Category Archives: history

amusements, beliefs, history, personal, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s selection …

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
[Denis Diderot]

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
[Dalai Lama]

[…] meeting at the College of Arms [with] Clarenceux King of Arms to discuss what might be appropriate [on a] coat of arms […] He suggests that though some people like to incorporate a play on their name in their Arms he was not sure a champagne bottle was on their approved list.
[Sir Stephen Bubb; http://bloggerbubb.blogspot.com/2011/01/arms-and-church.html]

In the movie Stardust Memories, Woody Allen meets some aliens and starts asking them all the Big Questions About Life. They tell him, “You’re asking the wrong questions. If you want to make the world a better place, tell funnier jokes!”
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

The next two are quite deep philosophically, but absolutely right logically …

I don’t know what’s waiting at the end of our lives. No one does. But it’s not the future that matters. Right now is what counts. If you want to believe in reincarnation, you have to believe that this life, what you’re living through right now, is the afterlife.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

The present moment is eternal. It’s always there. It is unborn and it cannot die. And it does not reincarnate.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

A guy walks up to a Zen master and asks, “Is there life after death?
The Zen Master says, “How should I know?”
The guy replies indignantly, “Because you’re a Zen master!”
“Yes,” says the Zen master, “but not a dead one.”
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

You cannot find reality inside a computer!
[Nishijima Roshi]

current affairs, history, memes, personal, photography

4/52 Katyn Memorial

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4/52 Katyn Memorial, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Week 4 of the 52 week challenge of a photo a week.

This is the memorial in Gunnersbury Cemetery, west London to the thousands of Poles murdered by the Russians at Katyn in 1940. I’ve inset the inscriptions as otherwise they are unreadable. Click on the picture to get a larger version.

The cemetery itself is rather interesting, if not a little OTT with competing acreages of black, white and brown polished marble. It is owned by the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, although it is actually in the LB of Ealing. Consequently it is the final resting place of many from the Polish and Armenian emigré communities. Many of the Armenian graves are written in Armenian script; and not all have a simultaneous translation. You will also find members of the Chinese community, at least one member of the French nobility and the expected English including architect Aston Webb. There is also a grave commemoration a number of members of the 24th Polish Lancers and a small group of twenty WWII war graves.

It is immaculately maintained and well worth a visit, even on a cold January day; it’ll look really pretty in the Spring when all the cherry blossom is out.

beliefs, current affairs, history, quotes

Quote of the Week

This week’s usual rag-bag of oddities which have crossed my path in the last 7 days or so …

*****

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you first must invent the Universe.
[Carl Sagan]

*****

I like your Christ. I don’t like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.
[Mohandas Gandhi]

*****

Journalists write to support democracy, sustain truth, salute justice, justify expenses, see the world and make a living, but to satisfactorily do any of these things you have to have readers. Fairness and accuracy are of course profoundly important. Without them, you aren’t in journalism proper: you are playing some other game. But above all, you have to be read, or you aren’t in journalism at all.
[Tim Radford at Guardian Science Blog]

*****

Trivial is a favourite insult administered by scholars. But even they became interested in their subject in the first place because they were attracted by something gleaming, flashy and – yes, trivial.
[Tim Radford at Guardian Science Blog]

*****

The Guardian used to have a special Muzzled Piranha Award, a kind of Oscar of incompetence, handed to an industrial relations reporter who warned the world that the Trades Union Congress wildcats were lurking in the undergrowth, ready to dart out like piranhas, unless they were muzzled. George Orwell reports on the case of an MP who claimed that the jackbooted fascist octopus had sung its swansong.
[Tim Radford at Guardian Science Blog]

*****

3 July 1679. Sending a piece of Venison to Mr. Pepys Sec: of the Admiralty, still a Prisoner, I went & dined with him.
[Guy de la Bédoyère; The Diary of John Evelyn]

