Fern Fever by Sarah Whittingham

I am currently reading Fern Fever by Sarah Whittingham.  It is a history of the Victorian craze for ferns (collections displayed in fern houses, rockeries and the the Watsonian Patent Fern Bricks).  This is the sort of book I love - it teaches you something entirely new, and you are a (slightly) different person after reading it.

If you want to see ferns I can recommend Abney Cemetery in north London.  Lushly luxuriant, delicately scented and soothingly green.  The stone angels seem to float above the foliage.

Many famous people are buried in Abney Cemetery, including the founders of the Salvation Army.  But it is the more ordinary graves, smothered in greenery, that are most poignant.  How confident these bourgeois Victorians were that a grave in Abney would ensure a high status for eternity.

The Land of Veiled Women by John Foster Fraser

I am currently reading The Land of Veiled Women by John Foster Fraser.

It is an account of the author's "wanderings" in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.  It's dated 1908, but that adds to the charm.  Also it's nice to read about the Muslim world without all the current tensions and assumptions intruding.

I am trying to learn more about Africa.

I have at least one reader in Gabon - I country I know nothing about.

Beowulf

Above:  screenprint from the movie.

I saw Beowulf on DVD at the weekend (I missed it when it came out on the big screen in 2007).  The film is an animation, with considerable visual impact.  Director is Robert Zemeckis.

Above:  I first read Beowulf in a children's translation when I was about fourteen.  On Monday I got this original version of the epic from my local library.  It is a facsimile of the Cotton manuscript VITELLIUS A. XV in the British Library.

Above:  I thought it might be heavy going, but actually you can get the sense of it quite well.  The facsimile has a transcription opposite and although many of the words are unfamiliar you can sense the poetry (especially if you read it aloud).  You can also look up difficult words on Google.

Why Mahler by Norman Lebrecht

Above:  Why Mahler by Norman Lebrecht - how one man and ten symphonies changed the world.

The challenging complexities of classical music… a world of feeling and ideas… Nikolai Korndorf wrote the 1990 Hymn in Honour of Gustav Mahler…  Thomas Mann did not expect anyone to recognize Mahler as Aschenbach in Death in Venice…  Ken Russell's film Mahler (1974)...  Mahler’s music is a fast track to deep-core emotion and a way of connection with true self…  Mahler offers depth and breadth to the thought process…  the Mahler fortress becomes a private refuge…  the symphonies are dauntingly long and the songs are in German…  The Vienna of Freud, Mahler, Mach, Wittgenstein, Schnitzler, Herzl, Trotsky forged the world we know today - a meeting point of individualism and collectivism, of egotism and idealism, the erotic and the ascetic, the elevated and the debased...  the most popular and influential symphonist of our age... 

The solution lies in creating meaningful identities

Above: when the Coalition government came to power last year there were hopes that they would start to tackle the entrenched behaviour of binge drinking, especially among young people. Although heavy drinking had been an area of concern for decades, the previous Labour government unintentionally fuelled binge drinking through repeal of almost all drinking laws, expecting to create a "European cafe-style culture" where low-cost alcohol was freely available whenever and wherever someone wanted it. It soon became clear that the policy reforms had backfired and led to unrestricted uncontrolled drinking at levels dangerous to health.

At the same time the "night-time" economy quickly assumed prominence, especially in urban areas, and therefore the Labour administration hesitated to reverse its policy (plus an understandable reluctance to admit they were wrong, and a practical inability to take away a freedom once it has been granted).



Above: article in The Times in August 2010 where Sam Lister and Marcus Leroux present a very troubling statistical picture of the impact heavy drinking is having on society. I have reread this article several times over the last five months. 860,000 hospital admissions per year caused by drinking (up 69% on 2003), a 500% increase in mortality from alcohol-related liver disease, an annual total cost to the nation (through drink-related crimes; absent days from work; costs to the NHS etc) of £50 billion.



Above: article in today's Guardian by Denis Campbell, reporting on a survey published today that reveals the terrible effects excessive alcohol consumption is having, particularly on young people.



Above: the solution to binge drinking is usually seen as higher retail prices, and this policy is being tested in Scotland. However, I am not entirely convinced. Recently I read Violent Night, Urban Leisure and Contemporary Culture by Simon Winlow and Steve Hall.

