouveau
V. Hunt, Why not eat insects?
S.S. Montefiore, Jerusalem
J. Morris, Coronation Everest
G. Swift, Last Orders
J.K. Toole, A confederacy of dunces
P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the offing
P.G. Wodehouse, Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
P.G. Wodehouse, Much Obliged, Jeeves

Honourable mention for My Ántonia (which was surprisingly good), but Wolf Hall was great. I was a little sceptical at first - not all historical novels of major protagonists work. But this was outstanding, and fully deserving of its Booker. It even managed to sustain an interesting plot, which is some achievement given we know how the story ends.

Hear this Robert Zimmerman

I've had several goes at this this week, but I kept changing my mind. And now it's late. The tagline by the way is the opening line from probably the best song about Dylan, Bowie's Song for Bob Dylan, where he compares the voice with sand and glue (as such, it's therefore not an  invocation for the great man to read this blog).

Anyway, Bowie's song was written about forty years ago, and I had constructed an elaborate theory on the bike to work on Monday about Dylan's reputation being essentially solidified by a relatively small number of songs - i.e., we'd be reading the same articles about him if his body of work was much smaller, provided it had the key tracks in (this, by the way would be true of any artist). This article is helpful for this theory, because it essentially says, Dylan is great because of:

• Blowin' in the Wind (1963)
• A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall (1963)
• It Ain't Me, Babe (1964)
• Visions of Johanna (1966)
• Mr Tambourine Man (1965)
• Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)
• Like a Rolling Stone (1965)
• Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

But I've been listening to Dylan all week, and come to the considered conclusion that that's nonsense - like some of the inexplicable other evidence in the Independent article (writing Tarantula (#20) is not a reason for  greatness - rather the reverse). In fact, while the best ten Dylan tracks stand up against the best ten from anyone else, actually it's the vast depth of his output that makes him great. So, that's not a bad list above, but it's just too short. I've no intention of writing a full list of what you would need to capture most of the reputation of his Bobness, but here are the obvious ones missing for me:

• Masters of War (1963), which has probably his best ever line - 'you've thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled [and it's the hurled that makes it so good], the fear to bring children into the world'
• Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues (c.1964) - because everyone forgets that Bob is often funny and still is (see also the recent Po'boy 'called down to room service, send me a room'
• Only a pawn in the game (1964)
• Bob Dylan's 115th Dream (1965), which is a personal favourite, rather than an absolute classic. I can remember where I heard it, and it's sense of fun is infectious
• It's all over now, Baby Blue (1965). When he famously went electric at Newport, everyone talks about the electric set, but this is the final song, when he was persuaded to do a acoustic song. The version is available on one of the bootleg series and that version is chilling
• I'll be your baby tonight (1967); Drifter's escape (1967). John Wesley Harding is overlooked as a album, but it's a classic and the final track is the best of the lot, a low-key love song filled with gentle energy that has always remained with me, while Drifter's escape is filled with  mischievous fun, and always a pleasure to listen to.
• If you see her, say hello (1975). Just one of the saddest, loveliest songs ever written. Overshadowed by the pyrotechnics on rest of the record, but more impressive than the rest of them in the long run.
• Hurricane (1976). A superlative protest song a decade after he was supposed to have stopped writing them
• Honest with me (2001). I've always been confused by the inexplicable popularity of Time out of Mind, which to me has always been a mess of too-much-listening-to-jazz, while the follow up Love and Theft is a much better record, deft and assured, and this is a great thumper of a track.

This is a spur of the moment list, so I've obviously missed plenty off. A quick check of my most played tracks suggest in reality I should give space to Positively 4th street, Chimes of Freedom, My Back Pages, Love minus zero and Can you please crawl out your window ahead of some of these. So give them honourable mentions.

However, like Dylan, I'm in favour of these things being done quickly (like his records) and reflecting the vision at one point in time, not a long drawn out thought process. So, while there's more to be said here, others have said it. I simply wanted to show is that we could take away a sheaf of his greatest achievements and we'd still be celebrating the 70th birthday of a man that could go toe to toe on reputation with other popular music figures. With them, he's unassailable.

So, a belated happy birthday Bob, and thanks for everything.

