an apology

If you have been a regular reader of this blog, you will not have failed to notice that it has not been updated in almost three months. For this I offer an abject apology. During this period, I’ve written at least a dozen posts, some long, some much shorter, but I’ve found it impossible to round any of them off satisfactorily. I found myself thinking about things I didn’t want to write about and as a result struggling to put together the words needed for those things I did want to write about.

Well, that’s my rationalization of the problem, but there have been other factors. I had quite a bad accident just before Christmas, losing control of my bike on what appeared to be a completely innocuous surface. Usually, when a wheel slips, you have time to adjust, but the interval between my realizing that something was wrong and my head hitting the concrete cannot have been more than half a second. I described the experience in emails to friends:

I fell off my bike last week: it took me completely by surprise, the bike simply disappearing suddenly from under me while I was turning a corner. There was nothing near, it wasn’t wet, and there was no reason to suspect that the surface would be slippery. I’d probably be on life support now if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet, because I still felt one hell of a bang through the helmet. The police were on the scene within a minute (impressive seeing as how we were on a cycle track, some distance from any road), and an ambulance was called, but then the copper said that if I had to go to hospital, they would take my bike—and I could collect it from the New Territories police headquarters in Tsuen Wan. [Although Tsuen Wan is technically in the New Territories, geographically it is contiguous with Kowloon, with a mountain range between it and the rest of the New Territories]. I thought, fuck it, I don’t fancy that, I think I can ride home. Only about 12 miles, and after being patched up by the paramedics (bad abrasions to my knee, elbow and shoulder, which took several weeks to heal), I set off rather gingerly, for about a mile, then I felt I was up to riding at our normal pace. In any case, we had only an hour or so of daylight left. I managed OK, but I think I’ve buggered my shoulder. Nothing broken or dislocated, but it doesn’t feel comfortable when I pull or push anything.

I decided that I wouldn’t get back on the bike until I felt no more discomfort in my shoulder, which turned out to be three weeks. My main objective first time out would be to take a closer look at the place where I fell off. If I had made a mistake, I would want to know what it was. Unfortunately (you can’t make this stuff up), the entire area had been resurfaced using high-friction materials. I wonder whether this was merely coincidence. I should add that despite these improvements, I pay extra attention when negotiating the corner in question.

For some time, the experience dented my self-confidence, but since the end of March Paula and I have been doing a lot of cycling. The route options are quite limited, but the moving hazards (pedestrians and other cyclists) are infinitely variable, so there are very few dull moments and plenty of opportunities to test your skill. One such is the footbridge hairpin, on the route south from Fanling to join the main cycle network. It’s harder when coming off the footbridge, with a four-foot drop-off if you don’t turn sharply enough, and hardest of all if you have to avoid an old woman and her dog, a singular hazard that I’ve encountered only once. The woman kept shouting instructions to the dog that were the opposite of what would have made life easier for me. Of course, I could have simply put my foot down, but where’s the fun in that?

The footbridge hairpin. Paula can be seen disappearing into the distance.

Meanwhile, I’ve been distracted by the environment around our house and in the rest of Fanling, which is always at its most interesting during the slow unfolding of my favourite season in Hong Kong. I’m currently in the UK, but unlike last year I have an internet connection, so I expect to be able to provide an account within the next few days of some of the notable discoveries I’ve made during the past three months.

Another interesting story, the first hints of which appeared at the beginning of April, involves attempts by someone claiming to own the land to force ‘farmers’ on the outskirts of Fanling to abandon their fields. Some skullduggery appears to have taken place already, and I suspect that the story has some distance to run yet, but I’ll provide an overview next.

I also intend to resurrect some of the posts that I’ve been struggling with: Future Imperfect will be my assessment of the prospects for the human race in the twenty-first century, and The Village Idiot will be a denunciation of the views on climate change of former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson. Explanations should be self-explanatory, while Three-Card Monte will be my analysis of the well-known street con and its connection with modern financial services.

While I’m here in my home town, given that I shall be here now until October, I will probably write a few articles about the place. Just don’t expect any tourist guff.

the proverbial fool

Nobody likes to be thought a fool, although this may be in part because the word has developed increasingly negative connotations over the past four centuries. I suspect a religious influence. In the Middle Ages, ‘fool’ was another name for the court jester, who was the mediæval equivalent of a professional comedian, a man whose job it was to make his employer laugh.

