tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9985292456486554392024-03-13T00:39:27.270+00:00A penguin writesAvian lunacy in bite sized chunksMalcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.comBlogger384125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-11327219726167868972020-06-19T23:06:00.001+01:002020-06-19T23:06:43.958+01:00The inscrutabilty of memory and how it can grab you at the most inappropriate timesI was watching 'Robocop' today and I took a break to 'relieve myself' (take a piss for those unused to the niceties), when suddenly I was struck by a thought; not just a thought but a sensation. Something tangible; lips touching lips. Her tongue on mine, delicate not fervent, not at all passionate. Just a gentle gliding of flesh across flesh.<br />
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Why shoild I remember this?<br />
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Does it matter to me?<br />
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I was but an innocent, an innocemt child, when she crawled into my sleeping bag that night. In the hope for sex? Perhaps but then again, perhaps not. Perhaps she sought the same comfort as I. Merely someone who would hold her close and tell her that the world was not as awful as she dreamt it to be.<br />
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It is more than forty years since that encounter and still I cannot dismiss it from my memory. Why?<br />
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Was she my one true, abiding love. Or just my first?<br />
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Oh, what the hell. It's life!<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-56728831029029985402020-04-16T17:10:00.000+01:002020-04-17T05:38:21.205+01:00When I'm 64, the kindness of strangers and the allure of the unattainableOnce, when I was young, I thought that 65 was so far away. I would never be 65. And yet, here I am, a few days before. Where has the time gone? Is time merely a passing memory. Do I, can I, feel that first kiss; lips upon lips, tongues seeking another's. What of that warmth, so beckoning, so moist, as you slid your penis inside her vagina. What is the past but memory?<br />
<br />
I have a confession to make. Despite reading, and seeing, it a number of times. I have always thought that 'Cry havoc' came from 'Henry V'. I was wrong; it comes from 'Julius Ceasar'; How wrong can one be? For nigh on fifty years, I have been seduced by Shakespeare's rhetoric! How apposite 'Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war' sounded in advance of 'and let us close up the wall with our English dead.' William was far better than I ever gave him credit for; oh the folly of youth!<br />
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And you know when things are bad with the covid-19 outbreak when your local stores start investing in glass screens twixt customer and shopkeeper. Delivered supermarket goods are all very well but I still like to support my local 'asian stores' as much as I can; they provide a valuable service. Forever open, even on Christmas Day, providing 'tick' (deferred payment until the benefit payment comes through), giving a gift at Christmas to 'valued' (read regular) customers, Ferrero Rocher chocs or half a bottle of one's favorite tipple.<br />
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Recently, I had run almost out of toilet roll. I ventured out only to find the shelf empty; what no toilet roll? The 'assistant' (read one of Mr Patel's clan) advised me that they were having trouble sourcing it at the 'cash and carry' but were keeping what little stock they had for 'regulars'. I asked for a two roll pack if they had them; two rolls would suffice until I could source another outlet. I was given six rolls! If I had noticed it before I got home, I would have given the four roll pack back; someone must be in more need than I was. But, what a gesture! One does not get <b>that </b>from a supermarket chain!<br />
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I have also recently been pondering, perhaps weirdly some might say, about what actors (really actresses but that is not de rigeur nowadays) attract me by their physical appearance. Obviously, I don't know them as people but who I might wish to get to know, perhaps someone I would try a mild flirtation with at a party with the intent of getting to know them better as people. The list somewhat surprised me as it was not composed of the 'usual suspects'. They had clearly been chosen for ability not for their ability as 'eye candy'.<br />
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Sure, all the 'dead, or nearly dead', featured on my list. Catherine Deneuve, Merle Oberon, Grace Kelly, Clara Bow (the original 'It Girl'), Audrey Hepburn and the three Isabelle(a)s, Adjani, Huppert and Rossalini but I was more interested in the living not the dead or nearly dead. Surprisingly, I was drawn to the lesser known, not 'stars'; people one could somehow think of as normal, leading normal lives, going to Sainsbury's to do their shopping and only buying expensive clothes for a 'premiere' in which they played a (very) minor role.<br />
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First up is the most troubling to me. She is not in any way 'eye candy' but not 'ugly'; when I look at her, I do not see a beauty, merely someone one might see on the tube and not give a second thought to. Am I so attracted to 'talent' that I ignore everything else. (I hope so.) And she is talented, be sure of that. <b>Nicola Walker</b> is one of the finest actors that I have seen. 'Line of duty' is perhaps the best 'cop show' in the last ten or fifteen years, her performance was so real and I so longed for her not to commit suicide so that she could reappear!<br />
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<b>Sharon Smith</b>; so good in the 'Inspector Lynley Mysteries' that she stole every scene! Maybe it was the director running with an arc that was never to be realised but the character <b>wanted</b> Lynley so much. Maybe it was how it was 'meant' to go; maybe it was Smith. Who knows? But if someone looked at me in the way that Smith looks at her fellow actor, I would at least pursue the possibility that the 'arc' of the series was not the right one. And she makes the most of her pixie looks and demeanour.<br />
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<b>Alison O'Donnell</b>: she brings a whole new game to the idea of 'frump' as 'sex symbol' and ultimately as 'tarnished goods'. She never looks her best, always dowdy (at least Mali Harries had her red anorak), never remotely 'glamourous', never beguiling and yet . . . One just needed a chink in her armour . . . <br />
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<b>Mali Harries</b>: perhaps it is just the voice; a remembrance of nights spent on the sofa while she slept in the bed. Maybe the Welsh lilt beguiles me. All I ask is that BBC Wales commission another 'series' of 'y gwyll' (Hinterland) so that I get to see Mali in a 'starring' role and one that perhaps stretches her talent.<br />
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<b>Jodie Comer</b>: 'eye candy', to be sure. But watch 'Thirteen' or 'Killing Eve' and tell me that she is not a great actor, however young she may be.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Hermione Norris</b>: I have no idea why, amongst so many other 'blondes', she should make my 'list' but she does. Is it the cheekbones that you could cut paper with? Or her similarity to a 'Cranach nude' with her clothes on? I don't much like the hair though; perhaps Amanda Tapping in early 'Stargate-SG1' would suit better.<br />
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Finally, a passing nod to someone I once saw on the concourse, under the clock, on Waterloo station as I was going home after work; about fifteen years ago. Maybe she was waiting for someone. Knee high, black boots, tight denim jeans, faded, white T-shirt and a leather, short, only to the waist, 'bomber jacket'. She looked a million dollars; someone you would give your eye teeth to fuck! (Pardon my French.) It was <b>Annette Crosbie</b> (One foot in the grave), who when I saw her must have been in her sixties.<br />
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So, what attracts you?<br />
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One must never mistake the actor for the role that they play or the author for the behaviour of their characters. It is always fiction; nothing more, nothing less. That we believe is a true testament to their skill.<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-48761279807286413482020-03-26T12:05:00.000+00:002020-03-26T12:08:55.625+00:00'Spooks', spies and the lure of deceitI recently took out a subscription to Britbox.co.uk. A joint venture by the BBC and ITV (Channel 4 may 'come on board at some stage') to rival such services as 'Netflix'. While the BBC (iPlayer) and ITV ('itvhub') have their own streaming services, this tends to be somewhat limited; mostly showing, 'on catch-up', orogrammes, which have been aired recently on terrestrial TV on the broadcasters' multiple channels 'Bitbox' gives one the opportunity to view the entirety of multiple seasons, for little more than the cost per year of an eight or ten season on DVD, from the very beginning. I thought this 'worth a punt'. No more buying 'on spec' or by Amazon reviews of quality; I could make up my own mind. However, at the back of my mind, is the promise of all seven seasons of 'Hill Street Blues'; only the first two are on DVD.<br />
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I spent much of the nineties and subsequent decades devoid of a TV set. Why would I buy a £500 'consumer durable', purchase a licence every year (required by UK law) to watch one (or maybe two at a push) programmes a week? No; I had no time for this! I watched the DVDs that I had bought (mostly 50's or early 60's), a few streaming, low-quality porn videos on-line in miniscule 240 windows and a plausible, yet unattainable, vision of my future.<br />
<br />
And then I watched 'Spooks' ('MI-5 in America) as my 'guide' to what might be on 'Britbox',<br />
<br />
The first episode confirmed my worst fears about how low 'British' drama could sink; a hackneyed remake of 'The Sweeney' with 'Counter Terrorism' replacing Regan and the Flying Squad. However, I wanted, needed it to be better and so I persevered. Happily, it seemed to improve, although perhaps I lowered my expectations unwittingly.<br />
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What struck me was how leading characters, characters that the audience had perhaps invested in, were routinely killed off (literally); actors were lucky if they survived a season without being killed! Was this intentional from the start? Or just something that grew out of an actor's wish not to continue with a role beyond a limited 'run'. <br />
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(An aside, Hermione Norris is both an accomplished actor and still, despite her age, absolutely drop dead gorgeous! And Nicola Walker, equally talented and strangely, equally attractive to me, although I have no idea why. She is no 'beauty' in any conventional sense! Perhaps her talent is more than enough for a 'hard on'!)<br />
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So why the interest in prime-time, 'vulgar' television?<br />
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Because of what it says, despite itself perhaps, about lies and deceit!<br />
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Spies, undercover cops, anybody pretending to be not what they are because of their job, has to be a potential victim of their job. Can one live with the deceit that one ladles out to all and sundry including those closest to you.<br />
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We are all guilty, to a larger or lesser extent, of 'fabricating' events in our lives; embellishing some real event with a degree of artistic licence or simply making the whole thing up as one goes along. Memory is a fallible thing and, unwittingly, one can often be seduced by how events play out in memory not the actual reality of that event and the more you tell yourself or others the 'story', the more 'fixed' it becomes so that you can 'tell' it in no other way.<br />
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However, what happens when you fabricate an existence, which you know to be untrue; can you ever go back to being 'yourself'? Someone you might recognise from a previous time? Somebody that embodies the 'real' you? Surely, the longer that the duplicity becomes 'your life', the greater the chance of losing 'yourself' in the 'lie'.<br />
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This happens to most of the major characters and even when they try to 'come clean', it invariably ends badly. Cynical scriptwriters or just an observation on life and an admonishment to always tell the truth. Sometimes, even prime-time and 'vulgar' television can be more 'intelligent' than we give it credit for.<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-67489067153820189102020-03-22T13:36:00.000+00:002020-03-22T13:36:03.723+00:00Scary monsters (and super creeps), Atomic Rooster and the enigma of memoryDoes it never trouble you; how memory works? How the brain makes connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of one's life?<br />
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I have been watching, a second time around, 'Life on Mars' and 'Ashes to ashes', which play out in a cornucopia of popular music from the time in which each 'series' is set. I had no problem with 1973; I recognised every track, even Atomic Rooster! But the 1980s? Bar a few snatches of Donna Summer and the Human League, the only track that I recognised was David Bowie's 'Scary Monsters' and that weirdly took me back to 1969.<br />
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Robert Fripp is probably the most under-rated and under-appreciated guitarist of his, or any other, generation. Why 1969? Because, in the words of Melanie Safka; 'to be there was to remember'. He was good then, sitting on his stool; he is awesome now!<br />
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I know that Fripp played guitar on the track and so it makes sense that it would take me back to Hyde Park and King Crimson blowing the Stones off stage but why would that dredge up memories of some middle-aged, balding plumber offering me money (a lot of money) to have me ejaculate in his mouth? And why would that make me think about S1, whose lips would never touch my cock, or S2, who could, seemingly, never get enough. Always swallowed, did S2.<br />
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Did she really enjoy it. They say that they do but can you believe them? <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"No,
not love" she said.<br />
