blizzard shuts down London! 8 February 2007
Posted by DSM in London, daily life.comments closed
Well, no. Although you’d be hard-pressed to tell from some of the whining.
There’s about three-quarters of an inch on the ground, at least near here. People are walking around with umbrellas, which is something I’d never seen before and looks strange but with no wind and very light snow then I have to admit there’s nothing actually wrong with it.
And a number of people in the department didn’t come in to work, including the guy who was going to give today’s planetary seminar. He explained that he hadn’t seen snow like this for a long time, which boggles the mind. We’re going to try videoconferencing in an hour; we’ll see how well that works.
I guess if you don’t have a car and need to take the Underground to get in, and it’s down, then you’re kind of out of luck. You could take the bus, but the city’s so large that if you’re on the wrong side I imagine that could take a couple hours and it’s a waste of time. You could accomplish more at home. And there appear to be severe delays on many lines, so that’s probably what happened.
Still feels weird, though. Honestly, in Canada, if you used snow like this as a reason for not coming in to work you wouldn’t have to worry about coming in the next day.
a lot like Christmas 24 January 2007
Posted by DSM in London, daily life.comments closed
Snow in London. Who’d've thought?
The East End looks much prettier when there’s snow. Crossing the common this morning, the gray-white highlights on the brown-black trees were satisfyingly familiar, and you could see the footprints of the people who’d walked before me on the path.. and out my office window the early sky matches the now-icy tops of the buildings in a way you’d think only a painter could arrange.
It’s the most normal this crazy city has felt in a long time, the most like home.
Home in April, of course, but at least they’re trying.
rumble in Westminster 13 January 2007
Posted by DSM in London, politics.comments closed
Yesterday my ticket for next weekend’s London-sponsored conference entitled “A World Civilisation or a Clash of Civilisations” arrived.
The main event is the infamous Red Ken Livingstone, the mayor himself, debating Daniel Pipes of Middle East Forum. The debate subject seems a little nebulous:
Some argue that the world is going into an era of conflict and war driven by a ‘clash of civilisations’. The Mayor of London’s policies are based on the exact opposite idea — that the multicultural city is part of creating a new concept of world civilisation that corresponds to a globalised world.
This seems like a pretty loose use of “exact opposite”, as someone could believe both that there’s a clash of civilisations going on and that urban multiculturalism provides an answer.
More importantly, Pipes isn’t a believer in the “clash of civilizations”:
Nor is this a clash of civilizations. Yes, Islamists seek a confrontation with the West, believing that their vision of Islam can achieve a global supremacy. Yet their violence against Westerners (and non-Muslims more generally) is complemented by an equally important Islamist enmity toward Muslims who disagree with their extremist outlook, as seen in the depredations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, as well as its counterparts in Bangladesh, Iran, and Sudan. This same pattern of targeting fellow Muslims is also apparent in countries where militant Islam has yet to take over (such as Algeria, Nigeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Indonesia). Militant Islam is an aggressive totalitarian ideology that hardly discriminates between those who disagree with it, Muslim or non-Muslim. The problem is not between civilizations but between different political views.
Not agreeing on a particular “be it resolved” thesis is likely to lead to an unnecessary lack of focus.
I’m also willing to bet that there will be gratuitous Israel-bashing — the Mayor’s involved, after all — which I expect should go over quite well with Londoners. Indeed, a casual glance at the list of invited speakers suggests that I’m going to be vastly outnumbered on that score: although Oliver Kamm is listed as a speaker, and he’s one of the saner members of the Left. Stephen Pollard has also mentioned he’s going. If I see him I’ll say hi, and thank him for being such a contrarian..
Anyhow, wait for it next Saturday. Depending on how easy it turns out to be to blog from the QEII Conference Centre, I might even be able to liveblog the event.
(Will I give podcasting a try? Only time will tell..)
donatio mortis causa 20 December 2006
Posted by DSM in London, daily life.comments closed
Yesterday evening a thick fog filled the East End sky. For all I know it covered all of London; out the window, I couldn’t see the next building. The oppressive mist hadn’t crept in slowly but flooded the hamlet in minutes. Reflected lights from the city gave it a disturbingly coloured glow, drawn from an unholy palette: not yellow, not orange, and not grey, but if you’d seen it you’d know why I mention those and why they don’t suffice.
It was.. not comforting.
I’d stayed late at the office but my work was done for the day. I was watching a Jack-the-Ripper-themed mystery, and bodies (and mysteriously missing body parts) were beginning to pile up. The reminder he’d been active just down the road didn’t help my mood any. I really wanted to know how the story ended, though.
Finally I left for home, and walked carefully but briskly down the thin path by a small canal, following a woman who was also moving quickly. I think she felt it too. I cast my eyes across the too-still water, looking for the pale white hand I expected to see floating; it hadn’t surfaced yet.
Then across the bridge and into the park. It was eerie. You could barely make out anything on the other side, anything beyond the nearby trees, and every echoing sound carried menace. There was a sudden liquid croak, the last gasp of a slashed throat: it was a bird swimming in the canal. The rattling of ghostly chains, a dark spirit breaking free from his ancient prison: a shopkeeper lowering his shutters.
Steeling myself to cross that final long curve through the common, my mind narrowed to one thought above all else as I contemplated my death:
My last words were ‘Free Voldar!’
