17 June 2007
Father’s Day (UK)
My sixteen-year old daughter made her way back from a friend’s where she’d spent the night. It was just on 10 AM and the streets of Clifton were virtually deserted. Sunday morning. She was hiking her way back home – about half an hour walk – to make me a ‘fry up’ in honour of father’s day. At first she baulked when I suggested I preferred some of Chandos’ fabulous croissants – finest for a hundred miles around! When I talked her around, a chocolate croissant having aided the cause immeasurably, she was a ‘fry up’ apostate. I’m not sure it’s actually healthier, though, those croissants at Chandos, made upstairs every morning and still warm when they open (I’m waiting at the door for them to unlock), are unimaginably rich – they make you fantasize about fresh creamery butter and the purest organic white flour. So flaky!
Of course, I’m a model of restraint and set the example for my child by limiting myself to two plain and one almond (rich marzipan enclosed in buttery, flaky pastry, mottled with almond slivers). Fortunately she managed to get in there and appropriate about half of the almond.
We drove across country towards the sea at Poole. It was the first time I’d seen that enormous harbour. We ate a father’s day lunch of fried scampi and chips in the garden of a hotel above the beach at Studland. We could look out over the sea, blue in the sunshine. To the east and west we could see white cliffs. Those to the east marked the mouth of the bay.
The queue for the ferry across the throat that separated us from Poole proper was three boats long. Alex slept through the wait, I listened to a play on BBC 4 that involved a scheming woman bent on revenge for wrongs done her family (I admit that I tuned over to Classic FM for a bit and lost track of what was going on).
I’m not sure it’s actually Poole, but the area beyond the eastern terminus of the ferry is wealthy and charming. It reminds me of suburbs of Sydney, beautiful, waterfront or near-waterfront apartments, low rise and glass faced. Another, similar place is across the water from the centre of Perth, a string of low- and mid-rise buildings, spacious, heavily windowed.
You know, it’s strange how many times in life I’ve compared places to Oz – once the wife and I decided to write down our top five, favourite places to live and both of us, separately, listed Sydney and Perth. We’d lived in the former but had holiday-ed in the latter (a lot!).
I belong to that narrow class of humans who are virtually without a place that is truly home anymore. We lived on four continents in the first two years of our marriage. No matter what city I go to, I still play a mental game of ‘could I live here’. I pick out little grocery stores that seem clean and bright and restaurants that might make living in that place palatable. I assess schools and housing; I am particularly alive to the weather, not as a traveller inconvenienced by heat or rain, but as a potential resident, keen to know whether the nights will be sticky and a ‘barong tagalog’ required (and, hopefully, accepted as appropriate).
The last time I recall playing ‘could I live here’ was particularly poignant, I was in Dhaka. I’m now 55 and moving and adjusting to new places requires huge energy and bursting health. I believe that I still possess both but in measure less than when I was in my 30’s. I can adjust to Clifton, the chi-chi part of Bristol, but I question whether I have the strength to make another move to a place as challenging – health, food, weather, culture, language, religion – as Dhaka. Two decades before I would have welcomed an opportunity to live in a place like Bangladesh: I lived and thrived in India, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan …but my mental, if not my physical life in these places has always been a bit of B. Traven, Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, Evelyn Waugh, Paul Scott, John Masters, even Sir Richard Burton. I am still drawn to the romance but I’m not sure that I’ve still got stamina for the reality.
We’re contemplating purchase of a place in Taiwan where we’ll spend part of each year as we get older. I look forward to this, the island is far richer and more user friendly than it was the first time I visited it about thirty years ago. And that was a decade or so after I’d left India … where I thrived.
I don’t know, though, whether the story is a happy one or sad …. I can’t actually remember the name of the maids my Mom hired when we lived in Mexico back in the 1950s; they took care of me, they were ersatz Mothers and I can’t remember their names – there were two of them, they stayed with us for a couple of years (each) and I can’t remember their names. There have been so many names … so many places … so many names … so many places …
17 June 2007
16 June 2007
The dog ate the newspaper ...it made him sick! Me too!
