Bryan Islip's Blog, page 50
January 24, 2011
The pin and the blindfold.
Watching or listening to the news on BBC you would be forgiven for wondering about their corruption of the word NEWS. So often we hear pharases like, 'It is expected that x will ...' or 'The World Bank forecasts GDP to rise by ...' or 'The jury is today to reach its verdict today on the xxxx case '.
My point is that news items used to be FACT! Fact about what has happened or is happening in this world of ours. That's news. Anything that hasn't happened is not happening is not news, it is just a forecast / prophesy / guesswork, and how accurate has that been? Why is it of interest at all? None of the billion dollar men in the banks or the media of the world apparently were able even to glimpse the approach of this financial hurricane even though many 'ordinary' people, myself included, knew full well that all except the Chinese and the Indians must inevitably be heading for pratfall bigtime. And because our leaders could not see it - OR DIDN'T WANT TO SEE IT - they did not do anything to avert it.
Forecasting is cheap and easy because you offer it up and then by the time it is supposed to happen nobody remembers it anyway. You don't have to be Mister Expert to make a forecast, whether it's on Arsenal FC v Manchester United or the price of oil or the inches of rain on the White House today.
Everybody tells anyone who'll listen what's going to happen, but it ain't news! And it seems to this observor at least that the BBC's Head of Economics or the Head of Economics at the Royal Bank of Scotland or 'The Prime Minister's Office' have been no more accurate of late than you or me or that octopus, now deceased, in a German aquarium forecasting the results of football games - actually he was very good, thinking about it.
Indeed the government's foecast for 'UK growth' this very year has varies by a cool 300% since a year ago.
They should know by now that you cannot govern sensibly by making forecasts then struggling to make the forecast come true. As any businessman can tell you, clever reaction to that which is happening now is worth a million graphs and pages of supposition as to future.
However at this point I'll make a forecast. The BBC will go on telling us their own or someone else's opinion about the things to come. Another forecast: they'll get it wrong or if perchance it's right it will be a case of how clever the person with the pin and the blindfold.
My point is that news items used to be FACT! Fact about what has happened or is happening in this world of ours. That's news. Anything that hasn't happened is not happening is not news, it is just a forecast / prophesy / guesswork, and how accurate has that been? Why is it of interest at all? None of the billion dollar men in the banks or the media of the world apparently were able even to glimpse the approach of this financial hurricane even though many 'ordinary' people, myself included, knew full well that all except the Chinese and the Indians must inevitably be heading for pratfall bigtime. And because our leaders could not see it - OR DIDN'T WANT TO SEE IT - they did not do anything to avert it.
Forecasting is cheap and easy because you offer it up and then by the time it is supposed to happen nobody remembers it anyway. You don't have to be Mister Expert to make a forecast, whether it's on Arsenal FC v Manchester United or the price of oil or the inches of rain on the White House today.
Everybody tells anyone who'll listen what's going to happen, but it ain't news! And it seems to this observor at least that the BBC's Head of Economics or the Head of Economics at the Royal Bank of Scotland or 'The Prime Minister's Office' have been no more accurate of late than you or me or that octopus, now deceased, in a German aquarium forecasting the results of football games - actually he was very good, thinking about it.
Indeed the government's foecast for 'UK growth' this very year has varies by a cool 300% since a year ago.
They should know by now that you cannot govern sensibly by making forecasts then struggling to make the forecast come true. As any businessman can tell you, clever reaction to that which is happening now is worth a million graphs and pages of supposition as to future.
However at this point I'll make a forecast. The BBC will go on telling us their own or someone else's opinion about the things to come. Another forecast: they'll get it wrong or if perchance it's right it will be a case of how clever the person with the pin and the blindfold.
January 22, 2011
Not for our time but for all time
Last night, with friends from Paisley and our friend Brenda we attended the annual Wester-Ross Burns Club Burns Supper. Hugely enjoyable. This year because of problems at our usual Poolewe Hotel venue it was held in Donald's The Shieling restaurant. About seventy good Burnsians enjoyed an excellent meal of Cock a Leekie soup, Haggis Neeps and Tatties (a kind of offal sausage, mashed turnip and mashed potato), climaxed with an extremely alcoholic Clootie Dumpling or equally well-whisky'd Crannachan.
Our Chairman Ian had of course opened proceedings. His Address to the Haggis was delivered with gusto, bravado, charismo, embrogio and any other word meaning 'great' and ending with a 'o' you can think of (and my goodness, did not our wee Chieftain o' the Puddin' Race taste wonderful!)
Mel delivered a brilliant 'Immortal Memory'. He used a format combining key events / dates in the bards life with other key events / dates around the world at large, all spiced up with his usual dry, sometimes self-deprecating humour. In fact all the toasts were very well delivered and equally well received. Chris Powell toasted the Lassies. We were led to understand that an early encounter with the lady now his wife engendered comparison with the rose that 'is not much good in bed but marvellous up against the wall'. Jo Powell in response seemed to indicate that her good husband (perhaps just a little bit vertically challenged) would have had to stand upon a box.
