Adam Curtis makes amazing documentaries. Here’s one he did earlier – The Attic. A cautionary tale.
Category: Society
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A New Dawn
We’ve just had twenty solar panels installed on the roof.
Apparently, we’ve joined a growing trend in the Netherlands. In 2012, there was 260 MW of energy produced via solar panels – a doubling of what was produced in 2011.
I must admit I get a kick out of watching our electricity meter run backwards – indicating that we are supplying electricity to the national grid (and getting paid for it by the Power Company!), rather than consuming from it.
This is a long term investment – it will probably take ten years to break even, but I’m glad that we’ve done it.
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Stop Digging, Theo…
Ah, Theo Hobson. It’s been a while since I felt moved to document how much I disagree with his writings – well, I have to say that once I was astonished to find that I actually agreed with him. It was, truly, a miracle.
However, he’s back and offers up an article in The Spectator in which he decrees that Richard Dawkins has lost. Sorry, Theo, you’re writing twaddle again. Eric MacDonald hands you your arse on a platter, and Jerry Coyne does likewise. Stop digging.
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The End
So, she’s dead. She certainly changed our world, but, personally speaking, I’m not convinced she improved it. For me, Elvis Costello’s song: Shipbuilding is the perfect summary of that time.
Craig Murray, while he personally found her quite likeable, sums her up rather well:
…she was a terrible, terrible disaster to this country. The utter devastation of heavy industry, the writing off of countless billions worth of tooling and equipment, the near total loss of the world’s greatest concentrated manufacturing skills base, the horrible political division of society and tearing of the bonds within our community. She was a complete, utter disaster.
The Guardian’s editorial, while praising her, also damns her:
She was an exceptionally consequential leader, in many ways a very great woman. There should be no dancing on her grave but it is right there is no state funeral either. Her legacy is of public division, private selfishness and a cult of greed, which together shackle far more of the human spirit than they ever set free.
Her legacy lives on.
Addendum. Norman Geras makes my feelings succint,
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A Fool, A Liar, or a Thief?
Lucy Mangan poses the question about Ian Duncan Smith. It’s a valid question.
I propose the answer is that he is at least two out of the three, and that he isn’t a fool. Unfortunately, he’s far from the only person in power who thinks that way.
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More Bad News
Following on from the news that Iain Banks is not long for this world, comes the news that Roger Ebert has now departed it.
I admit that I was only an occasional reader of Ebert’s film reviews, but I always found them worthwhile and thought-provoking. I refer you to The Mumpsimus for a deeper appreciation of Ebert and his writing. From that piece is a quote from Ebert himself. It’s probably Ebert’s best memorial and something to live up to:
“‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs,” he wrote, at the end of his memoirs. “No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”
Amen.
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The Grand Reopening
I’ve always enjoyed visiting the Rijksmuseum, the grand old lady of Amsterdam’s many museums. However, she’s been closed since 2003 for a refurbishment that was supposed to have been completed in 2006.
Here we are in 2013, and she’s about to throw open her doors once more to the world. I’ll be paying her a visit later this year, to marvel at her many wonders.
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Best Laid Down – And Avoided
In recent years, there’s been a fashion for “historical drama documentaries” on TV. You know the sort of thing – get a historian to front a programme on say, the Wars of the Roses, and fill most of the airtime with badly-paid and badly-acting extras re-enacting the battles. What could have been an opportunity for a knowledgeable expert to analyse a historical event gets pushed aside in favour of amateur dramatics and, shudder, “spectacle”.
Tonight, for example, on BBC One, there will be a programme on Pompeii, fronted by Dr. Margaret Mountford. Now, Dr. Mountford recently completed her studies with her thesis on Papyrology, so she may well have the chops to be able to talk knowledgeably about the lives of Pompeiians in 79 AD, but I fear the worst. The programme is called Pompeii: The Mystery of the People Frozen in Time, and is billed as “a one-off landmark drama documentary”. The programme web site contains plenty of stills of costumed extras pretending to be citizens of Pompeii.