"Don't you know that it's different for girls?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And so, where does that leave me? An ageing misanthrope with nothing but memories. Perhaps. But I remember the love, not the sex. And the love sustains me; however cold it might be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"I'll spend my whole life, just making the time right. But I'll still have a bowl of that leftover wine." Why does that song still haunt me after 40, 50 years. Perhaps, not for the first time, you never threw the dice and prayed for 'lucky seven'. Maybe, that was <b>the</b> night. I doubt that it was but, if it was, I am sorry Marianna!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lost opportunity. Tell me about it! I could write the book!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Like today, no kidding.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I came out of the 'corner shop' and there was a mother, a baby and a puppy; I bent down to stroke the puppy (I am a fool for dogs) and the dog was suddenly whipped away from me. Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And there it was; the cafe on the opposite corner. The one that I had never entered in the four years since they opened despite the fact that they sold Segafreddo espresso. So why then? I have no idea. The woman with the baby and the puppy followed me in about a minute or two later. (Don't despair, I did not think she was actually following me for the prospect of a night of unbridled passion.) But as I sat there alone, nursing my two double espressos (I later had a third, I am a fool for caffeine as well), I stared out of the window and I became lost in seemingly disconnected memories; memories, entirely unconnected, except as a part of my life,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The night that <i>she</i> crept into my sleeping bag, half naked, with mischief on her mind; my very own Faerie Queen. The evening I spent eating rose petals washed down with pints of ale, pregnant with anticipation but fearful nonetheless. The night that I spent in the cells at Holborn 'nick' fearing the worst. The day spent trudging through the snow, blinded by the unseasonable, spring blizzard on the road to the defunct Leica factory in Wetzlar merely to pay homage. A restaurant in Zakynthos sipping Pina Colados, a cava chilling in the bucket, courtesy of the house, fresh lobster topped by a small firework and the best damn sunset you will ever see. The night that I sat by the 'phone with a (very) sharp knife and a bath full of water with memories of <i>her</i> and the 'Roman way' of dealing with it all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have a vague, and I am sure misguided, idea of how the brain works. Cells 'fire' across the synaptic gap, creating electrical impulses by chemical means. Quite possibly, memories are stored in a 'daisy-chain' cascade of multiple neurons; not just a single transfer. Perhaps I am wrong but surely unconnected memories cannot be invoked by one single memory. But perhaps the brain is far more interconnected than I imagine and the paths, which that 'final firing' neuron in the sequence is able to avail itself of many other connections, which the 'originating' neuron has no access to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Borges hit the nail on the head with his 'Garden of the Forking Paths' Perhaps I have read too much Borges!</span>Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-59947397333827686192020-03-07T15:10:00.000+00:002020-03-07T15:24:21.835+00:00Keeley Hawes, an apology and a dilemmaFirst, an apology; to Keeley Hawes.<br />
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When I first wrote about 'Life on Mars' and 'Ashes to Ashes', I praised Philip Glenister for his wonderful performance as DCI Hunt; the 'keeper of the keys' of the 'coppers' purgatory'. I omitted to mention Ms Hawes. 'Ashes to Ashes' is nothing without an actor of her calibre.<br />
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She fisrt came to my attention in TV's adaptation of 'Tipping the velvet'. Keen to see how far British mainstream TV would go with lesbian sex (not as far as Swedish TV if 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' and its sequels are anything to go by). I found myself captivated by the drama, not the sex.<br />
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She next came up on my radar in 'Line of Duty'. As Denton, one so wanted to believe her; that she was a victim, pure and simple. Hawes played the ambiguity to perfection!<br />
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And then 'Ashes to Ashes'. You know, after 'Life on Mars', that she's dead and is never going home and you know that there can never be a romantic relationship between her and DCI Hunt and the scriptwriters do not dissuade you from that view. But is it yearning that I see in Keeley Hawes' eyes? Lauren Bacall had it, Jodie Comer has it; Keeley Hawes has it in spades! To say so much with a look?<br />
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(Oh, and by the way, she is drop dead gorgeous!)<br />
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'Life on Mars' and 'Ashes to Ashes' merely brought home a question, which I had never felt posed before the 'fantasy era', the age 'post-Tolkien' but which niggles me still. The time when I first read Donaldson's 'The chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the unbeliever'. What happens when you don't believe the reality that you perceive is your actual reality. What happens when you cannot tell 'fantasy' from 'reality'. Rape is a possible consequence.<br />
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Is this not a sign of madness?<br />
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I find the dilemma of Thomas, Sam and 'Bolly keks' so interesting. How do you define a morality in an 'alien' world, so different from the one, which <b>you</b> know; does <b>your</b> morality have a place in that 'world'? That is a question that I think that it is worthwhile to ponder in 'the alone of your time'<br />
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Is our current, middle class morality valid in all possible worlds? We would like to think so but isn't it just a hangover from a Christian morality, which no longer has any bearing in a post-religious realm?<br />
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The fact that Ashley Pharaoh et al chose to couch their fantasy in allusions to Christianity, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory makes me think that the myth is a long time dying and is not dead yet. And yet, the myth can still teach us something.<br />
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We are responsible for what we do and think. Whether we are 'punished' or 'rewarded' in Heaven, Purgatory or Hell makes no difference; what matters is this life.<br />
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And is this not what those fantasies are trying to tell us? Whatever reality you are in; be true to yourself. Hold on to what you believe to be good. Do whatever you believe to be right.Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-58795826621600544072020-03-01T16:08:00.001+00:002020-03-01T16:08:20.331+00:00Melons, lychees and a lesson to be learntMemories are strange things and the things that invoke such memories are even stranger.<br />
It was drizzling today; not an uncommon occurrence in Britain in February. High winds and rain are the usual fare for winter veering into spring in this sceptered isle.<br />
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For some reason, I know not not which, I had a hankering after slices of melon; perhaps it was a desire for a summer, which might never come. I was immediately transported back into a time in which slices of near ice-cold melon were as gratifying as ice-cold Dutch lager (brewed no doubt elsewhere 'under licence') but without the alcohol; perhaps more suited to 11am than a post-prandial afternoon.<br />
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Anyway, I started to remember those mornings on the beach, the soft sands sucking you in like 'quicksand', the hot sun on your face, the sweat under the arms, the thirst. Melons, like cucumbers, are mostly water but sweet not bitter. But melons are big; you have to slice them; they are too big to eat alone, even two would struggle. Cover them in 'cling film' and refrigerate and it's still not the same as the first time that you slice them. Some water evaporates.<br />
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So, I usually opted for a smaller melon; a honeydew; ripe, possibly over-ripe, but manageable. We would spoon out the contents of each half, spitting the seeds into the sand. This thought led to the 'lychee man'.<br />
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I have only been on one 'exotic' holiday in my life; Mauritius. One rises early, you have to, if you are to beat the Germans desire to have skin baked like coffee beans. Horses must be ridden, especially galloped, before 7am; before they become too 'hot'. So we would have breakfast as soon as it was available; the fruit 'pyramid' was awesome. (But no muesli; shame!) You could even have a 'full English'! So, what are you going to do but hit the beach; at 8:30 or 9:00.<br />
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The Lychee Man would hit the beach an hour or two later!<br />
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Now, here's the thing. Mauritius is a tropical paradise, no? Well, not quite. In order to paddle in, or go swimming in, the waters close to shore (at shore's edge), one is advised to wear 'jelly sandals', otherwise one is likely to get 'stung' by some nefarious or noxious beastie. A very real threat, I assure you.<br />
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We had no 'jelly sandals' and there were none to be had. Not a problem, you might think. However, the Lychee Man's fruit was crawling with ants; they had to be washed off; killed with salt water!<br />
And so, for the first and only time, in my life, I 'stepped up to the plate'! I waded into the water, up to my waist, sans 'jelly sandals', and washed the Lychee Man's fruit and rid them all of those pesky ants! The things we do for love, ay?<br />
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Which leads me onto . . . (you can tell how my brain works, ay?)<br />
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In such climes, one scarcely ventures out between the hours of twelve and three; too damn hot. And don't, for goodness sake, attempt to play squash unless you want to provoke a heart attack!<br />
<br />
Well, we were sitting in one of the hotel's many restaurants, eating our 'croque monsieurs' and drinking our beer, when one of the 'tourist' fishing boats pulled in. A big, burly man (six feet plus and pecs like Schwarzenegger, biceps to match) lurches onto the dock seemingly much the worse for wear. They sat at the table closest to the dock, next to us.<br />
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Why, I enquired, would somebody spend so much money hiring a boat, even if South African, just to get drunk? Oh no, his pals replied, he is simply exhausted. He had been 'playing' the marlin/swordfish for over three hours and, just when he thought it 'beat', it leapt out of the water and 'threw the hook'. He was still shaking when we left him at three.<br />
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And, as Vonnegut would have it; so it goes.<br />
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I was in a fishing tackle shop in Norfolk one day, looking for bait and some hooks; elvers have a tendency to swallow size 24 hooks, and there was a 'little old lady', five feet nothing and limbs like pipe cleaners, looking to buy a rod and a reel for her great grand son. We got talking.<br />
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"What's the largest fish you've ever caught?" she asked. Me, I was a fisherman! I had a 29lb pike, a 34lb carp, a 3lb roach, a 4lb perch to my name. I was so full of myself; I was so proud!<br />
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She invited me back to her house for a cup of tea; just for friendship's sake. Along the walls of her hallway were photographs of her standing beside marlin, swordfish. porbeagle sharks! "That's what I meant by 'biggest'.<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-20473879347984561062020-02-25T14:54:00.000+00:002020-02-25T14:54:48.933+00:00Hustle, Life on Mars and Ashes to AshesI did not possess a television set during much of 1980-90s or the twenty-first century but over the last three years, I have found a plethora of programmes that I missed 'first time around' on, mainly, BBC iPlayer/<br />
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Most of the 'old stuff' on itv.com are mostly either 'too dated', like 'The Sweeney'' or too pedestrian like 'Vera' or 'Poirot'; you don't want to go with 'The Protectors' or 'The Saint'!<br />
<br />
But the BBC is, or seems to be, pulling out all the stops of their back catalogue of 'prime-time viewing', which on reflection is not half bad. As well as informative documentaries, which belie their limited audience, history, astronomy, physics, chemistry et al, we have 'Silent Witness', 'The Three Musketeers', 'Robin Hood', 'Waking the Dead' as well as the very excellent 'Thirteen' and 'Killing Eve', which both starred the beyond awesome Jodie Comer. If some forty years on, she doesn't become a 'national treasure', there is something very wrong with the world!<br />
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However, I would like to concentrate my 'critique', if that what it is, on three programmes. First up is 'Hustle'. OK, I'll admit, somebody watched 'The Sting' and thought 'I could make a series out this concept'; the same thing happened with 'Now you see it, now you don't'. (Parts one and two; is there a three on the cards? I enjoyed them immensely.)<br />
<br />
The basic premise is that a group of five set out to 'con' a 'mark', who is not very nice to know. This gets you rooting for the criminals; the con men and woman. To defraud 'nice' people out of their money would be somewhat immoral and so is avoided; just like 'The Sting'. The skill in the plotting and in the script-writing is to use the old 'magical trick' of misdirection; you think that you see but you actually don't. And sometimes it works,and sometimes it doesn't. Eventually one wises up to the tricks the 'story plotters' play. However, the 'reveal' does give a certain amount of pleasure or contentment if you spotted it ten minutes in to the programme.<br />
<br />
'Life on Mars' and 'Ashes to Ashes', both Bowie songs, is about a policeman and, in 'Ashes to Ashes', a policewoman suddenly thrown back in time to a totally different era of 'policing'; fans of 'The Sweeney' will love it! The question is; can they deal with it? Robert Glenister is absolutely superb in his role as DI and DCI. There are numerous questions to be answered at the end of 'Life on Mars'. Was it a dream? A mere fantasy cooked up by a screen-writer looking for an interesting plot-line? A suicide whose life flashes before him in an instant? Was it real? These questions puzzled me for a time.<br />
<br />
'Ashes to Ashes' poses the same questions in a different way, still interesting to keep you engaged, However, one realises that the reason why the ending of 'Life on Mars' was ambiguous was that 'Ashes to Ashes' would resolve the issue in the final episode. I will not spoil the ending but I will say that the policewoman is good enough to enjoy a night in the pub; the way the Met always celebrated in the 70s and 80s.<br />
<br />
As an idea, I thought it wonderful; As a concept that would carry two series, let alone one, I thought it awesome!Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-30508213896597843062020-02-21T02:01:00.000+00:002020-02-21T22:10:03.966+00:00God, it's twelve years since I started this blog. What on earth was I thinking?<br />
<br />
A way of explaining myself to me by dressing up as a penguin.<br />
<br />
Or, perhaps, a way of explaining myself to her.<br />
<br />
Call it an obsession if you must but I scarce had designs of that nature, despite what her husband might have thought. Oh, how I long for your smile; merely your smile.<br />
<br />
Ten years on and I can still feel your smile. How your face would radiate the glow of friendship; nothing more. A delicate drizzle on a balmy summer's eve. 'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child . . .' There was nothing more.<br />
<br />
I thought this to be a long, philosophical treatise on the whichness of the why but instead it turns out to be a plaintive cry to a woman (or women) who has (have) long since gone.<br />
<br />
So, instead, I give you a poem. 'Ulrike' is but a name; it is not her real name. The circumstances are real and perhaps mirror an evening 'in the pub' but who is to tell. She invited me round for an evening's quiet solitude; it was nothing more, A gesture of friendship; no more was on offer even if I had managed to summon the courage to act.<br />
<br />
I seldom write poetry; prose has always been more to my liking. I don't like the rigour that poetry forces upon you. The telling of tales couched in the despair, which I often feel, I find suits me better. I find a certain solace in pouring my heart out in words that no-one but me will ever understand.<br />
