Layer 526 . . . Welcome to the East End - the Lea Valley and the Olympic Park

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I was talking to a friend of a friend last week who told me he's feeling very excited about moving to the East End. It turns out he was born in Bethnal Green and lived there till the age of five, at which point he and his family moved back 'home' to southern Nigeria. Having gone through school and university in Nigeria he eventually found his way back to London, via several other countries, and then found work and a place to live in the suburbs - somewhere near the bottom of the M1. Brent Cross?

By chance last autumn he was invited to a party in Bethnal Green - the very first time he'd been back there since the age of five. He described emerging from the tube station, walking down Bethnal Green Road, feeling the 'buzz' on the street - the strollers, the pubs, cafes and bars - and thinking "Wow! - this place feels like home! I need to live here!"

He's right - there's so much to appreciate about the East End in 2012 - so much diversity, energy, creativity - the whole vibe. It's not heaven on earth, but it sure as hell beats living in the suburbs. One small example - two brilliant little live bands playing on different street corners at Columbia Road market a couple of weekends ago. It was worth getting an open air coffee and hanging out in the cold air just to enjoy the music. The same thing also happens at Broadway Market on Saturdays.

Another friend recalled driving through ShoreDitch (!) last weekend - well gone midnight and the streets and bars still crowded to overflowing, traffic slowing down to avoid the throng, including, inevitably, various people staggering around drunk, behaving pretty badly.

Apparently the different tribes tend to descend on Shoreditch, Hoxton and Hackney at weekends - the West London crew, the Essex mob, the Kent crowd, etc. Apparently experienced spotters can differentiate them by their clothes and their taste in footwear. East End folk do NOT go elsewhere at weekends. How time's changed the old manor.

And now, of course, the Olympic thing is coming to its climax. Today the Guardian website features this excellent page:

Olympic Park: an alternative tour around the London 2012 games site

The Olympic Games are just around the corner, and thousands of curious visitors are coming to the site to see where all the London 2012 action will take place. Join Alexandra Topping on an alternative walking tour with Simon Cole, of Hackney Tours, to discover the area's greenest spaces and most interesting historical facts, as well as the top views and the best hot chocolate

Click below to go on the virtual video tour:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london-2012-olympics-blog/interactive/2012/feb/20/olympic-park-alternative-tour
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Layer 505 . . . Old Ideas, New Album, Cohen, Justice, Art, Education and Ecuador

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Terrific piece on Leonard Cohen in today's G2.

Sombre prophet, mordant wisecracker, repentant cad: Leonard Cohen is back with a great new album, Old Ideas – and more wit and wisdom

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/19/leonard-cohen

These days, Cohen rations his one-on-one interviews with the utmost austerity, hence this press conference to promote his 12th album, Old Ideas, a characteristically intimate reflection on love, death, suffering and forgiveness. After the playback he answers questions. He was always funnier than he was given credit for; now he has honed his deadpan to such perfection that every questioner becomes the straight man in a double act. Claudia from Portugal wants him to explain the humour behind his image as a lady's man. "Well, for me to be a lady's man at this point requires a great deal of humour," he replies. Steve from Denmark wonders what Cohen will be in his next life. "I don't really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I'd like to come back as my daughter's dog." Erik, also from Denmark, asks if he has come to terms with death. "I've come to the conclusion, reluctantly, that I am going to die," he responds. "So naturally those questions arise and are addressed. But, you know, I like to do it with a beat."

He had lived, and this gave his elaborate, enigmatic songs a grave authority to younger listeners who sensed that he was privy to mysteries that they could only guess at. He was neither the best singer, the best musician nor the best-looking man around, but he had the charisma and the words, and the eroticised intelligence. Perhaps because his style owed more to French chansonniers and Jewish cantors than American folk, he was always more loved in Europe than north America. An early write-up in folk gazette Sing Out! remarked: "No comparison can be drawn between Leonard Cohen and any other phenomenon."

In 1993, resurgent and well-loved but in a dark frame of mind, Cohen disappeared from the public gaze. He spent the next six years in a monastery on Mount Baldy, California, studying with his old friend and Zen master Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, whom he calls Roshi and who is now a resilient 104 years old. "This old teacher never speaks about religion," Cohen tells the Paris audience. "There's no dogma, there's no prayerful worship, there's no address to a deity. It's just a commitment to living in a community."

When he came down from the mountain his lifelong depression had finally lifted. "When I speak of depression," he says carefully, "I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse. I'm happy to report that, by imperceptible degrees and by the grace of good teachers and good luck, that depression slowly dissolved and has never returned with the same ferocity that prevailed for most of my life." He thinks it might just be down to old age. "I read somewhere that as you grow older certain brain cells die that are associated with anxiety so it doesn't really matter how much you apply yourself to the disciplines. You're going to start feeling a lot better or a lot worse depending on the condition of your neurons."

In Paris, after the press conference, I'm discreetly ushered into a back room for a rare interview alone with Cohen. Up close, he's a calming presence, old world courtesy mingled with Zen, and his smoke-blackened husk of a voice is as reassuring as a lullaby. I ask him if he wishes the long and painful process of writing his songs would come more easily.

"Well, you know, we're talking in a world where guys go down into the mines, chewing coca and spending all day in backbreaking labour. We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having their nails pulled out in dungeons so it's very hard for me to place any high value on the work that I do to write a song. Yeah, I work hard but compared to what?"

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Excellent front page on the Guardian today. Justice!

How News Group hid the phone-hacking scandal

Judge criticises Murdoch empire as it agrees aggravated damages for 37 victims of News of the World

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/19/news-group-phone-hacking-scandal

A high court judge said the Murdoch-owned company behind the News of the World had made "an admission of sorts" that it engaged in a deliberate cover-up of evidence relating to phone hacking, on the day that the publisher paid an estimated seven figures in damages to settle 37 phone-hacking claims brought by public figures ranging from Jude Law to John Prescott.

Mr Justice Vos, the judge presiding over the hacking cases, told News Group Newspapers (NGN) he had seen evidence which raised "compelling questions about whether you concealed, told lies, actively tried to get off scot free".

The judge read out a section from the confidential court papers detailing the cover-up allegations made by hacking victims against the company's executives and directors. It included the charge that the company "put out public statements that it knew to be false", that it had "deliberately deceived the police" and had destroyed evidence of wrongdoing including "a very substantial number of emails" as well as computers.

Mark Thomson, of law firm Atkins Thomson, said: "After years of denials and cover-up, News Group Newspapers has finally admitted the depth and scale of the unlawful activities of many of their journalists at the News of the World and the culture of illegal conduct at their paper."

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Should art really be for its own sake alone?

If art museums are the new churches, perhaps they should end the veneration of ambiguity and start serving our inner needs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/20/art-museums-churches

by Alain de Botton

Try to imagine what would happen if modern secular museums took the example of churches more seriously. What if they too decided that art had a specific purpose – to make us a bit more sane, or a little bit wiser and kinder – and tried to use the art in their possession to prompt us to be so? Perhaps art shouldn't be "for art's sake", one of the most misunderstood, unambitious and sterile of all aesthetic slogans: why couldn't art be, as it was in religious eras, more explicitly for something?

Modern art museums typically lead us into galleries set out under headings such as "the 19th century" and "the Northern Italian School", which reflect the academic traditions in which their curators have been educated. A more fertile indexing system might group together artworks from across genres and eras according to our inner needs. A walk through a museum of art should amount to a structured encounter with a few of the things that are easiest for us to forget and most essential and life-enhancing to remember.

The challenge is to rewrite the agendas for our art museums so that collections can begin to serve the needs of psychology as effectively as, for centuries, they served those of theology. Curators should attempt to put aside their deep-seated fears of instrumentalism and once in a while co-opt works of art to an ambition of helping us to get through life. Only then would museums be able to claim that they had properly fulfilled the excellent but as yet elusive ambition of in part becoming substitutes for churches in a rapidly secularising society.