*****

26 May 1703. This dyed Mr. Sam: Pepys, a very worthy, Industrious & curious person, none in England exceeding him in the Knowledge of the Navy, in which he had passed thro all the most Considerable Offices, Clerk of the Acts, & Secretary to the Admiralty, all which he performed with greate Integrity: when K: James the 2d went out of England he layed down his Office, & would serve no more: But withdrawing himselfe from all publique Affairs, lived at Clapham with his partner (formerly his Cleark) Mr. Hewer, in a very noble House & sweete place, where he injoyned the fruit of his labours in geate prosperity, was universaly beloved, Hospitable, Generous, Learned in many things, skill ‘d in Musick, a very greate Cherisher of Learned men, of whom he had the Conversation. His Library & other Collections of Curiositys was one of the most Considerable; The models of Ships especialy &c. […] Mr. Pepys had ben for neere 40 years, so my particular Friend, that he now sent me Compleat Mourning: desiring me to be one to hold up the Pall, at his magnificent Obsequies; but my present Indisposition, hindred me from doing him this last Office:…
[Guy de la Bédoyère; The Diary of John Evelyn]

*****

For more than forty Cold-War years the United Kingdom played the role, in the words of the eminent investigative journalist Duncan Campbell, of America’s Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier.
[Nick Catford; Cold War Bunkers]

*****

Spring Quarry near Corsham in Wiltshire became the Central Government War Headquarters – the alternate seat of government to which the Great and the Good would decamp in the event of a nuclear war. The very existence of the site was denied by the Government for decades. When its secrets were finally revealed in December 2005 it proved to be a grave disappointment. Starved of cash by successive administrations, its development had been halting and, despite its enormous size, the Spring Quarry site is bathed in a gloomy aura of half-hearted compromise.
[Nick Catford; Cold War Bunkers]

*****

Apropos this last quote, when you start reading about the UK’s WWII bunkers and the like (of which Corsham is a prime example) you seriously wonder how the country achieved anything, let along managed to win the war. But then reading Sam Pepys’s diaries and letters things were much the same in the 17th century – ministerial obfuscation at every turn and a serious lack of funding. Oh, what do you mean? It isn’t any better now? Surely not!

amusements, beliefs, books, history, sexuality

Quotes of the Week

Lots and lots to choose from this week, mainly because I’ve been reading Brad Warner’s books on Zen as well as his website and lots else besides …

Imagine, for a moment, what the world would be like if we took the same approach to money as we do to sex. Imagine trying to hide all evidence of money from children, telling them that it’s not something they should know about. Imagine shaming them for asking questions about it, for expressing an interest in it, and for wanting to experiment with it. Imagine that you never explained how budgets work, or how to balance a checkbook, or how to pay for anything. Then, imagine that when they turn 18, handing them a credit card and saying “good luck with that.”

In essence, that’s what we do with sex.

Would you be surprised if those young adults didn’t know how to responsibly handle money? Would you be shocked if they ended up in crisis because they didn’t have the skills to take care of themselves? Would you think that their parents and schools had done their job?

If you answered “no” to these questions, then maybe you can also ask yourself why it should be any different when it comes to sex.
[http://www.scarleteen.com/blog/scarleteen_guest_author/2010/10/22/why_we_need_scarleteen]

Albert R Shadle was the world’s foremost expert on the sexuality of small woodland creatures.
[This could easily be the opening of a Douglas Adams or a Terry Pratchett novel, but it’s actually from Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

Our life is just action at the present moment. The past is nothing more than memory, and the future is nothing but dreams. At best, past and future are no more than reference material for the eternal now. The only real facts are those at the present moment. You cannot go back and correct the mistakes you made in your past, so you better be very careful right now. You can dream about your future, but no matter how well you construct that dream, your future will not be precisely as you envisioned it. The world where we live is existence in the present moment.
[Brad Warner, Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, and Dogen’s Treasury of Right Dharma Eye]

The Paris Peace Conference [of 1919] dispensed recipes for war. The powerful nations dished out independence: which meant it was not independence. Something which has been given you through the benevolence of a higher power is not true independence: it is a sign that you are not strong enough to stand on your own.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

Virginia Woolf’s prose was as beautiful as her face, but like many twentieth-century English writers, she had nothing to write about.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
[Andre Gide]

These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopaedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.
[Borges; Essay: “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”]

Action and its results are one and the same. Time, the thing which makes us see them as separate matters, is the illusion. Time is no more than a clever fiction we humans have invented to help organize stuff in our brains.
[Brad Warner; ]

Boredom is important. Most of your life is dull, tasteless and boring.
[Brad Warner; ]

I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.
[Whoopi Goldberg]

current affairs, freedom of speech, history, thoughts

On Democracy

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WARNING: this has turned into a post of epic proportions!

