Heath Robinson - furniture designer

The new fix

A new security patch for the planet - or is it a patent?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/06/bill-gates-climate-scientists-geoengineering

I fear this is exactly the way we, or they, are headed: 'saving the planet' (like saving the world, or anything else, before it) is to be, not a corrective, but the triumph of the ways of thinking and acting that have got us to the state we are in and from which we seek salvation. It is to be the latest, greatest way of spending, and making money. It will be brought to us by the (pardon the irony) elect. I'm sure Goldman Sachs, those workers of God's work, will be in on it somewhere - in fact, if you follow the links, I think you find they are.

Meanwhile, here in the UK, we may not have Bill Gates's billions (we've already given them to him after all), but we do have the rich tradition of Heath Robinson to draw upon. Our very own SPICE, Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering, has plans to use a balloon to lift a a 20km long hosepipe which can inject particles into the stratosphere to reflect some of the sun's energy so reducing warming of the Earth's surface. It's not a joke. Sponsored perhaps by Hoselock Killerspray.

For we like sheep

Beyond reasonable doubt?

I have long thought that in this country, if you have the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time you can get yourself put into prison, perhaps for a large number of years, on the flimsiest of evidence, supposition or prejudice (the latter even in the minds of the judiciary).

(Messrs Jekyll and Hyde gave some attention to the meaning of that word 'reasonable', as in 'beyond reasonable doubt' - so strangely unrelated to 'beyond reason'.)

For the near-comfortable middle classes, such as myself, that is a disaster that may only descend out of the blue in the most exceptional cases, but for large minority sections of our population being in the wrong place at the wrong time is a near permanent condition.

Gander sauce with all the trimmings

One of the reasons the international financial markets are said to be dubious about the economic prospects of Greece is that it has few flourishing industrial sectors.

Greek shipping is successful but brings little economic benefit to the country because the ship owners have structured their businesses to ensure that profits are retained in foreign countries. Hardly behaviour of which international financiers would approve.

Greek tourism is said to 'lack infrastructure'. Cue international development enterprises led by billionaires, flamboyant or crespuscular, with top dressing of star architects. See Aberdeen, or Bulgaria. Certainly the Ace of Trumps could never be accused of hiding his light under the scantest bushel, and is now too busy saving his own country to spend much time degrading Aberdeenshire. Is our noble Lord Gherkin crespuscular? One cannot think so, neither in Bulgaria nor here - although someone with potential profits at stake may need to work into the night if they are to overcome the massed ranks of the RSPB (the Conservative Party with binoculars) against the creation of the 'Thames Hub' or 'Boris Island'? Perhaps one of our architects might be persuaded to design something similar to beef up that Greek infrastructure for the returning northern European tourists once the Euro resurgent rises giddily above the Drachma reinvented.

Undeveloped Greek coastline



Virgin Greek countryside

Delapidated Greek public building in need of foreign investment



Greece - step this way?

Gesamtkunstwerk

The Beethoven Frieze was created by Klimt for an exhibition in 1902 and is now permanently installed in the Secession building where it was originally presented in Vienna. This exquisite reconstruction was created using the same techniques as applied by Klimt himself as the original Frieze, a masterpiece of 20th century art, underwent restoration. The Frieze celebrates the unification of all arts – painting, sculpture, architecture and music - and is a prime example of the “Gesamtkunstwerk”, the concept of the total work of art pioneered by Richard Wagner and influential in Vienna around 1900.

The exhibition recreates the sophisticated world of Klimt and his patrons in Vienna around 1900 at the juncture between art, architecture and design, when this intriguing figure was at the epicentre of a cultural awakening sweeping the city. It explores the relationship between Klimt as a leader and founder of the Viennese Secession (founded 1897) and the products and philosophy of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshop, founded 1903) – a highpoint of 20th century architecture and design. Klimt played a critical role in the Viennese Secession, a progressive group of artists and artisans driven by a desire for innovation and renewal. The work and philosophy of the Secession embraced not only art but architecture, fashion and the decorative objects and furniture of the Wiener Werkstätte, demanding the emancipation of fine and applied art in stunning environments.

The world we have lost

LONDON, SATURDAY

Among the curiously mingled impressions left by to-day's great ceremony in London, that of the immense dignity and sincerity of the nation's mourning stands out most sharply. The funeral procession, although of great length, was extremely simple in character and, considered purely as a pageant, would have been comparatively unimpressive. Its greatness lay in the vast unison of a human feeling which it evoked and in its power to clothe what was probably the most representative crowd that London ever assembled in one grand garment of simple mourning. The scene of to-day will never be forgotten by those who regarded it.

Nothing could have been more worthy of an honoured monarch and nothing more creditable to her country. When one considers the emotional sympathy of the great crowd and all the massed effects of military pomp and royal dignity, of thousands of men stepping slowly to the measure of solemn music, of the mingling of pride and pathos, triumph and pity, grandeur and humility round the dust of one simple lonely woman – then, indeed, one may realise the significance of to-day's scene. Greatness and power win great and powerful tributes; success levies its tax of admiration and envy; but love alone wins love. The coin in which England chose to pay her last duty to Queen Victoria was the pure gold of silence and perfectly natural behaviour.

It was in no sense a sad occasion – it was far too solemn to be melancholy. Hours before the pageant passed its route was packed and lined with the greatest multitude that any living person has seen in London. From on all sides people poured towards the scene of the procession; the sound of wheels was silent and the streets resounded only with the tramping of feet. At points such as the railway stations and Buckingham Palace the crowd seemed to expand into seas of living faces. In the time of waiting the people talked quietly and cheerfully among themselves, interested in the forming up of the troops, and ready to be amused in a quiet way by the little incidents that enliven such intervals. There was no false restraint, no attempt to beat up artificial emotion. It was a silent crowd; indeed its supreme characteristics were its blackness and silence. People were silent because they wished to be silent, because the magnetism of the hour was upon them, and its solemnity. Shutting one's eyes, it was the seashore that seemed to sound – not the busy city with its clamorous voices and roarings.

Over London there hung the light mist of our winter mornings, and the sun shone like a dim, far-off lighthouse, with its intervals of eclipse. When the dead Queen's body was borne past, the silence simply deepened – that was all.

Manchester Guardian, 4 February 1901