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Jayati Ghosh is a brilliant economist and an excellent writer:

Could Ecuador be the most radical and exciting place on Earth?

A decade ago, Ecuador was a banana republic, an economic basket case. Today, it has much to teach the rest of the world

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/19/ecuador-radical-exciting-place

Ecuador must be one of the most exciting places on Earth right now, in terms of working towards a new development paradigm. It shows how much can be achieved with political will, even in uncertain economic times.

A major turning point came with the election of the economist Rafael Correa as president. After taking over in January 2007, his government ushered in a series of changes, based on a new constitution (the country's 20th, approved in 2008) that was itself mandated by a popular referendum. A hallmark of the changes that have occurred since then is that major policies have first been put through the referendum process. This has given the government the political ability to take on major vested interests and powerful lobbies.

The government is now the most stable in recent times and will soon become the longest serving in Ecuador's tumultuous history. The president's approval ratings are well over 70%. All this is due to the reorientation of the government's approach, made possible by a constitution remarkable for its recognition of human rights and the rights of nature, and its acceptance of plurality and cultural diversity.

Consider just some economic changes brought about in the past four years, beginning with the renegotiation of oil contracts with multinational companies.

Increased government revenues were put to good use in infrastructure investment and social spending. Ecuador now has the highest proportion of public investment to GDP (10%) in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, social spending has doubled since 2006. This has enabled real progress towards the constitutional goals of free education at all levels, and access to free healthcare for all citizens. Significant increases in public housing have followed the constitution's affirmation of the right of all citizens to dignified housing with proper amenities.

There are numerous other measures: expanding direct public employment; increasing minimum wages and legally enforcing social security provision for all workers; diversifying the economy to reduce dependence on oil exports, and diversifying trading partners to reduce dependence on the US; enlarging public banking operations to reach more small and medium entrepreneurs; auditing external debt to reduce debt service payments; and abandoning unfair bilateral investment agreements. Other efforts include reform of the justice system.

All this may sound too good to be true, and certainly the process of transformation has only just begun. There are bound to be conflicts with those whose profits and power are threatened, as well as other hurdles along the way. But for those who believe that we are not condemned to the gloomy status quo, and that societies can do things differently, what is happening in Ecuador provides inspiration and even guidance. The rest of the world has much to learn from this ongoing radical experiment.

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Layer 469 . . . Dylan, No Direction, New Labour, The Beat, The Rapture, and a New Morning

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Thought For Today

It's often through teaching that the teacher learns more about a subject.

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"He's got the holy spirit about him. You can tell just by looking at him. He can't help what he does."


This was said about Bob Dylan by one of the people interviewed for Martin Scorcese's film, No Direction Home, broadcast (again) on BBC4 last night and the night before (parts 1 and 2).

Bob himself was filmed speaking directly to camera, giving simple and straightforward opinions about his life and times, and his work. The man, of course, is a genius, and of course he's driven by a spirit that neither he, nor anyone else, can control. As were Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. As is Leonard Cohen.

You'd have to say that this is in contrast to someone like John Lennon, whose desperation for love and acceptance put him in thrall to Yoko Ono. Also Paul McCartney, who needed people like Lennon to give him musical direction, and also needed his wife Linda to keep his ego intact. I pretty much can't bear to look when potentially strong, capable and independent people put themselves under the influence - if not the command and control - of partners who reinforce their weaknesses and sap their strength.

Part of the genius of Dylan is that he called himself "just a song and dance man", and he long ago realised that living as a hermit - afraid of and in retreat from the world's madness - was no way for a genius and an artist to live.

To live in the world you have to be part of it - you have to participate in it and you have to interact with it. Otherwise - what are you going to write about, or make art about? What's going to stimulate, feed and ultimately move your soul and spirit? How, as an artist, are you going to describe the world if you're not out there experiencing it?

Therefore, even at the age of 70 - like John Lee Hooker before him, and BB King and Leonard Cohen in the present - Dylan constantly tours and constantly makes music . . . he practices his art and offers his genius to those of us who seek inspiration, stimulation and nourishment for our souls and our spirits.

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The Beat - live at the Half Moon last night - were good, but not great.

Their ska-based music is still tremendously lively and energetic - with lots of audience interaction and participation. The drums, bass and sax work together extremely well, and the lead vocalist is a great character as well as a good singer.

However - the acoustics of the Half Moon are crap, and the quality of the amplification was extremely poor. The keyboards were totally inaudible, the guitar was rarely at a high enough volume to be heard properly, and the vocals were muffled and incomprehensible.

All in all, very disappointing - though worth going to - to see a very good band and in order to support live music. This country desperately needs a  good live music scene, and as many venues as possible to support it. Music is good for the soul, and brings people together. South London desperately needs to bring its people together.

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The thrilling thing about this morning is that the world is still in existence, in spite of the line-up of planets, and forecasts that it would come to an end yesterday because of this rare cosmic configuration. This morning started off wet and dull, but the sun's already broken through and we have another beautiful morning of blue skies and sunshine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/may/19/rapture-end-of-the-world

http://gawker.com/5799742/a-friendly-reminder-that-the-worlds-ending-in-two-weeks

http://www.businessinsider.com/end-of-world-may-21-2011-4

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Ed Miliband: Labour must win back middle classes

Labour leader sets out mission to regain trust of voters by admitting to past mistakes and pledging to tackle inequality

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/21/ed-miliband-labour-middle-classes

What's this about winning back the middle classes? Labour has an awful lot to do to win back the working classes, or indeed anybody. Particularly socialists and the Left in general. Labour has a problem with anyone apart from its core vote of uncritical deadheads. Who else could support what the Labour party became, thanks to the Blair/Brown years?

Still, Ed Millibean, in spite of his posh-boy-with-an-Estuary-inflection voice and his schoolboy looks, is making a steady start. And of course he's dead right that Labour MUST admit to its past mistakes AND must pledge to tackle inequality - things that New Labour could never, ever, do.

"In a speech to the Progress thinktank in London, Miliband pledged to tackle the "new inequality" between the rich and the rest of society, but also admitted the gap had grown under the last Labour government."

In a direct pitch to middle-class voters in the south of England, Miliband said their living standards were being squeezed in the same way as those in poorer parts of the country.

Labour needed the humility to acknowledge that the inequality between "those at the top and everyone else" had grown under the last Labour government, although the coalition was exacerbating the problem.

"Inequality is no longer an issue just between rich and poor. But between those at the top and those both in the middle and on lower incomes," he said.

"Since 2003, those at the top have seen their living standards continue to rise at extraordinary rates, while those of the rest have stagnated."

He said he was committed to tackling Britain's budget deficit, but that the current government's austerity measures were loading more of the financial burden on to those who were already struggling.

Improving jobs and wages would mean "asking less of the state", although he did not eloborate on whether this meant something akin to Cameron's "big society".

"The truth is that we cannot create a society that is equal to the aspirations of the British people in a world of wide and growing inequalities – a world in which there are bailouts for bankers and austerity for the rest.

"Asking more of our economy, good jobs and wages, means asking less of the state. At times, we hung on to a picture of Britain in which people were either poor, and desperately in need of our help, or affluent, aspirational, and doing OK.

"We failed to understand that for millions of people in the middle, life was becoming more and more difficult.

"In the future the Labour offer to aspirational voters must be that we will address the new inequality by hard-wiring fairness into the economy."

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Our ignorance was bliss for Fred Goodwin

A supine and compliant judiciary has allowed too many corporate wrongdoings to go unpunished

by Nic Cohen

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/22/nick-cohen-fred-goodwin-superinjunctions

As a journalist, I have learned to notice the stories that aren't printed and the witnesses who don't come forward. Chief among the people we ought to hear from but never do are bankers not only at RBS but also at HBOS, Barclays, Lloyds, Goldman Sachs, Abbey National and Northern Rock prepared to tell us about the blunders their banks made and how they might be avoided in future.