On the other hand, if I had been horribly murdered, then I’d never have found out what it tastes like to brush with shampoo.
I think it’s a wash.
big apple city 17 December 2006
Posted by DSM in London, travel.comments closed
Didn’t feel like doing anything too exciting today, but did feel like wandering, so I went downtown to people-watch. I play spot-the-accent and guess-who’s-a-foreigner: there’s definitely something about us NorthAm types which you can recognize at a distance.
Don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but the criticism of the new statue at Trafalgar Square is entirely justified, in my humble opinion. It doesn’t seem to fit the location at all. I also agree with the point raised by several sceptical observers (Mark Steyn comes to mind) that there already is a monument to the achievements of the disabled at Trafalgar. There has been for a long time. It’s hard to miss, on account of it being fifty metres up: Lord Nelson was one-armed and was blind in one eye. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that celebrating his accomplishments because they’re accomplishments is a greater witness to the fact that missing a limb isn’t a barrier to changing the world than what’s currently sitting on the Fourth Plinth.
Today’s unexpected familiarity came as I was walking down the street north of Covent Garden. At least I think it’s north.. it’s usually too overcast here for the Sun to be much help. Whichever direction it was, it’s always packed with natives and tourists going to or coming from the shops and performances at the Garden. Most of the time on this access they have several performers covered in thick reflective paint to make them look like statues. “Living Statues“, or so wikipedia claims. They’re very good at what they do, but I find it a little weird when they start to move. Which I guess is the point..
On account of these creepy mimes, whenever I’m walking by I try to hug the side of the street near the stores to avoid them, which is why I picked up the scent. Instantly I was transported back to grade four or so, because the aroma was that of my sister’s old Strawberry Shortcake doll. There’s no mistaking the overpowering artificial not-quite-berry smell of the doll’s hair; but on second thought I guess there must be, because it was a bakery or something, not a toy store.. and this smelled delicious.
My sister also had a short vinyl record which described a day in the life of Strawberry Shortcake, where she visited her friends, one of whom I remembered was Huckleberry Something– Huckleberry Blue, it turns out. There may have been a mystery they had to solve (on the order of missing cupcakes).. I can’t recall if there was a plot or not. (Heaven help us all, it looks like it was called “Adventures in Strawberry Land”.)
The wikipedia page also contains some of the most improbable sentences I’ve read in some time, in a section describing fan criticism of the inconsistencies amongst the various versions of Shortcake canon:
And maybe oddest of all is Rhubarb’s (Raspberry’s pet) change from a monkey to a raccoon. This might be explained by the existence of Banana Bongo (Tangerina Torta’s monkey), although Banana Bongo himself was originally introduced as the leader of a monkey band on Seaberry Beach during the story introducing Coco Calypso and Seaberry Delight.
The mention of Seaberry Beach is ringing a (mercifully distant) bell.
And that’s more words than I ever thought I’d write on such a subject..
By the way, to prove that my utter lack of artistic talent doesn’t make me snark at all artists studying the paintings: when I was at the Gallery today there was a cute little red-haired girl who was intently focused on one of the pictures. I know it was one of the gorgeous scenes by Meindert Hobbema, but I can’t remember which one. She was quiet about it, and unlike Leonardo’s would-be apprentice from before, when I neared the painting she politely stepped away and then returned afterwards. See? I freely admit not all artists drawing there are pretentious attention-seekers.
On my way home I stopped in at the Maple Leaf, the Canada-themed bar just below Covent Garden, for a few minutes. Had a pint of Sleeman (with one exception, for which I plead necessity, I haven’t had Molson since their semi-blasphemous “I AM” campaign), listened to some comfortable voices, watched some taped hockey (Edmonton vs Colorado), and tried not to smile as I overheard two Englishmen discussing the mechanics of shooting. I wonder if that’s how they feel when they hear North Americans talking about soccer, or if the more international nature of their favourite sport means it doesn’t sound quite so odd..
A day not rich in Big Grand Events, but full of small happenings that stuck in my mind. Not bad, all in all.
UPDATE: I’ve only just realized what the scent could have been. Strawberry shortcake. Not the doll, what the doll was named after. As unlikely as this sounds, that it could have been the dessert itself didn’t occur to me at any point yesterday..
a primate appendix 11 December 2006
Posted by DSM in London, travel.comments closed
I forgot to mention an odd discovery I made at the Museum.
First some backstory: a few years ago, there was a collaborative project of remixes of the soundtrack from the videogame Donkey Kong Country called Kong in Concert. (The Wikipedia page has more information.) It’s surprisingly good.
One of the songs on the album is called “Idols of Hanuman”, and I’d always assumed that Hanuman was a name dreamed up for the game. I was impressed, because it’s almost the perfect name for a jungle god. I can imagine the squat square carved-stone head half-hidden by the deep green overgrowth. Even the letters in the word, themselves short and below the midline, were well-chosen, and the ‘oo’ and the repeated ‘an’ sound appropriately chantable. (I agonize over details of word choice in stories far too much.)
Well, yesterday I learned I’d been completely wrong.
Hanuman is the name of an important divinity in Hindu belief — a vanara, a monkey-like being — who plays a major role in the Ramayana. It’s also, and fittingly, the name of a type of monkey.
I feel kind of embarrassed I didn’t know that. I should probably read the Ramayana, but I have trouble reading rhyming epic poetry, though it looks like there are some prose alternatives..
the end of the chapter 10 December 2006
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Yesterday I think I finished my first pass through the British Museum!