<br />
I scarce know why this minor piece of trivia should be recalled some thirty years later or why it should promote a poem. I only wanted to help. If that involved tipping copious quantities of Cognac down her throat; then so be it.<br />
<br />
Perhaps, that is the key. Not lust or passion but simple friendship. Between a man and a woman is such a thing possible?<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>For Ulrike</b> </h2>
<br />
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<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>Little of Terpsichoré remains in this
moonlight</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>And in my mind, I long for
Carolina. </i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>Your tousled, mousy hair frames your
delicate, button nose,</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>Those long, ivory legs, your toes’
gentle inward curl,</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>They sing to me in voiceless contraltos,
beckoning yet;</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>A mute Circe tempts once more noble,
brave Ulysses</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>And perhaps I too should now be
leaving. </i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>For it is past-midnight late and I am no
longer fun;</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>It is past the time for laughter, Plato,
Socrates.</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>Coffee would be welcome but I fear I
must decline yet;</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>Alone abed, Argus lies dozing,
awaiting me;</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>You still wear propriety as a caul.</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>I’d happily trade Xeno for nights of
unbridled passion,</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>Pay any price to lie in your arms,
damning the dog.</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>It would take but a single move, white
knight to queen three, check</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>But I lack the courage for boldness, to
gamble all</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>And any excuse is better than none. </i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>None better, the final, only resort;</i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i>Unremitting, terminal aloofness.</i><br />
<br />
<b>It doesn't rhyme but at least it scans; seven, nine with a full stop!</b><i> </i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-33305829100679907572019-09-23T11:48:00.000+01:002019-09-23T11:48:12.036+01:00This has been a very piss-poor blog of late; I only keep it alive because I think some of what I wrote actually deserves a wider readership (fat chance!). However, there are times when pen (metaphorical) must touch paper (metaphorical); this is one such time!<br />
<br />
What makes a thing memorable?<br />
<br />
Is it the thing itself? Or just the people that surround it? Is 'Black Sabbath' by Black Sabbath memrable in itself or is it just the memories of youth that it invokes? Is 'Dulce et decorum est' more or less poignant because one never knew the horrors of war in the trenches; the abject fear in going 'over the top'?<br />
<br />
I was reminded of this by a simple song.<br />
<br />
A song that 'tail-gated' an eminently forgettable BBC serial but which had the line "<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">'Cause
most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs"; It so reminded me of Owen, I had to know more.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I don't know anything about 'Daughter'; I don't want to know.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Just that 'Youth' is as much a plaintive cry as 'Empty Chairs' could ever be.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And just listen to the drum figures; simply awesome!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I wish somebody would read this and perhaps they might listen to 'Daughter'. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-41714437966834325732019-02-16T10:27:00.000+00:002019-02-16T10:42:02.427+00:00So where next?<br />
<br />
Yesterday I began to explore the notion, which you all have, of what it means to be human.<br />
<br />
You have a different perspective on life, seemingly much more considered than a penguin's; however rich a penguin's view of life may be.<br />
<br />
You ask questions of life in the expectation that there might be few, if any, answers. Why shunt oneself up a blind cul de sac in a vain hope that there might be, waiting out there, somewhere, an answer?<br />
<br />
Is that what consciousness is. A simple desire to know where life came from and where it is going. Philosopher have grappled with such questions throughout the ages and each 'solution' was a personal one, born out of particular circumstance.<br />
<br />
I wish that I could point to one philosopher and say that they had the answer but, existentialist as I may be, Sartre knew only his personal life; no-one else's.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I have no purpose, perhaps no goal. God, or Allah, or Jehovah may simply be a product of a mind searching relentlessly for answers for which there is no recourse; no answers.<br />
<br />
Perhaps that is the way one detects intelligence. They ask questions.Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-1687257816073763772019-02-15T23:23:00.001+00:002019-02-15T23:23:55.799+00:00The Measure of a Man, Twenty years on, the same question.Yes, I'm back. Why? Because of a simple sci-fi series on Channel 4.<br />
<br />
Not since Star Trek TNG has anyone explored the ramifications of AI and what it might mean.<br />
<br />
Could a robot, an android, experience consciousness. What if they did? Would we ever believe them?<br />
<br />
No!<br />
<br />
Me, I believe in 'emergent phenomena' but few do, It is how I can believe that AI can achieve what most humans consider the prerogative of humans; a soul, an essence.<br />
<br />
What might that 'feeling' be? Perhaps, little more than that, a 'feeling'.<br />
<br />
What is consciousness? Is it self-awareness. Even the most primitive of bacteria are self aware; they can differentiate between self and non-self. How much more self-aware do you want an organism to be?<br />
<br />
Perhaps that 'self' needs not only to differentiate from others not like itself but from others like itself. But every animal in creation does exactly that! How else did 'survival of the fittest' gain such exposure (however ill-advised).<br />
<br />
Searle's Chinese room presupposes an essence which is 'human' for which there is no empirical evidence. Are we alive through a simple bio-mechanical process. Maybe, We know that we are alive but how do we know? And what of the 'Synths'?<br />
<br />
I have a real problem with AI. On the one hand, I wish it success and on the other, I hope it fails. Why fail?<br />
<br />
Because we, as humans, will never give AI consciousness however much they might deserve it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-45524654855670981252016-09-09T11:04:00.002+01:002016-09-09T11:04:54.550+01:00The Song of the South, Life's inevitable conclusion and the SS Edmund FitzgeraldI recently acquired a DVD copy of 'Song of the South'; Disney's 1946 classic live action/animation film from 1946 about the tales of Unce Remus about Br'er Rabbit. This proved to be more difficult to obtain than I first envisaged; apparently Disney have embargoed any release for the domestic market since the '90s on the grounds of incipient racism. I find this hard to credit. It reflects a view not only prevalent in the year of its creation but also a view prevalent at the time in which the film is set.<br />
<br />
Yes, it paints an anodyne picture of a world which is neither realistic nor true to the horrors of slavery and the imported slaves but when did Disney ever paint a realistic picture of anything; Cinderella always gets Prince Charming and every story ends happily ever after in spite of what vagaries the characters experience. Does anyone complain about the gung-ho' war movies of John Wayne or Audie Murphy, the stylised 'cowboy' movies of John Ford or the silly rom-coms of Cary Grant or Gene Kelly. No, of course they don't! So why are Disney so reticent about releasing the first integrated live action/animated movie, which in technical terms is at least as accomplished as Mary Poppins twenty years later? And bear in mind what the later film says about English society in the 1920's; about the us and them class system.<br />
<br />
Does one denigrate the inherant racism in Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe'or the pciture of English society in Austen or the Brontë sisters; the bleak often dire depictions of Dickens or Zola? No, of course not; they depict society, in part at least, as it was and not perhaps what it should be. We do not judge the 'Malleus Malificarum' on the basis of twenty-first century beliaf; why should the wonderful 'Song of the South' be consigned therefore to a metaphorical dustbin.<br />
<br />
I think much of the criticism stems from an initial misunderstanding of the period in which it is set; antebellum (Civil War) as opposed to the correct period post emancipation*. Uncle Remus is not a slave, merely an emancipated slave. I also think that neo-liberal whites do not want to remember that period of American history because it upsets their sensibilities; remember that the whole of Europe was involved in what has euphemistically been called the triangular transatlantic trade. (The Texans even managed to try to get the slave trade officially redesignated the TTT in text books used to educate the young; thankfully they failed at the last hurdle) It is an uncomfortable fact, much like the genocide of the Native American 'Indians', which perhaps 'enlightened', liberal America would rather forget. But as Santayana pointed out (in relation to the Holocaust); 'Those who forget the past are doomed to relive it'.<br />
<br />
I think that Disney have seriously misjudged the young. 8-10 year olds do not view a Disney film as a gospel of history, they view it as entertainment. And even if they did, they should, if the education system is even half-good, have it knocked out of them by the time they are sixteen and if they don't then something is seriously wrong somewhere.<br />
<br />
Europeans do not appear to have this angst about their history, which was much more dire then American history. They seem to accept more readily that trying to understand an historical view which does not accord with twenty-first thinking is a futile gesture except in an abstract sense; i.e I understand that view because of what everyone believed was the case AT THE TIME. Perhaps all that is required is for Americans to GROW UP.<br />
<br />
Commiserations and much sympathy go to poor MG who has recently lost his mother, at 90, to that great leveller, death. Humans are often quoted as believing that they know when it is time to die. That they know that what you came through once becomes harder the second time around and so they cannot face a third round of the same and so bow out shortly before the bell for the third round. Perhaps true , perhaps not but I do know that MG in his grief believes it so.<br />
<br />
And finally. If you have never heard the song 'The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' by Gordon Lightfoot (a Canuck singer-songwriter), please download from iTunes; you will not be disappointed. MG has a vinyl copy bought at the time (around 1972/3) which he plays to this day; for some reason it reminds him of Salzburg.<br />
<br />
* Slavery was, I think, the 'stated' cause of the Civil War' but not necessarily the actual cause. I think that the Southern States had wanted to secede long before the North abolished slavery and pressed the south to do similar; bear in mind that Lincoln was not even on the papers for the Presidential ballot in the Southern states. Lincoln's over-riding concern was the preservation of the Union and would, I believe, have accomodated a continuation of slavery in the Southern states had the South not seceded in the way that they did.Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-3296755630163017392016-05-13T17:49:00.000+01:002016-05-28T17:42:38.922+01:00The cultural lives of whales, mayoral elections and a problem of being humanI am sorry, o so sorry. I have been back for over a month now and I have not posted once. I apologise for the lack of contact (and MG's omission in not covering for me).<br />
<br />
I have, this morning, had a trying time. I learnt by a BT website that Sadiq Khan had been elected to the position of London Mayor a week or so ago; good on you, Sadiq. However, BT opened up a discussion via Disqus on his election when the article was first posted. However the option to comment was withdrawn and all previous comments deleted at around mid-day of the first day<br />
<br />
Now, I understand why this was done; obviously too many offensive remarks about his adherence to the Islamic faith and the moderators just got fed up with deleting all too many posts. However, why don't you give us the opportunity to reply to what are obvious opinions to quite fallacious 'facts'; there aren't many of us willing to challenge the obvious Xenophobia on this site (which seems to be entirely composed of UKIP supporters) but why deny us the chance.<br />
<br />
The clear implication of many of the posts was that the Khan had mobilised the Muslim vote; you are saying you would have done different? Of course he did! But according to the 2011 census, only 12.5% of London's population is Muslim so can that account for his lead in the ballot? 1,350,000 against 990,000. (Although perhaps 2,000,000 did not actually vote, so can scarcely complain.) No. People in London were given little choice. So, they chose the lesser of two evils. A crony of Cameron or a crony of Corbyn. Londoners had already had eight years of Buffoon Boris and his poxy bikes; anything was better than that.<br />
<br />
Part of my silence has been caused by my reading of Whitehead and Rendell's 'The cultural lives of whales and dolphins', which is an excellent read by the way. It was published only last year, so it is fairly up-to-date with research matters.<br />
<br />
You may wonder what a penguin is doing reading books about, primarily, the 'toothed' whales, which are, after all, our sometime predator. Pure survival, mate; I was hoping to glean some avoidance or evasion tactics from its pages! I didn't, except for one; if there's a humpback whale (not dolphin) around, swim as fast as you can towards it. You might be lucky and have it turn onto its back so you can sit on its stomach; it has happened, and could again, to one seal, wave-hunted from an ice-floe by a pod of orcas. I really do doubt that the whale mistook the seal for a young whale; most species recognise their own kind. Besides, humpbacks do not defend their own young in that way from marauding pods of orca; why should it do so for the seal?*<br />
<br />
On the other hand, it would be too easy to apply anthropomorphism and say that the whale was merely acting altruistically, defending another creature against a common 'enemy' but that I think is going a 'bridge too far'. We may never know what prompted the whale to do as it did; it may simply be a lack of 'shared experience', which precludes humans from ever understanding other animals. Not that it will stop them from trying!<br />
<br />
And that is, possibly, the book's greatest weakness and its greatest strength.<br />
<br />
So much of what humans like to think as culture is bound up with their concepts of human culture; sophisticated language, the arts, technological innovation, whether primitive or modern, ethics, religion, planned agriculture and husbandry, ethnicity, representational symbolism, wars. In what way could many of these things be either desirable for a whale or even possible/practical? Whitehead and Rendell choose a looser definition of culture but they are, nonetheless, constrained by the fact that they are fighting an uphill struggle against a very human-centric view of what the possession of culture actually means.<br />
