Gigino

Gigino: NYT pic

Spent one day in New York recently, opened the New York Times with my morning coffee, and there was a full-page article  about my excellent landlord, Luigi Aceto, known to his friends and everyone else on the Amalfi Coast as 'Gigino' - 78 years old and still going strong. This is probably due to his veins flowing with lemon juice, as he likes to say.

View from my front door: my pic

So we're famous! I presently call Gigino's lemon grove home, and here are all the lemons and the locals being extolled in the NYT story entitled: 'This Business Is a Lemon, and a Family Wants to Keep It That Way'. There are some serious points discussed about the future of small niche family businesses in Italy. There is also a cute video and a set of slides on the NYT website - some of the pictures seem to have been taken outside my front door, and one is of my favourite cafe.

I hope you enjoy this snippet from Amalfi, along with the NYT readers.

Gigino's Rule: (roughly):
If you want to beat the neighbour
Go to work early in the morning
(he does)

...limone e fiori...

Drought and flooding rain...

There is only one subject that I can write about today. I am sure that at home there is only one subject dominating everyone's thoughts and conversations - the terrible flooding that has inundated Queensland and parts of Northern New South Wales. There isn't very much I can add, from my garret here in merely-drizzly London, to the deluge of news stories that has been keeping pace with the deluge of rain.

Dorothea Mackellar

At this stage, with the waters yet to peak in Brisbane and a trail of destruction and loss of life behind the wall of water, Australians must be asking themselves if they still agree with Dorothea Mackellar, the young 'bush poet' who wrote the iconic verses in 1904 when she was 19 years old, living in London, and feeling homesick. Not that I'm drawing any parallels here...

The recent rains broke an equally dreadful ten year drought. Dorothea refers to both drought and floods in her paen to Australia, in the verse that most Australian school children - at least until my generation - were taught to repeat:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

When news of the floods in outback and northern Queensland first began to reach the news, I was fairly relaxed - at last the dreadful drought, so devastating to so many rural families, had broken. I read comments from farmers saying things like 'we really needed a good flood'. As Dorothea put it:

Core of my heart, my country!

Her pitiless blue sky,

When sick at heart, around us,

We see the cattle die-

But then the grey clouds gather,

And we can bless again

The drumming of an army,

The steady, soaking rain.

Friends in Europe asked how things were going, since there were reports of an area 'as big as France and Germany combined' being under flood. But also reports that 'hundreds' had been evacuated, prompting one Europe-based friend to comment that it must be a fairly sparsely populated area. In the early days, this was true. Small communities and remote farms were affected, but coping. The papers carried photos of country pubs with water to the windowsills, and happy patrons still drinking their beer. This was not so much a flood as a broken drought.

Brisbane

Then the waters began to reach the coastal plain and the more populated areas. Things began to seem more serious, but at least no lives had been lost. Now, a week or so later, not only have the waters devastated inland cities like Towoomba, causing loss of life, they have even reached the state capital Brisbane, a city of two million people. Roads are cut, electricity is out in many areas, anywhere near a river is under threat, and the flood waters may not yet have peaked in the Brisbane CBD. Over 70 people are missing. Twelve lives have been lost, and tragic stories are emerging. The latest news can be read on Sydney Morning Herald online (the source of images used here).

On a personal note, my parents are out there somewhere, on high ground, I hope. The news is that they are not near a river or threatened area (about an hour north of Brisbane), although the roads around them are blocked or impassable, so it is a good thing they stocked up on food a few days ago. I have heard with relief that they do have an electricity supply.

Today I saw television images of the floods while I was at the gym (being television-less at home, this was the first I had seen). As we watched in awe, Dan said to me 'what caused this?' I looked at him. 'Rain.' True, but perhaps not the whole story. Meteorologists are blaming La Niña weather patterns (check this report).

I've just checked the latest news from the Courier Mail, Brisbane's main newspaper, and it is cautiously reporting that the worst may have past:

Police said the river had peaked early this morning but the Bureau of Meteorology was more cautious, saying only that it was holding steady at 4.45 metres at 6.30am (AEST) in the CBD...Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said authorities remained on high alert despite the Brisbane River peaking lower than anticipated. "There is still a very dangerous situation and we have thousands of people who are waking this morning to the total devastation of either their home, their businesses," she told ABC Radio."This is still a very anxious time." Blue sky, no rain, and slightly lower river levels was some "good news after a lot of time without it".

My Facebook friends have been posting news stories and links to support pages and donation sites.Here are a few:

Donate to the flood relief appeal
Amateur videos of flood experiences
Missing man
Lives lost in Towoomba
Facebook Cause Page

It won't mean much to Brisbane residents, as they wait weeks to return to houses wrecked by water and mud, but Dorothea reminds us that rain means the end of drought:

For flood and fire and famine,

She pays us back threefold-

Over the thirsty paddocks,

Watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness

That thickens as we gaze.

We might also pause to be grateful that Australia is a favoured country that has the resources to respond in crises like this. In recent days, while the rain has been coming down in Queensland, more than 230 people have died in towns near Rio de Janeiro as heavy rains continue to cause flooding and mudslides in south-eastern Brazil. BBC News


Sentimental as she may be, I'll leave the final words to Dorothea, and send good wishes to all those affected by the Queensland floods.

