Spruce up the Gents

To break my protracted lethargic silence, here's a re-post of a fairly old rant of mine...

Today I would like to draw your attention to a severe problem that blights nearly half of the population of the Western world. I'm referring to the socially acceptable use of urinals in public toilets/restrooms (see - I continue to speak for both sides). Specifically, the problem is with men who have yet to master the correct way of selecting a vacant urinal to use. The details of the situation may not be entirely obvious to the average female reader, so I will endeavour to explain.

The problem is one that has arisen as we, as a species, have left our natural habitats and moved into civilised environs. We've not yet evolved to adapt to this new and bizarre world that we find ourselves in, and we are still under the influence of our long held, deeply ingrained instincts. Back in the glorious days, we would find ourselves wandering around our beautiful world, perhaps spending a little time hunting or fishing, relaxing by a river, eating delicious game-meats, wild fruits, and perhaps a little time spent enjoying members of the opposite sex. Of course, sooner or later we'd experience a call of nature, and we would simply call out "Cor, I'm bursting! Just nipping into the woods for a sec..." At this juncture, we would find ourselves a nice mature tree to utilise.

Now, a tree is a very useful device, for it serves several purposes. The first is a psychological one: it's a target. We like a target. This is probably a hangover from our hunting instincts. If, for example, we could hurl a stone(/throw a spear/release an arrow/pull the trigger/press the red button labelled 'launch') in any direction and be assured of a hit, we'd quickly get bored of hunting, and take up politics instead. It's just not fundamentally satisfying to aim randomly in any old direction. Furthermore, the tree gives us a sense of place - a sense that we should be doing this here. When needing to take a leak in a social situation, one must usually be polite and move some distance from the group. Without a clear point to go to (such as a tree) one finds oneself wondering "Have I gone far enough? Can they hear me?" or "Have I gone too far? Do they think I'm uncomfortable around them? Do they think I have a condition I'm trying to hide?" or "That tussock looks pretty good - perhaps I'd have been better off over there?". The tree solves these problems. The second use for a tree is a practical one: it provides shelter. I'm sure we've all, in desperation and in a desolate, treeless, windswept place, sought relief without such aid. Even pointing, wind-sock like, downwind has its risks: the buffeting airflow arse and hips results in turbulence which can be almost as dangerous as a direct upwind effort.  The third use is a social one: the tree provides visual cover. Each man can take his own tree, well separated from the others, and no excuses about the cold Northerly wind need be offered to the womenfolk.

In the modern civilisation, urinals are our trees. In a world where, in our immediate every-day environment, there is a distinctly short supply of mature trees, and the collective judgement of current society restricts us from putting them publicly to their most deserved use, we have been given an entirely inferior substitute. Our beautiful array of trees - the cedars, the poplars, the chestnuts, the alders, the pines and the ever-popular oak (the variety could be selected based on weather conditions, mood and ego) - have been replaced with a single variety of 5 gal/flush porcelain monstrosity. This is disheartening to even the most unadventurous and habitual of us, and I suspect it is the lack of interest in the blandness of our new targets that has led, in a significant number of my sex, to a lack of will to adapt.

So, to get to my point: the type of bloke I am getting at is the kind who, when approaching a line of three empty urinals, will select the centre one. Now, there is an unwritten packing algorithm for men at urinals which must be adhered to in order to be socially acceptable. It is instilled into most of us at an early age. Be it a wise father, a worldly brother, knowledgeable friend, a kindly uncle, or perhaps direct experience or deduction - somehow we have become aware of this unwritten code. Alas, a number of men (probably through no real fault of their own) have not been so fortunate to have received this worldly wisdom, and their behaviour clearly defies its rules.

The basic premise is that one should fill the urinal array one-by-one with men, so that the space between the men is always maximised, and with each addition allowing for future maximisation, should there be a subsequent arrival of further men. Such a process helps minimise the chance of accidental peripheral observation. Now, we all know the dangers of an accidental peripheral observation event. Aside from an ability to act like a stopcock (sorry, couldn't help myself! I hope that term is actually used West of the Atlantic...), there's a chance of encountering one's nemesis, resulting in instant and irreversible ego-deflation. On the whole, it's something that we should, and should be seen to, want to avoid.

To elucidate the accepted packing algorithm, consider an array of 5 urinals. The acceptable packing order is: 1,5,3,2,4 where, of course, 2 and 4 can be interchanged, and the entire series may be reversed. Those men that I am complaining about here would enter the empty system at, say, 2 (or 4). Such a move forces the next man to select 5 (or 1), though he could select 4 (or 2). Whichever he chooses, it leaves 3 empty slots, none of which have complete visual isolation. This unnecessarily forces additional users to be at greater risk of accidental peripheral observation. I can assure these people that such a lack of courtesy to the other users of the system does not go unnoticed. 