Bankers know that the judges would issue a gagging order if they spoke out. Their employers would fire them and no other bank would hire then because they had broken the omerta of the City. Privacy law does not work in isolation. It meshes with commercial confidentiality and fear of the sack to form a conspiracy against public understanding.

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This is Andrew Rawnsley's article from last Sunday, which might have given Ed Milli the push he needed to get going with his latest speeches -

To have a hope of power, Labour must turn from dull into dynamic

Ed Miliband's party needs to forget complacent assumptions and remember that the task is both big and urgent

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/15/andrew-rawnsley-labour-should-sharpen-up

The most recent meeting of the shadow cabinet turned into a long discussion of Labour's performance in the local and devolved elections. A rigorous postmortem is certainly required.

Let me suggest five things that Ed Miliband and his party ought to forget and five things they need to remember if Labour is to look serious as a contender for power.

The time frame to think about is the mid-term of this parliament. By then, Labour ought to have demonstrated that it has learned from its mistakes in office, developed a persuasive critique of the coalition's record, and started to look like a convincing replacement. Even if this parliament goes the full five-year stretch, the midterm is now only 18 months away. That is not long at all. In fact, for the Labour party, I'd say it is frighteningly little time to establish themselves as a credible alternative government.

Remember parties get the attention that they deserve. Labour frontbenchers moan that the media won't pay them any attention. With a few honourable exceptions, watching slow-drying paint is more gripping than most of the output of Labour spokesmen and women.

Labour's transport team should be getting out more, travelling the world to learn what works best abroad. Ditto the education team and the health team. They ought to be hungry for new ideas and seek them from people you would not always expect Labour to engage with. And they need to be seen doing so.

The anniversary of the coalition has been marked by a welter of pieces saying that David Cameron looks good in the part of prime minister. Voters prefer Mr Cameron to Mr Miliband on questions such as charisma and strength, and they do so by big margins. Building himself into a more prime ministerial figure is the Labour leader's greatest personal challenge. An operation on his adenoids isn't going to be enough. He needs to demonstrate much more verve and daring, and articulate a much clearer sense of direction, if he is to show the stuff of successful leadership. Given a more dynamic lead by its chief, his party might then start to follow and look interesting again.

Or Labour can carry on being what it is now: risk-averse, ill-defined, dull and complacent in its assumption that the failings of the other side will coast them to power. Well, that worked a treat in Scotland, didn't it?
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Layer 402 . . . Pantomime Villains, Burlesque Performers, Politicians, Financiers and Boogie Woogie

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This year's pantomime villains? Politicians and financiers
 

by Aditya Chakrabortty

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/14/brain-food-politicians-financiers-lack-control

This is the charge sheet we like to build for our public villains: immensely powerful, yet thoughtless with their power. They shuffle around billions and cause a massive financial meltdown. Or they pack off youngsters to destroy others (and themselves) in faraway wars. Oh, and they all come from the same elite backgrounds: a private education, then a stint at Oxbridge before floating down to London on a lotus leaf to enjoy careers as unarguably middle class as their Smeg fridges.

If you thought the men and women in frontline finance and politics operated in a hermetically sealed bubble, then Davis has news for you: it's worse than you think. Not only do top politicians and financiers come to their desks with little knowledge of life beyond the Commons or their Bloomberg machines, but that bubble closes in, the higher they get on the professional ladder.

Of 22 London fund managers Davis talked to, only two had any experience in industry. Unsurprising? Consider this: only two had ever visited the companies they invested in – and that was in the distant past. Instead, hundreds of chief executives and finance heads came to them. Invest in what you know, runs an old stockmarket homily; invest in what you can find out about in an hour, would run the modern version, over a glass of fizzy water and in between checking the BlackBerry.

The specialists managing your money, whether in pensions or on prisons, will do well even to gain a puddle-deep knowledge of their subject. Yet politicians and financiers both have to make big decisions at vast speed. Fund managers typically keep a portfolio of 100 companies in their head, while considering whether to buy or sell hundreds more. They might rely on brokers to provide analysis – but they also know these "double-glazing salesmen" (as one fund manager calls them) are really only touting for commission. As for frontbench politicians, Davis describes their decision-making as almost entirely "subcontracted" – with the parameters set by colleagues, or advisers, or the latest fuss in the papers.

I am not asking you to feel pity for these people, or any other such cheap exercise in false consciousness. But anyone who thinks of financiers or politicians as the great men (and, occasionally, women) of our age, making the gigantic decisions on the issues that count, is wrong.

The other impression you are left with after reading Davis's descriptions of nerve-jangled fund managers and panicky frontbenchers is that it is no wonder so many bad decisions are made in both finance and politics.

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More on Burlesque

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/dec/13/burlesque-dita-von-teese-christina-aguilera

'Any body can do it'

If the content can vary in tone and quality, there are certain consistent conventions; a burlesque show can seem almost like adult pantomime. Cheers are expected at key moments of undress – it's literally rude not to – and the women in the audience tend to offer even more vociferous encouragement than the men. From one perspective, the scene's current popularity means demand is sufficiently high for mediocre acts to thrive. But from another point of view, mediocrity is an asset – that is, audiences are willing to celebrate performers simply for having the confidence to put themselves on display. Amateurism – or at least a kind of permeability between performer and audience – is sometimes the point.

At the Tournament of Tease final, for instance, two separate turns see performers rejected by men, moping to All By Myself then taking self-assertive pleasure in their bodies – one involving a lot of cake – to massive whoops of applause. In another, Betsy Boudoir, an older woman in a white two-piece suit mimes getting trapped in a lift then tearing her clothes off in a frenzy. Her timing is spot on, her enjoyment palpable. When Betsy is announced as winner, the 20-strong party accompanying her, including her mother and husband, go wild. "With burlesque, it doesn't matter what age, shape, size colour you are," Betsy – aka 48-year-old Adele Bolkansky – tells me. "It's about attitude. The human body is beautiful. Literally any body can do it."

"I really like the atmosphere here," says Lisa, a 48-year-old psychotherapist. "It's not lewd. The women chose to perform. To get up there and be proud of their body in front of 250 people is very empowering. A lot of them seem to be working through stuff in their performances. It's a bit like therapy."

Arthur's friends seem convinced, too. I ask one, Ricardo, how he found his first burlesque experience. "Very interesting," he says. "Surprisingly so. I expected the worst – some kind of strip club. My colleague has been trying to drag me here forever. But this was creative, entertaining, very funny. Now I'm upset he didn't bring me before."

Nice comment by AmandaStone:

I find any hint of men enjoying women's bodies to be sexist and disgraceful.

I like a guy with muscles though.

(This is The Guardian, right?)

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Boogie Woogie

Mike Sanchez
Down the Road Apiece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6UH0zpbmvM&feature=related

A great way to start your day.

Eat your heart out Jules Holland . . .
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Layer 399 . . . The Trip, Coogan, Brydon, Comedy, Socrates, Philosophy, Spiritual Wellbeing, The Agora, The Internet, Trading Ideas and Meddling With Minds

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Book of the Week on Radio 4:

The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life

by Bettany Hughes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wgzdr/Book_of_the_Week_The_Hemlock_Cup_Socrates_Athens_and_the_Search_for_the_Good_Life_Episode_3/

"Socrates lived in a city that nurtured the key ingredients of contemporary civilisation - democracy, liberty, science, drama, rational thought- yet, as he wrote nothing in his lifetime, he himself is an enigmatic figure."

His natural habitat was the Agora - the market place. [I guess we'd now see it as the Internet.] Socrates thrived on the freedom of speech of Athens, and insisted on the value of dialogue. He thought writing was as problematic as painting , in that it couldn't respond to your remarks or questions. Therefore he never wrote anything himself. We have Plato to thank for what we know of Socrates' ideas.

