Driveway -- Atonement

Hampshire planning regulations: they won’t tarmac the driveway for the six houses in our ‘street’. Gravel is, apparently, more rustic. The picture shows the consequences - not rustic but agricultural.

Our neighbour, Mark, circulated a note suggesting each house should contribute to buy a total of ten tons of gravel to re-cover the driveway. This is not totally cheap, so how ought we to respond?

Elementary economics highlights the ‘free rider’ problem. If five of us decide to go ahead, and the sixth declines, then the sixth house still gets the benefit while incurring none of the cost. The standard social response to free-riding is compulsion by the state (e.g. taxes). However, we are too small a community to have a state of our own ...

Social psychology explains that in informal social groupings, social sanctions are brought to bear against free-riders - ‘your neighbours hate you for ever’. Hmm, that’s not a pleasant thought!

Economics again. The cost might be equal, but are the benefits equally apportioned? If the benefit is improved driveability, then the people at the end of the driveway would surely accrue disproportionate benefit. But in my opinion, it’s preferable to drive on a hard, smooth surface than on gravel - easier on the tyres and less possibilities of chipping the paintwork. Mark’s note was all about appearance, and here we seem to come out equal.

Of course we’ll pay up. Evolutionary psychology ensured we had made all these calculations pre-consciously in an instant!

Note: We duly went to see Atonement down at Salisbury on Sunday. Very well-made film and pretty faithful to the book (already much discussed here on previous posts).

I just have a few, deeply-buried lingering doubts. Is it really anything more than a tale, expertly told by a master craftsman, full - to an extent - of sound and fury, but ultimately signifying nothing?

Ballooning over Hampshire

Tuesday we finally managed to fly Clare's birthday present, as the weather was calm enough for hot-air ballooning. Here's the video as we came into land.

The balloon pilot was, in Myers-Briggs terminology, a classic ESTP. He celebrated his top-dog, alpha-male persona by putting down the retrieval-truck driver, Nick, at all opportunities. He was similarly waspish with us, the paying punters, to our general amusement and the odd hurt feelings.

His views on the role (and likely behaviour) of women were pretty unreconstructed - although probably in accordance with evolutionary psychology. We also learned that the recent 'accidental' outbreak of foot-and-mouth virus from a Government facility was probably a plot to make Gordon Brown look commanding and decisive!

We got up to around 4,000 feet and the view was remarkable. Somehow the height of the basket, and its stability prevented the experience from being scary. Here's The Grange from a couple of thousand feet.

"Breach"

From the imdb entry: "Based on a true story, FBI upstart Eric O'Neill enters into a power game with his boss, Robert Hanssen, an agent who was ultimately convicted of selling secrets to the Soviet Union."

Great film, which we saw yesterday evening at Basingstoke. Most of the pre-film trailers ('hitman' etc) seem to be crashing cars, large explosions and heavily-muscled dudes firing automatic weapons, one in each hand. This by contrast, is a battle of wits played out in windowless offices and airless corridors.

Hanssen progresses, through the 110 minutes of the film, from misunderstood, technocratic patriot to monumental scumbag. Eric O'Neill has to work all hours, day and night, on the case and has problems with his wife, to whom he is forbidden from explaining anything. No wonder he left the agency once the case was cracked.

As the film ended, the final screens revealed that as we sat there, Robert Hanssen was himself sat in a solitary confinement cell in Florence, Colorado, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

He still is as you read this.

“On Chesil Beach”

There have been many reviews of this most recent book from Ian McEwan (for example here) so I won’t add another, just some observations.

If “Atonement” was writ on a large canvas, this, by contrast, is a miniature. The central dynamic is formed around the wedding-evening progression towards first sexual consummation. Florence and Edward are minutely-observed characters of their time (1962) - deeply repressed, inexperienced and in Florence's case, carrying baggage (more below). See the YouTube video featuring Ian McEwan reading from the novel here.

How to write about sex: physicality whose significance is in thought and emotion, participant and reader? How to avoid pornography, gratuitous sensationalism or the bad sex writing award?

How to avoid the fate of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose book "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" (which explores an elderly man's desire for sex with a teenage virgin) was widely reviled as a work of paedophilic voyeurism, casting an unpleasant window into the elderly writer's personal fantasy world? (Later reviews have been kinder).