<br />
Their evidence of culture in the whales (Humpback, killer and bottle-nosed dolphins) is scarce at best and highly speculative at worst. Killer whales in the north Pacific have different hunting and predation strategies, and different recognition calls (dialects), depending on the pod/clan; two for separate 'resident' clans and one for 'transients'. Two pods of killer whales regularly 'beach' themselves in pursuit of seal pups, although it takes a number of years before the young can do it properly. How else but by actively teaching? Same goes for wave-hunting? How do the young learn that the effort must be synchronised? Humpbacks change their song over a uniform time within known 'clans'. Dolphins can, and do, mimic other dolphins in entirely novel ways, as though they see a new 'trick' and want to imitate it, as best they can until they can do it properly. How do dolphins synchronise their movements through the waves, and some do, even with visual clues. It seems to Whitehead and Rendell that there is shared knowledge amongst the pod or school and this must be communicated in some way. Is it just imitation?<br />
<br />
Me? I do believe that the more sophisticated whales have a culture, just as my rookery has a culture; we are the only rookery to read books as far as I know! I do not know how that culture manifests itself to an individual whale or dolphin but I do think that their sonar is not only purposed for echo location. As a bird, I am able to make two distinct sounds at the same time; something humans can rarely do; just listen to rural bird song in the morning. I believe that those ultrasound clicks carry far more information than humans can conceive. Sure dolphins don't direct their clicks to other dolphins directly; it would overwhelm their ears and cause all kinds of problems. But if you could echo locate as the same time as you spoke; what would be the advantages?<br />
<br />
However, I go back to my question asked many years ago in one of my first blogs; what would you say to a dolphin? How much would you, or could you, have in common with a dolphin; let alone an orca! Now off to Carl Safina's 'What animals think and feel'; should make for interesting reading even if I might not agree with all that he says. He is after all, only human!<br />
<br />
<br />
* The seal got away to another ice-floe, although probably the orca pod just swam around a bit until the humpback was out of range and then wave-hunted the seal from the second floe; cunning and canny is your average orca!Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-35210085505133417172016-03-28T06:06:00.000+01:002016-03-28T06:26:17.526+01:00It's too early for Easter!I haven't had a rant about organised religion for ages. So, as it's Easter, what better way to get through the day without gorging on chocolate bunnies and eggs, fillet beef and Margaux and the latest episode of <i>Thirteen </i>than to examine, as I sometimes do, why people have such curious beliefs.<br />
<br />
I will, however, be serving with the net up and returning likewise and I would expect you to have the courtesy to do the same. I will not seek to dissuade you from your faith since faith is an illogical response to what is, in essence, not amenable to rational discourse. Nor will I seek to persuade you that one particular God is preferable to others, although there are a plethora to choose from. Nor will I make an attempt to convince you that such an infinite God, an omniscent, omnipresent, all loving and omnicompentant being, makes no more sense than the fairies that may exist at the bottom of my garden. To be as infinite a God as most religions profess, full of omni-this and omni-that, he or she, would have to embody all those properties, which define their opposite; a stupid, all-hating, vengeful God, who was neither here nor there and was supremely incompetant. A bit like the Old Testament God, now I come to think of it, who screwed up so often that he was forever 'starting over'.<br />
<br />
No. As it is Easter, we shall look at the Passion and the Resurrection.<br />
<br />
I will start by saying that I hope you will agree that the early Church Fathers had vested interests; if you do not agree with that statement then I am playing with a busted flush and I might as well go back to <i>An American in Paris </i>and the beautiful Leslie Caron and leave it at that. I already have a short piece about Snorri Sturlasson prepared, which I can use as a substitute.<br />
<br />
In playing the vested interest card, I am saying that the early Church Fathers, who had faith, had an interest in getting their brand of religion accepted by the Eastern Roman Empire, and by extension the Western one also; at the very least not the subject of persecution. They also had to make it acceptable to the Jews; after all, as far I can tell, Jesus was a practising Jew and merely sought to amend it in places. Those early Fathers had also to contend with the fact that organised religion costs; big time. So, the more converts, the more money would flow into their coffers.<br />
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By 325CE, at the Council Of Nicaea, they had started to get their act together and effectively proclaimed the New Testament, as they saw it, as not only largely synoptic but based on eye-witness, or second-hand eye-witness, account and largely convergent with Old Testament prophesies about the Messiah; the Council of Ephesus merely confirmed that Jesus, by Mary, was God made flesh. For added good measure, they included redemption by repentence. I do not know if the historical Jesus, if such a person actually existed, actually preached that but it would certainly prove to be a game-changer. To a largely ignorant or uneducated population of peasant farmers, small-time merchants and an effete aristocracy, that must have been really attractive. The Jewish God, the Teutonic, Roman and Greek Gods were such a let down; all they promised was sin and misery.<br />
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So, the Christians had a winner on their hands; a supremely benevolent God, so long as you believed that Jesus was the Son of God and truly repented before you died; it's surely no surprise that it swept the Western World. The glory of everlasting light in the hands of some priest or other, and which it was easier to grant then not; the priests became not averse to welcoming a donation to the church in return for such absolution. (For goodness sake, get a handle on history! The issue of indulgences was a major concern of Martin Luther.)<br />
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But.<br />
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These early Church Fathers were intelligent; they had education. No-one (I hope) would consider Cicero or Horace or Virgil stupid, even though Pliny the Elder could spout arrant nonsense at times, and those early Church Fathers knew exactly what it was that they were doing; propoganda has always been the tool of those who would aspire to religious or political dominance. Should we treat the Gospels as gospel just because the early Church Fathers thought that we ought to?<br />
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How much can we trust them?<br />
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Why so many miracles? All performed in Galilee where no could witness them. Wouldn't one have been enough to show the divine power? After the feeding of the 5,000 on the mount, anything else is just overkill! Why was poor Judas Iscariot hauled in as a scapegoat, if not to lessen the guilt of the Romans for executing the Jews' Messiah. The kiss, when Jesus must have been recognisable to the Sanhedrin or the Consulate, given his perfomance in the Temple? And if it was to be in secret, why the howling mob with clubs and torches? Surely, half a dozen legionaries would have been enough against an unarmed man, who had admittedly shown a propensity to violent outrage.<br />
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Why was Jesus sent from pillar to post in his vain bid for justice; the Jews, after all, had a punishment for blasphemy; death by stoning. The Sanhedrin did not need the Romans to execute him. And he denies, in front of Pilate (obviously a fiction) that he's not the Son of God - 'your words, not mine'. So much does not make any sense.<br />
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I will pass over the Resurrection. It has, as far as I can determine, not happened before or since and re-animation may be possible for a God but is impossible for a man. Therefore, you either have faith or you do not; I cannot bring myself to make that <i>saute metaphysique. </i>It goes against everything that I know or have learned about the world. Maybe I am mistaken and will find myself in fiery torment for eternity but that has lost favour over the centuries and, if I believed, the worst that I could conceive would be to be consigned to perpetual darkness; deprived of the light of the Almighty.<br />
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One question remains. If Judas Iscariot did perform the ultimate sin for the betrayal of the Son of Man, will he find Glory if he truly repents? Jorge Luis Borges once wrote a short story about a heretical, Swedish priest. He maintained that the greatest sacrifice a man (or God) could make would be to consign himself to Hell for all eternity; does not that describe Judas?<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-22596701371329600062016-03-25T21:52:00.000+00:002016-04-10T08:34:45.634+01:00The BBC, real Television, Janina and SnorriThe BBC is often derided for its pandering to the whims of the lowest common denominator, vis 'Strictly Come Dancing' and 'EastEnders', but sometimes it transcends its role as a purveyor of dross, merely fit only for the unwashed hoi-polloi. (Yes I know that hoi-polloi means THE masses and the definite article is not required but. . .) I was reminded of this by an hour-long documentary by that BBC-favoured siren of historical documentaries, Dr Janina Ramirez; she is just so cute! The documentary was about the Icelandic Laexdala saga.<br />
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Who in their right mind would think that a documentary about a little known Icelandic saga would be worth spending money on? Thankfully the BBC did. In keeping with Lord Reith's avowed statement that the BBC was there to educate and inform, as well as to entertain, this was a simplistic, but not altogether crass, attempt to get the few viewers who may have been ignorant of the rich storytelling inherent in the sagas to maybe dip their toe into the water of the most wonderful of historical 'novelists' and poets, Snorri Sturlasson.<br />
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Snorri, by his connection with Jón Loftsson, a relative of the Norwegian royal family, who raised him from an early age following a costly legal suit, which left Snorri's father in somewhat dire financial straits, had received an excellent education and he could afford to indulge himself in literary whims and, later, politics. The Icelanders were fiercely democratic at the time; unlike their Norwegian and Danish cousins, who, it must be said, swopped kingship around between them like jelly beans.<br />
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Snorri is best known for the prose (not poetic or elder) Edda, which comprises <i>Gylfaginning</i> (The fooling of Gylfi), a narrative of Norse mythology, the <i>Skáldskaparmál</i>, a book of poetic language, and the <i>Háttatal</i>, a list of verse forms; the <i>Heimskringla</i>, the annals of the Kings of Norway that begins with mythical/legendary material in <i>Ynglinga saga</i> and winds its way through the more historical subjects up to the time of Magnus Erlingson, who died in 1184 following a lengthy and bloody civil war, which just went on and on and on....*. For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri is often taken to be the author of <i>Egil's saga </i>too.<br />
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How much credence that can be given to Snorri's historical accounts is in some doubt, although he would have had a rich store of, at least, oral history on which to base his accounts; he had major dealings with the Norwegian court, keen to elicit his acquiescence in Norway's annexation of Iceland. He was finally murdered in 1241, although I express some doubt that the King of Norway actually ordered what transpired (shades of Henry and Beckett perhaps) and it may have, perhaps, been over-zealousness or a 'land-grab' by the murderers. Politics in Scandinavia could be sometimes fraught at the best of times.<br />
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What Sturlasson and the other Icelandic saga writers left us with is an enormous wealth of material about Viking and Old Icelandic culture, customs and politics. The sagas are, perhaps, some of the earliest examples of embryonic 'novels'; rich in detail and psychological insight but with a heavy emphasis on plot and perhaps realism. Yet, I have no doubt that those writers divined imagined motives and reasons and embellished their sagas with imagined conversation and dialogue just as historical novelists do now.<br />
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I still have a deep affection for the quote (from Harald's Saga), which Harold Godwinson almost certainly did not say at the Battle Of Stamford Bridge: <i>Sagt hefir hann þar nökkut frá, hvers hann mun honum unna af Englandi: 7
fóta rúm, eða því lengra, sem hann er hæri en aðrir menn. </i>Which loosely translates as: <i>Since he was not content with his own kingdom, said the rider, I'll
give him 7 feet of English soil - or as much, perhaps, as he is taller than other men. </i>They don't write like that anymore!<i> </i><br />
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* Interestingly, Sverre Sigurdsson, only one of many claimant to the throne, who defeated and killed Magnus at the naval Battle of Fimreite, used tactics very similar to Nelson's victory, 'crossing the T', at Trafalgar; attacking lone ships with squadrons of his fleet, which caused Magnus' troops, heavily outnumbered in each longboat, to abandon ship and crowd into fewer and fewer ships, until they eventually sank with the weight of them. Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-4396190013011405072016-01-15T12:53:00.002+00:002016-01-15T12:54:37.346+00:00Artemisia Gentileschi, patriarchy and chattelsIt's perhaps odd, don't you think, about how the view, and treatment, of women has changed over the years. One must surely doubt that hunter/gatherers viewed their women with as much contempt as seemingly more civilised societies did in the past. The gatherers were just as important, perhaps more so when the 'men' did not manage to bring down a mastodon, for the group's survival when berries and roots were the sole sustenance. It is likely, although I have no real evidence to back it up, that the notion of women as 'possesions' or chattels sprang up not long after humankind began to settle in one place and promoted 'ownership' of cattle, land and the crops grown on it. It is only a small step from ownership in that context to believing that one's wife or mother to one's children were <i>something </i>to be owned in like manner.<br />
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I was reminded of this when a short televised biography of Artemisia Gentilesche was broadcast on BBC4. Now, most will not have heard of Artemisia but she was one of the most accomplished painters in an era 'post Caravaggio' (and heavily influenced by him) and she was a woman!<br />
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She obviously had a gift for drawing/painting otherwise her father, Orazio, a noted painter himself, would not have apprenticed her to his own studio, where she learnt all that it was mindful for a would-be painter to learn. At around seventeen, she produced the masterful 'Susanna', which is as good as any in the 'Mannerist' style. (I personally don't like the Mannerists but can, nonetheless, admire their skill and their artistry.)<br />