Finally came the live music. Beth Hunter performed right nobly for us on guitar and in song, her confident humour and Old Folks Home anecdotes inspiring an atmosphere even more convivial if that were possible. But when she sang we listened, especially to her pro-plus rendition of 'My Heart is Like a Red Red Rose' which is one of my favourites. And when she invited a choral accompaniment how wonderful the results! Except around our table of five, that is, where you could hear all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order. For me the piece de resistance was Beth's solo lead and the assembled company's enthusiastic following into Auld Lang's Syne. (If I spelled that wrongly, apologies Meron.)
More than a century before Robert Burns was born another great man died. On his tomb Ben Johnson had inscribed a line meant for his friend Wm Shakespeare but applying equally and in full measure to our Scottish Bard. He wrote ... "NOT FOR OUR TIME BUT FOR ALL TIME".
Hear hear. Roll on January 2xth 2012.
Our Chairman Ian had of course opened proceedings. His Address to the Haggis was delivered with gusto, bravado, charismo, embrogio and any other word meaning 'great' and ending with a 'o' you can think of (and my goodness, did not our wee Chieftain o' the Puddin' Race taste wonderful!)
Mel delivered a brilliant 'Immortal Memory'. He used a format combining key events / dates in the bards life with other key events / dates around the world at large, all spiced up with his usual dry, sometimes self-deprecating humour. In fact all the toasts were very well delivered and equally well received. Chris Powell toasted the Lassies. We were led to understand that an early encounter with the lady now his wife engendered comparison with the rose that 'is not much good in bed but marvellous up against the wall'. Jo Powell in response seemed to indicate that her good husband (perhaps just a little bit vertically challenged) would have had to stand upon a box.
Finally came the live music. Beth Hunter performed right nobly for us on guitar and in song, her confident humour and Old Folks Home anecdotes inspiring an atmosphere even more convivial if that were possible. But when she sang we listened, especially to her pro-plus rendition of 'My Heart is Like a Red Red Rose' which is one of my favourites. And when she invited a choral accompaniment how wonderful the results! Except around our table of five, that is, where you could hear all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order. For me the piece de resistance was Beth's solo lead and the assembled company's enthusiastic following into Auld Lang's Syne. (If I spelled that wrongly, apologies Meron.)
More than a century before Robert Burns was born another great man died. On his tomb Ben Johnson had inscribed a line meant for his friend Wm Shakespeare but applying equally and in full measure to our Scottish Bard. He wrote ... "NOT FOR OUR TIME BUT FOR ALL TIME".
Hear hear. Roll on January 2xth 2012.
January 19, 2011
The book that I read
The list of books I would like to read is hugely longer than the list of those I've read. I'm not telling myself that this is because of a lack of time. Quite frankly, if I find enough of real value in the reading of a book I will always make time to read it. I suppose it's a combination of my being a slow and selective reader.
I read slowly perhaps because I want to understand everything about the words and about their connections one to another. Why did / did not the author use that semi-colon? What relevance has this character's dialogue to the story? Why did that particular passage move me so much? Often I'll go over a paragraph again and again to try to understand its construction or simply to marvel at the writer's art. Straight to mind, for instance, the Molly Bloom soliloquy in James Joyce's Ulysses; the final page in Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls and the first paragraphs in his To Have And Have Not; and many many passages of words by William Shakespeare and also in the King James Bible. John 1:1 … In the beginning was the Word, And the Word was with God, And the Word was God. (Guess I take that quite literally.)
This is all a part of the pleasure I personally get in reading books. And 'selective'? Of course. All who read books have to be selective in what they read. We need to be with half a million books published and on sale every recent year alongside all the previously published tens of millions. For instance, perhaps as the result of my fascination with my native language, and cannot think of a story without thinking of the way in which it has been written, I exclude all things in translation. I will also exclude anything that doesn't light me up in a single paragraph taken at random from a book by a writer unknown to me. (The reverse is also true.)
I was once given as a birthday present a book signed by Booker prizewinner Ian McEwen. Black Dogs. I was very sorry to find it without merit so I'm not going to read him again, however much he is lauded by the literati. On the other hand Cormac McCarthy seized my enthusiasm from the moment All The Pretty Horses was recommended by our local mobile library operator. I think I've read all that this man has written even though there's nothing classical about the writing or even his stories. The point is that for me they resonate.
I hope some of the stuff I write might resonate for you. A taster? Go to www.bryanislipauthor.com and click on the free as the air short story of the month button, if you like.