Some quotes:

There are serious problems besetting young people - anxiety, drugs, violence, suicide, loss of traditional forms of identity, consumer pressure.

In the past society was comprehensible by the majority of individuals, especially in terms of functional roles, identities, and transitions into adulthood.

Today "society" has been replaced by "consumerism" - a megalithic system whose principle political-economic strategy is to infiltrate the dreams and desires of the individual and promise their easy fulfilment in the shape of exotic and seductive lifestyles.

The imagery of the night-time economy has become the exclusive signifier of a pleasureable and hedonistic experience, attracting millions of young people into a mutually understood realm of excess, freedom and debauchery predicated upon the physical delights of sex, drugs and dance, and spiced even further with the risk of violence or some sort of encounter with the law.

In idealized "nights out" entire friendship groups appear to be in the mood for good times, jokes are funnier, alcohol and atmosphere more intoxicating, the music is better, the opposite sex more attractive etc.

There are serious forms of anxiety in youth cultures regarding the construction of identity in a cultural world where the ability to see oneself as part of a broad historical process has been virtually eliminated.

Therefore it doesn't look as if higher prices is going to solve the problem of binge drinking.

The solution lies in creating meaningful identities for young people as "part of a broad historical process" (in other words creating a mythological narrative to replace the one created by consumerism).

Coleridge and the Anglican Church by Luke Savin and Herrick Wright

Above: Coleridge and the Anglican Church by Luke Savin and Herrick Wright, published 2010.

Have just finished Coleridge and the Anglican Church by Luke Savin and Herrick Wright. Not an easy book, but rewarding if you stick with it. If you think Coleridge is all Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner then this book will surprise you.

This book made me realise how profoundly Anglicanism influenced the Tory Party in the 18th century, and (this is my interpretation) how Coleridge's philosophy can be seen in the Big Society policy we have today.

Quotes:

"...the standpoint in any debate: do the participants and their actions live up to the expectations of a Christian nation and a Christian society?"

"...the two entities of Church and State actually constitute one organically unified society given that each person in the nation is a member of both." Note in theory this is still true - the Established Church of England in law encompasses the whole population, although complete religious freedom and toleration is also practised.

"A people is the association of a multitude of rational beings united by common agreement on the objects of their love."

"...shift the burden from the macro scale of the state acting for society to the micro scale of individual Christian persons acting charitably."

"The Poor Laws exerted a demoralising effect both on the poor and on the classes paying for them."

"Take the maintenance of the indigent and destitute out of the realm of the state and place it within the realm of the church." Note via Establishment the Anglican Church in England still has a responsibility to minister to the whole population, whether they identify themselves as Anglicans or not.

"A disbelief in the efficacy of private charity and a total reliance on a system of state measures was the essence of a new blasphemy."

"The only proper way to administer relief to the poor is through love." Note it is axiomatic that there is no love displayed by the administration of state benefits and services.



Above: article by Polly Toynbee very critical of the Big Society (Polly Toynbee is an agnostic).

The Big Society policy has come under sustained attack since it was announced. Is this criticism based on reason? Or is it because the critics do not understand the philosophical tradition that underpins it?



Above: article on a new report by the Prince's Trust.

This has nothing to do with Coleridge, but I was interested in newspaper reports about a new study by the Prince's Trust about the way in which young people from jobless households have low expectations.

As someone who spends a lot of time looking at society (albeit from a marketing point of view) it is clear to me that a good twenty per cent of the population needs looking after. These are people who for a variety of reasons cannot establish themselves as productive "consumers" able to pay their own way in society and support themselves (they may have no confidence, or low intelligence, or have no attention span etc etc). At the moment these people are being shunted onto state benefits, and increasingly under pressure to "get a job".

This pressure is pointless.

Bullying this sector is not going to turn them into self-supporting "consumers" - it will just push them deeper into poverty, misery, petty crime, drug and drink dependence, anti-social behaviour and social unrest.

We ought to accept (cross party) as a nation that twenty per cent of the population needs to have housing provided for them, and a social structure that includes subsidised employment opportunities (transport perhaps, or manufacturing enterprises protected by import tariffs, or public utilities). The cost of doing this will not be as great as the present welfare structure, nor will it be as dehumanising and demoralising as the current system. The import of cheap labour also needs to be drastically curtailed to protect this vulnerable sector.