McEwan has a great mastery of character and description-of-place. The slow-motion train-wreck of the evening and its shocking outcome is rendered through a series of episodes, each accompanied by flashbacks to establish the back story of how we got to this point. Florence's sexual inhibitions have roots which are signposted by McEwan with extreme subtlety. An Amazon.com reviewer, Lindy, writes here:

“I just finished listening to the audio book and in the interview after McEwan comes out and says that she was abused. It's supposed to be there for the readers, although never blatantly stated, but it's something that Edward never knows. McEwan originally had a sentence in the book after the explanation of Edward's not reading the paper (when he doesn't read about Florence's quartet's success) that he also wouldn't have read about her father's arrest for raping a 12 year old girl aboard his boat, but decided to leave it out.

"I think the lack of recognition of the abuse speaks to the time the book takes place in that such things just weren't talked about. It's more of a subtext that as readers today we can pick up on. In a way the book is just as much about the damage done by abuse that isn't dealt with as it is about the sexual repression of the characters, both of which are a product of the time.”

At the end of the novel, we zoom out to the rest of the lives of our two characters - fundamentally reset through one night’s actions, misunderstandings and failures to communicate.

Sarah, this little novel says so much about so many things, why were you disappointed?

The Mystery of “Atonement”

“Atonement” is clearly going to be the biggest film of the autumn. The BBC carried interviews with stars Keira Knightley (Cecilia) and James McAvoy (Robbie) - together with film clips - on the news this evening (trailer below from YouTube).



I wonder how you get the BBC to advertise new films? I guess mention top British literary author Ian McEwan plus the prospect of Oscars.

“Atonement” is viewpoint layered within viewpoint. Take the question of whether Cecilia and Robbie actually consummate their suddenly-surfacing passion for each other in the library. (Warning: multiple plot spoilers to follow).

1. The text of pages 135-138 suggests that in an act of tantric delay worthy of Sting himself, Robbie heroically holds off, until the disastrous arrival of Briony makes the whole thing moot -- so no consummation.

2. It is, though, revealed much later that the description of the library encounter is not ex-cathedra from McEwan, but is the imaginatively-reworked narrative of Briony herself as a much older woman. But as explained on pages 123-4, Briony not only never really gets a good look as she enters the library, but at 13, she is dramatically misinterpreting what she does see. And the adjustment of clothing she mentions is minimal. So probably nothing much really happened.

3. However, given what we, as adults, know of the likely behaviour of a couple of repressed kids carried away by sudden, overpowering passion for each other, the tantric scenario would surely require a lot more self-possession than anyone in their situation would be likely to possess. Besides which, both party’s subsequent behaviour suggests that a deeply significant, literally life-changing act of emotional commitment had occurred.

4. But given Cecilia’s and Robbie’s lack of prior romantic experience, wouldn't a passionate embrace have been enough, particularly in strait-laced 1935?

Conclusion? I think it’s impossible to say. Ian McEwan has woven the ambiguity expertly - as he has in so many other parts of this excellent book.

What’s the betting the film will be nothing like so coy?

The Living Rainforest

We visited this attraction today. Here are a couple of photos.

Tropical Butterfly

Cute Chameleon

Spent about two hours there. Not too crowded, definitely value for money. Also tortoises, turtles, a crocodile, a bird-eating spider, monkeys, toucans and some snakes which we couldn't quite see.

Articulated lorry crash

Our guess is that he had been stuck behind something slow for far too long and had mistaken the right-hand turn-off lane to Penton Mewsey for the start of a dual carriageway.

The next thing he would have seen was the upcoming grass of the central reservation as that lane ends, which forces you further right, onto the opposing carriageway.

Something extreme has to happen next. A few months back, someone trying the same manoeuvre slammed into the steel girders protecting the pavement on the right of the picture above - and was duly ambulanced away in neck braces. This guy just managed to overturn his ride. Thankfully there was no-one coming the other way at the time.

Looks like the local road traffic engineers need to do some more thinking on layout. It used to be dual carriageway in both directions (and people really cranked it up) but after a motorcyclist got killed just at this very spot trying to make a right, they changed it to single carriageways via the signs and cross-hatching which can be seen in the picture. But I think it still confuses people.

Nice weather for the late-August Bank Holiday right now. Taking it easy and recovering from my piano lesson this morning. No matter how much I have practiced, Suzanne always manages to raise the bar that little bit further ... next challenge, the Minuet in G Major from Anna Magdalena's Notebook (usually attributed to Christian Petzold) mentioned in a previous post.