An opal-hearted country,

A wilful, lavish land-

All you who have not loved her,

You will not understand-

Though earth holds many splendours,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.

Random news

The Fifth Floor corridor at St Pancras Chambers

St Pancras: the hotel and entranceway is nearing completion – the tall lights on the walkway are in, the paving nearly finished – you can see the sweeping carriageway now; there are signs that the scaffolding may disappear by Christmas. How fun it will be to have a beautiful five-star hotel on the premises. I’ve got to know or at least recognise all the concierge staff. The night-time staff (the concierge desk is manned 24 hours *safe*) are, I must admit, merely nodding acquaintances.  Stuart, from the day-time contingent, is a cheerful guy, often found exchanging his smart concierge jacket and tie for a hard hat and hi-viz jacket as he supervises a major delivery (e.g. someone moving in) across the construction zone. In what is, for us, welcome news, we have a new door closer on the front so that it doesn’t slam in the wind. I know you wanted to know that. Oh yes – and I have also made the acquaintance of the cleaning lady who’s unenviable job it is to vacuum the corridors on Monday mornings. She calls our Fifth Floor corridor “the big one”.

Today an email was circulated saying that the residents' representatives had met with the Renaissance Hotel people and given them a 'wish list' of what we residents would like to be able to avail ourselves of once the hotel is open. Along with discounts on catering, accommodation for family & friends, and in the restaurants and bars, there was also gym, spa and swimming pool use, room service, housekeeping, catering for functions, managing our apartments like serviced apartments when we're away, and internal secure access through to the hotel. It is quite a list. We'll see what comes of it.

The sunny courtyard of the Hotel Orfila, Madrid

The Weather: ah, yes. Way too dark. Like the Arctic in winter. I find myself consulting my watch to check what time of day it is – morning? Evening? It is not particularly cold yet – my iPhone says today was 3˚ - 8˚; similar to a Sydney winter. At breakfast this morning, around the big communal table in Le Pain Quotidian where I like to sit, there was fellow on his way back home to New York. He said he was looking forward to better weather. 'But surely it's cold in New York?', someone said. 'Yeah, but it's much lighter!' A kindred soul. I find most indoor places very overheated. I’m still perfecting a system of clothing layers and various efficient methods of shedding them and putting them back on. So far there has been no need to heat the flat much at all – being in the rafters, I probably benefit from everyone else’s heating. The corridor radiators have, I noticed, been turned on. In fact, I open the highest window (the one from which a patch of grey sky can be glimpsed) sometimes to let out some heat. I don’t mind the cold, or the misty drizzle that passes for rain here. The darkness is a bit more challenging – however, I have a plan! Next week I’m going to Spain for a day. It will be lighter, I hope – though possibly not much warmer: the iPhone predicts 12˚ or 13˚. If there is light, I will sit in the courtyard of the Hotel Orfila and renew my Vitamin D stores.

Le Pain in St Pan - breakfast central

Books: I thought you might also like to know about ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’ by Neil MacGregor, (you can buy it here) Mr. MacGregor is director of the British Museum, and the book tie in with a BBC radio series, as well as exhibits scattered throughout the museum. I saw a few of these interesting objects when I made my visit to the Greek and Roman antiquities, but seeing this book review recently reminded me that I need to go back and check out The Rosetta Stone:

"This lump of granite from Egypt, "about the size of one of those large suitcases you see people trundling around on wheels at airports", is, as he frankly admits, "decidedly dull to look at". It earns its place in A History of the World in 100 Objects because in the 19th century the equally dull text  on tax breaks for priests, inscribed upon it, in three different languages (Greek, demotic Egyptian and hieroglyphs)  became the key to decoding the hieroglyphic script of the ancient pharaohs.

But, more than that, the stone also has a powerful modern history of its own. It was fought over by French and British troops at the end of the Napoleonic wars, and finally taken to London. MacGregor is one of the few to point out that it is actually inscribed in four, not three, languages: on its side, we can still read, in English, "Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801." (from Mary Beard’s review in The Guardian on 13 Nov 2010)

I also found an interesting bookshop, but I think I'm afraid to go in. I picked up their events brochure, which advertises an evening session called "Through A Glass Darkly: Inside the Victorian Seances of the Fraudulent Mediums": 

"...but more than being told, you will be shown: magic will be performed, minds read, tales and fortunes told. Illusion, mentalism and magic meet, through a glass darkly. Performances sell out quickly, please book early."

Fancy a seance?

Interesting, you might think. Reading on, I see that other sessions have titles such as "So You Might Want To Join A Coven", "A Siberian Shamanic Storytelling Night", "Witch Hunts in West Africa" and "Jung and the Occult". There are also classes in Tarot, and monthly 'Pagan Ritual Evenings' - although there is a note saying that these "are not suitable for people who are unfamiliar with the ideas and theology of paganism", so that's me out. But there's always the "Introduction to Runecraft" or the "Goddess Workshop on Ceridwen".


Treadwell's Bookshop, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden. Just in case you want to drop in for a little Wicca. 

Lovely pool - pretend it's summer.