I read slowly perhaps because I want to understand everything about the words and about their connections one to another. Why did / did not the author use that semi-colon? What relevance has this character's dialogue to the story? Why did that particular passage move me so much? Often I'll go over a paragraph again and again to try to understand its construction or simply to marvel at the writer's art. Straight to mind, for instance, the Molly Bloom soliloquy in James Joyce's Ulysses; the final page in Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls and the first paragraphs in his To Have And Have Not; and many many passages of words by William Shakespeare and also in the King James Bible. John 1:1 … In the beginning was the Word, And the Word was with God, And the Word was God. (Guess I take that quite literally.)
This is all a part of the pleasure I personally get in reading books. And 'selective'? Of course. All who read books have to be selective in what they read. We need to be with half a million books published and on sale every recent year alongside all the previously published tens of millions. For instance, perhaps as the result of my fascination with my native language, and cannot think of a story without thinking of the way in which it has been written, I exclude all things in translation. I will also exclude anything that doesn't light me up in a single paragraph taken at random from a book by a writer unknown to me. (The reverse is also true.)
I was once given as a birthday present a book signed by Booker prizewinner Ian McEwen. Black Dogs. I was very sorry to find it without merit so I'm not going to read him again, however much he is lauded by the literati. On the other hand Cormac McCarthy seized my enthusiasm from the moment All The Pretty Horses was recommended by our local mobile library operator. I think I've read all that this man has written even though there's nothing classical about the writing or even his stories. The point is that for me they resonate.
I hope some of the stuff I write might resonate for you. A taster? Go to www.bryanislipauthor.com and click on the free as the air short story of the month button, if you like.
January 18, 2011
Friends well remembered
I've not long finished writing my short story of the month (February, that is. If you'd like to read it and have not already done so please do just click on www.bryanislipauthor.com. Top right hand. Click to subscribe - it's free as the air and you'll get, by e-mail, my current story and then the new one on the 1st of each month this year. Of course you check out whenever you will although I hope you won't want to.)
The story is called A Life With Dogs and that's all I'll say about it here! But if you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that our Hungarian vizslas for 30 years occupied a major part of our lives. In order of their birth, Show Champion Russetmantle Seth ('Seth'), Courthill Cloud ('Chloe'), Hookside Mati ('Mati') and Hookside Sio ('Sorosh' - which is Hungarian for beer drinker and that's another story). The latter pair left us two years ago come April, since when .... a great big hole that nothing can fill except more vizslas and are we up for two more amazing bundles of energy, as ancient as I am?
Anyway I recently had occasion to contact the Hungarian Vizsla Club. I sent them this poem written in 1992 when old Seth died. I'd like to share it with you here ... I wrote it after we had journeyed the 680 miles north to consign his ashes to one of his (and our) favourite places by Red Point beach, Gairloch / Torridon
A Place For Seth New Years Eve 1991
This pact he made with nature for himself,Not Dee nor me, the dog is ours no more.Now here's his place, this heathered grey brown shelf,Strong rocky arm flung round an ochre shoreOn which with her he'd run in flying sandAnd loved the cream-capped swell of ocean wave.Seth knew each salty smell of this sea-landAnd there is nowhere else he'd rather have;He looks across to Skye, as from the croft,And with the calling of the birds his normHe'll sleep through rain and shine of summers soft,In comfort feel each shaking winter storm.
Clean cuts sharp iron spade through root, black peat,We bend to place named urn and champion's scroll.Six rocks we, breathless, bring up from the beach,This celtic place Seth's memory shall extoll.In failing light and our sad task achievedWe go in silence, stumbling down the path.There was no bad in him for whom we grieveBut how we suffer in his aftermath.We ford the stream then pause, about we turnAnd just still see his cairn atop the mound:Already snow-birds drift o'er him we mourn'He's ours,' faint comes their melancholy sound.
As midnight nears the piper holds the stage,In Gaelic swirl brings in another age.Our glasses touch and then at last our eyes,Minds now with he who's gone, we know our prize:His final gift, last comfort, certain truth;The good each does - alone surviveth death..
Too soon we leave this hard and long-loved placeFrom rain-swept brae we turn to distant shoreAnd there - a dancing light, such wondrous grace.Oh Seth, our friend, we shall not miss you moreFor you will be the upsprung green of spring,Each dusty summer's calm fecundity,In autumn mists you will be lingeringWhite winters too shall hold your memory.Chloe, soon, again shall run fast by your sideAnd best of all for Dee and me it's trueYou'll see us from another puppy's eyes- And always there shall be this place for you.
Now: New Year's Day of nineteen ninety two***
The story is called A Life With Dogs and that's all I'll say about it here! But if you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that our Hungarian vizslas for 30 years occupied a major part of our lives. In order of their birth, Show Champion Russetmantle Seth ('Seth'), Courthill Cloud ('Chloe'), Hookside Mati ('Mati') and Hookside Sio ('Sorosh' - which is Hungarian for beer drinker and that's another story). The latter pair left us two years ago come April, since when .... a great big hole that nothing can fill except more vizslas and are we up for two more amazing bundles of energy, as ancient as I am?