One of the things which marks out the western world from the rest is our democracy, much of which (excepting many European countries) is based on the British model. This predominance of the British model arises because (a) we were probably the first country to develop such an all-encompassing democracy and (b) because of the huge influence of the British Empire. This has meant that many countries which have been under the influence of British democracy have been able to establish their own democracies largely fully formed just by taking the book of rules off the shelf.

However it seems to me that it is often assumed our (British) democracy emerged fully formed overnight – although no-one can quite say when that was, although many will point to the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell isn’t actually such a bad guess, although a gross over-simplification. British (and, may one thus suggest, world) democracy has evolved over a period of approaching 800 years. Like all evolution it is a rocky road with progress and reverses along the way. This evolution is something I had long believed but which I had never fully crystallised in my mind, so I set about developing a time-line to prove my case. Here it is:

1215. Magna Carta. The nobles force King John to sign Magna Carta which creates the English Parliament and the notion that the king may not levy or collect taxes without the consent of the royal council (embryonic parliament).
1216. Death of King John; accession of the infant Henry III. Leading nobles governed on behalf of Henry III thus ensuring Magna Carta is enshrined.
1258. Henry III forced to accept Provisions of Oxford thus abolishing the absolutist Anglo-Norman monarchy and giving power to a council of 15 barons overseen by a thrice-yearly parliament.
1264. Barons, led by Simon de Montfort, defeat Henry III at Battle of Lewes. Simon de Montfort summons the first English Parliament with no royal authority. As well as the barons, bishops etc. there were two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each borough, the latter mostly elected according to some locally devised process.
1265. First elected parliament meets. Simon de Montfort introduces the idea that power-holders are responsible to an electorate.
1295. Edward I adopts Simon de Montfort’s ideas about parliament in the Model Parliament.
1341. Commons meets separately from the nobility & clergy for the first time, thus creating the Upper and Lower Chambers.
1376. The Good Parliament. Presiding Officer (Sir Peter de la Mare) demanded accounting of royal expenditure and criticises the king’s management of the military and the heavy taxation. The Commons impeaches some of the king’s ministers.
1430. Franchise is limited to Forty Shilling Freeholders.
1485. Accession of Henry VII who is no longer a member of either house of parliament.
1536-41. Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII reduces the number of Lords Spiritual by the removal of Abbots and Priors from the House of Lords. For the first time there are more Lords Temporal than Lords Spiritual.
1544. Upper Chamber becomes known as the House of Lords, and the Lower Chamber the House of Commons; collectively the Houses of Parliament.
1628. Petition of Rights stipulated that the king could no longer tax without Parliament’s consent. Charles I later dissolved Parliament and, believing in the divine right of kings, ruled without them for 11 years thus precipitating the Civil War.
1642-51. Civil War and the Levellers movement.
1649. Execution of Charles I
1649-60. Interregnum. House of Lords abolished. Oliver Cromwell, as Lord Protector, convenes several (mostly unicameral) parliaments. Cromwell gave much freedom to parliament (which is based on the Elizabethan model) but without the ruler’s influence being exerted; in consequence parliament became troublesome to the regime.
1653. Humble Petition and Advice. Parliament offers Cromwell the crown which he refuses. But the model of parliament contained in the Humble Petition is essentially that which still pertains: an elected House of Commons, the House of Lords containing peers of the realm and a constitutional monarchy subservient to parliament and assisted by a Privy Council. Cromwell thus inadvertently presided over the creation of the basis for the future parliamentary government of England.
1659. Rump Parliament dissolves itself and calls democratic elections which pave the way for the restoration of Charles II in May 1660.
1681. Charles II gambles by dissolving parliament and ruling without them for four years.
1688. James II deposed.
1689. Accession of William & Mary. Parliament approves the Bill of Rights, upholding the pre-eminence of parliament (plus freedom of speech and banning of cruel and unusual punishments) thus beginning the English constitutional monarchy.
1707. Act of Union merges English and Scottish Parliaments.
1801. Parliament of Ireland merged with that of Great Britain.
1832. Great Reform Act. Purges many of the Rotten Boroughs, reforms constituencies and considerably extends the (male only) franchise.
1867. Second Reform Act completes the purge of Rotten Boroughs, establishes constituencies of roughly equal numbers of electors and again extends the franchise.
1872. Ballot Act establishes the secret ballot.
1884. Third Reform Act doubles the size of the (still all male) electorate.
1918. Almost all men over 21, and women over 30 who met property owning qualifications, granted the right to vote.
1928. Representation of the People Act enfranchises all men and women over 21.
1970. Age of majority reduced to 18.