Health & Fitness:  I continue to get to my gym session with Dan the trainer (of 'Stomp' fame), albeit a little creakily. It turns out that Dan is also an excellent remedial masseur, which saved the day recently. I have found a nutritionist (give up caffeine, drink less wine, eat less cheese - the usual!) And I have also found some time to enjoy the swimming pool at One Aldwych (home of the health club & gym) - this is indoors, but I can pretend, can't I?

The Press: Speaking of The Guardian, I think we’re in trouble over the cricket, folks (as if you didn’t know). The Brits are being polite about it, relatively. This I see as a bad sign. What are you doing about it? Today, Queensland was described as our “struttiest, brashest state”. I am not entirely sure what that means, though I have a suspicion, and I don’t think it’s complimentary.

On Sunday I moved my press allegiance temporarily to The Observer, and was rewarded by an interesting debate on the subject “Is religion a force for good...or would we be happier without God?” One of the five participants was A.C. Grayling, Birkbeck’s own high-profile philosopher, who has been mentioned before in this blog. The debate is available here as a podcast.

A C Grayling socks it to 'em

 Amongst some familiar rehashed arguments on all sides, possibly the juiciest bit from ACG was this:

                “I visited a faith-based school and they started by saying, ‘’At this school we promote mutual understanding, and tolerance, and conviviality,’ and they were very proud of themselves for doing it. And I said, that is not something that we should praise you for – that is something we should expect from you as a minimum. It happened to be a Church of England school, but it had Muslims in it, and Catholics. And I asked each of these girls, who were all friends – I said to the Muslim girl, ‘What’s going to happen to your Catholic friend here when she dies?’ And I said to the Catholic girl, ‘What’s going to happen to you Muslim friend here when she dies?’ And so on. Oh, gasps went up from the teachers and the bishop to say you’re being divisive and you’re asking un pleasant questions, and I said, ‘No, I’m not - I’m trying to get them to think through the consequences of what they’re really committed to believing.”

The C of E bishop in question may have echoed the reaction of one of the Catholic panellists to this: “Oh, Anthony – you must stick to philosophy, do not venture into unknown territory.”

Goodness, I thought that venturing into unknown territory was the whole point of philosophy. It certainly is for me.

So, how was your day?

OK, so they’re philosophers, not administrators....

Prof Ken Gemes

The first week of the second half of the term has been interesting. We have met Dr Frisbee, and today another quirky lecturer was introduced – Professor Ken Gemes (pronounced ‘James’), an(other) Australian, lecturing on Nietzsche. It’s interesting to meet a new lecturer. This one became more fascinating as the lecture progressed. First he apologised for talking so quickly – said he just had long speeches in his head which sort of flowed out. Then he mentioned that if we met him in the street anytime and said ‘Hi, Ken!’ but were ignored, it would be because he couldn’t recognise anyone – he can’t form ‘visual memories’, he said; his memories were all of text. His wife complained about this because it often had unfortunate consequences (which he didn’t go into). As we delved into Nietzsche (who wrote a LOT of books) it was apparent that Professor Ken is spookily familiar with all the texts. He would quote chunks, and name the book and the section from which it came – not just sometimes but often. The high point was when he said, ‘Oh yes, Nietzsche uses that word only twelve times, I think, in his whole oeuvre.’ My goodness – I’ve finally come across someone with a genuine photographic memory.

Nietzsche

Professor Ken also said other interesting things, such as ‘Anything that is interesting in Freud is twice as interesting in Nietzsche’, but I’ll spare you the nitty-gritty of the lecture on Nietzsche. I need to digest it myself first.

Professor Ken and Dr Frisbee join the fascinating group of academic philosophers (is there any other kind of philosopher, I hear you ask? Perhaps not) that have been enlivening my days and providing food for thought and fodder for the blog. Earlier I was frustrated at the contrast between their evident erudition and their complete lack of administrative skills. Even the sanest and most organised of them, Dr Gudrun of Schopenhauer class, when I asked when the first essay was due, replied ‘Oh, we don’t worry too much about that sort of thing. When do you want to submit it?’ Then there was Dr. Owen who took the first sessions of Greek Philosophy. One day as he passed around a pile of printed handouts, he said ‘if anyone finds a payslip or anything like that in the pile, could you just hand it back discreetly please?’

From the course convenor who gave me [what I am assuming was official] permission to change courses: ‘this obviously presupposes that you know what you're in for’; to the administrative assistant, when I asked early in the term about what subjects it was open to me to do, replied ‘you can do whatever you want!’ – the Birkbeck Philosophy Department is certainly an interesting group.

And from the daily press...

The scene of the crime

Meanwhile, Guardian letter-writers are very excited about the applied ethics of a situation where a well-dressed young couple absconded from a high-end Michelin-starred restaurant (L'Autre Pied). They left their desserts on the table and went outside for a cigarette, and never came back – having eaten several courses and drunk two bottle of expensive champagne. As is often the case in such incidents, the  left-liberal letter-writers could find no sympathy at all for the restaurant. This from the Wine Critic at Counsel magazine:

Charging £285 for a bottle of 1997 Bollinger, a “so-so” vintage, strikes me as equally dubious as the conduct of the disappearing duo.