Love the legacy

They buried Ballesteros today; and I didn't really have time to notice, which is a shame.

I was too young to see him in his pomp, though I have of course seen the footage since. By the time I started following golf, even cursorily, in 1993, he was fading, though he had a couple of Ryder cups left and even won the odd tournament.

But he was a titan of the previous decade and a bit, and - as every obituary has made clear - one of a tiny number of sportsmen to genuinely change their sport. I don't mean in achievement: his record is impressive, but it didn't redefine the era. Nor in style, though the manner he played is still magical. But he literally changed the geography and contours of professional golf and he created one of the few major competitions in English sport where people genuinely want the Germans to win.

It's not clear exactly how he did this. He was described as being the vanguard of European golf , but a brief look at the 1979 Ryder cup suggests that although he was one of the two first non Brits to play, he and they were rubbish, and he didn't play in the thrashing in 1981. By the time the Europeans had assembled a competitive team it had a raft of Spaniards and Langer in it. But, it will always be Ballesteros who remains at the heart of those 1980s teams and he lives long in the centre of folk memory. When we won the Ryder cup back in Wales, they revealed they'd had an image of Seve in the dressing room throughout. And he was as ever-present in the speeches as he was on the course in 1997, in captaincy.

So, whether he is missed because of what he had come to represent or what he was, it's fitting that he is. Few can do what he did, and no-one else would have had so much fun doing it.

Bibliography, April 2011

Read: 13

BOTM - C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary

J. Austen, Persuasion (K)
J. Austen, Sense and Sensibility (K)
D. Eddings, The Belgariad, 5 vols*
C.S. Lewis, Four Loves
Muraski Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, chs 1-17 (K)
A.Trollope, The Claverings (K)
M. Twain, The adventures of Tom Sawyer (K)
P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit


I'm not surprised by BOTM this time, given it is famously the best book ever written on cricket, though more on that later. I should give honourable mentions to some of the others though - Both of Austen were brilliant, though Persuasion edges its more famous counterpart, and The Claverings an underrated gem from Trollope. I have loved and reread before the Belgariad, an extensive fantasy sequence, and I stand by the judgement I made at 12 - it's brilliant. However, James was better.

However, I am not sure James is brilliant for the reason that is over given - its account of the racism rife in West Indian cricket before and just after the war. That is rather the minor theme running through the book which comes to glorious fruition at the end of the book. No, actually the best sections in the splendid book are James' account of the Victorian origins of cricket, closely followed by the description of an island obsessed by cricket (Trinidad) and the pen portraits of its great stars and their club environment. James' particular perspective - an intellectually brilliant black West Indian educated in the tradition of the British public school system. Having imbibed its ethos (one suspects better than most British natives) he able to create a beautiful and insightful view on the schools and the development of organised games within the Empire, as well an encomium to W.G. Grace. All are better than any account I have read on the subject.

Is this the best bar in the world? (with a short discourse on Tokyo)

We never intended to go to Matsumoto. Some FCO advice to not go to Tokyo meant we did some hasty rejigging of our Japanese itinerary from Beijing and we booked two nights in this mountain city near(ish) Tokyo for our final few days. However, I am delighted we did - it's a gem.

There are only two sights in Matsumoto - the castle is magnificent and its setting in the Japanese Alps couldn't be better. Every view of the castle is framed by them on the horizon or - in our case - the cherry blossom around the park. Inside the castle has all the cool things (arrow and musket holes, two moats, hidden floors) that we have come to expect, and the views from the top were fantastic. Secondly, Matsumoto has the Ukiyo-e museum, the most expensive museum we've been to in Japan (but still less than St Paul's, even for churchgoers who pay for its upkeep - but I digress) but was worth it. They - woodblock prints - are exquisite. Anna was beside herself with excitement, and I thought it was ace. We're now a little poorer and spent much of the next few days struggling to work out how to bring back a handmade copy back to the UK without damaging it, but we did it.