Oh dear, this does not look promising. Particularly when I recall a documentary on the same subject that the BBC first broadcast in 2010: Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town. No pointless dramatical reconstructions there – just an acknowledged expert on Roman life, Professor Mary Beard, talking about her beloved subject. And because of her knowledge and enthusiasm, she was able to bring the citizens of Pompeii to life for me far better than hordes of the toga-clad extras that I suspect will be paraded before us this evening.
Just last year, the BBC broadcast a series of programmes made by Professor Beard on the Romans, and once again she brought them all to life without any need for “dramatical reconstructions”. Give me that sort of approach to history, and I’m happy. I think I’ll be giving Dr. Mountford’s drama documentary a miss this evening. I see that on BBC Two at the same time we have Sir Terry Pratchett contemplating the role of mankind in the eradication of the planet’s species, and considering his own inevitable extinction, hastened as it is likely to be by his Alzheimer’s disease. That sounds much more interesting and thought-provoking to me.
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The Death of a Teacher
Lucy Meadows is dead, most probably she committed suicide. What drove her to take her life was quite possibly the toxic combination of The Daily Mail and Richard Littlejohn.
A petition has been set up to ask for a formal apology from the Mail, and for Littlejohn to be dropped from his job at the Mail.
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There Is No God
Just a reminder of what some people are going through because they say that: There is no god
except Allah; Mohammed is his messenger. -
Keeping Tradition Alive
In this part of the Netherlands (the Achterhoek), there’s a tradition that when a new building is constructed, and the highest point is reached, then the neighbours will erect a Meiboom (a Maypole) alongside the building. Here’s a translation of the relevant section of the entry in the Dutch Wikipedia:
In addition, it is customary in some parts of the Netherlands (including the Achterhoek and Limburg), that when a newly built House has reached the highest point of the building, a Maypole is placed by it. The maypole also stands for in this case as a symbol for fertility and prosperity. The tree is fetched by local residents from, for example, a neighbouring forest and after the placement, a glass is drunk and a toast raised together. The maypole is sometimes placed on the building, in other cases next to or nearby. In some cases, a permit must be applied for if one wants to plant a maypole.
This is traditionally done when it’s dark, so that the building’s owner doesn’t know what’s going on until it’s too late. The maypole also has to be taller than the highest point of the building. I’ve been told that traditionally, the building’s owner would subsequently use the maypole to make a ladder to reach the roof for putting on the roof tiles, but I suspect that might be apocryphal.
Our nearest neighbour is a dairy farmer, and he’s having a new cattle stall built. Last week, the building frame was complete, and so the highest point was reached.
Martin and I are his noaste noabers, so we are responsible for organising the rest of the neighbours in his buurt (neighbourhood) to celebrate occasions such as this.
Last Friday afternoon, while it was still daylight, four of us, including myself, met up at a local forester’s, and selected a fir tree that was tall enough to use as a meiboom. It was felled by the forester, and the lower branches were trimmed off. Some were kept for the later making of a wreath that is suspended around the trunk on the meiboom. One of the neighbours had borrowed a large tractor and trailer to haul it back to the neighbourhood.
That evening, the neighbours gathered at our house to prepare the meiboom. It’s the tradition to decorate the meiboom with crêpe paper flowers, so we made dozens of the things. It’s also the tradition that it’s the women who do this, while the men prepare the tree. Martin and I naturally wanted to break down this separation on roles, so Martin and one of the men also set to work on making the flowers. It was noticeable though that the older men refused to break with tradition here!
Later we prepared the tree, by making the wreath, putting it around the tree, and attaching the flowers. A spot was selected next to the cattle stall, and a hole was dug for the tree to be rooted in. When all was ready, we went back to the house for a toast.
Then we brought the tree to the selected spot and erected it in position. Traditionally, this would be done by manpower alone (and I’ve been involved a couple of times where this was done). The tree is gradually raised by pushing ladders under it to make it upright. It requires a lot of men and brute force. We didn’t have a lot of (young) men this time, but what we had was someone who had thought it through. He said that in place of blood pressure, we should use hydraulic pressure. So he fetched a tractor with a fork raise attachment on it, and he used that to raise the tree. It worked wonderfully, and the tree was raised and in position in a couple of minutes.