The general manager of the posh restaurant also made several grave PR mistakes, such as commenting that £572.74 was ‘an average spend’ for a meal at the restaurant; and – fatally – that it was the poor waiters who would suffer (? I’m not the only one to be puzzled by that comment). Then there was the sidebar discussion of the assumed name that the couple used – Lupin:

So a couple walked out of a swanky restaurant without paying the bill – an ‘average spend’ (!) of £572.74. At over £400 for a couple of bottles of champagne, who exactly is the robber? As for the erudite linking of the name Lupin to some fictional French thief (so Guardian...), how about an alternative clue: Monty Python’s Dennis Moore stealing from the rich – stealing lupins.

Blue lupin. Will it be spring soon?

 I see from breaking news that a couple have been arrested on suspicion of fraud, after trying the same thing at another restaurant the next night. It now emerges that they have hit a number of the best restaurants around town. This is valuable dining information, and I will keep a list of the places they have frequented for future reference, as they seem to have excellent taste.

Images from:

http://www.lautrepied.co.uk/default.asp?V_ITEM_ID=282&mn=5

http://www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/perennial-plants/blue-lupin.html

Nights out in London

My trainer at the gym, Dan, asked me today how I filled my evenings without a television. He tells me that he likes his wide screen model, with his punching bag set up nearby. I replied that I had many things to keep me busy (such as updating my blog!) and also that I went out a lot in the evenings. For example, I said, last night Evan and I went down to Kings College London to hear a lecture by Raimond Gaita, Professor of Moral Philosophy at KCL, on the subject of 'Genocide & Collective Responsibility.' I can't say that Dan thought this a particularly fun way to spend an evening. But trust me - it was an excellent lecture.

Professor Gaita, who as readers of this blog will know is Australian, focused his lecture on Bernhard Schlink, the German novelist and author of 'The Reader' (made into a film with Kate Winslet) and a legal professor and judge. The subject included considerations of so-called 'German guilt' - the difficulties of the second generation of post-War German people, the definition of 'genocide' both philosophical and legal, and why and how the Holocaust has become such a paradigm for humanity. The lecture was part of "Arts & Humanities Week" at KCL, and I quote from the brochure:

     "The defining crime of what we call the Holocaust or the Shoah is not mass murder: it is genocide, often described as the gravest of the crimes against humanity. Though Raphael Lemnkin coined the word 'genocide' in 1943, the Holocaust has become our paradigm for understanding it. Yet, though The Reader is often called a post-Holocaust novel, neither in The Reader nor in Guilt about the Past does Schlink ask whether the concept of genocide is fundamental to Hanna's attempt to understand what she did, and to Michael's understanding of his 'entanglement' with her guilt. Does that matter? That is one of the questions I will explore in my lecture. Another is: what should be the roles of philosophy and literature in the elaboration and attempts to answer that question? I will, in effect, be exploring the role the humanities should play in our efforts to understand the moral implications of some of the most important concepts in the jurisprudence of international law."

As to the role of the humanities in humanising us, Professor Gaita seemed pessimistic, unable to point to any evidence that investment in education in the humanities has ever had a clearly humanising influence on humankind. The discussion following the lecture was enlivened by a contribution from a woman who seemed to be a faculty member - she made some insightful comments, in her Australian accent. Indeed, the philosophy world here seems to be rather thick with Australians. I was also somewhat intrigued by several references to 'legal philosophy' -- hmmm: could there be a fit there?

KCL website on Professor Gaita's lecture

Following this deep and meaningful evening, we were invited to share a glass of wine with KCL people - I'm sure everyone felt they needed it - but we decided instead to go eat. We favoured Byron Hamburgers in Covent Garden with our custom - an upmarket hamburger joint. I enjoyed my meal very much, but Evan was less enthusiastic (as he has been generally unenthusiastic about London food so far - he finds it heavy compared to Sydney.)

Well, after that heavy philosophical experience and Dan's slightly incredulous response, I decided that it would be a good idea to see how young Dan spends his evenings (when not punching his bag). Just for this week he has returned to dance in a show where he spent seven years: 'Stomp', a very famous (I'm told) dance and percussion show. Actually it is a difficult show to slot into a genre, but Australians might think 'Tap Dogs.'  The production is described in the program as 'a unique combination of percussion. movement and visual comedy' which was created in Brighton in 1991 by Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas. Let's give Luke and Steve their due - it is an amazing show. And let's also give full due to the eight extraordinary performers whom Evan and I saw tonight: how they ever remember that complex choreography and simultaneously perform the percussion is mind boggling. 

As to Mister Dan - best body on the stage, mister! This is of course a good sign in one's personal trainer. When I mentioned my blog today, he kept suggesting items of interest which should be posted. When I finally managed to get through the reps - "put that on the blog!" When we decided that I had marginally improved at an exercise - "put that on the blog!" When I managed to lift a just a teensy bit more weight - "put that on the blog!" I got the feeling that he didn't completely believe in 'the blog', which somewhat inspired this post.

But kudos to all involved in 'Stomp' tonight!

For supper we stopped by Jamie's Italian - the Leicester Square version of Jamie Oliver's Italian chain. very glad we did - that is a restaurant to which I'd happily return.