Jottings from the wedding

We were up at Lincoln over the weekend for my nephew’s wedding. Here are some random observations.

The presiding vicar was a calm, articulate self-assured young man who had an effortless command of his audience. His conduct of the service was a beautifully-paced mix of humour and good advice anchored by his religious faith.

As an exercise, I tried to see him through fundamentalist catholic eyes: ‘Here is a self-confident young man, in fancy dress, parodying the service of the true faith. He commits the sacrilegious crime of imposture, having no authority.’

I was reminded of the barbed remark that when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, meets the Pope, Williams thinks that two major wings of Christianity are in communion while the Pope think he’s talking to a deluded pious academic.

By the way, in case you should believe this is gratuitously anti-catholic, recall I'm non-theist. To me, they're all blokes in ritualised middle-eastern wear. Having said that, we need ritual and dressing up is part of it.

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After the evening disco, some of the squaddies went out on a tour of Lincoln nightspots through to dawn. Apparently wherever they went, the bouncers were more than friendly, ushering them in past queues of punters. Says a lot about opinion on the street towards the army right now. And that’s without mentioning the drinks they had bought for them.

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I took some videos at the church and afterwards, at the reception, of the cake-cutting and speeches. Sunday evening after returning home I dutifully put a little web-page together with links to the seven videos and some humorous one-liners.

A few hours later I reflected: no-one at the event had asked for their antics or presentations to be put on the public Internet. Some of them were in the military and perhaps would value the publicity even less. So I pulled the material. It’s easy to forget just how public material on the Internet actually is.

Piano Diary #1

I started learning piano the last day of May, 2007. Three days later, on Saturday June 2nd I was, of course, already an expert, as you can see from this clunking “performance” which Alex captured while visiting. (.3gp, 5 MB).

Nearly three months later and there has been a genuine improvement. I’m spending time on “Sheep May Safely Graze” - which requires the right hand to move around the keyboard in ways I find hard to control - while my next project will be the “Menuet in G Major” (BWV 114) from Anna Magdalena’s Notebook, made famous by The Toys' 1965 hit single "A Lover's Concerto." The sheet music is freely available on the Internet here.

Although both these pieces are attributed to J. S. Bach, it appears that the latter was actually written by Christian Petzold.

So how am I finding piano? I understand intellectually there is a process by which one internalises the music from the score and gets the fingers to play the right notes, in the right order, and at the correct tempo. And then come the finer points of style and movement and speed and volume and smoothness. And as all that becomes automatic, the end result is interpretation and finally music.

As we reach the three month point, I am almost entirely at the very first of these multiple stages. To prove it here is the video of my ham-fisted efforts on the aforementioned minuet (.3gp, 1.3 MB) click here.

Suzanne, my piano teacher, is however, doing wonders - focusing me on legato, and timing and style when all my focus and effort is just to play the damn notes! Unaided, I am pretty much blind to the other things! I also have to thank her for the scales and finger exercises, the bread and butter of eventual competence.

“Patience, Perseverance and Practice” she advises, and warns me that no-one should attempt to master “The Well-Tempered Clavier” until grade 7 or 8. Apparently the “Inventions and Sinfonias” (BWV 772-801) are a precursor to the WTC and can be done earlier: maybe even grade 5 or 6. So four years away? Patience!

So meanwhile, I try for 40 minutes per day, and probably hit around four to five days per week. And I’m really looking for an increase of the Reward/Pain ratio while doing it! I must say that practice is more fun than the anticipation of practice.

Dust Theory for beginners

I guess there are lots of things dust theory could be about: household dust and its ability to find hidey-holes resistant to all attempts at cleaning; galactic theories of stellar dust clouds and planetary accretion; the so-called ‘smart dust’ of military science-fiction, an extended, self-organising sensor-computing network. But Dust Theory is none of these things.

There are some concepts which seem strange beyond imagining, yet are difficult-to-impossible to refute.

1. The idea that the whole universe began one second ago, with everyone’s “memories” pre-built in.
2. The idea that time doesn’t flow at all, that all times simply pre-exist and that each of our conscious thoughts of “now” are simply cross-sections of that greater space-time bloc-universe.
3. The ontological argument, which proves that a God-like being must exist.
4. The Doomsday Argument, which uses statistical reasoning to show that the great age of human civilisation is drawing to an end quite soon (e.g. within 10,000 years).

The Dust Theory we are going to talk about is like one of those...

... continue reading here.