I walked through the Voices of Bengal exhibit, which was very enjoyable. Extraordinary craftsmanship, and I was quite taken with the giant clay statues worshippers build to pay respect to Durga. The Durga Puja rites are complex, but end with the statue they’ve painstakingly constructed being immersed in the river, where it dissolves. This is quite different from the Judeo-Christian tradition which tends to build things to last or not at all, and the dominant mode is permanence. (The closest exception which comes to mind are the palm leaves on Palm Sunday which are crushed and used on the next Ash Wednesday.)
There were also works from the Islamic side of Bengal. I was surprised that one of the Islamic paintings showed someone praying at a tomb. I was under the impression this was considered a kind of disbelief (shirk), the sort of things that those nefarious polytheists (such as Christians) get up to. Apparently this hasn’t been universally believed in the Muslim world. My guess would be that in places like Bengal, the practice of the faith tends to be somewhat more syncretistic; many Bengali Muslims enjoy the Durga Puja. There are obvious analogies with the mixing in places like South America between Catholicism and indigenous beliefs.
Probably the most arresting works were those involving the violent goddesses Kali and Chinnimasta. One Chinnimasta picture in particular was very disturbing. From Wikipedia:
In Hinduism, Chinnamasta (also called Chinnamastaka, is one of the mahavidyas, and an aspect of Devi. The literal meaning of the word Chinnamasta is one with a severed head. She is traditionally portrayed as a naked or scantly dressed woman astride the bodies, in intimate position, of Kama (Hindu god of love and sexual lust), and his wife Rati.
Chinnamasta, having severed her own head with her own sword, holds her severed head on one of her hands. Three jets of blood spurt out of her bleeding neck, and one streams into her own mouth of her severed head, while the other two streams into the mouths of her two female associates.
This event is what was portrayed in the image.
Drinking blood from your own severed head. Now that’s proof that you’re willing to pay the price of power. Incidentally:
She is the goddess of courage and discernment.
Bet you didn’t see that one coming!
Also checked out some of the artwork they were showing. I browsed the Avigdor Arikha drawings, which I didn’t like very much; maybe his works “reveal an acute intensity of vision”, maybe they don’t, but they’re definitely not much fun to look at. The `French Drawings: Clouet to Seurat, 1700-1900′ were much more enjoyable, but after spending so much time at the Gallery it’s hard not to think of them as mere sketches, regardless of technical merit.
The Japan exhibit was tucked away in an aerie. I enjoyed it, but it’s not as impressive as you might think the British Museum’s collections should be. The Museum’s India and China collections are astonishing; its Japan collection, by comparison, is merely worth visiting, although there are a few items which were remarkable. Note that this is relative to the Museum’s absurdly high standards set by its Greek, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian halls. (By the way, not sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I felt a burst of national pride when a few trips ago I toured their exhibit on North American aboriginal cultures and realized I’d seen better collections in Calgary and Vancouver. Not surprising, but I was glad of it.)
I still learned a lot about early Japan. I was especially interested in the distinct non/pre-Japanese cultures scattered along the island chain, such as the Ainu of Hokkaido and the Ryukyuans. I seem to like finding out about small, overlooked cultures which lurk on the edges and in the shadows of larger ones. There were also some interesting artifacts from Japan’s brief Christian period after the arrival of the Portuguese (and St Francis Xavier) including a copy of one of the edicts listing the various fines for sheltering or aiding any Christians.
One thing I did start to wonder about is why Japanese culture is the standard non-Western culture for North American geeks to be interested in, far more so than Chinese or Indian cultures which are in some senses richer. (They can’t help but be. China and India aren’t so much countries as continents.)
Is it that Japan is technologically advanced but socially awkward by Western standards, and therefore geeky by definition? Recall MacArthur’s famous description of Japan as a nation of twelve-year-olds. (Matters have changed considerably since then, with far more mixing between the sexes as a result of American influence, but anecdotal reports I’ve heard from people who teach English there suggest there’s still a large gap between the social patterns at comparable ages between North American and Japanese young people.) Or is the appeal merely that Japan’s producing works in the all-important cute-girls-and-giant-robots genre which is being tragically neglected in the New World?
In any case, there are still a handful of places to see in the Museum. I can think of one short raised hallway on the second floor I haven’t walked through yet (small ancient Greek artifacts, if memory serves), and there are one or two small temporary exhibitions I haven’t visited, and certain things I’m very interested in seeing (such as a lower floor with more from the ancient Mesopotamia collection) have been closed since I’ve been here. But I think it’s fair to say that I’ve basically made it through the Museum in a respectable fashion.
My visits are likely to be less frequent now, and I’ll be less methodical and more impulsive when I arrive, but I’m certainly not going to stop going. Too much of the stuff is just too cool, and I keep getting story ideas; I’m hoping to do a lot of writing over Christmas.
When you need to spark creativity, you can’t go wrong digging around in human history for inspiration. It’s so strange. I still haven’t gotten over the whole Pottery War idea..
(“I’ll never forget you.”
“You won’t?”
“No. You’re too weird.”)
score one for the good guys 9 December 2006
Posted by DSM in London, politics.comments closed
One of Jackie Danicki’s assailants was arrested this morning! And she has good words for the BTP. Hopefully justice will be done.