However, these pale into insignificance beside my discovery of what is essentially the best bar in the world, called I think Jun. On our lovely Ryokan's hand drawn map of the city, there was a little bar to the north which simply said 'if you like whiskey and Monty Python' - we went. It was amazing and a labour of love for the owners even if not with the public (it wasn't busy even on a Friday). The bar, walls and even the floor were up to three deep in whiskey with piles of publications relating to whisky in the common area. The walls were covered with film posters, with the Rocky Horror Picture Show prominently displayed and stills of Dylan and the Doors by the entrance. The bar area were covered with Python cards and the flags of all the home nations adorned the top and ceiling. Save for a lack of reference to Byzantine and early Christian history and a lack of port I could have designed it. Anna at one point opined that she wasn't sure it was real and not called forth from my imagination. The owner was delightful and took us through some (very lovely) Japanese whisky, even throwing some little side tastings of interesting whiskies for free. Despite this, it was hideously expensive, but it was totally worth it.

Tokyo was a bit of a disappointment after this, but fun enough. I'm glad we cut down to a day there as a lot of the city was still subdued - early closing for museums, some escalators not working etc. However, even at full tilt I'm not sure how much I would have liked it - too many people, too little to see. That said, we had a very jolly evening there on our last night and much sushi to remember Japan by.

The Birmingham of Japan

A & I have been trying to work out which UK cities Japanese cities correspond to. It doesn't really work that well - Osaka is probably a bit like Manchester, but clearly better, and while it's hard to pigeonhole Kyoto, though it may be a bit like a supercharged Oxford. However, Fukuoka is definitely like Birmingham. Everyone we told that we were going there asked us why? We had to explain that we were using it as a base for Nagasaki and Beppu. There is very little to do in Fukuoka, but it has a string of bars and good transport links. Just like Birmingham, though probably warmer.

As indicated, we didn't actually spend any time in the city itself during the day, though the bars were fun - A in particular liked a bar that had impromptu karaoke with her, a random Korean and a Japanese businessman. I preferred the sushi restaurant where I could get horsemeat sushi. However, both Nagasaki and Beppu were fantastic visits. Beppu is a little ridiculous, having some splendidly kitsch and overblown 'hells' or hot springs. But they were much fun, and there's a great gimmicky restaurant by the Tourist Information, where you can cook your lunch in the steam. In fact, there was steam everywhere - we saw some coming up from a hole in the tarmac in a car park. It's put to best use in the onsen of course. Nagasaki was less absurd, with the inevitable memorials to the bomb, though Hiroshima did it better, and the less said about the nonsensical peace statue the better. However, the museum was still moving. Better were the string of temples to the south and the Glover gardens. I hadn't realised how international the city had been, and the legacy of this internationality and Christianity shines through. It also had Anna's favourite beer and gyoza bar where we spent one of our favourite early evenings of the holiday.

Oh, and the regional speciality of Kyushu (the western island where all these are located) is Shochu. Do not drink it ever; it was used as a disinfectant in the Edo period - this seems as appropriate now as then.

Bibliography, March 2011

Read: 10

BOTM - J. Steinbeck, East of Eden*

J. Austen, Mansfield Park (K)
A. Cobban, A history of modern France vol 3
Confucius, Analects (K)
C. Dickens, A tale of two cities (K)
G. Eliot, Adam Bede (K)
P. Highsmith, The talented Mr Ripley
W. Scott, Ivanhoe (K)
J. Swift, Gulliver's Travels (K)
Wu Cheng'en, Journey to the west (K)

I expected to read more in China, but was defeated by a tendency to go to sleep on long train journeys and the vast length of the Journey to the west, which went on for ever. Anyway, none of my books read in China (note the kindle marks - an unqualified triumph as a travel tool) could hold a candle to East of Eden (another reread), which is stunning in scope, written beautifully, and powerful throughout. I read it in 2002 first and so it's been a while since I looked at it, but it's got better with time.

In the shadow of the mushroom cloud

Hiroshima is now only figuratively under the shadow of the bomb, but that shadow is long. So far, we seem to have been to parts of Japan that will forever be defined by their history. But while Kyoto glories in an imperial past that it has polished and renewed; for Hiroshima, the bomb's pervasive influence is sombre, though there is much else to note and like about the city. This is not just a result of its 'fame', but the physical impact of the bomb meant the city had to be rebuilt (and remodelled) and to this day, more recipients of the government's special health care for bomb survivors live in Hiroshima than anywhere else. Inevitably this means A & I have had an argument about the rectitude of the bombing which I won't relate here because a) I'm not sure about some of the facts (the Japanese telling is OK, but selective), b) it needs some thinking out and c) I may be inflammatory and it's not worth it. Maybe for a later post.