[Thanks to the Internet, says Oxzen, the writing issue is resolved, and we can easily have written dialogues - with the entire planet. We can even have the wisdom of the crowd. Except when the crowd itself is a mob of right-wing trolls on the Guardian website's Comment is Free.]

Socrates spoke about spiritual wellbeing - not material wealth. As the years went by he became even more theatrically shabby in his apparrel.

He went to the market in order to trade ideas, not goods. [How much time do people spend  trading ideas these days?]

Tomorrow's episode - Meddling with young men's minds.

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Next week on R4's 'In Our Time': Taoism
Make a note.

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The Trip - BBC2

It seems this gem of a series, which is ending this week, is entirely the creation of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, and the dialogue is completely improvised. Ostensibly The Trip's subject matter is a gastronomic tour of northern England, and also the nature of a relationship between two friends who have known one another for more than 10 years. It's so much richer and deeper than that, however.

For a start, the director, Michael Winterbottom, does a great job of showing the wonderful mountain landscapes of the Lake District and the Pennines in winter - almost as snow-covered in the early part of this year, when this series was filmed, as they are at the moment. It would seem that Coogan and Brydon are both mountain lovers, both having grown up in and around mountains.

The thing that really strikes home, however, is the contrasting characters of two very gifted and intelligent individuals, who also happen to be friends. One is introverted, angst-ridden, a loner, with aspirations to be a significant artist, and yet can't let go of his ego's need for fame and recognition. The other is a natural extrovert, relaxed in his own body and persona, warm, sociable, easy-going,  not at all anxious about creating high art, or indeed about fame. He also has a wife and a young child, and keeps in touch with them regularly whilst he's on the road.

The Coogan character keeps in touch (via his mobile phone, never a hotel phone, unlike Brydon, even if he has to walk a mile to get a signal) only with his agent, his teenage son, and his current girlfriend - even though they're supposed to be 'on a break'. He has a love/hate relationship with all three.

The agent frustrates him because he's not getting the work and the types of roles Coogan craves - as a 'serious' comic character actor. Coogan seems to resent Brydon's current popularity, and his commercial success. Plaintively he rails, "I'm fucking brilliant! But I'm an artist - not a businessman!"

The son frustrates him because . . . that's what teenage sons do.

The girlfriend frustrates him because he evidently craves intimacy and yet he/they clearly have problems achieving any. He's a sucker for attractive women, in every sense. He attracts women, but he doesn't know what to do with them. He doesn't even know what he wants to do with them. He lives alone in a large, modern, souless flat, somewhere in South London.

The fourth person that continually frustrates the Coogan character is his friend Brydon. Like the other three people in his life he sort-of-loves him and needs him, and yet feels a degree of alienation from him - because of their differences of opinion, approaches to life, views on various topics, and overall a lack of empathy - which is clearly the bane of Coogan's life. He has deep insights into other people and their characters, and yet he fails utterly to establish any strong sympathy or empathy with them. It's quite possible he doesn't even like himself, as he's so fond of spotting faults and weaknesses in others, and no doubt has a forensic eye on himself. So that's a fifth character that frustrates him.

Another key theme of the series is the nature of humanity, which is obviously the key theme of all art. At one point Coogan talks explicitly about the human condition, and expresses a preference for people who are 'imperfect but interesting'. Coogan obviously likes 'interesting' people, and has a low threshold of boredom, even for people like Brydon who cheerfully prattles on with his funny voices as long as he has an audience of at least one.

The nature of comedy itself is the other major subject here, and its validity as an art form. Why are people like Coogan and Brydon driven to make people laugh? Because they can? As a shield? As ego-gratification? To fill time and kill silence? Because it's what they do best?

Right from the start, in the first episode, it's clear that for the Brydon character, at least, the impulse to make people laugh is his driving force, the thing that gets him through the day. Even when making late-night suggestive phone calls to his partner he can't resist making them jokey and amusing.  The Coogan character, on the other hand, takes his comedy more seriously and excels at satire and lampoonery. Away from his work he's mainly glum, downbeat, and cynical. He's desperate to be seen as a character actor, not a comic. The funny voices thing is mainly in his past - Spitting Image, and all that.

And yet . . . He can't resist correcting Brydon and telling him how to improve his Michael Caine, his Ronnie Corbett, etc. Ever the perfectionist, the professional, the critic, the artist.

But in a scene that ends the penultimate episode he's looking into his bathroom mirror, applying anti-wrinkle cream under his eyes, trying desperately and unsucessfully to imitate Brydon's brilliant 'Small Man in a Box' voice, and says to himself, in a cartoon-character voice, "I don't care about silly voices. They're stupid."

...............................................

A negative review in the New Statesman:

 http://www.newstatesman.com/television/2010/11/coogan-brydon-trip

............................................

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jul/25/steve-coogan-rob-brydon-restaurant

 http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/latest-reviews/the-trip/5018185.article
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Layer 244 . . . A Tale For Our Times

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Far away in a land of incredible beauty a race of beautiful people live civilised and spiritual lives in harmony with nature, respecting the beauty and bounty of an environment that provides for all their needs.

Their existence is threatened by an expeditionary force of technologically sophisticated aliens who are bent on conquering, exploiting and appropriating their land.

The foreigners are led by ruthless, savage and psychopathic egomaniacs who are prepared to use whatever means they deem necessary to conquer the land and extract its natural resources.

The indigenous people are willing to accommodate the incomers, but are also determined to fight back against them when the places which they deem to be sacred are overrun, and when they themselves face eviction.

The weapons employed by the indigenous people consist of knives, spears and bow and arrows, but also the advanced weaponry of the would-be colonists and invaders, as and when those people are able to appropriate them.

These people do not, by nature, enjoy killing, but they can be fearsome warriors when forced to defend their lands and fight for their survival.

So who are these people?

    North American Indians?
    Australian Aborigines?
    New Zealand Maoris?
    South American Aztecs and Incas?
    Rain Forest tribes?
    South African Zulus?
    Chinese or Japanese Buddhists or Shintoists?
    Indian Hindus or Muslims?
    Ethiopians?
    Egyptians?
    West or East Africans?
    Central or North Africans?
    Middle Eastern Muslims?
    Polynesian or Pacific Islanders?
    Vietnamese?
    Persians?
    Afghanis?

Of course it could be any of them. It could be any race of people who have faced penetration, enslavement, exploitation, subjugation or extermination by the colonising forces of stupid white men.

The genius of James Cameron is to tell the story of the human race, but to give the tale a twist. Look away now if you don't want to know the entire plot and the ending.

 Dekcik (sesra) sessa rieht teg nem etihw diputs eht . (Na'vi)

I do like a happy ending.

........................................................

At the time of writing the BBC is just reporting the start of Operation Moshtarak.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8513665.stm

More than 15,000 American, British and Afghan troops have launched the biggest offensive in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

Helicopter-borne forces are attacking the Taliban-held districts of Marjah and Nad Ali in Helmand province in a bid to re-establish government control.

Nato says Marjah is home to the biggest community under insurgent control in the south and 400 to 1,000 militants.

Many residents fled ahead of Operation Moshtarak - meaning "together" in Dari.

Nato had distributed leaflets in the Marjah area warning of the planned offensive in a bid to limit civilian casualties. Villagers said they warned Taliban fighters to leave the area or be killed.

...............................................................

On every level Avatar is a towering and astonishing achievement. It's a tale told with incredible power and amazing artistic and technical sophistication.

George Monbiot's enthusiasm for the film is entirely justified.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/01/11/the-holocaust-we-will-not-see/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/11/mawkish-maybe-avatar-profound-important

The film works on every level. It's a dramatic, thrilling, absorbing and ultimately celebratory morality tale. It's told, in my opinion, without naivety or mawkishness. It's a war film. It's a love story. It's history. It's the future. It's what's happening now. It's a work of art. It's a modern masterpiece. It's a window into the current state of the world.

