News

The Skies, Now Undisturbed

The wise elders would explain that inside the aircraft, passengers, who had only paid the price of a few books for the privilege, would impatiently and ungratefully shut their window blinds to the views, would sit in silence next to strangers while watching films about love and friendship - and would complain that the food in miniature plastic beakers before them was not quite as tasty as the sort they could prepare in their own kitchens. The elders would add that the skies, now undisturbed except by the meandering progress of bees and sparrows, had once thundered to the sound of airborne leviathans, that entire swathes of Britain's cities had been disturbed by their progress

Alain de Botton - A World Without Planes (from the BBC)

Alain de Botton wrote his piece in reaction to the last few days' "travel chaos" (i.e. man is not greater than nature). I am reminded of Ben Marcus' The Age of Wire & String, a strange little book which I struggled to understand. I think it is the ritualised language both de Botton and Marcus use.

Completely unrelated: Death Metal Lyric OR William Blake Quote? Go on ..

Meanwhile I am still torn on whether to use a particular yarn for a particular cardigan pattern. When I look at the yarn I think "texture! cables! I have 1700 yrds!" but the cardigan is rather plain and takes 1050 yrds. Woe.

Linkage

A few links to tide things over:

  • A few weeks ago a perceptive blogger wrote about volcanic activity in Iceland. Seeing as Northern Europe's airports are more-or-less shutdown due to a massive cloud of volcanic ash coming from Iceland, you might find it an interesting background read. Also: Katla, another Icelandic volcano, could well be about to get ready to rumble.
  • Speaking of Eyjafjallajökull, have you seen this fantastic photo taken by a local farmer?
  • And this is how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull (links to sound). Not what I expected.
  • Pictish writing?! The idea sounds ludicrous. Language Log explains.
  • Best places to eat in Glasgow for the budget-conscious? The Guardian has a few ideas.. and handily includes a photo of the 78 (one of my favourite hang-outs) plus the opening paragraph explains why I love my new home.
  • If you love fashion history or even costume history, chances are you will have heard of Prinny - King George the IV - a man so fond of bling that he built entire bling buildings where he could wear fabulous clothes with his bling and eat outlandish food. Glass of Fashion has been to see an exhibition of some of Prinny's outfits.
  • Literary T-shirts. The double-think t-shirt is pretty cool. Others leave me wanting.
  • Douglas Coupland has teamed up with Penguin Books for their 75th anniversary. Speaking to the Past is seriously gorgeous stuff with typical Coupland 'little ironies'. One for the bookmarks.
  • Finally, Auntie Beeb asks why we need oil painters in a war zone.

Rufus Wainwright last night was very good, but I had certain reservations. More on that later - I also have a finished object to share and some thoughts about a certain free-for-all pattern.

Shall I Compare Thee to the Great Pele?

After the years of Andrew Motion being poet laureate, him whining about it and his "official" poems going "Better stand back / Here’s an age attack, / But the second in line / Is dealing with it fine", it is a relief to have Carol Ann Duffy in the seat. Somehow she seems to understand the job better and is able to find poetry in the small things that fill our everyday lives (which, I would argue, is what poetry is all about) and the news story flickering on our screens. Recently she wrote a poem about David Beckham's injury which sees him out of the England World Cup squad.

Achilles (for David Beckham)

Myth's river- where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boyflowed on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesised, they would not take Troy.

Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs... but when Odysseus came,

with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd's roar, and it was sport, not war, his charmed foot on the ball...

but then his heel, his heel, his heel...

The poem was originally published in The Daily Mirror, a tabloid, which employs Duffy as a regular columnist. Meanwhile, The Guardian, my newspaper of choice, looks at the poem approvingly but the comments section is where I found the biggest thrills. I particularly enjoyed FinneyontheWing, IantovonScranto and tw*tbeak but I strongly recommend the entire section. It is filled with limp poetry, bizarre imagery and iambic pentameter.

Something of Beauty

"..there is beauty in everything. What 'normal' people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it" - Alexander McQueen

British fashion designer, Alexander McQueen committed suicide today. He was only forty years old. McQueen was one of the very, very few who deserved to be called a genius in his chosen field. I am deeply saddened by his death.

"There was always some attraction to death, his designs were sometimes dehumanised. Who knows, perhaps after flirting with death too often, death attracts you."

Karl Lagerfeld on the untimely passing of McQueen.

Losing Its Reputation

"Denmark is losing its reputation for being a good world citizen." - Naomi Klein

Danish police arrest 150 demonstrators as world leaders arrive at Copenhagen conference. Mainstream groups such as Friends of the Earth have been barred from the conference centre ("Every delegate from the international environmental campaign group arrived at the centre this morning to find their badges were no longer valid."). This follows the highly controversial preventive arrests by Danish police earlier this week, the arrest of a German spokesman for Climate Justice action, police raids on climate campaigners and, lest we forget, a warm welcome for President Mugabe by Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

"The Copenhagen conference is fast becoming an international shambles." - Andy Atkins

For me, I welcomed the incredulity on the BBC news readers' faces as they interviewed a spokesperson, Henrik Suhr,  for the Danish police force, the use of "preventive arrests" and Mr Suhr's insistence that "if you do not want to be arrested, you should not be demonstrating" (let me draw your attention to the UN's own Universal Declaration of Rights and, in particular, Articles 19 and 20). The BBC journalists' reaction were very different to the type of journalism I had grown used to in Denmark in the last decade or so.

And as I'm typing this, a climate deal seems increasingly unlikely.