Let’s also hope the unhappily predictable reasoning of some who find Ms Danicki’s posting of her assailant’s picture a dangerous threat (“terrifying”, in fact) doesn’t find much purchase. McAdams’ argument, continued in the revealing comments, is self-fisking; making it explicit is left as an exercise for the reader.
When Friedman died recently, I quoted his maxim that at the root of most criticism of the free market is a lack of belief in freedom. I think that the speed with which McAdams moved from observing free citizens in peaceful cooperative action to foreseeing viral lynching confirms that the same underlying problem crops up in lots of places.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go commit random acts of violence to assuage the vigilante beast within. All this talk of justice has made him hungry.
but London Bridge is safe 7 December 2006
Posted by DSM in London, daily life.comments closed
There was a tornado in London today! Reported injuries are few and minor, which is good to hear. I’d no idea that the UK has (per area) the highest tornado rate in the world, but that’s what they say. The tornado hit the other side of London, so I didn’t get to see any of the destruction myself.
When I came in this morning, it reminded me of home: bright blue sky, cool refreshing wind that everyone says is freezing. I’m not yet at the point of putting on a jacket, but many of the locals are shivering and wearing scarves and gloves.
You know you’re Canadian when, eh?
call in the Mounties 4 December 2006
Posted by DSM in London, politics.comments closed
The death of Alexander Litvinenko hasn’t been the only local crime that I’ve been paying attention to. I’ve also been following the bizarre double standards that the English apply, where perfectly reasonable requests are considered criminal, and barely-concealed death threats are considered acceptable, and cricket balls are dangerous weapons. (I’ve put these in my ever-growing The-English-Are-Doomed file.)
As well, recently American-in-London and blogger Jackie Danicki was the victim of both physical and verbal assaults on the Underground. She’s been updating the story, including the difficulties she’s had getting through to the police, and ever since I’ve been looking around for anyone resembling the picture she posted. In a city of twelve million or so I don’t expect much luck, but you never know.
Her most recent update mentions that the police told her the same two — people seems the wrong word, though I suppose it’s technically correct; I refuse to use ‘men’ — are now suspected of other, even more severe, acts of violence.
This is exactly why society can’t tolerate crimes such as those of her assailants, which some would suggest we apply triage to and ignore. She’s alive, isn’t she? No permanent physical damage? Then aren’t there other crimes the police should concentrate on? Nonsense. Her attackers deserve jail time for what they did to her alone; but it will be rare indeed for the creatures who do such things to have no other crimes in their ledger.
Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank man kills and lies about it.
Another concern is the belated intervention by other passengers. This passivity on the part of the public — the “it’ll-only-make-things-worse” line of reasoning — is a recipe for more such attacks. As Mark Steyn never tires of pointing out, on 9/11 every official organization you can think of failed utterly, and the only triumph of the day was organized spontaneously by civilians on Flight 93 and probably saved the Capitol. We can’t take our rights and duties of self- and mutual defence and delegate those to the police: in anything less than a police state, there will never be enough of them around.
Now it’s easy to say that when you weren’t there, I’ll admit, but I remember something my father told me when I was very young: there’s no shame in going up against heavy odds and losing, but there can be much shame in failing to act when you should, regardless of the consequences. He explained to me several situations in which case he’d be proud of me if I came home with broken bones and ashamed of me if I came home safely, and the memory’s lasted.
Danicki writes that the police are hoping to splash the photo she took in the Metro, one of the free dailies. Such coverage helped solve another recent train mystery. I doubt her attackers are likely to turn themselves in like the women in that case, but I hope someone will recognize the picture.
pottery and pit stops 4 December 2006
Posted by DSM in London, daily life, travel.comments closed
Well, that weekend turned out to be a lot more interesting than it needed to be.
On Saturday I went downtown with no clear destination in mind, but got off at King’s Cross St Pancras and figured I’d see where that took me. Checked the map for what was nearby, and found that the British Library was right next door!
I walked over, and went to admire some of the many treasures of the Library, from the Codex Sinaitcus to the Luttrell Psalter to the Lindisfarne Gospels. I wasn’t expecting the visit to be a cause for spiritual reflection on the history of the Church, but there you go. The detail on many of the illustrated books was unbelievable: it took years of painstaking work to create some of these books.
And I enjoyed seeing the Magna Carta. I knew there were multiple copies, but I’d always assumed that there was one master copy and the others were mere imitations: turns out that’s not true.
Incidentally, the security at the Library seems rather lax.. unless everyone’s in plainclothes, in which case Kai Security after all..
After that, as usual, I went to the Museum. What can I say? I’m a creature of habit.
This time I explored their Korea collection. It’s quite nice, though small, and it’s tucked away in a distant corner so it wasn’t very busy. There were gorgeous examples of old Korean scripts and paintings, and although I’m not usually one for pottery, I liked the punch’ong vessels. They had a rough-hewn spirit to them — unsophisticated, as one of the plaques said. I can understand why the Japanese liked them so much.. although kidnapping potters during the war of 1592-1598 is going a bit far! It’s sometimes called the Pottery War, and those are two words I don’t think were meant to go together.