16 June 2007
Clifton
Ruminations on building …
Rainy. The dog is running around the house in ever decreasing circles. Earlier he munched placidly on last week’s newpapers, digesting headlines about events that have been overtaken in sensation by disasters that seem to be ever worse.
Time for another coffee. I’m working away on spread sheets for our Spanish projects and will later try to catch up with my correspondence.
I’ve set the mindless talking head volume to nearly zero so that the TV behind me is just a droning noise, like that of some nameless buzzing insect, circling your chaise longue on a summer’s afternoon whilst you, eyes closed, enjoy that precious space between being awake and being asleep – the crepuscle of consciousness. The buzzing is not so annoying as it is reassuring; there is a tangible world to return to when you reach out into that mental space you’re floating in, and retrieve your persona, jerking yourself back into the existence that includes family, job, responsibility and the evening glass of wine.
Penumbra – nice word, derived, I believe, from more recent Latin, means ‘shadow’, particularly the shadow of the earth on the moon when there is an eclipse.
This rain up in the north of England that closed out the working week worries me. I didn’t pick up precisely where it was located but the weathercaster said that many places had received a month’s rain in less than a day. In America the draught is the worst in many places since the dust-bowl years of the 1930’s. Is there a link? I’m inclined to think there may be. But, then, I just read Clive Hamilton’s comments on George Monbiot’s ‘Heat’ in the New Left Review; if we don’t take this 2 degree limit seriously, we’re going to kill a lot of people. It isn’t a matter of PC, it’s going to be a crime against humanity to fly unless you absolutely have to; to jet down to the costas for a weekend is going to make you an accessory to murder! We’re staring in to the abyss my friends!
Coffee’s ready, back to work. I’ve got a world to save. We are going to have to construct as much built space in the next five decades as we did in the previous 4,000 years if we’re to have a hope of providing decent dwellings for all nine billion of us (our total by the middle of the century if we don’t get hit by an asteroid or burden our natural system to the point that it can no longer self-regulate and spiral into an unknown, planet-killing climatic decline).
To build all of these new dwellings, we will have to adapt our construction methods to the realities of a world in which, if we are to survive, we do much more with much less. We cannot afford just to rip the guts out of the earth, consuming all of our natural resources in some two decade long building frenzy – two decades because that’s how long our easily recoverable reserves of many key metals and other resources will last if we continue to live like there’s no tomorrow (which there won’t be).
So, we have to build carefully, using local, abundant materials, we have to build carefully, keeping our real-time carbon footprint as narrow as we can and we have to build for a long time in order to amortise the inherent energy content of the new constructions over a reasonable period. This is important – we must build to last. If we build for 30 years, you just divide the energy input by 30. You get a much larger number than if you divide that same energy input (or, as we plan, a much smaller one) by a much larger life, say 500 years (which is not so difficult to do – just travel around some of Europe’s older villages).
Clifton
Ruminations on building …
Rainy. The dog is running around the house in ever decreasing circles. Earlier he munched placidly on last week’s newpapers, digesting headlines about events that have been overtaken in sensation by disasters that seem to be ever worse.
Time for another coffee. I’m working away on spread sheets for our Spanish projects and will later try to catch up with my correspondence.
I’ve set the mindless talking head volume to nearly zero so that the TV behind me is just a droning noise, like that of some nameless buzzing insect, circling your chaise longue on a summer’s afternoon whilst you, eyes closed, enjoy that precious space between being awake and being asleep – the crepuscle of consciousness. The buzzing is not so annoying as it is reassuring; there is a tangible world to return to when you reach out into that mental space you’re floating in, and retrieve your persona, jerking yourself back into the existence that includes family, job, responsibility and the evening glass of wine.
Penumbra – nice word, derived, I believe, from more recent Latin, means ‘shadow’, particularly the shadow of the earth on the moon when there is an eclipse.