The Tube

I have to report a sad and shocking incident on the Tube on Monday evening, Piccadilly line, westbound platform at King's Cross, about an hour after I boarded there to go to my Monday evening lecture. Someone was pushed on to the rails and lost his life, whether deliberately or by accident is not yet clear. I was aware that something had occurred, as the line was closed completely when I tried returning home from my lecture, but only read about the incident today in 'The Evening Standard', the free newspaper read by virtually every Tube-travelling Londoner. Read the news story here. After reading the story and getting caught in an humongous crowd deep in the bowels this evening, I suffered a moment of claustrophobia and decided to escape the confines of crowded Holborn Station and walk home. I remarked to Evan that I was experiencing an anti-Tube reaction; but this evening on our journey home we passed a Tube busker playing Pachabel's Canon on a violin. Inspired by the music, a couple decided to pause in their flight to the underworld to dance to 'Pachabel's Greatest Hit'. It was a restorative moment.

Images from websites as indicated and:

http://events.brighton.co.uk/past_events.htm

The Meaning of Life

Consider this cartoon by Argentinean cartoonist ‘Quino’ (Joaquín Salvador Lavado). It was sent to me (thank you Alex!) with the following note:

                Dear Annette

Enclosed herewith, please find an abridged history of philosophy (and of literature, etc.) which will hopefully be of great use to you in your new studies.

I am pleased to report that, in choosing to study philosophy – a decision I am often asked in puzzled tones to explain – it appears that I am decidedly cutting edge. The Guardian seems every day to have some report or other concerning things philosophical. For example, an interesting review of a new book ‘The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life’ by Bettany Hughes. The excerpt in the newspaper promises a book that does an excellent job of bringing to life Classical Athens of the 4^th century BC:

He was anxious about the emerging power of the written word over face-to-face contact. The Athenian agora was his teaching room. Here he would jump on unsuspecting passersby, as Xenophon records. "One day Socrates met a young man on the streets of Athens. ‘Where can bread be found?' asked the philosopher. The young man responded politely. 'And where can wine be found?' asked Socrates. With the same pleasant manner, the young man told Socrates where to get wine. 'And where can the good and the noble be found?' then asked Socrates. The young man was puzzled and unable to answer. 'Follow me to the streets and learn,' said the philosopher."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/17/socrates-philosopher-man-for-our-times

The Ancient Agora in Athens, where Socrates would have walked & talked.

Particularly intriguing is a report that a small rural English town called Malmesbury, which happens to be where the philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born, is hoping to establish itself as a destination by becoming a ‘philosophy town’:

Planned "philosophy town" events include a festival of history, ideas and philosophy and an all-night examination of enlightenment. Also planned is a long-distance walk from Oxford through Malmesbury and on to Wrington in Somerset, birthplace of John Locke, another 17th-century philosophical colossus.

The town's philosophy champions hope to transform a building into an "ideas place", containing bookshops and a coffee house. Other proposals include dramatising classical philosophical texts and installing a trail of busts of great philosophers around the town.

I found particularly interesting the comments in the report about why the town thought that people would embrace the concept of engaging with philosophy:

...she is excited at the prospect of non-academics getting stuck into philosophy. "You don't have to want to be a professional philosopher," she said. "You don't have to be able to wrestle with the knottier passages of [Immanuel] Kant to be able to get a huge amount out of the subject. It's OK to dabble. Don't be scared. There are a lot of people thinking we really need this because we've got into such a mess not using human reason to its full potential."

Michael Cuthbert, head of the philosophy town project, believes that radio programmes such as Radio 4's In Our Time and Moral Maze, and the rise in popularity of the work of thinkers such as Alain de Botton, showed the time was ripe for a philosophy destination. People are more loose in their loyalties and more questioning. They want to grapple with big ideas," he said.

I am not sure when Malmsebury intends to launch its proposed Festival of Philosophy, but what might well get me to visit is the prospect of the Socrates-like plans to walk about with a philosopher. The plan is for professional philosophers to walk alongside participants or meet them in the pub for a debate at the end of the day. That sounds like fun!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/18/malmesbury-philosophy-town

A computer generated fractal image.

At the risk of straying from the philosophical to the mathematic (and I’m beginning to suspect that there is not such a great divide between the two as I might have hoped) this morning the Guardian also has a thoughtful obituary of Benoit Mandelbrot, the great mathematician who brought the world fractal geometry, which took us from the regularly-shaped geometric figures of triangles and circles of Euclid’s geometry to a geometry that could describes clouds and coastlines. Mandelbrot is reported to have remarked:

“What is science? We have all this mess around us. Things are totally incomprehensible. And the eventually we find simple laws, simple formulas. In a way, a very simple formula, Newton’s Law, which is just also a few symbols, can by hard work explain the motion of the planets around the sun and many, many other things to the 50^th decimal. It’s marvellous: a very simple formula explains all these very complicated things.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/17/benoit-mandelbrot-obituary

Isaac Newton

Which brings us rather neatly back to the opening image of the ‘philosopher’ under the tree, which is the vision we often have of the handsome Isaac Newton ‘discovering’ the law of gravity when an apple is supposed to have fallen on his head. And at the time he considered himself to be a philosopher, rather than a scientist, although there was really no clear line between the two.