In fact, there were two types of fool: the natural fool really was an idiot, and his humour would have been of the unsubtle, slapstick variety, much like the general buffoonery of the modern circus clown; the licensed fool, on the other hand, was not merely permitted to criticize and poke fun at his employer and his or her guests, he was expected to do so, in the process providing a social commentary in a series of short, witty phrases.

This can be seen most clearly in a dramatic portrayal of the relationship. The fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear repeatedly reminds the king that he made a mistake in renouncing his throne:

Lear: Dost thou call me fool, boy?
Fool: All thy other titles thou hast given away; that
      thou wast born with. [Act I, Scene 4]

He is also a master of stating the obvious in a humorous way:

Fool: …The reason why the
      seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.
Lear: Because they are not eight?
Fool: Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool. [Act I, Scene 5]

However, Shakespeare was not the only influence on the English language at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The first officially sanctioned translation of the Bible, the Authorized Version, was published in 1611. It was based largely on William Tyndale’s 1526 translation, which had been unauthorized and for which the unfortunate translator was burned at the stake for heresy. It quickly became apparent to the new audience that the biblical writers did not suffer fools gladly:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. [Proverbs 1:7]

How long…will…fools hate knowledge? [Proverbs 1:22]

It is as sport to a fool to do mischief…. [Proverbs 10:23]

…it is abomination to fools to depart from evil. [Proverbs 13:19]

A fool hath no delight in understanding…. [Proverbs 18:2]

Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. [Proverbs 23:9]

He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool…. [Proverbs 28:26]

Note that some of these examples define rather than describe a fool. Clearly, the greatest of all follies was to reject the word of God. However, the early Stuart monarchs (James I and Charles I) continued to employ fools, and it was only with the ascent to power of the Puritans in 1649 that the practice was finally abandoned. One can surmise that these po-faced killjoys (they also forbade the celebration of Christmas) put an end to the role of official court jester because they disapproved of such frivolity, but it can be seen from the quotations above that there was substantial scriptural authority for such a move.

On the other hand, none of the many aphorisms in the Book of Proverbs can be regarded as widely used. The two best-known English proverbs about fools come from other sources:

…a foole and his money is soone parted.

Dr John Bridges, Defence of the Government of the Church of England, 1587.

Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1709.

These are statements that have attained the status of folk wisdom, but they are merely statements. Their Chinese equivalents tend to have a story attached. They also follow a set formula: four characters that summarize the story (they are often referred to as ‘four-character idioms’, or cheng yu).

One example that deals with apparent folly is yú gōng yí shān [‘foolish old man moves mountains’]. As with most chengyu, there is no standard text of the story, but the general thrust is as follows:

In ancient China, there was an old man who was annoyed that every visit to the provincial capital entailed a lengthy detour because the direct route was blocked by a substantial mountain range. He resolved to remove the mountains. He was aided in this endeavour by his sons and grandsons, but there were many scoffers. They asked the old man what he expected to achieve, given that he was already old and could not expect to succeed in his lifetime. He replied that after his death his sons and their sons, and their sons, and so on, would continue the work, while the mountains would grow no higher [he clearly hadn’t heard of plate tectonics], so in time the job would be done.

There is no agreement on how the story ends. In some versions, the old man’s neighbours, impressed by his diligence, join in and the mountains are eventually removed; in others, the immortals are moved by the old man’s perseverance, and they move the mountains for him. This chengyu would be used in the same way that an equivalent English proverb (such as ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’) would be used: to encourage someone who is daunted by a seemingly impossible task to persevere. It should not come as a surprise to learn that this was Mao Zedong’s favourite chengyu, used to exhort his fellow citizens to greater efforts, although if he used it during the Great Leap Forward his efforts must be judged a failure.

My own favourite cheng yu is yān ēr dào líng (‘cover ears steal bell’). The story goes like this:

One day, an itinerant beggar was passing through an isolated village when he spied a beautifully polished bronze bell hanging above the outer gate of one of the houses.

“A-ha!” he said. “That’s a fine bell. I shall steal it and sell it in the next village.”

“Wait a minute,” he thought. “When I take down the bell it will start ringing, and that will alert the villagers.”