Additionally, experience shows that there are a number of men who take the avoidance of potential accidental peripheral observation to the extreme, and will under no circumstances use a urinal if an adjecent one is currently in use. It appears that these men have such an inflated fear of peripheral obsevation that they avoid the risk at all costs. This, however, is also not socially acceptable. Whilst it is acceptable (and indeed required) to casually attempt to minimise the risk of peripheral observation by adhering to the packing algorithm, to go to great lengths (no pun intended, honest) to avoid it (by using a sit-down, or standing around waiting uneasily and reading the instructions on the hand dryer in an attempt not to look like a loitering pervert) is a wholly offensive to the other occupants of the array. Actually, I suspect the men who indulge in these practices have a 'crisis of confidence' and their behaviour could be interpreted as a cloaked compliment, but that's just not how society views it, OK?

There is also a class of man who will purposefully defy the algorithm, and go straight to the middle of a three-urinal array in a macho show, to specifically try to claim the entire array for himself. You can tell those that do this intentionally from those who merely wander to this element out of ignorance. Instead of casually wandering over and standing there, getting on with it, they approach the array with a swagger, give it a quick glance over, then head purposefully to the centre. They stand there, with feet at least 20% wider than shoulder-width apart with their elbows outstretched, often with one hand on their hip (sometimes one forearm leaning against the wall in front, with the elbow well into the neighbouring element), with the other hand doing the business. They usually lean back at the waist throughout the process, as if maximising the distance (in the horizontal plane) between their chest and their end really makes it seems longer. They'll probably glance in a deliberate manner from side to side, staking their claim on the neighbouring elements. The only way to deal with such people is to walk boldly up to the adjacent element, and use it in as close a manner to theirs as your conscience will allow.

So, in light of all this, I make a desparate call to all of these unfortunate men (and their partners, who well may be entirely oblivious to their man's social shortcomings): please, please, obey the algorithm. Common decency, and a respect for your fellow man, requires it.

A Christmas Eve Arrival

Spidery black fingers whip past, their forms keener than usual, crystallised against the mottled white background. The sun climbs with gargantuan effort from the horizon, as a climber negotiating a tricky overhang, tracing a shallow arc of iced fire: the most brilliant, blinding light, but imparting imperceptible warmth. A pair of geese, startled by the train, take to the air. A couple, layered in coats, gloves, scarves and hats, walk with their dogs along an icy path through the grass; a seam of silver bisecting the frozen field. The little rivers scattered across the Weald flow viscously between the matted remnants of reed beds. A heron imparts only statuary to the scene. On a day like this, even the chub and perch will be lethargic, and only the weekly meal of a pike, or the occasional bite of a grayling, will provide a whisper of hope of contact to the frigid angler.

Suddenly the fields, inhabited by flocks of Southdowns, turn a shockingly intense green, contrast which is jarring, though the hills are still white and grey. Arundel Castle stands stoically, overlooking the broad flood plain of the Arun. Soon the Weald yields to suburbia, then Portsea Island and Portsmouth - a dialogue between the proud, reserved architecture of its naval history and its post-war reconstruction. At last, the Cat carries me across the waters, and reality recedes.

Thank Heaven for the BBC

The Proms have come and gone, marking the end of summer. This season of concerts, like no other, captivates my imagination; many weeks of great music, performed in one of the world's most iconic venues, aimed at making such masterpieces accessible to the general public, and out of phase with the main concert season. Occurring just as I move back to the US, it was exceptionally poignant this year.

Thanks to the foresight of the BBC, the concerts were broadcast using a new high-quality streaming service Coyopa - named after a Mayan god of thunder. Coyopa streams at 320 kbps (that's the bitrate of audio files one can purchase from Amazon, and higher quality than one typically gets from iTunes). The Proms have been a testing ground for this service, which will now be withdrawn, evaluated and (one sincerely hopes) made a standard streaming option in the near future.

Tonight, I listened to the Last Night of the Proms on my KEF loudspeakers, via this digital service, my computer's soundcard, and my Cambridge Audio amp (the computer soundcard being clearly the weakest link in this chain). The quality was astoundingly good for digital streaming, something that became exceptionally apparent at the end of the Prom, when the audience were singing along to the familiar (in the truest sense of the word) tunes of Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory. In closing my eyes, I was seated in the upper circle of the Royal Albert Hall. (with miraculously generous leg space). The orchestra was below me; music reaching directly to my ears, and music resounding from the mushroom-patch above. All around and below me, resonating fiercely, was the audience, singing in joyful abandon. I sang. I pointed skyward; a confirmation to the heavens, in a manner that reminds me immediately and solely of a certain Italian friend of mine. For a while, the 3000 odd miles seemed tangibly shorter.