I have a view that the occupation of philosophers is to investigate the questions which have no answers, and that once answers – or formula, approaches, evidence, etc. – begin to emerge the subject matter of the search transmogrifies into a ‘science’ and is gradually handed over to the empirical scientist to investigate further, acquiring in the process a new name, such as biology, psychology, psycho-analysis, physics, quantum physics, even economics. The philosophers then leave these investigators to their empirical tasks and move on to further unexplored territory. Although many a philosopher (beginning probably with Aristotle) could be described as a confirmed empiricist – that is, insisting on explanations being based on sense-perception and the ‘real world’ – many are also unafraid to confront the metaphysical or transcendental. The transcendental is usually of no concern whatever to the empirical scientist and this is perfectly fine. Just because an object is ‘transcendentally real’ doesn’t mean that it cannot be investigated empirically. Kant, for example – who is not an easy philosopher with whom to grapple (she says with sweeping understatement) was probably an empiricist (according to the consensus in last week’s class discussion) despite believing that ‘the thing itself’ is independent from how we can get hold of it. Science ignores these niceties and gets on with science, investigating objects in the phenomenal world, to the greater good of us all.

You see that I can be generous in my view of empirical scientists, despite the fact that many such can be quite derisory about metaphysicians. On with the debate! Love it.

Images from these websites:

http://www.myclassiclyrics.com/artist_biographies/Isaac_Newton_Biography.htm

http://www.bhrc.ac.ir/ISMN/SHABAKEH/faq/files/g.htm

http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/LIGHTCONE/newton.html

Contemporary Athens

I like the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times for the world, which skews its news to that of interest to the region it is issued in, and includes some local bits and pieces too, as well as a hefty Arts & Culture section.  The Greek pages here are drawn from the local paper 'Kathimerini'  (which means something like 'daily') http://www.ekathimerini.com/ From it, I have learned that in Greece there is ‘the economy’ and ‘the real economy’. Most Greek news is hand-wringing about their massive debt and the austerity measures being imposed. There has been a big truck ‘strike’ going on lately – we passed several blockades in the bus yesterday, although they weren’t actually blocking anything much, just not delivering what they are supposed to be delivering, I guess. The IHT reports today that the strike is ‘turning ugly’ with shots being fired in the north of Athens. Fortunately our bus to the Peloponnese was going south yesterday.

 Today I also learnt about a new European country called FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia); and that I have missed a performance at the Herod Atticus Theatre (one of the ancient theatres on the slopes of the Acropolis, you’ll remember) which featured a monologue delivered by a Greek actress. Perhaps it is best that I missed that. In other news, a new museum dedicated to ‘the Greek resistance to fascist invader in World War II’ was inaugurated the other day (the Nazi swastika flew over the Parthenon during that time, until a small Greek boy pulled it down).

The IHT, bless it, also includes a section called ‘International Traveler’ which reports on airline mess ups, hotel developments and art shows you may have missed. Today it reported that Brussels airport was closed by a strike yesterday. *Phew*, a lucky miss.

I have also found out why this hotel is called ‘Grande Bretagne’ – it was established in 1872 and was designed ‘to honour the then affluent British clientele travelling on a world tour and including Athens in their itinerary’. I like ‘then affluent’ and its inference that times have changed. I haven’t come across a single Brit amongst either the hotel clientele or the bus tourists, so far. Nor any Germans nor Italians. Lots of Americans, Australians, French and Spanish – many, many Spanish. The hotel name is in French because the original proprietor’s wife was French. He had begun as a ‘poor kitchen aid at the palace’, which is opposite (now the Parliament), went abroad and made his fortune and returned to buy the mansion (built in 1842) and turn it into a hotel. It served as German military headquarters during the occupation (they always chose the best buildings). Lots of heads of state and famous people have stayed here, including....Maria Callas! I skip lightly over the Kennedys, Eisenhower, Indira Gandhi and Aristotelis Onassis.

Monastery of St Nektarios

Despite the pervasiveness of the ancient Greek pantheon of multiple gods, the Byzantine Christian era clearly took strong hold here, and the Greek Orthodox Church is much in evidence. Their churches look like squat mosques without minarets, featuring low domes (often several) and square corner towers, and frequently lots of red brick. The modern versions mimic the old ones. They are quite attractive from the outside; I haven’t yet ventured inside one. On Monday on Aegina we viewed what was said to the ‘the seat of the Greek Orthodox church’ and the largest church in Greece, the Monastery of St Nektários, built 35 years ago (and still missing a few internal frescos and mosaics, but they’re working on it).

Today I am abandoning Ancient Athens for Contemporary Athens, which in this case I am defining as the hotel pool and spa. I am told that the mainstays of the Greek economy are (in order): shipping, tourism, agriculture and industry. Thus, the spending of my money at the Grande Bretagne is obviously vital to helping the Greeks through this rough economic period, and I will do my best to assist. Later, I must transfer down the road to the local interpretation of the Intercontinental (which is unlikely to deviate much from every other interpretation around the world) to kick off for the work conference which will run for the next two days.