You might say: why should I pay taxes to support these "idle" people. You should support them because your children and grand-children and great-grand-children WILL include individuals who will be classified as "inadequate" and unless they are looked after will fall into destitution (unless you are very rich and can project your wealth down through several generations). If you look carefully enough at any family you can identify people who would "go under" were they to be left on their own.

This is not a political point, and certainly not an attack on the Tories. Nothing disgusted me more than people in the last government (Caroline Flint springs to mind) bullying inadequate members of society through an ever harsher regime of prescriptions. The JobCentre Plus pogrom against the unemployed (delivered by organisations such as A4e) was a disgrace.

Note added 17th August:

What I am really saying though is that the ten million inadequate people will always be with us. Let's just budget for it and accept it is not going to change.

And the political opportunity is: Labour have bribed this sector for decades. But since 1997 they have turned against the "working class". The Conservatives, if they work out a distinctive "nanny state" solution of their own, now have an opportunity to bribe them and get their votes for decades (for decades because these people are not going to go anywhere).

The Cobb at Lyme Regis

When I was in Dorset recently I was at a loose end one evening and drove down to Lyme Regis, about twenty miles away.



Above: the Cobb at Lyme Regis features in Persuasion by Jane Austen's and The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. I've always wanted to see it. I arrived in the town about 8pm - the evening was warm, and all the tourists had left for the day.



Above: after parking my car I had a fish and chip supper on a bench on the promenade. From where I sat I could see the curve of the Cobb in the distance. Two pigeons came along to watch me.



Above: view from the top of the Cobb looking back at the town - the cliffs you can see are known as the Jurassic Coast from the large numbers of fossils that can be found there. Once up on the Cobb I felt very unsafe. The drops are sheer on both sides, and the surface is slanted so that if you fell over you could easily roll into the sea.



Above: steps leading up to the top of the Cobb. The exact location of the accident in Persuasion is disputed, but I this flight of steps most closely matched my imagination. For some reason all the time I was up on the top of the Cobb I felt giddy - perhaps the movement of the sea made me disoriented.



Above: the end of the Cobb where Meryl Streep (as Sarah Woodruff) stood in the film version of The French Lieutenant's Woman. I wouldn't want to stand there in a storm. Even on a mild summer day, with a calm sea, I felt unsafe.



Above: when I returned home I reread Fowles, getting the book out of the library rather than buying it. There was no need to reread Persuasion as I know it so well. I know these things are hard to judge, but probably Jane Austen is the greatest novelist of all time.

An infectious Blue Peter style

Above: last night I watched Grow Your Own Drugs on BBC2. Presented by James Wong (an ethnobotanist, whatever they are) it looked at various herbal remedies for minor ailments. We saw James Wong walking barefoot through sunlit flower-strewn meadows, sensitively interviewing people with unsightly eczema, and mixing up herbal concoctions in an infectious Blue Peter style.



Above: my current library book is Nature's Alchemist by Anna Parkinson. It is a book about a book - John Parkinson's superlative 1629 Paradisi in Sole: Paradisus Terrestris. It describes the enthusiasm with which the seventeenth-century botanists recorded and classified the natural world (and also tells you a lot about religion, politics and life in Stuart London).



Above: Helen B's mother is a medical herbalist and often at her house you come across afternoon groups of earnest-minded blue-stocking medical herbalists debating symptoms and therapies and complaining that they are never taken seriously (they are qualified medical practitioners).

Earls of Paradise by Adam Nicolson

Have just finished reading Earls of Paradise by Adam Nicolson. I borrowed it from the local library as I cannot physically fit any more purchased books into the house. I am also spending far too much money on books and need to stop.

Although ostensibly a local study of the Wilton estate in Wiltshire, Adam Nicolson has written an important conceptual book about English identity. In particular he has analysed the idea of the English "arcadia" as a cultural phenomenon. I think it is one of the most significant books published in 2008.

There is so much detail in the book that it is easy to become distracted and not see the message this "dream landscape of Elizabethan England" has for modern times. The creation of the English arcadia was an exercise in creative visualisation. Adam Nicolson defines this in the phrase: "only the poets can deliver a golden world".