A lapse in judgement

The latest release from Scottish brewers Brewdog is a limited-edition 55% beer, End of History, in bottles mounted within dead rodents by a skilled taxidermist. I began writing with the intent of expressing my disappointment in Brewdog, for what seemed to me to be an exercise in novelty marketing, as implied by news articles on the subject. I thought that, at last, Brewdog had forsaken their values of making interesting, flavourful beers in place of tasteless numbers and shock value.

I've been following Scottish brewers Brewdog for a couple of years now, since discovering their brew The Physics, Punk IPA, Trashy Blonde, and a myriad of others. I followed with delight that, after bringing out the UK's strongest beer Tokyo* , to the criticism of the Portman Group, Brewdog released a highly hopped low alcohol beer branded Nanny State. This was followed by the release of the world's strongest beer, Tactical Nuclear Penguin, made by using an icecream factory to crystalise and remove water from the beer, thus raising it to a strength well above the alcohol tollerance of any yeast. This was bested in strength by the German brewers Schorschbräu, which initiated a back and forth, with Brewdog retaliating with Sink the Bismark (41%), and the Germans beating this with a 43% brew.

Enter the End of History brew. Contrary to my initial reaction it, on looking deeper it has become clear that the idea is actually a much more sublte and directed statement. After the back-and-forth in the strength war, this beer, limited to only 12 bottles, is a tongue-in-cheek cap to the overflowing bottle. Clearly, those at Brewdog had realised the escallating strength competition had become ludicrous, so nothing short of a farcical bottling would firmly put an end to the affair. Sorry for losing faith momentarily, Brewdog!

Windy Hill

Yesterday evening, I returned to Windy Hill. Having thrown a sandwich and a bottle of Glencoe stout into a pack, I climbed the hill to watch the sunset.

Despite the name, all four elements are met in this place, in a combative equilibrium - cohesive yet opposed. The land - in black, greens and browns - meanders into shades of purple and grey as the earth erupts skyward to the north. Overhead, clouds drifting so low to be within human grasp form a broad flat base, hovering over the mountains in defiance of their rugged form. To the east, Glasgow; its monochromatic shimmer a strange oasis within the continuous spectrum of the numinous landscape. To the west, just over the hilltops, the sun's death in the perpetual presence of the unseen sea.


The grass was soft and cool beneath me. I sat, with a flask, the wind to my back, my eyes lingering over the foreboding mass of Ben Lomond and the jagged peaks of the Arrochar Alps, and vowed to return to this spot as often as I physically can. Never has a place so taken my heart.

A change in viewpoint

I exited a two-hour conversation with Sandy today, bearing numerous thoughts about which to contemplate. The only one that is fully formed is this beauty of an idea. Following a discussion on the concept of creation yielding plurality, and all the divisive spiritual trauma that entails, came the notion that the Big Bang is not an apt name at all, for it is far too exuberant an image. Instead, considering the universe started at the highest intensity, which subsequently decayed with time - a universe imbued with a sense of "Do we really have to?" - we propose a more appropriate name for that seminal moment of creation - the Big Sigh.
:-P

On top of the world

It has been snowing for days. In the East, a steady few inches per day has blanketed both town and countryside, purifying all that stares skyward. Snow, uniquely, makes the ugliest beautiful for a time - morphing demons into angels.

Driving North and West, I crossed the Pennines, and briefly skirted an invisible boundary; fleetingly traversing the veil which separates two worlds. No words can describe the beauty of that drive. The sky was exceptionally clear. Snow draped over the ancient hills, crossed with drystone walls and dotted with farmhouses; the winter sun casting oblique shadows on the pristine palette. Looking South-West, the hills were ablaze with frosted fire. The scene was dissected by one of my favourite roads, and my perception of the stark beauty was heightened by the ever-present risk of the conditions, by constant alertness to the subtle messages of traction transmitted through the steering column. Through superposition of the beauty and the danger, I felt unusually alive.


As so often, Divine Comedy lyrics sprung to mind.

One butterfly spies the glint in his eye
The birds sing as he cycles by
And Oh! Why should he feel sad?
This world ain't so bad
And besides, woe betide he who would frown
When natural beauty abounds!
And now, with wheels spinning free,
He's picking up speed...

Two butterflies tie knots in his stomach
They love it when he goes to fast
Wind whistles past: vast oceans of air
That will mess up his hair
Though he no longer cares anymore
For overindulgence in vanity's vacuous vice
Just once or twice. Thrice.
Four times in five
We forget we're alive
And neglect to remind ourselves

Oh wait, wait for me!
Oh, great Mercury
As long as you may be
Oh, won't you wait for me?