We live in a world run by corporations, conquistadors, colonists and neo-colonials – people utterly lacking any spiritual dimension or morality or compassion, let alone respect for other human beings or the planet. Money = power. Does anyone with any sense or with eyes that truly see seriously doubt this?

Can a work of art change or even affect the course of history? I seriously doubt it. Call me a cynic. But I love this film.

Every child of secondary school age should be taken to see Avatar and given opportunities to discuss and debate the screenplay, characters and plot. Their various 'readings' of the film should be encouraged to emerge and compete with one another for validity. The different readings of human history can be similarly examined, discussed and debated.

I don't doubt there will be many who will then say (like a previous generation that agreed with a singer/songwriter* that 'I learned more from a three-minute record than I ever learned in school') that Avatar gave them more insight into the nature of humanity and the course of human history than entire GCSE courses in history, geography, politics and social psychology. Possibly RE as well.

The measure of a true artist is whether they can enlighten and also allow insights into profound truths about human nature and human history without being didactic, preachy or pompous, whilst gripping the attention, riveting the audience and never becoming tedious and boring. James Cameron is a true artist.

............................................................

* Bruce Springsteen – No Surrender

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/NoSurrender.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-YMRbh0OqM

......................................................

Thinking about coded messages and convoluted plots I had reason to read The Da Vinci Code recently – several reasons in fact. The brand new unopened paperback I discovered at New Year almost felt like a gift.

I started reading it around the time I came across these letters in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/03/pope-visit-lessons-from-history

These letters are all worth a proper read, including the ones from Bruce Kent and Linda Bellos, but here's a quick extract from the letter from Giles Swayne, regarding the Pope's forthcoming visit to this country -

I am a "cradle Catholic" who was sent to a monastic boarding school between the ages of nine and 17, and indoctrinated with the depressing fantasies of Catholic dogma. It took 20 years to shake off this miasma of lies; and although I never suffered sexual abuse, there is an abuse of a child's rights inherent in Catholic teaching, which regards all sexual activity as sinful, except when in the cause of procreation. This (apart from being absurd in itself, and revealing of the Vatican's terror of sexually active women) is a terrible burden to inflict upon adolescent boys. We were constantly reminded that masturbation was a "mortal sin", punishable by hell.

I agree with Richard Dawkins that the sexual crimes perpetrated by Irish priests upon some boys, although horrendous, were probably less damaging overall than the brainwashing of all such children with medieval superstitions. The abusive priests were themselves the hapless products of a system which hated sex and imposed an unnatural celibacy. We should think hard before encouraging any such "faith" schools: to indoctrinate children with narrow, non-rational ideas is itself an abuse of their right to have access to a balanced world-view and to evidence-based thought.

…........................................................................

Hieros gamos or Hierogamy refers to marriage between a god and a goddess, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities. It is the harmonization of opposites. It's a kind of Greek equivalent of yin and yang.

Dan Brown wrote,

[Langdon] explained that although what [Sophie] saw probably looked like a sex ritual, Hieros Gamos had nothing to do with eroticism. It was a spiritual act. Historically, intercourse was the act through which male and female experienced God. [Or spiritual bliss – satori in Zen?]

The ancients believed that the male was spiritually incomplete until he had carnal knowledge of the sacred feminine. [And vice versa?]

Physical union with the female remained the sole means through which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve gnosis – knowledge of the divine.

Since the days of Isis, sex rites had been considered man's only bridge from earth to heaven. [Rites?]

“By communing with woman,” Langdon said, “man could achieve a climactic instant when his mind went totally blank and he could see God.” [And vice versa?] [ Also called experiencing wholeness, spiritual bliss, etc, for those who are atheists, agnostics, etc.]

Sophie looked sceptical. “Orgasm as prayer?”

Langdon gave a noncommittal shrug, although Sophie was essentially correct. Physiologically speaking, the male [?] climax was [IS?] accompanied by a split second entirely devoid of thought. A brief mental vacuum. [Not so brief?] A moment of clarity during which God [?] could be glimpsed. Meditation gurus [and non-gurus?] achieved similar states of thoughtlessness without sex [as well as with?] and often described Nirvana as a never-ending spiritual orgasm.

“Sophie,” Langdon said quietly, “It's important to remember that the ancients' view of sex was entirely opposite from ours today. [???] Sex begot new life – the ultimate miracle – and miracles could be performed only by a god. The ability of a woman to produce life from her womb made her sacred. A god. Intercourse was the revered union of the two halves of the human spirit – male and female – through which the male [?] could find spiritual wholeness and communion with God. [NB Though the Greeks were NOT monotheistic!! Duh!] What you saw was not about sex, it was about spirtuality. The Hieros Gamos ritual is not a perversion. It's a deeply sacrosanct ceremony.”

.    .    .    .    .    .    .

Admittedly, the concept of sex as a pathway to God [?] was mind-boggling at first. Langdon's Jewish students always looked flabbergasted when he first told them that the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the temple no less. Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men seeking spiritual wholeness came to the Temple to visit priestesses – or hierodules – with whom they made love and and experienced the divine through physical union.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

“For the early Church,” Langdon explained in a soft voice, “mankind's use of sex to commune directly with God posed a serious threat to the Catholic power base. It left the Church out of the loop, undermining their self-proclaimed status as the sole conduit to God. [Spiritual experience and enlightenment]

For obvious reasons, they worked hard to demonise sex and recast it as a disgusting and sinful act. Other major religions did the same.” [Did they? Which ones?]

“Is it surprising we feel conflicted about sex?” [Langdon] asked his students. “Our ancient heritage and our very physiologies [and our bloody common sense] tell us sex is natural – a cherished route to spiritual fulfillment – and yet modern religion decries it as shameful, teaching us to fear our sexual desire as the hand of the devil.”

“Gentlemen  - might I offer a suggestion for all of you. Without being so bold as to condone premarital sex . . . I will give you this bit of advice about your sex lives . . . The next time you find yourself with a woman, look in your heart and see if you cannot approach sex as a mystical spiritual act. Challenge yourself to find that spark of divinity that man can only achieve through union with the sacred feminine.”
     The women smiled knowingly, nodding.
     The men exchanged dubious giggles and off-colour jokes.
     Langdon sighed. College men were still boys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieros_gamos
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Layer 226 . . . The Thick of It, The Game of Politics, Refraining From Harm and Modern Beauty

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There's a beating-up in the press today for Brown and Cameron, and it's forced both of them to apologise for their actions. Namely? Using Remembrance Day for photo-opportunities - behaving like publicity-crazed actors on a poppy-strewn stage in the so-called 'Field of Remembrance' outside the Abbey last week.

Without proper permission they both went into the 'Field' in order to “inspect” the crosses and poppies that had been put there to commemorate those who have died in the Middle East wars. Cameron went in first with his personal photographer, prior to the service, and having got wind of this Brown scuttled in there when the service was over, accompanied by his wife and a film crew, which was shooting on behalf of the press corps. “Inspecting”. Gazing earnestly at the crosses and the poppies.

Thanks to “The Thick of It” on the BBC we have a much sharper appreciation of what goes on within the inner circles of the political leaders. The sense that even the senior members of the government and the opposition are just actors and performers, acting to scripts provided by strategists, speech writers, political analysts, image makers, PR consultants, rapid response units, private secretaries, press secretaries, focus groups, pollsters, and assorted over-opinionated dickheads.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgrd

This, of course, doesn't invalidate the view of politics given by “Yes, Minister”, which made us aware that government ministers are also manipulated, maneuvered, thwarted, hoodwinked, fed bullshit and led astray by devious professional civil servants up to the level of Permanent Secretary.