The city itself is however great. The centre is compact, there are an extraordinary number of bars and restaurants, including many serving one of my new favourite foods, the artery clogging oikonomiyaki. It's well linked up (we went to Himeji on the way and Miyajima for an afternoon), and has trams everywhere. Fab. The remodelling of the city also means that it's simple to navigate and on one of the key islands (Hiroshima is on a river delta, who knew?) by the epicentre a great peace park has been created - the museums and monuments are there, but it's also a great public space. The museums and monuments themselves are excellent and interesting (if a bit determinedly naive). The key museum is well done, and restrained. However, The jewel in Hiroshima's crown though is the island of Miyajima, while has a lovely set of temples, the highlight of which is the Daisho-in, and a little hilltop from which the inland sea can be seen. Just wonderful.

Possibly the prettiest city in the world

I'm very late in publishing this for no good reason (Japan does not have a firewall), but as the readership of these is limited, I don't think it matters too much. Here thoughts on Kyoto (+Nara and Osaka) from about a week ago, but not uploaded till now. Others to follow.

A is somewhat irritated that all these have strange titles, rather than just say Kyoto, as in this case. But as that would be boring so I am sticking to this as a descriptor for Kyoto, as it is possibly the prettiest city in the world. It contains, according to the guidebook, the most beautiful street in all Asia. This seems to be highly likely, based on my experience of other streets in Asia.

Low competition on streets aside, it is an extraordinary city. We were there a week and although we spent a day out of the city in Nara, which is very much in the same mould, we managed to do no more than half of the temples possible, though we obviously prioritised what we were told were the best. Almost all were beautiful, and many were just stunning. A & I disagree slightly on the best ones, but both concur on the overall point. My personal favourites were Kiyomizu-dera, which looked stunning in the weather (and we were lucky with the weather), the  Imperial palace, the Zen gardens at the Daitoku-ji, (especially Zuiho-in) and the Byodo-in (though frustratingly, we didn't get to go inside as the place shut at 4.10). However, the major temples and sights only tell part of the story. Their sheer density obviously contributes to the impression of Kyoto as a lovely city, and the time of the season helps - there is a lot of blossom about - but it's also some of the other bits. It has its fair share of slightly scruffy roads, but it's not very long before a well maintained temple or riverside  hits you, and in all the cases I've seen, they've been tidy and clean. Britain fails this fairly elementary requirement, and Southern Europe is disastrous (we're not even mentioning the Middle East in this context). Japan is uniquely good at it and Kyoto reaps the benefit.

Kyoto is obviously our first time in Japan and we're both struck by how nice they are; I'm also struck by how short they are and how this makes me bump my head a lot, though their niceness more than makes up for it. When we arrived, the LP has fairly poor directions to our Ryokan yet within 5 minutes of being lost in the general area, no less than two people had volunteered to help up and one cheerfully walked us to the right road. There have been countless other examples, but none more welcome than that at 7:30 pm having got up at 4:30 to get our flights out of Beijing. It's not even been as expensive as we had feared, and a focus on Sushi and karaoke (amazingly cheap for booze) has really kept the price down.

Dictator chic

It apparently isn't acceptable to publicly pronounce on the aesthetics of dictators (as Bryan Ferry undeservedly knows to his cost). However, as we practice entirely inconsistent social rules on this, I can comment positively on the iconography of Chinese communists, who in Mao count the bigger mass murderer in history, without criticism and Beijing is the place to do it. It's not all good - the illuminated face of the embalmed corpse of Mao reminded me of nothing more than a second rate saint's body in one of those cheap catholic churches - but the spectacular bits were spectacular.

That said, the best bits by miles are imperial. A & I disagree on the detail (her favourite day remains the great wall; mine the forbidden city), but both were spectacular, and a terrifying testament to the sheer scale of China and its Emperors. It's also the best stuff we have seen in China. I'm struck, as with the terracotta warriors, that the famous big bits haven't been a  disappointment at all. The central courtyards and pavilions of the imperial forbidden city were beautiful and, as expressions of imperial power, comparable with even the most bombastic expressions of European imperialism, and certainly more powerful than the south side of the square, where communist monumentalism is shown to full effect. The Great Wall has much the same effect, though our stretch also had a slide.