Martin then pinned the traditional poem from the buurt onto the tree, and we went back to the house to raise a few more toasts to celebrate. A job well done, and a tradition upheld. We all felt very pleased with ourselves, and the farmer and his wife like the meiboom as well.
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The Joy of Schadenfreude
I’m sorry, but I cannot refrain from giving in to some feelings of schadenfreude at the news that Cardinal Keith O’Brien has resigned following accusations of acts of inappropriate behaviour.
This is the man who has consistently demonised us.
Good riddance.
Update 3 March 2013: O’Brien has now admitted, and apologised for, sexual misconduct. However, even in his statement it seems as though he wishes to offer his disingenuous version of the facts. His statement reads, in part:
In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them.
However, the facts of the matter are that the allegations, by an ex-priest and four serving priests, were not anonymous and non-specific:
A narrative has begun to be embroidered on the cardinal’s magic mitre. A fairytale. He is named but his accusers are not, and therefore the accusations are invalid. Let us be clear about one thing: the three priests, and one former priest, who have made complaints are not anonymous. They have given sworn, signed statements to the papal nuncio.
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The four complainants made their statements to the papal nuncio, Archbishop Mennini, around 8 or 9 February.
The Cardinal is either being utterly disingenuous, or he’s telling porkies.
Once again, with feeling: good riddance.
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Why Don’t You Govern The Bloody Country?
…instead of making asinine comments on media storms in teacups?
Honestly, I despair about David Cameron’s ability to discern what is important and what is not.
Hilary Mantel’s piece about Royal Bodies was a forensic analysis, flensing the media spin from the actuality. It’s a pity that Cameron could not comprehend this, and does not bode well for his governance.
Hadley Freeman has a better eye than David Cameron for what is going on.
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Parenthood Is No Place For Perfectionists
While still shaking my head over the idiocy of David Jones, who claims that two same-sex partners cannot provide a warm and safe environment for their children, I came across a new book written by Andrew Solomon: Far From the Tree: A Dozen Kinds of Love. In it he:
tells the stories of parents who learn to deal with their exceptional children and find profound meaning in doing so.
He introduces us to families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, disability, with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, Solomon documents repeated triumphs of human love and compassion to show that the shared experience of difference is what unites us.
Solomon is himself the gay child of straight parents, and is now, in turn, a parent himself. Here he talks movingly and lucidly about the nature of vertical identities (those that we inherit from our parents) and horizontal identities (those that we do not share with our parents, and which we develop through our peer groups). This short video is worth watching.
The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr also has an interesting interview with him.
His book is now on my list to get. Perhaps David Jones should also read it. He might learn a thing or two.
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“Clearly”
It’s a word that I use a lot in my blog posts: “Clearly”.
I use it where others might deploy “Obviously” or “Without a shadow of a doubt” or “It must be patently obvious to all people with more than one brain cell to rub together that…”
And today I read that Tory MP David Jones, the Welsh Secretary, no less, has used the same word in an interview. He said:
“I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that two same-sex partners can’t do”.
Clearly, David Jones is a fuckwit. Clearly, some people voted for him to represent them. Clearly, they should be regretting that they ever thought that he had any ability to think things through. Clearly, if ever I happened to find myself in his constituency, I would not be voting for either him or his idiotic ideas.
Clearly.
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A Sad Day For Hedgehogs Everywhere
Ronald Dworkin has died. By coincidence, I listened last week to the podcast of Thinking Allowed, originally broadcast on 26 January 2011. In it, Dworkin discussed his book Justice for Hedgehogs with the philosopher A. C. Grayling and the sociologist Laurie Taylor. I thought at the time that I should get hold of the book, and now I definitely will.
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What’s Sauce for the Goose…
…is sauce for the gander.