Meanwhile, back at home, my father had a four-hour back operation scheduled on Friday, and he and my mother drove down to Calgary in the morning. However, it wouldn’t be my family if something didn’t go wrong. In this case, my parents had a car accident on Deerfoot Trail: a car up ahead had stopped dead in the road, no flashers, nothing. They managed to stop in time before they hit it, but there was no place to move to, so they were rear-ended by a large truck behind them and the back half of the car crumpled. (As my mother noted, it’s for the best that they didn’t bring our cat on the trip or we’d have one less cat.)
Thanks in no small part to the intervention of my uncle, who was having coffee with a friend about five minutes away, they managed to make it to the Foothills hospital with fifteen minutes to spare.. my father heading off to presurgery, and my mother heading off to the emergency room.
I didn’t find out any of this until Sunday. The operation seems to have gone quite well, and my mother (who was experiencing severe chest pains afterwards) is okay. I’ll take that as a birthday present, both the success and my ignorance on Friday: would’ve had me out of sorts. Being so far away from home has many unfortunate consequences, and in times of trouble they become glaringly obvious.
Sunday evening I went to Westminster Cathedral for the seven o’clock mass to spend time praying in the chapel of St Andrew, patron of Scotland, with Ninian and Columba. Christe eleison!
what to feed a phoenix 23 November 2006
Posted by DSM in London, sports.comments closed
I don’t understand cricket. I never have, and my earliest associations with it come from (where else?) the Hitchhiker’s Guide series, in which it plays an important and dangerous role in Life, the Universe, and Everything.
My old friend Peter McFawn, all-around good guy and faculty member at his alma mater the University of Western Australia, tried several times to explain it to me, usually over beers at the Brew Pub.
Most recently, this summer at the Kingston-in-Kingston meeting several of the grad students in attendance gave it their best. In return, I tried to convey the joys of federalism and explain why it wasn’t a crime against humanity for the federal government not to use our tax dollars to support the Scottish-Ukrainian Friendship Society of Nowheresville’s Annual Haggis-Holubtsi Cookoff, however noble a cause that might be, and why not doing so didn’t make Prime Minister Harper Worse-than-Hitler(tm).
Unsurprisingly, both sides failed.
But now I’m in England, and the Ashes are being contested, and I find that I have to choose sides in a sport where the scoresheet seems to be a series of random numbers followed by a declaration of victory by one of the teams when some unpredictable threshold is reached several weeks after the game begins.
It’s a tough call.
On the one hand, I’m actually here in England, and the English people have been very kind to me, in their odd friendly-prickly manner. The beer that I’m drinking right now, they paid for, which counts for a lot in my book, and the Englishmen I met in Canada were all good people.
On the other hand, Australia’s mix of idealism and hard-headed realism in world affairs continues to impress me, as does Prime Minister Howard, and the Australians I know have to a man been admirable sorts. Plus, they have Tim Blair!
Decisions, decisions.
in the kingdom of the blind 20 November 2006
Posted by DSM in London, daily life, travel.comments closed
At the moment, I’m trying to figure out clever ways to speed up my data processing. The suite of simulations I ran on the weekend produced over 284 gigabytes of data, and that’s after I modified my output routines to spit out little more than the x and y coordinates of each particle for each frame. Relevant military saying of the day: “Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics.” While I wait for inspiration to strike, I might as well rant.
Be it resolved: the English people have the worst collision-avoidance heuristics that I’ve ever seen. Or perhaps I should say Londoners, because (1) I’ve yet to leave London, and everyone tells me that London’s a very different place from England and I’m inclined to believe them, and (2) the problems seem to be very common even among people who aren’t ethnically English.
Basically, they keep running into me because they’re not watching where they’re going, and they move in unpredictable ways. They stop suddenly whenever they feel like it: stairways, narrow passages (and most passages here are narrow), doorways, and think nothing of it, and certainly don’t spare a thought for the guy behind them. Even when they don’t hit you directly, they tend to make life far more difficult for you than it needs to be. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve collided with some idiot, who quickly checked to see if I was okay, and then said “Cheers”. It’s the English equivalent of Hello, and Sorry, and Goodbye, and Thanks, and a half-dozen other things. (They use it like rural Canadians use “Timmie-eh”.[1])
I noticed this immediately when I arrived, but like a good astronomer I invoked the Copernican principle and assumed that there was a rhythm to the way they walked that I simply hadn’t caught on to yet. I mean, what’re the odds that the stranger’s the only one who’s mastered the art of upright locomotion? Far more likely he hasn’t adapted to the way they do things.
Some of this turned out to be true: they do tend to step out of your way to the left more often than back home, where we tend to step to the right. Once I learned this, things improved a little.
But for the most part, they’re just no good at it. They crash into each other as often as they crash into me, both in the large Central London crowds, where you might expect tourists to be part of the problem, and in small East End malls.
People say that one of the reasons that the British Empire expanded so impressively was because England was among the first places to really beat down child mortality, providing a burst of demographic energy, but I wonder if they were just subconsciously motivated to move someplace where there was more space, so that interpersonal collisions would be less frequent, as soon as technology made the transport convenient. (Might be possible to test this theory.. it’d predict that British ex-pats would have higher rates of extremely coordinated and extremely uncoordinated people than the nationals.)
My supervisor mentioned that when he’d spent time working in California the locals considered him a soccer god, even though here he was among the last people chosen for a team. (I suspect he was being modest, and that he’s better than he lets on, but I believe him when he says he’s not considered in the top rank of amateurs here.)