What we now understand about politics is that it is indeed the 'art of the possible', and that honesty, integrity and good intent will always be trumped by ambition, competing egos, deviousness, ruthlessness, stupidity, vested interests, and the  hunger to have and to hold power.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229917/Brown-Cameron-apologise-Abbey-turning-Poppy-Day-contest-photo-ops.html?ITO=1490&referrer=yahoo

The Thick of It last night showed the Minister and her Tory opposite number taking part in a Radio 5 Live debate, with them and their various advisors and hangers-on being viciously verballed and bullied by their respective handlers, strategists and spin supremos. The sheer awfulness and nastiness of it all is brilliantly portrayed. And let's not kid ourselves that this is an exaggeration and a caricature. It's not. This is how the game's played in our sophisticated times.

…...............................................

Refraining From Harm.

How To Practice – Chapter 4 – The Dalai Lama

Buddha teaches us how to find refuge from suffering and limitation, but the chief refuge, or source of protection, is found in the states of realisation achieved through practicing morality, concentrated meditation, and wisdom.

Buddhist scriptures recommend that you hide your good qualities and achievements like a lamp inside a vessel. You should not advertise them unless there is a great purpose in doing so.

Buddhists do not ask for happiness. Happiness comes from putting [spiritual doctrine] into practice. Buddha teaches the actual refuge – how to practice the doctrine – but the main responsibility lies in your own implementation. To create the foundation for an eventual spiritual state devoid of suffering and limitation we need to engage in the following practice:

1)    Identify the 10 nonvirtues (see Layer 225)
2)    Identify the 10 virtues (which are the opposites of those nonvirtues)
3)    Abandon the former and adopt the latter.

Limitation in dress is the practice of contentment regarding clothes. [Monks and nuns are limited to one set of robes] The same is true for adornments. It is a mistake to think that it is really worthwhile to spend more on food, clothing and adornments just because you have more money. Rather, spend more on health and education for poor people. This is not forced socialism but voluntary compassion.

Also, it is essential for monastics to be satisfied with adequate shelter. An elaborate home is not allowed. This is called contentment with regard to shelter. Lay people can adopt this practice by reducing the neverending quest for a better home and for the furniture and decorations in it.

Examine your attitudes toward food, clothes and shelter. By reducing expectations you will promote contentment. The extra energy which is released should be devoted to meditation and to achieve cessation of problems.

We should be contented in material areas, for those are bound by limitation, but not with regard to the spiritual, which can be extended limitlessly.

With regard to compassion and altruism there is no limit, and thus we should not be content with the degree we have.

Practicing the morality of individual liberation is also helpful in increasing mindfulness and introspection.

The practice of morality of individual liberation also fosters tolerance and patience. Buddha said that patience is the highest form of asceticism, and through it one can reach nirvana. For monks and nuns there are four qualities of patience and tolerance to maintain:

•     If someone pushes you around, you should be tolerant, patient.

•     If someone shows anger to you, you should not respond with anger.

•     If someone hits you, you should not strike back.

•     If someone embarrasses and insults you, you should not answer back.
  

Usually my advice to beginners is to be patient; have fewer expectations of yourself. It is most important to be an honest citizen, a good member of the human community. Whether or not you understand profound ideas, it is important to be a good person wherever you are right now.

The essence of the Buddha's teaching can be found in two sayings:

•    If possible, you should help others.

•     If that is not possible, at least you should do no harm.

Summary for Daily Practice

•     Notice your attachments to food, clothes and shelter, and adopt monastic practices of contentment to a layperson's life. Be satisfied with adequate food, clothing and shelter. Use the additional free time for meditation so that you can overcome more problems.

•     Develop a strong desire to refrain from harming others either physically or verbally no matter whether you are embarrassed, insulted, reviled, pushed or hit.

….........................................

You should never, ever forget to turn the TV off after watching Andy Marr's early morning politics programme on Sundays. If you do you will become irritated beyond belief by the stuff that comes on in the God slot. There they were this morning, discussing 'angels' in front of a studio audience – media whores Cristina Odone and Kelvin McKenzie and pals – talking about whether angels exist, whether you can communicate with them, what they do for us, etc. Of course they exist. As do fairies, pixies, leprechauns, elves and hobbits. And God, of course.

Odone had two novels published, The Shrine and A Perfect Wife. She contributed to Why I am still a Catholic.

….................................................................

Modern Beauty - Ugly Beauty

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p4g60

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/11_november/03/beauty.shtml

Has beauty disappeared from modern art? Several influential modern thinkers insist that it has. And this belief has inspired them to publish a clutch of recent books which claim that modern art is no longer capable of capturing true beauty: that beauty has gone from art.
Art critic Waldemar Januszczak fiercely disagrees, believing that great art is as interested in beauty as ever.
Art's search for beauty has manifested itself in depictions of the idealised female form, glorious landscapes, lovely flower studies and perfectly arranged renaissance altar pieces - but where does this search continue today?

Januszczak's a strange guy. I'm not sure he's really got much to say about art which really adds to the sum of human knowledge and enlightenment. He filmed a lot of the programme in and around Venice, and rightly said it's a place one should go back to as often as possible, preferably out of the main tourist season.

Sample quotes from the programme -

Talking about the ancient weathered walls and surfaces - “Old things can have a beauty that's been earned.” [Grace?]
“Growing old gracefully is one of the sternest tests that life sets us.”

“Permanent change is what life's all about.”

“We should stop trying to make sense of everything. We need the inexplicable. We need mysteries. Art's purpose is to nourish our imaginations.”

Carl Andre said, “All materials are interesting. But most people are matter-blind. They don't know what things are made from.”

Jeff Koons said, “The highest state that art can take you to is the acceptance of everything.”
[Possibly he's talking about non-attachment]
And, “We should follow our interests and focus on them. There's nothing else you can do in life.”

Yoko Ono believes that all of her work has a vibration that has a positive effect on the world.

Anish Kapoor

Good vibrations ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Anish Kapoor was one of the artists featured in the programme. It's no surprise he has a beautiful website:

http://www.anishkapoor.com/

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I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is back - a new R4 series on Mondays at 6.30, repeated midday on Sundays.

Sample comment - "The Kennington Oval cricket ground . . . so called because it's built in the shape of a cricket ground."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnwb

Layer 220 . . . Intelligence, Intellect, Instinct, Inspiration, Perception, Art and Dylan.

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Intelligence

Item on the news – horses are intelligent. Fact.
Ah, says the presenter, but are they able to work things out for themselves?

No, says the expert, but they're very quick to learn.

Confused? Not really. Horses are not so good when it comes to intellectual challenges. They're rubbish at doing simultaneous equations. They're hopeless at chemistry. But intellect isn't the be-all and end-all when it comes to intelligence. Intellect is but one component of a rounded three-dimensional intelligence.

Horses have well tuned instincts, unlike a lot of humans, and they're quick on the uptake. They're easy to train. They can learn to do all sorts of horsey things. Like dressage,  jumping and racing one another. Show them how to do something a few times, and they'll do that thing instinctively, effortlessly, without thinking, without hesitating or deviating, for ever more. This is what  we should call instinctual intelligence, and horses have loads of it.

This isn't the whole story, however. Check out Alpha Horse - http://www.alphahorse.com/horse-intelligence.html

In all my years of working with horses I have been constantly impressed with their overall ability to adapt to human environments and work out solutions to problems or challenges presented to them. Sure, sometimes you'll find a horse that comes up short in the intelligence department, but for the most part horses reflect the same qualities that we as humans do: intelligence, adaptability, mischief, playfulness, loyalty, jealousy, stress and many others.

...................................................................................

On the other hand, so-called intellectuals can be unbelievably dim and dull. On Desert Island Discs this week (repeated today) they had a certain lawyer-superstar, Anthony Julius, who, like a lot of people with Ist class degrees from Oxbridge, knows Jack Shit about music.

As soon as you heard him speak you just knew that he'd trot out a miserable and sentimentalist load of Classical bollocks – presumably stuff he'd soaked up by osmosis when his parents played it, and which now represents in his memory and his imagination his wonderful family home where mummy cooked such delicious meals.

Steven Fry has described him as “the cleverest person I've ever met”. Oh yeah – clever.