This rain up in the north of England that closed out the working week worries me. I didn’t pick up precisely where it was located but the weathercaster said that many places had received a month’s rain in less than a day. In America the draught is the worst in many places since the dust-bowl years of the 1930’s. Is there a link? I’m inclined to think there may be. But, then, I just read Clive Hamilton’s comments on George Monbiot’s ‘Heat’ in the New Left Review; if we don’t take this 2 degree limit seriously, we’re going to kill a lot of people. It isn’t a matter of PC, it’s going to be a crime against humanity to fly unless you absolutely have to; to jet down to the costas for a weekend is going to make you an accessory to murder! We’re staring in to the abyss my friends!
Coffee’s ready, back to work. I’ve got a world to save. We are going to have to construct as much built space in the next five decades as we did in the previous 4,000 years if we’re to have a hope of providing decent dwellings for all nine billion of us (our total by the middle of the century if we don’t get hit by an asteroid or burden our natural system to the point that it can no longer self-regulate and spiral into an unknown, planet-killing climatic decline).
To build all of these new dwellings, we will have to adapt our construction methods to the realities of a world in which, if we are to survive, we do much more with much less. We cannot afford just to rip the guts out of the earth, consuming all of our natural resources in some two decade long building frenzy – two decades because that’s how long our easily recoverable reserves of many key metals and other resources will last if we continue to live like there’s no tomorrow (which there won’t be).
So, we have to build carefully, using local, abundant materials, we have to build carefully, keeping our real-time carbon footprint as narrow as we can and we have to build for a long time in order to amortise the inherent energy content of the new constructions over a reasonable period. This is important – we must build to last. If we build for 30 years, you just divide the energy input by 30. You get a much larger number than if you divide that same energy input (or, as we plan, a much smaller one) by a much larger life, say 500 years (which is not so difficult to do – just travel around some of Europe’s older villages).
03 June 2007
Half term at Eton, end of term at the Grammar schools?
3 June 2007
Sunday
With temperatures hitting 24 and 25 degrees today (that’s about 77 degrees F), it’s beginning to feel a bit like we’ll have some summer soon. But, I digress ... (a first for me, digression in the first paragraph!) ...
Gordon Brown has been invisible recently. Normally you would put that down to his political instincts – he knows to keep his head down when things are getting tough. This time, though, I don’t think it matters, Gordon could be quietly sitting at a table, sipping green tea, somewhere in Western China or he could be sitting at a bar, around midday, sipping a beer at some faceless shopping centre in Germany; whatever he’s doing, wherever he’s been, he’s not responsible and no one is blaming him. He has nothing to do but bask in the political dividend given him by the unbelievable incompetence of the Conservative party.
I admit it. I was fooled by David Cameron’s hair. I thought that he was a breath of fresh air, that after that terrible man, Michael somebody, the previous leader, Cameron was bringing new life and new ideas to the party of Margaret Thatcher.
That hasn’t happened. Instead, the Conservatives have been given a front bench populated by 13 old-Etonians who, if they all hold hands, are, apparently, unable to organise a p**s up in a brewery or have a synapse. Whichever it is, Mr. Brown is looking better and better! A month ago I couldn't have imagined wriiting that!
The biggest muck up was over Grammar Schools – selective secondary state schools that were the path up the social ladder for thousands of lower- and lower-middle class youth ever since they were set up. Apparently the old-Etonians decided that the huge increase in the popularity of fee schools in the UK was not the result of parents deciding they wanted their offspring to experience Hogwarts. It was because Grammar schools had been de-emphasised and their replacements, the infamous ‘comps’ (the comprehensives), had singularly failed to deliver education or opportunity. So, the old-Etonians must have been feeling pretty good; the social divide was increasing with the demise of the Grammar Schools. The good old days were coming back. Most of the front row was made up of the ‘right’ type again. No pushy types like Margaret Thatcher now, the Conservatives were back on the right path.
So, about two weeks ago the Conservatives decided to pre-empt the Labour position on selective education, no more Grammar schools. The great middle class of Britian, that group of poor, tax-paying goops that keep things afloat, was betrayed, the party they thought was in their corner had moved over to the left, right into the lap of Labour.