Maybe in the same way his relatively unimpressive skills here in England made him a high draft pick in the US, Canadians like me, who back home hit immobile objects and step on friends’ feet from time to time, are now wizards of navigation.
The things you learn when travelling!
[1] As a part-time hobby, I’m spreading misinformation about Canada. If anyone asks, one out of every five Canadian men works as a lumberjack, and the unofficial motto of our nation is “keep your stick on the ice“.)
another Sunday 19 November 2006
Posted by DSM in London, faith.comments closed
On a typical week, I hear Mass twice: once on Sunday, at St Peter’s London Docks, a small but historic Anglo-Catholic parish out in Wapping, and once on Wednesday on-campus at St Benet’s, with Mass spoken by Fr Brian of the RC chaplaincy.
There have been a couple of exceptions. Once was last Sunday, when I slept in, and instead went to Guardian Angels, the RC parish which is between my house and the Queen Mary campus. The church has an unusual main sanctuary — it reminds me more of a Pentecostal church back in Red Deer than your typical RC church; and actually, the parishioners look more like Pentecostals than Catholics — but it’s attractive, and the place was packed. The preaching was quite good by Catholic standards, which admittedly aren’t very high, and there were three baptisms.
I never like visiting churches when they’re dealing with in-house concerns, as it always feels like you’re overhearing your neighbours’ conversations, but baptisms are different: despite the many divisions, there’s only one Church, one body of Christ into which we are all baptised. Paul’s frustration with the Corinthians comes across clearly:
I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.
My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you?
Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
The sarcastic exasperation in the last lines is so quintessentially Pauline it makes me smile every time I read it.
So witnessing a baptism at someone else’s church isn’t like being an uninvited guest at Thanksgiving dinner, because in this you’re part of the family. Indeed, any Christian can baptize, and even a non-Christian who has the right intention can perform one (CCC 1256), although you’d think that’d seldom be needed..
The other exceptions took me downtown to Westminster Cathedral. I mentioned that I’d hoped to hear Mass there on the Feast of All Saints, and I managed to find the place, though it wasn’t easy.. the absence of street signs tripped me up again.
The Cathedral is astonishing: it doesn’t feel like it’s part of London, or even the West. Both the architecture, inside and out, and the artwork are very Byzantine, and it produces a strange mix of associations. The interior feels unfinished, abandoned during construction; the Eastern mosaics make you feel like you’re visiting a long-dead Empire; the canopy (the “baldacchino”) above the high altar reminds me of the Grecian temples I learned about at the Museum; and the candle arrangement made me feel like I was in a synagogue. Jerusalem, meet Athens, in Constantinople.
Today I had cause to visit again, to attend the Academic Mass celebrated by Francis Cardinal Arinze, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; which is definitely a mouthful of words. Arinze was himself once a student at UCL, and the occasion for his return was the the fortieth anniversary of the Catholic chaplaincy to colleges in London. He gave an excellent sermon, about knowing who we are and where we’re going, and quoted St Jerome who said that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ: a passage that Catholics would do well to remember.
Afterward I explored the Westminster area for a few hours, and then dropped by the Gallery (where I looked at post-Reformation Dutch paintings of church interiors, which were very different from the Cathedral’s!) and the Museum, where I finished looking at the coins.
Walking up Gower to Euston Square to head home, I was asked how to get to the Museum (which was easy) and how to get to the Euston Square station (which was even easier). Unfortunately the girl I’d given the station directions to was talking to a friend on the phone and got caught up in the conversation, and walked right by the entrance. There was a chance that she had only needed to know where the station was, and didn’t need to actually go inside, but I thought it was likelier she’d just been distracted.. so I chased after her, it turned out I was right and she had missed it, and she was very grateful.
All in all, not a bad way to spend a Sunday!
these ramblin’ ways 18 November 2006
Posted by DSM in London, music, travel.comments closed
On Thursday, after finishing the day’s work at five or so, I checked the useful London transit journey planner to see if I was going to have any trouble getting to the Royal Albert Hall. Just my luck, due to “vandalism”, there were severe delays on the line I’d planned to take. Must’ve been some pretty serious vandalism, beyond the Kilroy-was-here kind.. so I grabbed my things, headed home to change, and then caught the first train at Mile End.
Well I feel like an old hobo
I’m sad lonesome and blue
I was fair as the summer day
Now the summer days are through
You pass through places
And places pass through you
But you carry ‘em with you
On the souls of your travellin’ shoes
The Underground’s definitely an experience. James did his best to describe it to me back in Kingston, but words don’t suffice. It’s an important part of London life — the map itself is considered an icon of England! — and despite its various problems seems to work very well; the Oyster charge-card they have is very convenient, and you don’t even have to take it out of your wallet for the system to scan it correctly when you tap in and out of the system. The other day I’d forgotten to put enough money on it, and it let me carry a -0.50£ balance without complaint.
One thing that James did convey is that when the Tube was busy, I’d be in rather close quarters with all manner of strangers. I’ve found it’s not usually so bad, although that may be due to the odd (non-rush-hour) times I tend to go exploring, but when one of the main lines goes down (as it had then) it’s a real problem. After we left the East End and moved toward the central core, there was barely room to breathe.. one young woman in particular I became so intimate with I felt I should’ve at least asked her name, or offered to make breakfast, or something.