He's obviously extremely civilised, and very likely a delightful and erudite companion. Princess Di apparently thought the world of him.

He chose a piano sonata to begin with, which he said he used to listen to 30 or 40 times a day on his 'old fashioned record player'. Oh dear.

Second up was a piece of Vaughan Williams. His “first love”. He used to listen to Vaughan from about the age of 13 with his very best friend Jeffrey. Or was it 17? It seems they both sat in Jeffrey's room listening to this stuff, smoking pipes – of tobacco, of course.

Third choice was something completely different! Julius is 'thrilled and excited' by the clunky opening of “25 or 6 to 4” - which is by Chicago, and is probably as bad as rock music ever got back in the '70's – the graveyard of rock.

Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say
Flashing lights against the sky
Giving up I close my eyes
Sitting cross-legged on the floor
25 or 6 to 4

Barf. He'd take this crap to a desert island!

Julius called this stuff “jazz-rock”, which it isn't. Having a horn section does not make you a  “jazz-rock” band. He may be confused and ignorant, but of course Julius has to call it JAZZ rock because jazz is somewhat respectable in intellectual circles, whereas rock on its own isn't.

Politically Julius seems to be motivated by his membership of the Establishment, and his fear of whatever might seem to be a threat to it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/23/russia-alqaida-putin-bin-laden

Unfortunately Kirsty didn't get into the political areas with him, which was a pity, since he's involved with the “Euston Manifesto” crew, who seem to think they're progressives and egalitarians.

http://eustonmanifesto.org/the-euston-manifesto/

His book on art - http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2002/oct/06/art

I liked what he said about his children, though – just wanting them to be the best kind of person they can be. Wanting them to be happy and fulfilled.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrrhr

…......................................................

Dylan

Brother N turned up yesterday, and brought with him a couple of Dylan CDs - Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol 8 Rare & Unreleased 1989 – 2006.  This is wonderful stuff – His Bobness at his absolute best – the master songwriter, also in great voice. Different tempos, different arrangements, and a very different feel to some beautiful songs like Mississippi, Most of the Time, Dignity, Everything Is Broken, Born In Time, Ain't Talkin' and Ring Them Bells. Also some tracks I've never heard – Red River Shore, Tell Ol' Bill, etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/14/bobdylan.popandrock

Dylan's art is kept constantly in flux, the illumination of which is the greatest virtue of the Bootleg Series. The alterations of lyrics, tempi, arrangements and delivery re-cast these songs as refracting prisms, whose meaning changes according to where the light hits. Take the simple, more urgent solo version of "Most of the Time", which could be from Another Side Of were it not for Dylan's deeper vocal intonation. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/bob-dylan-tell-tale-signs-columbia-949495.html

Another great Bootleg virtue is its unearthing of classic songs quixotically left off albums or shunted on to soundtracks. They include "Cross the Green Mountain", a Civil War epic of bitter resignation whose melody recalls "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" but whose fiddle arrangement recalls the Rolling Thunder years, and a couple of outtakes from Time Out of Mind, the love ballad "Red River Shore", and most intriguing, "Dreamin' Of You", where ghostly guitar and organ ride a spry New Orleans drum lick as Dylan offers sardonic commentary on his life: "For years, they had me locked in a cage, then they threw me on to the stage. Some things just last longer than you thought they would."

They sure do.

From Rolling Stone, a review by Mikal Gilmour:

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/23226242/review/23306214/telltalesignsthebootlegseriesvol8

Tell Tale Signs is less an anthology than an album in its own right. It seems designed to tell a story that sharpens and expands the vista of mortal and cultural disintegration that has been the chief theme of Dylan's 1997's Time Out of Mind, 2001's Love and Theft and 2006's Modern Times — perhaps the most daring music he's ever made. Tell Tale Signs makes plain that Dylan knows the caprices of the world he lives in, now more than ever.

Just as important, this collection bears witness to Dylan's reclamation of voice and perspective. He had been a singular visionary who upended rock & roll by recasting it as a force that could question society's values and politics, but he relinquished that calling as the society grew more dangerous. By the end of the Eighties, he had undergone so many transformations, made so many half-here and half-there albums, that he seemed to be casting about for a purpose. What did he want to say about the times around him? Did he have a vision anymore or just a career? The singer drew a new bead on these concerns with 1989's Oh Mercy, produced by Daniel Lanois. Dylan has said he was never fully satisfied with the album, but given that Tell Tale Signs features 10 tracks from Oh Mercy's sessions, it's clear its tunes mattered to him.

It's also clear that Dylan sometimes had better production instincts than Lanois. The latter's interpretation of "Most of the Time" — the broken meditation of a lovesick man — played like immaculate architecture; everything about it, including vocals and emotions, was put in a measured place, meant to sustain atmosphere more than expression. By contrast, Dylan's acoustic-guitar and harmonica rendering of the song has the drive and dynamics of the heart; it's a living soliloquy that cuts to the quick. Similarly, his reading of "Ring Them Bells" features just his voice and piano, and its longing is palpable. On Oh Mercy, the song felt like a blessing, full of compassion and beauty; here, it works as a tortured prayer, already turning from hope, and it makes one wonder why Dylan ever allowed Lanois' mannered ambience to subsume the song. Yet as promising as Oh Mercy's songs seemed at the time, they were also still trying to reason with the world, to offer the possibility of deliverance. They couldn't begin to hint at the gravity of what was to come.

The real find, though, is "Mississippi," a song so central to Dylan's later work that three takes of it exist here. Though the song would later figure on Love and Theft, Lanois told Dylan that he thought it was too "pedestrian" for Time Out of Mind. It's probably just as well: "Mississippi" is too remarkable for any artful treatment. What seeps through its bones is foreclosed history, both American and personal: "Every step of the way, we walk the line/Your days are numbered, so are mine/Time is pilin' up, we struggle and we scrape/We're all boxed in, nowhere to escape." Moreover, all three takes serve as examples of the matchless singer Dylan remains, using inflection and phrasing to reveal different possibilities each time. He intones one version of "Mississippi" here as a remorseful lament, so soft-spoken that he's leaning into your ear; the second as a late-night conspiracy, bone-tired and raspy; the third as the brave and heart-worn last stand, a witness to the costs and advantages of experience — all three of them encompass American loss.
But then, nearly all of Tell Tale Signs points to that state, and to something darker, deeper and irrefutable: There is no center that can hold in our time anymore, there is no certain shelter from the coming storms.
Love and truth, even vengeance, aren't necessarily salvation — they're simply, as Dylan says in "Huck's Tune," weapons "in this version of death called life."

If Dylan's songs were once protests looking for rectification — if his language was once phantasmagoric and tricky to decipher — well, that was wonderful, but things have changed. Tell Tale Signs sets a new milestone for this American artist. Dylan has always written about morally centerless times, but this collection comes from a different perspective — not something born of the existential moment but of the existential long view and the courage of dread. Jack Fate, Dylan's character in Masked and Anonymous, intones what might work as the précis for this album: "Seen from a fair garden, everything looks cheerful. Climb to a higher plateau, and you'll see plunder and murder. Truth and beauty are in the eye of the beholder. I tried to stop figuring everything out a long time ago." For a long time, we've asked Dylan to deliver us truths. Now that he has, we need to ask ourselves if we can live with them.

So that's my Christmas shopping sorted. And I might just send a copy to Anthony. He can put it in his pipe and smoke it, preferably with his mates.

PS From the Rolling Stone version of CiF:

“Bob Dylan is truly one of the very greatest artists of all time, whether we're comparing him to the likes of Elvis and the Beatles, or Mozart and Beethoven.”

“Dylan is a master. Mr. Gilmore's review is a wonder to read. He is matched only by Greil Marcus in the beauty of his language and his ability to articulate that which is difficult to define.”