Beijing also seemed (to us) a great city to visit. We were helped by having a great little hostel, where we often retreated after dinner (the Chinese do eat early) and drink cheaply with wifi. But we also had some great times out and the food was fantastic & pretty cheap. Partly this is us cracking China a bit more, but also Beijing being accessible and relatively welcoming: nonetheless, our 56p dumpling lunch on Wednesday remains a highlight.

Overall, then China has been fab. I was a little taken aback by it at first - simultaneously disorientated by the total unfamiliarity of the language &c but also surprised by the modernity, especially when implicitly comparing it to the middle east. But after that initial shock, it's been pretty easy to manage (even train tickets weren't too difficult, though highly stressful). I wish I had learnt more about Buddhist liturgy (and the Bodhisattvas) in advance, and maybe a little about imperial history (still largely limited to Mongols, Ming, Manchu). In fact generally, I wish I'd come earlier, and I think we'll be back.

Japan now. Radiation be damned.

Journey to the West

written 30th March 2011

Now, I know after reading the whole thing, that the Journey to the West actually started in Xi'an (Chang'an) rather than finished there, but it's as far west as we're getting on this trip. Also, while I wouldn't claim that I have endured the trials of the Tang priest, it's an infuriating city. In our case, made worse by a lack of metro (we like metros, much better than buses) and dodgy guidebook information. Our Lonely Planet seemed not to have a single accurate restaurant listing, though some were nearby.

That said, I'm very glad we came, for obvious and non-obvious reasons. Obviously, this is home of the terracotta warriors, which were fantastic. While I saw and loved them in London at the BM a few years ago, nothing really prepares you for the rank upon rank of them presented in the main excavations. Never mind the afterlife, they're quite intimidating in this one. They are also exquisite, with the famous individuality really shining through particularly when you see them en masse. They are endlessly fascinating, even in their fairly rudimentary display (in a big hanger) It's also symptomatic of Xi'an: it's actually very easy (and cheap) to get there from the city, but then they drop you in a park with no signage to the nearby site.

Non-obviously, Xi'an also has a decent set of other major sights that I never heard of, and a fun little Muslim community. We seem to have done the city in the wrong order, and instead of doing the central sites first first went out the far sites. The far ones (a huge 'Goose' pagoda and the museum) are best, but I'd be much more relaxed if I'd wandered round the mosque and towers in the centre on day one. Even more pointless, but exciting, I dragged A to a stele museum on the last day - obviously we couldn't read anything,  but they have a Nestorian stele with traces of Syriac at the bottom. Honestly, even I was a little bored, but it's got to be seen. We met some people in Beijing who were going to Xi'an later, and they were planning to skip the city sights and go to the mountains. I didn't try to persuade them otherwise, but I hope they saw some of them,

The biggest city you've never heard of

Written 24th March 2011

I'm writing this as we approach Xi'an, after a fairly dodgy night overnighting from Hangzhou (via Shanghai). No plush private sleeper for us this time, but rather a six berth cabin, with no door, so not an ideal amount of sleep. But just about OK. The weather seems much improved from Monday and early Tuesday, where we arrived in the very pretty lake town of Hangzhou, only to find it deluged under a downpour. Our mood was not improved by the fact that I had managed to a) note down the address of our hotel in roman characters only, and b) note the wrong address down. Thank god for mobile Internet - we got there eventually, and given the downpour, holed up in our hostel and ate there, before going to bed very early.

Fortified with sleep, we tackled Hangzhou itself the next day and Wed am. , although we started off in a downpour, it steadily improved, was dry by lunch on Tuesday, and sunny on Wednesday. In some ways it was fortunate to see it in al weathers, as it is an extraordinarily pretty town. Now I say a pretty town, actually it's a massive city, with a population of over six million, though most of them live in horrible bits away from the lake and we didn't seem them. The lake itself is stunning:  a beautiful landscaped sequence of gardens, pools, pavilions and islands, which together are extraordinary to look at. Anna particularly enjoyed the endless numbers of little bridges, which pop up with understandable frequency given the causeways and pools the paths have to cover. We also discovered that Anna's greater tolerance for untidiness extends into nature  - I tended to prefer the ordered and symmetrical Bai causeway, to A's preference for the more uneven (though still entirely man-made) Su causeway. At one point I was accused of only liking nature when it had been tamed - an accusation without evil if you ask me.