Three butterflies realise when it's time to depart
They have tickled his ribs, they have fluttered his heart
But the starting is easy compared to the stop
And the bottom is hard when compared to the top!
Ooh, la la, la la la la....

We have forgotten

Dreams - inconsistent angel things;
Horses bred with star-laced wings
But it's so hard to make them fly
Fly...
Fly...

These wings beat the night sky above the town
One goes up and one goes down
And so the chariot hits the ground
Bound...
Bound...

We have forgotten
[Don't try to make me fly]
How it used to be
[I'll stay here, I'll be fine]
How it used to be
[Don't go and let me down]
How it used to be
[I'm starting to like this town]

When wings beat the night sky above the ground,
Will I unwillingly shoot them down
With all my petty fears and doubts?
Down...
Down...

We have forgotten
[Am I in love with this?]
How it used to be
[My constant broken ship]
How it used to be
[Don't go, I'll shoot you down]
How it used to be
[I'm starting to like this town]

Sixpence None The Richer

Making sense of Sicily

I awoke to see mountains in every direction, as far as the eye could resolve. Flying over the Alps was breathtaking. The jagged snow-capped peaks, the drifting snow, and the few low clouds that clung to them, made a scene painted purely in white, the contrast coming from textures alone. Colour would have been a vulgar addition.

Catania is a curious place, glowing of functionality over form. Perhaps there's something about living in a sunny, beautiful place that makes you careless about the details. The streets are littered with old fliers and remnants of billboard paper. The medians, even in the town, appear to be scrubland - left untouched since the road was laid - a handful of coarse plants cling to life in the rough grey volcanic scree that characterises the soil here. The buildings are extremely angular - mostly rectangular blocks, with balconies protruding like cancerous growths from their sides. The roofs are mostly flat, and (save the dome of the cathedral, which stands out like a nun in a crowd of Rangers fans) there's not a single curve to be seen. From up on the hill where the lab is situated, the city looks like a pile of pale Lego bricks carelessly discarded along the coast. By submerging oneself downtown, one finds an equally interesting environment. Old buildings, seemingly decaying, draped with time-worn faded flags. The only paint not peeling is the unskilled graffiti adorning the lower levels of the buildings. There are little dark courtyards and wide piazzas, the latter filled with stalls selling hundreds of magazines, roasted nuts and little stands selling beer and coffee. I'm reminded of the Italian Job - for little seems to have changed since the Sixties. The dimly lit backstreets are full of shops selling junk. Many sell old items that you'd expect only at a charity shop or car-boot sale. There are dozens selling nothing but cheap chains of coloured stones - each shop with an alleged theme (one claimed to be Indian, another Italian) but all appeared to carry the same tacky wares. How all these businesses survive is beyond me. The main street, which runs for well over a mile, contains almost exclusively clothing shops. The majority of these are either expensive looking designer boutiques, or else underwear stores. The people here are all 'beautiful' - well dressed, and meticulously presented - but are in stark contrast to the city itself.


Finding a restaurant was actually quite challenging. Whether I was in the wrong part of town for dining, or whether it is true that the local culture is much more oriented toward eat in peoples homes, rather than in restaurants, I cannot say. Eventually, I found somewhere to eat, and sat outside. I spoke but a dozen words of Italian, she no English, but we communicated sufficiently. I ordered some marinated seafood to start (sardines, octopus and prawns in olive oil, lemon juice and parsley) followed by a seafood rissotto. Both were quite acceptable, though neither outstanding. I finished with an interesting espresso - served sadly in a plastic cup (!), but so dark and rich that it reminded me more of pure chocolate than of coffee.


Food is, for certain, one of the main draws of the place. The morning break of the meeting is filled with coffee (served in short, fragrant shots - each one about half the volume of a typical shot of spirits), fresh fruit juice and the most delicious fresh, hot pastries (my favourite being one containing a warm orange preserve). Whilst everyone stands around inside, I take these out, though the little courtyard and its lime trees, up to the roof overlooking the bay, and sit in the sun. In doing so, this place finally makes sense.

A quick thought

It could be argued that the greatest leaps in human thought, and social/religious development, have been spawned by the crossing of different cultures. There's nothing like encountering a different people, who have different beliefs and values, to make you question your own. This being the case, what lies in store for us once all populations of the Earth know each other (and perhaps homogenise to some extent), and we can no longer be surprised and awakened in this manner?