Anyway I recently had occasion to contact the Hungarian Vizsla Club. I sent them this poem written in 1992 when old Seth died. I'd like to share it with you here ... I wrote it after we had journeyed the 680 miles north to consign his ashes to one of his (and our) favourite places by Red Point beach, Gairloch / Torridon
A Place For Seth New Years Eve 1991
This pact he made with nature for himself,Not Dee nor me, the dog is ours no more.Now here's his place, this heathered grey brown shelf,Strong rocky arm flung round an ochre shoreOn which with her he'd run in flying sandAnd loved the cream-capped swell of ocean wave.Seth knew each salty smell of this sea-landAnd there is nowhere else he'd rather have;He looks across to Skye, as from the croft,And with the calling of the birds his normHe'll sleep through rain and shine of summers soft,In comfort feel each shaking winter storm.
Clean cuts sharp iron spade through root, black peat,We bend to place named urn and champion's scroll.Six rocks we, breathless, bring up from the beach,This celtic place Seth's memory shall extoll.In failing light and our sad task achievedWe go in silence, stumbling down the path.There was no bad in him for whom we grieveBut how we suffer in his aftermath.We ford the stream then pause, about we turnAnd just still see his cairn atop the mound:Already snow-birds drift o'er him we mourn'He's ours,' faint comes their melancholy sound.
As midnight nears the piper holds the stage,In Gaelic swirl brings in another age.Our glasses touch and then at last our eyes,Minds now with he who's gone, we know our prize:His final gift, last comfort, certain truth;The good each does - alone surviveth death..
Too soon we leave this hard and long-loved placeFrom rain-swept brae we turn to distant shoreAnd there - a dancing light, such wondrous grace.Oh Seth, our friend, we shall not miss you moreFor you will be the upsprung green of spring,Each dusty summer's calm fecundity,In autumn mists you will be lingeringWhite winters too shall hold your memory.Chloe, soon, again shall run fast by your sideAnd best of all for Dee and me it's trueYou'll see us from another puppy's eyes- And always there shall be this place for you.
Now: New Year's Day of nineteen ninety two***
January 17, 2011
The sea, the fish
Lying in bed we can hear the surf - a lovely sound especially when it's a still night and you know those little rollers were born hundreds of miles out into the north Atlantic. Last night however the gentle surf turned threateningly into great white horses flying before a gale of wind, dashing themselves to death on our shingle beach. Still, when you're snugly tucked in with a good book ... (in my case the final chapters of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.) ...
I look at the sea often, and often wonder if and when, time these days being of the essence, I'll be able to climb into my own small boat and go fishing again. Once upon a time, when the world and our boys were young, sea fishing occupied most of our leisure time and all of our holidays. I trailed our 17 foot double ended clinker built, lug sailed / inboard engined Culash (Gaelic for Little Fly) all around the UK and Ireland in search of the biggest and the best or our target species. In fact that's what first brought us up to north west Scotland back in 1972. We packed our tackle and our kit and our camping gear inside the boat, linked it up the towbar and the Ford Zodiac and zoomed off on the 700 mile trip.
Gairloch was a sea fisherman's valhalla that first time we fished it. I think fifteen species, most of them specimen size including a dab (limanda limanda) that broke the British record and reigns supreme to this day according to the Guiness Book. We delivered its body to the Museum of Natural History in Glasgow. Two years later we returned filled with high anticipation but Gairloch was empty. (Or if there were any fish left alive we couldn't catch them). Heartbreaking, especially when we were told by a seemingly resigned shopowner that those xxxxx suction dredgers and trawlers had cleaned out both the fish and the subsea molluscs, etc, on which fish live.Talk about sawing off the bough on which one sits!
I hear the lochs still have not recovered to this day. However there is the beginning of a groundswell of public opinion in favour of making the north west lochs - fishy maternity hospitals and nurseries combined - into no-take zones. All over the world these highly protected areas are being commissioned and we in the UK too are starting to realise just what we have been doing to the underwater paradises that have lain and been Man-raped with furious commercial intent around our native shores.
And if I ever do again get afloat in the loch that laps the shore 50 metres from our home? Will I take fish from these waters? Not if no one else is taking them. Have a look at my shortish story Not Talking About Charlie; it's number thirteen in my anthology, Twenty Bites.
PS Here's hoping that, if you care to share with me these views and muses, you'll click on the link below. Youll be very welcome and to comment if you think I'm very wrong or very right. But any time the e-mail postings bother you, you can easily unsubscribe, no problem.