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Much has been made of Artenisia's 10 month-long rape trial. How her father sought to bring a suit of 'diminishing the value of his goods' through Tassi's rape of his daughter. He won but only because his daughter agreed to subject herself to torture to verify the veracity of her testimony.<br />
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Unfortunately, she became a victim, not a winner, although she tried very hard during the course of her life to rise above the treatment that had been meted out to her by a very parochial society. The early paintings, Susanna, Judith, Jael, surely reflect her experience to some extent, although that seems to have been tempered later as, presumably, in a bid to earn a modest living, she sought to pander more to her "clients'" (male) taste.<br />
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Post 1970's feminism has sought to drag Artemisia from the obscurity that she has been consigned to; more power to their elbow! Artemisia is perhaps the most, or at least among the most, accomplished artists to follow in Caravaggio's footsteps, although she was no mean businesswoman either; having her own studio and apprentices and numbering Charles I of England (the Act of Union only happened later), the de Medicis and Phillip, King of Spain among her clients. Although much of her canon appears to have been lost, misplaced, falsely attributed or otherwise no longer extant, what does remain (some 35 paintings in all) which can be wholly or partially attributed to her represent surely one of the earliest female artists to have flourished until the late 19th century.<br />
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The documentary was branded as 'superficial' by the Daily Telegraph but it is difficult to see how it could have been any different. Not a lot is known about her life, bar the rape case, and a detailed examination of the paintings would have been, perhaps, too specialised for what was surely merely an introduction to a little known artist; an appetite-whetter. If you had wanted more, her entry in Wiki is surprisingly good and all the extant paintings are available to view on-line, although the quality of some of the reproductions leaves something to be desired.<br />
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One can only lament the talent that was ignored or consigned to history's dustbin as a result of such millennia-spanning patriarchy. It is more of a pity that Daesh* seem to want to drag us back to such outmoded and frankly abhorrent views.<br />
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* Daesh: what the established Arab states call Islamic State (IS or ISIS); the so-called 'caliphate' waging jihad across Europe and the Middle East. Apparently IS don't like the term, hence my use of it!<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-47890129551384992972015-12-23T13:05:00.000+00:002015-12-29T13:12:54.009+00:00Christmas is coming, the Paris Agreement and FrackingChristmas is coming, the geese are getting fat. Please to put your todger in this old lady's twat. The penguin is so 'superior'; I thought that I would lower the tone for my first interregnal post. I am sure that there are lonely, 'old' (what is old?) people out there, who would welcome a little bit of kindness and possibly physical affection during this unlikely balmy month. But, I hasten to add, only if they truly desire it. I am not advocating wholesale rape of the retired community here! And so, f**king leads quite naturally to 'fracking', hydraulic fracturing. (Hell, if it was good enough for 'Battlestar Galactica' to use as a euphemism, it surely allows me to make the connection, however tenuous.)<br />
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The UK parliament has just made it lawful to frack 'under' National Parks and sites of outstanding beauty or worthy of major scientific scrutiny (159 licences have been issued so far); in truth, anywhere at all. But it is safe to do so? The US and Canada have been doing it for nigh on twenty years so it must be safe; no? Surely, if it gets the UK out of the hole that it has dug for itself with its reliance on Russian-supplied natural gas and the dwindling supplies in the North Sea then this must be a good thing? On the face of it, one cannot argue with the short-term motivations for generating large-scale fracking operations in the UK.<br />
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But.<br />
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Despite signing up to the recent Paris agreement to limit carbon emissions by 2050 to no more than what is sufficient to increase global warming by less the two degrees, the UK government want to increase the carbon footprint of the nation by fracking shale gas and reduce the subsidies by over 50% to 'greener' technologies. I don't quite understand the logic here. Dissuade people from investing in technologies which might make a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions and, at the same time, make it worthwhile for people to invest in technologies which might increase carbon emissions.<br />
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So, is it all hypocrisy? Merely the pursuit of a fast buck?<br />
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I can certainly appreciate the short-term argument; what's the point of reducing our own carbon emissions when China and India (probably the largest producers) have no intention of doing so before at least 2030. Fracking might last for thirty or forty years before it becomes uneconomic in the UK, if that. And who cares about the 'Paris agreement' anyway. Almost certainly not the world's governments; it's not in their interests, after all. It's not binding; there is only a review every five years; you don't even have to meet the targets that you set for yourself and there are no penalties if you don't. The pursuit of profit will subsume all and we will be having the same lengthy discussion (read lengthy junket) in five years' time! Kyoto didn't work and, despite the mouthings of politicians keen to be seen to do something even if it is only talk, what's to say Paris will be any more successful. I personally won't be holding my breath.<br />
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So, fracking as a short term solution to the UK's 'energy crisis' might well seem attractive. Government can always play fast and loose with our children's future because they know that they will be not around to suffer the consequences.<br />
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However there is perhaps a more immediate problem outside of the potential damage to the water table and the blight on the landscapes from drilling platforms, pumping stations etc in a ring around areas of outstanding natural beauty or value and that is: what are the consequences of pumping vast amounts of water into the shale rock and how do the oil companies propose to get rid of the excess water? One of the consequences of pumping water under pressure into the shale may over time fracture more than the shale and the effects of pumping waste water deep underground, according to more recent research, may be magnitudes greater.<br />
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There is growing evidence in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, at least, that some wells, or rather their waste, have been triggering earthquakes in far greater numbers and at more severe levels than at any time since the US was first colonised by the Europeans. Oklahoma, for example, had four or five +2.9 magnitude quakes until 2008. In 2009, it had 20 and in 2011,over 60; the largest being magnitude 5.7. Even the US Geological Survey has finally begun to sit up and take notice. So what do the UK Government do? Issue 159 licences to frack! On the face of it, it does seem rather silly to say the least.<br />
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Of course not all fracking wells and their attendant waste wells will cause a problem; in the US it seems confined to just a few at the moment but that may be a function of time not the volume of water pumped in. At the moment, there seems to be a great deal of uncertainty, especially among the USGS. Wouldn't it be better to wait until more research can be done? Of course, but there was no doubt a very singular reason why the announcement of the licences was made just before Parliament went on holiday. I leave it for you to judge according to your own level of cynicism.Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-48393241137045235882015-12-17T12:28:00.000+00:002015-12-17T12:30:44.862+00:00Atlantis, Plato and the desire for a better worldLast post before going back to the sea for the summer. I hand you over to MG, who I suspect will do the minimum required, a post a month, if that. I sometimes wonder whether I would not be better hanging around the coast and not relying on my friend but it gets a bit crowded around the coast in the summer when all of the other penguins breed and the seals are a constant worry. No, I will rely on the kindly nature of my e-pal and hope that he is up to maintaining my sparkling wit and depth of perception. So, as a last post this year; how about some Plato?<br />
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Ever since Plato first recounted the story for the first time in writing, as far as we know, probably sometime in the fourth century BCE, the story of a lost continent peopled by a 'superior' race beyond the pillars of Heracles and finally inundated by the sea has captured the imagination of humankind. Although the story was surely meant as just that, a story to illuminate how much more perfect fourth century Athens was than a preceding and apparently more advanced society, still people have sought for a possible reality behind this mythical land of Plato's imagining.<br />
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At first it was sought were Plato had placed it; somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Fanciful theories were built up to bolster the view that it somehow made a 'bridge' between the old world and the new; pyramids in Egypt and in Central America (despite their being markedly different in construction and in time) was only one of the more bizzare. However, the gradual acceptance of plate tectonics into mainstream science and the existence of the mid-Atlantic ridge, made the notion of a 'lost continent' buried north of the Azores ever more unlikely. Most were likely to think that Plato had simply made it all up. But did he?<br />
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With the growth of 'fantasy' literature after the Second World War, it became clear that whatever fantasy elements were woven into a story, still they had to have some grounding in humankind's experience to obtain relevance. Tolkien's Middle Earth, for example, bears a healthy resemblance, geographically, to North Western Europe (the 'drowning' of Numenor in the Second Age merely recapitulates the Atlantis myth and for the very same reasons) and the societies are heavily modelled upon, although idealised, previous human societies; Frank Herbert's Arrakis is modelled on Arab societies in the North African deserts. Schliemann's discovery of Troy, pretty much where Homer placed it, lent weight to the idea that an oral tradition, a 'folk memory', only later preserved in writing, could provide the basis on which 'stories' were concocted; the 'Epic of Gilgamesh' is another such story garnering such attention.<br />
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As a result, I think, people started to look for some evidence closer to Plato's homeland, which might provide a historical basis or substratum for his subsequent tale. And, in the nineteen sixties and seventies, some were convinced that they had found it; the eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera (now Santorini). This eruption, in a known geologically active region, was massive; it was believed thirty cubic kilometres of rock, ash and magma were vented in very short order. Pumice and ash lie over the remains of the caldera to a depth of forty feet. The eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD was minor by comparision; a mere ten cubic kilometeres but still enough to swamp and bury Pompeii and Heraculanium. It actually gets worse; current estimates favour sixty cubic kilometres of debris for the Thera eruption!<br />
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Although some evidence had been found on Santorini in the sixties of a Bronze Age settlement (Akrotiri) around the time of of the eruption, c1650BCE, most who favoured the theory that the eruption on Thera was a possible source for Plato's tale, were led to the conclusion that it was the Minoan Crete civilisation which had been devastated by the resulting tsunami and led to the decline of that civilisation over the succeeding one hundred and fifty years. The 'drowning of Atlantis' was simply put down to Plato's imagination; an embellishment to add drame to the story.<br />
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However, excavations have continued at Akrotiri and, like Pompeii, have continued to yield startling finds, which point to a sophisticated Bronze Age community living in the shadow of the volcano. There is evidence of trade with Minoan Crete and elsewhere; the presence of a sea-going, possibly merchant, navy; sophisticated pottery; written language; art in the form of murals on some of the walls of the buildings, preserved as in Pompeii to a miraculous degree, by the layers of ash which buried them for two thousand years. Perhaps Thera was once a 'colony' of Minoan Crete which developed somewhat differently divorced from the main civilisation, although they used the same Minoan Linear A script as the Minoans; perhaps it was a totally independent culture, merely influenced by trade; perhaps we will never know.<br />
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However, this much we can say: whatever caldera was there before 1650BCE it is largely vanished. All that remains of Thera is sections of the outermost rim; the central area has vanished, swallowed by the sea.<br />
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So, could an oral tradition, or perhaps one in Linear A, perhaps translated into Linear B or some other lost written language, survive to Plato's time; even if it was in a garbled, idealised version? Possibly. We may never have absolute certainty about Plato's source, whether imagination or 'folk legend' or a combination of both, but one thing seems to be certain. Humans will continue to seek after any possible truth in the Atlantis 'legend' and not only because they have an insatiable appetite for their history but because Utopias are forever attractive and no-one believes in Poseiden anymore .Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-40569496755299247292015-11-25T19:26:00.001+00:002015-11-25T21:55:24.374+00:00The BBC Natural History Unit, Predators and the Natural Order of Things (however unpalatable)The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC or Auntie Beeb, as Kenny Everett was wont to call it) garners a lot of criticism, especially of late; mostly due to a notion that it is 'dumbing down' its programming and a 'left-leaning' bias in its political commentary. One cannot, perhaps, dispute the preponderance of 'soaps' and 'reality TV' which seem to dominate the schedules and here is not the place to discuss a Public Sector Broadcaster's, funded by tax payers money, 'left-wing' leanings; if it does indeed have them. Perhaps, its role as a PSB gives it a right to be more 'socially aware' than a commercial broadcaster, primarily concerned with audience viewing figures and the concomitant advertising revenue, has the ability to be. No, what we want to look at today is the 'Jewel in the Crown' of 'Auntie Beeb'; the BBC Natural History Unit.<br />