Two other curious things about Hangzhou. Firstly, it was the most Chinese place we've been to. It's very touristy, but we saw only a handful of other westerners, and a lot of Chinese tourists (more in the sun obviously). Although we broke out of our hostel for dinner on the second night, it was noteworthy that it  hostel also had mostly Chinese guests. Secondly, the town itself, though old, is actually all of recent reconstruction, and this goes for the sights as well. It's prominence dates to the Southern Song (C12-C13), with successive reconstruction, especially in 1699 (we saw the same dates on a lot of monuments). However every monument seems to have been rebuilt or moved in the C20, including the most prominent of the main towers. I wasn't sure how I would feel about that - I am after all a hankerer after ancient authenticity - but having seen it, I'm a fan of modern restoration along classical lines; it works perfectly in Hangzhou. It's the best bit of China we have seen so far.

Pudong and Puxi

Written 21st March 2011


We're very much still easing ourselves into China. Shanghai is more Chinese than Hong Kong, but still very English, by which I mean American. There are more Starbucks here than I have ever seen, and inexplicably, an extraordinary number of KFC outlets. We've not been in either so cannot really comment on their quality (not that I enter either in the UK either). We've also overshot our required hotel standard and are staying in one of the old imperial hotels (the Astor) at the top of the Bund. It's pretty reasonable for price, but have started to wonder if we could have done this a little cheaper. That said, it's fun to be met by black tie staff.

Shanghai itself is great though. It's relatively easy to navigate - a lot of the signs are in English; we can work the metro - and there are some great sights. Though unevenly distributed, it's clearly the product of a lot of money: obviously the silly towers, but also a wide variety of infrastructure investments (I'm writing this on the new link to Hangzhou, covering the 200km in 45 mins) and a lot of shopping developments. I'm especially  pleased that one of swishest, most European of those new developments now essentially incorporates the site of the founding of the Chinese Communist party. We went to both yesterday - they're very keen on waxworks (in the communist bit, it's not a function of the shopping).

So, top marks for Shanghai, though I wouldn't want to live here - I don't think it knows what it wants to be yet. Part of the city (mostly the modern Pudong development) is high finance, expensive and western, the rest (Puxi) is emphatically of the party - Chinese flags over the Bund buildings etc - and I don't think I'd want either for a long time, though fun to see in action.

And, the news from Japan still uncertain, though something seems to be happening in terms of moving the solution on. Go Tokyo Power and Electric! (not a sentence I thought I would ever write)

Epitaph for Empire

written 16th March

As I write this we're on the train between Hong Kong and Shanghai [as I publish, it's the 3rd of April, given China's absurd firewall], a monster train journey of 18 hours, made more bearable by our private compartment, but less bearable by the fact they will not take Hong Kong dollars, which are the only currency we have on us. We are surviving on biscuits.

The four days we've had in Hong Kong have been more stressful and much more alcoholic than we'd intended. Japan's disaster is on our minds at the moment, partly because we've only really managed to get NHK World (Japan's English Language news channel) in the hotel, but mostly because it makes the rest of the holiday a nightmare to plan. While nothing compared to death toll and risk of a nuclear winter that the Japanese are facing, it's own little cross to bear. A tells me this is callous, but it's the bit I am worried about.
Hong Kong made it all seem quite far away, both literally and metaphorically. An 18 hour train journey makes you feel the distance we're covering here, but there's also a curious air of unreality about the holiday so far - Hong Kong and Macau feel very much like what they are - little enclaves of Europe, complete with each country's foibles. We had custard tarts on Macau and I'm delighted to note there is an M&S in Hong Kong. Last night, aside from the warmth and the slightly more civilised atmosphere, we spent the late evening in what could have been an English town centre, albeit one from the late 1990s. Two nights ago, we watched the faintly depressing rugby in the company of a raggle taggle set of other Anglos. Part of the this has been made possible by the excellent hospitality from my mother's godson, who despite not having seen me since he rescued me from certain death in the snow 25 years ago, has been welcoming above and beyond the call of duty, but I also suspect Hong Kong is just a bit like that. It's been great fun, though too many parts of it have been spent hungover.