I look at the sea often, and often wonder if and when, time these days being of the essence, I'll be able to climb into my own small boat and go fishing again. Once upon a time, when the world and our boys were young, sea fishing occupied most of our leisure time and all of our holidays. I trailed our 17 foot double ended clinker built, lug sailed / inboard engined Culash (Gaelic for Little Fly) all around the UK and Ireland in search of the biggest and the best or our target species. In fact that's what first brought us up to north west Scotland back in 1972. We packed our tackle and our kit and our camping gear inside the boat, linked it up the towbar and the Ford Zodiac and zoomed off on the 700 mile trip.
Gairloch was a sea fisherman's valhalla that first time we fished it. I think fifteen species, most of them specimen size including a dab (limanda limanda) that broke the British record and reigns supreme to this day according to the Guiness Book. We delivered its body to the Museum of Natural History in Glasgow. Two years later we returned filled with high anticipation but Gairloch was empty. (Or if there were any fish left alive we couldn't catch them). Heartbreaking, especially when we were told by a seemingly resigned shopowner that those xxxxx suction dredgers and trawlers had cleaned out both the fish and the subsea molluscs, etc, on which fish live.Talk about sawing off the bough on which one sits!
I hear the lochs still have not recovered to this day. However there is the beginning of a groundswell of public opinion in favour of making the north west lochs - fishy maternity hospitals and nurseries combined - into no-take zones. All over the world these highly protected areas are being commissioned and we in the UK too are starting to realise just what we have been doing to the underwater paradises that have lain and been Man-raped with furious commercial intent around our native shores.
And if I ever do again get afloat in the loch that laps the shore 50 metres from our home? Will I take fish from these waters? Not if no one else is taking them. Have a look at my shortish story Not Talking About Charlie; it's number thirteen in my anthology, Twenty Bites.
PS Here's hoping that, if you care to share with me these views and muses, you'll click on the link below. Youll be very welcome and to comment if you think I'm very wrong or very right. But any time the e-mail postings bother you, you can easily unsubscribe, no problem.
January 16, 2011
No woman is an island
We were invited to attend a 70th birthday party and last night we were there. We thought it might be a few folk chatting with glasses and snack plates in hand but when we arrived at the Gairloch community hall there wasn't room to park. Most of our friends were there - in fact most of the area were there. The belle of the ball, an incomer like us, has recently retired from her latest function as editor of the Gairloch and District News and in that capacity had clearly come to know the whole population. This lady is especially dear to me because she wrote and published reviews of all three of my works of fiction; excellent of course, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it!
Scottish traditional live music from Melvaig Mist* soon had most folk thundering up and down the floor, whirling and clapping and stamping. Dangerous stuff, this highland dancing. Apparently unlimited food and drink, you get the picture. But overall at any such ceilidh there is the craic. Craic equals chatter for those not in the know. Up here craic is the veritable stuff of life. Basically you all talk about what you and other locals are up to but never or hardly ever in a negative way. Events outside (or more colloquially here, 'outwith') Wester-Ross might get an occasional mention but it is probably regarded as over-pretentious to pontificate overmuch on that level.
It is absolutely astonishing how everyone except me seems to remember so many hundreds of names and faces: what they do, what they used to do, where they came from etc etc. One dear lady friend of ours, a 'local' born and bred, spends most of every single evening on the telephone to people living around Loch Ewe and even as far away as Gairloch. I recall Delia, quite soon after our moving up, picking up the phone having made the aquaintance of this lovely lady; 'Hello this is Delia', she said. The voice on the other end came straight in with what we came to understand is her usual salutation; 'What do you know?' Dee was quite at a loss until she got the picture. Everyone is a part of the verbal newspaper. In Wester-Ross no woman can possibly be an island.
*Melvaig Mist, besides being a six person band, is a local euphamism for a legendary make of illicit whisky, (now of course no more) that was distilled somwhere secret up in the hills above a remote settlement of that name. However I have to report that a very old lady, resident herself in Melvaig, and for many generations before, assured me that the hooch, although very much a fact, was not called Melvaig Mist. 'What was it called', asked I, fascinated always by all things local history. 'Och, that's a secret', quoth she.
Scottish traditional live music from Melvaig Mist* soon had most folk thundering up and down the floor, whirling and clapping and stamping. Dangerous stuff, this highland dancing. Apparently unlimited food and drink, you get the picture. But overall at any such ceilidh there is the craic. Craic equals chatter for those not in the know. Up here craic is the veritable stuff of life. Basically you all talk about what you and other locals are up to but never or hardly ever in a negative way. Events outside (or more colloquially here, 'outwith') Wester-Ross might get an occasional mention but it is probably regarded as over-pretentious to pontificate overmuch on that level.