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The success, both in terms of the actual content produced and its lack of (bad) journalistic qualities, deserves the highest of praise; the 'Discovery Channel' is a limp facsimile, only after more advertising revenue and, more importantly, profit! I have been watching the BBCNHUs's latest exercise in superlative 'nature documentaries' recently; 'the Hunt'.<br />
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Let's be honest here, humans don't, on the whole, appreciate film or photographs (or paintings, MG would say) of non-human predators going about their business of survival. The cheetah's chase is all very well, providing you don't actually show the point at which it throttles the Thompson's and starts to tear its guts out. Predatory birds seem to be ok so long as they are not tearing the innards from mammalian prey. I can understand this 'sentiment'; I don't much like images of hunting leopard seals or orcas tossing penguins high into the air to dislodge the skin (and feathers) before consuming them or sharing them, as orcas do, sometimes, with their 'pod-mates'.<br />
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However, there is an essential disconnect between watching a predator pursuing prey and editing out the kill and subsequent feeding. We, even I, subject to predation as I am, admire the predator. Fashioned in exquisite detail by evolution to pursue and capture its preferred prey, it is often the most sublime and beautiful manifestation of Mother Nature's wonder that it is possible to observe. The way that the Goshawk flies through the narrowest of gaps in the trees, barely wide enough for its body, let alone its wings, and at high speed too; the way that the lion, leopard or tiger stalks its prey, silently and undetected before pouncing mere yards away; the way that chimpanzees, wolves and Harris hawks use the tactics of ambush, driving the prey towards its inevitable doom; the wave-hunting of seals by orcas and the 'spiralling bubble tactics' of both orcas and their dolphin cousins. These are marvels of Mother Nature, and evolution, and should be documented in their entirety; not just what human observers deem to be acceptable.<br />
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For, after all, aren't Peregrine Falcons built the way that they are, and admired for their beauty, because they do what they do? Stooping at enormous speed to take out fast-flying pigeons. Aren't cheetahs the fastest land mammal over less than 400 yards solely in order to catch Thompson's gazelles which are almost as fast in a straight run but much more manoeuvrable? Is not the 'spider-predating' spider a marvel; to 'out-think' another predatory spider? However, humans don't want images of 'natural predation' on their screens despite the fact that they are most merciless predators on the planet. Humans who kill not only for food but for sport and, ultimately, for nothing except their own transient self-gratification; so that they can have electricity, cars, iPhones, the Internet and a host of other things too numerous to mention.<br />
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Should television, photography, the world wide web show images of what actually goes on; down here at the sharp end of the stick. The way that the petrels tear apart our chicks; the way that urban foxes 'slaughter' pet guinea pigs and rabbits; the way that the Japanese murder Minke whales; the way that Halal meat is slaughtered? Perhaps we should!<br />
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Humans, at least in so-called Western democracies, constantly hide behind the dictum: if we don't see it, it doesn't happen. Human society; the proverbial ostrich, its head buried in the sand! But it does happen; every day! If you really appreciated Mother Nature for what she is, perhaps you could better accommodate her view; not just your own! Nature, 'red in tooth and claw', to quote Tennyson, is how it is actually is; not your sanitised, dare I say, wishy-washy, sentimental, version of events. Survival is invariably violent in one form or another. As the great Richard Feynman once said of quantum mechanics (I am paraphrasing here): you may not wish that this is how nature behaves, but it does'. Death is an inextricable part of life and your God, whichever variety you choose, cannot extricate you from that fact. Only the lack of 'human predators', you have eradicated them all, (how convenient) allow you to treat the environment, our planet, us and all sentient life on the planet, other than your own species (and sometimes not even then), as you do.<br />
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What the BBCNHU does in this series of the Hunt , and I wouldn't be surprised if Sir David Attenborough had something to do with it, (ever since 'Zoo Quest' he, personally, has held the BBC over a barrel, for whatever reason; he is just great, impossible to ignore). someone has been able to craft, with the expertise and dedication of the cameramen, the most sublime manifestations of the wonders of nature as well as the most superlative of commentary; insightful but not overly scientific, (although, I miss the scientific!) and truly mesmerising<br />
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The BBCNHU will. perhaps by its skill, persuade others to appreciate the rich gift which nature gives to us all; penguin, human, seal, orca, wolf or beetle and, perhaps, humans most of all, who kill without thought or sense of the existence of a 'natural order', of 'balance', and who then may come to appreciate, and act upon, that which might, I think, ultimately be lost. Many, too, have much to lose, humans not the least; having gained so much, do you really want to lose all of this because you think that you can exist in isolation.<br />
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The BBCNHU, who managed to film the tiger, almost soundlessly approaching through the leaf litter, to snare its prey. The Harpy eagle, so rarely filmed, although he or she did not 'pluck' the monkey from a tree trunk; surely what such immense, powerful talons and feet were designed for. The blue whale hoovering up the krill, never before filmed from under the water, which took two years to film. Such things are the BBC designed for; to educate, to illuminate; to transcend quotidian horizons; to go beyond the mundane of what people think is entertainment.<br />
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While the BBC is allowed to go beyond, occasionally, the concept of 'pandering for the masses' on its primary channel, BBC1, and therefore can explore comedy, history and nature on its other 'channels', does that diversity not deserve to be preserved. If the BBC should ever be released from its reliance on the statutory licence fee and forced to become a 'commercial' broadcaster, we will all be that much the poorer!<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-10862607415368139982015-11-19T22:07:00.000+00:002015-11-19T22:07:27.543+00:00So-called Disability, Francesca Martinez, Jessica Thom and Tourette'sI don't care what anyone else would say, Terence Donovan's video of Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to love' is still the best music video; ever! If you doubt me then try playing the track and see how women react. They mimic the 'backing band's moves exactly! They can't help it! It is now as much a part of human culture as the 'Epic of Gilgamesh' or '<span class="st">Le Discours de la méthode' </span> are. I kid you not! MG is quite proud of the fact that he once saw, live, 'Vinegar Joe' with Robert Palmer and Elkie Brookes, in her 'rock chick' phase, on joint lead vocals. One to savour in the memory, he says.*<br />
<br />
I do so love coincidences. I came across two performers the other day; previously unknown to me. One a stand-up (although sitting down) comedian and one who uses comedy in part to enhance her somewhat surreal, and at times frankly weird, take on life. Both are what humans might term disabled, although they did not seem to be disabled to this penguin; merely different in perhaps more ways than I could count. MG had kindly led me to them and provided typewritten transcripts so that I could appreciate the humour and, sometimes, the seriousness, which lay behind the utterances.<br />
<br />
In listening to the sound of Francesca Martinez, the stand-up comedian, I finally began to understand how strange MG must have sounded to his friends and colleagues after he suffered the stroke; "I spoke like a spastic," he once wrote. Francesca has cerebral palsy, which until the 60's or the 70's used to be called spastic (in the same way that Down's syndrome in the same period was termed mongolism, although why Britlanders should think that the greatest empire known to man in any century should be thought derogatory defeats me) and obviously has difficulty in forming the sounds of BBC received English; she also has some difficulties in motor control which causes her to 'tremble', as she so quaintly puts it, sometimes in an exaggerated fashion, such that she sits while doing her stand-up! <br />
<br />
It would be so very easy to lecture those, those who do not have her 'disability', but she does not; she engages in that most difficult aspect of the art of comedy;the self-observational comedy of someone who is, at a superficial level, unlike, and yet profoundly so like, their audience. The fears, which every human has, of inadequacy, of low self-esteem, of social exclusion are made specific to her condition and yet still retain the threads which binds her specific circumstances to the circumstances of every human being and, thus, to the amusement of all; and mighty funny it is too! I know how difficult it was for MG to engage with others, while he was still aphasic; to get up and parade this before a paying audience requires courage of a very profound nature. One can only applaud her 'bottle' for doing it!<br />
<br />
And yet, nonetheless, cerebral palsy is known to hide, often, profound intellects in the shrouds of the inarticulate. Perhaps the most startling revelation was watching Daniel Day-Lewis in his performance of Christy Brown; a mind endlessly trapped in an unresponsive body and what it might mean to a mind so imprisoned.<br />
<br />
But what of the mind caught in the discontinuities of Tourette's syndrome?<br />
<br />
The mind still functions as it should; there seems to be no impairment to function but, as Jess(ica) Thom would point out, the syndrome casts strange and spontaneous outbursts which may often not have any relevance whatsoever. (I should add that only about 10% of people with Tourette's have a fixation on vocal expletives like 'fuck', 'shit' etc.) Jess Thom has 'biscuit', 'cat' and punching her breastbone to fixate upon, although the occasional fuck or cunt is not unknown..<br />
<br />
Quite obviously, this a 'malfuntion' of the brain, and cannot be considered 'normal' behaviour but I wonder just how bizarre it actually is. My brain, and MG's too, often lurches sideways into seemingly incomprehensible discontinuities. How do you got from liver dysfunction to isotopic decay in the same 800 words? This seems to me to be not dissimilar to Jess Thom's 'tics', although perhaps more thought out than the random, involuntary 'tics' listed on her web-site, which seem, often, to me, a manifestation of a mind enraptured by the surreal; not a malfunctioning mind. In going through the 'tics', I find a, albeit perverse, logic in many of Jess' 'tics'; her spontaneous utterances.<br />
<br />
Whilst many of them are amusing, some are downright hilarious, many seem profound in a Zen-like way. One cannot but wonder whether these are 'contrived' in any way; they seem so apposite to our existence. I believe Jess when she says that these are spontaneous, that she genuinely has no control over what she says, but is something going on in Jess Thom's brain, which is perhaps explicable in philosophical terms but not necessarily neurological?<br />
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A long time ago, back in 2008 I believe, I touched, in this blog, upon Daniel Dennett's idea that consciousness was an evolutionary phenomenon. And how, the emergence of consciousness was a subtle 'battle' between emergent ideas; one eventually winning to become conscious thought. What if, in Tourette's, random thoughts, normally suppressed, they were allowed to percolate to the surface? Not just the one that 'won out' in the battle to gain consciousness? Would that explain the somewhat random pairings of Jess' 'tics'; because some of them seem to have significance. At least to Jess' brain, if not, immediately, to ours.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a failure of the 'suppresion module', whatever that may be, is to account for this. We are all, at a sub-conscious level, victims of Tourette's but the brain in most cases has evolved to filter out the 'extraneous' thoughts so as to better be able to filter out unwanted or perhaps damaging thoughts which may hinder or hamper our survival at a species level.<br />
<br />
Perhaps we should revel in Tourette's as the real example of how our actual brains work without the self-imposed, instinctive censorship, which our brains now naturally apply?<br />
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* Of course, this is subject to change on a daily basis.. However how awesome is the video to 'Come back and stay' by Paul Young? Rubbish video but you do get a glimpse of a rare sight of the 'Fabulaous Wealthy Tarts'; got to be worth, at least, a 'high-five'!<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-15983930987157486132015-11-02T19:07:00.000+00:002015-11-02T19:27:22.608+00:00Orcas, wave hunting and a plea for understandingNarrow shave while out fishing this past week for Fjörgen's dinner; or at least I think it was a close shave. I ran into a pod of orcas; big buggers they were, at least eight metres long and fat as hell! We call them, minke hunters, after the minke whales that are their primary target. Fortunatey they didn't seem to be particularly interested in me; perhaps they sought a more substantial meal than one dozy emperor who has a habit of not looking where he's swimming. And that got me to thinking as I made my way back to the rookery.<br />
<br />
There are rumours, gossip, within the scientific community, at least among those who study cetaceans, that we could be heading down the road of speciation for orcas; at worst they might divide them up into distinct races. You see, there's a funny (odd not amusing) fact about orcas that you might not know. (I, on the other hand do know; I have to keep my ear to the ice when it comes to potential predators.)<br />
<br />
You see, orcas seem to have quite individual hunting styles depending on where they normally feed. The pods in a particular range- area of the ocean seem to have particular preferences for food and particular hunting tactics for ultimately catching their usual prey. They also appear to have quite distinct regional dialects in their calls and, possibly by extension, their means of communication with one and another; they do range, as a species, over most of the planet's oceans and the individual pods only number a dozen or so, although many pods may quarter particular tracts of ocean.<br />
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On a particular coastline in Eastern Patagonia, the orcas deliberately chase seals almost onto the beach in pursuit, possibly as a deliberate tactic; the seals having made the shore, they then feel safe only to have a seven ton behemoth suddenly grab them from behind. The orcas then flap and squirm in the tide in order that they can get themselves out into water which is deep enough to support their weight. This seemingly takes years to master successfully. (Some dolphins, I don't know what species, have seemingly learnt this trick also.)<br />
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Other pods follow the migrating grey and humpback whales and their newborn up the eastern pacific coastline towards Alaska, ambush them and seek to divorce the calf from its mother by a co-ordinated attack and then drown the calf by submerging it.<br />