Things we have learnt:

• All the main tourist things are in fact great - the Peak, Macau, the Star Ferry, the big Buddha (of which more later) - though there seems to be little else to see, apart from some markets
• Beware the weather. Though warm, it is always hazy so take advantage of whatever clarity you can. Definitely don't go up onto a mountain when the cloud cover is low. It will waste an afternoon, and make you cold and wet.
• Take your hotel's card with you out drinking: trying to explain where you want to go to a non-English speaking taxi driver, while tipsy, at 1:30, is not straightforward.
• There is nothing past the gate at the international departure terminal at the station. Change your money and buy your food beforehand

Bring back the test act

There is, according to the Bible, no new thing under the Sun (Eccl. 1.9). I was reminded of this last week when A and I had a fun little argument one morning over the merits of the decision on the Christian couple barred from fostering. I don't think I'd like them; I certainly don't agree with them, but they seem to be perfectly good foster parents on most axes, and this all seems like a bit of a waste.

Essentially, this debate seems to have gone wrong somewhere. Namely, that while they have some dodgy views, they're probably better than care. And even if they aren't, there will be some people who are. We seem in this debate to make the ideal the enemy of the good. And, while I wish all was well in the world and that these kind of compromises didn't have to be made, they do. Here I am sceptical of the value of preventing people from providing services to the state because of some difficult opinions they have and some potential harm they may do. Overall, I suspect they would be beneficial as until and unless we have surplus of potential foster carers, I don't think we can be so picky. I don't hold with this nonsense about discrimination against Christians or anything silly like that, but I just feel we're stopping good but flawed activity from happening. Not being perfect is not a reason for not doing things.

A wasn't very interested in my view, instead concerned for another issue - namely, the growing discrepancy between what parents can do to their children and what is illegal for others to do - but she did point out that this isn't really a problem: people will just lie. A sensible couple who hold non-orthodox views on, say, sexuality, will simply pay appropriate lip service to the right views. Rather usefully, we have the legislation for this pre-prepared in the shape of the seventeenth century Test and Corporation acts which emphasised outward conformity as a requirement for public office, or in this case public service. Now I think this is an excellent idea. Outward conformity drives belief of the individual and the community, and that example prevents harm. As I think no right thinking person can object to orthodoxy, both against prejudice and for Anglicanism, both should be upheld.
So, bring back the test act, and push on with its modern equivalent. You don't have to believe what you're saying, but we're not asking you to do that.

Bibliography, February 2011

Books Read (11)
BOTM - U.Eco, The Name of the Rose*

A. Adiga, The White TigerJ. Austen, Emma
J.G. Farrell, Troubles
A. MacCaffrey, Follow the Unicorn
J. Morris, Conundrum
W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz
P.G. Wodehouse, Right ho, Jeeves
P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters
P.G. Wodehouse, Joy in the Morning
P.G. Wodehouse, The mating season

Momentous. A reread book is BOTM. Pushed very close by Austerlitz, which was let down by the end, Eco's masterpiece stands well the test of time. In other news, as you can see, I've discovered Wodehouse in a big way. It's going to be expensive. I seem to have fallen into a pattern whereby I pretty much alternate a Jeeves novel with a serious one. The Code of the Woosters my favourite to date.

Anyway, Eco's most famous and best book stands the test of time triumphantly. It's complex, clever and dense. I read it first maybe 15 years ago, when my knowledge of medieval philosophy and theology was lacking. It is admittedly not much better now, but the limited extra knowledge does improve it. There is too much untranslated Latin, but this is a small caveat to a book that is simultaneously a good thriller, learned and profound.

Wouldn't rewarding success help?

More education and access rah rah on the News at the moment. All difficult and complex, but now increasingly feeling like a retread of every debate of the last 15 years and probably more. I wonder if we're missing a trick that we have tried everywhere else. Specifically, I wonder whether we (the state) should reward universities on results, or rather only allow fee uplifts based on results.