So what is the alternative to democracy?

Yes, that’s right, it is essentially a dictatorship, whether in the form of an absolute monarchy (for example Saudi Arabia, Tsarist Russia), a military dictatorship (for example Burma, North Korea), a political dictatorship (think China, Soviet Russia) or a civil dictatorship (eg. Libya, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Zimbabwe). These countries have no tradition of democracy; most wouldn’t know it if it hit them in the face. And yet we, the Western World, expect to go stomping into these countries, telling them to become democracies (well that’s what works for us, so we know best) and then wonder why (a) they aren’t overjoyed and (b) fail to make it work overnight – think Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, sure, there are other countries which are trying to get from dictatorship to democracy on their own, Russia being a case in point. It is hard (so kudos to them for trying) because the dictatorship mindset (however much disliked) is ingrained in not just all their administrative systems but also in the people. No wonder they find it hard, however strong their will, and flip-flop into and out of dictatorial tendencies.

As I say, the road to democracy is long, winding and rocky. It’s taken Britain almost 800 years. What makes the Western World think non-democratic countries can achieve democracy overnight? Should we not expect it to be a long-term project for them, taking maybe 20-50 years? Even assuming that is what they want!

amusements, history, medical, music, science

A Two "Duh"s Day

Two, totally unrelated, oddities that have impinged on my eyes today.  The first is from BBC News:

Abbey Road zebra crossing from Beatles cover listed

This seems to be a nonsense. How do you list a zebra crossing? What is being listed? What is there now is not the same crossing as when the Beatles created Abbey Road: the road has been resurfaced, the zebra stripes repainted and zig-zigs added. Or is there to be an archaeological excavation to see if the Beatles’ era road surface remains? Or is the current road never to be resurfaced or repainted?

Secondly …

Mutant Mouse Chirps Like a Bird

“It’s furry like a mouse but sings like a bird […] It’s a mutant mouse developed by the genetic engineers at the University of Osaka that is able to tweet and chip like a bird, instead of a mouse’s normal squeak […] The research group currently has over a hundred singing mice […] it seems that they use their chirp in different ways than normal mice use their squeaks. The more conventional squeaks are used when a mouse is stressed, while the singing mouse seems to use its chirp in different environments, including in the presence of mates.”

Douglas Adams thou shouldst be living at this time!

history, science

Stunning Lego Archaeology

If you’re interested in archaeology, history, science, engineering or Lego go read the unbearable lightness of LEGO.

I knew about the Antikythera Mechanism, a supposed 2000 year old Greek computing machine recovered from an ancient shipwreck in 1900. But I didn’t know anyone had worked out in such detail what it did, let alone built a working model – in Lego!

The Cocktail Party Physics piece, and the videos etc. it links to, tell more of the story.

It’s a fascinating read even though I still have this sinking feeling the mechanism is going to turn out to be one of those elaborate Victorian hoaxes. Hope I’m wrong, though.

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, history, topographical

Freedom to Disrespect

Several friends have today posted this on Facebook:

Yesterday a group of Muslims broke the 2 minutes silence in central London, with banners “British Soldiers Burn In Hell” & the burning of a poppy. If you don’t like us English people paying respect for our brave fighters, then you know where the airport is. Disgusting, disrespectful b***ards. Copy and paste this if you’re English, and proud. RIP all those who lost their lives.

Much as I dislike the current sycophantic “poppy-fest” (see here) I too find such reactions (by anyone) disrespectful and even obscene. However the objectors have every right to their opinions and to voice them – however distasteful it is to us. Just as we have every right to call them (probably untruthfully) “b***ards” etc. – however much they dislike it. It is called “freedom of speech” and is what we pay our “brave fighters” to defend and uphold. Freedom of speech works both ways! And to see it thus makes me no less proud to be British.