Well I love you so dearly I love you so clearly
Wake you up in the mornin’ so early
Just to tell you I got the wanderin’ blues
I got the wanderin’ blues
And I’m gonna quit these ramblin’ ways
One of these days, soonAnd I’ll sing
The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs..
Unfortunately, in my rush to get out of the building, I forgot to print out the directions which explained how to walk to the Royal Albert once I made it to the nearest station. (I still haven’t taken a bus, and I’m kind of curious to see how long I can go without doing so.) I realized my mistake about a third of the way home, and thought about coming back for it, but I figured I could survive with my trusty London A-Z map/atlas. It’s far and away the most useful of the “Welcome to London” travel pack that Richard had kindly assembled for me when I first arrived; I never go anywhere without it.
When I arrived at the station, I figured I had enough time to stop for something to eat. The station opened into a small, brightly-lit mall (they had a Marks & Spencer, and I think a drugstore; you get the idea.) There was also a Pret a Manger there, and I’d heard their sandwiches were good, so I thought I’d try one as I studied the map and tried to figure out which route was shortest. With the first bite of the sandwich, I didn’t know what to think, but by the third I realized it was great. It took longer to tell than it should have because the “mixed lettuce” has a very distinct taste.. leaves mixed with branches. It’s tasty, but it’s like the taste colours are drawn from a very different palette than I’m used to, and the elderberry juice added to the sense of unreality.
Well it’s times like these
I feel so small and wild
Like the ramblin’ footsteps of a wanderin’ child
And I’m lonesome as a lonesome whippoorwill
Singin’ these blues with a warble and a trill
But I’m not too blue to fly
No I’m not too blue to fly ’causeThe littlest birds sing the prettiest songs..
Left the station and went looking for Exhibition street. Once I found it I should only need to go north for a few blocks and the Royal Albert would be on my left. Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to find the street, and I have what seems to me a perfectly natural dislike of asking directions. So after twenty minutes or so of wandering around the area, which was nice — lots of expensive-looking restaurants, with the occasional laundromat scattered in their midst for variety — I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere.
I hurried back to the station so I could consult The Book, and it was just as I was entering the mall/station that I remembered the last street I’d walked up was Kensington Church Street, and I was on was Kensington High Street.. so why was the map in my head centred on the South Kensington station?
Yep. I’d looked up the directions for getting there from the wrong station, and somehow the enormous KENSINGTON HIGH STREET signs all over the station and the several announcements on the train had failed to sink in.. not really designed for travelling, am I?
(In my defence, I was still a little oxygen-deprived from the Tube trip, and I think disorientation is a symptom of sudden hypoxia.)
Ten minutes later, I was at the box office, buying a ticket.
Well I love you so dearly
I love you so fearlessly
Wake you up in the mornin’ so early
Just to tell you I got the wanderin’ blues
I got the wanderin’ blues
And I don’t wanna leave you
I love you through and through
I made it just in time. They were announcing that the opening act would be on in three minutes when I was finishing the purchase (which was surprisingly involved; who knew they’d ask for a postal code?! which I got wrong!?), and I didn’t look forward to admitting my various idiocies if I didn’t make it.
As you’ve probably guessed from the lyrics — that impossibly catchy song from the Zellers commercial — I’d gone to see Vancouver “deep country” / alt-country / new-bluegrass / Americana band The Be Good Tanyas, on tour in support of their new album Hello Love (click for previews.) I’m not actually too sure what deep country is, but it’s one of those phrases which makes you think you’d recognize the sound if you hear it.. I should ask over at Idiot Strings, he’s my go-to guy for music knowledge. They’re the sort of Canadian band I always expect to hear followed by stories about Dave and Morley in that unmistakable voice..
I’d also wanted to see the Royal Albert Hall, which is quite storied in itself.
The opening act, Kathyrn Williams, was pretty good. She sings kind of everyday-emo stuff, and has a keen eye for relationship observations. I liked her opening song best but can’t remember what it was called or what it was about, and can’t find the right clip on her website at the moment.
But I’d come for the Tanyas, and to support the Canadian contingent, and they did their part beautifully in return. Most of the songs were quite good, even the weakest were still pretty background noise, and four or five of the songs were borderline-transcendent. I’ve noticed this before, and it may be saying more about me than about the performance: there’s a fine but very knotted line drawn between bluegrassy guitar which makes me smile and that which stops me in my tracks. (Ootischenia does just that, which I doubt is the one you’d guess.) For my money, the best work was done by Trish Klein on harmonica. It’s always easy to overlook the harpist, but she really did an amazing job.
Glad I went. Wasn’t sure if I was going to, hence my putting off buying an early ticket. Turns out it wouldn’t have been a problem, there were plenty of seats left in the section, but the place was impressively full for such an obscure band. Even assuming that a third of the people there were Canadians, that’s still a lot of Englishmen: I wonder if the Hall has a subscription program of some kind for regular visitors who are interested in all sorts of music. Given all the personal information they extracted out of me, I guess I’ll find out!
Well, I left my baby on a pretty blue train
And I sang my songs to the cold and the rain
And I had the wanderin’ blues
And I sang those wanderin’ bluesAnd I’m gonna quit these ramblin’ ways
One of these days, soonAnd I’ll sing
The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs..
I only had a few complaints.