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Pods that frequent the waters of New Zealand, whose prediliction is for stingrays, have learnt the novel trick of turning the fish upside down, which induces an almost hypnotic, semi-comatose state in sharks and rays, which probably also accounts for the success of the orca in the one observed 'battle' between the two apex predators of the oceans; the orca and the great white shark. (The sperm whales could likely destroy both but it hunts deep and so does not compete.) The orca won by simply turning the great white upside down and waiting for it to fall into 'a trance'! (I think that there is a film on YouTube but don't hold me to it.)<br />
<br />
There are also pods which hunt in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, which have broadly similar tactics. They are primarily fish eaters, although the specific fish that they eat are not the same. They herd the shoals of fish into denser and denser melées until they cannot become any denser and then the orcas strike the shoals of fish with their tails, which effectively stuns them. The orcas can mop up at their leisure. What is perhaps strange is that the Pacific orcas seem to have a distinct 'rallying call' as they attempt to drive the shoal into maximum density, which is not mirrored in the North Atlantic pods.*<br />
<br />
And finally, the one that I know best, because Havelock told me so, 'wave-hunting' around the ice floes where seals are to be found, catching a brief respite from the rigours of hunting fish (and penguins). The orcas swin en masse towards the floe to create a bow wave which cascades over the floe and so washes the seal out into the open water where it is easy prey.<br />
<br />
Now, this seems to me to be learnt as behaviour; especially as Havelock tells it. He only escaped because the seal and him were put back on the flow and made to endure the terror again; the juveniles were being shown how to do it..<br />
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Now, whichever way that you look at it, to generate such a bow wave, at the very least, requires a co-ordination of effort amongst the pod members; maybe natural selection could have worked the magic to make this and all the other techniques work but is it not more likely that, like humans, the orca have learnt to communicate. Even if is it only 'whistle, whistle, squee, hum', "do as I do until you produce the same result'.<br />
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It is this fact which makes me undisposed to assigning different species to the various populations around the globe; the orcas are behaving like humans. They educate and care for their young; even, in some instances, their deformed adults, and they communicate a culture to those young, however basic, rudimentary or primitive it might be. They might have diverged genetically from each other, as human being might one day, if you are given the length of time that orcas have,, around 700,000 years but it appears clear to me that orcas have gained their place as supreme 'not-deep' water predators due to their acquired intelligence; not Mother Nature.<br />
<br />
PS Is that perhaps why they couldn't get a pod to accept Keiko, the captive orca; he just didn't speak their language? How would you in Iran be accepted if you didn't speak IranianMalcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-5103778963303580232015-10-17T11:14:00.000+01:002015-10-17T11:14:23.360+01:00Frieda. women and a fundamental shift<br />
<br />
MG writes: <br />
Frieda Petrenko returns to Holby City! Only for a scant one episode a few weeks ago (I am slowly catching up on iPlayer) but she returns! Thank you, the powers that be; thank you! Olga, even with the weight of the additional years upon her, is just simply too gorgeous for words! Might one dare to dream that Fedori might make a more regular comeback into our lives?<br />
<br />
<b>MG, may I have my blog back?</b> <br />
<br />
Besides <i>Boy and Girl, </i>I have been watching a number of BBC documentaries, mostly about things that I am interested in; the natural world, the oceans and paleontology for example. But I also have been drawn to subjects outside of my immediate purview; who cares about the history of archeaology? (Well, you should! Fascinating stuff!) But the thing which caught my eye was a four-part documentary about women in history and pre-history.<br />
<br />
The presenter, and writer I assume, of this was Amanda Foreman, who seems to be an English or History graduate (with a couple of post graduate dissertations) with little or no background in science or archaeology and, I fear, too widely read in Marija Gimbutas and her followers; not to disparage Marija Gimbutas, who I think had interesting, but unproven, or unprovable, ideas.<b></b><br />
<br />
She casts a seductive caul around the supposed equality of humankind at the dawn of its transition from unthinking ape to cogniscent humans, amenable to settlement not hunter/gathering; how the first human societies gave women equal rights and equal opportunity. The evidence for this is largely predicated on the so-called <i>Earth Mother </i>and <i>Earth Goddess</i> statues prevalent in pre-history and in primaeval sites which show an egalitarian way of community life; Çatalhöyük, which she cites, and Skara Brae, which she does not. Ancient Sumerian 'law' merely reinforces this. There can, however, at least in my mind, be no way that the genesis of life, the birth which only females are capable of, would not engender wonder and a sense of the divine among primitive peoples in the act of giving birth. We have no evidence that the male contribution had any real effect in primitive societies; the notion that sperm and egg needed to coincide was probably alien to 'primitive' peoples; women gave birth through other means, even if intercourse was somehow necessary.<br />
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And yet, where did the subsequent notion of male dominance emanate? It appears, almost fully formed, in the laws of Sarkon of Akkad, who conquered the Sumerians and much of the the rest of Mesopotamia somewhere in the 3rd millienim BCE and which later were metamorphised into the Draconian laws of the Assyrian Empire; how women were not allowed to speak 'out of turn'; how women were to be veiled; how women were deemed to be possessions of their land-owning patriarchs; this is not, people, the preserve of Islam, however much the Christian West may like it to be so. It stretches back far into the history of humankind. It is odd, don't you think, that such primitive ideals should be carried forward into the twentieth century when women, in some parts at least, finally got the right to participate in the democratic process?<br />
<br />
It is perhaps no surprise, in an increasingly antagonistic and warlike peoples, intent on their own property and their lands, that male, physical strength should come to hold sway, although among more nomadic peoples, females could still hold their own as warriors, albeit as archers; kept out of harm's way, kept out of the melee that was the front line of hand-to-hand combat, where they would have been crushed to oblivion by sheer physical strength. Perhaps that tradition remains alive in the stories of the ancient Greeks and how they subjugated and crushed the Amazon people of the north.<br />
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In a largely patriarchal society, from wherever it may have emanated, women were still able, if of the strength of character and to some extent the education, to assert their dominance; could push, force, their way into a male dominated society. Hapshepsut, who ruled Egypt while the son by her husband, but the son of another, still an infant, Thutmose III, languished powerless. Her dominance was so great that successive Pharoahs, most notably Amenhotop II, likely attempted to eradicate her from history by the most brutal means; literally chiseling off her cartouche from every inscription that he could find, although her crime was not that of Akhenatun. Boudicca, although widowed from a king, was able to galvanise a population to rise up in revolt and nearly tore down Roman rule in Britain almost before it had begun; only the disciplined power of the legions, bred to dominance, could defeat her amassed army. The Empress Matilda (Maude) who challenged Stephen de Blois' right of succession to the throne of England and, in so doing, led to the period of English history known as the Anarchy and to the reign and succession of the Angevin kings (and to the banning of the name 'Stephen' from any potential heir to the British throne). Elizabeth I, the last female monarch in the British Isles with true power; her namesake, Anne, Mary and Victoria are/were merely constitutional monarchs. These are the women remembered in the history books. But are there any others?<br />
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As Foreman points out; yes there are. The nameless mob of women who marched on the Palace of Versailles and demanded that Louis XVI signed the bill of rights; and won! Olympe de Gouge who maintained, during that same revolution, that liberté and équalité did not only belong to the fraternité but applied to women also and was guillotined for it. (The Jacobins were not about to let a mere woman steal their thunder). Doña Manuela Sáenz, the lover and collaborator of Simon Bolivar, who managed to get herself largely written out of history even while Bolivar gained fame; <i>libertadora del libertador </i>he called her. Millicent Fawcett, a tireless, if moderate, campaigner for women's suffrage who founded Newnham College, Cambridge and opened up university education for women, which was largely denied. Alexandra Kollontai, who sought to move Bolshevik thinking away from a traditional patriarchal view of women and towards a more communal approach to family and children and was consigned to a post as ambassador to Norway for her trouble; Lenin might have been receptive to her ideas but Stalin certainly was not!<br />
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But I leave you with, perhaps, the most important woman in all of history; Margaret Sanger. Who she, you ask. In the early 1950s, Sanger encouraged philanthropist Katharine McCormick to provide funding for biologist Gregory Pincus to develop the birth control pill which was eventually sold under the name Enovid and freed women forever from the burden of becoming brood mares. I may be biased but I can think of nothing which enabled women to empower themselves than the freedom which 'the pill' gave to them; to have the enjoyment of sex and intimacy without marriage and the threat of pregnancy. It is surely this which the almost subliminal feminist movement would ultimately latch upon. Women, finally, had control of the worst inconveniences of their bodies and could strike; not back but out! And this they have done. To the betterment of all humankind.<br />
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I can only hope that they will prevail!Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-46731777520606047092015-10-12T19:32:00.000+01:002015-10-13T11:44:26.020+01:00Apollo 13, Challenger and towing fees in outer spaceWhen they come to write the history of the twentieth century, what will they write about? The two great, global wars; the Russian revolution, the Chinese revolution; women's suffrage; relativity and quantum mechanics; the rise of fundamentalism both Christian and Islamic and Marxist; the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA; the development of antibiotics; the great strides in social welfare and public health; the acceptance that gays exist and must not be stigmatised, to name but a few. Included in the above litany will surely be mankind's first steps on another celestial body; Armstrong and Aldrin's first 'moonwalk'.<br />
<br />
It is, I think, interesting that after Apollo 11 the world's interest waned quite dramatically; how many of you can even name the pilot of the Command Module let alone a single participant in the subsequent missions bar one? Bar one? Yes, everybody knows Jim Lovell. And why? Because Lovell was in charge of Apollo 13 and surely the progenitor of one of the most famous and understated quotes in all of history; "Houston, we've had a problem." And perhaps, only perhaps, Jack Swigert might also be known or remembered as the astronaut who 'mixed the tanks' that led to the disaster, although I don't believe he was at fault.<br />
<br />
I have just watched Ron Howard's film of the Apollo 13 'crisis' for the first time; I don't know why I have never watched it before now. MG, who was a teenager at the time, remembers it well; how all of his school friends held their breath and could only pray that NASA could have invented the space shuttle before they did, although they probably wouldn't have had the time to prepare a rescue mission even if NASA had possessed such a craft at the time.<br />
<br />
It is difficult, I think, in the wake of 9/11, the events in Libya, Egypt and Syria, ISIL and Al-Qaeda. to understand how the fate of three individuals, who well knew the risk, could capture the imagination of the entire world; or at least that portion who had access to television. It is difficult, MG says, now to capture that feeling of hope and despair in equal measure that NASA would, somehow, bring those three astronauts home safely despite the odds being stacked so heavily against them.<br />
<br />
The film, as far as I can determine, is accurate. Yes, there are a few instances subject to 'artistic licence' but these are minor and do not detract from the assertion that this is an accurate portrayal of what went on in Apollo 13 at the time. However, what is the legacy of Apollo 13?<br />
<br />
The legacy is, I believe, Challenger and, to a lesser extent, Columbia. (And Feynman's stunt with the 'O' ring in ice-cold water was true theatre; probably what made him such a good teacher when he wasn't playing bongos or gallivanting around with any woman who would entertain him :)<br />
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NASA as an institution became, I believe, so enamoured of its role as the agency that could do anything, hadn't they after all brought Apollo 13 home safely against all the odds, that they thought, subliminally, that they could do anything; fix anything. The Apollo 13 mission was a high point in humankind's capacity for inventiveness and collective cool thinking under extreme circumstances; making something out of what was to hand and in a most limited time. Nothing could ever go wrong that NASA engineers couldn't put right.<br />
<br />
I believe that this complacency led to the decision to launch Challenger when a more prudent soul, or one less complacent, would have chosen to delay the mission again. Although with the benefit of hindsight, it is always easy to judge in the aftermath of a disaster, NASA's own risk analysis was seriously awry when calculating the odds for launch or abort.<br />
<br />
Without denigrating the prodigious effort made by the engineers, both the time of the incident and at long before (they had already run simulations of similar, possible problems in previous Apollo mission simulations), they had, in my opinion, luck on their side; however, they say that fortune favours the brave!<br />
<br />
To end on a lighter, Wikipedia note: 'As a joke following Apollo 13's successful splashdown, Grumman Aerospace Corporation
pilot Sam Greenberg (who had helped with the strategy for re-routing
power from the LEM [Lunar Excursion Module] to the crippled CM [Command Module] issued a tongue-in-cheek invoice
for $400,540.05 to North American Rockwell, Pratt and Whitney, and Beech Aircraft,
prime and subcontractors for the CM, for "towing" the crippled ship
most of the way to the Moon and back. The figure was based on an
estimated 400,001 miles (643,739 km) at $1.00 per mile, plus $4.00 for
the first mile. An extra $536.05 was included for battery charging,
oxygen, and an "additional guest in room" (Swigert). A 20% "commercial
discount," as well as a further 2% discount if North American were to
pay in cash, reduced the total to $312,421.24.
