Friday 15 March 2024

Baked-in Heritage

          ‘Tis the season of hot cross buns, which reminds me that, as a student, I once had a holiday job in a bakery, where one of my tasks was to put the crosses on top of the doughy blobs before they were slid into the ovens. These seasonal treats were baked originally to mark the beginning or end (I don’t remember which) of a Christian fasting ritual. I could check online – if I could be bothered. But I take the view that if we were to get too picky about the origins of our numerous traditions, casual conversations based on commonly accepted heritage would be impossible. Pedantry is an acquired taste. Nevertheless, I think it behoves bakers to make some reference to the origins of the bun, lest another generation grows up in ignorance of its religious conception. The story could be printed on the packaging, in between the list of ingredients and the table of calorific and energy values, where those who are habitually investigative might find enlightenment.

          But do the details of religious history really matter in today’s more secular society? Perhaps not so much for their own sake as for the fact that they are the foundations of traditions we can share, thereby binding us socially and anchoring us to a place and a past. In a way, this argument applies to the village of Buckland Monachorum and its over-sized church. The unusual placename is a Latin reference to the monks who lived at the nearby Abbey and who were probably responsible for the jumbo church. On Sunday, when we visited a friend who lives in the village, a very small congregation was visible through the open door of the church, suggesting to me that things will end badly for the almost-redundant building – unless it gets rescued by a heritage preservation fund and turned into a tourist attraction, whereupon its back-story will be revealed in detail for those who are interested. And as a concomitant, the village will become even more quaintly attractive and further distanced from its original reason for being.

          Of course, there is a view that neither the past nor the future is of much consequence in people’s everyday lives; it’s the here-and-now that counts. Given the unpredictability of events, it’s a reasonable stance, though it smacks of selfishness and, actuarily, it might not stack up. While there is nothing to be done about the past, the future could be rosy and, with a bit of planning, rosier still. Studies of available statistics* show that, on the whole, humanity has more reason to be optimistic for the future than is generally acknowledged. And if you have won the postcode lottery of life and live in a peaceful, prosperous part of the world, there is a good chance that forward planning will pay off eventually. However, if your part of the world happens to be Britain, then you will find yourself swimming against a tide of short-termism, as embodied in our political and economic systems. What with our politicians preoccupied with winning votes from a mostly ill-informed and disillusioned electorate and our businesses dedicated to maximising shareholder returns in the shortest possible timeframe, investment in the future, both socially and industrially, is not on the agenda.

          Like most of my generation, I used to enjoy a mass-produced hot cross bun, toasted and slathered in butter. They gave me indigestion, so I laid off them for many years. Nowadays, I get the sourdough ones from the artisan baker and scoff them un-toasted and un-buttered. It’s a heritage product that has been through a rough patch of industrial processing but is coming good with a return to wholesome ingredients and craft baking skill. Past, present and future all in a bun.

 *Hans Rosling Factfulness (2018)

and Hannah Ritchie Not the End of the World (2024) 

Saturday 9 March 2024

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah...

          The weather lately has suited me well: wet and windy days interspersed with dry and often sunny ones. For me, this translates into a healthy balance of indoor and outdoor pursuits. One afternoon, I sat solidly on the sofa and finished reading Polly Toynbee’s memoir*. The next morning, I cycled through the rejuvenating sunlight along the seafront to the old fishing harbour, where I indulged my craving for coffee, a croissant and a mooch around an up-market charity shop. I returned two hours later feeling refreshed and in possession of an elegant, mid-sixties glass carafe and set of tumblers that we definitely don’t need.

          Looking back on the week, the sixties have been much on my mind (an explanation, if one were needed, for the superfluous purchase). Polly Toynbee is the same age as me and much of her story is set in the sixties and studded with characters from the political and social scene of the time. There are also photos of her, fashionably attired รก la Carnaby Street, which are guaranteed to make a veteran of those days wax nostalgic. In the evenings, I binged on The Beatles: Get Back, a seven-hour-long fly-on-the-wall documentary filmed while they were assembling their songs for the Let It Be album. I imagine all that footage might be too much for those with only a passing interest in the music, but for anyone intrigued by the creative process, its very duration is a merit. To lighten things up, there are fascinating glimpses of Linda, Yoko and Maureen. And, for those who appreciate the technicalities, the characters responsible for the recording, equipment and general back-up are all highly visible. The prodigious musical output is the most striking aspect of the film, but the unspoken social commentary is interesting too. It’s there in the fashions, manners and habits of the time: for instance, there was very little swearing and an awful lot of ciggie-smoking, the opposite of what you might expect in a studio today.

          I don’t know whether Polly Toynbee was a Beatles fan – or whether the Beatles were even aware of Polly - but whereas she continued in her family’s tradition of political writing and activism, the Beatles (collectively) kept shtum publicly on such matters – with the notable exception of Taxman, their 1966 rail against the tax rates for high earners. At that time, I was far less interested in politics than I was in popular music and, if I had been asked, I probably would have said that the two were unconnected. This, I now believe, was a view born of ignorance. Ask me now and I would say that everything is political.