Let’s keep in mind the words of two old-time great Americans, perhaps two of the world’s greatest ever statesmen …

Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.
[Benjamin Franklin]

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
[Abraham Lincoln]

… and finally …

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.
[Benjamin Franklin]

amusements, current affairs, history, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week

Thin pickings again this week, partly I suspect as I’ve not been reading as much due to this ****ing cold I can’t get rid of. Anyway here are the best four …

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
[Thomas Huxley]

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
[Somerset Maugham]

War divides pretty neatly into the twin activities of “fighting” and “running away”.
[Ben Miller; The Times, Eureka; 11/2010]

Do you realize if it weren’t for Edison we’d be watching TV by candlelight?
[Al Boliska]

beliefs, current affairs, history

The Season of Humbug

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Bah! The season of humbug and sycophancy is upon us. No, not the looming presence of Christmas but the even nearer Remembrance Day.

The whole thing is a politically correct sycophant’s delight. “Oh, you’re not wearing a poppy?” – so you’re not patriotic and don’t care about those who were sacrificed in two world wars. Work for TV? No poppy, no job, it seems – even football pundits are made to wear poppies! If those who were sacrificed died for anything it was to free us from such tyrannies.

I’m not unpatriotic. Nor am I ungrateful to those who were sacrificed: much as I abhor the idea of war I concede it is occasionally necessary. I likely wouldn’t go as far as my father: a conscientious objector in WWII, who played just as valuable a part in the war effort by working on the land and in hospitals. And certainly not as far as my grandfather: a conscientious objector in the Great War but who volunteered for the RAMC as a stretcher bearer at the front; probably a whole lot more gruesome, and no less dangerous, than the lot of any cannon fodder squaddie. (I’m much prouder of my grandfather for this than if he’d towed the line and been cannon fodder.) But Remembrance Day, and everything associated with it, makes me sick.

While we’re here let us remember three other things about Remembrance Day:

  1. Many of the fallen in the Great War were sacrificed by testosterone-fuelled and blinkered senior officers (eg. Kitchener) who could not see beyond the old horrors of trench warfare. Yes the Great War was a war of technological change (tanks, aircraft etc.) but stagnant trench warfare wasn’t, as I understand it, a necessity. The senior officers were aided and abetted by the politicians who needed the war to protect the oil interests which Britain had in the Arab world. (See AN Wilson, After the Victorians)
  2. Remembrance Day is all about the two so-called world wars; there is no remembrance that I’m aware of for the fallen of the Boer War, the Crimean War, the Falkland’s War or the Battle of Hastings.
  3. There is also precious little recognition of those who didn’t fight but still contributed much (like my father and grandfather), nor for the many civilian fallen. Did these people not contribute and sacrifice much too?

Yes by all means let those who wish remember the fallen. But, as with all belief systems, don’t ram it down other people’s throats after the style of so much of Christianity. (Oh, I thought Christianity was supposed to be anti-violence?!) What is maybe worse is that the whole charade is so backward looking; it focuses on the past and almost yearns for the “good old days” to return – forgetting that the “good old days” were once known as “these trying times”. It’s like someone grieving for their dead child or spouse: sooner or later one has to come to terms with it and move on; go forward. But with Remembrance Day we don’t move on – it has been set in stone as forever sacred and gets an extra coat of gilding every year with poppies going on sale ever earlier (it’s become Remembrance Month, not Remembrance Day).

Stop it! Let go! Especially now there are effectively no survivors of those who fought in the Great War. Sadly though I suspect to be able to let go of the Remembrance Day sycophancy we will have to kill off the British Legion first; now there’s an organisation looking for something to do if ever there was one, and in Remembrance Day they think they’ve hatched a golden goose egg. By all means remember if you need to, but cut the sycophancy and the tyranny; let’s move forward.

None of this means I’m not grateful to those who fought (and in many cases died) to give me the freedom to write this. I just find the whole thing very sick and would rather we look forward as most of the fallen (having secured us “a better life”) would I’m sure have wanted. So I will not be wearing a poppy, making a donation or observing two minutes silence, whatever the day. Remembrance should be a question of individual conscience not some politically-imposed public tyranny. Bah! Humbug!