Sandy Speaks

Just a link to an article by in the Herald, in which Sandy was interviewed. He mentions us, too :-)

Contrast

After working so late that I didn't get to the pub last night, I got home, poured a beer and put the TV on. Unsurprisingly, I found little of worth being broadcast, until I stumbled onto a programme on STV. Broadcast in Gaelic, it was documentary on traditional Gaelic singing, and featured two women - one young and in training, the other older and acting as tutor. The younger girl sang, unaccompanied, the most haunting song I may have ever heard - sparse, yet rich, rhythmically interesting, yet it flowed with such naturalness that every sound seemed utterly inevitable. Her voice was light, clear, but with a deep strength that was hard to define - tied to the land, to the sea, and a reflection of femininty in its purest form. That the song was in Gaelic, and I knew nothing of the literal meaning of the words, only emphasised the its content, and magnified its mysterious fairness. I sat transfixed, experiencing a beauty I've not encountered for some time. It recalled to me the words of Felix Mendelssohn that were recently brought to my attention. When he was asked "Do you write music to represent ideas that are too vague for words?" he replied "On the contrary - I use music to express ideas that are too precise for words."

Alas, this programme shortly ended, and was replaced by the monstrosity that is a live night-time phone-in roulette game. I went to bed.

The Ballad of Billy Kershaw

While on the subject of love and agape, here's The Ballad of Billy Kershaw, from the late Jake Thackray. As Yorkshireman and lifelong catholic, many of his songs (thought of typically as "comic") exhibit strong elements of humanism, and a reverence for the immanence of God within human behaviour.

He was small and baggy-trousered, he was nondescript and shy,
But in his breast there burned a sacred flame.
For women melted and surrendered when they looked into his eyes;
Little Billy Kershaw was the name, by the way,
He worked as a country ploughman, so they say.

Oh Lothario, and Casanova, and mighty Don Juan -
Those legendary goads of days of yore!
Billy was better with his eyes closed, on one leg and with no hands -
A trick that he could actually perform, by the way.
Spectacular, but dodgy, so they say.

He never did it for the profit of it, never the applause -
Only the silvery laughter that it caused.

There was a difference in that Billy Kershaw never picked the best,
The beautiful, the golden ones that most men would,
But just the ugly ones, the poorest, the despised, the disposessed -
Where else would a hunchback get a cuddle, by the way?
Harelips can kiss, or so they say.

And so the shop-girl with the whiskers, or the limping shepherdess,
The squinting barmaid - her with the pocky skin.
Even the horse-like countess with the teeth and meagre breasts
That in fact had often harboured Billy's chin, by the way,
Haughty, but snug, so they say.

He never did it for the profit of it, never the applause -
Only the common comfort that it caused.

Many a poor distracted Catholic, rating Billy over Lourdes
Came smiling down his staircase, all her frenzy gone.
And the husband, far from angry, would be chuffed that she was cured,
And buy him a pint in the local later on, by the way,
Horses for courses, so they say.

He responded to the Colonel's widow's desperate appeal
In the Colonel's house upon the Colonel's tiger skin.
In the potter's shop, the potter's wife upon the potter's wheel,
Which was steadily continuing to spin, by the way,
A right tour de force! Or so they say.

But never ever for the profit of it, never the applause -
Only the passing happiness it caused.

But soon the news of Billy Kershaw and his life-enhancing powers
Became across the county widely known,
And by his cottage gate, the coach loads waited patiently for hours;
The drivers made a bundle going home, by the way.
Their caps were full of silver, so they say.

And the village did a roaring trade in teas and souvenirs,
In ash trays and the local watercress.
Until Billy, disillusioned, simply ups and disappears,
Leaving no forwarding address, by the way,
Could be anywhere at all, or so they say.

But it was not for the profit of it, not for the applause -
Only the consolation that it caused.

If there should be a sad, neglected, wretched woman in your life,
It could well be that Billy's near at hand;
Perhaps your auntie or your daughter, or your mother, or your wife.
And when did you last see your grandma, by the way?
No genuine case is ever turned away.

He's no rascal, he's no charlatan, no mountebank, no snob;
Whoever you are, he'll treat you just the same.
He is small and baggy-trousered, and he does a tidy job.
Little Billy Kershaw is the name, by the way;
He worked as a country ploughman, so they say.

But never ever for the profit of it, never the applause -
Only the common comfort that it caused.

If you find that Billy's ballad is extravagant, or trite,
Offensive, irrelevant, or untrue -
That may well be, but here's a moral which will make us feel all right,
A moral which may well apply to you, by the way:
Takes one to know one, as they say.

If you're ugly, if you're weak, or meek, or queer - form a queue,
And the rest of us will travel from afar.
And systematically we'll do to you what Billy used to do -
But more regular, and always twice as hard, by the way.
Mea culpa! Mea culpa! - as they used to say.