It is absolutely astonishing how everyone except me seems to remember so many hundreds of names and faces: what they do, what they used to do, where they came from etc etc. One dear lady friend of ours, a 'local' born and bred, spends most of every single evening on the telephone to people living around Loch Ewe and even as far away as Gairloch. I recall Delia, quite soon after our moving up, picking up the phone having made the aquaintance of this lovely lady; 'Hello this is Delia', she said. The voice on the other end came straight in with what we came to understand is her usual salutation; 'What do you know?' Dee was quite at a loss until she got the picture. Everyone is a part of the verbal newspaper. In Wester-Ross no woman can possibly be an island.
*Melvaig Mist, besides being a six person band, is a local euphamism for a legendary make of illicit whisky, (now of course no more) that was distilled somwhere secret up in the hills above a remote settlement of that name. However I have to report that a very old lady, resident herself in Melvaig, and for many generations before, assured me that the hooch, although very much a fact, was not called Melvaig Mist. 'What was it called', asked I, fascinated always by all things local history. 'Och, that's a secret', quoth she.
January 15, 2011
Life without books
I do realise that, quote, we're not all the same, unquote, but when I hear somebody, celebrity (yes I have!) or otherwise apparently boasting that they 'never read books' it hits me right in the solar plexus. I feel so sorry, because so far as I am concerned they might as well be claiming never to look up at the sky or listen to music. In truth I see a life self-disabled.
Reading books, whether fiction or non-fiction, exercises the imagination in ways that no other form of entertainment can. And exercising the imagination is in my opinion as as crucial to human happiness as exercising the body or the mind. True, watching a drama on a screen large or small will do it, but to a much lesser extent. Even the very best films do most of the imagining for you, especially when they use virtual reality a la the recent Harry Potter, Tolkein films. Such vehicles employ not one's own but the creator's - somebody unknown's - imagination.
That is why reading a book is a one on one experience, one's own imagination engaging with the author's, and is capable sometimes of inspiring real life change whereas viewing a film on big screen or TV is seldom if ever going to do so. Proof is not hard to find. The Bible has done it billions of times, so has the Koran. More recently Mein Kampf certainly did it although in a way as destructive as the fictional works of Charles Dickens was constructive, even if more limited. Seen anything on screen lately to compare?
Reading books, whether fiction or non-fiction, exercises the imagination in ways that no other form of entertainment can. And exercising the imagination is in my opinion as as crucial to human happiness as exercising the body or the mind. True, watching a drama on a screen large or small will do it, but to a much lesser extent. Even the very best films do most of the imagining for you, especially when they use virtual reality a la the recent Harry Potter, Tolkein films. Such vehicles employ not one's own but the creator's - somebody unknown's - imagination.
That is why reading a book is a one on one experience, one's own imagination engaging with the author's, and is capable sometimes of inspiring real life change whereas viewing a film on big screen or TV is seldom if ever going to do so. Proof is not hard to find. The Bible has done it billions of times, so has the Koran. More recently Mein Kampf certainly did it although in a way as destructive as the fictional works of Charles Dickens was constructive, even if more limited. Seen anything on screen lately to compare?
January 14, 2011
Feeding people
Most often it takes years, sometimes generations, to prove a 'social forecast' right or wrong. Today my own deep concerns of yesterday (about the effects of rising population) come quickly to mind as I read George Kerevan's piece in The Scotsman; 'Putting the bite on food production'.
Mr Kerevan catalogues, as the good journalist that he is should, the effects TODAY of food shortages and rising food prices worldwide.The two of course are linked within our self-selected 'market economy'. But the immediate cause, he says at some length, is 'random bad weather'. Random? Really? Isn't bad (i.e.different) weather said by science to be down to global warming? Isn't global warming said by science to be caused in turn by humanity's massive carbon emissions? Does not the numbers of us have something to do with that? So the civil unrest present and future as reported - it couldn't be our own fault, could it, Mr Kerevan?
Oh, but there is actually one paragraph alluding to our role in all this. I quote ...
"Tonight there will be 200,000 additional people around the global dining room table, compared with yesterday." (The bold print is mine). He goes on "The current population of the earth is around seven billion souls. It will reach nine billion by 2050." But nowhere does he say that this kind of explosion is potentially likely to represent Armageddon for his children / grandchildren, or even a bad thing. And nowhere does he say what happens after as imminent a point in time as year 2050.
Instead Mr Kerevan wants to fuel the rise in population by means of increased food production. If I have a chimney fire do I throw petrol on it? Again I quote ... "The only way to achieve this (more food) is through better infrastructure, fairer taxes, less official corruption and an end to politically motivated price ceilings that rob the peasant farmer." I say again: Really?
It would be far easier to curtail population by decree (as has China these 40 years past) than to eliminate human greed.