          At our last University of the Third Age (U3A) discussion group, the topic was ‘trust’ and how it impinges on our social interactions. We concluded that society can only work as long as a degree of trust – or at least the expectation of it – is embedded in our transactions with other individuals, our institutions and the state. This led to a round of votes on which politicians (including from the sixties, Heath and Wilson, both of whom are named and blamed in Taxman) we considered to be trustworthy. Perhaps because our group tends towards left-wing liberalism, there was mostly consensus. But the problem with attributing trustworthiness to individuals is that it does not necessarily carry over into politics. John Steinbeck** put it nicely, thus:

“The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.”

All you need is love, eh? I wish it were so.

 

*Polly Toynbee An Uneasy Inheritance

**Novelist and Nobel laureate

 

 

Friday 1 March 2024

Eyes Right?

           Reading specs, driving specs, computer specs, varifocals (for general use); even the simplest of tasks is now complicated by having first to choose, then locate the appropriate eyewear. My optician is unsympathetic. In fact, he told me that he had recently read a professional paper arguing the case for even more specs. Its author had concluded that the visually challenged should, ideally, have a separate pair for every one of life’s tasks, which would add up to eleven, different prescriptions. How would you even manage the logistics? But perhaps it would be possible, one day, to have just one pair of digital lenses, adjustable by scrolling, to match every prescription.

          Anyway, having found my computer specs (not in the obvious place), I hurriedly finished the online ‘artwork’ for the poster advertising the latest jazz-themed social evening. I needed some actual paper copies to reach out to the social-media-challenged, so I primed the printer and pressed enter. When the prints came out a different colour from the on-screen version, I thought for a moment that I might need another trip to the opticians to check for colour-blindness. But the diagnosis was obviously non-medical: the cheap substitute cartridges I’ve been using are incompatible with the hardware. (Or, more likely, the hardware is programmed to play up when it detects subs.) Either way, I would have to buy the branded ones. I found them at the local computer shop, but the exorbitant price reminded me why I had shunned them in the first place. “Don’t worry,” said the man, “we can print them for you. Just email me the image”. Five minutes later and £2 lighter of credit, I walked out with ten, perfectly colour-balanced copies and a growing conviction that some things are best left to professionals.

          On the other hand, when the old campervan needed a replacement rear window wiper motor and the mechanics declared it obsolete, I sourced a pre-owned part on eBay and, out of pique, fitted it myself. The bill was cheaper, but it cost me a stiff neck and considerable time removing and replacing plastic panels, exploring the wiring etc… not to mention the hassle of having both reading and varifocal specs to hand. In the end, I recalled the wisdom of the old rhyme:

M'lord tried to fix the electric light

It struck him dead

And served him right

T’is the duty of the nobleman

To provide employment to the artisan.

But I had been keen to get the job done prior to our drive to Lyme Regis, where we were going to join some old friends for a couple of days in a rented sea-side cottage.

          Lyme Regis is a little place, but it punches above its weight in the arena of international fame. It was noted in the Domesday Book and granted the “Regis” (Latin for “of the King”) tag in 1284, because of its status as a port. It was renowned then for its unique harbour wall, known as the Cobb which, though it has since been rebuilt to a different design, remains famous. Jane Austen visited it as a tourist and it features in her novel Persuasion and in John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman. But, above all, Lyme Regis is known for being a centre of palaeontology, ever since Mary Anning (1799-1847), an uneducated local woman, began to excavate and categorise the fossils embedded in the Jurassic era cliffs. Although in her day she received scant professional recognition, in 2010 she was recognised by the Royal Society as one of the ten most influential women scientists in British history.

          The cliffs at Lyme Bay are prone to slippage, making it easy to access the famous fossil beds. We visited on a grey, rainy day – just the sort that causes the slippage – and there were people on the beach, chipping away with little stone-hammers. How much easier it would be, I thought, if they had X-Ray specs.

   

Friday 23 February 2024

What Goes Around...

          Spike Milligan once mimed a sketch in which, standing straight with his arms at his side, he rotated on the spot while chewing. When he stopped, he said, “Post Office Tower Restaurant,” and this is what sprang to mind when I heard that London’s landmark telecoms tower is being sold to an American hotel chain.