Not being a Catholic, I have little skin in the game. However, given that Pope Benedict has little time for us homosexual secularists, and has made it plain enough, I just thought that I would muse on the fact that:
a) He seems keen on pointing out that contraception is a thwarting of God’s will, whilst at the same time being happy to…
b) …have a pacemaker fitted to extend his allotted time in this vale of tears. God might well feel cheated at the presumption.
I gain no joy and I shed no tears at his relinquishing of the Papal crown, knowing full well that the next wearer will be stamped from the same ultra-conservative, human-hating mould.
As a bit of light relief, here’s Crispian Jago’s version of the Situation Vacant ad:
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What’s Changed?
And so the British Parliament finally decided to see sense. Not without the usual grumblings from the bigots and homophobes. Even Jesus and Mo seem surprised at the lack of divine retribution. Welcome to the 21st century. Meanwhile, we’re heading towards our 15th wedding anniversary.
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Queen Abdicates
Stop Press: the Queen is abdicating in favour of her middle-aged son.
Nope, this is not Betty handing over the reins of the monarchy to Charlie (god forbid); it’s Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands handing the reins over to Prince Willem-Alexander.
A well-timed and sensible choice.
The Prince and Princess Maxima are well-equipped to pick up the reins and carry on. They are, like Beatrix herself, not unintelligent, understand both business and society and are well-liked by their subjects. I’m no monarchist, but I have a lot of respect for them.
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A Fine Balance
I see that the European Court of Human Rights has delivered its judgments in the cases of four Christians who claimed that their religious rights were being infringed by their employers.
And I think that the ECHR got it right. They supported the claim of Nadia Eweida, and dismissed the other three claimant’s cases.
Frankly, I didn’t think British Airways had a leg to stand on when (1) they refused to allow Eweida to wear a crucifix visibly while (2) they allowed the wearing of turbans and hijabs, and (3) they subsequently changed the rules so that the wearing of crucifixes was permissible.
In the other three cases, the ECHR quite rightly pointed out that Christian rights do not trump human rights. However, Andrea Williams of the Christian Legal Centre wants to reframe these as cases where gay rights is apparently winning over human rights:
In the cases of Ladele and McFarlane, she added, sexual rights had been given priority over religious liberty: “[The judges said] that if an employer has an equalities policy and says there should be no discrimination in any way on the grounds of sexual orientation no matter what your Christian belief is that the sexual orientation rights win.”
Nonsense. As Joshua Rozenberg writes:
Take the case of Lilian Ladele, the registrar of births, deaths and marriages who lost her job when she refused to conduct civil partnership ceremonies. By a majority of five votes to two, the Strasbourg judges dismissed her claim that she had suffered discrimination in comparison to a registrar with no religious objection to same-sex unions.
That was because the local authority for which she worked also had a legitimate duty to protect the rights of same-sex couples. The human rights court generally allows member states a wide discretion — what it calls a “margin of appreciation” — when it comes to striking a balance between competing rights. According to the five judges in the majority, the decision to sack her was within that discretion.
But what am I to make of the language used by the two dissenting judges (out of the seven on the panel)?
In a dissenting judgment, two ECHR judges, Nebojsa Vucinic and Vincent de Gaetano, said Ladele’s right to freedom of conscience had been infringed. They explained: “We are of the view that once a genuine and serious case of conscientious objection is established, the state is obliged to respect the individual’s freedom of conscience.”
They also launched a fierce verbal attack on the culture prevalent in her local authority: “In the third applicant’s case, however, a combination of backstabbing by her colleagues and the blinkered political correctness of the borough of Islington (which clearly favoured ‘gay rights’ over fundamental human rights) eventually led to her dismissal.”
That is quite extraordinary language from judges who sit on the ECHR. However, as Rozenberg points out:
Minority judgments are written by the judges themselves, unlike the majority ruling which is compiled by officials. The court itself would never have said that gay rights were not human rights.
I note that the two judges hail from Montenegro and Malta. Clearly, based on these two individuals, who, one would assume, represent the highest flowering of moral and judicial sensibility, the moral zeitgeist has not moved forward in those countries at the same rate as elsewhere.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 