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.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
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 ofMaths, 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:
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.
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
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 subjectsGood.
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.
Friday, 8 July 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 4 July 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, 2 June 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
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:
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:
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.
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.
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
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.
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.
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