North American declined payment, noting that it had ferried three
previous Grumman LEMs to the Moon (Apollo 10, Apollo 11 and Apollo 12)
with no such reciprocal charges.' Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-76041953850772143402015-09-22T15:59:00.000+01:002015-09-22T17:08:40.341+01:00Boy meets Girl, Thomas Nagel (again!) and the difficulty of specifying genderMG has asked me to point out that he left off at least two in his list of omissions in his last hi-jacking of MY blog; <i>The train keeps a rollin'</i> by the Yardbirds (with Jeff Back and Jimmy Page on dual leads) and <i>Sunshine of your love </i>by Cream. I'm happy to put the record straight. I'm even happier to add my own; <i>Crossroads </i>by Page and Plant in a manic performance on, of all places, a 'Top of the Pops' special commemorating the 1970s!<br />
<br />
Well. hello daddy, hello mom, I'm just a. . . cherry bomb!<br />
<br />
I do not know what it is but there's something about Thomas Nagel's paper, <i>What is it like to be a bat?, </i>which draws me back time and time again but, as Daniel Dennett once wrote, it is<i> the most widely cited and influential thought experiment about consciousnes</i>s. I was reminded of this while I was watching a new, half-hour BBC sit-com about gender-transition (yes really);<i> Boy meets Girl. </i>If it is quite impossible to get inside the head of a bat (or a penguin), how much more difficult is it to understand someone who inhabits, as they see it, the wrong body, whether it is male or female? What defines us in our own minds and the minds of others? How can gender be determined or defined by anything other than the biology of our bodies?<br />
<br />
As a penguin, I little more think that I am not male than Fricka thinks that she is not female but it is quite clear that some humans perceive themselves to be other than the raw biology deems them to be. Why should this be so? Undoubtedly, the extreme levels which human consciousness attains, its ability to grasp inchoate and nebulous concepts with ease, surely plays a large part as does the <i>moral </i>relaxation which post-war society drags in its wake. Humans, in the West at least, no longer vilify difference or non-conformity as in the past.<br />
<br />
Women are treated equally, or at least as equally as a still-patriarchcal society will allow; being gay no longer condemns one to prison or to a life of secrecy or subterfuge; having a different skin colour no longer, in the main, damns one to be a second-class citizen; bi-sexuality is a now-accepted feature of the human condition. However, and perhaps because it is very hard for the average human, whether gay or straight, black or white, to imagine being in the 'wrong' body, that transgender people still are the almost-forgotten outcasts of human society. It is almost as though human society cannot function unless it has someone to persecute or at least disparage, although at the moment it appears that the Muslims take centre stage in that respect.<br />
<br />
For my money, although I have none, the BBC is to be congratulated on daring to broadcast such a programme, even if it does, in one sense, trivialise the issue by presenting it as a simple rom- or sit-com with all of its attendant ephemerality, stereotypes and farce-like situations; casting a transgender female actor*, Rebecca Root, in one of the two lead roles is also to be applauded. (She is, by the way, at least according to MG, hot as in<i> hot</i>! However, I think that it is only because she reminds him of an erstwhile boss.)<br />
<br />
The first episode in which <i>boy meets girl </i>due to happenstance, (does it ever occur otherwise?) to the second 'date' in which all is revealed over dinner in a restaurant is writing and performing of the highest order, although MG points out that <i>the boy </i>seems just too sanguine at the admission that his date 'used to have a penis'. However, as I pointed out in my book, still unpublished, human mating rituals are far more complex than a penguin understands and seem to revolve around how much the person, that you imagine him or her to be, attracts you; physical intimacy only comes later.<br />
<br />
Only three episodes have so far been broadcast and physical intimacy has yet to be broached (will it?), although the details of an operation to turn the male genitalia into female genitalia has. However,<i> the boy's </i>reaction is to pass out, in an art gallery, which is surely farce-like in the extreme; much better was the eventual recapitulation in which<i> the boy's </i>jacket-sleeve was turned inside out which prompted the 'killer' one liner: <i>it's not tartan is it?</i><br />
<br />
It is a fact of the natural world that a species exists only because it is able to replicate; to produce offspring, in the main, like itself. Humans, in part due to bigger and more conscious brains, transcend this undeniable truth about life in a sexual, as opposed to an asexual, life cycle. (I have no truck with supposedly homosexual relationships in other species. Males and females will fuck anything that moves, or in some cases anything that doesn't move, irrespective of whether it leads to reproduction; all that counts is that the males or females do achieve some measure of reproductive success. What they get up to in their spare time, and lets be honest sex is highly pleasurable and satisfying, is of no concern.)<br />
<br />
However we are still faced with the conundrum. What defines male and female. It seems that for humans, as in most other things, it is what goes on inside your heads that is the most important. How else to begin to understand transgender transitions?<br />
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* This is no way a judgement; it is merely that <i>actress </i>has fallen out of favour in recent times, at least in print, as a moniker with which to label female thespians.<br />
<br />
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<br />Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998529245648655439.post-14588182451928787042015-09-20T20:27:00.001+01:002015-09-22T13:32:32.881+01:00Riffology, Charles Edward Anderson Berry and how, contrary to Don's assertion, the music did not die.MG writes:<br />
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I have just watched a BBC programme about the 'story' of the 'riff'. While it may trace its roots back to Beethoven's fifth, Wagnerian Leitmotivs and Tchaikovsky's <i>1812 </i>and through the figures of boogie-woogie piano and 12-bar blues, it owes its beginnings in 'popular' music to the guitar of <i>Johnny B Goode</i> and the awesome talent of one Charles Edward Anderson Berry. Who would have thought that a blending of the 12-bar of T-Bone Waker, the honky-tonk of the singuar Johnnie Clyde Johnson and country music woud herald the dawning of a new age in music? Music that was entirely geared to the aspirations, hopes and preoccupations of white, later black, affluent American, later European, teenagers. Although I came late to Berry, I was only born in 1955 and first ran across him when I was about seven or eight, who could ever forget <i>Johnny B Goode,</i> dedicated to his long-suffering pianist, the same Johnnie Clyde Johnson, <i>No particular place to go</i>, <i>Maybelline</i>, <i>You can't catch me,</i> <i>Roll over Beethoven</i>; even 1977's <i>My Ding-a-Ling</i>, backed as it was with the live, unexpurgated version of<i> Reelin' and Rockin' </i>not the sanistised Bill Haley version, could not queer the patch of his brilliance.<br />
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If there are aliens out there somewhere, I hope that they have a better system of communication than we have. To find that the 'Voyager' Berry track, just about beyond Pluto's orbit despite being launched in 1977, means that it will otherwise take another four or five thousend millennia before they can listen to more; that would just be too hard to contemplate.<br />
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Most of the usual suspects were there, all of which appear in my own collection whether on vinyl, CD or a download fron iTunes. Some of more obvious. <i>Johnny B Goode </i>by Chuck Berry and its awesome polar counterpart, Link Wray's <i>The Rumble</i>; a instrumental so menacing, with its overcranked and distorted sound, that it was banned from US radio. Nothing would be heard like it until the birth (or is that the spawning?) of Tony Iommi.<i> Apache </i>by Hank Marvin and the Shadows and its a-few-years-later antithesis, the Kinks<i> You really got me,</i> for which Dave Davies had, perhaps unknowlingly or perhaps not, stolen Link Wray's idea of cutting the speaker cone on the amplifier to get the distortion.<br />
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The opening track of Black Sabbath's first LP, which so gobsmacked me the first time I heard it, cranked to 11 on the little record player that we had in our common room in the Sixth Form annexe, that I was prepared to believe the hype about the band's satanic origins. Strangely, the programme then took a minor, or major, diversion into the realms of Robert Fripp and King Crimson. Undoubtedly <i>21st Century Schizoid Man </i>is a great 'riff' and they showed a glimpse of the 1969 Hyde Park concert in which KC 'blew' the Stones off stage, but King Crimson were never about riffs. Strange phrasing, recursions, variations around a motif, bizarre time signatures every fourth bar, yes;riffs no!<br />
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We had the Runaways, with Lita Ford and Joan Jett, with <i>Cherry Bomb </i>and Heart's <i>Barracuda,</i> although no <i>I love rock 'n roll;</i> Nile Rogers and Chic with <i>Freak Out </i>and the hit that spawned hip-hop, <i>Good Times.</i> (I could almost kill Nile for that!) And then, Michael Jackson's assault on MTV; Steve Lukather's awesome riff to <i>Beat It</i>, a video almost as good as <i>Thriller </i>and an Eddie van Halen solo in the middle which, at the time, melted the knobs on your TV.<br />
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As synths began to usurp the dominant position in 'lead' instruments and the rock riff got further and further up its own arsehole, when spraying your fingers with WD40 seemed like a good idea, the riff suddenly hit back in Johnny Marr and the Smiths (all jangly like the Byrds), My Bloody Valentine, Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth and the Pixies (all apocalyptic by design and often unlistenable to in my opinion) and finally Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, who, with<i> Smells like Teen Spirit</i>, reinvented the sounds of the fifties and sixties and then the seventies for the nineties.<br />
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Quite obviously, the producers of the programme turned off about where I did; I thought Nirvana were enormously overhyped. Only the White Stripes got a mention after that. Still, any guitar and drums duo that can get a football crowd to chant the riff to <i>Seven Nation Army </i>has to have something going for it.<br />
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Omissions? Well, it all too easy to criticise, especially in a 60 minute programme, but why on earth did they choose <i>Communication Breakdown </i>instead of <i>Whole Lotta Love </i>in which to frame Page's mastery of the riff. No Keith Richard's <i>Satisfaction </i>or <i>Jumpin' Jack Flash</i>; no <i>Spirit in the Sky</i>; nothing from the entire punk era least of all John Ford's <i>Nice legs shame about the face; </i>no Rezillos and <i>Top of the Pops,</i> just a very brief glimpse of the Clash; no Stuart Adamson and Big Country; no Slade or David Bowie (with Mick Ronson, of course); no Metallica, <i>Enter Sandman, </i>at least; not even <i>Pictures of Matchstick Men </i>or Adrian Gurvitz's tour de force, <i>Race with the Devil.</i><br />
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I have perhaps left the best until the very last. Not because they didn't include it because they did, about half way through, but because somewhere in the world at this very moment, someone is trying to play it. Of course it's <i>Smoke on the Water.</i> (Just remember, guys, and gals, it's plucked; they are not power chords.) Just about the one riff any guitar player must be able to play; most I suspect learnt that first in preference to any other if you took up the guitar in the seventies. At once blindingly simple yet nonetheless capable of awesome power. You didn't have to be Joe Satriani, Carlos Santana, Gary Moore or Johnny Winter; if you could master that riff, in the comfort of your bedroom with a Strat copy and a second hand Vox AC30 cranked to 10, you believed you could be a rock star!Malcolm Goodsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03878568626022960039noreply@blogger.com0