But at least the subject of having less children seems at last to show signs of bubbling to the surface. Have a look at www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.aboutus.html
Mr Kerevan catalogues, as the good journalist that he is should, the effects TODAY of food shortages and rising food prices worldwide.The two of course are linked within our self-selected 'market economy'. But the immediate cause, he says at some length, is 'random bad weather'. Random? Really? Isn't bad (i.e.different) weather said by science to be down to global warming? Isn't global warming said by science to be caused in turn by humanity's massive carbon emissions? Does not the numbers of us have something to do with that? So the civil unrest present and future as reported - it couldn't be our own fault, could it, Mr Kerevan?
Oh, but there is actually one paragraph alluding to our role in all this. I quote ...
"Tonight there will be 200,000 additional people around the global dining room table, compared with yesterday." (The bold print is mine). He goes on "The current population of the earth is around seven billion souls. It will reach nine billion by 2050." But nowhere does he say that this kind of explosion is potentially likely to represent Armageddon for his children / grandchildren, or even a bad thing. And nowhere does he say what happens after as imminent a point in time as year 2050.
Instead Mr Kerevan wants to fuel the rise in population by means of increased food production. If I have a chimney fire do I throw petrol on it? Again I quote ... "The only way to achieve this (more food) is through better infrastructure, fairer taxes, less official corruption and an end to politically motivated price ceilings that rob the peasant farmer." I say again: Really?
It would be far easier to curtail population by decree (as has China these 40 years past) than to eliminate human greed.
But at least the subject of having less children seems at last to show signs of bubbling to the surface. Have a look at www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.aboutus.html
January 13, 2011
The subject most vital to our world
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12160715
"The world is hurtling towards population overload, placing billions of people at risk of hunger, thirst, lack of energy and slum housing. But the problems can all be overcome through existing engineering solutions, if politics and economics can only change tack. This is the message from a group of 70 engineers worldwide whose views have been collated by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the UK. What is more, their report says the challenges of a population of 9.5 billion can mostly be overcome by re-directing existing spending.
BBC Radio 4
In researching my novel, Going with Gabriel, I developed a deep interest in the semi-taboo subject of human populations, and so was very interested to hear/read the views of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Indeed I was pleasantly surprised that engineers had any views before realising that such interest would be engendered by possible monetary profit.
The solutions put forward by the IME do seem to be capable of, so to speak, staunching the blood flow, but they make no mention of the more obvious healing of the wound, much less of how to avoid getting wounded in the first place.
(Having said that, all the engineered solutions proposed for this future 9.5 billions world of ours would without exception be highly desirable right now.)
But, ladies and gentlemen: 9.5 billions of us! This is a truly horrific personal prospect for those less than, say, 70 years of age right now. The problem should not therefore concern me, except that I am personally sick and tired of deliberate social, media, political and religous avoidance of the subject! We are, after all, the only species of life on earth capable of self-controlling our numbers to within the reasonable capacity of its host planet to support preferred lifestyle. So why are we blindly marching on into a scenario of plague and/or pestilence, not to mention the inevitable wars as populations fight each other and within themselves for survival and for a share of what there is?
I suppose the fact that we are in denial is because we are incapable of thinking with true objectivity about anything further than a year or two ahead, and equally because we love both the act of procreation and our resulting progeny. We as individuals simply cannot bear to think of unnaturally restricting either procreation or progeny. We would prefer to let 'nature' (mother nature and our own natures) do it for us. Bad, bad mistake, folks. Nature's remedy will always be infinitely more aggressive and painful than anything we can dream up and implement for ourselves to prevent the problem.
Dr Paul Burgoyne Ph.D,F.Med.Sci is an MRC Research Group Leader working in London on the link between sex chromosome anomalies and infertility. This is what he wrote about my novel. Yes, I publish his comments here (as well as on the book's back cover) by way of promotion. No apologies. If you've read Going with Gabriel or will read it you'll understand why ...
I enjoyed Going with Gabriel, which is a thoroughly good read but also carries a serious message - it provides a 'wake up call' as to the consequences of man's failure to adequately control human population growth. I first became convinced of the urgency of the problem as a PHD student some 40 years ago, when I heard Professor Aubrey Manning give a Workers Educational Association sponsored lecture on the consequences of unchecked human population growth. It is ironic that today China is being pilloried for rapidly increasing CO2 emissions that contribute to Global Warming, but their enforcement over several decades of a one child policy has been tackling the root cause. Steps such as energy conservation, although essential, are temporary fixes. I earnestly hope that this book goes some way to undermining the taboo that prevents public discussion of socially acceptable ways to limit our numbers before the fiction of 'Going with Gabriel' becomes a reality.
"The world is hurtling towards population overload, placing billions of people at risk of hunger, thirst, lack of energy and slum housing. But the problems can all be overcome through existing engineering solutions, if politics and economics can only change tack. This is the message from a group of 70 engineers worldwide whose views have been collated by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the UK. What is more, their report says the challenges of a population of 9.5 billion can mostly be overcome by re-directing existing spending.