He pondered this dilemma for a few minutes before coming up with a solution.

“If I cover my ears while carrying the bell, I will not hear it ringing,” he proclaimed confidently to himself. “And this means that I can make my escape in silence, because the bell will not be ringing.”

Needless to say, the beggar’s plan didn’t work. The conventional explanation of how this chengyu should be used (to describe someone who thinks they are clever but aren’t) is incorrect. I was taught to use it as a comment when someone does something that is unutterably foolish.

A similar cheng yu is kè zhōu qiú jiàn (‘drop sword mark boat’), which relates the story of a man who loses his sword while crossing a river in a boat. He cuts a notch in the side of the boat to indicate where he lost it. Again, it would normally be used to admonish someone who has just done something inconceivably stupid.

Cheng yu were routinely taught in Hong Kong’s schools in the 1960s and 1970s, but this no longer happens. I have only one comment for the nameless official who thought it would be a good idea to drop this important aspect of Chinese cultural tradition from the curriculum: yim yee doh ling, which is the local (Cantonese) version of ‘cover ears steal bell’.

atom heart mother

When I compiled some of my musical memories last month, I deliberately left out Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother, from the 1970 album of the same name, which has been my favourite music track since I first heard it in 1971 (having spent 1970 in the Australian outback, where the opportunities for keeping up to date with the contemporary music scene were severely limited). It was the longest continuous piece ever recorded by Pink Floyd, and it featured a brass ensemble, a choir and a wide range of sound effects to augment the band’s performance.

Actually, it is possible to argue that it was the band that augmented the brass and choir, and there is no doubt that the band was not particularly impressed with the result:

Atom Heart Mother is a good case, I think, for being thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again! It was pretty kind of pompous….

Bass guitarist Roger Waters, speaking in 1985.

Atom Heart Mother was a good idea, but it was dreadful. I listened to that album recently: God, it’s shit, possibly our lowest point artistically.

Lead guitarist David Gilmour, speaking in 2001.

The album was not well received by the critics at the time, which is a good reason for attempting to escape responsibility for its creation. Pink Floyd were never to attempt anything quite so grandiose again. However, although the tracks on the second side of the album cannot be ranked among the band’s finest work, the title track, which occupies the whole of side one, deserves a better reputation.

Unlike similar attempts at the time to fuse rock with more ‘serious’ elements, such as Deep Purple’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra, in which the orchestral contributions almost seemed irrelevant, Atom Heart Mother is a fully integrated suite of six ‘movements’. The way the band, the brass and the choir complement each other throughout the piece marks it out as much the more successful of the two.

The first movement opens with a long, droning chord on a Hammond organ that grows slowly in intensity. Then the brass section comes in with a series of short competing fanfares, rasping trumpets on the one side, blaring trombones on the other. Finally, the conflict is resolved: there is one last fanfare before the drums and bass join in for the first appearance of the anthemic main theme. This feel-good melody is suddenly interrupted by a return of the argumentative brass, and everything else falls silent, to be replaced by intermittent background sound effects: first, a whinnying horse, then several explosions, a rocket taking off, and a train rushing through a tunnel. But as a motorcycle roars off into the distance, discipline, and the main theme, is restored.

The main theme segues seamlessly into the second movement, which opens with a series of bass and organ arpeggios while a cello reprises the main theme. The accompaniment increases in tempo, and the drums come in; the cello is replaced by a slide guitar, and for the first time there is some limited embellishment and improvisation around the main theme. As the movement builds to a climax, the organ is replaced by a piano echoing the main theme, and the brass section lays down an understated backing.

The second movement ends suddenly, to be replaced by a slow, dramatic organ riff and the first entry of the choir. But there are no words, merely voices, soaring sopranos at first, then the contraltos provide a counterpoint, the organ reworking the main theme as the voices intermingle. Slowly, the tenors arrive, and the tone immediately becomes more menacing. Finally, the bass voices trigger a sense of urgency and, after a short crescendo, in come the drums, mostly tom-toms with the occasional cymbal, to bring whatever primitive ritual was being enacted to a resounding climax before petering out and leaving quietly.

The fourth movement is the most obviously rock-oriented of the six. It begins with a conventional guitar solo backed by staccato organ, bass and drums. Suddenly, the mood changes. The choir is back, and this time there are words. But it is a language that you cannot understand, although you feel that you should. An exotic ceremony is taking place. It builds to a climax that reintroduces the main theme, again played by the brass, which leads into a sequeway identical to that closing the first movement.