So, now Labour has moved to the right, taking territory that used to belong to the Conservatives. And what’s left for Maggie’s boys? Not much it seems. What can they do? Jump over the centre that Blair and Co have taken and occupy some of Labour’s weakened left? Realistically, there’s absolutely nothing they can do right now, they’re flummoxed. The only chance they’ve got is to kick up sand into Labour’s eyes and hope they implode.
So Gordon’s instincts this time are absolutely right. Let Cameron and Co dig their own hole. The only downside to all of this is that Cameron is so bad that he may have to resign as Leader of the Conservatives and, if he does, there’s a remote chance that the Tories might find someone half-way competent. If that does happen, Gordon may be in trouble.
The best thing Gordon can do right now is find somewhere to stay put. Perhaps he could do it on some warm, palm encrusted island, far from Britain, where he can relax, his hammock slung well below the parapet, unnoticed and unremarked. I suggest Crete. Wait! I think the Camerons are on holiday there as well. Perhaps their children could play together?
Sunday
With temperatures hitting 24 and 25 degrees today (that’s about 77 degrees F), it’s beginning to feel a bit like we’ll have some summer soon. But, I digress ... (a first for me, digression in the first paragraph!) ...
Gordon Brown has been invisible recently. Normally you would put that down to his political instincts – he knows to keep his head down when things are getting tough. This time, though, I don’t think it matters, Gordon could be quietly sitting at a table, sipping green tea, somewhere in Western China or he could be sitting at a bar, around midday, sipping a beer at some faceless shopping centre in Germany; whatever he’s doing, wherever he’s been, he’s not responsible and no one is blaming him. He has nothing to do but bask in the political dividend given him by the unbelievable incompetence of the Conservative party.
I admit it. I was fooled by David Cameron’s hair. I thought that he was a breath of fresh air, that after that terrible man, Michael somebody, the previous leader, Cameron was bringing new life and new ideas to the party of Margaret Thatcher.
That hasn’t happened. Instead, the Conservatives have been given a front bench populated by 13 old-Etonians who, if they all hold hands, are, apparently, unable to organise a p**s up in a brewery or have a synapse. Whichever it is, Mr. Brown is looking better and better! A month ago I couldn't have imagined wriiting that!
The biggest muck up was over Grammar Schools – selective secondary state schools that were the path up the social ladder for thousands of lower- and lower-middle class youth ever since they were set up. Apparently the old-Etonians decided that the huge increase in the popularity of fee schools in the UK was not the result of parents deciding they wanted their offspring to experience Hogwarts. It was because Grammar schools had been de-emphasised and their replacements, the infamous ‘comps’ (the comprehensives), had singularly failed to deliver education or opportunity. So, the old-Etonians must have been feeling pretty good; the social divide was increasing with the demise of the Grammar Schools. The good old days were coming back. Most of the front row was made up of the ‘right’ type again. No pushy types like Margaret Thatcher now, the Conservatives were back on the right path.
So, about two weeks ago the Conservatives decided to pre-empt the Labour position on selective education, no more Grammar schools. The great middle class of Britian, that group of poor, tax-paying goops that keep things afloat, was betrayed, the party they thought was in their corner had moved over to the left, right into the lap of Labour.
So, now Labour has moved to the right, taking territory that used to belong to the Conservatives. And what’s left for Maggie’s boys? Not much it seems. What can they do? Jump over the centre that Blair and Co have taken and occupy some of Labour’s weakened left? Realistically, there’s absolutely nothing they can do right now, they’re flummoxed. The only chance they’ve got is to kick up sand into Labour’s eyes and hope they implode.
So Gordon’s instincts this time are absolutely right. Let Cameron and Co dig their own hole. The only downside to all of this is that Cameron is so bad that he may have to resign as Leader of the Conservatives and, if he does, there’s a remote chance that the Tories might find someone half-way competent. If that does happen, Gordon may be in trouble.
The best thing Gordon can do right now is find somewhere to stay put. Perhaps he could do it on some warm, palm encrusted island, far from Britain, where he can relax, his hammock slung well below the parapet, unnoticed and unremarked. I suggest Crete. Wait! I think the Camerons are on holiday there as well. Perhaps their children could play together?
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