Thoughts on love

[This is a response to some thoughts posted by Miss Atomic Bomb following her completion of a book on romantic love. Thanks for these - the thoughts are interesting and insightful, and have spawned much thought of my own. As my ramblings on the subject are too lengthy to post as a comment, I post them here instead. I premise this by stating I've not read the book, but am interested to do so, and will post more on this subject once I've read it. Thus, these comments may turn out to be irrelevant or a misinterpretation on my part.]

It seems to me that "love," as defined by this book, is not really "love" at all. I guess I'm not clear one exactly what "romantic love" is in this context.

People often disambiguate lust from love, but this is insufficient - especially as lust has come to represent mostly physical (sexual) attraction. There is an equivalent attraction - one which is selfish (as in it is based around the desire of the lover, rather than care for the beloved) - but is not based around the physical. Instead, it is an attraction to be with them, to be in their company - perhaps to laugh and flirt with them - a lust of personality. It is something that has, at times, been differentiated by the concepts "to love someone" and "to be in love with someone." There is all the difference in the world to say "I love you" or to say "I'm in love with you." For the sake of clarity (by avoiding the duplication of the word "love") I call the latter phenomenon infatuation. It is not to be confused with what the author (I think) describes as adoration - which is remote, distant, and absorbed in the thing itself (to "love being in love", one might say). I don't think it is fair to describe love as an emotion. It is not something you feel. One may feel "in love," but one actively "loves." Whilst these things (lust and infatuation) are components of, and paths toward, genuine romantic love - they are in no way synonymous with love itself. Perhaps, in that sense, this book is really about infatuation, rather than love. But, if that is the case, then I'd argue the difference ought to be clearly stated, to avoid confusion over such statements as "I love you," and to avoid the devaluation of the greater and constructive force that is genuine love.

All those initial feelings that are usually described as "love" ought not, in my opinion, be so labeled. Love is something very specific. Sometimes I say "I love you." Sometimes "I adore you." Sometimes "I worship you." Sometimes "you look beautiful," sometimes "I fancy you" or sometimes "you look hot." All have different meanings. "I love you" is the most powerful of these, however - for it is focused on the beloved, and expresses a thing which is not "emotional," not fluctuating, not dependent on the lover and his/her surroundings. There can be situations where I cease to adore, cease to find beauty, have diminished sexual drive - but I do not cease to love. Take an external situation - say being within a burning building with your beloved. Feelings of adoration, attraction and desire all necessarily fade, but the feeling of love intensifies. In such a scenario, one would chose a course of action that reflects that love - to put the beloved before oneself, without thought or hesitation.

I think there need not be such a strong separation between romantic love and agape - they are both selfless, and focused on the good of the beloved (or recipient), rather than the fulfilling of some need in the lover. Genuine love delights in the beloved - in their very existence. The delights of fulfilling desire for that person is quite secondary to that dancing in the soul that is induced simply by experiencing the revelation that they exist. To thus equate romantic love with lust and infatuation is to devalue it. Romantic love is exceptional, as it contains two very powerful quantities: it has the potential to be all encompassing (by that, I mean that all aspects of attraction, desire, friendship, companionship, comradeship and intellectual stimulation are possible within the relationship) and it is equal (there is no hierarchy or imbalance of dependency). It is this uniqueness that makes it valuable, and that also induces fear and reluctance to love completely.

As for the nature of duplicate loves - I think duplicate infatuation is inherently possible (and it is perfectly clear that duplicate lust is possible). But love, by definition, puts the beloved first. If there is more than one beloved, one necessarily and inevitably has to rank them in some way, or at least make choices between them, thus compromising the love. Two concurrent loves divides the capacity to love, rather than duplicates it (again, infatuation and lust can both be duplicated). One can, of course, draw parallels between this and the love for children - where one parent may love several children equally. But this is a parallel that can be only taken so far: love for children is an imbalanced love, in some way like the love of a pet - there's an imbalance of dependency, and of responsibility. Again, romantic love is one of equals.

I recall an old film (probably pre 1950) that I saw when I was probably around 12 years old. In particular, there was a scene on board a large, grand ship (perhaps a Cunard ship crossing the Altantic). There were two girls on the ship - a blond and a brunette (of course!). Two guys were talking, admiring the girls from the deck above, and one of them asked the other "If the ship went down, which one would you save?" Being produced in height of the Motion Picture Production Code years, this was probably written in place of the direct question "which one would you sleep with?" that would be screened without thought in the modern era. Of course, the answer to this could easily be "both." But, as is so often the case when speech is restricted, the act of engaging in the dance with the censors spawned art of greater subtlety. Instead of making this question one of desire (simply answered) it brushed on something deeper. Of course, you'd probably desire to save both, out of pure humanity if nothing else. But, given the situation, you'd have to choose whom to aid first. Love requires choice. [I know all this is rather dated and sexist - assuming the girls can't swim or something - but I hope you can look past this to see the deeper truth being illuminated.]