“This is a phenomenal record. I bought the 2 disc set earlier this year and at least once a week I play the whole thing. I got into Dylan late, but really dig his 1990's stuff onwards and this, with alternate versions and whatnot, I've been digging more and more. Brilliant stuff.”

“Yes- it's true- as the journalist Al Aronowitz once said, Dylan is the Heavyweight Champion of the World.”

Bob's currently on tour in the States. Recent set lists:

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour/2009-11-14-wang-theatre
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour/2009-11-13-wang-theatre
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour/2009-11-11-gmu-patriot-center
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour/2009-11-09-temple-university-liacouras-center
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/tour
http://www.bobdylan.com/#

kate farrell's 365 reasons for loving Bob Dylan:

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/users/kate-farrell/blog/365-reasons-why-i-love-him
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Layer 200 Art, Einstein, Music, Human Consciousness, Political Awakening, Education, Spiritual Intelligence, Life, Love, Money and True Happiness.

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THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 30TH

Art and Human Consciousness

Yesterday I caught the end of an interview with Antony Gormley on Sky Arts in which he was talking about the contribution of art to revealing the truth, to the development of human values, and to the evolution of human consciousness . . . . . .

Einstein and Music

Typical of Radio 4 is a little gem of a programme like Einstein's Fiddle, a fascinating 15 minutes describing Albert Einstein's love of music, and how he considered it to be essential to his wellbeing, as well as to his work.

“Music played a role in his work as a physicist. He would often break off from a particularly difficult piece of work to play his violin in the hope of seeking inspiration. And he found parallels between the beauty and harmony he saw in scientific laws and the music of composers such as Mozart, which he felt reflected the inner beauty of the universe itself.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008fcf4

Key points from the programme:

•    Einstein said  – “I often think about music. I daydream about music. I see my life in the form of music.”
•    His way of connecting with others on an emotional or affective basis was through music.
•    He was a very private man of simple tastes and an abiding passion for music. “He had a voracious appetite for music.”
•    He played the violin every day.

[Maybe he'd have played the electric guitar if he'd been born in a slightly different era.]

•    He developed ideas that revolutionised our view of the universe.
•    Music was an important part of his daily routine – there were no days without music.
•    Music for him was a type of meditation - an aid to his thought processes -  an aid to freeing his mind
•    He sat at his piano and improvised 'odd harmonies' as “a way of entering 'another mode'.”
•    His character was more that of an artist than a scientist - ideas for him needed to be not so much 'correct' as 'beautiful'. He was quite convinced that beauty was a guiding principle in his research.

    [Maybe he was suspicious of simple logic on its own, since it's often based on false premises. Truth and beauty seem to be very closely associated.]

•    He searched for a single unifying theory.
•    Intellectually he was without peer, but he saw himself as a simple and ordinary person.
•    Music also led him to make new friends and acquaintances.
•    He spoke through music rather than words. He was able to express his emotions through music – often he was prickly and 'difficult'.
•    He saw music as a reflection of the inner working of the universe - fundamentally simple and beautiful.
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Labour's Conference

Yesterday Gordon Brown finally made the kind of speech he should have been making for the past 12 years. Strange guy. Why's he been so bloody right wing for all this time? Has he been emboldened by what he's seen Obama doing and saying, or is this a shit or bust attempt to regain some credibility and electability?

Mandelson has come out and said “we should have been nurturing different bases in our economy”, by which he means we should have been paying more attention to the needs of industry and the manufacturing sector, rather than letting it go bust (nb the motor industry) just as long as the banks and the City were creating their bubble. Well yes, Mandy, YES YOU FUCKING SHOULD!

Brown's even said he's prepared to hold a referendum on proportional representation.

Jack Straw (!) finally made a passionate speech about legislating for a fully elected second chamber to replace the House of Lords.

Bloody hell. Wake me up somebody. Maybe my prediction of a hung parliament can still happen.

On the debit side we had Alan Johnson, who amazingly is our Home Secretary, on the Today programme sounding totally clueless about  how to tackle the kind of horrendous behaviour that led to a poor mother killing herself and her mentally disabled child because she couldn't take any more of the bullying and aggression they'd both been subjected to in their local community.

All that Johnson could say was "anti-social legislation must be applied more rigorously”. He repeated this several times, in spite of being prompted by the interviewer to say something constructive about tackling the causes of anti-social behaviour, not just its manifestations and its effects.

Then again, how could he say something constructive? Neither he nor any of his chums has a clue about the need to develop social, emotional and spiritual intelligence throughout a child's years in school. Literally – not a clue.
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Education

Shirley Williams said on the radio (the 'book of the week' slot) – self-confidence is the greatest gift with which any child can be endowed. Note: NOT a hatful of exam passes, not a university degree, not academic success. And yet there's never been the least attention paid to the development of self-confidence as the prime purpose of our education system. So why is that?
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Shift Happens

This is a great video which should be seen by everybody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

This is what the New Learning Revolution is all about.
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Fox Among the Chickens

This was the headline over an article on the front page of the Education Guardian last week – about Dr David Hargreaves and his latest thinking about education – its purposes and practices.

Strangely the title has now changed to:

“Intellectual guru seeks 'system redesign' of secondary education”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/sep/22/secondary-education-transformation-david-hargreaves?


This is really important stuff that everyone should read in full, though I'll get round to putting some quotes on here in due course.

Oxzen posted this comment on CiF:

David Hargreaves is certainly a theorist, a philosopher and an ex-academic, and so what? He also has a profound understanding of what the real issues are in teaching and learning, and what he's saying here is radical, certainly, and fundamentally important for the future of education. World weary cynics and know-nothing politicians may sneer at his insights and opinions, but in more enlightened countries around the world educational professionals and policy makers are getting on with taking note of what ought to be happening in schools in this digital age and ensuring that children elsewhere are benefitting from what is now possible in terms of improving the breadth, depth, scope, quantity and quality of education. Children in this country deserve an education that motivates, excites, stimulates and enables them to aim for higher achievement across a range of intelligences, whilst also enabling them to become autonomous, creative, imaginative and enthusiastic lifelong learners. The children of this country deserve so much more than what passes for education in schools that have been cajoled and driven into being little more than test and examination factories, and thank goodness Dr Hargreaves is one leading educationalist who's prepared to go on arguing for something better.
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The Love of Money

The BBC's recent series of this name, on the financial crisis and its causes, was very good indeed.

I'll post something about it here once I've managed to find what I've already written . . . . . .
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Life, Love and True Happiness

Will Hutton, as ever, writes superbly in the Observer about some extremely important issues.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/20/will-hutton-nicolas-sarkozy-comment

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More Music Magic

By an incredible coincidence, and this really is spooky, I'd no sooner written (above) about Einstein and his violin, and made a comment about whether he might have learned to play the electric guitar had he been born a few decades later, than on comes a programme on Sky Arts about Led Zeppelin - a recording of them performing live in 1969 - and here's Jimmy Page using a violin bow to get the most amazing sounds out of his Fender Telecaster!

Zep weren't, and aren't, given enough credit for their contribution to The Blues, since people tend to associate them more with long hair and heavy metal, and secondly they aren't given enough credit for the inventiveness and innovativeness of their music.

I remember the release of their first album so well because it totally stood out for its sheer power, musicality and incredible originality. For a start off no-one could figure out how Jimmy Page got those sounds out of his instrument. The band weren't seen on TV – they never released singles. It was only later (unless you went to one of their gigs) that you discovered that Page was playing his guitar, part of the time, with a violin bow, and also using an imaginative combination of effects pedals. He really was one of the guitar greats. (How sad he allowed himself to get sucked into doing that ridiculous mini-gig during the closing ceremony at the last Olympics.)

John Paul Jones on bass guitar and Jon Bonham on drums were a great rhythm section, and then of course there were the amazing vocals of Robert Plant. Music to get you out of your head, and out into the universe somewhere. I reckon Einstein would have loved it. Great physics. Incredible vibrations. Great art.
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