However, the following movement is a shock: relentlessly discordant, pulsating electronic noise that changes key erratically and builds remorselessly, through a background of yet more noise, although it could be voices, to the most stunning climax in the entire piece. This is scary stuff if you’ve recently ingested mescalin or LSD, which I did more than once in 1971 and 1972. Just before the end, a disembodied, distorted voice declares “Here is an important announcement”, a steam train rushes by, and the entire nightmare comes to a sudden, juddering, explosive halt.

Immediately, there are signs of a reawakening: optimistic tinkling notes, played by striking the strings of a piano with tiny hammers, a few tentative brass riffs. But they all appear to be out of phase. Sections of the brass try to establish the main theme amid competing riffs, and gradually the fragments come together. After a couple of false starts, the disembodied voice announces “Silence in the studio”, and the brass launches enthusiastically into the main theme, driven on by pounding drums. There are short repeats of the cello and slide guitar solos, this time with brass accompaniment. Finally, the choir provides ethereal background harmonies as the main theme builds towards its final crescendo.

And my personal memory? In 1971, I joined the staff of Eskdale Outward Bound School as a temporary instructor. The mainstay of Outward Bound in those days was the 26-day ‘standard’ course. The daily routine on such courses included an assembly at 9 o’clock each morning (unless everyone was out on expedition). The format of the assembly was simple: the warden made any announcements that were required, then an instructor gave an ‘inspirational’ reading and led a short prayer.

On my second course, I was asked to perform the second and third parts of the ceremony. I decided to interpret ‘reading’ in the widest possible sense. I rigged up my two large speakers to a recently acquired stereo cassette deck containing a tape that had already been cued to the start of the final movement beforehand. Before pressing the ‘start’ button, I explained to the capacity audience that the music symbolized the symbiosis between different levels of consciousness (I’d recently been reading Timothy Leary’s The Politics of Ecstasy). I sat down and started the music. The warden didn’t look too impressed, but he said nothing.

After what seemed like a lot more than the six minutes that the final movement actually takes to play, the music stopped and I stopped the tape. The reaction was so far beyond my expectations as to be halfway to the outer reaches of the solar system. All 108 students (all male, all between the ages of 16 and 20) stood and gave me a standing ovation. Even the warden admitted that he’d ‘appreciated’ it, and he appeared not to notice that I skipped the prayer. Several students sought me out during the day to tell me that I’d made them think.

This may have been the single most personally uplifting experience in my entire life. If you’ve heard Atom Heart Mother and still agree with Waters and Gilmour, all I can say is that it is your loss. If you haven’t heard it, then ignore Waters and Gilmour and give it a listen. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

photographic abstraction

One of the delights of digital photography is that you’re freed from the tyranny of having to decide whether something you see is worth using a frame of film, which means that you can take photographs of anything. I wonder how many people do. Take photos of anything, that is. For me, the only criterion is whether I like the image. It doesn’t have to be an intimate snapshot of friends or family; it doesn’t have to be of a ‘picturesque’ landscape; it certainly doesn’t have to be of a famous landmark. I like to take pictures that aren’t of anything.

In other words, I like to photograph images that were they painted and hanging in galleries would be considered ‘art’ by the cognoscenti. I make no such claims for the photographs that follow, although I could promote them as ‘found images’ in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp, who famously exhibited a porcelain urinal as a ‘found object’, claiming that because the world is full of interesting objects, it isn’t necessary to create new ones. The ‘art’ was claimed to be in the simple act of selection, but in fact the statement being made by Duchamp was that it’s art if he said it was. It was probably quite a profound statement when first made, but it sounds trite and banal now, and it opened the door to all manner of mountebanks and charlatans.

I could claim an affinity with abstract expressionism, but these photographs have neither Kandinsky’s vibrancy of colour nor Jackson Pollock’s fluidity of line. They are simply images that I find aesthetically pleasing. They were taken with a cheap six-year-old digital camera, and I have given them fanciful titles; you may feel that they remind you of something else. Let me know if they do.

tattered banners

the big bang, as seen from a nearby universe

the enchanted forest

light and darkness