This seems to meet everyone's objectives:
1. Academics want the best students they can get, so presumably they'd be for it.
2. State educated pupils do better, on a grade for grade basis, compared to private, so it would encourage universities to take more.
3. And it engages with the levers that universities control, i.e. what students do at the university, not how well the primary and secondary sectors have done.

Lots of definitional questions here: for a start, you'd have to ensure consistency of degree (which we don't have), though you might have a sliding scale to even out the obvious prestige problem (i.e. a First is worth more in a university that has stupider children). And there are doubtless lots of other issues here. I can see the incentives going a bit wrong in terms of the dynamic between independent and directed undergraduate work. However, in essence this feels to me as if it deserves more consideration, especially compared to the complexity of what OFFA is going to have to do now.

I'm just not sure academics (and civil servants) have given it much.

It's all Greek to me

So, yet again, I find I have comments to make on baptism. It turns out I'm not very interested in other 'sacraments', even the eucharist. But I am fascinated by baptism, because for me the theology of belonging is critical to my sense of what it means to be a church. As an aside, this is my framework for opposing the Romish practice of first communion for children at the age of seven that my church has now instituted, but I digress.

 

This morning, Today had an item on changing the baptism rite to make it 'less archaic.' That's possible I suppose, but the objection made to the baptismal liturgy was that it was hard to understand because it used the phrase 'Kingdom of heaven.' This raises two possibilities:

1. The woman in question is a moron. This is not a complicated phrase to understand. While we do not have a functioning monarchy in most western countries due to democratic government, we do not elect God. That is a fairly simple and understandable concept. Kingdom isn't an odd word.
2. The woman in question is a heretic (or possibly a heathen). Of all the Christians who have spoken of the Kingdom of God, Jesus did it most and did it first. Actually the biblical phrase is basileia tou theou, and the word there could be translated as dominion, but is really Kingdom (or Empire), though that wouldn't really help matters. Saying it feels wrong is a sign you don't know your Greek, haven't read a single commentary and have unfortunately lapsed into heresy. You certainly shouldn't then appear on the radio to talk about it.

So, anathema. Change the liturgy if you must (but it will usually end badly), but not that bit, and not for that reason. People may not be getting their children baptised, but saying citizen of heaven or some other nonsense isn't going to change that.

Bibliography, January 2011

Read (12)

BOTM: H. Lee, To kill a Mockingbird

A.S. Byatt, The Children's book
A. Christie, The mirror crack'd from side to side
A.C. Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
D. du Maurier, Rebecca
L. Mitchell, Charles James Fox
A. Moore, Watchmen
R.C. O'Brien, Mrs Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH
M. Spark, The girls of slender means
Tacitus, The Histories (K)
Thucydides, The Peleponnesian War (K)
P.G. Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves

Bit of a rejig here. Because of what we might call 'Just in time' acquisition I've dropped numbers acquired. I will indicate what I've read on Kindle and what is a reread (with an *), but otherwise, anything else is bought or read from A's list .

I'd also add I almost had a tie here, though Lee's was best. Rebecca deserves an honourable mention. It's one of Anna's, and brilliant. Lushly written, clever in execution, painted with great characters, and fun to read. However, the lean, gentle prose of Mockingbird was better in every respect. Sparse, clever, and almost perfect descriptive prose, particularly at the start. It also had a lot more variation and shadow than I had thought it would.

In fact, neither were the books I expected them to be, and I'd single out two moments in both that were full of pathos almost carelessly thrown in beyond the main arc of narrative or point. In Rebecca there is a brief sequence near the end where Max comments that it is now too late, the nature of the girl he married has irrevocably changed by the knowledge she has gained, though of course the reader knows that knowledge is essential for her own happiness (sorry, that's a bit cryptic, but I'm avoiding spoilers). It's counterpart is the single line of Lee's where Atticus simply says ' Arthur, thank you for my children'. A hadn't remembered it, but it made me cry. That and especially the following sections I find critical to the book, representing a triumphant climax of the weaving together of the double, maybe even triple, narrative, and taking it beyond the already powerful (and famous) set pieces of the trial and its aftermath. A masterpiece.