Far out on the ice...

   Far out on the ice lay a dark pile of rubbish waiting for the ice to break up, a monument to Mama and Papa's complete inability ever to get rid of possessions. How remarkable, Anna thought. The ice will go, and eerything will sink, just go straight down and disappear. It's bold; it's almost shameless. I have to tell Sylvia. Later it occurred to her that maybe it wouldn't sink, not all of it. Maybe it would float to another shore and someone would find it and wonder where it came from and why. In any event it was not even the least bit Anna's fault.

Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver, chapter 12

John Cage

John Cage and cat

An unfortunate necessity

"The modern architectural drawing is interesting, the photograph is magnificent, the building is an unfortunate but necessary stage between the two."
Harry Goodhart-Rendel, architect, 1887-1959

Winter of discontent

In our winter of woes, with both the globalised economy and the Arctic ice cap collapsing, it is nice to be able to identify some green shoots, like the sadly maligned Norman Lamont, even if not a full glorious summer. The then Mr (now Lord, proving one can rise above anything) Lamont's Monday was a Black enough backdrop to make any white fragment of bindweed root appear to herald a glorious harvest, but at least it gave rise to the parthenogenesis of the sainted George Soros, whose mortal remains are unlikely to be found beneath any car park and whose canonisation proves one can rise through anything, though large quantities of money definitely aid ascent.

George Soros, fingering something

There is, however, strong suspicion that the mortal remains of King Richard III may have been uncovered beneath a car park (modern equivalent of a stable?) in Leicester. One of our MPs has called for him to be given a state funeral if it is indeed he, as an arrow in the back, 'severe trauma' to the skull, and a curved spine suggest it may be. DNA testing will of course prove things in the modern way. The legitimate male line of the Plantagenets was extinguished in 1500 with the execution of Edward Earl of Warwick, but fortunately there is a 55-year old Canadian furniture-maker, Michael Ibsen, to act as a kind of modern Perkin Warbeck (executed at the same time as Warwick).



Norman Lamont as Laurence Olivier, Sunday evening

Never mind the brouhaha about whether, at her eventual demise, Lady Thatcher should be accorded such an honour, the combined reignition of the Wars of the Roses and the Plantagenet-Tudor battles will put that well in the historical shade.

Our modern Hanoverians, latter-day beneficiaries of a Revolution Glorious in so distinctively British a style (though even in Plantagenet times the rising middle class was proving troublesome), can smile serenely above these superseded historical rivalries, but there has yet to be a statement from the palace.

Those troubled that, in our straightened times, we cannot afford such carnivals can be reassured that, according to the MP, the cost of the state funeral will be offset by the expected increase in tourism.

For all those disappointed by the failure of London 2012 to generate a economic philip to their businesses, this will be the compensation, the true legacy, and for our political masters that much sought-after and elusive kickstart to the economy.

The truth shall make you free

The quotation comes from St John's gospel and the evangelist was reporting Jesus talking of the truth about god the father:

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8;31-32

Yet it has become almost a secular motto for our age and, I suspect, comes to many minds as 'Knowledge shall set you free', prescriptive or revealed versions of the truth being now less popular.

Does it set us free? Free from what?

Free from superstition, would often be the first answer, showing how far the quotation has been turned against itself. Superstition after all is commonly held as almost the opposite of knowledge, as the adherence to unreasoned and unchallenged belief that prescribes behaviour and inhibits choice: something that 'stands over' knowledge.

Free from fear, would often be added next; fear of transgressing, fear of retribution (real or imagined), fear of the unknown. Yet it seems, in our time, that what we fear is coming to be more often the known than the unknown - those 'known knowns' almost crowding out the 'known unknowns'. And so we may reflect that in the history of human society a cultural, or  authoritarian, restriction on the seeking of knowledge has been the norm rather than the exception, including of course, and conspicuously, western European Christian society, against which the thread of individualism and enquiry in our culture has struggled so long and, eventually, so successfully.

Some would claim that our culture of the pursuit of knowledge is itself only a rebranding of a prescriptive and excluding form of experience and that cultural limits on the range of knowledge that is acceptable are not just the norm but humanly and socially inevitable. Yet in its more disinterested expression it must have been, in some ways, good for the soul; it may have set us free from many forms of stupidity and corruption; it has undoubtedly generated an unprecedented growth in material well-being and in technical capability and thereby overwhelmed other societies, from the far east and the Pacific to south America, which were based on a more settled concept of the world; but whether, ultimately, it is sustainable, comfortable or even tolerable is another matter.

So perhaps what sets one free is the truth, a core from which one's life can grow,even, perhaps,a belief, and the truth is not the same for everyone. Some truths are probably better than others, although one cannot say which is 'best', as if one could choose the best buy in some global supermarket of verities.

Limits to growth

Our pressing problem is how to escape recession and restore growth. Our prime minister and chancellor have some wheezes, such as the temporary relaxation of planning rules on house extensions, but there may be problems ahead if they are too successful.

—Earth surface temperature given steady 2.3% energy growth, assuming some source other than sunlight is employed to provide our energy needs and that its use transpires on the surface of the planet. Even a dream source like fusion makes for unbearable conditions in a few hundred years if growth continues. Note that the vertical scale is logarithmic.

See http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/



iRecovery

J P Morgan's chief economist, Michael Feroli in a note to clients has suggested that the anticipated launch of Apple's iPhone 5 could lead to sales that could increase US economic growth by between 0.25 and 0.5 percent. "Calculated using the so-called 'retail control method', sales of iPhone 5 could boost annualized GDP growth by $3.2bn, or $12.8bn at an annual rate", thus offsetting "the downside risk to our Q4 GDP growth projection, which remains 2%".

The comment of another US economic analyst was "God help us."

The iPhone 5 is expected to retail at about $600.

Manufacturing costs are thought to be about $200,

Maybe it will save the Chinese economy as well.

iPhone prelapse: the beginnings of growth