BBC Radio 4
In researching my novel, Going with Gabriel, I developed a deep interest in the semi-taboo subject of human populations, and so was very interested to hear/read the views of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Indeed I was pleasantly surprised that engineers had any views before realising that such interest would be engendered by possible monetary profit.
The solutions put forward by the IME do seem to be capable of, so to speak, staunching the blood flow, but they make no mention of the more obvious healing of the wound, much less of how to avoid getting wounded in the first place.
(Having said that, all the engineered solutions proposed for this future 9.5 billions world of ours would without exception be highly desirable right now.)
But, ladies and gentlemen: 9.5 billions of us! This is a truly horrific personal prospect for those less than, say, 70 years of age right now. The problem should not therefore concern me, except that I am personally sick and tired of deliberate social, media, political and religous avoidance of the subject! We are, after all, the only species of life on earth capable of self-controlling our numbers to within the reasonable capacity of its host planet to support preferred lifestyle. So why are we blindly marching on into a scenario of plague and/or pestilence, not to mention the inevitable wars as populations fight each other and within themselves for survival and for a share of what there is?
I suppose the fact that we are in denial is because we are incapable of thinking with true objectivity about anything further than a year or two ahead, and equally because we love both the act of procreation and our resulting progeny. We as individuals simply cannot bear to think of unnaturally restricting either procreation or progeny. We would prefer to let 'nature' (mother nature and our own natures) do it for us. Bad, bad mistake, folks. Nature's remedy will always be infinitely more aggressive and painful than anything we can dream up and implement for ourselves to prevent the problem.
Dr Paul Burgoyne Ph.D,F.Med.Sci is an MRC Research Group Leader working in London on the link between sex chromosome anomalies and infertility. This is what he wrote about my novel. Yes, I publish his comments here (as well as on the book's back cover) by way of promotion. No apologies. If you've read Going with Gabriel or will read it you'll understand why ...
I enjoyed Going with Gabriel, which is a thoroughly good read but also carries a serious message - it provides a 'wake up call' as to the consequences of man's failure to adequately control human population growth. I first became convinced of the urgency of the problem as a PHD student some 40 years ago, when I heard Professor Aubrey Manning give a Workers Educational Association sponsored lecture on the consequences of unchecked human population growth. It is ironic that today China is being pilloried for rapidly increasing CO2 emissions that contribute to Global Warming, but their enforcement over several decades of a one child policy has been tackling the root cause. Steps such as energy conservation, although essential, are temporary fixes. I earnestly hope that this book goes some way to undermining the taboo that prevents public discussion of socially acceptable ways to limit our numbers before the fiction of 'Going with Gabriel' becomes a reality.
January 12, 2011
Not gone with the wind
Reading fiction has always been a small minority pursuit. Even though the percentage and the sheer numbers of literate people worldwide has soared, it still is. If anything, more so. Of course it can be argued that TV drama, notably including the 'soaps', (most of them low in plot complexity and simplicity itself in subject but very high in production quality), has vastly increased the interest in fiction, but what of fiction in the form of the printed page?
At least in this author's opinion, the TV experience and recent book sales phenomina such as Harry Potter and, though I don't like to admit it, The Da Vinci Code, do prove something. Remember President in waiting Clinton's oft repeated mantra, 'It's the economy, stupid!'? So I would say, 'It's the theme and the story, stupid!' If the theme is of universal enough importance and its expression (the story) is strong enough, people will still have a vital interest. Yes, whether it's on paper, in words on (e-book) screen or pictorially on (cinema or TV) screen, we will buy into the fiction. What do I mean when I say. 'if its expression is strong enough? I mean if the writing and in particular the characterisation is good enough to involve us and furthermore to make us care - in other words to make believable the fiction.
So where, I wonder, are today's works of fiction equal in power to Gullivers Travels, Pride and Prejudice, War of the Worlds, Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations?
Gone With The Wind? I don't think so. But then again I wouldn't, would I.
At least in this author's opinion, the TV experience and recent book sales phenomina such as Harry Potter and, though I don't like to admit it, The Da Vinci Code, do prove something. Remember President in waiting Clinton's oft repeated mantra, 'It's the economy, stupid!'? So I would say, 'It's the theme and the story, stupid!' If the theme is of universal enough importance and its expression (the story) is strong enough, people will still have a vital interest. Yes, whether it's on paper, in words on (e-book) screen or pictorially on (cinema or TV) screen, we will buy into the fiction. What do I mean when I say. 'if its expression is strong enough? I mean if the writing and in particular the characterisation is good enough to involve us and furthermore to make us care - in other words to make believable the fiction.
So where, I wonder, are today's works of fiction equal in power to Gullivers Travels, Pride and Prejudice, War of the Worlds, Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations?
Gone With The Wind? I don't think so. But then again I wouldn't, would I.