          This reminiscence turned out to be the first link in another kind of chain, that of nostalgic memories. The sixties washed over me and, before long, I was asking Alexa to play Catch the Wind, by Donovan. It was a big hit in 1965, the year the PO Tower was declared functioning by the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, though I didn’t consciously connect the two at the time. It was to be another six years before I came into the actual presence of the Tower. And though I never went inside, I became familiar with it because I lived and worked in its shadow for a few years – which explains my subconscious refusal to accept the subsequent change of name to the BT Tower. On reflection, however, its original name was patently ridiculous: all the other post offices in the country were housed in conventional buildings that were open for business to the public. This one charged an admission fee, didn’t sell stamps and had a revolving restaurant at the top that was accessible to only the well-off. The reason I didn’t question the name at the time, was that I had been brought up in the era of the General Post Office, an official body that controlled all forms of communication and was a direct descendant of the original Royal Mail – so called because it was answerable to the monarchy for the purposes of surveillance and censorship. The Tower, therefore, symbolised established authority and its continuance into the future, as embodied in its modernist architecture.

          However, when the delivery of post and the provision of telecoms became separate enterprises, adjustments were made to both business models, the disposal of redundant buildings being the most visible. The microwave dishes for which the Tower was built were discarded long ago, but this building is much more than a left-over mast and deserves a better fate than demolition. The same can be said of thousands of similarly empty buildings all over the country, one such being the Palace Theatre, a half mile from where I live. This seriously ornate entertainment facility was built around 1898, in the heyday of variety shows but, like so many of its kind, it has outlived its commercial viability. Even its last incarnation as a nightclub came to an end and it now stands waiting for either salvation or oblivion. In the absence of a viable plan of my own, I wait in hope that someone with deep pockets will come to the rescue. My preferred saviour would be the Wetherspoons pub chain, not simply because it would bring cheap beer and warm interiors to a local population that has had more than its fair share of hard times, but also because it has a commendable record of rescuing and restoring so many other historic buildings in towns and cities nationwide.

          Meanwhile, back in the capital, where buildings of any description have more commercial value, competition is fierce for the acquisition and re-purposing of obsolete property. For example, the old War Office in Whitehall has recently become The OWO, home to Raffles, London. The name chosen raises the question of whether the new owners of the Tower will similarly honour the history of the building by incorporating it into the branding of their new hotel. Might they, for instance, call it the GPO Pillar? If I were to be consulted (which is unlikely), my suggestion would be The Spike, with Milligan’s Revolving Restaurant, its crowning glory.

 

Friday 16 February 2024

Learning the Ropes

          “Time for a haircut”, I was told. The last one had been in Athens, where the young barber had given me a subtle style that was subsequently commented upon favourably by as many as three people. (Usually, I get just the one, dutiful observation.) Perhaps he had slightly misunderstood my instructions, despite the admirably fluent English he had acquired during his seven years in London. Or it may just be that they cut hair differently in Athens. Back at home, my ‘regular’ barber is so familiar with the style he and I both think I want, that the resulting rendition is run-of-the-mill in comparison. When I sat in his chair last Wednesday and mentioned my Athenian haircut, his only reaction was “How much do they charge there?”

          He is from Iraq but has been around quite a bit and, like the Greek, speaks English fluently. Nevertheless, he is making an effort to up his game by mastering a range of idioms – you know, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’, that sort of thing. He quoted me a few but admitted that he had got stuck on ‘bearing a garage’ and asked me to interpret. Before too long, he had not only grasped the meaning of the word ‘grudge’ but also countered with the equivalent Farsi idiom – it involves camels because they are reputed to have long, unforgiving memories. Our conversation then meandered around the topic of the various languages spoken in the Middle East and the random nature of some of the national boundaries that were drawn up by the European colonial powers. We both know that their meddling is the cause of so much war in the region, yet he is too diplomatic to pin the blame squarely on his current home nation, so we let it drop. I asked him who his English teacher is. “YouTube”, he answered. I should have guessed. I’ve taken to consulting its resources myself, most recently in connection with how to use the free graphic software I’m grappling with to create digital posters for our jazz events. There is plenty of free advice in the form of instructive videos, but it requires patience to find one that is succinct and not voiced by somebody irritating.

          Later that day, I decided to polish off a book I’ve been reading, The Web of Meaning, by Jeremy Lent. His proposition is that we might better approach our quest for the meaning of life by adopting a holistic approach, one that factors in the science of evolutionary biology, indigenous wisdom and philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism, rather than looking to each one of these disciplines, separately, to provide all the answers. In short, he postulates that everything is connected, if only we care to join the dots. A quick look at the substantial bibliography, which occupies a quarter of the book’s pages, is enough to demonstrate that the author had read a lot of other books to get to where he is. He must be, I thought, a tireless processor of information – like a human version of an AI programme. Then it struck me that the Middle East – indeed, the world – might benefit from being governed by a form of AI-powered decision-making programme. Far from posing an existential threat to humanity as the doomsayers postulate, AI could turn out to be its saviour. In geopolitics, it seems, everything is connected, in which case it is evidently well beyond the capacity of humans to get a grip on events. Take humans out of the decision-making process and put an end to wars, the root cause of which is irrational behaviour driven by nationalistic self-interest. I shall run it past my barber and, while I’m at it, I can introduce him to the meaning of the expression “It’s a right dog’s breakfast”.