I also think the heavy weighting and repeated common reference to the honeymoon period is ill-founded (or, at least, ill-applied). I can only understand this from a superficial view of desire. Of course, there is strong desire (both sexually and in desire for personality) in the initial stages of a relationship which, in principle, can decay over time. However, it need not - for interest is spawned from variety, and variety need not diminish with a single lover. Passion need not fade. We need not be "let down." Instead, lovers may grow together, becoming increasingly attuned to each others' personality and sexuality, becoming increasingly adventurous and experimental. Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy, a story of youthful desire and infatuation. Their youthfulness and death was a reflection on juvenile desire - it was never a monument to genuine romantic love.

They say it changes when the sun goes down

This week has been dark, and this weekend a strange mix of introspection and relief. Having spent the weekend in York, going to pubs serving delicious Belgian brews, cafes selling delicious crepes and waffles, and being around normal people wearing normal clothes, enjoying living - I contemplate Paisley, its run-down streets, the population of neds, and my mind keeps returning to these lyircs (from the Arctic Monkeys):

Though they might wear classic Reeboks,
Or knackered Converse, or trackie-bottoms tucked in socks,
But all of that's what the point is not -
The point's that there i'n't no romance around there

And there's the truth that they can't see;
They'd probably like to throw a punch at me.
And if you could only see 'em then you would agree,
Agree that there i'n't no romance around there,

Don't you know? It's a funny thing, you know
We'll tell 'em if you like - we'll tell 'em all tonight -
They'll never listen, because their minds are made up.
Of course it's all OK to carry on that way.

Over there, there's broken bones
There's only music so that there's new ring tones
And it don't take no Sherlock Holmes
To see it's a little different around here.

Much of Paisley, and the inhabitants within, is depressing - decaying, and as ugly as sin. But that's not all there is to this town - a town which predates Glasgow, in fact. Paisley sits in the shadow of some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever witnessed. And Paisley contains some hidden gems - bastions of what once was, and what might be again. There are still local butchers. There is a picture framer, I recently discovered just around the corner from where I live - a talented, friendly and professional establishment, framing and selling quality pieces. And there's Sandy - Her Majesty's Sculptor in Ordinary in Scotland, based in the University - a champion of romanticism, and a friend of the Nuclear Group.

There is, in fact, hope.

Physics by the seat of the pants

I've long considered myself a 'seat of the pants' physicist, and have tried explaining the concept to a number of people. One way of putting it is to say I'm a 'first-order' sort of person. But that's not quite it. Another is to say that I have 'a feeling' for the physics, but that sounds like a pile of new-age bollocks. It's just that - sometimes - I know what the answer will be before I've worked it out. So, unless I have to, I don't bother working it out rigourously.

Today I came across these words of Feynman, who (of course) put it far more eloquently than my amateurish attempts:

"Mathematicians, or people who have very mathematical minds, are often led astray when 'studying' physics because they lose sight of the physics. They say "Look, these differential equations - the Maxwell Equations - are all there is to electrodynamics; it is admitted by the physicists that there is nothing which is not contained in the equations. The equations are complicated, but after all they are only mathematical equations and if I understand them mathematically inside out, I will understand physics inside out." Only it doesn't work that way.

What it means to really understand an equation - that is, in more than a strictly mathematical sense - was described by Dirac. He said "I understand what an equation means if I have a way of figuring out the characteristics of its solution without actually solving it." So if we have a way of knowing what should happen in given circumstances without actually solving the equations, we 'understand' the equations, as applied to these circumstances. A physical understanding is a completely unmathematical, imprecise and inexact thing, but absolutely necessary for a physicist."

PC Punching

I stumbled back from my office last night, saturated with staring at computer screens. I cracked open a bottle of beer, made a quick cucumber and tomato salad to go with the bread, french cured duck sausage and Normandy cheese that I'd bought from the market at the Merchant City Festival over the weekend, and collapsed. Determined to focus my eyes on something farther than arms-length away, I turned on the TV and scanned the channels. It turned out that there was nothing on (amazing, for that never happens - ever) so I settled for the one film that was playing - Mr and Mrs Smith.