New roads

    

This is Day Five in London, and this morning (strolling back from breakfast at Carluccio’s with my Sainsbury’s bag - I invested in a strong one, since carrying groceries home is a regular feature of living car-less) I found myself both excited and contemplative simultaneously.  The future, both immediate and more distant, looks very enticing at the moment. I came up with an excellent, if clichéd, metaphor which I will share with you: back in Sydney I was feeling as if I had reached the end of a road; a broad, interesting, and adventurous road, but one that had ended in a comfortable car park, as it were. Now, I have found an interesting side street out of the car park. The initial few kilometres were steep and sometimes precipitous, but now I have emerged onto a broad plateau where the sun is shining and I can see many lanes, roads, highways and tracks leading off in all kinds of fascinating directions. Close by I can see interesting things to explore. In the distance there are features less clear, but equally tempting of exploration.

Of course (to leave the metaphorical mode) as mentioned I don’t actually have a car, so all this is to be done à pied, but you know what I mean.

Today I spent time on the laptop organising this and that, and also IM-ing and emailing my people back home. New pictures of Pandora have been posted – lovely! I’ve been calling local friends, talking to prospective bankers, researching medical practices, figuring out where one buys sheets and towels and knives and forks in Central London (Harrods?) http://www.harrods.com/HarrodsStore/visiting/store-guide

Tony Blair has a new book out, his memoirs. This is keeping the newspaper pages full at the moment, although one correspondent to The Guardian (I have decided that The Guardian is my daily press of choice) is unimpressed:

‘A quark is considered the smallest particle to exist. If you took a quark and divided it a million times then chopped it in half that would still be bigger than the interest I have in anything Tony Blair thinks, says or does.’

Today I must also pack my little bag for the train trip to Edinburgh tomorrow. It seems that the opening night of ‘Bliss’ at the Festival was a success, and I’m sure the closing night will be also. I am looking forward to our excursion up north.

A Room with a View

To mix the literary references (someone called me ‘Clarissa’ after yesterday’s post – we can’t have that sticking!) here is the view from my top floor room. This morning, after carefully scrutinising all that Earlsfield had to offer, I ventured into an Italian eatery named Carluccio’s for breakfast. I was pleasantly relieved to discover that they make a delicious cappuccino (in two blends: strong or smooth; I chose the smooth). That’s one important piece of research successfully concluded.

                This morning I trialled ‘The Independent’ as my daily press.  My verdict? Rather like reading a magazine rather than a daily newspaper – for example, there’s a two-page article on poetry of the English countryside. The lead story is about global warming; and of course the cricket scandal needs to be thoroughly gone over (including an article by the SHM’s Peter Roebuck). I was interested to see a photograph (on page 20) of two Sydney policemen arresting Alain Robert, who had apparently climbed the 57-storey Lumiere building in Sydney; but not until after hiring Max Markson as his PR agent.

                My morning was then enlivened by allowing myself to become locked out of Kyle & Andrew’s house. A couple of Polish (or possibly Romanian) builders were involved in this, along with a significant breakdown in communications, but you don’t need the whole sorry story; suffice to say I repaired back to Carluccio’s for another excellent coffee while awaiting re-admittance by Tania the cleaner. Thank you Tania.

                Yesterday evening, through a jet-lagged haze, I began scrolling through rental properties on the web, beginning The Great London Flat Hunt. My criteria are: within 1.5 miles maximum of Birkbeck (which is in Malet Street), two bedrooms (visitors!), and a budget of £450 - £650 per week (I know, I know – crazy expensive). I found literally hundreds of possibilities, made a shortlist of about 50 or 60, and emailed for more details of about 15. We’ll see. I am very fortunate in that there is ‘no rush’.

                I also spent some time looking at the course descriptions at Birkbeck – this year’s are not yet posted on the Philosophy Department’s website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/phil/ but last year’s are presumably a good guide to what to expect.  I can’t wait to get involved with an article entitled ‘Plato on why Mathematics is good for the soul’, or to discuss questions such as ‘Can a person know the better and do the worse?’  And how about this interesting stuff from the Philosophy of Mind course:

What is the relation between mind and body? This is a central question in Philosophy of Mind, and it is one that continues to divide philosophical opinion. In these classes, we shall look at five of the most influential theories that have been developed in response to it. Key questions that we shall consider along the way include: are there good reasons to think that the mind is separate from the body? What is the relation between the mind and observable behaviour? What is the relation between the mind and internal states of the brain? What is the causal relationship between the mind and the body?

It is 18˚, sunny, and the sky is very blue. I have acquired an Oystercard, that ubiquitous London travel card, which comes with messages from the Mayor of London. That’s progress enough for the first 24 hours, I think.

Hmmm...must be Britain

Arrival

Made it to London, where it is a balmy 15 degrees and a Bank Holiday Monday. The trip was extremely smooth: I don’t know if I should admit it – having claimed to be setting out to live ‘la vie boheme’ – but I did travel First Class. I used Frequent Flyer points, but still. ‘Twas nice. I met Adrian Collette, the CEO of Opera Australia, in the lounge in Bangkok, also travelling in the pointy end (though he was careful to tell me that he had scored an upgrade – wouldn’t want me thinking that OA pays for First).