The first is that there was a guy in the row behind, maybe in his upper twenties, who decided that one of the quieter songs was a perfect time to start chatting with his girlfriend. When he was eventually asked to stop talking, he did, but he burst out laughing a few seconds later. This made the forty-something guy who’d told him off so angry that he turned, loudly cursed him, and stormed off to different seats, leaving his companion behind. Later, during a break, he motioned for her to come down, but she refused, presumably mortified, and stayed in my row. Admittedly the stormer needs better impulse control, but the other guy needs to learn some courtesy. I feel bad for the woman: she got the worst of all worlds, the noise and the embarrassment and the solitude. The whole episode was distracting.
The second is that I would’ve preferred a longer main set. At the end I was hungry for more, which isn’t a bad way to leave an audience, but the encore was short. And they didn’t do “The Littlest Birds”, which is an encore song if ever I’ve heard one..
Final review: Williams: B, but correct that upwards for the fact it’s not really my genre. Tanyas: A. Sandwich: A+, with special mention of forest-floor-y goodness.
My only regret is that I know someone who would’ve very much enjoyed the concert, and felt somewhat haunted by her presence. I’m getting used to it, though.
I don’t care if the sun don’t shine
I don’t care if nothin’ is mine
I don’t care if I’m nervous with you
I’ll do my lovin’ in the wintertime
Winter is coming, they say.
winter in Egypt 15 November 2006
Posted by DSM in London, daily life, travel.comments closed
Too much poliblogging, not enough Londonblogging lately. So, what’d I do this weekend?
Saturday was Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day as the locals call it, so I wanted to be somewhere public, somewhere communal, at 11:00 to keep the Silence. In Canada it’s always the 11th that matters, but here they translate their most important ceremonies to the Sunday nearest the 11th. (I thought of getting up early on Sunday to head down to Whitehall, but I didn’t know how realistic that’d be..)
So instead, since I intended to be wandering around Central London anyhow, I went to Trafalgar Square. The British Legion was in charge of the programme, and it went off reasonably well, although I think it would have been better if there were fewer announcements (“now we’ll do this”, “so, important guest, how did you come to be here?”) and more respectful silence.
One thing I did miss was In Flanders Fields: for my non-Canadian friends, that’s the beautiful poem by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae which perfectly captures the honour and the horror of the First World War; and the dark tragedy that we now call it merely the First and not the Great. I can’t blame the British for skipping it, though. The other year I went to the Remembrance Day service at Queen’s, and they didn’t use it either! It was very disappointing. This is one of the great traditions of Canada, and the trite nonsense the school replaced it with was an insult both to the memory of our forebears’ sacrifices and to the English language.
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields
No matter how good you think you are, you’re not going to write anything better than that for use on the Eleventh. You can write something else; but nothing better. Accept that, and accept that every now and then you must bow before excellence and let it become permanent.
(Probably the best all-time I’m-never-going-to-be-that-good bit of writing I’ve ever come across is by Ernest Hemingway.. a story in six words he wrote in response to a challenge. Sometimes it makes me want to break all my pencils and give up writing forever.
“For sale: baby shoes, never used.”
Etienne Gilson, in describing Chesterton’s biography of St Thomas Aquinas, said that “I have been studying St Thomas all my life and I could never have written such a book.”
I think I know what he meant. I could have worked for a year on those six words and I could never have written so powerful and terrible a sentence, which hits me especially hard at the moment for family reasons.)
After the Silence we slowly dispersed, and after spending some time praying for the souls of the departed I went back to the Gallery to continue my slow exploration, and then the Museum after that; I repeated the process on Sunday. I’m going to get through these two if it kills me!
It isn’t helping that they’re changing the exhibits on me.. for example, the Raphael I enjoyed so much last time (the Mond Crucifixion) and the associated paintings were replaced by an exhibit on Dutch Winter Scenes, with lots of pictures of people playing kolf on the ice. (BTW, am I the last person in the world who hadn’t realised the Harlem-Haarlem connection? The New York/New Amsterdam thing I knew about, but I guess I hadn’t thought through the implications.) Come to think of it, I looked at a lot of Dutch paintings that day.. liked the landscapes more than the portraits. I enjoyed the Cézanne in Britain exhibit more than those, and the handful of landscapes from his most classically Impressionist period were my favourites.
At the Museum I finally got around to looking at the Egyptian stuff I’d passed on before due to Distractingly Pretty Girl, even though it was a weekend and it wasn’t smart to visit the Egyptian wings then.. I preferred the history of the Egyptian language to the endless displays of funerary arrangements, although they definitely left an impression. (One mummy in particular of a ten-year old left me feeling very creeped out, and vaguely uncomfortable about the whole business of putting ancient dead bodies up for display.)
The best character was Qenherkhepshef, a scribe (~1250 BC) who wasn’t the nicest of people, and may have been guilty of taking bribes, but was very educated and had terrible handwriting, which even I could spot from his work. For some reason he seemed the most real to me of the various historical people I met, and it’s hard to resist the temptation to write something starring him. It’d be harder if the necessary research weren’t so daunting.
More than the mummies, I liked the rooms devoted to pre-Greek and pre-Roman societies.. I had no idea that the relationships between the various cultural groups and the city-states in which they lived were so complicated, and their cultures so rich.
I figure there’s only about 20% of the British Museum left unexplored, but I’ve only made it through about half of the Gallery, and it seems to change on a shorter timescale than the Museum.. I’m getting there, though!