The film was exactly as I'd imagined - almost entirely lacking content: barely one-dimensional characters, almost no plot, and filled with flashy action sequences. No surprise there. However, one thing struck me as strange. The film was full of violence, directed fairly isotropically, for the most part. There were visualisations of numerous people getting shot. Bodies were flying from explosions. However, the interesting thing occurred during the centrepiece fight between Pitt and Jolie where, after almost blowing each others' heads off several times, they end up brawling. At this point, something curious happened in the realm of direction. They'd tumbled for some time, bashing each other against walls and objects, and Jolie repeatedly punched Pitt in the face. However, though Pitt didn't seem overall to be at a disadvantage, he very conspicuously never landed a blow to Jolie. It seemed that the director was deliberately avoiding showing personal, unarmed violence toward the woman. Then, to prove the point, Pitt wrestled Jolie to the floor and, though he kicked her several times, the kicking occurred out of sight, behind a sofa. After receiving several kicks she retaliated with a blow to the groin. The fight ended without a single visual instance of Pitt hitting her. I remind you - you'd seen Jolie hit Pitt numerous times, and would later see her hit a captive character around the head with a hotel-room phone.

I assure you that no one finds violence against women more abhorrent than I do. However, this was not a scene of a man taking advantage of his relative strength, and attacking an undefended woman. Throughout the entire movie, these two characters are portrayed as hardened assassins, of comparable abilities (in fact Jolie's character reports having killed 5 times as many people as had Pitt's). But, when the entire point of a movie is to show cartoon violence, when it's OK to show people being shot dead, or killed in an explosion, it strikes me as very strange that a deliberate decision was taken to not show a punch being delivered to from one skilled assassin to another, just because the latter is female. It strikes me as even stranger that, given the above, it's OK to show that the woman has been kicked repeatedly when she's down, just as long as it's behind a sofa, so no one actually sees it.

Am I missing something here, or does this really just make no sense at all?

Freedom

I once participated in a rather heated discussion with an advocate of cold fusion. This debate, of course, turned out to be an utterly pointless exercise, as the advocate descended predictably into nonsensical argument, and what amounted to name calling, in order to defend his position. However, one of the points raised was that of academic freedom. This is something that proponents of pseudoscience (cold fusion, intelligent design, for example) frequently rely upon, in an attempt to undermine the arguments put forward by the populous of the genuine scientific community. That is, if scientists don't agree with what they're saying, it must be because the scientists are not open to new ideas, as they are hemmed in by the scientific stigma and oppressive regime of their university. To this, I simply reply with an extract from my contract, which exemplifies the attitude within the academic field:

"The University acknowledges and accepts the intellectual and academic freedom of academic staff to think, write, act, speak and teach, in order to be able to contribute to their subject areas and the advancement of knowledge. Academic freedom is defined as ‘freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom and to put forward new ideas and controversial and unpopular opinions, without academic staff placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs’. The University commits itself to sustain an environment within which academic freedom can be effectively exercised. Within their institution or discipline, academic staff should be bound by proper regard for their colleagues, for the University’s interests, and by the usual rules of professional academic engagement."

I travelled among unknown men

I have departed Tennessee - precisely five years, and three months to the day after I arrived. Moving has been an even bigger headache than I'd anticipated, possibly resulting in me having watched most of my worldly possessions being driven into the sunset, never to be seen again. Ah, well. Who really cares?

Driving the 1300 odd miles West to Colorado has provided opportunity to contemplate the move. The drive was enjoyable - a good run to bring Gladys back out West where she belongs. Today was the highlight - climbing low rolling hill after hill, the Rockies getting seeming clearer and crisper in discrete steps. The air felt wonderful, reminding me of summer coastal breezes back home. I didn't run the AC for the first time in days.

People have asked me (numerous times) what, if anything, I will miss about Tennessee. To the astonishment of many, the beer will be high on the list. Contrary to all my expectations, US beer is excellent (if you avoid the big breweries, of course - it wouldn't be fair to write off a Shepherd Neame by sampling a Boddington's now, would it?). For what is lacking from US brewing in the subtlety of marrying malts and hops is made up by the sheer enthusiasm and inventiveness of the brewing - and the US love of hops is to their international credit. Consequently, my home brewing efforts will be focused on reproducing Dead Guys, Anchor Steams, Highlands, Left Hands, Dogfish, New Belgians, Duck Rabbits etc. I'll also miss the quality of driving - the way that, if you're driving a small car, only your own life is at risk, for the only things you can hit are pickup trucks and trees.

The bizarre thing is, save the goodbyes to a number of good friends whom shall be sorely missed, the saddest thing for me was parting with Charlie. She was my walking staff. I roughly fashioned her when leaving the base camp of the Manway, and many peaks (and a growing crack) later, she'd yet to fail me. There's a way that objects can embody the essence of places and, for Tennessee, she was it.