                He was on his way to Edinburgh, where the whole company is presently rehearsing for their Edinburgh Festival performances of the divine new Australian opera ‘Bliss’. As a card-carrying ‘Bliss’ groupie, I too will be there. Kyle and I are planning to take the train oop north next weekend, in the first of one of those wonderful travel opportunities that come from living in Europe – of which I hope there will be many. The opera has been receiving lots of interested press – see for example: http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/XXXXrated-Australian-opera--39Bliss39.6157452.jp which includes a helpful glossary of 1980s Australian slang, just in case that is too esoteric for Edinburgh Festival goers. ‘Bliss’ reports will follow. 

I whiled the long flights away reading and sleeping. If this is to be a self-respecting blog, I should report on what I am currently reading: ‘A Tale of Love and Darkness’ by Amos Oz (2003). It is a memoir by an erudite Israeli writer about growing up in Jerusalem in the 1940s. The insights into what it was like for Russian/Ukrainian/Polish/Lithuanian Jews who left Europe for the Levant even before the Land of Israel officially existed is fascinating. I’m reading a translation from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange – I think Nicholas should rate a mention, because translating this couldn’t have been easy. The book was sent to me by my good friend Larry from Del Mar, California (thanks Lazza!) who is himself a descendant of Russian Jews who immigrated to the USA.  I could comment a lot more about the book, except that I have lots more things to tell you about my own immigration. But here’s a little snippet:

                ‘In general, I think there are far more colours and smells than there are words [for them].’

                So here I am in Earlsfield, cosily ensconced in the house of my friends Kyle and Andrew, both of whom are away at the moment. Andrew is in Darwin doing a practical stint for his nursing degree; and Kyle is on his way home from there. He arrives tomorrow. At some point, the two dogs will also come home, I assume. Meanwhile, it is quiet here. In my new camp, my priorities were to nest and forage – that is, unpack and find the Tesco’s. Both of these I have accomplished. The Tesco’s visit produced cheese, bread and some fresh fruit. Bizarrely to an Australian, I bought lemons and apples from South Africa, grapes from Greece, strawberries from the USA and blueberries from Poland.

                I have bought and perused the local press. I chose ‘The Guardian’ today – what should become my daily news, I wonder? The headlines include cheating at cricket (this takes four pages to discuss, horrific as it is); an article about ‘Travellers’ who are apparently people who live in caravans instead of houses (it seems that there are 300,000 Travellers and Gypsies in the UK who prefer this lifestyle); and a squabble over market stalls in Borough Market (a very interesting district – I stayed there last November).

                It was very nice to turn on the iPhone when I was off the plane and catch up with my tribe back in Sydney. There’s no doubt that the communication options these days make an adventure like this far less daunting. Keep those FB posts, emails and SMSs coming!

                Excuse me, I will go and take some pictures of my new temporary home to post for you.

                

Toast and Vegemite

It is now the evening of a significant day, fraught with exhaustion, doubts, sentimentality and cardboard cartons. It is definitely a moment for toast and Vegemite and a cup of tea. Fortunately, here at Sophie & Dan's place they are able to supply such comfort food: thanks, Sophie & Dan! Luv ya!

My lovely little house is now empty of my possessions; well, if you don't count all the big bookshelves and so on that I have left there for the new tenants. The movers spent all day shoving and stacking The Stuff into storage containers in their big truck. They estimated that it came to 60 cubic metres - down from the 92 originally estimated. I am very proud of that.

The day held a few poignant moments, including the one where I saw my lovely piano sitting out in the driveway and almost lost my composure. Then there was the Lead Packer, who built himself a little 'desk' of cardboard boxes, on which to do his paperwork - there was a lot of listing and record keeping because The Stuff is all going into storage. He set up his cardboard desk on the footpath in front of my house. At various times through the day I would see him perched in front of it on a chair from my front room or my dining room. Then, rather memorably, he moved his generous butt into an expensive reproduction period French occasional chair, that cost me a fortune. I was returning from a foray to the cafe for a much needed caffeine fix when I spied this vision on the roadside. 'Ah, well', I thought. 'That's a sight you don't often see.'

Speaking of the cafe, I did hunker down there on several occasions, with coffee and the press. Of course you could say that I was in a fairly delicate state today, but I actually shed a tear when I read a little tirade by Paul Keating in today's 'Herald'. Not because Keating was having a tirade, but because it took me back to the days when politics was passionate and politicians were articulate and in-your-face and got mad about things. But that was a long time ago.

I received a lovely note from a friend today (who shall remain nameless unless she gives me permission to mention her). She paid me a very extravagant compliment: "You are my most interesting friend after the Shanty Singer and the World Class guitarist." I cannot think of higher praise than to be called 'interesting'. I will try my best to live up to the accolade.

At Sophie's suggestion, I have moved my doona, pillows and red bedcover onto her spare bed, so I have kind of re-created my bedroom in Sophie's spare room. This is very comforting tonight, and is better than thinking about the pleasant 3k walk around my suburb that I won't be doing again, or the sofa in front of the fire that I won't be lying on, or the lovingly selected pictures and rugs that I won't be living with.

OK! That's enough of that!